Underdog Odds and the Guardian's Melee
Public opinion of Guardians was abysmal.
No proper secret arts had ever been revealed, so the blessing was known only as a flawed, one-note power that made you tough and little else.
Because of that, after choosing Guardian, I had never once gained any advantage outside of actual combat.
This time was different.
Hell yeah. This is the sweet taste of a long-shot bet.
The Knight Tournament entry list printed both name and blessing side by side.
Edwin Revan — Guardian.
Those three little words next to my name were driving the odds into the stratosphere.
Honestly, that's the correct way to look at Guardians.
The tournament was a festival for knights and, for the people of the territory, a rare chance to come out and watch. They couldn't publish detailed information like levels, skills, or gear, but people still needed enough to decide whom to cheer for and where to put their money. So at least name and blessing were open for anyone to check.
At first I was disappointed the multiplier wasn't higher.
Knight trainees I'd gotten friendly with had put down a fair amount of coin. Some of the Cretus faithful had probably bet as well. That kept the odds from climbing as high as I'd hoped—until a few days before the tournament, everything flipped.
Seraphina, young lady of House Voltain, had put her name on the entry list.
House Voltain… yeah, that tracks.
They held a lightning-themed dungeon with a recommended level of sixty. Generation after generation, the family had produced knights who wielded the power of lightning.
Nothing shows off as flashy and easy to recognize as lightning.
Even commoners out in the sticks knew the name.
So why is a house like that—basically the definition of entrenched power—showing up at a backwater tournament like this?
Maybe the two count houses were on good terms. On any other day I would have welcomed a chance to test myself against someone strong. But right now my brother and I had put every last coin we owned on me winning. The young lady of House Voltain looked less like a rival and more like a reaper with a scythe.
"Who are you betting on this time?"
"Heh. According to me, Patrick, seven-out-of-ten winner at the Cretus Colosseum… Lady Seraphina of House Voltain."
"You're just stating the obvious. Still, doesn't a long shot like this one tempt you?"
"Don't even start. A Guardian is—bwahahaha!"
"That so?"
Listening to the chatter around me, I looked over the entry list again.
Second year after receiving the blessing, level 34 Knight.
Blessings usually came with the start of March. In practical terms, in a year and two months he had already caught up to my brother's third-year level. That was the sheer power of a money-dump build I had never been able to choose.
"Edwin…"
My brother beside me looked at me with an expression that said this was truly, thoroughly screwed.
— You're going to lose?
That was what his face seemed to ask. I lifted the corner of my mouth with total confidence.
— I'm winning.
Without Gorgon's Ring it would have been rough. With it, I could drag this into a fight worth taking.
"Don't you dare lose. If you go easy just because she's a woman…"
"I'm all-in too, so what are you even talking about?"
"H-heh, hehaha!"
"K-khuh, khahaha!"
My brother and I cackled as we shoveled our last scraps of change onto the long shot.
"Those guys bet on the Guardian?"
"Looking at the pocket change they're putting down, they're probably chasing a life-changing win. Bets like this aren't luck—they're analysis. Analysis."
There was no going back now.
Bwooooo—!
A trumpet blast from the walls silenced the noisy arena in an instant. Every eye in the packed stands—territory folk and contestants alike—turned toward the central platform.
There stood the Countess, escorted by the knight-commander.
"Welcome, knights who have come to Remington County."
Her voice, amplified by a magical device, carried clearly across the whole field.
"Today is a place where house and station fall away, and each of you proves the skill and honor you have honed."
The Countess slowly surveyed the contestants.
"May glory go to the victor, and to the defeated a reason to climb higher still. I ask only that you show us fair, knightly contests."
When the short speech ended, she raised one hand. The knight-commander stepped forward to take over.
"I hereby declare the Remington Knight Tournament open!"
Waaaaaah—!
The crowd's roar shook the arena. Roughly a hundred contestants answered by raising weapons or bellowing battle cries of their own.
— Uwooooo!
— The holy war begins!
— Cretus! Cretus! Cretus!
Even in that wall of noise, some cheers were impossible to miss. Guardians and Fighters both descended from the same god and shared certain skills; the Cretus faithful in the stands were even using taunt skills to crank their voices higher. It was, in a way, pure public nuisance—
I answered them anyway, thumping my armored chest.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
— Kraaaaah!
— The immortal holy war begins!
During a festival, the polite thing was to set everything else down and make a racket.
About a hundred contestants, give or take.
They would be split into eight groups for a free-for-all melee. The last four standing in each group advanced to the round of thirty-two. Even after four remained, the fight continued; the final survivor of the group earned the honor of first place and a modest prize.
Heh. Actually perfect for me.
In a brawl, Warriors were the most dangerous blessing. But if the goal was survival, Guardians didn't take a back seat to anyone. If I won this tournament, the way people looked at Guardians would shift at least a little.
About time I started showing off.
I now had House Remington and the Church of Cretus as backing. Nothing left to fear.
The random draw put me in Group One.
The heart of the prelims was survival. There was no reason to burn power early and hand free information to whoever I'd meet in the main bracket.
"Pardon me."
A man who looked my age but spoke like a retired old knight approached. Behind him stood a gaunt fellow. They were clearly trying to pull easy marks onto their side before the melee started.
"You look like the scion of a high house. Might I know who you are?"
"Edwin Revan. Second son of Viscount Revan."
