The hot sun relentlessly baked the stone slabs of the Twilight Manor's courtyard. The hot air shimmered above the makeshift arena, distorting the silhouettes of the spectators and candidates gathered around. The roar of the crowd merged into a single hum, full of nervous anticipation.
In the judge's box, Raul Nord, having finally accepted his fate as a showman, flicked the switch on the magic broadcasting crystal.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Members of my dear Familia!" his voice, amplified many times over by the artifact, struck the eardrums of those present, instantly suppressing all other sounds. "We are moving on to the first team battle! And the right to open this stage falls to team number one!"
From the left, a quintet of fighters marched onto the sunlit arena in a neat formation.
"Give it up for them!" Raul professionally waved his free hand in their direction.
"A classic, perfectly balanced lineup! Three tough guys in the vanguard: a heavy two-handed sword for breaking through, a spear for range control, and dual blades for flanking maneuvers! And behind them—two lovely ladies armed with light rondels and bucklers, ready to cover the rear and support the attack! A perfect balance of offense and defense! No magic, just pure steel... I mean, ahem, high-quality training wood!"
The stands erupted in an approving roar. Team number one indeed looked solid. They took their fighting stances in sync, demonstrating a cohesion clearly practiced before the trials even began.
"And now..." Raul's voice faltered, and he swallowed, casting a brief, pitying glance at the opposite end of the arena. "Their opponents. Team number three!"
The silence that hung over the courtyard was more eloquent than any applause.
Onto the arena, marching in step, came them. Four walking mountains of gleaming, generously oiled meat. The Duga Brothers. They weren't just walking—they were posing in motion. Every step was accompanied by the flexing of calf muscles, every turn of the torso showcased incredibly broad definition.
"BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL!" barked the largest of them, sharply throwing his arms up and flexing his biceps so hard the veins bulged as thick as fingers.
"LONG LIVE YOUTH!" the others chimed in, striking synchronized "front double bicep" poses.
And right behind this absurd, testosterone-pulsing quartet, shrunk into a ball, stood Bell Cranel. He was as white as a sheet.
Right during their entrance, one of the brothers, smiling radiantly, slapped Bell on the stomach with his massive hand.
"The little guy's not half bad! Just look at this!" the meathead boomed, unceremoniously lifting the edge of the boy's shirt. "The muscle isn't bulky, but the fibers are dense! Like a steel cable! Respect! He's our kind of guy!"
"Hidden potential! Great definition, brother!" the second one chimed in, approvingly squeezing Bell's shoulder, making the boy squeak quietly as he felt his joints pop.
Bell was slowly dying inside. His eyes glazed over, begging the heavens, the gods, or anyone at all for salvation.
"Yeah..." Up in the stands, Raul Nord sighed heavily, making sure to cover the microphone with his hand. "Good luck, kid... in every sense of the word."
"You, I see, are starting to get into this whole judging nonsense, Raul," Rane noted calmly, propping his chin on his fist.
Raul flinched and blushed deeply, realizing his commentary had gotten a bit too emotional.
"I-I'm just doing my duty to the Familia!" he tried to justify himself, looking away.
Loki, lazily swirling her glass, snorted, sliding her gaze over the embarrassed adventurer and the unfazed Rane.
"Oh, aren't we sensitive. Maybe I should just go for a walk and leave you two lovebirds alone? You can sit here and gossip to your hearts' content."
"Ahem! The participants are ready!" Raul barked in a panic into the crystal, cutting off any further comments. "T-teams have taken their positions! The match begins on my signal! Three! Two! One! BEGIN!"
The sound of a gong shattered the air.
Team number one acted strictly by the book. The spearman lunged, trying to keep his distance, the swordsman drew back for a heavy strike, and the guy with the dual blades dashed for the flank. The girls prepared to back them up.
But the textbooks didn't account for the Duga Brothers factor.
The meatheads didn't use weapons. They simply roared in unison and charged forward with the grace and inevitability of rolling boulders.
It had nothing to do with tactics. It looked more like an avalanche. When the spearman tried to poke the giant running at him, the wooden tip simply slid off the oiled pectoral muscles. The next second, the meathead just slammed his chest into him, sending the guy flying three meters backward like a rag doll.
