171 New Enemy, Hercules (1/2)

Sana's eyes widen as she gets chills, she gets frightened by a sudden whisper in her ear.  She turns back and releases her ice element but a slash lands onto her body shield on her waist, completely breaking the shield along with Sana's spirit.

”Sana! Eliminated!” A computer voice announces as Sana is teleported back. Faust goes onto cut the ice rock in half.

Awarnach and the others stop running, without being able to believe what they heard. All four of them are teleported back to the stage in the middle of the Colosseum.

While Awarnach is wondering and looking on either side to see if they had won or ran out of time. His eyes go to Sana who is sitting on the ground in despair, her hair covering all of her face.

”YESSSSSSSSSSS!” The crowd cheers and yells loudly for Faust and his squad, the whole Colosseum is celebrating Faust's win.

Watching all that and their names on the big screen under the winners tag, Awarnach breaks down and weeps, the past months have been very hard on him as he tries to carry the whole burden by himself, thinking and worrying about his branch by himself.

He was not confident about winning the match even in the morning. His mind has gone through a number of strategies and plans that would make them win at least one match in this round.

He cried all of his burden out with this win.

”Save those tears for later, we still have matches to win today. And.. let's win all of them.” Faust lets out a smile towards Awarnach.

”Ahhh Faustooo! Sorry yoo I thought you were good for nothing all these days. To think that you came up with these weapons and equipment in a month.” Awarnach holds Faust in his arms as he cries his heart out.

”What? You did not think it was good enough?” Faust questions in anger.

”Now now! Who cares Fausto! And you also wore a uniform today! You are different when it comes to real deal huh.” Cameron pulls and hugs him in her chest.

”Yes yes, me too Cameron! I did well too, give me a hug tooo.” Elton says as his face becomes ugly,  he dashes forward breathing flames from his nostrils. Cameron takes out her sniper rifle aiming at Elton; she laughs like a maniac while squeezing Faust in her chest with her other hand.

”Stop it guys! We still have more matches.” Faust gets out of Cameron's hold and puts back his black cloak on.

”You got your cape back?” Elton asks surprisingly.

”Everything that is teleported to the match will be teleported back.” Faust explains it to Elton.

”Wow! You know everything now?”

”What do you think I did for one month? Sit in a room and cry?”

”Uhhh I saw you reading some books too. I thought of borrowing them from you, but they're not adult books so I let you read them.”

”Ye ye.” They all leave the stage in between cheerings and blessings from the people sitting in the audience.

Faust and the others walk down the stage with pride-filled faces. They are finally acknowledged by the soldiers and their house.

”Are those your kids? They did so well in the very first match! That too against Carlos.” Tsumugi's mom praises Faust and his squad for their win against the strongest branch of Carlos.

Among the cheering of the crowd and nobles, one of the soldiers is not able to believe his eyes, he is hating on Faist from the core, he is loathing the very existence of Faust.

”How can he do it? He is just a loser in the village. He is no more than a loser who lost to me.” Barkha, older brother of the bully ahito, among the soldiers, spews anger from his eyes.

”Hey look, it's the Outlander's family.” The audience stands on their feet pointing to another branch.

The Outlander's, as the name suggests is a branch which possesses soldiers who are recruited from different islands. Faust is surprised to see Selena among these four.

She's a noble and is sent with the Outlander's, she seemed shy and averted looking towards the huge crowd cheering her family.

”Can you walk quickly?” The captain of her team urges her to be quick and walks fast. Their house goes inside first.

-

Shortly, Outlanders came out as winners of the round with all four of their members alive and well. Selena did not do anything than baiting the opponents to attack her. She walks with her head lowered, trying not to stand out too much.

”Selena!!!!! You did great!” Faust gets up on his feet and shouts loudly cheering Selena.

Fact is that the captain of Selena's squad is the one who took down all of the opponents. Selena did not do anything productive that adds to the victory, yet Faust is only praising her. The words reached the ears of her Captain Heracles. Even though he did not respond or react, went his way as if he did not care, he grew hatred towards Faust in his heart.

*”That punk! Just because he won one game, he got cocky.”* Heracles thinks as he walks back to their team tents to get ready for the next match.

”Faust, you shouldn't do that! Congratulate all of them, you shouldn't just congratulate one person that you know of. The others will feel bad.” Cameron, being considerate for Faust, tells him to greet everyone together which would keep a good reputation for Faust as a captain.

”Huh? But I don't know the other guys, Selena is the only person I know.” Faust replies with a smile as if he is about to teach Cameron something new today.

”Still! You need to wish all of them, that is a nice way to be and that is someone with good manners,” Cameron explains and as soon as she is done, Faust moves close towards her to pinch her cheeks gently.

While Cameron is in confusion, ”Haha! I just don't want to put on a nice face or say sweet things to strangers to make them have a good opinion of me. First of all, I don't know them, and when I do not talk or know someone, I wouldn't bother with them. I only bother with people that I talk to and only when I confirm that they're good people, I will be nice to them.”

”I want to be true to myself, when I don't even know someone, I won't be nice to them. They have to talk to me and be nice, only then I will treat them accordingly. I know I'm a little twisted, but don't leave me heh!” Faust explains his complex thinking to Cameron.

It sounds cool at first but then it sounds like he is talking like a kid too at the same time.

”Well! Didn't you do too well in your match? I was surprised.” Thorik comes to have a talk with Faust, which surprised many people in the audience as Thorik, the general visited to talk to someone.

”At first, I thought your spirit would be broken and you wouldn't do very well, but who knows you can come back hard. I guess having you in the family is useful after all.” He talks about the game, where he first underestimated Faust because of him having no spiritual power.

”Yes! I have been reading and analysing the game, finding loopholes in the rules and watched the gameplay of most of the houses that are participating today.” Faust after the loss with Sana on the first day of training. Went back to study the game and rules.