His eyes dropped to the contestant badge on my chest. It read: Edwin Revan — Guardian.
"…Tsk."
He wrinkled his nose as if he'd stepped in filth, turned without even introducing himself, and walked off. The gaunt man who'd been waiting for an opening clicked his tongue and withdrew as well.
Been a while.
Ah, that cold sensation digging into my chest.
— Edwin. A knight's sword exists to stand against injustice, protect the weak, and never lose courtesy even to an enemy met on the field. If you draw steel over petty gossip and insult, that sword becomes lighter than a feather. At that point you are no different from a bandit.
Ah, Father… I'm sorry…
I had already been stripped of the family seal. Time to set aside the lessons of the second son of Viscount Revan and become Edwin, etiquette-injector of Remington County.
I stroked the handle of the crowbar I had preferred not to bring out.
Bwooooo—!
The trumpet announced the start of the match.
"Uwaaaagh!"
"Uwoooo!"
"Haaat!"
Contestants roared and crashed into one another. I watched from a little distance.
Brainless.
You only needed to finish in the top four to advance, and they gave us plenty of time. There was zero reason to exhaust yourself from the opening bell.
Factions?
The field had split into two big clumps. One followed the man with the old-knight speech; the other followed the gaunt man. Knights on the front line soaked attacks while Warriors slipped into the gaps and tried to force chaos. In a fight like this, Warriors had the edge. A Knight's defense bonuses mattered most for enduring the recoil of mounted skills, so pure frontline toughness was nothing special. Their shields were mostly bucklers or targes—small, specialized for one-on-one. In a free-for-all with attacks coming from every direction, those strengths didn't fully apply.
Still, they're all about the same level.
They spammed skills and tried to overwhelm with raw force. Plenty of people learned fundamentals, got skills, then shoved the fundamentals that made those skills possible onto the back burner. Big wind-ups. Attacks that left openings wide open in exchange for power. Fine if a teammate was covering you—except this was a melee where no one could trust anyone to the end.
I can see everything.
One Fighter stood out too. Under the influence of Cretus martial arts, the blessing let you handle most weapons—axes and maces included—at a competent level. A weapon with a unique gimmick could spike combat power hard, but the contestant in front of me was just flailing a plain straight sword.
Fighter: eliminated.
Commoner dreaming of knighthood, keep that ambition. Even without a house's secret arts, a Fighter's blessing and a good weapon could take you far.
Time passed. Contestants dropped one by one. When the dust settled, seven of us remained, myself included. Everyone was breathing hard, staring each other down, stamina nearly spent.
A slow look. A sharp glare.
The survivors of both factions turned their eyes on me. If they kept fighting each other until they were exhausted, the Guardian—supposedly useless on offense—would walk into the main bracket. That, at least, had to be stopped. The message in their eyes was roughly that.
"Cunning little bastard."
The old-knight-speech man leveled his sword.
"To hide like a coward and try to drink the sweet wine of victory."
I had been standing in plain sight from start to finish.
"Don't be too hard on him."
The gaunt man lifted his spear and laughed.
"Tucking in like a turtle is simply the strategy of a man who chose Guardian, is it not? Heh heh heh."
I kept ready for a sudden rush the whole time.
"First we deal with the fool drunk on easy fruit."
"Heh heh. We meet as enemies today, but I hope someday we meet as allies."
The whole pack of them were full of it.
I took my hand off the crowbar's handle. Even the crowbar was too good for these guys.
"Come on—!"
The instant I used a taunt skill, six pairs of eyes locked on me. I charged at full power.
Whoosh!
The physical ability grown with my levels launched my body like the wind.
"What—?!"
I drove my shield straight into the face of a man who had let his guard down.
Kwoong!
"Guhk!"
He flew as if a carriage had hit him. I snapped into a defensive stance and drew a breath.
"Uwaaaaagh—!"
Battle cries shook the arena.
"Ugh!"
"Hahk!"
All right. Time for Edwin, etiquette-injector of Remington County.
Take it gratefully.
………
……
…
"Ah, honestly…!"
Ariella finally covered her face with both hands, as if the inevitable had arrived. Edwin was the one rampaging, so why was her face the one burning? She had no idea.
The moment Edwin sent three men flying, only four remained and advancement was locked. One of the remaining three declared to the referee that he was dropping out of the fight for group first and withdrew. The two men who had insulted Edwin, however, couldn't turn their backs so easily—pride, most likely.
At first everyone assumed it was a clean contest for group first. Then Edwin casually set down the shield on his left arm, raised both arms like a bear, and dove into pure hand-to-hand combat.
He was injecting etiquette into the two who had insulted him.
A giant swing: both of an opponent's legs clamped under his arms while he spun them in circles. A German suplex: arms locked around a waist from behind, then slamming them straight into the dirt. Personal grudges were pouring into a match that was supposed to decide group first.
"Khahaha! Time of the great warrior!"
"Behold! The return of the great god of combat!"
"Cretus! Cretus! Cretus!"
"The holy war begins! Uwoooo!"
It was half performance—etiquette for the two who had insulted him, and a show for the roaring crowd.
"O-oh my! Oh my goodness! Kyaa!"
Even the Countess cried out and covered her eyes with both hands—while still peeking between her fingers at the field.
Ah, uugh, uuugh…!
That man was going to escort her at her one and only social debut. Suddenly Ariella wanted nothing more than to crawl into the little burrow off to one side of the garden and hide.