The two-handed sword landed with a dull thud on the second brother's shoulder. He didn't even wince; he just smiled radiantly, baring perfect white teeth, and, closing his bear hug, simply lifted the swordsman into the air, gently but inevitably carrying him out of bounds. The third guy was swept away by a simple wave of a hand, looking more like someone swatting a pesky fly.
The remaining two girls froze in terror. Advancing on them, wiggling their eyebrows, gleaming with sweat, and smiling with all thirty-two teeth, were mountains of flesh, periodically striking bodybuilding poses.
"Beauty requires strength, young ladies!" boomed one of the brothers, flexing his triceps right in the pale swordswoman's face.
The girls' psyches broke. With screams of genuine terror, they dropped their bucklers, turned, and ran out of the arena in tears, covering their faces with their hands.
The battle was over in less than a minute.
The entire time, Bell Cranel had stood at his starting spot. He hadn't taken a single step. His training sword pointed forlornly at the ground.
"The winners are... team number three," Raul squeezed out.
A second of silence hung in the judge's box, broken only by the fading sobs of the losing girls.
"Well, well..." Loki leaned back in her chair, baring sharp fangs in a smirk. "Your runt really is a lucky one, huh? Didn't even lift a finger, and the win is in the bag. What unbelievable, annoying luck."
"Luck is also a form of strength, Loki-sama," Rane noted philosophically, watching the arena. "In the Dungeon, chance often decides the line between life and death. The ability to be in the right place is a useful skill."
"Oh, really?" Loki arched an eyebrow sarcastically and jabbed a finger toward the arena. "And you consider that the 'right place'?"
Rane shifted his gaze downward.
The Duga brothers were celebrating their victory. They were guffawing joyfully, and, without a second thought, scooped the frozen Bell into a collective, sweaty, rib-crushing hug. The boy's face disappeared somewhere between giant oily biceps and broad chests. For a second, his hand poked out, desperately begging for mercy, before drowning in the abyss of brotherly love.
Rane coughed into his fist, looking away.
"Ahem... Every rule has its exceptions."
***
While the other teams fought in the arena, Bell sat on a wooden bench in the rest area, leaning his back against the cool wall. Physically, he was completely unharmed, not a single scratch, but mentally he felt like he had been chewed up and spat out by some extravagant monster.
He looked at the Duga Brothers, who were enthusiastically discussing some bulking nonsense nearby. He was genuinely grateful to them. They turned out to be surprisingly good-natured guys, devoid of malice or arrogance. But deep down, the boy swore to the gods that he would rather clear a goblin lair solo than ever cross paths with them again. His psyche simply wasn't built for such volumes of positive testosterone.
To distract himself, Bell shifted his gaze to the arena. It was the match between Team 2 and Team 4. And here, everything was different.
Unlike his team, a real fight was happening here. Wood clattered against wood, the fighters maneuvered, pulling off deceptive feints.
Bell's eyes narrowed. His gaze lost its youthful confusion, becoming cold and sharp. In his ears, as if real, sounded Rane's dry, instructive voice from their long training sessions in the backyard.
Don't look at the weapon. Look at the shoulders and hips. That's where the momentum is born.
Bell watched the swordsman from team four. He made a wide swing, putting the entire strength of his back into the blow.
Stance is too wide, Bell noted mechanically. Center of gravity is shifted forward. Right foot isn't anchored. If someone hit his left knee right now, or just stepped into his blind spot under his right arm—he wouldn't have time to turn.
In the next instant, the swordsman's opponent—a nimble beastman with cat ears—did exactly what Bell had thought. A duck under the blade, a sweep, and the swordsman went flying into the dust with a curse.
Bell eagerly absorbed the information. He replayed the fights in his head, putting himself in the place of each participant. He noticed ragged stepping rhythms, wasted movements, unjustified weight transfers. What looked to the crowd like a beautiful exchange of blows looked to his trained eye like a series of gross mistakes.
"Hey, bro! Why so tense?" a bass voice boomed by his ear. One of the brothers walked up with a pitcher of water. "Relax, we'll tear them apart too!"
The meathead had already reached out to slap the boy's shoulder yet again, but suddenly froze.
