A-Class Tournament Final (De Facto)

The quarterfinals. My opponent was A-Class rank 1, Aldis.

Aldis was a handsome man with swarthy skin and sharp, slanted eyes. He gave off the unmistakable aura of a strong man.

Up until last year he had held S-Class rank 17, and the back issues of the Garumon Yearbook showed he had been a Sranker for more than three straight years before that.

Had his strength fallen short of the position, he would have dropped out far sooner. His ability was unquestionably fitting of an S-Class.

The one who had defeated him was Eclair Feradria, a person I knew well too.

If I wanted to defeat Eclair someday, this was a match I couldn't afford to lose either.

Well, I couldn't afford to lose any of them anyway.

In the back issues of the Garumon Yearbook, articles about his reign as an S-Class Master had been splashed across the pages, with his ace Garumon discussed at length.

The Heavenly Demon Lava. An ultimate-tier class on par with or above Demon Lord. She was said to be one of the strongest of the Demon-element.

Incidentally, from back issues of Garumon Battle Weekly, Eclair's class was already known.

Eclair's victory was likely owed to her being a Thunder God, the strongest ultimate-tier class of the Thunder-element.

The Demon-element was weak to Thunder. By making the most of that matchup, she had probably brought Lava down in one go and settled the match.

… Of course, that she had managed to force it into a one-on-one with Lava in the first place was undoubtedly thanks to her S-Class-level ability.

His ace even now was probably still the Heavenly Demon Lava.

Against the Demon-element Lava, on our side the Thunder-element Leone, the Light-element Lyuka, the God-element Luna and Suzanne, and the Spirit-element Patty would all be effective.

Colette's Hero class also carried anti-demon performance as one of its job traits.

All in all, we were rather strong against the Demon-element.

What we were weakest against was the God-element. Patty's Spirit was useful, but we still had no Metal or Dragon.

I wanted Ursula's group to join us soon. If Mira and Saria came in, the missing Metal and Dragon would both be filled.

… Well, this A-Class Tournament was, by its nature, one where you set your formation before the matchups were determined, so putting together countermeasures for Aldis specifically once the bracket was known had been impossible.

For that reason, I had planned to rotate Luna, Suzanne, and Colette through every match, spreading them out to some degree.

That had left me with something of an anti-demon-leaning composition anyway, so running into Aldis posed no problem whenever it happened.

Well, even setting Aldis aside, none of my companions were weak in the slightest, so I was confident we would manage one way or another.

And here at last, we'd come up against him. The formation was…

I'd brought in Yuria and Leone, who hadn't had their turns yet, and spread Luna and Colette out across the rest, more or less.

The 1st party's attack power was a bit on the low side, but the balance was good and the composition posed no problem.

Of course, Aldis surely held any number of powerful Garumon besides Lava.

With Suzanne, Patty, and Haru benched this time around, there was a bit of unease if elements lined up unfavorably…

Even so, as someone about to climb to S-Class, I absolutely couldn't afford to lose.

For us, this was the de facto final.

Today's commentator was Anastasia-san, after a long absence, with Mr. Deeds on expert commentary.

From here on, the schedule was easy to follow: today's four quarterfinal matches, tomorrow's two semifinals, and the day after tomorrow's final.

"Now then, today's first match is the eagerly awaited big one! A-Class rank 1 Aldis-senshu VS A-Class rank 8 Naoto Akai-senshu!

"Although Aldis-senshu was defeated by Sario Shard-senshu in last year's swap match and dropped out of S-Class, among the current A-Class Masters his S-Class tenure of 6 years is the longest!

"Masters who frequently swap between S-Class and A-Class through challenges from the upper A-Class are called the S-Class border,

"and Masters who fend off A-Class challenges and stably remain at the lower S-Class are called lower S-Class Masters.

"Aldis-senshu is the holder of ability that can effectively be called lower S-Class.

"In the pre-tournament championship pool too, he stood proudly in 1st place! He is the undisputed leading championship favorite of this tournament.

"Facing him is what one might call a dark horse… or so you'd think, but with insight technique evaluated as on par with S-Class, leading beautiful yet powerful Garumon also evaluated as on par with S-Class, magnificently demonstrating his splendid ability to the fullest, this year's debut newcomer, Naoto Akai-senshu!

"For a debut Master to achieve S-Class promotion in just one year via the following year's S-Class swap matches is called the elite course for Garumon Masters.

"This year, the only one on that elite course is this Naoto Akai-senshu alone!

"Will he run up the staircase of glory just like this, or will Aldis-senshu show him the wall of A-Class and S-Class…?

"Gosh, expectations are high, aren't they, Mr. Deeds."

"… Yes. Aldis-senshu is, by ordinary standards, not a Master who should be in A-Class.

"In that sense, you could say this year's A-Class Tournament championship is more difficult than usual.

