A Wonderful Aspect of Autumn: Action (23)

In the individual division of the arena tournament, Genzou advanced to the finals with overwhelming momentum. Aside from his first match, which had been strangely intense, he had been his usual self in every battle since then.

His opponent in the finals was a dual-wielding swordsman I recognized. If I remembered correctly, he had also reached the finals of the first arena tournament, only to narrowly finish as the runner-up.

"Since it's the finals, it's only natural that his opponent would be a formidable one. Still, I doubt he can beat Genzou."

"No, we won't know what will happen until the match begins, will we? There have been a few close calls already."

I made an optimistic prediction, but Eiji denied it. He was right, though. Even with Genzou's skill, there had been two or so moments when things had looked dangerous.

The warrior clad in full-body metal armor, a type similar to Eiji, used a special tower shield that automatically fired a beam of light as a counterattack whenever it blocked an attack. That player was extremely skilled with the shield and had blocked Genzou's sword again and again.

Conversely, the player wearing nothing but a leather breastplate and a dagger vanished the instant he pulled a cloak over himself. We had a ship capable of optical camouflage that we had captured when fighting pirates, and apparently this player could do the same thing. On top of that, he attacked with a blowgun he had kept hidden.

Against the heavily armored player, Genzou accepted a certain amount of damage from the counterattacking light while using a clever mixture of feints and genuine attacks to slip past his defenses and pierce a vital point through a gap in his armor. Against the optical camouflage user, he deflected the opening blowgun dart with his horn, then devoted himself to waiting until he baited his opponent into attacking. When the player finally leaped at him after losing patience, Genzou cut him down.

He had also fought a muscular hulk who apparently had a score to settle with Nobutsuna. This was the opponent who had defeated Toji. According to Eiji, he was another famous PK like Nobutsuna, named Ragou of the 'Fist Saint Society.' It was a clan made up of users of 【Martial Arts】, and because its name and policies resembled those of Nobutsuna's clan, the two were constantly at odds.

Genzou had ruined the chance for them to face each other directly, but Ragou took it positively, believing that defeating Genzou would prove he was the stronger of the two. Genzou, on the other hand, did not seem to be enjoying himself as much as he had during his other battles. There was only one reason for that: Ragou was an inferior version of Jigoro...