‘The old dogs are acting up, it’s plainly obvious to see that this match is rigged, ’ thought Dio as he watches the competition. Unlike the previous years where they divided each division by specialization and strictly evaluated them, this year they had tossed every engineer in a battle royal.
The quota had remained the same as the initial problem had yet to be solved. Resources, what’s the point of making more higher level engineers without having the materials to do stuff? The worst-case scenario is that these new engineers would take away all of their technology and immigrate to a solar system to make a name for themselves.
As for why and how did the others rigged the match, out of the remaining people within the match – 40 of them grouped up with the sole purpose of defeating Shizuka.
In the meeting room Dio was in he could see the gloating smile of pigs as they mumbled gibberish to their fellow brethren. Unlike the other organizations, Novera Corporation was reliant on having multiple parties to help democratically decide actions where the head will give the final decision.
Currently, the Ichihara house was under investigation which led the transference of the head position. Under normal conditions this wouldn’t have happened, it wasn’t that easy to transfer the head position. The only reason that it did succeed was that Dio wasn’t initially born in the Ichihara house.
The position of the head of the family must always be a person of pure blood unless that person has yet to mature. It was a rule that had passed down for generations, and Shizuka was the only one left that still had a trace of the founder’s bloodline, as for who would replace them, it didn’t matter as long as the bloodline continues.
Some experts argued that the rule was made because there was something special about the bloodline, but nobody knew, it was only based on the visible facts. Every single generation of the Ichihara line had produced a powerful heir, this caused the envy and desire of a multitude of families.
Everything was going to the rebels plans until a new factor had shown up. Luon, he was known to be the top competitor to the combat segment of the Alliance Tournament, the only important aspect to his engineering abilities was that he was being trained by Zekar. Although this fact did scare them a bit, they felt that it was impossible to win against 40 people by himself without having an NG-Arm. He was only level 67 without it after all.
Everyone was sure for the victory of those 40 competitors, except for Dio that is. He looked at Luon with a wicked smile as he muttered to himself, “Let’s see what you can do this time around.”
…
The next day came as the sunlight bathed Shizuka in its gentle rays. As it coated her with its radiance, she couldn’t help but wiggle around only to find her bedding to be really rough. Just by pressing herself on something warm and robust did she feel more comfortable. She found this feeling rather strange, it had caused her to wake up unwillingly only to find herself entangled with Luon.
She blushes in shame at what she had just done and slowly got up. Sharing the bed was a regular occurrence for siblings and friends, but excessive hugging and clinging was something that many people wouldn’t try to do, at least to their friends.
She looked at Luon who appeared genuinely asleep with a sigh, she couldn’t help but recall her father’s words when she was notified that this was going to be a rigged match. About half of the competitors were against her. The sole reason is that she would be considered eligible to inherit the family position when she becomes a level 3 engineer. In a normal contest she may have already advanced onwards, but if every examination were rigged like this, she would be unable to complete it unless she takes down nearly all of the other competitors by herself.
Luckily for her Luon was in the same situation, and he willfully said that he would help her out in a case like this. Recalling the scenes that happened yesterday, her expressionless face had a small smile, but it went away as fast as it came, she remembered that Luon had said that he encountered the group yesterday, if they were that close together a more trouble circumstance would soon appear.
She woke up Luon quickly and said, “Let’s go scout out our opponents.”
“In the middle of the day?” Luon asked as he found that doing so may expose their location to the others. However, after a few seconds of thought, he decided to go out.
The two quickly prepared themselves for the trip and left within minutes. It wasn’t that hard to find their opponents as the sound of their progress wasn’t secretive at all. In fact, they had developed a fortress in the middle of the forest. From a distance, one could see trees shattering under the force of robots being led by humans.
Luon thought, ‘Those monsters, to think they would work overnight? Where is the slave labor laws when you need them.’
The astounding performance of the enemies team had shocked him, but at the same time gave him an opportunity. If all of the enemies were concentrated on one spot, then he wouldn’t have to search for all of his enemies. The only problem was that there was just too many to deal with, he needed to take them out one by one. Fortunately, this kind of situation was still within his margin of error.
