’A weird pair.’
’Very. That girl’s got a few screws loose.’
Atticus paused at the arbiter’s words.
"...Did you just agree with me?"
As though only then realizing what she’d said, she sharply cleared her throat.
"...I said nothing."
"You literally did."
"Don’t push your luck."
Atticus chuckled as her presence retreated from his mind, before forcing himself to refocus. Humor aside, the interaction was still on his mind. A girl with the innate ability to fuse things together, and another who carried a sword will.
’They’re both true willers.’
From the brother’s words, there was no doubt they had come for the resource wars as well. More than anything else, the brief encounter confirmed the sheer scale of what was about to unfold.
’I have to be ready for anything.’
With that resolve settling in his mind, Atticus let his gaze drift around the bar. Laughter and loud conversation still filled the space, but his attention fixed on a few very specific points.
"Haha... sorry boys. Looks like old Pounce won again."
Whisker sat at a large table surrounded by several mean eyed figures, all of them staring at him with hostility as he calmly gathered every life stone on the table into his hands.
"Everyone! Drinks on me tonight!"
"Whoa!"
As the cheers echoed across the bar, Atticus turned away.
"Ark—!"
At another table, Ozerra wore a wide grin as she locked arms with a hefty man in an arm wrestling match.
Veins bulged across the man’s forearm as he struggled to keep his hand steady, but Ozerra only laughed, steadily increasing the pressure until she slammed his arm into the table with a loud bang. Cheers and shouts echoed from the crowd around them.
Elsewhere, Ozeroth was engaged in a fight with several thugs, for reasons Atticus didn’t even bother questioning.
He sighed, shaking his head faintly. These were the ones he’d entrusted with gathering information...
Eventually, he returned upstairs to his room, fully intent on training until the competition began.
...
That night, Atticus kept the brother’s warning in mind, and surprisingly, it manifested in the form of multiple assassins.
The others had long since returned and fallen asleep, leaving Atticus as the only one awake.
He dealt with them quietly, efficiently, without even disturbing the rest. From what he uncovered afterward, they were assassins sent to thin the number of participants before the competition officially began.
It was supposedly against the rules to kill other contestants, which only made the need for the secrecy all the more apparent.
The next day, after wasting several minutes waking the others, they left the inn together and headed toward the location where the resource war was to take place.
The crowd moving in that direction was so dense that even without knowing the destination, it would have been impossible to miss.
Eventually, they arrived at a grand, circular structure standing at the very center of the city.
Ignoring the countless eyes drawn toward him as they moved along the inward pathway, Atticus listened as Whisker continued talking at his side.
"I’m telling you, my star actor, yesterday was brutal. Those gods? Absolute nightmare. I tried everything, couldn’t get a thing out of them."
"Yeah... same here, bond."
"Ozerra, on the other hand, had a great time."

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