The orc's smile faltered at first. A subtle thing, barely a twitch at the corner of his mouth, but once it was gone, the rest followed like dominoes.
His gaze flicked from me to Salem and back again, calculating in that way predators do when they suddenly realize they might not be the apex after all. He gave a grunt that could have meant anything — irritation, resignation, the sudden memory that his laundry was still drying at home — and stepped back.
Then, without another word, he turned and sauntered off, the swing in his shoulders a little too deliberate, the way a man walks when he wants you to believe he's retreating by choice. I smiled sweetly at his back, just to make sure it burned.
The line moved forward, agonizingly slow, like the world's dullest parade. One step, then stillness. One step, then more stillness. I began to suspect the real tournament was surviving this registration process without collapsing from boredom.
Salem stood beside me with his usual calm, which meant he was either genuinely patient or had mastered the art of suppressing visible irritation to an almost supernatural degree. Rodrick looked like he'd rather be anywhere else, his weight shifting from one leg to the other in a rhythm that was starting to make me twitch. Dunny, meanwhile, was fiddling with something in his pocket and pretending not to be listening in on everyone else's conversations.
The man at the head of the line was a picture of bureaucratic exhaustion. Broad-shouldered, sunburned, with a half-grown beard that gave the impression he'd started shaving once and then decided to give up halfway.
His table was a mess of parchment, ink pots, and what looked like a small pile of mismatched armbands. When we finally reached him, he glanced up without any real enthusiasm, a quill dangling between his fingers.
"Name?" he said, the word worn down to its barest syllables by overuse.
"Callie Valenti," I said smoothly, letting the false name roll off my tongue like it had been there all my life. The trick to lying is to make it boring — the kind of detail that sounds too mundane to be worth questioning.
His quill scratched across the parchment, pausing only when he asked, "Magus rank?"
Ah. There it was. The moment in every conversation where I had to choose between lying boldly and telling a truth so strange it sounded like a lie. I hesitated — which, of course, was its own kind of answer — and the man's eyebrow climbed in lazy curiosity.
"Unregistered," I said finally. It felt like admitting to a minor crime in a room full of constables.
For a heartbeat, there was only the sound of his quill dropping back into its inkwell. Then, abruptly, he laughed — a big, unrestrained laugh that drew a few glances from the line behind us.
"Oh, I knew there'd be a bunch of crazy bastards signing up this year," he said between chuckles, "but you might just be the dumbest of the lot." I gave him my best breathless, noncommittal laugh in return, the kind that says yes, yes, you've caught me, now let's move on before I start making trouble.
He handed me a tattered white armband, the fabric frayed at the edges. "Wear it at all times," he said. "It signifies your rank. Or lack of one."
I took it between my fingers, already imagining the ways I could lose or destroy it by accident, and put it on. Then he produced something else — a bronze ring with a flat, black gem set into its face. It was plain, unpolished, the kind of thing you'd overlook if it weren't being handed to you with such deliberate care.
"What's this for?" I asked.
He didn't answer. Instead, he held out his hand, palm up, expectant.
I frowned. "Why are you holding your hand out like that? Do you want me to shake it? Is this a trust exercise?"
His eyes rolled in a way that suggested he'd already had this conversation too many times today. "No outside weapons or items will be allowed in the tournament," he said. "They'll be held by us for the time being. You can earn them back during the tournament with the help of a sponsor."
The word sponsor snagged in my mind like a loose thread. It was familiar — something I'd heard before, though the memory was too slippery to pin down.
I nodded slowly, feeling my heart sink toward my stomach. No items meant no pen. No pen meant… well, I didn't like to think about what that meant. Still, I kept my face neutral as I reached into my coat and withdrew the pen, holding it delicately between two fingers as though it were an entirely unremarkable writing instrument.
The man snorted when he saw it. "What in the hell is that for? Planning to write your opponents to death?"
I didn't bother answering. He wouldn't understand, and I wasn't about to educate him.
One by one, I surrendered the rest — my spear, the stopwatch, the revolver, Aria's relic, even Salem's book, though part of me suspected I wouldn't be needing it anymore. Each item felt like it took a little more weight out of my hands and a little more control out of my reach. By the time I was done, my pockets felt unnervingly light, as though I'd stripped myself down to the barest version of who I was.
