Huh? Raphtalia . . . was talking to Nadia? Nadia was closing in at a ridiculous speed, but when Raphtalia spoke to her, she came to a sudden halt directly in front of us. “Oh?” The audience broke out into a commotion upon seeing Nadia stop. Hold on . . . Sadeena was supposed to be the fisher from Raphtalia’s village, right? The incredibly strong fisher that was . . . a therianthrope . . . They’d said an aquatic therianthrope, right? All of the details were matching up! Did that mean Nadia was actually Sadeena?! No way, a coincidence that huge— “It really is you, isn’t it, Sadeena? What are you doing here in a place like this?!” Raphtalia loosened her equipment to reveal her ears and tail. “Hmm . . . I’m surprised at how big you’ve gotten, but you must be little Raphtalia, right?” “Yes, it’s me, Sadeena.” A coincidence that huge . . . was possible, apparently. This was a good thing, right? One of Raphtalia’s fellow villagers was standing right here in front of our eyes, after all. Nadia, or rather Sadeena, stared at me hard for a moment and then cocked her head to the side, like she was trying to figure something out. Then she smiled cheerfully for some reason.
“This sure is a surprise, isn’t it? Do me a favor and pretend like we’re fighting so we can talk for a bit, will you?” “Sure.” “So why are you here fighting in this tournament?” Sadeena changed her target and came after me with her harpoon, pretending like we were struggling with each other. Raphtalia and Filo rushed in swinging, as if to engage in close combat, and then acted like they had been parried and thrown back. “We needed to get our hands on some money quickly so that we could purchase the village children. We’re currently rebuilding the territory where the village used to be.” Raphtalia spoke quietly as she explained the situation to Sadeena. The way everyone was looking at us was really starting to bother me. Up until just a few moments ago it had been all-out warfare, and now we were just kind of poking back and forth at each other. “I guess it would probably take a while to explain how that happened, wouldn’t it? You’ve really become something, little Raphtalia . . .” She seemed to be getting sentimental . . . Everyone was watching us! “Hurry up and make some more of that lightning from earlier. Raphtalia and Filo, you two do some kind of showy attack that looks like a finishing move. I’ll use some flashy skills, too.” “Understood.” “Okaaay!” Sadeena cast one of her more impressive-looking lightning attacks over a wide area. It spread out all the way to the arena walls with a thundering roar. I did my best to look like I was struggling and put out my shields to protect against her all-show-and-no-go attack. Then we waited for Raphtalia and Filo to attack. The two of them fired off their own flashy skills back to back.
The truth was, it was all just being staged, using illusion magic. In the meantime, we continued our conversation. “Why couldn’t you have fought in your animal form from the start?” If she had used that form from the beginning, Raphtalia probably would have recognized her right away . . . Apparently Raphtalia didn’t know about Sadeena’s human form, either. If she had, we wouldn’t have ended up in a mess like this. “Oh? Take a look at yourself, little Rock. I could ask you the same basic thing, you know? Using my human form is like wearing a disguise for me.” I could understand what she was trying to say. We were wearing kabuto helmets and other equipment to conceal our faces. For Sadeena, her human form wasn’t her everyday form, in other words. I was tempted to make a snide remark about how that must have felt. I’d have to ask her about it later. “Well, what should we do about this, then?” I returned my thoughts to the problem at hand. If Sadeena wasn’t our enemy, that meant we should be able to settle this battle by talking things over.
“We have a ton of money bet on ourselves. You figure out a way to lose on purpose.”
“As much as I’d like to, I’m afraid I can’t do that. I need the money, too, and I’ve already used quite a bit of it, actually.” “Alcohol?”
