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Chapter 256
I awoke to blinding pain. Seemingly before my mind began to work, I started chanting spells.
“Moderate Heal. Cure Poison. Cure Poison.”
Unfortunately, severe dehydration couldn’t be cured so easily. My headache was still blisteringly painful. That was a really stupid thing I did the night before. I had seriously drunken dangerous levels of alcohol. I was immune to the poison, but immunity didn’t mean the absence of. Therefore, as soon as I dropped my immunity, the alcohol levels in my blood immediately hit me. I had actually cast cure poison on myself once in order to fool the innkeeper.
Thinking back on it, that action probably saved my life. The girls might have had to find a priest again had I not diminished the effect of the poison before removing poison immunity. In fact, that only showed how drunk I was that a single cure poison wasn’t sufficient to remove my drunkenness below a level of a blackout. Of course, the lack of having any jobs equipped also probably did it.
I redid my dungeon points which had been reset last night. As soon as I had three jobs equipped again, the increase in my constitution was readily apparent and my headache lightened significantly. Slowly sitting up, I noticed a glass of water on the counter and picked it up, taking a sip. I was just starting to get comfy when a thought suddenly came to me.
“The competition!” I stood up and almost fell back down again. “Ahhh… my head.”
“Master, are you okay?” I glanced to see Celeste there in her small fairy form, flying around like a breeze of air.
“The competition…” I muttered while holding my head.
“The other girls went ahead in master’s stead. The competition only just started, if we can get there before our group is called, we should be fine.”
“Ah! Let’s go!”
I cast cure on myself another time, and immediately set out for the door. I opened the door and stepped into the hall when I met eyes with the maid earlier. She looked down and screamed before spinning around. It was at that point I realized the girls had taken off all of my clothing. Shutting the door again, I quickly got dressed with Celeste’s help. She returned back to her normal-size and allowed me to lean on her shoulder.
When I opened the door again, the maid was giving me an exasperated look, but when she noticed Celeste she immediately abandoned her post and became busy somewhere else. As for me, I hurried my way out of the inn. The innkeeper tried to thank me again, but I just gave a wave.
“We’re going to the competition! Sorry, if you can hold the room.”
“Of course! As long as you like!”
It looked like the mercenaries hadn’t bothered the innkeeper again. Perhaps they were still in the jail cell after being knockout drunk. I hurried my way to the tournament. We quickly ran into crowds and had to push our way through. I could also occasionally hear shouts and roars as the fights continued. It was definitely underway. I felt really anxious. We might have already missed it.
“Master!” I saw Lydia, Terra, and Miki in the crowd and instantly felt a bit better.
“Girls… am I on time?” I asked, still half-stumbling along.
“And for our next fight!” An announcer came over the speaker, causing my ears to ring. “Team Dragonmight versus Team Deek!”
I had so little time! Plus, I realized now that just naming the team after my own name was lame. Dragonmight was definitely a much cooler name.
Chapter 257
The girls helped guide me out onto a stage. This was actually only one of a dozen such stages. People left or came depending on which events they wanted to see. This one, in particular, seemed busy. A lot of people were excitedly anticipating this match, huh?
Actually, now that I paid attention to the crowds, I felt like I was getting a lot of cold looks. The other team, Dragonmight, was a team of three boys and two girls. The guys were handsome men if I was in a position to be a judge of that. As for the women, they were also quite beautiful. As they went on, there was a lot of cheering and applause. When Team Deek was called onto the stage, I stumbled on still holding Celeste’s arm, and there was a lot of whispering and doubtful looks.
I even checked to make sure my pants were definitely on at this point. However, it was pretty clear that I was not the favored team here. I knew nothing of the Capital City. For all I knew, Dragonmight was some popular or famous group of people. However, I had a feeling there was something else going wrong when disgusted looks were also leveled by the members of Dragonmight.
That wasn’t entirely true. When they looked at the girls, they were filled with smiles and polite nods. However, I seemed to get the feeling that whenever someone’s eyes fell on me, they looked slightly revolted.
“You, you’re their slaveholder, yes?” The blonde ikemen and leader of the group stepped forward and asked.
“Uh, yeah?” I said, my voice croaking a bit as I squinted at him; the day is way too bright.
“So, they will fight your battles for you?” As he said this, there seemed to be a silence, as if even some of the crowd were listening to his words.
“That’s right!” Lydia announced proudly. “Master always puts us in the front lines!”
She had meant it proudly, but accusatory whispering started to fill the spectators watching this stage.
“A guy who buys slaves to fight for him.” The brunette ikemen next to the blonde made a disgusted face.