Bell didn't even turn his head. He continued to stare intently at the arena, but the aura around him had subtly changed. There was no more embarrassed boy. A strange, heavy tension thickened around him—the silence before a predator's strike. The look in his red eyes became frighteningly detached.
The Duga brother blinked, feeling an inexplicable chill run down his spine. His hand dropped on its own.
"U-uh... alright. We won't bother you. Focus is important," the giant muttered and quietly tiptoed back to his brothers, casting puzzled glances at Bell.
"INCREDIBLE!" Raul's voice brought Bell back to reality. "Team number two secures a hard-fought victory and moves on to the finals! We'll give them a few minutes to rest, after which the main event of the day will take place! The match for a spot in the Loki Familia!"
When the allotted time was up, both groups stood facing each other.
Team 2 looked battered but extremely focused. Standing out in their ranks were two beastmen—that same nimble cat and a tall, sinewy guy with wolf ears, gripping a wooden staff. They cast distinctly wary glances at the muscle mountains of Team 3, but determination could be read in their eyes.
"FINAL MATCH! BEGIN!" Nord commanded.
This time, the direct battering ram tactic failed.
Team 2, taught by the bitter experience of their predecessors, didn't take the hit head-on. They scattered like a fan. The beastmen, utilizing their natural advantage in agility, began to circle the brothers, landing quick, snapping blows with their wooden weapons and instantly retreating.
Crack. Crack.
Dull strikes rained down on the meatheads' backs and legs. The wood couldn't break their bones, but it left painful red welts. The Duga brothers roared, trying to grab their slippery opponents, but they slipped through their fingers like water, exhausting the giants. Team 3's formation began to crumble.
In the judge's box, Rane, who had remained silent until now, leaned forward.
"A logical outcome. Excessive, hypertrophied musculature without proper flexibility is more of a limitation than an advantage in a fight."
"Come again?" Loki asked.
"Muscles need oxygen. A massive bulk needs a colossal amount of oxygen," Rane explained, watching the Duga brothers start to heave. "Bodybuilding is not a martial art; it's the art of displaying the body. They are sluggish, their strikes are telegraphed a second before the movement begins. Put simply—they're gassing out."
Rane's words seemed to predict the events on the arena. The brothers began to breathe heavily. Their movements slowed. One of them, making a clumsy lunge, tripped and left a huge gap in their defensive formation.
The wolf beastman instantly assessed the situation. He realized that breaking through the mountain of muscles was still difficult, but behind their backs stood much easier prey.
"Minus one!" he shouted, slipping under the gasping meathead's arm.
His target was Bell, who had been standing calmly in the back the entire time, keeping his wooden sword lowered. The beastman poured all his speed into the dash. He swung his staff for a wide, diagonal downward strike, planning to knock out the weakest link in one fell swoop and get back to beating down the giants.
"Watch out, bro!" one of the brothers yelled in panic, trying to turn around but realizing he wouldn't make it in time.
In the stands, Raul Nord roared into the crystal:
"Are we about to see the first elimination from Team 3?!"
Rane, sitting nearby, only smirked faintly and muttered quietly but clearly:
"Yeah. In their dreams."
Time slowed down for Bell.
He felt no fear. Only a ringing clarity.
He saw the beastman's tense jaw. He saw how his right shoulder pulled back, taking the balance of his entire body with it. The strike was strong, fast, but absolutely, monstrously predictable. Wide open.
Bell didn't back away. That would be an instinctive rookie mistake. Instead, he stepped in to meet it.
With a barely perceptible movement of his torso, Bell shifted to the left, stepping off the line of attack. The wooden staff sliced through the air centimeters from his body with a whistle, hitting nothing but air. The beastman, meeting no resistance, was carried forward by his own momentum. His center of gravity was irrevocably shifted.
At that exact moment, Bell's left arm shot up, rigidly blocking the opponent's wrist, preventing him from pulling the weapon back. And the boy's right leg swiftly kicked out from under the beastman's planted knee.
The leverage worked flawlessly. The wolf let out a strangled gasp, losing the ground beneath his feet, and began to fall to the side. The off-balance beastman started to go down, but didn't even get to touch the ground. Bell's wooden blade drove shortly, without a wind-up, right into the back of his opponent's head.
Thwack.
