I swam over to Giana because the jellyfish was starting to become a mass of water.

  Are you alright?

  “Yeah, just a bit tired.”

  Well, you sang and danced nonstop for 25 minutes.

  “I need to do better; I can't afford to rest whenever we get into a real life or death battle.”

  You’re being too hard on yourself.

  Giana cast something on herself to regain stamina. “So, what are you planning to do? Please don’t do anything reckless, at least for 2 more minutes, that's all I need.”

  That’s fine, not all my skills are reckless! Do you guys like ice skating?

  “What?” This question took the guys by surprise. They are water users, surely, they can ice skate, right?

  I connected to the leyline currents, strained and started [Water dragon festival] and made ice ramps. I started to surf on the water and slide over the ice ramps while throwing water dragons around. Since these weren't formed out of magic, the opponents had a hard time dealing with them. I weaved some movements of [Dragonvein: Stormy tides] in between, and the previously calm waters started to become rowdy again. The 3 allies were clumsily using the ice ramps I made for them. Greg was chilling in his bubble, but some people started to harass him.

  These assholes!

  I removed all the water around Greg so he could touch the ground. He responded by raising the ground to well above sea level and took his hammer out. I wrapped some of his opponents in ice balls and sent them flying at Greg. He took out his hammer, made it enormous, and smacked the balls away.

  Thanks, Agnis, that felt good! I got it from here!

  I sent one water dragon to assist Greg and used the other 3 to catch my allies who were having issues defending themselves against so many opponents. Not only that, but I let each of them ride a water dragon.

  “That is very nice of you to help them out, but how are you going to defend yourself now that all your water dragons are occupied?”

  Don’t worry Giana, I got this!

  “How about this? I take care of defense and you focus on offense.”

  I looked at Giana who smiled and put some funny-looking barriers around the 3 guys and me.

  Why do these look so funny?

  “They reflect light in a special way, look!”

  I looked at the guys who had that barrier on them. Because they were on the dragons made of water it seemed like they almost blended with them and looked almost invisible. “The reflections and refractions of the water interact with the barrier, making you seem almost invisible when around large bodies of water.”

  Oh, that is actually overpowered! Time to abuse this!

  I didn’t go into stealth but I made my presence thin and sneaked up on some fighters. With normal eyes, it was indeed hard to spot those 3 eyes. I needed a filter in my eyes to see them normally. It was nothing fancy, I just needed a filter that filters out polarized light. Now it's as if the barrier has no effect, but only people with special eyes had this luxury.

  “Where did he come from?!” They couldn't see me that well, but they could see the [Ice arrows] that I was shooting.

  “Is he invisible or what?!”

  “Not really it’s just hard to see him for some reason!”

  The opponents were in panic and I loved it!

  Giana started a song, and she sounded like a siren. She created a whirlpool around her and half of the opponents got charmed and headed toward her, into the whirlpool. It wasn't aimed at her allies but for some reason, I still got hit by it.

  “You’re not supposed to get hit by this, Agnis!” She removed the [Charmed] status off me before I got sucked in.

  Meh, charm attacks.

  I put snow in my ears and continued bullying the other half of the opponents. These were mostly women, although Giana also got a good portion of women to be [Charmed] by her and got lured into the whirlpool. The guys were putting in work now that they had a water dragon for transportation and Giana’s barrier.

  They created ice armor around the water dragon and made them look quite cool. They went hard on the designs; they also made some ice golems and were messing around, but it was working so that’s fine. The ice armor part was actually quite stupid because Giana’s barrier wouldn't make them appear to be invisible, but they didn't seem to care.

  The area become quite dark after I felt a surge of dark mana. I looked back and saw that Greg had enough and used [Edgecat]. An enormous black cat made out of shadows was absorbing the surrounding light and making it appear to be night.

  Oh, they done goofed up.

  I surfed by the guys and plugged their ears with snow. I also surfed by and plugged Giana’s blue fox ears with snow. The opponents were panicking and attacking the big shadow cat.

  Yeh, that's a bad idea guys, the correct answer is to concede or run away. It was swiping its paws and lunging at opponents, splashing in the water and creating enormous waves. But that was not its main use.

