## Chapter 777 – Kingdom Martial Arts Tournament

With that, the application for the martial arts tournament was complete.

After skimming through the document, it said that participants should go to the waiting room of the Great Arena before sunrise on the day of the tournament and wait for the preliminary rounds.

The procedure was explained in detail.

Apparently, after an opening ceremony with congratulatory speeches from the princess and the archmage, the preliminary rounds would begin immediately. The bracket for the preliminary rounds would be revealed on-site, but proper handouts would be made and distributed from the main rounds onward.

Well, the preliminary rounds weren’t that important anyway.

It seemed like the first day was just for weeding out the weaklings. If you were a nobody, you’d be eliminated in the preliminaries without a second glance. The real fun would start with the main rounds, which would have a proper bracket.

The guys around here looked like they’d be eliminated in the preliminaries for sure… I figured only those with decent skills would make it to the main rounds.

The Royal Knights were sending out young talents, and noble families would send their children with strong martial arts skills to uphold their honor. Besides them, masters of various guilds across the kingdom might send their most skilled direct disciples for promotional purposes.

And if not, there would be plenty of skilled mercenaries with forged letters of recommendation.

Prizes were always tempting.

Plus, there would be guys aiming for the special recruitment by the Royal Knights… There were so many. Besides the assassins and human weapons I thought of earlier, there were plenty of people who wanted to participate.

As I familiarized myself with the tournament rules, I headed home.

Apparently, the choice of weapons was free.

However, hidden weapons with special mechanisms that could launch projectiles, or ranged weapons, were prohibited. Bows, crossbows, ballistae, slings—those bastards could just get lost.

Other than that, unique weapons were allowed.

But generally, participants used swords, spears, axes, bludgeons, gauntlets, claws, and shields.

Artifacts with magical effects were prohibited, but rare metal weapons without special abilities were allowed, and taking elixirs or stimulants was also allowed.

Not bad rules.

You could also judge the economic status of the participants.

And most importantly, the use of Aura was explicitly allowed in the rules.

Wouldn’t that mean the guy who used Aura would always win?

You might think that, and it was true.

The fact was, few people could freely use Aura, it consumed a lot of mana, and it was difficult to use in the heat of battle, so they probably just allowed it. The guy who could use it well was just a skilled fighter who was bound to win.

But 천마 Kim Kat already used it like it was nothing.

—I’ve already won this.

How many guys my age or younger could use Aura as well as I could? I was confident of victory as I opened the door to my house, which I had somehow arrived at.

“I’m back from applying for the tournament!!!”

When I went inside, Claudia was sitting on the sofa, doing her nails. When she saw me, she smiled and came towards me.

“Oh, Kat. You went to apply right away?”
“Yeah. Take a look.”

I handed her the document right away.

Claudia was currently wearing a pink negligee—one that was see-through and barely reached her hips. Of course, she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

Seriously, trying to seduce me in the morning like this?

“Hehe, I should buy tickets right away and go cheer you on, shouldn’t I?”

The problem was the way Claudia smiled. I couldn’t stand the way she smiled softly and tried to touch my face.

“Of course, Kat will win. How cool will that be? I can’t wait to see it.”
“…Ah, of course. Just trust me.”

All my girls were coming to see me, so I couldn’t lose. I took off my gear, took off my coat and pants, and changed into shorts.

Wearing shorts and a tank top at home was the rule.

“Apparently, they’re just doing the preliminaries on the first day. Depending on the number of participants, the preliminaries might take up to three days. The main rounds start after that.”

A total of 32 warriors would advance to the main rounds.

All matches would be held in a tournament format, and there would be no byes in the main rounds. In other words, you only had to win five times to win the championship.

“Hmm, then the preliminaries probably won’t be anything special.”
“Right. Unless I meet a decent opponent there, it’ll just be a breeze. But either way, I think I’ll just cut them all down easily.”
“Hehe, Kat. It’s a tournament, so you can’t cut them down.”

Claudia covered her mouth and laughed, gently tapping my shoulder with the inside of her wrist.

“I’m just saying. It’ll be a big deal if I kill someone.”

Killing the opponent was prohibited.

Of course, such accidents could happen in a “martial arts tournament.”

To prevent that, priests and healers were on standby, but even so, someone dying in the tournament was a big problem. Of course, it would be okay if it was an accident that others could understand, but if not, from the moment you killed the opponent, you could end up fighting with the opponent’s family, not to mention various compensations.

But as long as you didn’t kill them, it didn’t matter how much you hurt them.

However, if the means were unethical or excessive, it would be treated the same as murder.

Would it be allowed to cut off the opponent’s arm as a sign of victory just because you won in a tournament? And it was also not allowed to deliberately act like a madman with the intention of making the opponent disabled.

Even in baseball games, if you deliberately throw a beanball, you get hit with a bat on the spot, and this world is more severe, not less.

The moment you do such a thing, you will be judged.

The martial arts tournament was ultimately a tournament held to increase the kingdom’s power. Killing or disabling people was like cutting off your own flesh. It was absolutely unacceptable, and above all, doing such a thing was dishonorable.

Who would do such a thing?

This was not a cruel slaughter where madmen butchered their opponents and won prizes, but a healthy martial art where you could smile and shake hands with your opponent after it was over.