The sound wasn't loud, but the beastman collapsed face-first into the dust and didn't move again. A clean, instant knockout.
Bell lowered his sword, looking at the defeated enemy with genuine bewilderment. Why did he leave himself so wide open during that swing? flashed through his mind.
The arena plunged into absolute silence. The transition from prey to hunter had been too fast, too unnatural.
The Duga Brothers were the first to snap out of it. Their jaws dropped, but in the very next second, their triumphant, thunderous roar shattered the silence.
"DID YOU SEE THAT?!" roared the oldest. "OUR BROTHER TOOK HIM OUT WITH ONE HIT! LONG LIVE YOUTH!"
"LONG LIVE YOUTH!" the others chorused.
Fired up to the limit, forgetting their fatigue and pain, the four mountains of muscle turned to their remaining opponents. Team 2, having lost their strongest fighter and demoralized by what they had just seen, faltered. That was enough. The meatheads simply steamrolled them in a single, unstoppable surge, tossing them out of the ring.
And then they joyfully rushed toward Bell.
"Our hero!"
They scooped him up in their arms like a feather and began to chant, tossing him high into the air.
"BELL! BELL! BELL!"
The boy flew through the sky, his legs flailing, and his face once again took on an expression of absolute existential terror.
"A-A-AND IT'S A VICTORY!" Raul Nord, recovering from his shock, yelled into the crystal, drowning out the roar of the crowd. "Team number three snatches the win, showing us not only crushing brute force but also truly amazing, filigree technique!"
In the judge's box, Raul sighed in relief and flicked the switch, turning off the magic microphone.
"Phew..." he leaned back in his chair. "That was awesome! That move at the end... The kid's not half bad."
Loki didn't answer. The Goddess sat surprisingly quiet. She wasn't smiling, nor was she drinking her wine. Her face was serious, and her narrowed, cold gaze bored into Rane's profile.
The youth, feeling this heavy stare, turned his head. He exactly copied Loki's facial expression, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head slightly.
"Is something wrong?"
Loki ignored his mockery.
"How much did you know?" Loki's voice lost its usual goofiness. She spoke seriously and quietly.
Rane shrugged, his expression unchanging.
"I said from the very beginning that I was confident in my friend's victory," Rane shrugged. "But how exactly he was going to do it—that was interesting even for me to see. He learns faster than I expected."
Considering the matter closed, Rane planted his hands on the table, preparing to stand up. The fight was over; it was time to head down.
"I presume the circus is over now? Can we move on to the paperwork?"
Loki's lips slowly parted into a wide, predatory smile. She bared her teeth, and that same spark of madness that so terrified her dependents flared in her eyes.
"O-o-oh, no. We're just getting started."
Rane stopped halfway, arching an eyebrow.
"?"
Raul Nord paled and looked at his Goddess in horror.
"Loki-sama... is this really necessary? They already won..."
"I couldn't care less about that," Loki snapped.
Rane frowned in confusion, but then his gaze slid to the arena. Approaching the celebrating brothers and Bell, marching with a measured step, was a familiar figure.
It was that same maid. Her modest uniform hadn't changed a bit, but in her hands, she held a long wooden blade. And most importantly—her gait. There was nothing of a servant in it. It was a gliding step, devoid of the slightest hesitation.
Rane slowly shifted his gaze back to the Goddess.
"You don't mean to tell me..."
Loki burst out laughing.
"Since your pet rabbit is so damn good," the Goddess poked Rane in the chest, "then let him prove it in full! It's one thing to beat up fellow noobs without a Falna. It's another thing entirely to face the true power of my House!"
Rane narrowed his eyes, assessing the girl's aura on the arena. She was strong. Much stronger than anyone currently in the circle.
Raul sighed in resignation, realizing that arguing with the Goddess was useless. He flicked the crystal's switch again.
"A-attention!" his voice echoed over the quieted courtyard. "By the decree of Loki-sama... a final, bonus trial is being introduced! The winning team must hold their ground against an active member of the Loki Familia!"
The crowd gasped. The Duga brothers set Bell down on the ground, staring uncomprehendingly at the fragile girl before them.
"Allow me to introduce!" Raul yelled, his heart sinking. "A Level One adventurer on the verge of reaching Level Two! The merciless maid of our Manor... Carol!"