Zero to Hero (Prequel/prototype)

Chapter 14. Tournament Part 3

Similar to the first two days of the tournament, Genesis showed up alone to grab Ken and the two headed for the stadium to grab some breakfast and got ready for the matches.

Day 3 of the tournament started in a similar fashion to day 2 except more people showed up in the student section and many ended up sitting on the stairs due to lack of seating.

Since the stadium is fully sold out, those that entered the tournament and lost could either stay backstage or join the rest in the stands. Of course, they would either need to have someone give up their seat, have a private viewing area like Clare's family or, like most, sit on the stairs either in the student section or with family members in other areas around the stadium.

With the majority of the matches already over, the arena got divided into much bigger rectangles compared to yesterday and each group consisted of significantly fewer contestants so each group could get more focus.

For Ken's group, all three girls won their opening match easily once again but when Clare got called up again, she ended up facing Lovetta. Every match Clare has had so far has been heavily commented on and with a much smaller group now and the fact that she is facing the only person to have a higher score, this match drew in a lot of attention.

When Lucia introduced Lovetta, the beastman cheered loudly and when Clare got introduced, the cheers exploded from the elf section. For Ken, since he knew the two had been practicing with each other for almost 5 months, he was eager to know how they would match up and was excited to finally see a high leveled match.

The fight started fast and explosive with Clare firing fireballs like she had been doing to every other person she fought so far but unlike the rest, Lovetta easily dodged the spells and charged in straight at Clare.

For the first time in this tournament, Clare had to get defensive and before Lovetta could get close enough to strike, ice pillars appeared to block Lovetta right in her tracks and forced her to change direction, so she wouldn't crash into an ice pillar.

Even though weapons are allowed and used by many students. Since no enchantment on those weapons is allowed out of fairness for those not as well funded, neither Clare nor Lovetta used any of the academy provided weapons up to this point.

In Ken's view, Lovetta is definitely at a disadvantage due to the nature of her abilities and needing to get close while Clare could freely attack from any distance due to her spell heavy ranged fighting style.

"If Lovetta used a sword or something she could have had a longer reach and be able to get closer to Clare. I wonder why she had only been fighting barehanded when we had been taking all those weapon mastery classes all semester, and she had been doing rather well with a sword." Ken wondered out loud.

"You can ask her later, I'm not that good at studying or fighting even when I tried so hard for all those years. I am just meant to be a housewife and look pretty at parties" Genesis answered playfully while squeezing Ken's arm tightly.

Turning his attention back to the fight, Clare definitely had the upper hand the longer the fight went on. No matter how fast Lovetta moved, Clare is able to defend with ice pillars to make Lovetta change direction and slow her down and avoid having direct contact while also able to fire spells that begin to make contact with Lovetta more often.

After the 10 minutes with up, while neither could finish the other one off, Clare was declared the victor which surprised no one since everyone could see the damage she had dealt but along with the beastman section of the stadium, Ken cheered loudly for Lovetta who was the first to provide Clare with a challenge.

Sometime later, Alice and Clare both won another match and soon it was time for lunch when the three joined Ken and Genesis for a few minutes like they had been doing on a daily basis during the tournament.