"Whether or not he can pull it off. The true value of Naoto Akai-senshu will be tested."

"Indeed! What sort of Master is this Naoto Akai-senshu, the eye of the storm of this tournament?"

"Of course, I think he's a Master blessed with splendid talent.

"His insight, reminiscent of the famed Fauzel, is nothing short of incredible, but above all, the strong fortune to be blessed with excellent Garumon! That is something any Master would yearn for.

"Even as an old man, I find it truly enviable."

"I see～"

He was praising me, but it sort of felt like he was also saying I was just subtly lucky.

… Well, I really couldn't deny that.

By any measure, I had been blessed with strong fortune.

"The Master who wins this match will at that point be confirmed as A-Class 4th or higher.

"There is no third-place playoff; the loser to the Master who wins in the semifinals takes 3rd place.

"The defeated Master goes straight to the loser's bracket.

"Also, the players defeated by the winning Master can come back and fight in the loser's bracket.

"If Naoto-senshu wins, A-Class rank 9 Rudis-senshu will return; if Aldis-senshu wins, A-Class rank 5 Carman-senshu will return to the loser's bracket. Neither of them is a player who should have dropped out so early on.

"If they win in the loser's bracket, they will be promoted to A-Class ranks 5 through 8.

"And then, starting from A-Class rank 1 in order, they can choose which of the S-Class ranks 17 through 24 Masters to challenge.

"Mr. Deeds, the tournament is finally entering its closing stages. If these two were to win, who do you think they would challenge?"

"Let me see. Zeiros at 23rd, while it pains me to say so as an S-Class Master… is the most promising target, I think.

"That's exactly why last year's A-Class Tournament champion Sario Shard's challenge to 17th was so surprising.

"I think 23rd would have been an easier win, but…"

"I see… The S-Class swap matches will be held next month.

"… But for now, who will win this match. Let's focus on that.

"Of A-Class's 128 Masters, who is the strongest…? The A-Class Tournament, quarterfinal first match, is finally… starting!"

Listening to the polished, smooth commentary of the experienced Anastasia-san, we… finally took the stage.

Whoaaaa…!

A massive cheer erupted. It was the same venue, but it felt even more grand than the battles up until now.

And then, the match began.

"I'm counting on you, Colette, Lyuka, Yuria!"

"Go. Lava, Mearia, Lewe."

Each side's Garumon entered the arena.

"!"

He'd put his ace Lava out against the 1st party right from the start, huh.

Lava had swarthy skin and the look of an exotic Asian-style beauty.

Beautiful. Without a doubt, a beauty of the highest order, fitting of a top-tier Ultimate-Rare Garumon.

That much was beyond doubt, but…

How to put it, somehow she didn't quite feel erotic.

On Earth, she'd be the type in high demand as a Hollywood star or supermodel.

That kind of person felt more like a work of art, an objet d'art, and didn't make me want to embrace her and have sex. Yeah, like that.

In sheer beauty she was on par with my companions, and if she entered Miss World or something, she might even be rated higher.

But she wasn't quite my type. Well, partly because I didn't really know the standards of Miss World.

Up until now, the URs with starting Value 5000 had pretty much all been girls strongly to my taste, so it was a bit refreshing to see that this kind of type existed too.

Mearia and Lewe were similarly gorgeous-style beauties.

Aldis himself looked like a Hollywood actor, so gorgeous-style beauties suited him well. They must have been his preference.

Well, there was no point dwelling on looks. I needed to get serious about evaluating their combat strength.

For elements, Lava was probably Demon-element. Mearia was either Dark or Non-element, and Lewe was probably Metal-element.

But with starting Value 5000, an Ultimate Job, and around LV50, shouldn't the value be 8000? What was that extra 100 for?

"For LV addition past LV50 onward, it's 100 per LV10.

"Once they hit S-Class, there's an S-Class addition of 0 to 1000. The details of this S-Class addition aren't well understood.

"It doesn't necessarily correlate to strength.

"However, I've heard that the strongest current Garumon, like Mercheada and others, are LV100 with Value 10000.

"Currently this is considered the cap for value, but…

"Ultimately it's thought to translate to strength."

Lyuka filled me in.

"I see…"

The Goddess Legendary Job added +2000, and even raised to LV100 it would only reach 9000. So was the +1000 some unknown S-Class addition?

Speaking of which, Ursula's group had Values like 8500, awkwardly higher than 8000 or 7500, and I'd been wondering why.

The Demon Lord was an Ultimate Job with a value addition of +1500.

Well, since they were S-Class Masters, I'd figured there had to be something to it.

And that turned out to be exactly right. There had been an S-Class addition of 100 to 500.

"But Aldis is currently A-Class…"

"Once you've experienced S-Class, it stays, I would imagine.

"That said, the S-Class addition doesn't only go up; it can also go down.

