“This battle is against JUSTICE PIKE…”
The moment I squeezed those words out of my throat, I felt like I was reading the title of some verdict.
It was clearly just a lower-tier preliminary round arena, yet the air suddenly ignited.
The spectator stands were like someone had dumped a barrel of high-concentration stimulant into them; waves of heat slammed down one after another, numbing my brain.
At the end of the day, humans love watching “ordinary people forced to challenge the impossible”—except usually that ordinary person isn’t you.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Isn’t this basically the same treatment as getting to fight the king at the end?!”
“Yeah! No matter what, that UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR kid is gonna make bank this time!”
“Exactly! And there’s FLAME STORM too. That guy was mocking UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR earlier, and now even he probably never imagined he’d have to team up with him to take on Blue Sea Academy’s number one.”
…The audience’s mouths were always far more optimistic than my life.
So-called “making bank” usually only existed in the imaginations of bystanders; what the people involved could actually “explode” was usually their HP bars and their sanity.
Besides, even if someone like me suddenly won the lottery, my first reaction would be to suspect the ticket was printed wrong and then get kicked out by the staff for causing trouble.
Human pessimistic self-defense mechanisms were sometimes annoyingly stable—stable enough to feel like school rules.
“The damage both of you contestants deal to me will be displayed on the large central screen via the damage display device. Therefore—until the very last moment of the battle, everyone will be able to see the entire match situation at a glance.”
Xieyi Mayne’s virtual AR projection still stood at the center of the stage, her tone as calm as if she were explaining how to use lunch vouchers.
While announcing the rules for this Reward Match, she pushed everyone closer to the edge of excitement with the attitude of “This is all common sense”: the match time was shorter than the previous duel mode, the arena was still randomly selected, damage data was public in real time… It sounded like it was increasing the entertainment value, but in reality it felt more like hanging the contestants’ dignity on the big screen for public weighing.
Of course I wanted to act calm, mature, and commanding—but unfortunately, my “maturity” usually only showed up in “not daring to argue” and “being good at shutting myself off.”
So while she was still talking, I had no choice but to lower my head and look at the data Haori had sent, forcing my attention away from the premonition that “I might die of embarrassment in front of the whole school.”
“I see. Just ordinary mid-to-close-range flame-attribute attacks… Looks like a pretty standard Flame Fighter type.”
The data was written cleanly: primary attribute fire, main method mid-to-close-range suppression with a small amount of long-range harassment.
Under normal circumstances, I probably would have breathed a sigh of relief and thought the opponent was “decent.”
Unfortunately, this wasn’t normal—because I wasn’t facing the opponent. I was facing Xieyi Mayne.
I was absolutely certain of one thing: Xieyi Mayne wanted to use this lower-tier preliminary round to find a sufficiently dignified, sufficiently flashy, and sufficiently “reasonable” opportunity to make me lose once.
She didn’t need to kick me out of the arena herself.
She only needed to stand behind the rules, position me in the most uncomfortable spot like arranging chess pieces, and then watch me fall on my own.
A seemingly fair Reward Match.
But so-called fairness was often just another way of saying “everyone suffers together.”
The intervention of a third party created a completely unbalanced point between two originally opposed yet balanced duelists.
The opponent could curse me, hit me, buy my data—but me?
I could only silently write the words “the world is unfair” on a little slip of paper, stuff it into the trash can, and continue being a well-behaved victim.
“Then, at the end, I would like to give an important warning to the two Blue Sea Academy students participating in this Reward Match!”
The solemn voice yanked my attention back once more.
At the same time, that sharp-tipped yet heavy lance, surrounded by the magical turbulence simulated by the AR imagery, pressed toward my position without warning—the pressure didn’t feel like a “threat,” more like a “notice”: a notice that you had better cooperate, or things were going to get ugly.
“I will not allow you to lose your fighting spirit just because this is a Reward Match! Show me your courage and fight me properly—for your motivation, the player who wins this battle can directly enter the upperclassmen’s All-School Elimination Tournament! And receive a large amount of points as a reward!”
Her voice paused beautifully on the word “reward,” beautifully enough to deliberately leave time for the entire audience to scream.
Then, as if she felt the “sugar” wasn’t sweet enough and needed some “bitterness” to highlight it, she continued:
“And similarly, to put pressure on you—the student who loses this match will be expelled from Blue Sea Academy! Forever barred from returning!”
!!!
I unconsciously took a step back.
Half of that step was forced by the oppressive weight of the lance, the other half by the extremely lopsided reward-and-punishment system.
The reward was “direct entry into the upperclassmen All-School Elimination Tournament” and “a large amount of points”; the punishment was “permanent expulsion.”
