Chapter 55
Pillarball. It comes in many different iterations depending on the ruleset one wishes to apply. But the most commonly played version, and the one the residents of Redwater favoured, used the standard Imperial ruleset.
The sport traces its origin back 300 years, from the allied nation of Bastet-Amun, which happens to be the birthplace of Meztili. The original iteration was more akin to a death sport than anything, though all participants were honoured under the gods, regardless of the outcome.
Nowadays, it was closer to magical football.
And although we played by the standard rules, I had managed to get an additional ruling approved, one which guaranteed me a solid team.
“There’s no way this is fair, he has a damned boar on his side!”
The girl with the black ponytail—Laura something or other—protested my choice of defender.
“Soot is a valued member of my family, and I would thank you not to speak of him with disrespect.”
I responded, smirking just enough for her to notice.
“You—”
She was about to yell, but Lloyd played peacemaker.
“Haha, come on guys, it’s been decided, so let’s all just have fun.”
She relaxed, but I added some fuel to get her worked up again.
“If you can’t handle the pig, there’s a cute little kitten over there you can play with.”
I nodded to Tiara, who was our pillar-guard.
In addition to these two, I had Felicia acting as offence, and Clara joining Soot in defence. Our formation was well-balanced and consisted of multiple unconventional players.
Compared to Lloyd’s offence-oriented formation, ours was a bad match-up. However, with our skill set, I trusted that we would succeed.
“Are we all clear on the rules? Best of three, magic and Gifts are permitted, but no weapons. We’re going by shattering rules, so it’s not good enough just to hit your opponent’s pillar; you need to smash the sucker to bits.”
Roland stood on top of the fence, declaring the rules more to hype up the audience than for our benefit.
The rules were fairly straightforward. Two specially made balls would be released into the arena at the start of the game, and they needed to be propelled into the pillars that stood on either side. The balls in question were made from the skin of a type of antelope-like creature that is known for its ability to absorb mana. The participants were only allowed to attack via these balls.
Sounds fair, right? Even if a mana powerhouse like Meztili were to play, the ball can only contain a certain amount of energy, putting a limit on everybody equally.
Well, sure, if we choose to ignore the physical force that could be applied in addition to the magical force. After all, there was no practical way to prevent someone like Lloyd or Axel from simply booting the ball across the field to smash the pillar from any distance.
That was why I hated playing this game with Lloyd present.
“Then without further ado, let the game… begin!”
Roland and Rose each threw a ball high into the air.
Lloyd crouched low, then with startling strength, he leapt up and caught one of them. Laura seemed to have a similar level of strength, as she was just a second slower than Lloyd, but that second was enough for us.
And by us, I meant Clara.
“Here you go, bro.”
The ball took an unnatural turn in mid-air and flew straight into my waiting hands.
I had already subtly linked my soul to Tiara before the game began, and with the grace of a feline, I weaved under Lloyd’s attempt to spear tackle me. Laura had landed and was hot on my heels, but even though she was faster than I, I had the support of a telekinetic sister.
I would simply throw the ball in a random direction, focus on dodging, and Clara would bring it right back to me.
Next to impede me was the girl named Sapphire. Apparently, she was a gold class student, though I had never heard of her before.
The ground turned slick with ice, forcing me to come to a halt lest I slip up. Indirect magical attacks were permitted in pillarball, making crowd-control mages valued players.
But I wasn’t the main offender of this team. I passed to my left, and Felicia blew past, snatching the ball out of the air and darting around the frozen ground.
Meanwhile, Lloyd had blown past Clara, who didn’t have any intention of physically doing anything to begin with. He jumped over Soot’s ramming attempt and kicked the ball right towards our pillar.
The ball flashed blue, then red, and finally gold as Lloyd infused his foot with magic.
No human could follow the speed at which the ball travelled in that moment, and a shockwave shook the hair of the enraptured onlookers.
