Devour (2)

A few matches go by and then it's Adal's turn. He is matched against an adult woman. She is the wife of the blacksmith. He can actually see her relaxing when she sees she's matched against a child.

Roko glances nervously at Adal. "You're just a kid…but she's a woman. You can win against her, right?" Adal just stares. "Well, you're going to give it your hardest. If you don't win, then I'll have the strap ready for you."

Adal goes up to the stage and stares at his opponent who looks warily back. The proctor shouts for them to fight.

"Kid, I don't want to have to hurt you, so how about you just forfeit now?"

She doesn't want to hurt him, she says. Adal wants to hurt her, though. He wants to devour her like he did those men. He's not a complete fool, though. Doing so here in front of all these people would be a disaster.

He had asked his father if anyone ever had the power to eat another person. Roko stared at him incredulously and called him an idiot. He asked how can such a power make money? He also says eating people is the work of demons. If anyone has such power, it would be them.

So he knows better than to let anyone know that he can do it. He wants to devour the woman so bad, though. Devouring animals just isn't the same. They don't increase his powers much at all. It has to be people.

"Are you listening, you brat? Forfeit now or I'll really hurt you. I'm more than twice your size."

That is true. Adal bets that she can't increase her power like him, though.

He forms an energy ball and throws it at her. She startles and jumps to the side just missing the attack. Adal quickly forms another and throws it at her hitting her on the side. She lets out a shout and drops to the ground crying in pain. She doesn't get back up, so the proctor declares it Adal's victory.

A huge buzz goes around the crowd. Not only is it the first match where a young child beats an adult, but it is the first match where magic is used. Most of the crowd didn't expect to see it until an Earth grade steps into the ring.

"I can't believe that kid won."

"He's the hunter Roko's son, right? Lucky bastard, he got a silver and 50 coppers now!"

"That's more than I make in a month!"

"What magic type did that kid used?"

"I heard the hunter Roko's son doesn't have a type."

"Then what the hell was that?"

The buzzing continues. When Adal gets back, his father Roko is visibly surprised. Apparently, despite his words, he didn't actually expect his son to win.

"That…is really good, Adal. I didn't know you were so good at magic. You can even throw it like that?"

Insofar as Roko knew, his son never could use magic to that degree. The best he could do was make his hands glow so lightly that it couldn't even be seen in daylight. Today, he formed some kind of energy ball and threw it across a 50 foot ring.

"Good…that's good. Keep doing it."

Roko is clearly too flustered to say much. His siblings are also staring at him wide eyed and the stares of the crowd are obvious too. Adal even catches glimpses from the proctors. Some distance away, the blacksmith is screaming at his still crying wife asking how she could lose to a child.

The buzz eventually dies down when the matches continues and new controversies happen. Resentment is created, injuries happen. All the children are slowly eliminated from the matches.

When Bird's match comes up, Roko lets out a relieved sigh. She is match against a boy that is only two years older. Bird still didn't want to fight him, but Roko is having none of it.

"Goddamn it, your brother beat a fully grown woman. You mean to tell me you can't beat a boy only a little older than you? The kid looks like a bag of bones."

Roko is right about her opponent. He is thin. He comes from a poorer family and doesn't get much to eat. Despite being older, he hardly looks any bigger than Bird. Roko builds his daughter's confidence with this.

It doesn't work. When Bird is standing across from the boy, she is still trembling. This builds the boy up.

There are a lot of thoughts and mutters on how this match would go. Adal genuinely doesn't know. It would most likely be a physical struggle but they're both nearly the same size. Maybe his sister could win with her longer nails?

It didn't turn out like anyone thought.

As soon as the match starts, the boy rushes at Bird who lets out a scream and throws up her arms to block. However, the boy wasn't aiming for a physical attack. He ended up using a magic attack. He covered his fist in flames and haphazardly hits forward with an attack that lands on Bird's forearm.

The magic wasn't particularly strong or at least it didn't look so, yet she falls screaming and crying covering a bruise that is turning blackish.

"Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no." Roko repeats in shock.

