10 Preparations

The days leading up to the competition were not very busy for Galahad. He ran errands for his parents and helped whenever they needed chores done around the shop or forge. They seemed like meaningless tasks, but they helped his parents ease up on the constant tension of work, so he gladly did that.

He visited the forest one more time for Apharine to say goodbye, unfortunately she had left by then. A giant mound of upturned dirt was remaining in the spot her red treko tree used to be. He and his team went to dinner and dungeon only one more time that week before agreeing to next the following week off to train and prepare for the event.

Two weeks past quickly and Galahad found himself having the same dream nine more times. It lost all its excitement after the third time the tree still exploded. He didn't even bother touching the tree the last few times just because he wanted to get the dream over with.

When he woke up the day of the competition, he noticed the sun rising higher in the sky than usual. A quick glance at the time told him if he didn't leave immediately, he knew he was going to be late.

"Oh shit." Galahad could see scry messages popping up nonstop from Trista and Rosetta asking about where he was. He only responded with a 'be there in a few,' and practically dove down the stairs with all his gear smashed into a bag.

When he came down to the kitchen, his mother was preparing segments of meat in a dish for lunch that day. A few blood stains were smeared across her apron, making her humming and smile a somewhat horrific scene he had no time to comment on.

"Galahad hold on!" She shouted before he could make his way out to the exiting floor.

"I am in a bit of hurry mum." He said with his hand still on the doorknob.

"I know, I know, but this should be worth a moment." Stepping away of counter, she pulled a small box out of an apron pocket and tossed it to him. He snagged it out of the air and did a quick inspection of the exterior.

It was a black felt box the size of his fist that weighed almost nothing. It was very newly made with no markings of age, aside from the fresh splash of blood on a corner.

"Open it, quick." His mother exclaimed. Sora was wanting to see his face when he figured out what it was.

Inside the box was a rolled up grey glove with a very detailed magic array where the back of the hand was. The circular magic array was embroidered along the material with a very shiny golden yarn that Galahad could have had a dozen theories about where or what it came from.

"The only way to see what it does was try it on." She told him.

Galahad immediately put on the glove and felt mana in his body concentrate into his right hand. Out of excitement, he aimed his pinky and index finger at one of the uncooked slabs of beef.

A little spark flitted between his gloved fingers and shot into the beef with a lot of extra force. Electricity continued to crackle across the meat even after the attack ended. Eventually the purple sparks stopped after the meat was charred and partially cooked at the epicenter of the hit spot.

He smiled at his mother with a grin that matched hers exactly. Though she looked at him with a bit of a questioning look, "I mean, you could have tested outside. Now the beef is gonna be too dry tonight."

"Thank you, this is perfect."

"Yeah yeah, now get your ass out of here and to the gate. Rosetta started messaging me now about where you are. Go win the contest and then endorse the shop, we can always use the advertisements." She smirked.

"Deal, I love you. I'll see you tonight." He shouted while ducking down the stairs to resume his rush. Leaving behind only the smell of ozone and burnt tenderloin.

Sora sighed when she saw him sprint outside on the street from her view in the kitchen window above. "Just please be careful, I can't lose you too."

*****

He ran with his speed was boosted to the gate spire, he didn't slow down until he came right up to the front gate. He walked through and reviewed everything he had smashed into his bag. He carried his usual cluster of black leather armor and arm bracers, but now he carried a few new items he brought in preparation for the day long battles.

Galahad had bought a refining whetstone for his short sword and a little potion vial case that held a dozen glass tubes. Half consisted of stamina potions and the other was mana potions, his mother sold them to him at the lowest cost from their own shop a few days before. A perfect addition for keep up his strength while spending a full day in the dungeon instead of the usual few hours.

Once he put on the armor, his forearm plateholder, and finally his new glove, he went inside to search for the team.

Rosetta was waiting at the door with all of her gear on, plus a few new items as well. She had swapped her once matching black leather armor with a dark purple mages robe that stopped at her knees. It resembled more of a longcoat with coattails and a zipper that ran diagonally from the chest to hip with a belt that hugged her waist, making it very tight fitting.

"I like the new robe, but I thought you chose black to not seem like a flashy target for monsters." Galahad greeted.

Getting Rosetta to talk first thing about a different subject before yelling at him for being tardy was his usual plan for not getting yelled at. Luckily her wardrobe change was the perfect cover subject.

"You're late and believe me, I wouldn't be wearing some like this if it didn't come with perks like this." She smiled and conjured a little yellow flame in her hand.

Galahad didn't understand what she meant about perks until golden vector lines started appearing and crawling up the purple material with a glowing intensity.

The flame in her hand start to flutter and changed from yellow to orange. The heat it radiated was twice as powerful as before because of the material her robe was made from.

"You found a mana boosting cloth? Where did you find that and what monster is it made of?" Galahad asked with immediate curiosity; forgetting why she was waiting for him.

