Why Does This Piss Me Off?
Point Toto.
At first glance it looks like a seedy gambling racket—and okay, half of it is—but it's actually a remarkably wholesome system.
The points here aren't money. You earn them by watching streams, subscribing, or fulfilling other conditions, and you can bet those points on the games a streamer hosts.
Lose the game and you lose every point you wagered; win, and you gain points according to the payout odds. Naturally, the more the betting pools skew toward one side, the more the other side stands to rake in.
And this match had produced an extreme skew—the so-called "upset bet."
An absolutely colossal one, at that.
Total points pooled: 1.4 billion, whoa
How much do the upset bettors get if it hits??
All-in 250k points, let's gooo~~~
For real, tens of millions incoming right?
Leo wins this, no question
Yeah, guaranteed favorite, lol
Devil, I believe in you
Ooh-rae
Equal conditions, so... maybe...?
Round one: Devil versus Leo.
Special arena mechanics had equalized the two of them, but people still overwhelmingly picked Leo—of course they did.
On paper, there was a gulf between Leo and Devil in raw specs, but the truly decisive gap was in skill. No matter how equal their stats became, the ability and instincts they'd cultivated from the start remained their own.
Leo, moreover, understood mana faster than anyone else, bar none.
You can equalize the conditions, but you can't change what someone was born as.
That was true of him, and it had been true of me.
"Whew... I've got this!"
"Huh? Really?"
The difference between these two was one that could never be bridged.
Sword God.
Unless some extraordinary variable intervened.
Betting had closed.
Total points pooled: 1.53 billion. The split was 97.2% to 2.8%.
It was almost insulting how little faith people had in Devil. Honestly, more than half of that 2.8% probably wasn't backing him out of belief at all—they were just chasing a miracle-level upset payout. Since the winnings were carved out of the other side's pool, a perfectly placed max bet of 250,000 points could net you tens of millions.
Though, come to think of it, this is my first time running a Toto. Who knew it'd pull in 1.5 billion?
"Then, before we begin, we'll move to the arena. Note that the location is randomized."
The moment I finished speaking, a brilliant white radiance swept Leo and Devil away.
They arrived on a battlefield wreathed in flame. The aura of death lingered everywhere, and black smoke curled up between the rubble of shattered buildings.
In that instant, the two fighters' fortunes visibly diverged.
A burning battlefield?
This favors Leo, actually
Handicap for the underdog?
LOLOLOLOLOLOL
Just a forest alone would neutralize Leo
Played right, Devil might actually take this
Did they set the map like this on purpose?
lol doesn't matter, Leo still wins~
Fact: Leo wins even with this map setup
Standing face to face on the burning battlefield, the two kids readied their weapons of choice.
Devil drew his knuckles. Leo drew her staff.
Unlike Devil the brawler, Leo was nearly all-purpose, but since an elemental mage is fundamentally closer to a wizard, she'd been issued a staff.
"Hmm..."
She gave it a twirl—fwiiish~—and rapped it against the ground. Tak.
"Nice."
She already seemed fairly acclimated.
Devil, by contrast, swallowed hard and kept muttering something under his breath.
"The victory condition is your opponent's death, or their surrender."
"Yes, sir!"
"Mm-hm."
"Match begins in five seconds."
Five seconds.
Faint black flames coiled around Devil's hands as he drew in the fire saturating the battlefield to patch the gap in his strength. He was milking the terrain advantage for all it was worth.
Four seconds.
Leo, meanwhile, still hadn't done anything at all—just tilted her head and fiddled with her staff.
Three seconds.
Something about that nonchalance lit a fire under Devil, and his hair burst into inky black flame. The maximum power he could muster in his current state.
Two seconds.
"Oh."
Crackle.
One second.
"That's how you use it."
In that instant, Leo's deep navy hair flushed brilliant gold.
"Begin!"
"...!"
"Too slow!"
Currents of lightning wrapping around her body, Leo shot forward like a bolt from the blue.
KWAAJIIJIIJIK...!
Empowered by the lightning spirit, Leo drove in at full charge.
"Ughhhhhk!"
"Blocked it?"
Leo tilted her head as she watched Devil catch her Lightning God Sprint—one of the lightning spirit's secret arts—on both forearms. Normally, that hyper-condensed current and her overwhelming mana reserve should have burned him to a crisp in one hit.
But this was a space where everyone stood on equal footing. Even Leo couldn't neutralize an opponent in a single blow here.
"Annoying... huh?"
"Don't get cocky!"
FWOOROORUK!
The black flame surging from his knuckles shoved the lightning aside and smashed into the Leo who'd latched onto him. With Black Flame Ascension, one of Devil's signature techniques, Leo was launched clean into the air.
Under normal circumstances she'd have had a counter to forced airborne, but not now. Devil calmly moved to queue up his next technique, capitalizing on the opening—
"That's a combo chain, you know."
"What—"
Pajijijik...!
In that instant, residual lightning boiled up from Devil's arm. He frantically shook it off, but it was already too late.
Leo playfully formed a finger-gun and shouted:
"Bang!"
