Chapter 17

The dual swordsman, Francis stays in the ring while his partner heads out and Juliet the female orc stays in with Marcus stepping out.

"Start."

The two of them cautiously walk in circles looking for an opening in their opponents. This goes on for about seven seconds before Francis throws the word in his right hand at Juliet's neck before charging at her. She ducks and comes back up with a leap towards her opponent. Whilst in mid-air, she pulls out a club from her inventory and swings it down at him which he blocks with the sword left in his left hand. He manages to parry the strike but staggers a few steps backward. Her strength seems to have overwhelmed him.

She dishes out a kick towards his right knee, but he slides his leg backward causing her to miss, hitting the air before landing on the ground forcefully. Before she can retrieve her left leg, he steps on her left foot with his left foot, pining her in place and hitting striking her waist with his sword.

"Ugh." She grunts as she jumps away.

Not giving her time to recollect herself, Francis sends his second sword flying at her and it strikes her breastplate. The impact sends her flying further back smashing into a metal turnbuckle at one edge of the four-edged ring where no untagged teammate is stationed.

"Hmph." Francis does a flip towards the first sword he threw that landed at he B team's corner and picks it up. Marcus tries to punch him when he is flipping but is stopped by an invisible forefield. I guess you can't attack once you are tagged out and out of the ring.

By the time he turns around, he is hit in the face with Juliet's club followed by a kick on the neck from her right foot, but he dodges that one and gets up replying to her efforts with a right uppercut that lifted her above the ground briefly.

He hurries over to his teammate while staggering and tags him in. Juliet also tags Marcus in.

As soon as the fortress orc (H. Wyatt) steps in the arena, he raises his shield to block a projectile. Juliet had tried to dish a bit more damage to the dual swordsman before they both stepped out for their teammates.

"B*tch! I'm already out!" Francis yells at her once he's out.

"Hmph! Not out until you're actually out." She retorts.

Bang! Bang!

Everyone's attention is drawn away from their verbal scuffle back to the match where all the fortress has done is to block Marcus' barrage of wind blades.

This can't keep going on but it's a smart tactic. The shield reduces the damage taken, buying time for his teammate to regenerate his health points. His weapon may decline in value, but it is worth it if his teammate has a fast regen ability and he can lower his opponent's mana. This will result in him and his teammate having high HP in the long run, leaving Marcus with low mana and if Juliet doesn't have a high enough regen as Francis, it's very~ favorable for them.

"Are you just going to keep blocking?"

"I'm a fortress. It's to be expected." H. Wyatt throws out a dagger over his shield towards Marcus who dodges it with a momentary speed boost from his wind magic.

"Hmph." Marcus catches the dagger and launches it back immediately towards the fortress. The dagger seemed to have come back with more speed and force as it made small cracks appear on his shield.

"Wah…how?"

"Trade secret." Marcus smiled trying to circle around the briefly startled troll.

I wouldn't call that a trade secret. The dagger may have been moving too fast for most to see but I could see a green hue on the dagger after Marcus touched it. He applied wind magic to it.

"Now." Juliet said from her position outside the ring.

I think she is signaling a tag in but contrary to my expectation, Marcus just increases his speed and goes in for mindless close-range attacks with a wooded staff in his right hand.

I thought he'd use it as a means to amplify his magic but he's using it as a combat weapon. Interesting. I can see it glowing slightly green. I wonder what spell he used on the stick that makes him confident in using it for close combat.

After a while of the barrage and the troll doing nothing but blocking, their agenda becomes clear. The troll has been lead to Juliet's corner (turnbuckle) without realizing it. Once he realizes it, he uses his body to block Marcus from tagging Juliet in.

"Oof." I exhale.

It's only a matter of time now. If he leaves, Juliet will be tagged in and he'll be killed before he reaches the dual swordsman and if he stays there, unless he has any more tricks, he will loose all his health points and start draining his experience points.

"Aaah!" He yells after some time and moves his shield aside, throwing a jab at Marcus who does not expect it. The jab is followed by a hit from a corner of the shield. The troll keeps alternating between the two for a few more seconds in quick succession until Marcus dodges one of his jabs and kicks him in the face.

Juliet is tagged in immediately after and on seeing this, Francis on the other end yells:

"We surrender! We surrender!"

"Wait! No, we don't!" The troll disagrees. "I can still fight."

"Quit being stubborn Henry. You're out of HP, aren't you?" Francis retorts and the troll doesn't deny it. "Then quit being stubborn. We still have two more rounds to go. We haven't lost et."

That's true I nearly forgot. It's best out of three. The scoreboard shows 0-1 and an automated commentator's voice follows soon after.

"Team A, 0. Team B, 1. Round 2 will commence after a two-minute break.