“Ha! How’s tha—
Suddenly, the ball he had just kicked collided with his own stomach. The shock, combined with the physical pain, delayed his reaction just enough for Soot to hook the ball into his tusk and start charging across the field.
A small black blur floated over and sat on Soot’s back.
Clara chuckled as she saw my plan taking hold. She had just moved Tiara from her position as pillar-guard, and now the ultimate offence had been born.
Lloyd got back to his feet quickly, and with a burst of magical power, he navigated around the hurdles and soon caught up to Soot. He reached out to snatch the ball…
…But both it and the charging boar vanished before his eyes.
“Eh?”
His eyes widened as he watched this unstoppable force charging in a straight line, occasionally teleporting to ignore the obstacles that should have slowed him down.
Soot and Tiara made a terrifying team, and none of Lloyd’s harem were game enough to try to intercept them. Not that they could, there was a reason Axel wrestled Soot for his strength training in the mornings.
“Aaaahhh!”
The annoying blonde with the hideous laugh jumped out of the way as both Felicia and Soot came running at her. I didn’t know why she was chosen as the pillar-guard, as all she seemed to be capable of was running away at a staggering speed.
Soot had outpaced Felicia despite her head start, mainly due to Tiara allowing him to ignore everything.
He tossed the ball up and rammed his head against it, pushing it into the pillar. There was no magic behind the attack, yet the physical force alone caused cracks to form in the stone.
Felicia used Soot as a platform and leapt into the air, spiking her own ball down and shattering the lower part of the pillar, causing it to topple.
“Round 1 goes to team Rex!”
Roland announced the results, and a cheer resounded from the crowd.
We returned to our positions and each team huddled up to strategise while Lloyd’s pillar was replaced.
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Our huddle really just consisted of me praising everyone. There wasn’t any need to change things up for the next round. I doubted Lloyd even understood why his attack came back at him.
But even after we were all back in position, the others were still whispering. The formation they took next was drastically altered from their previous one. Most surprising was Lloyd’s role as the pillar-guard.
“Round 2, begin!”
Roland called out once more.
This time, both balls fell into our hands right from the start due to the others not even trying to get them. Felicia and I led the charge, only to be met with an onslaught of magical impediments.
Stone spikes on the ground funnelled us to a chokepoint where Laura awaited. Freezing winds caused our fingers to stiffen, making it difficult to keep hold of the ball. And then Beatrice summoned a series of lights that danced and exploded, causing temporary blindness.
I tried to clutch the ball firmly between my arm and body, but I still felt a force knock it out of my possession.
“Ah! No! Damnit!”
Felicia’s panicked yells suggested a similar experience on her end.
By the time my vision had returned, Laura and little Miss ‘ohoho!’ had already begun pelting our pillar.
Tiara was doing her best, using at the moment her paws touched the balls to redirect the attacks, but she could only do so much.
Soot seemed to have been locked down due to walls of stone that kept appearing before him before he could gain enough momentum to ram anyone. And Clara was being subjected to more flashbang attacks, preventing her from seeing where the balls were to regain control.
Felicia and I hurried back, but yet another wall of stone arose to box us in. The caster must have been the Sapphire girl, as she was still on the opposing side of the field, and Beatrice was clearly the one responsible for the light magic.
Felicia was over the wall in no time, to the point it couldn’t even be considered an obstacle for her. I tried to climb it, but a slick layer of ice suddenly appeared, and I could no longer find anything to grip.
“Heh… not so impressive without your little pets, are you?”
Ironically, her lame insult gave me an idea.
I rooted my legs a shoulder’s width apart and pulled my fist back. As I did so, I linked my soul to Soot. This remote soul-bonding thing was turning out to be even more helpful than I had initially thought.
I felt Tiara’s mana vanish from my body, replaced with the tightening of my muscles and a feeling of raw strength. With a single punch, the frozen wall was shattered, and I was on my way to assist Tiara.
A cold wind blew from behind, likely an attempt to further impede my movements, but my blood ran so hot in that moment that it would take a full blizzard to slow me down.
