Chapter 366. Final Round.

  There was a bit more fanfare with the announcer since this was the final match for my bracket, but as you’d expect, the majority of the attention was on the higher tier and rank brackets. Still, the crowd around our section of the field was larger than my other matches. I waited for Gullywallow to summon his knights, on a little concerned that he was a couple of ranks higher than I was.

  My minions seemed rather powerful for their tier and rank, but Gullywallow could also pull some kind of trick that I hadn’t seen yet, like Abax had tried with his teleporting mages. I looked across the field at my opponent, who gave me a smile and a wave that I returned. It almost made me giggle to see Gullywallow’s oversized frog mouth display such a huge smile. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and I was looking forward to the challenge.

  “The one-minute preparation timer has begun, summon your minions,” Professor Gelbman announced. I began to summon immediately, wanting to finish my efforts and then get a good look at Gullywallow’s team. First the drone, then Elida appeared. This time, Elida activated Personal Shield immediately. Since the spell had an hour duration, there was no problem with it expiring during the fight.

  With my minions ready to go, I hurried to the side of the field to watch the match. I was shocked when instead of the team of knights he had fought with earlier, Gullywallow summoned a swarm of insects and other critters. He had a complete second set of minions stashed away, which was something I hadn’t considered. The vermin summoned by Gullywallow arranged themselves in three distinct groups, and I wondered how they planned to attack.

  In the first group of summonings, Gullywallow had brought what looked like hundreds of blue locusts. These bugs were larger than their normal kin, each was about half a foot long, but other than size and color, they looked like an ordinary grasshopper. There were no oversized teeth or claws to mention, so I’d have to wait and see what kind of threat they represented.

  The second group consisted of large beetles, also around the same size as the locust creatures. These were dark-colored, hard-shelled creatures that sported long pincers in the front. That was a natural weapon that could probably dish out some real damage. It seemed there were about as many beetles as there were locusts.

  For his final group, Gullywallow had summoned large toads. There were fewer toads, but each was just over a foot long and would occasionally flick out their long tongues like they were trying to grab the nearby bugs, but were prevented in partaking of the feast in front of them since the others were allies. Bugs and frogs didn’t seem nearly as intimidating as the knights, despite their numbers, but Gullywallow had made the switch for a reason, so I knew there was a real challenge here.

  With a ding, the one-minute timer finished its countdown and the battle began. It was painful not to be able to issue orders or to cast a spell in support of my team. All I could do was watch as the battle unfolded. The locusts took to the air, flying directly toward my minions. Right on the heels of the locusts were the beetles, which also had wings concealed under their thick shells.

  Following slightly behind the two waves of flying insects were the big toads. They were hopping forward in large leaps but were still falling slightly behind their flying allies. My minions weren’t waiting for the action to come to them and reacted instantly. Elida shot a sling stone into the locust swarm, but it killed only a single creature among the hundred or so attackers.

  The drone was much more effective, lobbing grenades into the low flying swarms. Instead of just focusing on just the leading edge of the attackers, the drone spaced out his shots dropping two grenades onto each group while also firing up the plasma beam. Explosions and the accompanying shrapnel obliterated dozens of attackers, turning them into mana vapor.

  The plasma beam was like a hose, washing away any locust it hit. Despite the impressive display of firepower, there were just too many attackers for the drone to handle by itself. As the first locusts neared my pair of minions, Elida activated Gleaming Aura, encasing herself in a field of radiant energy that was the perfect counter to a swarm of low health minions.

  With its plasma beam and grenade launchers out of juice, the drone began to swirl his longer bladed arms at the approaching swarm, the smaller pair of arms chose maces from the available weapons my minion could create. Not as good as a fly swatter, I could still approve of the mace as an alternative. The locusts didn’t slow down a bit and hurled themselves in equal numbers at my two minions.

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  About thirty or so locusts made it to the pair of defenders. They slammed their bodies directly into my minions, and I was shocked to see that they didn’t just dissipate into mana vapor on impact. Instead, they sprayed a fine, blue fluid from their bodies as they were smashed, the remains of their now-empty shells only dissipating into mana vapor after they had delivered their payload.

  I had expected acid, or something of the kind, but instead, the gunk left behind by the locusts seemed to do little to my minions. It was only when the aura around Elida flickered and disappeared that I realized something was wrong. I pulled up her status and watched as her remaining spell slots counted down to zero. Not only that, the enchantments on her gear were also diminished, limiting their effectiveness as the next swarm hit.

