บท 6: First Battle

After spending 8 hours in the Summon battlefield, Stell and Felix were teleported to an arena.

The arena was enormous, but the stands were mostly empty. Stell couldn't even see fifty occupied seats out of tens of thousands.

"So, someone really is bored enough to watch Wood I, huh?" Stell clicked his tongue, his excitement about the new world now all but gone.

"I should have just slept. But no, my stupid excited ass wanted to check out the games. Dammit, why didn't the simulation just fix the fatigue?" He cursed loudly, making Felix chuckle.

There were seven more two-man teams around them. Stell didn't even bother trying to scout his competitors. 'Let's just get this over with.' His back still hurt from the arduous climb.

"Welcome, players." An AI referee appeared. Although it looked human-like, its stiff movement and robotic voice gave it away.

"The order had been decided. The first battle is Team Red versus Team Green." Following his words, every team received colored tape. Stell and Felix were Team Blue.

As the two teams got into an arena, their summons appeared beside them.

Team Red had a ghost-like summon and a cute, oversized brown mouse.

Team Green had a cute, oversized brown mouse and a half-meter butterfly with red patterns.

Felix and Stell had already met three of those four summons. Oversized brown mice were the first forest summon they met, and it was clearly on the weaker end of the forest food chain. The butterfly was also a forest summon.

They never met the last ghost summon, though. Slightly curious about its summoner, Stell and Felix looked at the Team Red carefully.

"It's that guy!" Stell almost pointed at the black-eyed and black-haired person.

Felix looked at the person before scratching his head. "Who?"

"The guy we met earlier today. The one you threw bread at." Facepalming, Stell explained.

"Oh!" Felix nodded in realization. "What about him?"

"Nothing." Stell stopped bothering with Felix. The fight was about to start.

At the referee's signal, the two mice rushed at each other while the butterfly slowly floated to the half-meter-tall ghost.

With no commentator, the fight looked extremely boring. One mouse grabbed while the other dodged. Then, the other did the same. At least the mice were fighting. It took the butterfly almost a minute to fly to the ghost.

Just as it reached the ghost, the ghost jumped and pierced the butterfly with its claws, killing it instantly.

"The most anti-climatic fight I ever witnessed." Stell commented as he saw the two mice headbutt each other, both falling down unconscious.

"Even half of the spectators left." Felix could only nod. Even he found it boring.

As the fight finished, all of the summons disappeared from the arena. After the summons disappeared, the players were teleported to the player area.

The referee then monotonously called out the next teams.

"Next fight: Team Yellow versus Team Blue."

"It's our turn." Felix grinned. Even Stell forgot about his sleepiness due to the adrenaline surge.

Grinning slightly, they appeared in the arena, facing Team Yellow a hundred meters away.

The referee didn't wait for the players to familiarise themselves with their surroundings as he immediately made the player's summons appear. With his signal, the fight started.

Stell looked at the pigeon carrying a golden egg. After slowly and carefully letting the egg fall and roll down next to it, the pigeon looked at the enemy summons.

It faced another mouse and butterfly. Stell didn't need to guess that it wasn't easy for the players to get rarer summons like he or Felix.

"I guess we got lucky." Felix grinned after he reached the same conclusion.

Stell only nodded, thanking himself for not being arrogant and trying to become a protagonist. It was the right way to leech off one.

'Wait. That sounded wrong. We are friends. Yep, friends. I am not a leech.' Stell convinced himself.

While he was having silly thoughts, the pigeon already swiped a claw at the mouse from the air. After injuring it, the mouse fell. However, even with a heavy injury, it still was able to fight.

Irritated that it didn't one-shot him, the pigeon grabbed the mouse and soared into the skies. It then flew to the slow butterfly and threw the mouse under itself.

With a boom, the mouse crashed into the butterfly before both fell to the ground. With a white flash, both of Team Yellow's summons were defeated.

"Shit! Referee!" A player from the opposing team shouted into the sky. As the referee appeared in front of him, he started complaining.

"Aren't they exiles? How do they have such strong summons? I thought that exiles aren't allowed to practice on casual." The person complained with an angry expression, pointing at Team Blue occasionally.

"They aren't allowed to practice for their first five games, that's true." The referee nodded with a much more human-like voice. It even showed emotions.

"He summoned a real person?" Stell whispered to Felix after hearing what the enemy team was talking about. Somehow, the distance didn't stop them from hearing the opposing team.

"Seems like it." Felix nodded, unbothered by the situation he found himself in.

"Then what happened? How do they have such a strong summon? Did they cheat?" The opposing team bombarded the referee with questions.

"Are you accusing us of allowing cheats?" The referee only grinned as he looked at the person who complained, causing the person to shiver.

"N-No. I meant. How did they do that? Did you allow them to practice in Casual? Did the international agreement change?" The person masterfully changed the theme.

"That's not for you to know." The referee replied as he swiped with his hand, making the yellow team appear in the spectator stands, away from other players and the arena.

Following that, Stell and Felix also disappeared, along with their summons. They appeared in the player area.

Looking at other players, Stell felt respect and fear from them. Of course, the strongest emotion was envy.

"I guess we are the top dogs here." Felix smiled. Stell could only agree, knowing that without Felix, it would have been extremely hard for him to find a decent summon.

After finding a seat, they watched the other two fights. As expected, most of the summons were from the forest. The winning teams were Team Purple and Team Black.

Team Purple had a butterfly and a small purple spider. Stell finally learned that the butterfly was actually useful! Although it was slow, it released some kind of dust that made other summons sleepy.

Although the spider was less agile than the mice, it had a poisonous bite.

Too lazy to even watch Team Black's fight, Stell fell asleep, waiting for Felix to wake him up for their next fight.