The rules allowed physical contact within reason, so while Felicia was body blocking Laura, I lifted the blonde up by the legs and tossed her over my head, snatching her ball out of the air.
Our pillar had sustained some damage, but it still remained standing.
I ignored the highly offended protests of the girl I had just decked and began sprinting full force towards Lloyd. Felicia took over as pillar-guard and held Laura at bay while Tiara rode my shoulder.
It was the same play as before, only with me playing the role of Soot this time. Just like before, no obstacle mattered when Tiara could just teleport us through everything, and just like before, neither Sapphire nor Beatrice was able to hold their ground before the beast before them.
Lloyd remained at the ready. He held a strange pose, with the side of his arm pointed towards me and held diagonally in front of him. It looked almost like he was treating his forearm like the blade of a sword.
I figured charging him probably wouldn’t go well, considering how confident he looked, so instead, I had Tiara teleport us straight up, where I could copy Felicia’s move and spike the ball downwards.
“”
Lloyd raised his hand, then brought it down like an executioner’s blade in front of himself. A pillar of light rose from his fingertips, and as his arm descended, so too did the light.
And as if that light carried a solid form, it caught the ball and shot it back.
Like his earlier attack, the ball moved too quickly for me to follow.
As I was still falling, I looked over to see our pillar shatter into a thousand pieces.
“Whoa! A full-field counter blow! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
Roland hyped the crowd up and declared the results.
“Round 2 goes to team Lloyd! We’re all tied up, ladies and gentlemen! Who will take it all?”
I landed on my feet with a sigh. Apparently, Lloyd had reached a level of swordsmanship so great that he didn’t even need a sword anymore.
“Haha, that was close!”
Lloyd laughed, but I simply turned my back to him and returned to my team.
Cleaning up the field and replacing both pillars would take a while, offering me enough time to reconsider our game plan.
Let’s see. The opposing force consisted of two dedicated spellcasters who specialised in sensory and movement impairment. There was Laura, who seemed the most athletic, not counting Lloyd, making her a good attacker. Then there was the blonde, who was still fuming at what I did to her. I couldn’t see much of her previous performance, but given the distance she covered between when I was blinded and when they reached our pillar, speed certainly appeared to be her main gimmick.
And of course, Lloyd himself, who could excel in any position. If he remained on defence like last time, I doubt any of us could break through. What was worse was his ability to strike our pillar from anywhere on the field, meaning a single misstep on our part was likely to result in our loss.
I couldn’t help but grin as various strategies ran through my head. It was just a game with nothing but pride on the line, but my opponents were all quite capable. Should the day ever come when I needed to face a group like this in real combat, today’s experience would be good reference material.
“I’ve got it…”
My grin widened, and as we huddled once more, I relayed my plan.
***
“Final round, begin!”
The balls flew high, but again, the opposing team did not make a move.
“Got it.”
Felicia lazily snatched both up, knowing nobody was going to try and stop her. She then tossed one back to Clara, who made no move to go anywhere with it. Instead, Clara sent it floating high above her head, at the maximum range that her telekinesis would allow.
Next, Felicia and I ran forward, careful to maintain a distance this time. The ground on Felicia’s side froze once more, and she quickly passed to me. Laura tried to sweep my legs out from under me, only to immediately regret the action as she found my legs to be as solid as iron, courtesy of Soot’s influence.
Getting past her after that was easy, but of course, those dancing lights appeared once more. There was a tell for when the flashbang was about to activate, as the light intensified slightly half a second beforehand.
In that window, I passed back to Felica, who had run along the fenceline to circumvent both the swift movements of the blonde and the magical attacks of Sapphire.
It was the home stretch now as we were right before Lloyd yet again. Felicia attempted to circle wide around the pillar as fast as her feet would take her, but Lloyd, with the simple act of side-stepping, was able to match her perfectly, no matter what she did.
So she passed to me on the opposite side, and yet in the tiny amount of time it took for the ball to reach me, Lloyd had already circled around and was covering me instead.
