Chapter 2176 – The First Harem Tournament 16 – An Outside View [Citizen POV]

Elijah was just a guy.

The only way he was outstanding was the fact that the Lorylim War had barely influenced his life. By happenstance of fate or due to effective countermeasures that he was unaware of, his town had evaded infiltration. All of his family, a fairly small one, had been in the same area. When the mass draft happened, they had been stuck into supply roles. None of them had Innate Abilities and what little magic they had learned was only useful for food cultivation.

Wider effects of the conflict had eventually reached him. The restructuring of the economy and the shifting prices of everything, the mourning, the national shock and the aftermath of suddenly switching from a republic to an empire. Elijah had no thoughts on that whatsoever. He hadn’t been engaged in politics before and he wasn’t after.

Why was he at this ‘Harem Tournament’? Because he had wanted to do something with his life. Elijah was just a guy and like most guys he wanted to be part of something bigger. The announcement that Eureka was going to be developed into the new capital of Fusion was that opportunity for him to get involved. Perhaps he would just oversee automation in the Herb Garden, perhaps he would manage to run a small business providing novelty crops to the upper class or perhaps he would just be stacking bricks. Whatever it was he ended up doing, as long as he could say he was part of building a new city, he knew he had accomplished something.

The only problem? He had no one to say it to.

Elijah was 27. He was currently single and had been so his entire life. He acknowledged that he wasn’t exactly an impressive lad, skinny and of average income as he was. He still had some standards that the few women that had been within reach failed to meet. Whether his asks were too high was something he had considered. So far, he was under the impression that he was unlucky. Either way, he didn’t feel entitled to a relationship, he just would have liked to have one.

Trying to meet new people was partially why he was sitting in the crowd now. Alas, said crowd was largely made up of pre-established groups that were scattered about too large an arena. The only way to talk to anyone would have been to walk on over to people clearly sitting on their own. ‘Here I was hoping we’d be more crammed,’ he thought, glancing at the empty seats all around him.

The segment of the viewing area he was in was more amphitheatre than stadium. The sloped levels each held no dedicated seats, just edges one could dangle their feet over. Elijah tapped the side of the stone with his heels and watched the last of the military parade disappear into the side entrances of the arena.

The next fight was about to begin. Elijah had been there for all of them so far. He couldn’t pretend he knew what was going on in any detail. Even with the high-shutter playback provided by the massive screens all around, he simply had no idea what fighting of this level was supposed to look like.

He had been impressed by Scarlett’s robotic grace, terrified by Nia’s presence, awed by the sweeping tides Undine unleashed, impressed by the technical skill between Gnome and Metra, and felt all sorts of things about the fights since. Ultimately, he was entertained – entertained enough to sit there and ignore that his attempt at networking was falling through courtesy of a wrong assumption. If only the seats were close enough to initiate accidental conversation, then he at least would have a shot…

The two fighters of the round descended into the arena on a shared lift. They were clearly flirting the entire way to the middle of the enormous fighting pit. Audio remained cut, but the camera trailing them caught every moment of Salamander bumping shoulders and groping the passively receptive maid.

Elijah had once shortly interacted with Beatrice. At the time, she had still had short hair, not this messy ponytail she sported since the Divided Gates meeting. Elijah had been part of a small job to move the parts for the future mint into an assembly hall. He had not been part of the actual assembly.

He had liked the woman well enough. It was a bit odd to see the Gamer’s women in the flesh (or metal-based synthetic mimicry thereof). Not only because of how famous they were but also because they were… simultaneously down to earth and entirely different to regular people. From the way they dressed to their level of attractiveness all the way to how their eyes moved, there was something post-human about them.

Supposedly, that was just how high-level Abyssals operated.

Salamander spun the wheel, her tail gripping one of the pegs and then yanking the entire thing. The screens delivered a view of the two women standing across each other, the blurry wheel between them. An impossible shot, courtesy of the total lack of cameras hovering down in the pit. There were some up above, a supplementary mechanical recording working on top of the native purpose of the Building, no doubt.

The wheel stopped on the word ‘outback’. The compacted sand of the arena floor began to change into a redder, slightly rockier version of itself, with a few oddly round stone formations to mingle in.

“Yo.”

The word had Elijah almost jump where he sat. He turned his head to the man who had walked up beside him. Elijah had assumed he was just going to pass by. “Y-yeah?” he stammered, overwhelmed by the unexpected social interaction. “Can I… uh… help you?”

“No need to be nervous, my guy!” the man spoke with a bright smile on his face. He was a regular looking fellah, like Elijah himself. Mana running through their veins blessed them both with healthy bodies but neither of them had enough of it to entirely defeat certain genetic dispositions. Elijah was a skinny guy and this man was a bit pudgy by nature, especially when it came to his chin. All the same, he spoke in good humour. “We were just wondering if you want to join us? Totally understand if you want to stay alone though, the fights are cool.”

The ease at which this extrovert not only approached Elijah but also smoothly offered him both an in and a socially acceptable out almost made him go slack-jawed. ‘Is it that easy? No, no, it isn’t. Not for me,’ Elijah thought and tilted his head, looking at the group of guys behind the social creature. All men, but company was company. “I would… I would like to join,” Elijah responded with the honesty of a man that had lived long enough to no longer care if he seemed a bit overeager.

