What's Wrong with Only Having a Shield? My Summoner Hates Me

Chapter 7.3

After winning our qualifier match yesterday, all the Summoners who had qualified were given a notice of the assigned groups for the group stage matches attached to the door of their rooms along with a trolley of breakfast. As my party began digging into plates of pancakes with slices of bacon and eggs, Isabel began skimming through the paper to find out which group we were in.

"Aha! There we are in group C!" Isabel excitedly exclaims as she pounds the paper onto our table, causing our plates to rattle.

M-my egg yolks... All broken without me satisfyingly bringing down my fork upon them...

Clearly unfazed by his shaken-up breakfast, Roy smiles and looks up at Isabel, "Well then, who are we up against?"

"I hope we get an easy group." Liz sighs, "I wouldn't want to work too hard."

Hilde leans from his chair to get a look at the paper, "Oh look! Aquaria is in the same group as us!"

Contrary to the excited expression of Hilde, Isabel clicks her tongue with a look of annoyance on her face. After a couple of seconds of silence, she realizes that we all heard her and were now staring at her.

"I-it's nothing against Aquaria of course! She's my best friend," Isabel flushes up at the sudden attention, "It's just... we wanted to meet each other after the group stages to see who was the stronger Summoner."

"Couldn't you do it in the group stages?" I ask.

"You could see who has the stronger party in the qualifiers and group stages, but not who was the stronger Summoner," Isabel replies, shaking her head, "Us Summoners are not allowed to use our spells before the quarter-finals."

I guess that made sense. My party members unanimously decided to move on from the fact that Aquaria and Isabel were in the same group, and instead focused on who else was in our group. I took a peek at the paper myself and skimmed until I saw group C. Once I finally found our group, I began reading the names out loud.

"Group C: Aquaria, Benjamin, Eli, Isabel."

Naturally, I did not recognize any of those other names. I looked at my party members and to my relief, I could tell from their faces that I wasn't the only one who couldn't recognize the other Summoners.

"So uhm, Isabel? Any idea on who these Summoners are?" I ask.

"Huh? No, why would I need to look at other Summoners?" Isabel replies with a blank expression, "We're going to blast through this group stage."

Well, to be fair to myself, what did I expect from a girl so full of herself.

I sigh and look over at Roy. He looked back at me and nodded back at me. It would appear that we were both on the same page. I face Isabel, who was starting her breakfast.

"The break rooms with the TVs, do they happen to show replays?" I ask.

Isabel responds by nodding with a mouth full of pancakes. She almost looked like a squirrel with her cheeks puffed out. However, now wasn't the time to think about Isabel's puffed-out cheeks.

"Alright Roy, let's go," I say as I get up.

"Where are you guys going to go?" Hilde asks.

Roy stands up and joins my side, "Training?"

"Visual training." I nod.

With that, Roy and I left our two confused-looking party members.

* * *

"Iiiiiiiiiit's tiiiiiime!" The commentator excitedly exclaims to the roaring waves of fans, "The first battle of Group C between Summoners Benjamin and Isabel will begin shortly!"