Chapter 136 (2/2)

When the fist of insects descended, however, it was smothered.

There was no other logical outcome.

Randidly felt her in the middle of the swarming insects, keeping her energy around her, trying to protect herself. And he felt as she overbalanced, and suddenly tilted backwards, driven over the edge, slowly falling, with only the collapsed stage behind her…

Dongggggg.

A familiar bell rung, and a voice spoke. “The qualifier is over. All contestants cease attacks, so the winners may be determined.”

Randidly almost shrugged helplessly as his huge mass of insects swarmed, but suddenly a coughing man was in front of him, holding a spear. It was a long, ornate thing of brass, and the man simply tapped the spear on the ground, still coughing, and a wave of force flew forward.

The insects cracked and fell, and then disintegrated to dust.

Dian was there, covered in bite marks and scratches, but she was still falling. As Randidly watched, she tumbled off the edge, and out of sight.

The coughing man turned to Randidly, then looked at the spot Dian disappeared. He teleported over to the edge, looked down, then shook his head. Then the man reappeared on the far side, where Tartet stood, panting. After giving Tartet a brief once over, the man nodded, then looked at the sky and spoke.

“Stage 7 will not need overtime. There are only 3 individuals remaining on the stage.”

“...Three…?” Randidly whispered, confused. Apparently the coughing man had very powerful hearing, because he frowned at him for several seconds.

After a while, he seemed to relent. “...yes, three. For, although the stage collapsed, the piece the girl fell onto was still unbroken. It counts.”

Silent and prideful, Dian climbed back over the edge to stand on the stage with the rest of them.

Randidly smiled at her, showing his teeth like a predator would. Their eyes held for several long seconds. Then Dian shrugged, her own smile narrow and sharp. After a moment of consideration, Randidly said nothing further. It would likely be pointless to argue with this strange middle aged man.

And besides… even though this woman clearly had a vendetta against him for some reason, she wasn’t insufferable like some of the other insignificant characters he had been forced to deal with since coming to Shal’s world….

Although it was hard to know whether he only thought that because she was objectively attractive. But Randidly didn’t think that was affecting his decision all that much. Having strong rivals to push you forward was necessary, in his experience. His experience reading martial arts fantasy, anyway. And he wouldn’t be caught unawares by her poison again. Randidly would be much harder to kill going forward.

Another stray thought popped up, as the three of them drifted closer to the middle aged man. Randidly wondered what this world was called. He assumed it would have a name. And it was beginning to get annoying to not be able to think of it as something other than “Shal’s World”.

As his thoughts continued to scatter in the wake of his earlier spell, his brain was hit with the brutal sledgehammer of exhaustion. Randidly winced, recognizing this as a system generated status that represented the fact he had overdrawn himself to control the vast swarm of insects. He had only been under this a few times in the past, during his Root Avatar training, usually after a long night of engraving, and it had never been this painful. There might be a potion that was able to address this issue, but Randidly wasn’t familiar with it.

Besides, some rest would probably do him some good… He had earned it.