  Its eyes glowed deep green after absorbing enough energy. I couldn't hear it, but it meowed, putting everyone who heard it to [Sleep]. In a life-or-death situation, Greg would probably follow up with [Nightmare] or [Dream Eater] but I think he will leave it at this. Only one guy resisted the sleep and was looking around to see what happened, but that was a big flaw. An enormous hammer dropped on him and probably KOed him.

  Yup, he’s KOed. The [Edgecat] disappeared, and it looked like daytime again. Giana and I fished all the sleeping opponents out of the water to ensure we didn’t become murderers.

  You can’t attack, so you let nature deal the damage, eh?

  “Yup! It still isn’t that effective overall but better than nothing. Why did you get hit by my [Siren song] anyway? I made sure that you wouldn’t get hit by it.”

  Charm magic is my bane…

  “Is it that bad?” She blew a charm-laced kiss at me, and I had to shatter 5 illusion layers to get rid of it. “Oh, so that’s why you are so good at dealing with it!”

  Not sure if I’m good at dealing with it, I just have made it this far without becoming a love-struck zombie.

  “Don’t worry! You got me now!”

  How reliable...

  The golem team came running. “Hey, guys! That was awesome! What was that big black cat? It looked terrifying!”

  That’s what happens when you bully Greg enough, he will put you to sleep, give you nightmares and eat your dreams.

  The 3 guys that just approached us backed away from Greg .

  Relax it isn't as bad as Agnis says.

  Yup, it’s worse, anyways are you guys alright, you guys took a beating after the jellyfish dropped.

  Phil scratched his head. “Eh, it’s not that bad, we’ve sailed rougher seas, we’ll be fine.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Yeah, isn't the commentator supposed to announce our victory?” Cardo said while looking around.

  “I don't know, they have been rambling about the events of the battle for the last 10 minutes.” The other guy said while shaking his head.

  Imagine having 1 job and not doing it properly…

  I’m sure they have a lot going on…

  They finally announced us as the winners. They also made a comment on that they had to review the footage to determine which teams got knocked out the last. Another commented that the battle resembled a zoo. Sea snakes, jellyfish, and cats. I was slightly offended that they called my water dragons sea snakes, but I guess no winged dragons aren't as common as 2 winged dragons here on the Mainfloor. It's mostly the 2-winged dragons that cause havoc and such and thus are more popular and more widely recognized.

  Oh, another commentator guy corrected him. I took a mental note of this guy, he seems to know what he was talking about. He was interested in myths and lore and that he was very interested in Giana and her idol group for that reason. It’s not often that you encounter an idol group full of mythical creatures. Actually, the more I think about it, the weirder it gets.

  We got back to our preparation room while the event was coming to its conclusion. Raishin stormed in.

  That was awesome!

  Calm down, we’re a bit tired.

  Giana and Agnis don’t seem tired, only you!

  Agnis and Giana are monsters, I’m just a normal guy.

  Rude!

  “I agree and could you tone that energy down a bit Raishin?” Noelle seemingly agreed with Greg

  Huh? Why?

  Aand, they started bickering again. Noelle started displaying her venomous tongue skills and started roasting Raishin.

  Hey, Giana, does Noelle have a poison affinity?

  Giana looked at me and seemed quite confused. “No? Why do you ask?”

  She has quite a venomous tongue and is very good at making toxic remarks so I assumed maybe she could use poison.

  “As far as I know she can’t”

  We relaxed a bit and got a notification that the fishing adventure would take place in 2 days and that the participating groups had been decided.

  Hey, do you 2 mind if I sit this trip out?

  Yeah, that might be a good idea.

  Oooh ooh! Can I come in his place?

  Absolutely not, you will probably do something stupid as throwing a red lightning bolt into a cloud and zapping all your allies! You will stay with us!

  Yeah, please stay on dry land Raishin, we don't want to also fight our allies…

  “Heh, so you’re finally going on a date with lil’ sis?!”

  There are 27 other people on the boat…

  “It’s the thought that matters! Make the best of it! Yvonne, Gregory, and I will babysit Raishin, you two have fun!”

