Chapter 354: Registering For The Tournament [II]
The rough woman chuckled, reaching under her counter.
She clearly respected the unyielding nicotine hustle.
She pulled out a sleek crimson-colored carton of cigarettes and tossed it through the transaction slot.
"First one’s free for a fellow connoisseur," the receptionist winked, watching Evelyn snatch the pack with greedy vibrating fingers.
Silas stood perfectly still, watching the bizarre degenerate exchange.
’Are all heavy smokers this disgusting?’ Silas thought to himself, thoroughly repulsed by the entire culture of poisoning one’s own lungs just for a fleeting buzz.
The receptionist leaned forward again, resting her elbows on the counter and getting down to business.
"So, what can I do for the terrifying demon and the little fox?" the woman asked smoothly. "You two looking to register for the blood-sport?"
"Yes," Evelyn confirmed, slipping her new pack of cigarettes into her cargo pocket. "I am registering as the designated Manager, and he is my Fighter."
The woman let out a long dramatic whistle, grabbing a digital datapad from her desk.
"Well, that makes another one on the pile," the receptionist sang in a sing-song, highly amused tone. "There are a total shit-ton of you desperate bastards participating tonight... Word got out about the grand prize, and every slum-rat with a decent right hook wants a piece of the hacker. There are so many of you signed up that the Boss decided we might have to throw everyone into a massive free-for-all Battle Royale just to clear out the garbage."
Silas and Evelyn both swallowed silently behind their masks.
A Battle Royale?
That wasn’t good at all.
A one-on-one cage fight was predictable, easily manageable with basic footwork but a massive, chaotic free-for-all involving dozens of desperate criminals swinging wildly in the dark was a recipe for unpredictable disaster.
Stray blows, hidden shivs, and gang-ups were inevitable.
Though, despite the sudden change in format, Silas still maintained an unshakable confidence in his own physical foundation.
A few dozen street thugs wouldn’t break him.
"Don’t worry your pretty little heads too much," the woman continued, waving her cigarette lazily. "It isn’t like you need to be officially affiliated with any recognized Syndicate to enter the pit... It’s just going to be a meat-grinder of random unaffiliated people at first. After the Battle Royale concludes, the true surviving competitors will be shown the real bracket in the main competition."
She tapped her datapad a few times, printing out a thick piece of heavy physical parchment.
She slid the document through the slot toward Evelyn.
"This is the official binding contract with the generous Sponsors of tonight’s competition, the Black-Ash Syndicate..." the receptionist explained with her voice dropping its playful edge and turning strictly corporate. "Before you sign, you need to understand the five unbreakable rules of the pit. Listen closely, because ignorance will get you executed by the guards."
Silas and Evelyn leaned closer, focusing their attention.
"Rule number one," the woman stated, holding up a finger. "Null-stone bands will be clamped to the Fighter’s wrists and ankles. No mana can be projected outside the physical boundaries of the body. You cannot cast spells, you cannot project shields, and you cannot summon magical weapons... You fight with the meat and bone the gods gave you."
Silas nodded.
He expected that.
"Rule number two," she continued. "No external weapons of any kind... No hidden daggers, no brass knuckles, and no spiked boots. If we catch you smuggling steel into the pit, the guards will shoot you in the kneecaps and leave you to bleed out."
"Rule number three," the receptionist smiled wickedly. "Yielding is permitted, and it officially ends your run in the tournament. However... your opponent is under no contractual obligation to stop hitting you just because you surrender. Survival is your own problem."
Evelyn’s jaw tightened.
It was a true death match.
"Rule number four," the woman pointed directly at Evelyn’s Kitsune mask. "Managers must stay in the designated elevated viewing boxes at all times. If a Manager interferes with the fight in any way... throwing items, shouting magical incantations, or physically stepping into the pit... both the Manager and the Fighter will be instantly executed by the perimeter snipers."
"And finally, rule number five," the receptionist finished, tapping the contract sitting in front of Evelyn. "By signing this document, both the Manager and the Fighter accept that if either of you die in the events that will happen tonight, the Black-Ash Syndicate holds zero legal or moral liability for your deaths. Furthermore... as a registration fee, the Black-Ash Syndicate is legally entitled to automatically claim a fifty percent share of your combined will and accumulated assets upon your demise."
Silas and Evelyn both choked, practically spitting out their own saliva in shock.
Fifty percent of their assets?
What kind of flat-out shameless bureaucratic robbery was this?
If Silas caught a stray cybernetic fist to the temple and died in the ring, this grimy street gang would instantly become one of the wealthiest syndicates in the world with their money
Evelyn quickly recovered her composure and her eyes narrowing. She grabbed the cheap plastic pen chained to the counter.
’We’re not idiots and they know it too so why that clause...?’
Without a second of hesitation, she signed the manager’s line with a complicated fake signature, attributing it to a non-existent shell corporation.
She handed the pen to Silas, who cleanly forged a fake illegible scrawl on the fighter’s line too.
The woman smiled as she pulled the contract back through the slot, pocketing the paper efficiently.
"Thank you kindly," the receptionist said.
She pulled out a secondary, much smaller slip of paper. "Now, as the Manager, you really have nothing else to do until the fights begin. You can just sit back and place your bets. But as for your boy here... he needs a designated Fighter name for the announcement boards."
She looked directly at Silas, raising a pierced eyebrow. "So, what are we calling you, big guy?"
Silas blinked beneath the dark metal of his Oni mask.
His brain stalled.
He had not really thought of a cool, intimidating underground fighting moniker coming up to this point.
He was too busy dealing with Evelyn’s family drama.