“Oh shush. I’ve been buying up the village children, with a little help from a merchant who has a thing for me.” Sadeena explained the whole situation briefly and . . . Well, basically, the skyrocketing prices of the Lurolona slaves was partially her fault. Sadeena said she’d bought several of the villagers and was harboring them somewhere in Zeltoble. It was the shady merchant, the one working for her, who had originally offered the reward for the Lurolona slaves to help find them more quickly. But that backfired and ended up causing the prices of the Lurolona slaves to soar. And so, in order to scrape up the funds to purchase the overpriced slaves herself, Sadeena had enlisted the help of another shady weapons merchant to get her into the underground coliseum, among other things. Why didn’t she search for the slaves in Melromarc and buy them there to begin with? Jeez . . . That’s what I wanted to say, anyway, but then I realized that the stigma of being a therianthrope would have made that difficult, prior to the Church of the Three Heroes being dismantled. In that case, it would have been quicker to place the order in Zeltoble, where it would be a lot easier to make money, too. So according to Sadeena, her job at the tournament was to the make it to the finals and then throw the championship match. It had been decided that her opponent in that match would be a dark horse, and her loss would ensure a big win. Apparently she had gone into debt purchasing the slaves, too . . . So in all actuality, the Lurolona slaves that she was harboring were essentially hostages!
“What should we do then, I wonder. If we’re not careful, I could have a price placed on my head and the slaves could end up being sold off, you know?” “What kind of debt are we talking about?” Sadeena told me the total amount of debt she’d incurred. Damn . . . It was a lot. Still, it was about even with what we were set to win on the championship. If the people who had lent her the money could wait until we got the payout . . . things might just work out. Sadeena must have figured out what I was thinking, because she put a good amount of distance between us and then nodded. Alright! In that case, it was time to put on a farce. “Chain Shield!” Chains extended out as the Chain Shield skill linked the shields that had been scattered across the arena, and they all started spinning. The shields restrained Sadeena immediately, making it look like she had left herself open. If Sadeena had been serious, I’m sure she would have broken the chains or just dodged. “Shigaraki! Humming! Use your finishing move!” I yelled at them as loud as I could. They must have understood, because they both nodded and began preparing, building up magic power. Sadeena started trying to break free of her restrictions but made it look like she was having a hard time. A large crashing noise rang out.
“Hahaha! Those are no ordinary chains, you know? You’re not going to get out of those unless I let you!” I threw in some contrived commentary to buy time for Raphtalia and Filo to finish their preparations. The audience was brimming with climactic tension. We would keep going until they had reached maximum satisfaction with the performance. Sadeena was grinning. This wasn’t the time to smile! What if they realized what was going on?! “You’re in for a big surprise if you think these restraints will work on a girl like me!” “Muhahaha! Go ahead and struggle all you want!” We threw in a bit of back and forth like that, and then, finally, Raphtalia and Filo finished preparing their magic. At the very same instant, Sadeena used brute force to break free from the chains that had been restricting her, tearing them to pieces. I responded with a shriek. “Whaaat?!” If this had been for real, I probably would have just clicked my tongue in annoyance. Even I had to admit, the whole performance was pretty lame. But the audience seemed to really be getting into it, and they erupted into loud cheers. “But it’s already too late! Let’s do this!” “Let’s!” “Okaaay!” A huge tornado appeared. Did Filo really understand the concept of putting on a performance? I was a bit worried at first, but she’d produced a cyclone so massive that none of the Zweite Tornado spells she had cast before even came close. At first glance, it appeared to be a super, powered-up version of the magic she had been using so far. Raphtalia fired off a fake skill to go along with Filo’s magic.
“Illusion Blade!” Immediately after she shouted the name, countless katanas appeared and began swirling around with the tornado. The whole thing was headed toward Sadeena. The katanas hit her dead-on, almost as if they were being sucked in toward her. “Uuugggghhhhhh!” She was putting on a real performance over there. I escaped from the chains, but the katanas landed a direct hit! That’s what she was acting out. And that scream sounded like it hurt! I almost thought she might really be in pain, but I couldn’t imagine Raphtalia actually hurting one of her fellow villagers. The tornado and katana onslaught continued for twenty or thirty seconds and then . . . stopped. “. . .” Sadeena was just standing there with a well-performed look of shock on her face. Several moments later, she fell backward onto the floor with a loud thud. Apparently that’s not what the spectators were expecting to see, because the whole coliseum fell silent.
“There’s no way I can win this one. I give up!” Pretending that she had exhausted both spirit and technique, and lacked the physical strength to continue on, Sadeena admitted her defeat.
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