Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 22 - Chapter 1.5

Interlude: Morning of the Final Day

Gideon, City of Duels, Tenth Day of The Tournaments

The ten-day event had now entered its final day.

The nine previous days had seen many contestants, but this final event had considerably more than any of them.

The reason for this was obvious: The UBM in the Orb that was today’s reward was Mythical—the strongest tier of conventional UBM—meaning that the MVP reward it would provide would likely be very powerful.

Additionally, the duel champion of Altar, Figaro, was fighting today, attracting many challengers who just wanted to face him in battle, as they were usually barred from doing so by the rankings.

There were many spectators too. Like in the previous days, they would only get to see the fights from the contestants’ fifth battles onward, but that didn’t stop some from staying up all night near the arena waiting to be let in.

In fact, some probably had their sights set on this final Tournament for days now.

Naturally, the tians working in the arena were overwhelmingly busy with the preparations. Many in the offices were looking over all kinds of documents and calling various people using comms magic. The knowledge that it would all be over after today drove them to work as hard as they could.

“Hm...”

Among them, there was a young man—barely in his late teens—writing something in a separate office for high-ranking individuals.

His name was Aschbarray Gideon. He was the count of this great City of Duels, and he was greatly burdened by all the turmoil his city had a tendency to attract.

Following the events in places like Quartierlatin and Altea, though, he’d begun to think that maybe Gideon didn’t have it that bad—which was, quite frankly, delusional.

Like everyone else here, he was hard at work attending to his duties. The Tournaments had pushed both him and his subordinates close to their limits. There was so much to do that he’d even had to get some of the ninjas from his intelligence agency to help out with the event.

He’d barely slept over the past nine days, and even now he was working while taking the occasional swig from a potion.

The reason he was in the arena was that he had to attend the event himself, and even the time it would take to travel there from his mansion felt wasteful.

The UBM’s escape on day six hadn’t helped at all. The overwhelming amount of duties, combined with the stress that the event had caused, was so bad that he’d even required healing magic.

But this soul-crushing work was about to reach its end.

“That should be that...” he said with a sigh as he looked at a paper tacked onto the wall.

It showed the results of The Tournaments thus far.

Day 1: Poison Fist, Lei-Lei. 

Day 2: Armor Giant, Barbaroy Bad Burn. 

Day 3: Lost Heart, Rook Holmes. 

Day 4: Fallen Knight, Juliet. 

Day 5: High Priestess, Tsukuyo Fuso. 

Day 6: The Unsheath, Kashimiya. 

Day 7: King of Storms, Caydence. 

Day 8: Gale Rider, Masked Riser. 

Day 9: Sneak Raider, Grimms. 

These were the winners of the previous nine days.

Taking a small break, he looked over the list of names and tried to remember what the winners were known for.

Superiors, duelists, that member of Death Period on day three...and day seven is the third in the kill rankings and leader of the fourth-ranking clan, Welkin Alliance.

He began with the ones he knew best. Death Period had helped him a great deal, but caused problems as well, so he found himself feeling somewhat conflicted about them.

“I do not recall much about the winner of day nine...”

However, he couldn’t remember anything about the person last in the list. The count thought that they might have been a foreign Master who’d joined the kingdom of Altar, but...

“Grimms is a member of the Fairytale Squad—a party operating on the western side of the kingdom. They contributed to the defeat of the Goblin King and resolving the exploding ghost ship incident in Keyora.” His secretary—actually a female ninja dressed as one—volunteered more information about this character.

“I see.”

It seemed that his intelligence agency had been gathering info about the west too.

With that, he now knew about this “Grimms.”

“Looking at the results now, they are both surprising and expected.” The list included everything from Superiors to people not on any ranking, showing that these Tournaments weren’t just about pure power, but also luck in matchups.

Actually, even getting to participate in one of The Tournaments involved a great deal of luck. People in the duel or kill rankings, Superior Jobs, and those the kingdom gave express right to appear were given priority, but for everyone else it was a lottery.

For the record, all members of Death Period were given priority as well.

That had been Altimia’s decision. The clan’s core members had fought alongside her during the peace talks, while Kasumi’s trio had contributed greatly during the attack on the capital.

They would’ve been allowed to participate even if they weren’t Ray’s friends—the Babylonian Battlegroup and K&R had also received this honor.

And, whether by luck or inevitability, these clans had all won Tournaments and the right to challenge their Orbs.

Even though the UBM fought by K&R had flown off into the sky and disappeared.