The injury isn't life threatening or likely to even result in a lifelong injury. However, it carries of a risk of great danger. For almost everybody, the method they use to create magic is through their arms. As a result, the arms are extremely important.

For adults, their magic usage is safe from everything short of an injury that disables the full usage of their arms. For children, though, it is found that a sufficiently dangerous magic attack to the area could severely impair or even cut their future magic usage.

This is why Roko is so upset. His little goldmine may have lost her ability to create money. He quickly rushes up to the stage, grabs Bird, and runs off with her not even caring about his sons. He is most likely bringing her to a doctor.

Of course, the match is called in the boy's favor and there is buzz about what happened. Even his parents seem surprised he attacked Bird with magic. The matches continue, though.

Soon, the children are all eliminated with the exception of Adal. Even his brothers forfeited too frightened after what happened to their sister, but Adal continues knowing his family needs the money.

On a deeper level, it's also due to ego. Beating that woman felt good. Really good. He wanted to beat others too.

His next match is against an adult man and he is initially excited, but the man turned out to not be a match at all.

He starts off giving warnings to Adal to forfeit immediately. He ignored it, of course. When the match starts, it is soon revealed the man is utterly exhausted and already pretty injured. All the matches happened one right after the other. No one had any rest. As the numbers whittled down, the breaks in-between matches becomes shorter.

The man Adal is fighting had already been in a vicious struggle against another man and got some cuts and bruises for his efforts. More importantly, he didn't have anything to eat or drink for hours. Due to not being involved in any strenuous effort and being smaller, Adal has an advantage.

Too much of advantage. One energy ball and the man is down. Adal prepares another one he intended to launch at the man's head when he hastily forfeits. The family earnings for the day increases to two silvers.

It is also likely to end there. Most of the common participants are gone. Most of the remaining are members of Bear.

Nearly everyone who had matched against them forfeit instantly. The few who wanted the money too much are forced to stay in the match until at least ten seconds passed before they could forfeit in order to earn the money. The crowd is on their side and loudly counts.

Not a single person made it to ten seconds.

Most are beaten in half that time. A few Bear members are cruel enough to stand by and let the crowd count to nine before they just crushed the person. There are some serious injuries. Possibly lifelong ones. Earth grades are just too overwhelming for the common man.

Worse, people in those grades used mostly magic attacks. As a result, there is no physical exhaustion. They also had servants who carried food and water along so they are refreshed.

The cards are stacked in their favor. They know this. Everyone else knows this. Adal knows this. So for the sake of keeping his body intact, he has no intention of fighting Bear.

At the last minute, though, the rules are changed again.

A proctor steps forward. "People, I have an announcement to make. Due to the lack of participants in the final stages of the competition who are willing to face us, we have decided to make things…simpler. From now on, those who choose to participate can select their opponents from among the Bear family. You may even choose Roccoco if you wish."

Roccoco is the newest Earth grade of Bear who has become competent in magic usage thanks to help from his trainers. Even Bear is not arrogant enough to think their newly tested Earth grade children face no danger from Common grades. They may have the magical aptitude, strength, and speed, but they don't have the skills or the control yet.

By offering Roccoco, Bear is basically saying come test our weakest member. Aside from that, it is well known this whole offer is for Roccoco to begin with.

It is another trap. Despite the lack of skill, even newly competent Earth grades are dangerous. Even skilled Common grades would have trouble. Aside from that, Roccoco is the child of high ranking Bear members. As a result, he had training from very strong members of the family and many tutors. Even at a young age, he has already attained a good position for children.

The trap works, though. Roccoco gets a challenge. What happens is enough to get the point across that it is futile.

Roccoco wanted a fight. He viciously beat the man for a few seconds using fists that are on fire leaving bruises and burned skin are over his body. Then he grabs the man by the head burning away all his hair and throws him out of the ring. The man has to be carried away.

The display by Roccoco is frightening and makes Adal question his so-called 'power'. What he just witnessed is leagues beyond what he could do. In a fight with him – the weakest member of Bear – he would absolutely be crushed.

The proctor asks if there are any other challengers. There is not.

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