Tier 3+ - Accidental Champion (Book 2) - Chapter 78 - The Melee

You are being sent to The Melee in 3 seconds. Prepare yourself!

Prepare yourself?Siobhan gulped. I’m not bloody prepared!

She gripped her staff more tightly than she ever head. When she’d first been integrated into the System, she’d fully intended to go the route of a damage-dealing mage, but things had changed soon after she’d met Xavier. That man didn’t need her dealing damage, and another path had become the one she wished to walk.

Now, she hoped that wouldn’t be the death of her.

She supposed they’d been right about this floor—it wasdifferent to the other ones. Though she couldn’t say she was glad she’d been right.

And it turns out it didn’t matter whether we all entered the floor at the same time or not, because the damned System separated us anyway!

Siobhan was teleported out of the white room and into what looked to be a massive arena. The arena reminded her of pictures she’d seen of the Colosseum. A part of her gazed up at the amazing sight with wonder, mouth dropping open. Under other circumstances, she might think this turn of events was pretty damned cool. She might wonder if this arena had been inspired by the Colosseum somehow, or if whoever had designed the Colosseum had somehow dreamed of this, like how humans knew of elves and other races that existed in the Greater Universe before ever seeingany.

But right now, well… it certainly wasn’t cool.

She’d tried using her Communication Stone to contact Xavier and see how he was, but it wasn’t working. The System kept telling her he was out of range.

Where the hell has the System sent me?

She supposed talking to him right now wouldn’t help anyway. Besides, he’d been fighting their battles every floor. Now, it was time to fight one of her own.

She found herself standing on a small platform. Around her was a transparent shield, similar to Howard’s Bulwark spell. She took her eyes away from the arena and found that she wasn’t alone. Including her own, there were a dozen other platforms.

The System had just thrown her into the damned Hunger Games.

In that moment, Siobhan tried to summon her Divine Guardian, but something was blocking her—perhaps she wouldn’t be able to cast any spells until the shield dropped.

Other people began to materialise on the other platforms. Many of them were human, though some of them were elves. One was demonkin. And the last to appear was something she couldn’t identify. She tried to scan the… whatever it was, but the System was blocking her from that ability. The creature was about four feet tall and looked like a cross between a goblin and… a moose? It had purple skin and antlers half as tall as itself.

Weird, she thought, wondering if the moose-goblin thought the same of her kind.

A notification appeared in front of her.

The Melee is a challenge of survival! You will be marked on your participation!

Marked on my participation? Does that mean we can’t refuse to fight?

Considering her abilities, Siobhan was intending to cast Divine Guardian and Divine Beacon, and try not to move away from the healing pillar. It would give her better magical and physical resistance on top of the healing it offered. As for her Divine Guardian, she wanted to keep the construct close. If it wasn’t near her, it wouldn’t be able to protect her very well. She also had nothing against the other Champions that appeared. She didn’t want to fight them.

But she’d been in a situation like this before. Last time, she hadn’t had the choice to surrender—she might have taken it, rather than taking another life. This time, even though she could surrender, the very thought of doing so didn’t seem like a viable choice.

The melee will begin in 5 seconds and last for 5 minutes. If you are alive and have not surrendered by the time the melee ends, then you will have successfully cleared this floor.

Siobhan blinked, reading the text. It wasn’t half as bad as she’d suspected it would be.

All I have to do is survive for five minutes? Well, that… that can’t be too hard, right?

She watched as the seconds ticked down. The other people on their circular platforms gripped swords, hammers, axes. Staffs, bows, and one even had an odd, harpoon-looking thing.

Okay, maybe it’s going to be a bit hard.

But at least the text didn’t say anything about her havingto fight, only that she would be marked on her participation. That didn’t matter so much to her. If she cleared this floor, she would still get a first-clear title and the normal title she was used to. Survive… she could survive.

The timer reached zero.

~

Justin held his sword too tightly. He forced himself to loosen his grip. It was a bad habit of his, one he’d had for years. Whenever he wasn’t confident about the outcome of a match, he would grip the hilt of his sword ever tighter.

He did what his coach had taught him to do in these situations, taking long, slow breaths in a box-breathing pattern, counting the seconds as he inhaled, pausing, then counting the seconds as he exhaled. Though something told him his coach hadn’t had fighting in an intergalactic arena against alien races in mind when he’d taught him this technique.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t useful.

He looked at the other platforms, wondering if he would find the other members of his party standing atop them, but everyone he saw was a stranger. There were a few humans—roughly half of the Champions—but the rest were an assortment of different races. There were a few dwarves, a single elf, and what looked to be a female orc.

Seeing so many humans made him wonder how they’d managed to populate the Greater Universe so thoroughly. Siobhan said it had something to do with convergent evolution. Justin couldn’t say he understood how that could happen.

Figuring that out isn’t really a priority right now, Justin told himself. Now come on, get it together.

He didn’t want to fight these people. He didn’t want to killthese people. The notification simply said they had to survive for five minutes. That meant killing wasn’t strictly necessary, right?

Could we beat the System, and have everyone notfight?

The thought made him give a small shake of the head. Something told him that would most certainly not be possible. The System had never been that… forgiving, in his experience. He was surprised that it had given them the option of surrendering at all. And Champions who’d made it this far in the tower certainly weren’t going to take it easy on others.