However, to accomplish this daunting task he needed weapons and ammunition, and with his limited supply he could only inflict minor damage to their opponents economy. Luon looked around, and his eyes brightened. He relayed his plans to Shizuka, and the two got into action. Luon wasn’t able to fight them head-on, but if they continued to divide their forces, nothing was stopping him from causing havoc.
The two set a series of cameras surrounding the enemy camp, without the alarm mechanism, and they linked the visual displays to their BMPU so they could find out when their enemies will depart for resources.
The two assaulted their enemies resource gathering groups causing the death of nearly half of their human resources and the majority of their robotic army. Without resources how are they able to maintain food supply? Make robots and weapons? Luon and Shizuka looted every convoy that came out no matter the size. Sometimes they weren’t able to make just one attack, sometimes it would take two or three to destroy a battalion.
The priority of their assault was aimed towards humans, if they weren’t able to eliminate the force, they would set the food on fire, and kill as many humans as possible before departing, their days were filled with an extensive amount of strenuous and stressful exercise.
Fortunately, because their opponents were doing all the gathering for them, Luon and Shizuka didn’t have to worry about food or weapons. All they had to do was wait for their opponents to do work for them.
Sure enough the movements the group did change, a large force consisting of all of their forces came out. Shizuka and Luon separated into two groups, Shizuka went to make sure their opponents base was inhabitable while Luon tried to do the most damage he could to the force outside.
As for what he did, it was merely what he specialized in. From a distance, one could see a series of explosives causing a large amount of damage to the large convoy. From Luon tossing bombs at them to them running into land mines, this day had created the most damage to their opponent’s forces.
“Let’s go back,” said their leader disappointingly although they did manage to obtain some food and materials they weren’t able to chase after Luon and Shizuka who kept using the terrain to their own advantage. They felt cornered and boxed in a forest that gave them the very representation of death.
By the time they arrived back at their headquarters many of them couldn’t help but feel glad to be home. Just as they opened the door, an enormous explosion rang, it decimated half of the group and completely shattered the fortress. Shizuka had rigged their base with explosives when they were out and occupied by Luon’s attacks. As for how she got in, with nobody guarding it nothing was stopping her from accomplishing so.
The days after this became worse for the group, they were forced to starve and feel cold from the rain due to their lack of shelter.
Why couldn’t they just have a regular competition? What’s with this survival island business? At this point, many of them began to argue against one another on the entire design of the competition. They needed to vent out their frustration somewhere, they were hungry, stressed, and saddened by how the whole competition went so far.
At some point, the verbal argument got physical as they started to push each other around, and when people horse around in a workshop like an environment, accidents happen quite often. One of the men who was vigorously pushed was impaled into a loose piece of mental causing him to scream in agony. With that as the starting signal, fights broke out as many others used their robots and whatever weapon they had to deal with each other. The leader who was away at the moment came to the brutal sight of infighting between his men, he screamed, “Stop! Stop fighting against each other!”
He realized something was wrong, despite his remarks he was unable to calm his men down. The bloodlust had overwhelmed them as all their negative feelings came to light. At this moment, one of his men walked towards him and said, “Boss, why did things turn out like this.”
Seeing how one of his men was still sane, he smiled wryly as he said, “I’m not sure, but I think we can still scavenge this situation despite how bad it is. Now let’s work together to get things fixed.”
He nodded as he said, “Let’s go inside and grab the speaker first, it would be easier to calm them down if we had it.”
The leader suddenly recalled that they had one and said, “Alright, you stay here for a bit I’ll go get it.”
However, just as he turned around he felt the pain coming from his stomach, he looked below and found a blade stabbing right through him. As he slowly turned around his eyes met with the subordinate he was just talking to. He raised one of his arms and covered his face with his hand, he tore off the skin, which transformed into a mask. Beneath all of it was Luon, who smiled as he had snuck into the group and eliminated them. The task was daunting, but it was possible because they were too stressed at the situation.
The blade came out just as smooth as it went in, blood gushes out as Nizer found himself lying dead on the ground. He was just a small fry whose name didn’t matter to anyone at all until the end.
The match soon ended with Luon and Shizuka passing the examination.