Elijah followed the scary extrovert to the group. The one who approached him was named Brad. The four others were Tobias, Paris, Tomford (or just Tom) and Tom (who they called Toto, for whatever reason). “I’ll have to re-ask you in like 30 minutes,” Elijah managed to joke, which was well-received enough.

The awkward phase of introductions was broken up by the fight starting. It was a booming beginning. Meteor met lightning. Shards of molten rock bounced off the inside of the energy dome, momentarily making parts of it visible at the point of impact.

“Right, do you want to get in on our bet?” one of the guys, Toto, asked. “Everyone but Tom bet on Salamander.”

‘Morons! Easy money!’ Elijah thought. “I’d also bet on Beatrice.”

“That was fast? Something you know that we don’t?”

“Maybe, I’ll tell you in a minute.”

The battle below was difficult to follow. This was true for most of these fights. They happened at a speed that their eyes could not really make sense of. Both Salamander and Beatrice were blurs of speed, streaking through the air. When Elijah focused, he could barely make out whoever his eyes were on. A boon of the distance between them. With enough metres between them, even a fighter jet could be seen moving.

Elijah stopped pretending that he could make sense of what he was seeing in the pit, though, and instead looked up to the screens above. They were desynced from the battle that was raging on, a natural consequence of the high-shutter cameras slowing down the broadcast to a point more agreeable to most people.

The fight was gradually transitioning into a melee. Lightning and rock were thrown back and forth as the finance minister of the empire and the apocalypse elemental got ever closer to each other. Even on the slowed footage, Beatrice’s motions were weird. She was moving both fluidly and in jagged manners, truly reminding Elijah of a robot in motion. Her excessively neutral expression only added to the sensation.

They clashed in the middle of the arena, one spear against six fists. Tails smacked into each other. Beatrice moved with clearly superior speed, but Salamander was determined to not make it easy, wielding stone and air magic to push the maid back.

“…Why is the fire elemental not using any fire?” Paris asked.

“Because Beatrice is immune to fire,” Elijah provided the answer.

“Oh shit, she is?” Tom asked and then laughed. “I just bet on her because I like the mediums more than the giant knockers.”

“Why the fuck is she fire immune?” Brad asked, his choice of words belying a calm attitude.

“Beats me.” Elijah shrugged. “I just went on a bit of a binge one day, watching videos analysing what we know about them and reading up some stuff that was in dispute. You could call me an expert,” he drawled the last bit sarcastically. “Generally, the maids are stronger than the elementals and Salamander is especially bad against them.”

Brad hummed. “Makes you wonder what the hierarchy in the… what do they call themselves now…? The Imperial Chorus?”

“Choir,” Tobias grunted and took another sip of his drink. He had been quietly watching there, mostly just listening. Elijah would have joined him in that approach, if he hadn’t been trying to endear himself to a potential new friend group.

“Imperial Choir… imagine having a harem so big and established, you’d need a special name for it!” Brad joked.

“You haven’t? What? Are you gay?” Toto drawled.

“Totally.” The extrovert rolled his eyes. “But, real talk, I did the same as every guy ever and imagined myself surrounded by hot babes every now and again. Never went so far as to think about a special name for them though.”

“If we’re sharing harem fantasies, mine usually stop at, like, 5,” Elijah meekly added. “Even the concept of having almost thirty women makes me want to shoot myself.”

The joke landed. While Salamander and Beatrice continued being a blur, the guys laughed. “Ain’t that the truth,” Tobias remarked at the end. “Got a girlfriend, Elijah?”

“Single, searching, but not unhappy,” he summarized his situation to agreeing grunts.

“We’re all in the same boat, except Tobias. He’s married, somehow.”

“Don’t know how that happened either,” the quiet man responded and downed the rest of his beer.

“Personally, I’d give my left nut to have what the Gamer has,” Paris weighed in. “I think. I dunno, his women all look a lot of fun to be around. Genuinely wonder how he found all of those.”

“Half of them he summoned or made,” Brad threw in.

“Right, but the other half he didn’t, so that’s still super impressive. I can’t even get my sisters to get along.”

“Assumedly, you aren’t pounding out your sisters’ brains at the same time.” Toto gave Paris derogatory side-eye. “Right?”

“Fuck you, man, that’s below the belt.” Paris smacked his friend on the shoulder and they all laughed some more. “But in all seriousness – I feel like I’d get sick of all the sex they’re having and that seems to be a lot of the glue, and also I don’t know if I’d have the patience to keep up with this many people just to fuck them.”

“Yeah…. Gaia, can you imagine the extended family situation?” A collective groan later, Brad continued, “Nah, I think I’ll get one woman, two tops if I am blessed by the Lady or whatever. Almost certainly just the one. I’m neither enough of a pervert nor enough of a social butterfly to pull the president’s moves.”

The conversation petered out there. They all watched the fight for a bit, grunting minor commentary about a cool swing here or an impressive move there. The battle moved towards its ending stages. Salamander was putting up an impressive fight, which only made Beatrice’s gradual movement towards victory that much more awesome in turn.

A final weave through the six-armed assault saw the passive maid’s spear pierce the armour of black, rocky scales that Salamander manifested in combat. Beatrice would have followed it up with a lightning breath, but the fire spirit surrendered before then.

“What do I even win?” Elijah asked.

“We buy the next four rounds,” Brad answered and then got up.

“W-well… least I can do is help carry them!” On his feet, Elijah moved along Brad before anyone could assure him he didn’t have to do that.

He hoped this would be the start of a long friendship.