小嫂子的味道

The day of the battle tournament was today.

I and Anya left for the Bull\'s stage coliseum early in the morning; after all, it took a fair amount of time to reach there.

And it did take a fair amount of time.

When we reached the Coliseum I saw that the view now was nothing like what I saw when I came here before.

The roads were filled with people, both participants of this tournament and civilians who came as the audience were scattered all over the place.

At a glance I could tell that the people who were participating were strong, some have a great body build, some were carrying deadly weapons, while some were looking so normal that it raise suspicion.

I held Anya\'s hand so that we won\'t get separated in the crowd. If something like that caused my plan to fail then I\'ll probably die from embarrassment.

Making our way through the crowd we went inside and entered the coliseum. We went through a hallway that led us to a counter where people were registering themselves as participants.

There was a long line of people before the counter, probably thirty or forty people were waiting for their chance to register.

"Wait," I said, stopping Anya when she was about to go and stand in the line.

"Don\'t we have to register ourselves?"

"Come with me, I\'ve taken care of that already," I said, pulling her with me toward a different counter.

There was a second counter beside the first one and it didn\'t have a long line before it, only two or three people were there. I went there with Anya and stood among them.

I had already registered Anya for this tournament; it was yesterday when I went out while Anya was practicing at home. You would be very big of an idiot if you thought that there won\'t be a rush today.

I simply stood there while I waited for my chance to time, it didn\'t take long as after three to four minutes I was shifted to the front of the line.

"I registered yesterday, with the name Anya Blanks," I mentioned to the lady who was behind the counter.

She glanced at me while she seemed to be troubled by something. I knew what it was.

"She\'s the one participating, not me," I pointed at Anya with my index finger.

The lady seemed somewhat relieved and then she handed me a ticket before she said, "Take this and go that side, oh, and only the contestants\' can go there. You have to go to the audience\'s side if you\'re not participating."

That means we have to part ways here. I took the ticket from her and walked to the side while Anya followed me.

"It looks like you have to go alone from here on," I handed over the ticket to Anya.

"It seems so, but will everything be okay?" she appealed, from her voice, I was able to tell that she was still worrying about what I have told her to do.

"Don\'t worry, just believe in me. If you do just as I said then it will be fine," I patted her on the shoulder to comfort her a bit.

She still seemed a bit worried but she nodded and took the ticket. "Well then, see you soon," she said with a smile and went the other way.

I stood there was a while as I watched her walk away, afterward, I put my hands in the pocket of my hoodie and went toward the entrance where the audience was supposed to enter from.

I better not be late since I have to choose a specific spot.

***

After parting ways with Zero, I, Anya Blanks walked toward the room where all the other participants were.

This hallway that led there was mostly empty, maybe I was late since the number of people participating was huge but I wasn\'t seeing anyone here.

I thought about what Zero had told me as I walked through the dark and cold hallway.

It wasn\'t like him at all, the thing he was going to do was perilous and it was at the level that could get him executed if his cover was blown.

It worried me but the way he smiled it off gave me a bit of courage. After all, he was doing all this for me so I can\'t afford to complain. If he was going to go that far for me then I must also give it my all.

From what dad had told me, I am the one with the highest status in this whole city. Making it to the last round shouldn\'t be a big problem.

…Or so I thought, till I entered the area where all the other participants were gathered.

It was a big room with walls made of brick and concrete, there was an intimidating atmosphere filled with the heavy presence of fighters.

I almost felt out of the place after entering the room.

There were mostly men with a good build body; they were much bigger compared to me. One could even mistake them for orcs, that was how much of a dominating body structure they had.

I looked around the room and saw that there were several women also, though they were a lot different than me. Instead of a delicate and slender body, they had a muscular and rough body shape.

They carried many heavy armors and weapons while I only had leather armor and my sword that was tied to my waist.

But it was not like everyone was like that; there were a few people I could call normal, both men and women. They were not covered with full metal armors and looked like normal human beings.

The atmosphere inside was tense, no one was talking to each other, and were desperately waiting for the tournament to start.

I didn\'t have a reason to be the one starting a conversation so I quietly sat on one of the benches that were placed there and waited like everyone else.

A while later I was able to slightly hear the announcement of the starting of the tournament. This room was not connected to the arena directly so the voice wasn\'t clear but that person was probably using a device to increase the volume of his voice.

Then the door of the room opened and a man who was dressed in a butler uniform stepped inside.

He looked at the clipboard he held in his right hand before glancing at us.

"No 1 to 8, come with me," he announced and waited for those people.

I quickly checked my ticked which had a number printed on it, my number was 7 thus I stood up and followed that man outside with the other 7 people.

This was probably going to be a 4 vs 4 battle but I can\'t say anything for sure. It\'s better to not let my guard down.

Soon I was able to see the light from the other side as I walked through the hallway.

It was the light coming from the arena.

The smell of soil entered my nostrils as I stepped into the arena, the crowd erupted into cheers when we came into sight.

It was the time for battle.