The rest of the team arrived to encircle us, and a ring of stone burst out to trap us inside. The moment our escape was denied, Lloyd lunged forward, and with a lightning-fast jab, the ball was knocked out of my hand.
Before I could react, Lloyd had already snatched it from the ground and had begun running up the stone wall behind me. More than likely, he was about to strike our pillar again.
Felicia followed his movement, trying to slap the ball away before he could launch it. But not even she could match his otherworldly movements.
And then…
A ball magically appeared in my hands, with Tiara sitting on top.
“Not a moment too soon.”
I smirked and wasted no time before bludgeoning the pillar with the ball, now infused with Tiara’s mana. I lacked the strength to break it all in one go, but the sudden noise caught Lloyd’s attention, distracting him just as he was about to launch his attack.
“What the?”
He even voiced his confusion while looking down at me.
Even so, this was taking longer than expected. If Lloyd launched his attack, even from this distance, he would secure victory before me.
A high-velocity projectile came crashing down at me, forcing me to jump back and give up my assault. There, in the ground, was a small smoking crater with Lloyd’s ball in the centre.
“Tia, go get your auntie.”
“”
She was gone in a flash, taking my ball with her. And not a moment too soon, as I was hit by a flashbang, a tackle from Laura, and icy restraints secured me to the ground. I was practically out of the game at that point.
“Where’s the ball?”
Lloyd came over the wall, looking around the area in desperation. And as I lay on my back, with the entire enemy team around me looking at the ground, I saw something amusing in the sky. A pink-haired girl was floating through the air slowly as she dangled from the ball Tiara had delivered to her.
“They must have taken it back to their side. It looks like they’re desperate.”
Sapphire suggested, oblivious of Clara slowly floating down behind the wall she herself created.
“Ohoho~, what fools, it’s just the cat and pig over there, even if they have the ball, what are they going to do?”
Blonde-drills laughed with plain disdain in her eyes.
“We haven’t won yet, guys. C’mon, let’s get our heads in the game and— what’s that noise?”
Lloyd’s pep-talk was cut short.
They looked around, taking a moment to realise it was coming from the direction of their own pillar.
“Sapphire!”
“Right.”
Lloyd called out, and Sapphire recalled the stone walls, causing them to sink back into the ground without a trace. And behind them was a pile of rubble and two smug girls.
It was a simple plan, really. People rarely look up without reason, allowing Clara to move the ball as needed over everyone’s heads. Tiara also rode atop the ball so she could deliver it straight to us once Clara put her within range.
Had Tiara just taken the ball straight back to Felicia, Lloyd would have intercepted, and the game would have been over. And Clara’s range doesn’t cover the entire field, meaning she had to physically move without being spotted as she approached the goal.
Lloyd’s shoulders sagged as he realised they had lost.
“Ahhh man… I really didn’t see that coming. Hahaha, nice work, you guys.”
I would have preferred that he act like a sore loser than keep up his nice-guy act. Seriously, how do more people not get annoyed with this sanitised behaviour?
“Oi. Let me go.”
I turned to Sapphire, who released my bindings with a snap of her finger.
As I stood and quietly brushed my pants off, I was taken off guard by the uproarious applause that met me.
I didn’t deny the pleasant feeling that washed over me. And seeing as we would be heading off first thing in the morning, this was a pretty good way to end things.
It had been fun taking this break, but truth be told, I was beginning to feel… unsettled. I wanted to know how Ada got on with disposing of the I left for her. I wanted to see how much further I could push myself in the Crucible. I wanted to embark on more missions and rack up achievements. I wanted to reach a point where I could beat someone like Lloyd for real, not just in a game.
My vacation was over. It was time to get back to work…
“Haha! My kids did it! He won! Suck on that, elder! HAHAHAHA!”
Roland was gloating in front of everyone, celebrating the end of Lloyd’s ten-year winning streak.
…But maybe this kind of thing was good every once in a while.
