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Death’s Daughter Chapter 67

Author: “FoodLovingPanda”

CHAPTER 67 – ROUND ROBIN

Day two of the tournament, and right from the start it was decided that my battles would be in the morning since I was in group A. The other groups will go in order B and C and finally in the evening it would be group D where the Crown Prince was fighting. This really is thought out well. Most people will only be able to join in the afternoon and evening after finishing all their work so they reserved the best time to promote the might of the royal family. I really applaud them.

My first opponent for the day was the Count. I didn’t know much about him, but I do know that he uses a hammer as a main weapon. Luckily for me that weapon relies on getting close to the enemy to bash him really hard. If I keep my distance I should be able to deal with him one way or the other. I also don’t want to use magic since that will be easy mode and kill all the fun in the competition.

For now I just need to win. The person I was very expectant of is Ishikawa-kun. I could feel that he will be able to put up a fight. His style is so similar to mine and I want to know just how far can he go trying to copy it, without having experienced it himself in the game.

“Dear competitors and guests I welcome you to the round robin part of the tournament. Let us not prolong this much and begin. First up we have our very popular Count Mirez the Golden Hammer going against a dark horse that popped up, young Naoko Maeda, a newly appointed Viscountess.”

There was cheering among the crowd that had gathered. Seriously, just how can you be so excited over such an unimportant battle. This was just round robin and there was barely any importance. The finals are what you should be looking forward to. With what I know, the best match according to the audience and gambling personnel should be Count Mirez vs Ishikawa Taichi. Looking up to the stands, I saw the Crown Prince and Earl Orzak watching intently. Tsk, I definitely won’t let them see anything useful.

“Please go easy on me Count.”

Instead of a sword, I took out several throwing knives from my inventory and held them in both hands. Since I was hiding my real strength, it would be best to win using tricks even though it may garner dissatisfaction from others. This skill is something I learned in my free time while I was bored raising the [Throwing] skill.

“Aren’t you going to use your sword. It looks to me like you are underestimating me. I may be the weakest of the four, but I am nonetheless one of the true fighters of this kingdom.”

He did look impressive holding onto that hammer. Compared to him, I really was pathetic with only knives in my hand. Well it didn’t matter, I would win anyways.

“Three knives. I only need three knives to win. Curse: blunt blade.”

“Don’t mess with me, prepare yourself!”

We took our stance standing twenty meters apart. This was perfect. All I had to do was
throw the knives. With the referee giving the sign I immediately flung the first knife at Count’s head. It would be dead on target, if he hadn’t sidestepped and blocked the knife with his hammer.

“A slow throw like that will never reach me. That leaves you with only two more. Let me see how can you win with only those two.”

He was mocking me, but I just smiled and prepared my next attack. He was even looking down on me by not going on the offensive and allowing me to attack freely. Mister, your arrogance will be your downfall. I am sorry but I am taking this match.

Taking aim I threw the second knife, followed by third almost immediately after. I saw him smile as he simply moved his head slightly to avoid the knife, but that smiled disappeared as soon as it appeared, because the knife he was trying to avoid suddenly changed direction mid-air and hit his neck. Since I made sure to dull the knife before the fight he did not get hurt but the outcome was obvious.

“Match over, winner Naoko Maeda.”

“Y..y..you… how did you do that? Did you use magic??”

The Count was bewildered. Well I couldn’t blame him, his loss really didn’t make much sense.

“The third knife I threw hit the second knife changing its direction. This is a skill, not magic. You see when you have too much free time in between requests you tend to pick up on some weird stuff. Thank you for going easy on me.”

We cleared the way for the others to fight. The audience was clapping, but there was no cheering for my win. I guess they thought it was a dirty trick and that Count really allowed me to win.

Ishikawa’s match also ended soon as he easily overpowered his opponent. After a ten minute break the matches continued. Count Mirez was up against the adventurer in our group. I really felt bad for him, watching him trying to endure the onslaught of attacks. He really ended up with bad matchups in this group.

“Maeda-san I hope to be able to face you as a swordsman. Your little knife trick is nice, but I want to go against the woman who caused such mayhem yesterday not some trickster. I hope you can fulfill my wish.”

Ishikawa-kun was holding onto two identical swords as he stood some distance away and took his stance. Well, I was planning on going all out from the beginning.

“I am okay with that, but that is rather unusual stance. May I know who your teacher is and what school does he belong to?”

“It is a sword style I have witnessed defeat several hundred people in a game back home. That person is something akin to a legend. She was called PvP god among the community and worshipped for her immaculate skills and performance. I learned by observing her moves and trying to replicate them to the best of my abilities like countless others.”

Uwah, so embarrassing hearing about myself like this. But I finally know why it looks odd to me. It is not the real Flying Sword Art that I learned, but a copy picked up from watching and not having the help of the system. I should probably play along and act like I don’t know who he is talking about. But seriously, a god? So embarrassing!

“Let’s see what you can do. Come and get me Hero!”