  My drone was immune to the mana draining goop the locusts had doused them in and kept up his attacks on the incoming beetles. Elida recovered before the second wave hit, readying her mace and shield as the beetles began their own kamikaze dive onto my minions. This time there was no blue goop, instead, each beetle burst into a sticky, napalm-like flame as they hit.

  Elida, even though her Battle Mending ability seemed to be unaffected by the locust gunk, was unable to deal with being bathed in flames. With her mace only hitting a beetle or two, she wasn’t doing much total damage and the healing from her ability was minimal. Over a score of beetles slammed into her, many landing on the unprotected gaps in her armor. The beetle flames, once ignited, were impossible to put out with normal means. Elida executed the tried-and-true stop, drop, and roll, but it was a fruitless effort and the flames on her only extinguished when she was killed and turned into mana vapor.

  My drone seemed to be weathering the flames just fine. His armor wasn’t affected much, and there was no flesh and blood body to cook inside the armor as the flames continued to burn. The drone ignored the flames and turned its attention toward the toads which had arrived and were making their final leaps to attack.

  Bladed arms cleaved through the first of the toads. Instead of mana draining gunk, or sticky flames, these toads dispensed large blobs of sticky acid. It was powerful, too, and I watched as the drone’s arms, which had borne the brunt of the first attacks, melted and bent into uselessness. His smaller second set of arms, defended against the still attacking toads, but all they managed to do was pop open the toads and spray their deadly acid over the entire drone.

  Toad after toad landed, and the structure of my drone began to sag as the armor it was made from succumbed to the onslaught. Just before the last few toads made their attacks, my drone disappeared into mana vapor. I had lost, and lost just as quickly as Gullywallow’s previous opponent.

  “We have our champion for this bracket! Professor Gullywallow has claimed the victory. Thank you, Professor Kline, for your fine performance this day, and I look forward to seeing you compete again in the future,” Professor Gelbman said. I had to admit I was disappointed with the loss, but I wanted to be a good sport and approached Gullywallow to offer my congratulations.

  “Well fought, Professor, I hope we can spar again sometime. Switching out your minions was an interesting move,” I said.

  “Thank you, Professor Kline, I must admit, your minions gave me a bit of a scare. It’s rare that any unassisted minion survives the second wave of my swarms, and it appeared that mechanical minion of yours was barely harmed by the previous attacks. If it had held up a few seconds longer, my last toad would have died, and it would have been you taking the prize today,” Gullywallow said. His voice had a slight croaking sound to it, which given his appearance, fit the professor perfectly. We shook hands and parted ways as I noticed Melody approaching.

  “Rico, not a bad showing for your first tournament. I think if you were the same rank as Professor Gullywallow, you might have won that one,” Melody said.

  “Professor Gullywallow had an interesting team, and not one I’d want to face in a real fight,” I admitted. Getting swarmed by mana draining, burning, and acidic creatures would be a nightmare. To top things off, he would still have the knights at his disposal, but something tells me he can only call on one or the other during a fight.”

  “I’ve got to run, but I hope you stick around to see some of the other matches,” Melody said, waiving to me as she ran over to another professor that was calling for her. A system prompt appeared as Melody left. It seemed like the system approved of my performance, even if I hadn’t won the match.

  You made it to the final match, and though you were defeated, you fought well against a higher Tier and Rank opponent. For this effort, you have been rewarded with 3 experience.

  Experience/experience needed for the next rank: 47/50.

  Every little bit helped, and I’d gladly accept a few experience points for just participating in a tournament. With my little reward received, it was time to check out more matches. I wanted to observe the higher tier battles but was stopped from doing that when a young halfling wearing a familiar orange robe moved to block me.

  “Sorry for the interruption, but I believe you are the being known as Professor Kline,” the halfling said, looking at me expectantly.

  “I am, I take it you’re with Somhagen Exports?” I said.

  “Correct, Miss Ingrid wanted me to convey to you that there was a contract awaiting you at the shop. She said that you were keen to work with this client and that you should make all haste to arrive at the shop as quickly as possible,” the messenger said.

  “Thank you, I’ll be right over,” I replied.

  Perfect, it looked like the contract with Earth was ready for me to examine. Maybe I’d finally get a chance to earn some real experience and at the same time, help my world prepare for integration.