"If you go up to S-Class once and then stay long in A-Class, it'll eventually drop… so Lava might also return to Value 8000 if she stays in A-Class for several more years."

Yuria added a supplementary explanation.

I see…

"So when you become S-Class, everyone's Value goes up by 0 to 1000, varying."

The standard wasn't well understood, but the System assigned some kind of value.

… Wouldn't that cause disputes?

Well, no point worrying about it.

"In that case, in S-Class it becomes harder to tell job ranks at a glance. Whether the same 8000 is an Ultimate Job with S-Class addition 0, or a Top-Tier Job with S-Class addition 500."

"That's right. Well, Naoto-san could probably tell, couldn't you?"

"Ahaha… could I?"

The name "Heavenly Demon" tickled the chunibyo heart, but it was originally a Buddhist term. In a certain game, an Indian-derived deity served as the Heavenly Demon.

If the System was translating based on my knowledge, then she was probably named after the equivalent of Ravana.

… But sadly, even being told "Ravana," I had no idea what sort of abilities he had.

In this world I couldn't exactly check ○ikipedia.

The guy with lots of faces, was it? But Lava just had one ordinary top-model-style beautiful face.

Well, she was only modeled on him; the abilities weren't necessarily equal to the myth.

If you started down that road, then Michael having quadrupled abilities wasn't written anywhere either. It was an original ability of this world.

Even if a Garumon modeled on Achilles came out, aiming at the Achilles tendon wouldn't necessarily defeat them in one strike.

There was no point in over-trusting the source material.

In the end, it was a fight that began where it began. Same as always.

The two flanking left and right were knights. I'd griped many times about how many Knight-type Garumon there were…

Defenders were really limited.

The kind you saw absurdly often was the Knight type. 50%… no, 60% were this.

There were others: Ninja types that dodged with evasion. Beastkin guardian-beast types. Earth Spirit and Grass Spirit types as Defenders. Doll- and other manipulation-type characters as Defenders.

There were various ones, but their share lumped together was less than half.

Honestly, this kind of optimization-focused thing, where everyone ended up with similar formations, was boring…

The reason there were so many Knight types was because they were useful.

In this Garumon Battle, where taking attacks head-on meant going down in a few turns easily, a shield role was essential.

The most prominent shield role was the Knight type.

They had few weaknesses, were reliable, and protected their allies without fail.

For many Masters, they had to be indispensable.

But putting two of them in one party was playing it too safe.

Most Knight-type Garumon, in exchange for their iron-wall defense, came with unease about their attack power.

Did that mean he had that much confidence in Lava's firepower?

Slipping past the two knights to take down Lava looked difficult.

"Hero, Faerie Princess, Great Sorcerer, huh… The two Seraphs are in the back, then. Looks like your Lava counter is off the mark?"

Aldis called out to me in his handsome-guy voice.

Confidence and pride backed up by ability radiated off him. He really did look strong…

No, he was strong, as a matter of fact. He might even be Ursula-class. Or above.

But I had been training myself and my companions to be able to beat Ursula.

In that case, it would be strange if I couldn't beat an opponent on par with Ursula, or even stronger.

Now then, what should I answer? My opponent outranked me, but… well, let me go boldly. I was going to win here, because I was going to be A-Class rank 1.

"No, my preparations are perfect… I'll win."

That was how I answered.

"Interesting. Come at me."

But Aldis lightly brushed off my big talk.

As expected, the other side really did carry the sense of being a tier above…

Now then, how to play it? … Well, the strategy was already decided. I'd open with a sudden burst.

"Colette, Morale Boost."

"Yes!"

When Colette poured her spirit into it, gou!, the three of them were enveloped in an aura.

First, the auto-activation skill. For 10 turns, attack and defense rose by 20%. You could call it one of the characteristic skills of the Hero/Brave class. It lacked power, but it didn't get in the way.

Continuing on…

"Lyuka, Sanctuary of Light!"

"Yes!"

Atk/Def 50% UP for everyone, plus Light-advantage attribute on all allies.

… Good. Around this point, I wanted to gauge what kind of defense the opponent had.

By ordinary thinking, Knights were defense-type rather than evasion-type, but there was always the possibility of a curveball.

… Well, having Colette attack once in a while was good too.

"Go, Colette. Ultimate Art - Conqueror's Sword!"

"Yes! … Here I go, Hero's Sword! Ultimate Art - Conqueror's Sword!"

Crying that out, Colette swung her sword up.

… Well, it was a skill she'd learned back in her Lesser Hero days.

Conqueror's Sword's effect was simple. Single-target absolute damage, which… well, was a top-class attack surpassing super-large damage.

… It was, but it made you want to say, "Wait, that's it?" Suzanne's Tempest delivered absolute area damage despite not even being a Divine Art.

