Ainku

Two days later, once again at the Sorcery Tournament.

After a few matches, Alure was called up. After performing the required formalities, he focused on his opponent.

They were the blonde-haired red-eyed boy from the entrance ceremony. Incidentally, he was a fire-attribute Sorcerer, the type which countered darkness-type users like Alure. Normally, this wouldn't be enough to get Alure nervous. However, after a look at the boy in front of him, Alure instantly put up his guard.

Not because of his fire-attribute. Not for the fact that his opponent had actually won all his games consecutively with just a single move, either - although Alure himself wasn't aware of this. But rather, it was a domineering feeling he got from his opponent. Right there, with just a glance, Alure made an observation.

'He looks good.'

Despite how simple and vague this was, for Alure himself to say such a thing, his opponent was definitely not a typical person! After all, to earn the approval of a monster thousands of years old was an extremely impressive thing.

"Now, let the game between Christopher, Level 3, and Ainku, Level 10, begin!"

The moment the match started, Alure didn't waste any time and immediately sent out a Dark Bolt as a probe. Its effects were negligible, as his opponent merely tilted their head to the side.

In return, the blonde-haired boy pointed at Alure and created a flame which flew towards Alure. Similar to his opponent, he dodged in the exact same manner.

The crowd was completely silent watching the fight. The reaction speed of both participants was a step higher than even your average expert's.

The blonde-hair lifted his eyebrow in surprise and grinned, "Impressive to be able to avoid my strike, even if it was just a casual one."

Alure nodded back in response. In front of such a skilled person, even he displayed some respect. Of course, a little bit of respect couldn't make him hold back. Right as the two finished their exchange of dialogue, they both began to chant,

"Darkness revolves and create a weapon which uses even life itself as a stepping stone: Dark Spear!"

"Flames, become the furious blade of which tears apart even fate: Blazing Sword!"

Alure made a shortened invocation in order to summon his weapon, while his opponent similarily did so.

Instead of making his spear fly at his opponent, Alure instead grabbed it right before it flew and pointed it at his opponent. Similarly so, Alure's opponent gripped his flaming sword as he laughed,

"How unexpected for my opponent to also be a 'Magic Knight'!"

Alure responded,

"I'm not aware of what this 'Magic Knight' is. Of course, I'd be glad to learn from you after this match."

If Alure's friends in his old life heard him say this, they would be surprised. For him to actually take the initiative to strike up a friendship was rare, not to mention in such an indirect way! Of course, Alure's opponent didn't seem to think much of it as he replied,

"Sure."

Without any further ado, the two dashed at each other. Orange and black intertwined to create a beautiful dance. While Alure's movements were precise and passive, like a cautious snake's, Alure's opponent had a rough and oppressive moveset. Alure's opponent didn't break his form at all as he exclaimed, "You're pretty good!"

Alure smiled faintly and responded, "You're not too bad yourself."

The two seemed to have a leisurely conversation to the audience, but in reality, they were straining their focus to the maximum in order to spare even the slightest bit of time to speak.

"Hey, what kind of Sorcerers are these?! I've never heard of any that use melee weapons!" (Onlooker A)

"Haha, this time, it's me that answers your question. Didn't that 'Ainku' call himself a 'Magic Knight' or whatever? That name makes it glaringly obvious that those two specialize in melee, even though they're Sorcerers!" (Onlooker C)

Accompanied by the sound of people making comments about the battle, the fight seemed to have reached its climax as the two participants began to get stronger and fiercer after each blow. Alure looked at his opponent and the stepped backward three times, creating a gap between the two that was just enough for him to fully extend his spear.

"Is he preparing for some type of special move?!" (Onlooker A)

"Possibly, look at how long they've been going. It wouldn't be surprising if he wants to end it all in one strike." (Onlooker B)

As the audience speculated, Alure lifted his right hand which held his spear and pointed it towards the sky. Everyone, assuming he was going to using a secret technique of some sort, boggled their eyes at his next movement. Which was...

A bow, and then a flick of his hands, which caused his spear to disappear.

"I respectfully concede."

With an anticlimactic move which stirred shock in the audience, including the judges who had decades of experience, Alure forfeited. Ainku nodded and politely said,

"Thank you for going easy on me."