  I’d like to retort, but I’m not going to challenge someone who has mastered the verbal arts…

  “Hehe! Good! Come Giana, we have a lot to do before the trip!”

  “Huh, wait what?!” Noelle grabbed Giana's hand and dragged her away to who knows where.

  “Wait! W...wait for me! I...I’m coming too!” Yvonne followed Noelle and Giana

  They left.

  Sure, a big difference having a group twice the size now…

  Ahh, finally peace and quiet!

  Noelle would've kicked your ass if she heard that. Anyways I noticed that they make our team quite well-rounded. They seem to keep our personalities in check as well as complement our weaknesses in battle.

  Yeah, it's refreshing to see someone else than us grilling Raishin.

  Hey! Anyways now that they're gone let's talk about how hot they are!

  Yet you still refuse to accept Noelle on our team…

  Hot but suspicious!

  I’m not interested in this talk I need to rest…

  I need to figure out the exact details of this fishing adventure. You can tell them in their face how hot they are.

  Greg gestured to me and I pulled a random book out of my dimensional pocket, and he started reading while I got ready to gather information.

  But… the talk!

  They’re very hot, happy?

  I stepped out of the room and navigated to the narrator's room.

  I couldn't find anyone there. I snuck around some more, but most of the important people were in the public area of the arena. The event would end in 20 minutes and then the audience would leave. I wanted to try and get some information before this would happen.

  This place was enormous, and I had no idea where to look. I was about to give up when I heard 2 men speak. They seemed to have had issues with keeping people out that had bad intentions toward the idols, and that they were lucky that their appearance was quite unexpected. Because it was so unexpected, nobody could really plan something big.

  I expected that things like this would happen, but not this soon. While we have been battling in the arena, they have been battling behind the scenes.

  One of the men was quite roughed up, and he was smoking on a balcony looking to the outside of the arena, out to sea. “We can increase the security around the idols that stay behind here but what about Giana? What if someone aiming for her is within the victors? There is no way we can tell nor do anything if they're out on sea.”

  “Well, she seems close with Silver Torrent, but he is just one guy on the rowdy open sea, given the circumstances he might not be able to protect her at all times. Even if we gave him a warning, it wouldn't be realistic for him to always keep an eye on her.”

  The roughed-up guy exhaled some smoke. “Do we convince her to stay behind?”

  “She is a mythical beast or something, right? Surely, she can fend for herself?”

  “I don’t think that's the issue here. Even though she is retired she's still an important public figure, also physically she might be fine, but mentally it might be stressful to get attacked, no matter if you can fight them off or not.”

  This guy is smoking like a chimney…

  “Doesn't this make it more stressful for Silver Torrent too?”

  Chimney exhaled ring-shaped smoke. “Yes, but he’s a seasoned adventurer that's a bit different, you don't reach A-rank for no reason. It is still stressful, but he is more likely to make decisions that end up in success. Also he seems to have experience with oceanic quests.”

  The other guy leaned over the balcony. “What if we arrange for the trip to be sooner, anyone who had any plans will be caught unaware, increasing the chance that they will be unsuccessful. It will give them less time to relax though…”

  The chain smoker thought for a bit. “That might be a good idea, have you seen that last battle? Giana and Silver Torrent didn't break a sweat, that other guy who seemed familiar also pulled a big skill out like it was nothing, he did seem to have issues with water though.”

  “I haven’t seen it; I will watch the replays later. But how about the other participants?”

  “They're all citizens here, they are used to rough situations. I will suggest this idea to the others.” Chimney said as he was about to leave.

  “Jeffrey, wait!” The other guy grabbed the arm of chain smoker Jeffrey. Jeff turned around. “Wasn’t there a forecast that a storm might pass nearby tomorrow?”

  “They have been quite off lately, this isn't specific to here, it seems the weather is extremely unpredictable on this continent lately. I will suggest the idea but I will mention this storm.” The other guy relaxed and let go of Jeff’s arm. Jeff approached the door and I snuck away in stealth.

  That was quite useful information! I tried to find other bits of information but didn't succeed. The arena was releasing its audience, so people started to appear everywhere. It didn’t seem that I would find anything, so I went back to the hotel and decided to go to bed early, as the coming days might get exhausting.

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