BOOOOOM!!!
The current Devil had failed to fully expel detonated on the spot. Even at one percent of its original force, the blast was far bigger than expected. Leo, who'd been hanging in the air, touched down the moment the technique's caster lost his strength.
"Haven't used that one in a while. Haven't touched it since the early days, actually. Heehee."
Upset bettors, you awake yet? Upset bettors, you awake yet? Upset bettors, you awake yet?
Victory for the sensible picks
LEO! LEO! LEO!
Devil get up!
Devil dead??
ah
ahhh upset bettors must be rolling in points~
This was ALWAYS a safe bet, agh lol
Devil's not dead. Anyway, not dead.
so close
LOLOLOLOLOL
Upset bets, CUT!
The yellow current running through Leo's hair faded, and her color returned to normal. Wearing the impish grin of a little troublemaker, she looked up into the air.
"Is that my win?"
"Not yet."
"?"
At my words, Leo's head whipped around.
A scorched crater where Devil had been blasted by the lightning detonation.
Fssshhh...
And from within it, singed pitch-black from head to toe, Devil pushed himself upright.
Devil was alive?!
?
Yeah but he's on one HP lol
Devil just stay down, buddy
Leo's won, this is just pathetic now
no no no no no
Upset gods, hear our prayer
"Huuh... huuh... huuh..."
"...I have no idea what he was thinking, getting up."
Tsing.
Leo's hair froze over, cold and crystalline. Dyed a brilliant glacial blue, she sharpened her staff into an ice spike and charged without a hint of hesitation.
"I'll end this right here!"
"......"
Under normal circumstances, Leo would have raised a whole mountain of ice rather than a single spike—but her power was restricted now. She judged it more than enough regardless.
He's already worn out.
The first exchange had already decided the match, and with their levels this close, she figured she should hold a little back in reserve for Yena and Vlack later. However many cards she had left to play, an elemental mage's body was fundamentally frail. And with her Nymph racial trait stripped away, with no special blessings or equipment to speak of, one badly-timed hit could mean instant defeat.
"Huh?"
And that was the mistake.
?
HUH
Just as I thought.
A dragon clad in black flame manifested. Part of the knuckles—forged from radiant white divinity—blacked over, and Devil's eyes transformed completely into a dragon's.
Yena had the Celestial clan's art, Spear's Roar.
"Martial Art: Black Dragon."
KWAAAAAAANG!!!
And Devil had the techniques of the ancient dragonkind.
The blunt-weapon arts and hand-to-hand combat arts I wielded were all techniques forged through deep exchange with the ancient dragonkind. I'd interacted with many of them, but the strongest among them numbered only about four.
Dragon Lord, the Light Dragon Charlordo.
The Frozen Heart, the Frost Dragon Sgaredo.
The Roaring Thunder, the Thunder God Dragon Fulgur.
And the last of the four: the Endless Darkness—Black Dragon Seripid.
The tip of darkness, possessed of strength enough to chew through lesser demons outright, and lord of all black dragons. True, anything mid-tier or above would trounce him without question—but the mere fact that he could bare his fangs at beings outside the normal scale said everything about how powerful he was.
Personally, I'd wanted to develop a blunt-weapon art with the Black Dragon, but he preferred to create a brawling art instead, and I'd accepted his proposal with a trace of regret. After all, plenty of other dragonkin were willing to develop a blunt-weapon art with me regardless.
"Huuuuh..."
Having unleashed a single devastating blow, Devil exhaled a long, ragged breath.
An ancient dragonkin technique—and not just any, but one of the arts classified as supreme—so it carried side effects severe enough to scar the user's very soul. But it had its advantages too.
"Kheheh... THIS is the true power of the God of Darkness!"
The greatest advantage, of course, was that it was largely immune to "restrictions" like suppression, sealing, or nullification. So long as he was channeling even a faint, incomplete sliver of the Black Dragon's power, Devil—right now—was stronger than Leo.
Decidedly so.
HUH
Did the upset hit??
???????????????
no way no way no way no way no way
yeah right, no way
Safe-bet crowd, CUT lololololololol
DARK FIRE PUNCH!
Devil I always believed in you dammit~ Devil I always believed in you dammit~ Devil I always believed in you dammit~
THE UPSET IS HITTING?!
Wait, Ms. Leo??
Leo get up are you kidding me
no way??
What even IS that?
Gulp.
Leo staggered out, retching up specks of blood.
The tables had completely turned.
Devil felt his power draining fast and scrambled to prepare his next attack. His reserves were burning down quicker than usual. He had to finish this as fast as possible.
Shriiing.
"Light Sword."
A single white line traced itself across Devil's body.
"...?"
A moment later, Devil's body split cleanly in two.
?
huh??
"Heheh... no plot twists her—"
Thud.
"—Round one, Leo wins."
She used Spirit Descent in that moment, of all things.
Her raw talent, I'll grant it—undeniable.
...And watching that, a memory stirred. Those words I'd heard countless times.
'Did you expect this of me?'
Why does that piss me off so much?