At this, Alure grinned faintly and shook his head,

"No, I should be the one to say that. During that fight, you could've won at the very start if you didn't limit yourself."

"What?! In that fight, Ainku was restricting himself?!" (Onlooker D)

"Wow, incredible!" (Onlooker E)

"Haha, I already knew that long ago. A Level 10 vs a Level 3, there's no way that Ainku wasn't putting in his full effort." (Onlooker A)

The golden-haired youth turned around and walked a few steps away, but then stopped and glanced at Alure, "Hey, what's your name?"

Alure felt slightly amused and responded, "Christopher. You weren't paying attention at the beginning?"

To this, his opponent gave him a meaningful smile.

"Only the worthy are permitted to know my name."

He then turned around, leaving the stage with yells of admiration and attraction in his wake. Alure too received similar treatment, departing the stage with a smile on his face.

'Only the worthy, huh?'

***

Back in Alure's dorm.

For the past few days, Alure had been pestered repeatedly by Alex because of his accomplishments, like paparazzi swarming to a movie star. Each day, it had only grown more and more excited until finally, it climaxed. Did that sound wrong? Oh well.

"Hey, you actually got to the top 8! Hey, what did you think Ainku?"

Alure normally wouldn't have responded, but since he was in a good mood today after getting a good fight, he answered his roommate, "Strong. Strong to the point where I'm 90% confident he'll win the entire competition.'

"Oh? Really, the cold Christopher is actually giving such a good review! Why so?"

"Because of his skill. Plainly said, if he wanted to kill me, I would've died in maybe two-or-three exchanges."

That was based on the prowess he displayed on stage. Alure still reserved some of his skill in the end, but his opponent did too. If the both of them truly went all out, Alure would definitely lose. Although, he could possibly escape depending on the terrain.

"Oooh! It seems like Ainku is quite the expert, huh?"

Alure eventually got tired of hearing his roommate and shooed him off. Then, after a bit of thinking, he decided to visit the school's library.

'Right now, I'm about 70% confident of being able to fuse the magic sea with my mana base, thus fusing Sorcerers and Magi into one. However, if I fail, the loss will be huge. There's no rush with me taking it slow, so I guess I should raise the odds to as high as possible before I attempt to do it. And, of course, to raise the odds, I have to study.'

***

A few days later, in the Adventurer's Guild of Ragria.

Alure was currently speaking with a group of three teenagers - a melee fighter, sorcerers, and a priestess. Priestess' were worshippers of gods who borrowed divine power from their patron god's in order to cast miracles, which were basically just spells and sorceries. Alure was heavily interested in them because they were a force that didn't exist in his old life - actually, gods didn't exist there either.

Ahem, digression.

The reason why the three were speaking to Alure was simple: They wanted to invite him into their group because of the skill he displayed in the Sorcery Tournament. In response to these three, Alure said a simple 'no' with a apologetic smile on his face.

After shooing the three away, Alure walked over to a bulletin board and looked at the contents, until finally finding one of interest:

"A 20-group subjugation quest, huh? To deal with a camp of around 20 Orcs."

Normally, Alure wouldn't pick such a risky quest up. However, since this was a group-type quest, it was fine. a group-type quest meant that once a person registered, they would be added to a roster. Once the roster met the number of people, which in this case was 20, everyone would depart for the quest. Of course, there was always the risk of someone backstabbing you, but since the guild inspected each adventurer once they finished the quest, it was generally fine.

'Actually, I welcome such people. Since they mean free energy which I can consume.'

One thing which Alure noticed was that the people in this world didn't have knowledge of absorption-type abilities - abilities which involved one person stealing the energy of another. At the very least, it wasn't widespread knowledge. That was why he dared to use Dark Spear when it was infused with the power of absorption against the elven girl in the tournament, since he was confident he would be able to avoid detection.

'Therefore, it'll probably be safe for me to use it and not be suspected by people.'

While thinking this, he signed up with one of the clerks behind a counter for the quest. Conveniently, he was the 20th person, so he didn't have to wait for more people to gather.

***

About five hours later.

Alure and the 19 others had already headed to the Orc camp. Along the way, he had observed a bit and found out that the de-facto leader was a young man in the stereotypical knight armor, sporting a longsword by his side and a radiant smile. From just a look, Alure could tell that he was the naive-type warrior.

