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The Villainous Noble Who Kept Rewinding After Death: The Story Somehow Changed When I Committed Suicide

Chapter 179: The Main Event Begins

About the Changes

In Chapter 173, it mentioned that the tournament would last four days, but after recalculating the tournament bracket and number of participants, discrepancies emerged.

Thus, the duration of the tournament has been changed from four days to five. Thank you for your understanding.

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Having finished my discussion with the demon race man, I returned to the spectator seats just as Sonia’s second match was starting.

“Did I make it in time?”

“Welcome back!”

“Just barely. If you hadn’t made it, Sonia would have been mad at you.”

“Since I made it, there’s no problem, right?”

As Shuvina teased me, I took my seat and turned my gaze towards the stage to see her opponent.

“Who’s her opponent?”

“She’s a first-year student from Class C.”

“Moreover, she also seems to be a magician like Sonia, so to be honest, the matchup isn’t really favorable.”

“This time, I kind of feel sorry for Sonia’s opponent.”

As Iris and Sephiria said, her opponent was indeed a first-year girl from Class C, and just by looking at her magic power and control, it was clear she was inferior to Sonia.

And sure enough, as their match began, while the girl chanted her spell, Sonia activated her magic without chanting, and that was immediately the end of the match.

“Well, this is usually how it goes.”

It’s not that the other girl lacked talent or skill; simply being enrolled at Suzette Imperial Academy meant she had more talent and skill than her peers.

However, among them, me, Fiera, and Shuvina already had overwhelming prowess within the academy, and Sonia and Iris also possessed talents that wouldn’t lose to Fiera’s group, along with considerable current strength that positioned them among the strongest in the school.

So really, all I could say was that the other girl just had the misfortune of being Sonia’s opponent, which made it understandable for Sharueina to feel sympathy for her.

“Now, next up is Ride.”

The next match was between Ride and a third-year boy from Class B, and it seemed they were both wielding similar swords.

In battles with the same weapons, the key is the experience and how well one can read the opponent’s movements.

However, despite Ride’s talent, because he wasn’t using a magic sword and the gap in experience was apparent, he got effectively outmaneuvered by his opponent and ended up losing the match.

“This time, as expected, the gap in experience really showed. The heir of the Horstein family did his best, but since he wasn’t using a magic sword, it seems the inherent power difference came through.”

“Yeah. But surely, this was a good experience for him. He can work on it moving forward.”

“That’s right.”

As Sharueina assessed, Ride fought without his magic sword, effectively using physical enhancement, but still, the wealth of practical experience gained in dungeons by third-years tilted the scales too much against him.

Yet, despite losing, Ride had a calm expression, showing determination to improve for the next time, which made me feel he has truly changed.

And wrapping up the second day was our protagonist, Shudo, whose opponent was a third-year Class C magician.

As expected of a third-year, even as a magician, his positioning and distance management against opponents were quite adept, plus he accurately unleashed spells with shortened incantations.

Against that, Shudo infused a massive amount of magic power into his sword, forcefully brushing aside the incoming magic and attempting to close the distance.

It was quite aggressive, but no matter how many spells were cast, Shudo’s magically clad sword repelled them, and as he closed in on his opponent, he struck hard with his sword, knocking her out.

“What a fight that was—too much wastefulness, if I must say.”

“That’s true. However, that technique of coating his sword with magic power is a bit troublesome. If the magic gets deflected like that, it seems I have a poor matchup against him. I’ll need to think of some countermeasures.”

It seemed that Shuvina, being more of a technique-focused fighter, didn’t quite like Shudo’s reliance on magic, whereas Iris, on the contrary, felt it would give her a disadvantage and appeared to be thinking of strategies for when they eventually faced each other.

With Sonia and Shudo surviving to the next round as the second day came to a close, the main event on the third day was finally upon us.

Martial Arts Tournament, Day Three. The main event kicks off today, with the tournament bracket determined by a new draw yesterday, creating different matchups compared to the preliminaries.

On the first day of the main event, eight seed spots exist, and if you manage to get a seed spot, winning just once secures a spot in the top 16.

In total, 56 participants advanced to the main event, mostly including second-year students like Sharueina, while there were fewer third-year participants, and many first-years were knocked out due to the skill gap, resulting in a reduced number of students able to advance.

As for the tournament brackets for those competing, Sharueina and Sonia received seed spots, and Iris was slated to participate in the first match of the day.

Her opponent was from second-year Class S, but considering her abilities, she was unlikely to lose despite the experience gap.

If Sharueina and Sonia both progress smoothly, they’d end up facing each other in the semifinals, and it seemed Sonia was fired up about potentially getting that match, eager to win against Sharueina.

As for Shudo, interestingly enough, if he won the first match today, his next opponent would be Iris.

I was quite interested in how Iris would react when facing Shudo and what kind of strategies she would come up with for their duel.

The main event on Day Three began with Iris facing her opponent, who wielded dual blades and had impressive speed. She was initially thrown off by the match but adapted, effectively using water magic for defense and ultimately won without any scares.

“Iris, your positioning and movements against your opponent have improved since before.”

“Yeah. Especially at first, being a dual-blade user made you focus on using defensive magic while observing carefully, and once you grasped your rhythm, you cleverly drew out your opponent’s movements.”

Fiera openly praised Iris’s growth after seeing her match, and I also sensed that Iris had indeed improved her movements.

Additionally, her activation time for defensive magic was also faster, and if she hadn’t improved to her current speed, she would likely have been the one to lose this match instead.

(It seems this tournament has provided Iris with valuable learning experiences. She was intently watching the movements of the other magicians.)

Once Iris’s match concluded, Shudo’s match began.

His opponent was a second-year Class C student again, and like before, Shudo fought in a haphazard way relying on magic, swinging his sword forcefully to knock aside arrows shot by his opponent, ultimately closing the distance to land a powerful blow to his opponent’s abdomen, winning the match.

“Seems like today’s fight felt even sloppier than yesterday.”

“Presumably, he thought he could solve everything just with magic power. After all, he got through yesterday’s two matches like that, so it may not be surprising he gained odd confidence.”

“True that. Though his fighting style relies on sheer magic power, it looks like he’s not able to control it properly.”

As Shuvina said, Shudo’s combat was indeed a sloppy reliance on magic power, but holding such potent magic while still being new to it meant he wouldn’t be able to control it perfectly either, somehow making it a natural development.

“Not able to control it? Has he been slacking on magic manipulation practice until now, I wonder?”

Since I was one of the few who knew his magic had changed due to awakening, it was no wonder Shuvina questioned his lack of control.

The matches continued with breaks in between, and after everyone’s first match concluded, finally Iris’s and Shudo’s match was set to begin.

(Now then. Let’s see how Iris reacts. This should be entertaining.)

How Iris will react in front of Shudo is closely tied to our future interactions, so I settled in to watch their match closely this time.

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If you’re interested, please check out my concurrently serialized work, “The Former Hero, Now a Demon Lord, Devoting Himself to the World”!

https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16817330663836544021

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