Salem stepped up next, and for the first time all morning, the man at the table seemed mildly interested. "Are you a registered mage?" he asked.
"Yes," Salem said. "But I haven't graduated from an accredited university, so I'm still unranked."
I blinked. That was either the most mundane truth or the most elaborate lie I'd heard from him yet. Salem accepted a red armband with the same calm he brought to every situation, then surrendered his twin blades without a flicker of hesitation. If it bothered him to be unarmed, he didn't show it.
Rodrick was next — another unranked registered mage, which earned him a yellow armband and a mildly approving grunt from the registrar. Then came Dunny, who immediately announced, "I'm just here to spectate."
"Everyone registers," the man said flatly.
"I'm not fighting."
"You're holding up the line."
The exchange continued like that for a few rounds, Dunny's stubbornness colliding with the man's equally immovable disinterest. It might have gone on indefinitely if another man in line hadn't shoved Dunny forward with a muttered, "Just sign the damn paper." Dunny threw me a look that said I hope you're enjoying this, and I did, immensely.
When the dust settled, Dunny had somehow managed to have the highest rank of all of us — a graduated mage, though only at the pawn class. The man gave him a yellow armband and took his weapons with the same weary efficiency he'd shown everyone else.
Once we were all stripped of anything remotely useful, the man looked over us one last time. "Preliminary phase ends when there are sixteen contestants left," he said.
I nodded, already turning to go before realizing something important. "Wait — where's the venue for the preliminaries?"
"In the city."
I stared at him. "That's… not helpful. Where in the city?"
He stared back, his expression so blank it could have been carved from stone.
"Fine," I muttered. "I'll find it myself."
With that said, we begin to walk into the city.
There's a kind of beauty to port towns that always feels a little staged, like someone went through with a paintbrush and a very specific idea of "quaint" in their head. Port Fallas was no exception.
The buildings were a wash of light pastels — faded blues, soft yellows, the occasional pink that looked like it had been dreamed up by a romantic and maintained by a cynic. Decorative vines climbed their facades in lazy arcs, some trimmed neatly, others left to wander as they pleased.
Wires crisscrossed overhead with colorful triangular flags hanging between them, catching the sea breeze in occasional bursts. And above it all, the air balloons hovered like curious leviathans — their bright, patchwork skins lending the whole place a carnival-like atmosphere. It should have felt welcoming. It didn't.
That was because the streets were empty.
Not "early morning" empty, not "bad weather" empty — empty in a way that makes the skin on the back of your neck start looking for excuses to leave. The only other figures we saw were a handful of competitors trickling in from the gates, most of whom peeled off into narrow side streets without a glance. Their footsteps disappeared quickly, swallowed by the claustrophobic stillness. The absence of the townsfolk wasn't just noticeable — it was a statement.
"Where the hell is everyone?" I asked, keeping my voice casual but letting my eyes flick from doorway to shutter to shadow. "Already at the venue, probably," I said before Salem could answer himself.
It made sense. If you're hosting one of the biggest events in the nation, you'd want to get there early for the good seats.
Salem nodded thoughtfully, but his gaze stayed sharp. "That would be the logical assumption."
The logical assumption had a way of being the wrong one in my life, but fine. We decided the best course was to head toward the heart of the city — if nothing else, we'd find the venue by accident.
The streets wound upward in gradual layers, each turn opening into another stone arch or passing over a canal. Bridges connected rooftops, and every so often, I caught a glimpse of the sea through a break in the buildings — a wide sweep of blue that curled into the city's massive crescent-shaped port.
And then I saw it.
Right at the center of the crescent, built directly into the sea as though daring the waves to try something, was a colosseum. Huge, impossible to miss. The sunlight caught on its pale stone, and even from this distance I could see the intricate carvings winding up its outer walls.
Several broad bridges stretched from the edges of the city straight to its gates, the kind of construction that makes you wonder whether it was built by magic, sheer stubborn labor, or some unholy combination of both. It practically radiated importance.
"That's our target," I said, and everyone seemed to agree.
