1450: Champion

Champion

The third day of the tournament began, but the spectators' excitement shown on the first day could not be seen anymore.1

Out of the initial six hundred Britons that participated in the tournament, only a little over four hundred were qualified to participate on the third day. Meanwhile, only the top 100 could participate in the finals on the fourth day and there were still 60 Danes to take into consideration.

In other words, if the Briton squires were to do horribly, the citizens of New Britannia might not even be able to watch their own people battle in the finals. If such were to truly occur, not only would it deal a devastating blow to the kingdom, but it would also be a large slap in the face to the king.

With this understanding, the Britons could not help but feel rather apprehensive. While they still carry somewhat similar expectations, they found it difficult to be as enthusiastic as before. Lively clamors could no longer be heard from them, only tense silence throughout.

Unexpectedly, King Arthur did not seem to be worried at all. On the contrary, his majestic figure was brimming with confidence as he officially opened the third day of the tournament.

Right after his words resounded throughout the venue, ten small arenas formed on the field and randomized one-on-one matches took place.

The rules of these matches were simple. The participants had to take part in close combat using any weapon of their choice. Winning 5 out of 8 matches would immediately give the victorious participant entry to the finals along with a knight title.

As twenty fighters clashed, the spectators were quickly roused. What started as astonished gasps soon escalated into shouts and roars.

And it wasn't just them. On the main platform, the important figures all had their eyes on the arenas below.

As they analyzed the ongoing matches, the jarl was the first to break the silence.

"King Arthur, my Vikings might not need your knight title, but I believe they would very much appreciate quality swords and armor as rewards."

From his tone alone, it wasn't hard to detect the jarl was confident the Vikings would be able to beat his Briton squires with ease.

King Arthur was about to respond when his Queen interrupted,

"We are allies, it is a given we will share such equipment" Gwen expression changed as she added "However, if our young Britons manage to obtain the highest score, how about you leave one of your new warships to us… What do you think?"

The jarl burst into laughter.

"Hahaha! My Queen, unfortunate as it is, no men of Britannia can possibly match the Danes in terms of strength. We are simply built stronger." He not-so-discreetly scanned the queen for a moment. "Though I must say, the ladies here are much more attractive."

The continuous victories from the Vikings made the jarl's attitude toward the King and Queen even brasher. However, King Arthur tried to remained calm and looked toward Gwen. He felt the Queen knew something he did not.

While the two rulers of the kingdom were busy with their bets, Klea was occupied with something elsewhere.

At this moment, Egypt Queen was in the middle of testing her new rune formation. She spent some time last night recreating her [Solar Formation], this time creating one large enough to cover the entire tournament field. It took her a while to activate the spell, but after she did, she was finally able to analyze each participant's strengths from the platform.

Seeing the numbers that entered her mind as she observed each of the ten arenas, she ultimately heaved a deep sigh.

"As expected, they're all muscle without much spirit talent."

The youngsters participating in the arenas were the best youths of the two kingdoms and yet, she could only see several D-rank talents and a few C-ranks among hundreds of them. Those numbers were well within her expectations, but she couldn't help but feel disappointed when she saw the results. She had so many things to do, if she wanted to prepare them for the future.

Skimming through the lot, she found that the Danes youths indeed had comparably higher battle power. The only way the Britons would be able to gain the upper hand was by using either skills or agility.

At this point, dozens of matches had already gone by. The spectating citizens could see the Danes continued to emerge victorious and the jarl's grin on the main platform became even wider.

A few slightly-famous squires from Camelot managed to get a win, but none of their performances could bring the audience enough confidence and excitement. None of them came anywhere close to what the famous Lancelot did a few years back.

The tense atmosphere lasted a while longer until among the last batch of the first round, a particular figure in dark green armor, with a helmet covering its face, entered the arena.

When Klea's eyes landed on this figure, her lips finally curved into a smile. 

The squire's body was not particularly large. In fact, he was roughly only half the size of the Dane he was fighting against. However, not only did he dodge all of Dane's attacks perfectly, he even managed to push back the huge Dane with just one strike of his sword and defeated his opponent with ease.

In his second match, he heavily threw the opposing Dane onto the ground. As the tip of his sword loomed right above Dane's chest, the Dane could not even get back up.

With two strikes, the figure defeated two of the huge Danes that had easily achieved victories before. Before they knew it, all of the audience's attention was on him.

Shouts and whispers full of questions could be heard throughout the venue. As the dark green squire continued to defeat his third, fourth and fifth opponents without breaking a sweat, the spectators became more riled up with each fight.

The Britons' pride and hope that had been repeatedly trampled was quickly reignited, and the Britons found their new favorite champion.

"Who is he? Which family!?" 

Even King Arthur himself was interested to know the identity of this young talent.

On the other hand, the jarl's prideful grin had completely disappeared from his face. Every time he saw the squire defeat another one of his young Vikings, the irritation on his face became more and more apparent, to the point he was gritting his teeth while glaring daggers at the dark green squire.

"Who the hell is this guy!" the Jarl shouted annoyed. 

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