289: Show Must Go On
With the old man finally dead, his blood-drenched opponent let go of her hold over his mutilated body.
“U-uncle!” the pale dark magician girl jumped to her dear father figure, catching him just before his lifeless body slammed against the hard rock surface.
And although this sudden and swift end to the duel momentarily distracted the crowds from previous events, the announcer’s crying, cursing, screeching voice quickly reminded them of what had happened a moment before.
The scrawny old shirtless man put his hand to his face as if using an earpiece, looked up to the platform high above the arena, and called out to the announcer, “Felicia!”
“Where the fuck are you!?” the hurting hairball screamed, her echoing voice spreading far and wide. “Why the hell aren’t you here already!? ARGH! What the fuck are you doing!? What were you doing!? This is all your fault!!”
“Felicia—”
“SHUT YOUR EUNUCH MOUTH AND GET YOUR WRINKLED ASS OVER HERE!!” the announcer’s voice thundered through the mines. “Bring Carl with you and fucking heal my eyes already!! It hurts! It fucking bloody hurts!!”
“Your amplifier!” John shouted into the palm of his hand, trying to get through to the announcer.
“ARGH! I told you-Oh, fu—”
The announcer’s echoing voice suddenly cut off completely, leaving the mines awkwardly silent once again. The silence lasted only for a couple of seconds. The citizens of Klapsus turned to each other to try to understand what the hell had happened, overrunning the momentary silence with speculation and gossip.
“Carl, with me!” John commanded, turning to his men. “Bob, continue the games!”
“Yes, sir!” Bob rushed to the tables, not daring to disobey the one in command, while Carl—similarly muscular like Bob, but wet and sweaty ran to John.
Carl stood next to John, the skeleton-like man chanted a spell and they were both engulfed in a flaming tornado. None of the other masked men reacted to the sudden flames in the slightest. The flames dissipated nearly as quickly as they appeared, but the two men within them were no longer there. Not even two guesses (for those that paid attention) were required to figure out where the two men disappeared to. Indeed, the announcer’s platform grew brighter for a couple of seconds, before darkening again.
So that ‘John’ guy has teleporting magic, Beatrice noted. Carl does not. He’s one of the healers. The only one? How many others are capable of teleportation? There has to be a backup in case this John is incapacitated.
“Has anything like this ever happened?” Beatrice asked Olivia.
“I’ve only been here for a couple of times,” Olivia said. “There are stories of some fools attempting to run or lash at the staff in desperation. Drunkards falling to their deaths or killing one another for some stupid reasons… But I’ve never heard of someone hurting any of the event organizers.”
You’d think they’d have more to spare in case someone got caught in a crossfire, Beatrice thought. But the audible agitated murmurs in the crowds suggested this was unprecedented.
Meanwhile, Bob quickly got to the table, put his hand into the small barrel with participant numbers, and pulled out another wooden ball. With no commentary coming from the announcer, Bob unscrewed the wooden ball and pulled from within a paper. Bob put the ball shells on the battle and lifted up the paper in both hands, stretching it straight above his head, turning from side to side to display the clearly written number on the parchment to as many people as possible. Seventeen. The sphere above the arena also showed the number in greatly magnified detail.
Beatrice looked at the other participants, searching for the one with such a number. The succubus hardly remembered any of her competition of the top of her head and no wonder! As soon as the previous round’s battles were over the victors were surrounded by flames. And though they might have been designed to protect the victors, or to prevent them from wounding any of their competition, they also deprived the victors of any valuable information, save for the colorful commentary of the announcer.
Isn’t that— Beatrice looked at the human girl that moved from the other side of the arena toward the bunch of shirtless staff. Beatrice was certain that the girl that wore the black armband with the number seventeen painted across it was the same girl that she saw getting ‘double-teamed’ by her teammates just before the first round started.