We made our way in that direction, but somewhere between "this is a straight shot" and "I swear we've passed this plaza before," the streets decided to play tricks on us.
We ended up in what I think was the market district — long rows of wooden stalls, many draped with faded canvas awnings, all completely deserted. The silence here was worse somehow.
Marketplaces are supposed to be alive: voices haggling, feet shuffling, the occasional crash of something fragile meeting its end. Instead, we had empty counters and the faint creak of fabric shifting in the wind.
"Still no one," Rodrick muttered, glancing toward a shuttered window.
I peered into the houses as we passed, knocking once on a door for good measure. No answer. Even the main plaza — wide and open, dominated by a dry fountain whose sculpted mermaids had seen better centuries — was lifeless.
"This is…" I trailed off, because Dunny was leaning over a fruit stand, poking at something that looked suspiciously like an overripe pear.
"What?" he said when he caught me staring. "They're not using it. It's gonna go bad."
I was about to make some sarcastic remark about priorities when it hit me. A twisting, ugly pull deep in my gut — the kind of feeling you don't argue with because it's been right every single time. Something was wrong here. Not just odd, not just eerie. Wrong.
And then, faint but carrying on the still air, the bells began.
Not one bell — dozens. The sound came fractured, echoing from different points around the city, sometimes overlapping, sometimes fading in and out as if they were caught on the wind. The tone was deep, resonant enough to vibrate in my chest, and there was no mistaking the meaning. This was a signal. A beginning.
"Shit," I muttered. "That's it. That's the start."
"We're not even at the venue," Rodrick said, his voice flat in that way that meant panic was about three seconds away from setting in.
Salem's head turned sharply, his eyes going wide — wider than I think I'd ever seen them. "Cecil," he said, and his voice was so quiet I had to lean in to hear it. "Those people in the tents outside… they weren't visitors."
It took a second for the implication to land. "What?"
"They were the townsfolk."
My brain did the math. It didn't like the sum it came up with. "No," I said automatically, because sometimes you have to let your mouth get the denial out first before your brain can start screaming.
"Yes."
It hit me like a drop in an elevator — that sudden, stomach-lurching certainty. "You mean to tell me…"
"Yes."
"…that the entire goddamn town—"
"Yes."
"—is the venue for the preliminary phase?"
"Yes."
I wanted to laugh. I didn't. Mostly because the ring on my finger, the one given to us at registration, chose that exact moment to click — a crisp, mechanical sound that drew my eyes down to its black surface. A number glowed there, faint but unmistakable: three hundred sixty-seven.
"Wonderful," I said under my breath.
Rodrick's voice cut through my rising thoughts. "Hey guys, I think I found something!"
I turned just in time to see him waving from a spot near one of the buildings, smiling like he'd just stumbled across a shortcut.
"Rodrick—!" Salem started, but it was too late.
Just then, the building beside him erupted. There's no polite way to describe it — it didn't just collapse, it detonated. Dust and splinters burst outward in a cloud, and from the heart of that chaos came something that made me want to hurl.
The figure was massive — easily seven feet if not more — bald, with skin stitched together like someone had been assembling a man from spare parts. It's surface was pale where it wasn't mottled, thick seams running across his chest and arms in uneven patterns. He wore nothing but a dark loincloth, the simplicity of it making him look even more inhuman. And in his hands… gods. An iron maul, big enough that I could have barely lifted it, let alone swing it with the casual confidence he did.
He was on Rodrick in a blink.
The maul came down in a sweeping arc that seemed to tear the very air apart, a black blur followed by a soundless instant of dread. Then it struck. Rodrick's armor didn't dent — it burst, shattering with a sound like a cathedral window exploding under a warhammer.
Bone gave way beneath it, the impact forcing a wet, tearing crunch from somewhere deep in his body. A crimson spray burst from his side in a sudden, violent bloom, the droplets catching the light before spattering across the cobblestones.
He made a single, rasping cough — a thick ribbon of blood rolling from his mouth — and then the force of the blow hurled him across the plaza like a rag doll, his body slamming into the opposite wall with a sickening, meaty whump that cracked the stone and left a dark smear sliding down its face.