I’ll defend myself, and I’ll kill if I have to.

Justin was getting back to Earth, whatever the cost.

~

Howard found himself growling without even realising. God, this was a mess. He hadn’t dreamt that something like this would actually happen. That he would get separated from the others. From Xavier. He scoffed at the idea of surrendering. Of being barred from Earth. Of never being able to return to his family.

I’d sooner die than let that happen.

The haft of his axe, the Bearded Menace, felt natural gripped in his hand. His shoulders were tense, and he relaxed them. Tense situations were something he was used to. He’d been a cop for years. Though his training hadn’t exactly prepared him for everything that had happened after the integration.

When the notification came, telling him he had to survive for five minutes, he chuckled to himself.

Survive. That sounds easy enough.

Howard was a Shield Sentinel. A class built on Toughness. On Tanking. He hefted up his tower shield, holding it in front of him. He didn’t cast his Bulwark spell, not yet. That would limit his mobility.

He went through the spells he had at his disposal, thinking of which ones would be useful to him right now.

Bulwark. Definitely useful. Hell, I could probably hide out within it for the entire five minutes if I really needed to, especially if the other Champions are distracted fighting each other. Taunt. I’m not sure if taunting these bastards is the best thing I could do in this situation…

In combat, he was used to being the one out front trying to bring the enemies toward him. That was, assuming Xavier wasn’t in the mix. In which case he basically didn’t need to do anything.

Martyr’s Defence. That definitely won’t need to come up. Hold Ground will come in handy. Backfire, Toughness Infusion, Power Strike…

Howard grinned. He felt confident. Perhaps he should be feeling something else right now. He didn’t want to fight these strangers. They’d done nothing to him. The only reason he was here was because the bloody System had put him here. But now that he was? Well, he would have to embrace it if he wished to succeed.

The time reached zero. The barrier around a dozen platforms in the arena disappeared, releasing the Champions.

The Melee had begun.

Howard glanced to his left and right, at the closest Champions. He took a step back, toward the arena’s wall. What surprised him the most was the fact that the second the timer reached zero, three different Champions instantly disappeared. His eyebrows rose to the top of his forehead as he saw that.

Are there really people out there who would just… give up?

One of the Champions to disappear had been a human to his left. A goblin stood at his right. Goblins, one of the races currently invading his home world. Howard gritted his teeth and charged the creature. The goblin had a staff, wore mage robes.

I didn’t even know goblins could enter the Tower of Champions.

A dozen fireballs sprang into life. They formed a protective, rotating circle around the goblin. The little green creature took a step back. He had his staff raised in one hand, and his other hand was held palm facing out toward him. The universal sign for I’ve no beef with you, but I’ll fight you if I have to.

Howard blinked. Considering all the goblins he’d killed back on the sixth floor, this reaction was the last thing he’d expected.

These people truly aren’t my enemy. They’ve just been thrown into the exact same situation as me.

Howard backed off from the goblin. He heard rushing footsteps behind him and instantly activated two of his spells—Bulwark and Hold Ground.

Thump.

He turned around to see a human warrior, wielding a heavy hammer, nursing his head after having run straight into his barrier.

The arena around him was the picture of chaos. Howard’s eyes widened as he found that four Champions were lying dead on the ground. All of them were near another Champion at the far end. The Champion wore white robes and an odd mask that reminded Howard of a Japanese kabuki mask, only creepier. The Champion didn’t have a weapon. Their hands were raised in what appeared to be a placating, I’m unarmed, gesture.

The dead bodies around the Champion clearly showed that even unarmed, this person was verydangerous.

Suddenly, five minutes felt like a very long time.

Thump.

The warrior’s face was apple-red as he slammed his hammer into Howard’s Bulwark.

Why so determined?Howard wondered.

Looking at the age of the warrior attacking him, he was about as young as Justin, which made sense. In fact, the majority of the Champions around him looked rather young—those he could tell the age of, at least. He was surely the oldest one there.

Humans on already integrated worlds get the System when they turn sixteen, the equivalent is likely the same for other races, which means I’m fighting a bunch of teenagers.

Just because they were teenagers, didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. As he watched the hammer-wielding warrior attack his Bulwark, he noticed there were two different types of Champions in the arena. Those happy to stand back and only fight when they needed to—like the goblin, or the white-robed, masked Champion. And those who wished to attack—like the warrior in front of him, and those dead Champions around the other man.

As far as he could tell, every single one of these people were from an already integrated world. They would know several things that he didn’t.

The System said something about being marked on our participation. Do we get more rewards for killing others?

He looked at the kid in front of him, hearing the thump, thump, thump, of his hammer, and wondered if killing was reallysomething he wanted to do. He’d been keen on it at the start, at the sight of the goblin, but this felt different to a normal floor.

He glanced over at the goblin. An elf attacked the fire-wielding mage. Unlike Howard, this elf didn’t back down when the goblin raised its hand. The elf lost the fight, and lost quite easily, burned almost in an instant.

I thought the System threw us in with people on roughly the same level of skill?

That certainly didn’t seem to be the case, not from what he’d seen.

Thump, thump, thump.

Howard swallowed. Killing teenagers wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but this kid packed quite the punch. His Bulwark spell certainly wasn’t going to survive for much longer.

Thump.

The Bulwark burst, and the warrior rushed toward him.