Additionally, following that incident, they’d temporarily stopped the UBM fights until they made sure something like that couldn’t happen again, after which they would allow everyone else to face their UBMs. Because of that, the winners of days seven to nine hadn’t challenged their Orbs yet. The winners of days three and five hadn’t fought theirs either, so they would also be waiting for now.

“...I just realized that all the winners are Masters who were already from Altar.” The count thought he’d see a decent amount of unfamiliar names—Masters from other countries—so this was a somewhat unexpected result.

He was in a position to know that there were quite a lot of Masters who’d changed their allegiance to Altar specifically to participate in The Tournaments and that many of them were considerably powerful.

But looking at the details, these new additions to the kingdom had either vanished in the preliminaries or had been defeated right after the public matches began.

The matchups were random, and the count was certain that there had been no foul play that had put them at a disadvantage. Had they all just lacked the luck or power to make it to the top?

As that thought went through his head, a worker entered with the latest report. “We finished the lottery for today’s canceled slots!”

“I see. So the deadline is already past...”

The rules said that if a registered participant didn’t show up at the appointed time, they would have their participation revoked and their slot put up as a same-day lottery prize.

That was how Lei-Lei—the winner of day one—had been able to participate.

That wasn’t strange at all, but...

“Even the last day had cancellations?” While Masters chose the days they would participate on based on their plans, some would inevitably still be forced to cancel.

They obviously had their reasons. Masters had that strange habit of “disappearing to the other side,” so it wasn’t strange for them to cancel on account of “sudden real-life issues,” as they described them.

However, there had been cancellations every single day. They didn’t even amount to three percent of the total participants, but it felt like a lot to the count.

“Hm...?” Curious, he rummaged around for the documents detailing everyone who had registered but not participated. He quickly found them in an office drawer and looked them over.

“This...”

As he did, he noticed something.

Many of the registered nonparticipants were new additions to the kingdom, and among the strongest of them to boot.

They were, in fact, the very powerful foreign or freelance Masters that Altar actually hoped to acquire with this event.

“And here are today’s cancellations,” said the secretary-ninja as she handed him a new document.

“How dreadful.”

Its content was even worse.

He’d thought that today’s Mythical reward would attract a great many powerful Masters. However, a few of these had canceled their participation regardless.

Three pre-Superiors and one Superior had not shown up by the deadline.

“The rules of The Tournaments are...” The count mentally reviewed the very thing he’d checked over countless times before.

The Tournaments had four main rules:

1. The participant must be an Altarian Master.

2. The participant will be unable to switch countries for three years after The Tournaments.

3. If the participant commits a crime within Altar’s borders that would otherwise be punished with one or more years of penal servitude, they will be rendered unable to use any save points.

4. The participant will receive the right to challenge a UBM depending on where they place in The Tournaments. Additionally, those who also sign the Contract declaring their will to participate in any war Altar may be involved in within the next three years will receive an extra prize in the form of the right to select a rare piece of equipment. The order of selection will also depend on placement in The Tournaments.

Knowing the goal behind The Tournaments, these conditions were fairly ordinary.

But what about those who had registered, but didn’t actually participate? Did these rules also apply to them?

The answer to that was no. Nonparticipants weren’t subject to the Contract. Any legal obligation instead went to those who won the same-day lottery for their slots.

Maybe it would’ve been different if they signed the extra prize Contract, but the more powerful they were, the less they cared about it, so none of them had done that.

“...Is this intentional?” Had these Masters just changed their mind postregistration and decided that the conditions for participation weren’t acceptable? Maybe some of them had, but it was unlikely to be the motive for every single one.

That made it possible that there was actual intent behind all these cancellations—that it was the result of someone’s interference.

“S-Sir! W-We have a problem!” As that thought ran through his mind, a panicked staff member rushed into the office.

The secretary-ninja stood between them, ready to protect the count, but he told her to relax.

“Why the panic? Is another Superior causing trouble?” Franklin, Gerbera (and Shu), Hannya... With all these potentially dangerous Superiors in this city, they had become the first thing that came to the count’s mind whenever there was trouble. After that, he thought of the second princess, and after her, he expected UBMs.

In response to the count’s somewhat sarcastic question, the worker...

“Yes!”

...gave him a big nod.

“...Huh?”

“Well, actually, it’s not really a problem, per se, but...” Hurrying to walk back the words that had just come out of his mouth, the staff member started to sweat a little.

“Tell me everything, from start to finish.”

“O-Of course. We just finished the substitute lottery for today’s cancellations, and...”

Slightly more composed now, the worker gave a thorough explanation.

Upon hearing everything, the count could only let out a shocked cry of “WHAT?!”