Two days after tournament registration, the first preliminaries began.
In the first preliminary round, Groups A through G were each subdivided into ten blocks of around one hundred participants. To advance, a competitor simply had to seize three red armbands from the right arms of other participants. It was as straightforward as that.
The gong sounded. I stood still and observed the chaos unfolding before me for a moment, and what I witnessed was, in a sense, truly astonishing.
Some raised spirited battle cries without taking a single step; others shrieked bizarrely while wildly flailing wooden swords; still others simply unleashed magic indiscriminately. It was utter pandemonium.
"Is this the elementary division's first recital?"
I managed to find words for the indescribable scene, though hardly clever ones. Frankly, even the elementary division was likely more composed than this.
"There he is!"
Three youths—two boys and a girl—surrounded me. They had likely pegged me as an easy mark on my own, but since I hadn't made a move yet, I only possessed a single armband. What was the point of three people ganging up on me? Besides, to their knowledge, I was supposed to be the weakest, most incompetent failure here. Just how cowardly were they?
"Nowhere left to run!"
A boy with shoulder-length hair leveled the tip of his wooden sword at me.
His stance was a mess, and his weight distribution was utterly atrocious. He was practically a novice. Had my peers always been this unrefined?
Then again, subjectively speaking, that was a hundred thousand years ago. It was only natural that my recollections might be flawed.
At any rate, I had no desire to draw a blade against clumsy children. It was best to bring this tedious child's play to a swift end.
"I'm taking him first!"
"Screw off, he's mine!"
I casually stepped toward the trio as they comically bickered right before their opponent's eyes.
"Wha—?!"
Right under their noses, I clapped both palms together. Using that split-second opening, I snatched the red armbands from all three of their arms and stepped out of the martial ring.
"Th-That incompetent bastard forfeited!"
"Coward!"
"That's right! Fleeing before the enemy—how shameless can you get?!"
Ignoring the laughable clowns who had yet to realize they had already lost, I walked over to an official in a tent at the edge of the arena and handed over the three armbands.
"Kai Heinemann, Number 6032. That clears the requirement, doesn't it?"
"..."
The official looked between me and the ring, eyes wide in utter disbelief, before finally responding.
"You pass."
He immediately began recording the result in the ledger.
Well, with that out of the way, I might as well head straight back to Rose and the others.