Scarlet

“For those of you who weren’t here during the first part of this tournament, look up at the sky for a list of the rules,” the MC of the current tournament shouts as I sit in the bleachers with the rest of my team, quite pointedly ignoring the gazes I’m gathering from other spectators around us. “But now let’s commence the second half of the annual starting secondary tournament, Demon Hunt!”

I glance up at the sky as the crowd starts going wild, taking a look at the rules.

Demon Hunt

Class Restriction: Class IIIYear Restriction: NoneAge Restriction: None

Description: Demon Hunt is the annual first tournament of every Interschool Tournaments. In it, the students are all scattered around an artificially created set of four environments from the world of Tartarus. These environments include a forest, a volcano, a desert, and an ocean, and each of them is filled with Class II and III demons, none of which are intelligent.Each kill of a Class II demon grants the student who does the last hit a single point, whereas each kill of a Class III demon grants the student who does the last hit five points.

Goal: The results will be decided upon by whoever has the most points.

Rules: Attacking other Guardians is not allowed. Stealing the kills of other Guardians is allowed. Guardians may work together, but the points at the end of each kill will only go to the one who makes the last hit.

Reward: First Place gets three points and one million credits, second place gets two points and five hundred thousand credits, and third place gets one point and two hundred and fifty thousand credits.

Oh. Right. This one.

“Why do they start with this one every year?” Tar asks, sounding genuinely curious as he suddenly appears in front of me, borderline shocking me as he lands in my lap despite the gazes of who knows how many people on us.

It shocks me so much that I don’t answer until he looks up at me and repeats the question in my head.

From what we’ve been taught, Demon Hunt was the very first tournament during the first Interschool Tournaments. And since then they’ve always kept it as the first one for both a traditional standpoint, and because it’s a Class III only tournament, which a lot of people tend to believe are the most interesting. So it raises the hype for the tournaments by starting off big before going to the Class Is right after.

“Huh,” Tar mutters, lowering his attention to the field of the center stadium, which usually isn’t used for secondary tournaments, but Demon Hunt is an exception to that rule. And unlike before where the field was just pitch-black stone, it now has the appearance of an amorphous mist. One showing a large view of the tournament arena, which consists of four different biomes, the ones stated in the rules, with a black stone pathway between each going to the center where some sort of shrine is standing.

It doesn’t take long before the mist shifts to instead focus on a single Class III student, one with brown hair and a dark brown shade of eyes as the man rushes through killing demons through earth magic.

“Looks like Gargoyle has already started the hunt!” the MC begins, only for the mist to immediately shift to a girl I very much recognize as Rift as she simply swings her sword before a purple rift in space itself appears in the center of a demon, making the top and bottom half of the creature slowly separate before hitting the ground. “And Lion’s Heart’s number one isn’t far behind, showing an even more impressive attack than Gargoyle!”

Hmm, guess it makes sense that she’d participate in Demon Hunt.

I reach for the little tablet I was given upon entering the stadium before scrolling through the screen on the little tablet and tapping on a random student, making my eyes cloud over slightly as another screen appears in my vision floating in front of me like a status screen. Something that only I can see.

The name I’d pressed was that of Nicholas Wright, the guy that I killed back in the ranking tournament. And the moment it shows him on the screen, I find the guy wearing the same scaled armor he was wearing before. He has glowing red eyes that occasionally leak embers from them, with two red deerlike antlers on his head, and he is quite literally burning down the forest he’s in.

Yeah, he doesn’t know how to hold back.

It’s kind of amusing to watch though.

I watch him go on a burning spree that makes him look kind of like a pyromaniac for a few seconds before swiping my hand in front of my face to break the screen as I focus on the main screen on the field again as the MC shouts, “And that’s the first Class III demon killed during the tournament!”

The guest speaker – who I believe for this tournament is some Guardian known as Archangel, a Guardian who is very invested in the Guardian Research Team – finally speaks up, her clinical sounding voice echoing throughout the stadium over the audience, “Considering that Rift is in this tournament, I don’t think it will be much of a competition.”

I raise an eyebrow at that obvious bias.

“Now, now, Archangel, we can’t just write off the other Guardians,” the MC whose name I am struggling rather hard to remember says, clicking his tongue thrice. “The others are all incredibly qualified in their own right after all.”

Archangel doesn’t say anything in response to that, simply staying quiet on the screen of mist at the side of the stadium high up in the air above any actual people showing her stiffly sitting next to the man as she stares out at the main screen. A screen which seems to focus a lot on Carol and a few other top tier potential winners. People who I remember seeing in the few betting sites I checked out in a brief bout of curiosity as the people who are most expected to win.

It’s a little surprising just how many betting sites are set up for the tournaments, if I’m being honest. But then again, that is a major place for the poor people of lower Tier cities to make money. Or, of course, go broke.

I’m pretty sure they never got rid of it though because it’s many of the Tier 3 city’s residents only hope for making the money to move to a Tier 2 city. And they were all vehemently against getting rid of it.

Rather sad in my opinion. But I have money now, so not my problem either.

That’s the government’s problem.

I continue watching the tournament in silence for a little bit before some people walk up to me asking me for my autograph, startling me for a moment. Only a moment though, as I quickly sign it, wondering why they’d be willing to pay the price to have something from the magical reality 3d printed just because I signed it. A shirt no less.

But my thoughts come to a halt as more and more people start approaching me, making me decide in an instant that the next time I come to watch the tournament I’m buying a private booth. Assuming I can as I think they’re normally allocated to the higher Class Guardians.