“Hey, Claudia. Shouldn’t we book seats first, as 언니 said? There are seven of us, so we need to get good seats.”

As Claudia and I were talking, Winnia came down, having heard us.

“Ah. It’s written here too. This is my entry certificate, right? You can take this to the Great Arena and book seats.”

Friends of the tournament participants could book seats in advance. Ordinary visitors would just have to line up on the day of the event.

“Shall we go right away?”
“Yeah. But is everyone up?”
“We’ll have to wake up Karin 언니 and Liz 언니.”
“I’ll go wake them up.”

Anyway, all we had to do today was book seats. The application deadline was almost over anyway. Now, all I had to do was hone my skills at home and wait until the day of the tournament.

* * *

I swung my sword at Karin.

—Clang!

It was an attack that I assumed would be blocked. At the same time as 뷔갈 and Karin’s training swords collided, I thrust my blade to entangle her sword so that it could not move, and immediately pulled the upper part of the handle while pushing the lower part forward, aiming for Karin’s face with the pommel.

An attack that stabs the face with a pommel made of iron.
If it hits, it’s a fatal wound.

—Whoosh!

However, Karin took a step back and lowered her head diagonally to avoid the attack, and then quickly grabbed my forearm.

“That was good just now.”
“Huh.”

She grabbed me and `swung` me to subdue me.

—Thud!

I was instantly slammed to the ground, looking up at the sky and exhaling. If it had been a real battle, I would have lost my life in an instant.

Of course, Karin held back and slammed me down gently.

“But you’re still far from doing anything to 누나.”

It didn’t hurt that much.
But I was being subdued too easily.

“Damn it. But, 누나. The way I’m being subdued like this is no different from when I first met 누나.”

Until now, Karin had only countered or evaded everything I did, and had never allowed me to land a single hit.

It was the same now as it was then.

“That’s because 누나 is matching your skills, 남편. When you were really weak, she was really weak. When you’re like this, she’s just right. That’s how big the difference is between 누나 and 남편’s skills.”
“Ugh… I can’t catch up.”
“You can’t catch up? You’ve come this far in just a few years.”

Karin squatted down next to my head and pulled my cheek.

She was wearing hot pants, which emphasized her thighs. Women in hot pants were the best.

“I’m telling you in advance, you can’t bully 누나 just because you’ve become stronger than 누나, okay? Huh? Once 누나, always 누나. Got it?”
“Hehe, I don’t want to? If I become stronger than 누나, I’m going to force you to do this and that.”
“You’re already doing it, so don’t talk nonsense. Get up, you little shit. The tournament is next week, right? Let’s go a little harder.”
“Yes.”

Was the tournament day already next week?

Since registering for the tournament, I had been training intensively. I drastically increased the amount of time I spent sparring with Karin and Liz 누나 instead of individual training.

I had to be thoroughly prepared because I didn’t know who would come out.

“Really, Karin, you… You slammed him down like that and didn’t even apologize? How much did it hurt? Are you okay?”

As I was about to get up, Liz 누나, who had been watching from the side, came over and grabbed my body.

“Hey, hey. I’m training him, so of course I have to do this. What apology?”
“But you can’t treat him too harshly.”

Liz 누나 stroked my body with a kind voice.

“Hehe, it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.”

It didn’t hurt much.

“That’s a relief… But you could have switched to jujutsu while stabbing like that just now. Shall we try that this time?”
“Shall we?”

This was the advantage of being taught by two 누나 at the same time. I got feedback right away.

“You’re being overprotective. He’s strong enough to handle a little hard work. It’s better to be a little strict than to be kind when training.”
“Anyway, I’m going to be kind.”
“Do whatever you want.”

I didn’t care either way.

“Ah.”

Just as I was about to get up, Liz 누나 made such a sound.

“It’s snowing?”
“Oh, shit, it’s the first snow.”

When I got up and looked up at the sky, it was really snowing. Was it winter again? Time really flies. What was I doing last winter?

—Rustle.

The snowflakes that fell on my body melted immediately.

“The tournament starts almost in winter. But time really flies, doesn’t it?”

Karin said, grabbing my shoulder. It had already been a few years since I first met this 누나. But her face hadn’t changed at all.

Even after a hundred years, she would have the same face as today.

But the number of digits in her age was something I couldn’t do anything about. So I decided not to think about it. If I joked about it, I’d get hit.

“Yeah. Time really flies. Anyway, we can’t rest just because it’s snowing. 누나. Shall we do a little more and go in?”
“We should.”
“Hmm, but it’s snowing. Shall we just do one more hour and go in and rest? The tournament is coming up soon, so we need to take good care of our bodies.”

In fact, my body was so strong that I didn’t even get sick, but just in case. Then, should we do just one more hour and go in and take a hot bath?

“Yeah, let’s just do one more hour and go take a bath.”
“Oh, you’re so lewd. Then let’s start again.”

It seemed like Liz 누나 was really looking forward to taking a bath right now. Then, the right thing to do would be to tease her as soon as we got in.

I grabbed my sword right away.

“Let’s just do one hour.”

We were only going to do a little more today because it was snowing, but we had to train hard until the day before the tournament.

* * *

As time passed, the day of the tournament arrived.