Unexpected News

Asher awoke to the sounds of snoring from both of his comrades. He knew they had both been tired from the prior night. Leah had been attempting to pinpoint several key factors in this newest quest of his. She had been mentally drained from all of the research. Willow on the other hand was still only human. Both Asher and Leah had become something slightly more.

They weren't fully human by his guess. Not at this point. There was something changing in both of them. Asher couldn't quite pinpoint it, but Leah seemed to be becoming more draconic with each dragon she killed. Asher had no idea what was actually happening to him. He felt a force in him, almost trying to claw at the surface of his essence itself.

He shook his head and looked at Willow who was curled up into a ball, twitching slightly. "What could you have possibly done to be excluded from a noble family, Willow? What crime could you possibly have committed that was so severe that you were outcast from a wealthy and influential family? It makes no sense to me. Maybe one day you will enlighten me."

He looked outside the window to see the barest sliver of sunlight peeking through the horizon. His sigh was resounding as he began to get ready for another fight. This was another day. As much as he liked the money, it was still becoming tiresome already to him. The fights were mentally exhausting, especially knowing that people planted in the tournament were actively trying to kill him.

Still, he had decided to continue no matter what. He had his followers hunting down monsters in the forest to rejuvenate him after each match. With that thought in mind, he shook Leah and Willow awake before he walked out the door to participate in the third match of the week. His mind was buzzing with the possibilities of what could happen during this next match.

With the thought of what had happened during the last match, Asher actively scanned the crowd around the arena for any suspicious activity. He didn't want to be caught unaware by one of the people after him. He almost wanted to capture another one of them, but he knew it would be the same situation as last time with the other group they had encountered.

There was almost a skip in his step as he approached the arena. There was a competitiveness awakening in him that he hadn't felt in years. He felt an anticipation for the next match, knowing that his new opponents would be of a higher caliber than the ones he had already faced.

He went through the same routine he had already done twice now, turning in all of his equipment and retrieving the arena gear. The slight sunlight under the cover of the wrought iron gate barely peered in towards him. He stared across the battlefield that had been constructed just for this competition at his newest foe.

They were barely persceptible behind the barrier. Asher knew they had to be extremely thin, but if they had lasted this long, that wouldn't mean much. For them to have gotten as far as they had, they were skilled and potentially powerful.

As the gate opened, Asher crept forward cautiously. He wasn't going to take any chances by underestimating his newest opponent. That turned out to be his saving grace, as he felt an itch coming from his left side due to precognition. A flash of light preceded the rail thin looking man teleported to Asher's side, swinging wildly with a long bladed spear. After that, Asher heard the sound of feet rapidly slapping against the sandstone blocks that comprised the arena. In addition to teleportation, his rival had incredible speed. Asher barely moved his blade up in time to block the strike coming for his chest.

Asher wasn't slow, but he didn't have truly supernatural speed by any means at this point. He was just barely keeping up with the man who appeared to be a blur of movement, constantly zigzagging back and forth with each move leading into a strike towards Asher.

There was no pattern that Asher could see. The attacks were too fast for him to even begin to think of a plan beyond defending himself. For a brief moment, his opponent took a small break to catch his breath. That was all that Asher needed. As soon as he heard the sound of the man running, Asher threw out a line of ice, coating the ground around himself.

The wiry man tipped head over heels, eventually scraping across the sandstone blocks, face first. He recovered just long enough for Asher to hold his sword to the man's throat. "Know when you are beaten," Asher commanded. The man sighed in defeat, knowing there was nothing he could do against Asher. He knew there was likely even more tricks up Asher's sleeve that hadn't been revealed yet. Asher held out his hand to his defeated opponent to help him up and the crowd cheered for Asher once again. "No hard feelings," Asher muttered to his rival, just loud enough for him to hear.

"None at all, this just means I need to become better than you," the man answered.

After that, they parted ways and Asher went through his usual routine. He collected his gear and while he was doing that, the receptionist began speaking to him, "The fourth and fifth day are going to be cancelled for you."

Asher seemed puzzled and questioned them, "And why would that be exactly?"

"We miscalculated the number of contestants we had and need to adjust the numbers and matches accordingly. You have done exceptionally well during every match you have participated in so far. As such, we want you to be available for the final matches of the week. You are quickly becoming a crowd favorite for the C ranking competition, so we want to make sure you stay in as long as possible. Especially with the potential that you may win the prize."

Asher nodded. He wasn't exactly pleased with this news. As soon as he had thought he was coming out ahead, something had to get in the way. How was he meant to get ahead in the guild when some event had to always come between him and his goals?

He walked away before his anger got the best of him. He would still be coming out with a huge profit regardless, maybe even enough to clear all of his and Leah's debts. With that in mind, he just let it be for now. There was no point in arguing with the receptionist who was just doing her job. He sighed, thinking about all the potential for profits they had lost. Especially with more people beginning to bet on him due to his popularity. He hadn't expected crowd favor to turn towards him so heavily, so quickly.

From the sounds of it, most of the spectators would be betting on him for the next two fights he would participate in. That was annoying to him that there would be such a low payout for the tournament in the end. He was almost tempted to lose the last fight on purpose and tell his group to vote on his opponent instead. That would only draw attention to what they had been doing, so Asher discarded that thought almost immediately.

Even if the betting odds were heavily stacked in Asher's favor, they would be walking away with an easy two thousand gold coins from bets alone, versus the six thousand he had expected before. It was a significant blow, but if he won the tournament, it would be three thousand gold coins just to himself. With that amount of money, he could very easily clear all of his personal debts and maybe help Leah with her's before they looked into opening a business of some kind. This issue hadn't entirely stopped what they were trying to do, it was merely an obstacle they had to clear out of their way.

Both Leah and Willow had been gaining a significant amount of coin from the matches. Killian had been depositing everything beyond his own fair share back into bets on Asher, per his request. If everything went right in the next two matches, there would be very little reason to worry about anything financially past that point.