Milady had never seen a warm-up match, but contestants rarely took even the official competition seriously, sometimes just laughing their way through it. So why would they care about a warm-up?
For the contestants from the great families, the outcomes—who won, who lost, who did what—were all predetermined. There was essentially no competition between them. Every year was like a performance, a smooth and perfunctory procession to the very end. That's why they could never think from the perspective of a true competitor. 'To increase my chances of winning, I have to use the warm-up match to lock in games that give me an advantage.'
'I have to seize control of the warm-up match before Luo Geng catches on…' Milady thought, drawing a circle around the event on her agenda.
「The week of pre-competition training passed in the blink of an eye.」