He opened his mouth, trying to formulate something intimidating. "I was thinking some—"
"Onii-chan." Evelyn blurted out loudly, completely cutting him off.
The entire front section of the dive bar went dead silent.
Several massive scarred syndicate thugs turned their heads, staring at the petite woman in the Kitsune mask in confusion.
Evelyn’s face instantly flushed a bright burning crimson behind her metal mask.
She had still been thinking about the absurd festival game, the stupid romantic cover story she had fed the mask vendor, and her own lingering sibling issues.
The word just slipped out of her mouth like a cursed reflex.
"I... I think that sounds cool," Evelyn stammered defensively, crossing her arms and refusing to back down from the terrible naming decision.
Silas slowly turned his head.
He looked down at Evelyn, giving her a long judgmental look through the slits of his demonic mask.
’Sure...’
He let out a heavy sigh with his broad shoulders slumping. He turned back to the receptionist and shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
"Sure, put it in."
He wasn’t trying to sound cool or intimidating anyway.
Even though "Onii-chan" literally translated to a cutesy version of "Big Brother," he genuinely didn’t care.
He just wanted to punch his way through the bracket, grab Jax, and get this entire nightmare over and done with.
The woman behind the glass stared at them for a full three seconds with her lips twitching as she desperately tried to suppress a laugh.
"Right. ’Onii-chan’ it is," the receptionist snickered, typing the ridiculous moniker into her datapad. "I will add you to the official registry list. With you included, there are now exactly one hundred and fifty-five Contestants."
She placed the digital pad down, that being the only piece of required information.
"You two are clear," she told them, gesturing toward the door. "Come back here at exactly 1:30 AM... That is the time the first round of the Battle Royale will officially start in the basement pits. People that arrive at an earlier time will be given significantly better, more advantageous starting spots in the arena, so don’t be late."
Silas looked around the cramped smoke-filled bar.
This was exactly why so many dangerous people were currently sitting around here drinking cheap ale.
They had already registered, and they wanted a good early shot at securing the high ground in the free-for-all meat grinder.
"If you two want to rest your legs, we rent out small holding rooms on the second floor above the bar," the receptionist offered, winking suggestively. "It’s cheap, private, and you can pass the time until the fights."
"No thank you," Evelyn rejected the offer instantly.
The thought of sleeping in a bed owned by the syndicate they were about to rob was a disaster.
"We will find our own accommodations."
"Suit yourselves," the woman shrugged.
Silas and Evelyn turned away from the bulletproof counter, walking back through the thick haze of tobacco smoke toward the heavy iron exit.
As Silas’s broad back retreated, the receptionist leaned over her counter, shamelessly tracking the muscular taper of his waist and the powerful stride of his long legs under the dark trench coat.
She smacked her black-painted lips together loudly.
’What a hot butt...’ the receptionist thought to herself, taking another deep drag of her cigarette. ’I’ve seen a lot of them but this one is my type.’
Silas pushed the heavy iron doors open, stepping out of the suffocating dive bar and back into the cool damp night air of the Shogitown alleyway.
Evelyn stepped out right beside him with the heavy door slamming shut behind them, cutting off the noise of the syndicate thugs.
They began their walk, navigating the winding trash-strewn streets to head back toward the brighter populated tourist sides of the city.
It was completely silent between them at first.
The weight of the upcoming death match and the absurd number of competitors settled over their shoulders.
Evelyn finally let out a long tired sigh with a plume of white breath escaping the bottom of her Kitsune mask.
"We need to find somewhere to stay," Evelyn told him, looking up at the towering neon skyscrapers. "We have a few hours to kill before 1:30 AM, and we shouldn’t burn our stamina standing on a street corner."
Silas nodded in immediate agreement.
He was not a dumb person. He understood the implications of what Evelyn meant by that specific statement.
To just walk into a standard reputable corporate hotel in the commercial district right now would mean using their real official identification cards to book a room.
And who was to say that the Black-Ash Mafia didn’t have corrupted insiders or paid informants working the front desks at those pristine hotels?
The second they swiped their IDs, the syndicate would have their real names and faces.
Once the mafia acquired your real face, they could bypass you entirely and directly threaten your civilian family.
Putting Lia or Martha in the crosshairs of an undercity gang was not an option Silas would ever entertain.
Which meant their choices were severely limited.
They would either have to lounge outside in the cold dangerous alleyways until the tournament, or find a specific sketchy establishment where they didn’t require any official identification to stay.
They finally emerged from the dark winding alleyways, stepping out onto the main brightly lit thoroughfares of Shogitown just in time to witness the climax of the Moon Festival.
The central street had been completely cleared of foot traffic, cordoned off by thick velvet ropes.
Thousands of cheering masked civilians lined the sidewalks, watching the massive spectacle unfolding in the center of the road.
A breathtakingly massive and intricately designed dragon costume made of shimmering enchanted silk was weaving its way down the street.
It was operated by a dozen skilled synchronized performers.
The dragon was painted in fierce deep shades of black and crimson, its massive jaws snapping open and shut as it danced aggressively to the rapid, thundering beats of a dozen massive Taiko drums.
Suddenly, from the opposite end of the street, another set of performers charged forward.
They were carrying an equally massive, pristine white dragon costume, its scales glowing with pure pale luminescence.
The rhythm of the heavy wooden drums intensified violently, the booming concussive waves vibrating deep within Silas and Evelyn’s chests and the music swelled into a chaotic crescendo as the two massive dragons met in the dead center of the street.
They began a beautifully choreographed, aggressive mock battle, twisting, coiling, and snapping at each other in a dizzying display of athletic martial arts.
Sparks of harmless colorful fire magic erupted from the dragons’ mouths, lighting up the night sky.
"Woah..."