"You can ask questions in the dungeon, right now we need to be ready in the pavilion." She grabbed him by the arm and yanked him inside.

The pavilion was the complete opposite to the last time Galahad was there. Every space was occupied by an adventurer holding a staff, sword, spear, hammer, axe, or other massive demon slaying weapon.

Shortly after getting situation at a table with his team. A short man in a blue suit jacket and bow tie stood up on a table, motioning at everyone divert their attention to him. Once everyone was quiet enough, he pressed down on a crystal attached to the neckline of his shirt.

"Okay everyone, welcome to today's event." His announcer voice echoed across the room like it was amplified by a speaker system. "I am glad so many of you could make it despite the short notice about such an event. It seems the rumored prize was a good incentive."

A few cheers and hollers came out of the crowd in agreement.

"Indeed a magic weapon is hard to come by around here, and you are all very excited to see which team will win, so I shall now announce the regulations of the competition quickly and then we'll begin."

He clapped his hands and a magician on the other side of the room projected a giant information table in the air. The words and lines were made of a glowing blue light that resembled Galahad's mana tethers.

"Teams have been registered and all members must be identified before starting by the facilitor listed by your team. Once all the facilitators give us the green light, we will send you down."

On the twenty-four rows of teams listed on the board, the column with the facilitators' names started glowing red.

"They will be making sure no one is pulling any foul stunts during the event." He eyeballed a few faces around the room that seemed disappointed at that piece of information.

It may bring a lot of good attention to the guild when showing off magic weapons, but that didn't mean some of the attention wouldn't be more sinister.

"Between thirty minutes from now and the dungeon reset, your team will go below and try to gather as much mana orbs as you possibly can. Afterwards, we will weigh the orbs of each team and whichever one has the heaviest loot will being going home with this."

Another magician projected a blue light that quickly morphed into a blown up three dimensional image of a saber in a sheath, just as Rosetta had heard rumors about.

The blade starting moving out of the sheath and spun in the air on its own. A blank human doll appeared in the blue image and grabbed the curved blade while taking a basic fighting pose. The expressionless dummy was giving an exhibition to what the weapon was capable of, getting the crowd riled up.

All eyes were staring intently at the image, waiting to see what the magical blade could do.

The dummy gave them what they wanted as it swiped the blade horizontally and the blade was lashing out with flames with each swing. After a couple moves, it grabbed the blade with both hands.

It brought the blade overhead and swung it down at the ground. A burst of energy shot forward an unleashed a wave of fire that the camera view followed until hit another dummy with an explosion combination of power and magic.

"A glorious red saber, don't you think? That special move at the end is known as 'Heat Seeker,' very useful for long range attacks. It recharges for non-mana users at every twenty minutes."

A few people were drooling at the idea of obtaining such a weapon, it would increase their earnings from fighting stronger monsters by leaps and bounds.

The display ended and a group of guild employees started pouring out of the side doors and each one held up a little sign with a letter on them.

Over on the board, Rosetta's name was listed by team H leader. A few spots up was Casmus's sister as team C leader. A facilitator with the letter H was no where to be found.

Meanwhile, Casmus was laughing to himself while the five girls around him looked away in dismay. He was ranting about how the gods clearly are fueling his team's female filled dreams because the facilitator was one of the few females that worked at the spire.

His speech was cut short when his sister proceeded to squeeze the top of his head with a dangerous amount of pressure. The small action turned his words into little squeals of pain everyone unaminously chose to let happen.

"Huh, why is that male berserker getting his brain squeezed by the female berserker?" Asked there approaching facilitator.

It was the same thin blonde man who checked Trista and Galahad in the time they dungeon crawled into over two weeks ago.

"Oh hey, Frederick. You're gonna be our facilitator?"

"Yep, go ahead and toss your bags over to me, I just need to check for any spare mana orbs that we don't want to accidently fudge your numbers." He put air quotes to around 'accidently' as he really meant no cheating by bringing in already obtained orbs.

Sure enough, team J and team N were caught with big mounds of mana orbs hidden inside their bags and armor lining. A light washed over the glowing board and erased the teams from the competition, now twenty-two teams remained.

Everyone's bag was clear. When Frederick went into Galahad's bag, he found the last little baggy of mana orbs from his goblin massacre.

"Oh shit, I completely forgot there were three bags last time." He honestly forgot about the spare bag of mana orbs he would have given to his father for the forge.

He felt panic run through his heart as he just ruined a chance for the team to obtain a magic weapon.

Frederick tied the little bag to his belt and simply smiled at the team. "Your dad was telling me the other day about you always giving him a share your orbs, I figure this is the some of them? If that's the case then I'll hold on to them until the competition ended."

Everyone on the team sighed with relief, they were happy just to stay in the competition with no issues. It was a good thing Frederick was acquainted with the Mystroff family, otherwise everything would have ended poorly before the fun even started.