“I’ll have you know… Master didn’t pay for any of us. In fact, he took me in a dungeon.” Celeste announced proudly, but when the whispering grew louder, she added. “He did it for my own good!”
“Look how red his eyes are…” One of the girls on the other team whispered to the other. “And he hasn’t shaved his face. He probably beats them.”
“I can smell the alcohol from here…” The blond ikemen said disdainfully. “You sir, are a repulsive human being!”
You know… words hurt. Plus, I had a throbbing headache, so I was in no mood for it. Apparently, the glower on my face along with my hungover look made me look even more menacing. Suddenly, some of the crowd started to boo me.
“You don’t understand!” Terra said defensively. “Master doesn’t beat us at all. I mean, he can be rough sometimes, but he always heals us after. I even lost an arm once and he made sure to put it back on and told me to never do it again!”
“W-wait…” I held up my hands.
“He ripped off your arm?” The girls cried out, holding each other.
“N-no! It was really my fault! I just wanted his attention!” She cried out.
“Dragonmight! Kill this bastard!” Someone in the crowd screamed out.
The crowd burst into cheers. Most of them started calling out for my death. There wasn’t a single person on my side. How did it keep coming to this?
“It’s not like that! Master just grabbed something of mine he wasn’t supposed to touch and then took control of my body, so I wanted-“
“Terra! Please stop helping me!” I cried tearfully.
Chapter 258
“Alright… the benevolent and Mighty Dragonmight! versus Deek…” The announcer was even giving me a cold look as he finally quieted the hateful crowd.
What was with the difference in titles too? Mighty Dragonmight is super redundant! It’s not even a good introduction! Furthermore, he definitely gave my name like an afterthought. Did no one think that I would win the battle? Or rather, was no one willing to not root against me specifically? The heat of the crowd was brutal, but the five people across from me also seemed to hate me something serious. I just came to the championship a little unkempt! It turned out this was a slave-hating crowd.
I saw slaves everywhere, although most of them were older or strapping men. Was this a bias that young women received? Was there a bad stigma about young adult female slaves? If there were, it would have been nice to hear about it before I reached the Capital! Instead, I had to deal with the universal scorn of the crowd, even though I played a very important role in the battle.
“Begin!” The referee called out.
I immediately ducked and ran. It was a good call because two spells instantly landed exactly where I was standing. In fact, even though the girls moved out to attack, weren’t their responding attacks a bit too singular? Every attack was aimed at me! In fact, they kept backing up or avoiding the girls! I abandoned my Magician jobs and switched to Dungeon Diver and Slave Master. Since they weren’t trying to attack the girls, there was no use in trying to heal them. Plus, there was no way I’d have a chance to cast a spell anyway.
The best I could do was passively improve my girl’s status while trying to keep myself from growing fatigued. This team was honestly pretty good though. I felt like in a straight, honest fight, we might have won, but they seemed intent on not engaging my girls while sending numerous attacks my way. I ran around the stadium screaming while people pointed, laughed, or ridiculed me. This was seriously not cool at all. I felt like I had returned back to middle school in my old world. It was that kind of feeling.
The biggest problem was that I was getting tired. I had good long-distance stamina. I could walk all day. However, the bursts of energy needed, such as to perform the footwork needed to avoid the barrage of potentially deadly skills being used against me, were way too much. I quickly realized I needed to find an advantage to weaken them. I needed to take out one of the fighters. Probably, the weakest link.
My eyes fell on a girl who had remained quiet during my public execution. While the other girl was sending various elemental spells my way, this girl was instead casting on her teammates. She must have the support role as I did! Support against support, I realized I needed to get rid of her if I wanted to change my situation. Biting my lip, I realized there was only one way to close the distance.
I dropped Slave Master and instead equipped Pervert. I needed the Stamina Up. With a sudden burst of energy, I managed to dodge the next barrage of attacks and then close the distance. I was so concerned with getting to the girl, I didn’t notice that my carnal desires were kicking in. Not only was I getting a noticeable erection, but my face had turned slightly perverted, and as I leaped for the girl, rather than an attack, my palms were out and I was making a grabbing motion.
The girl shrieked. “Noooo!”
She instantly covered her chest and leaped off the stage to avoid my attack. The effect had been so powerful, the girl next to her similarly fled the stage shrieking. The three men, seeing their ladies running from a guy with a boner and a perverted look grew enraged and turned to attack me fully. Now completely outnumbered and distracted, Lydia, Celeste, and Terra made quick work of them.
When the last man fell, I removed Pervert and only then realized and tried to hide my shame. As for the crowd, there wasn’t a single person cheering.