Even if he was competent, Alure didn't feel like placing his trust in someone else, so he separated from the group once everyone was around the general vicinity of the camp. A few others went their own way, too, but in the end, there were still fifteen people in the main group.

After leaving the group, he waited a few minutes and then headed towards the outskirts of the Orc camp. It was situated in the middle of a forest, having just recently been spotted. According to the person who posted up the quest in the guild, it was a group that had immigrated from some other place.

While hiding in a bush, Alure stared at the camp and inwardly began to ponder,

'The fortifications are relatively weak, as expected of a camp that just recently transitioned here. It looks like most of the Orcs sleep out in the open, as there are only a scarce few buildings. What could I use that's part of the environment? Let's see here... They store human bodies over there, where they roast them over a fire. Perhaps I could use that flame? No, it's too small... Ah, they have a building stored with women at the left side? Well, I can't really use that to my advantage, I guess.'

He continued to observe until he noticed a group of thirteen people, plus two that were on their own, head towards the camp. The group of thirteen were charging towards the main entrance, while the two were infiltrating from the left side.

'Are they planning to make a diversion? But two people by themselves should be too ineffective to deal damage from the back. They're merely cannon fodder. Unless... They plan to rescue the captured women in the camp while the Orcs are distracted? But that's plainly foolish, since they don't gain anything from saving them. Or, I suppose they could be resold? But only for a cheap price.'

'Now, back on the main group... They're equally balanced with the Orcs. No, they're slightly losing out.'

The main group only had thirteen people at the front, while there were about twenty Orcs. Orcs had low intelligence but had higher levels of strength than normal people by three folds, on average.

'However, considering how the main group is a jumble of random people, for all intents and purposes they're equally as stupid.'

The group of adventurers couldn't really be called as such - in reality, they were merely a bunch of people strung together that had no sense of unity. There was definitely discord between them. On the other hand, those Orcs had something that was close to familial trust between them since they were all raised in the same tribe.

'Now, the distrust between the adventurers is showing even more clearly.'

Alure saw an instance of one adventurer accidentally slashing another, which led to a chain reaction of events, which caused more chaos, distrust until finally, one adventurer cut down another. Once Alure saw this, he shook his head, thinking,

'It's a lost cause over there.'

Perhaps around three or four could escape, but there was already no chance of them winning. Disinterested, the observing boy turned his attention towards the two that were flanking to the left side.

Since there were no Orcs guarding the women, the two had successfully retrieved eight of them. They were being led away, presumably, to 'safety'.

That was until, one of them slammed their heads against the ground. Before anyone could react, that woman had already died.

'As expected, some women are weaker than others. After being defiled against your will for god-knows-how-long, it's only expected for some of them to commit suicide.'

Mimicking the actions of the first woman, a few others tried to do similar things. All of them seemed suicidal, except for one last woman. The two who originally wanted to help out now could restrain a single person by themselves, but no more than that.

Alure stared at the development and sighed. He was about to leave but then narrowed his eyes while looking at the woman who wasn't doing anything. Narrowing his eyes wasn't enough, it seemed, as he chose to further squint them until he looked like his eyes were just closed.

'Is that a horn on her head? Is she a demon? But, they were supposed to be extinct, according to the books I read... Assuming that that is a horn, though, then...'

Demons were, according to most human dictionaries, beings of evil descent. They had the exact same features which humans did, but demons had a few extra things, most prominently, horns. Although that may not sound impressive, in actuality, these horns are like a magic-attuned antenna. Compared to the average person, a demon has at least five times more talent in magic. Because of this, and their inherently evil nature, the humans, elves, demihumans and such united together to vanquish the demon race.

Of course, Alure didn't trust books too much. To him, it was much more likely that humans were simply jealous of their more talented counterparts. Rather than being jealous like the typical human, though, Alure was actually happy...

'This would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, granted by the deities of this world! Demons are almost all but extinct. I need a blood sample! This is a specimen that I have to thoroughly inspect! The amount of benefits I can gain from this is incredible!'

Alure's eyes shone with a fanatic and crazed light. It was as if he was a scientist that just discovered a new life form.

Actually, that wasn't too far off as a comparison.