Once she became a Hero and grew, it would probably disappear quickly, so I wanted to use it while I could… Well, with the premise of being blocked. Sorry for using it for force-reconnaissance purposes.

"Haaah!"

Colette charged in to slash. She was getting it to look properly Hero-like. A nice sword. Her usual turns were few, but the diligent Colette put in solid sword practice every day, so her swordsmanship was no problem.

No problem, but it was a straightforward sword in true diligent-Colette fashion…

A "straightforward sword" sounded beautiful, but for person-vs-person combat it meant the trajectory was simple and easy to read.

Suzanne's freely-shifting sword was clearly more useful.

Of course, when it landed clean, large damage came out reliably, so in this HP-system world it wasn't entirely a bad thing.

Luna had picked up Suzanne's swordsmanship, but that was something only Luna's sufficient genius made possible; not everyone could do it.

It didn't fit Colette's aptitude. Well, the diligent and clumsy Colette being like this might be just right.

… Honestly, Colette's defense was more important.

Now then, how much damage could we deal to the two shield roles?

"Lewe. Guard."

"Yes!"

Gakiin!

"…!"

But Colette's secret art was easily stopped.

Being blocked itself was as anticipated, but the precision of the timing, defending right in sync with our attack, was clear at a glance.

… A tough opponent.

Well, Guard itself was a defense skill seen frequently from the early game; a classic of classics.

One reason for the iron-wall defense of Knight-type Garumon was the existence of this skill.

So even a former S-Class Master used it normally, huh.

… That said, Guard wasn't all that fearsome a defense skill if you had piercing, guaranteed-hit, all-target magic, and the like.

But when an S-Class Master was the one using it, that probably wasn't all there was to it.

"Golden Armor, activate!"

Pikaa!

Lewe's armor shone brightly. With support skills, you could only guess at the effect, but probably defense 30% UP, auto-activating once per turn or so?

As turns went on, Lewe was likely to keep getting more and more rock-solid.

"Dark Battle Aura!"

Following up, Mearia activated her skill. The dark battle aura blanketed all enemies.

This too was probably an auto-activate-each-turn type. Like a version of Colette's Morale Boost focused only on attack.

"Ultimate Art - Dark Sword!"

An Ultimate Art…! How strong could it be…

… Of course, there was no attack you could take freely.

"Lyuka! Light Protect!"

"Yes!"

Pakiin! A wall of light beat back the Dark Sword.

Good, no piercing. Attacks had their effects revealed by System Check.

Ultimate Art - Dark Sword: Normal damage to all attributes. Physical super-large damage. Self HP large recovery.

A pretty convenient and strong skill. As expected, even members other than the Heavenly Demon Lava couldn't be taken lightly.

Even less to be taken lightly was Aldis.

… Whether the opponent was going to attack or not, you could usually tell by reading their atmosphere… or so I'd thought.

But this time, no attacking aura was visible from him at all. He looked like the type to lead with buffs, then nonchalantly attack.

It had been a while since my predictions were brushed aside this easily.

… As expected, a strong opponent on the level of Griera or Ursula.

Against low-level opponents, the opponent issued instructions at the start of the turn and could only take actions matching them, so as long as I delayed my instructions, I could play after-the-fact rock-paper-scissors as much as I wanted.

If the opponent was going to attack, cancel the attack and defend. If they weren't going to attack, just attack as is.

Saying I could do that "as much as I wanted" against A-Class opponents would be going too far, but basically against A-Class my judgment had been faster and more accurate.

But when both sides' decision speed reached an even level, both ended up trading delayed moves, and toward the end of the turn you had to act in rapid succession, making it harder to match the opponent.

"Hmm, Light Protect, an all-target defense skill for one turn, huh…"

"Master, what shall we do?"

Lava asked in a calm, mellow voice.

"Immortality Barrier."

"Understood. Immortality Barrier."

Lava opened with a buff. A defensive buff. From the name, granting Endure once?

I didn't really know, but it seemed troublesome.

But the turn wasn't over yet.

… For now, let me pierce that defense of yours.

"Yuria, Demon Art - Black Hole."

Zun!

Yuria's magic. A massive black hole appeared in midair and began sucking up everything with tremendous force.

"Ku… what is this!"

"Aaah!"

"Th-this is…!"

"Tch, Black Hole… an HP-halving attack, huh."

Of course he knew it.

There was probably no other attack that could deal this much damage when used on the opening move.

Without hesitation, mercilessly, it shaved 50% off the HP of three enemies.

With that, Turn 1 ended.

"And there it is, piercing the defense and dealing damage in one go! In the damage race, Naoto-senshu has the advantage!"

Anastasia-san said that, but…

Aldis, of course, still wore an unconcerned expression. The match had only just begun.

From that brief exchange alone, I was bracing myself, knowing my opponent was a strong adversary on par with Ursula.

… The real action was from here on.