No matter how you looked at it, this didn’t look like competition rules—it looked like some kind of “fate lottery”: those who drew the lucky ticket soared to the skies, while those who drew the unlucky one simply vanished from the map.
So she’s trying to use this one match to drive me out of Blue Sea Academy?
I clenched my teeth, trying to use the grinding of my back molars to give myself some mental support.
But that sound just made it feel like I was consuming myself.
At the end of the day, someone like me needed full mental preparation just to raise my hand in class, and now I had to play a “fate match” under the eyes of the entire school.
If the world really had a scriptwriter, he must have been really good at writing cliché hot-blooded scenes—and he especially liked picking the people least suited for hot-bloodedness to be the protagonist.
“Please enjoy this match! Everyone—see you on the battlefield!”
Holy special effects unfurled with her motion of mounting the horse, like an overly grand curtain call.
The AR projection pointed at the previous flat screen and completed the transition from three dimensions to two in just a few seconds.
At the same time, the previously sealed door of the “contestant full-dive room” finally slid open slowly, as if declaring: The lines are finished; now it’s your turn to suffer.
“Ah, the battle’s about to start—I definitely won’t let myself get eliminated, Xieyi Mayne! Just wait and see what I can do!”
Even as I said it, I felt the bold declaration was as light as paper.
It probably only floated as far as my own ears; the wind couldn’t even be bothered to carry it.
But I knew very clearly in my heart—
I could not leave Blue Sea Academy.
Leaving Blue Sea Academy would almost be the same as being thrown back into that “no matter how hard you try, there’s no reward” reality to slowly suffocate.
At least here there was still BHAO, an infinitely expanding world, and the chance to prove myself through battle—even if that proof was twisted, exhausting, and felt like writing an essay with my wounds.
So even if I had to expose my identity and use the Night Witch’s abilities, I could not lose this Reward Match.
***
Beep—
The login prompt was still as cold as ever, as if saying “Welcome to your second life; please do not expect after-sales service.”
My vision was first filled with blue squares that pieced together the outline of the BHAO duel arena, then slowly faded from view.
“RAGE… VENUES? Racetrack!”
I carefully read the metallic English prompt and couldn’t help raising my voice.
Because this arena was unusually “modern”—not the mythical feel of Atlantis, not the nightmare feel of ruins, but… something that could actually exist in reality: racetrack, guardrails, curves, lights, and the distant roar of engines.
Niya-chan’s energetic, “fun-filled” remote live commentary immediately rang in my ears—it looked like this Reward Match had full-school viewing settings.
I didn’t even have the chance to lose quietly in private.
“It’s here! This is a Racetrack with rarity second only to Atlantis! Contestants here must not only face a powerful KING, but also watch out for race cars speeding around the bends at any moment! How will UNKNOWN NAME WARRIOR and FLAME STORM choose to fight? Everyone, stay tuned for Niya-chan’s live coverage!”
I took a deep breath, but a bitter taste surged up my throat.
In BHAO’s duel mechanics, anything classified as “environment” dealt extremely heavy damage and was affected by physical rules.
In other words, if a high-speed race car slammed into a player—it wouldn’t be a “small deduction of HP”; it would be “your life suddenly becomes very short right at this moment.”
So the safest approach was obviously to find FLAME STORM’s location first—at least turn him from “enemy” into “temporary ally,” so I would have the energy left to deal with Xieyi Mayne.
However, the process didn’t last long.
The Racetrack had only one main road. If I followed the edge of the track, I would eventually run into whoever I was supposed to meet.
Sure enough, not long after, I saw the opponent’s classic green HP and blue MP—plain as a textbook, nothing particularly stunning.
You couldn’t expect anything flashy from a Flame Fighter; the romance of that class was probably just “solve problems with your fists,” and the thing I lacked most was confidence in my fists.
Although the chance he’ll agree to ally looks pretty slim…
I first rehearsed failure in my mind, then raised my hand and waved with the most “I’m actually easy to get along with” attitude I could manage.
“Hey!”
The response I got was a long-range attack—Flame Arrow.
Aah, the moment we met, the peace talk already shattered. The guy couldn’t even be bothered to say “hello” and used flames to skip the social process for me.
Looked like he planned to go with the sure-win route of “take out the competitor first, then solo the KING.”
Rationally I could understand it, but emotionally I just wanted to complain: That wasn’t a sure-win route; it was the deluxe edition of the sure-death route.
In that case, I had no choice but to get serious too.
The air in my chest compressed into a tiny spark—scorching, yet calm.
The instant my fingertip paused on the skill slot, what flashed through my mind wasn’t a victory scene but the words “expelled from Blue Sea Academy.”
Sure enough, only when pushed to the edge of the cliff did a person discover they could still feel fear.
“NIGHT DAWN.”