The D-Rank Guild Master of the No. 1 Guild

There were still more than half of the matches left to finish.

With nearly 80 one-on-one matches taking place, we spectators began to grow weary. However, this was a necessary event. 

With the inclusion of the second generation, it was essential to formally introduce all major characters to the real-world viewers. 

This duel was created for that purpose.

As I watched leisurely, without any particularly formidable opponents to worry about, a familiar name flashed on the screen. 

I straightened up and focused for the first time in a while.

Jail.

It had been a long time since I had seen him, not since the first-generation headhunting battle.

Back then, when I caused all that commotion to save the lower-ranked Akata, Jail, with his S-rank base stats, received love calls from most guilds and even a kiss from Shemarin, making him a notable figure.

Since then, there had been no news of him.

Had he joined some lower-ranked guild?

I heard he was incredibly lazy, so what had brought him to the arena now?

Come to think of it, didn’t they say that with the increased number of participants, the number of guilds eliminated this quarter would also increase?

Faced with the threat of guild dissolution, even that man must have had no choice.

“Sigh.”

In the sacred duel arena, the man sighed heavily, as if truly burdened by this nuisance.

His eyes, dark with heavy circles, were filled with lethargy.

Given his character as the laziest player in the game, it seemed he would rather drop dead than run around busily.

He probably only showed up because the nagging from his guild members was more annoying.

Then I noticed Shemarin in the spectator stands.

It was an unusual sight. Her cheeks were flushed as she received a megaphone from the male guild member beside her.

“Jail~! Fight on!!”

It was surprising to see this elegant and sly woman shouting energetically like a character from a youthful manga.

In that moment, I clearly saw it.

The man in the arena flinched, his intense eyes twitching, and his fingers trembled slightly.

“…”

He didn’t even glance at Shemarin in the stands, nor did he respond.

However, his face showed a slight distraction, starkly different from the focused look he had when taking down field wolf mobs in old videos.

Even so, he quickly knocked his opponent down with astonishing speed. With just one punch, the overwhelming strength of his S-rank left his opponent dead from a concussion.

[Wow, indeed the strongest man in terms of brute strength, right? He doesn’t seem to need a unique ability! Is that why Jail still has an E-rank unique ability from the headhunting battle? Was it not even worth developing? Impressive!]

Is there really a character who still has an E-rank unique ability? That’s practically a cultural relic.

That means he never once used it in the training grounds? Oh, he probably never trained at all.

He’s a real idler through and through.

But with a body like a biological weapon, if he put his mind to it, he’d excel in… night activities better than anyone.

Which would make him a perfect match for a capable and highly desirous woman…

What am I even thinking?

This is all Shemarin’s fault. Feeling ashamed, I lightly slapped my cheeks.

The second half of the dueling tournament began.

I watched as familiar faces passed by. Lesia had already finished her match, and now it was Yudirei Guild’s turn.

Unbelievably, before the match started, she was seen gathering her guild members and scolding them.

“You pathetic brats. If you lose, you better know you’ll be dead meat in the training grounds.”

“Yes, yes!”

Was Yudirei actually ‘training’ her guild members?

Judging by their pale faces and trembling, the training must have been hellish…

‘But thanks to that, a first-generation guild finally won a duel.’

The match went very smoothly for once.

Even if the teamwork was lacking, individual skills seemed to favor one-on-one matches.

“We won! We actually won!”

“What are you celebrating for? I saw all the mistakes you made during the match.”

“Ugh…”

A violent ‘affection,’ huh? Seeing that short-haired killer acting human, I felt oddly moved.

The dueling tournament was nearing its end. I stretched and laid Akata, who had fallen asleep due to exhaustion, down comfortably.

Then I flipped through the record sheets once more.

‘Indeed, as I thought.’

I sensed that this dueling tournament was distinctly different from the usual game, heading in a rather suspicious direction.

At that moment, my eyes met Shemarin’s from across the stands.

Hmm? I saw her raise an eyebrow. Her eyes sparkled sharply.

With a slight nod, both she and I stood up simultaneously.

I headed towards the inner corridor of the coliseum, confirming that Shemarin was also heading in the same direction.

* * *

I met Shemarin in the circular corridor that felt like a waiting room in a stadium.

“Why did Rudel wink at me? What does it mean? I’m excited,” she said teasingly.

“I didn’t wink. I just saw you looking at me, so I thought you had something to say and called you over.”

We just stared at each other, waiting for the other to break the silence, until Shemarin finally smirked and spoke first.

“Don’t you think this tournament is a bit strange?”

It was my turn to agree, but I hesitated for effect.

Just as I was about to speak slowly, a third voice interrupted from behind, causing Shemarin’s eyebrow to twitch.

“So, you’re discussing something suspicious?”

A dark shadow loomed over us, belonging to a middle-aged character with an aura like a secret agent hidden in the shadows.

It was Blance.

“Mind if I join?”

As far as I knew, he was also among the ‘highly intelligent.’

It meant that he could fully grasp what Shemarin and I were talking about.

* * *

We had a private conversation in a quiet corner of the corridor.

After some low-voiced exchanges, I reinforced my point with a mocking tone.

“If they’re boosting the second generation for commentary, it’s unfair to turn us first-gen into leftovers.”

This tournament was a grand battlefield—a war for popularity.

“So, you’re saying the match roulette is tailored for the second generation?”

Blance muttered, deep in thought.

Still doubtful, I explained using our matches as examples.

First, I was matched with Runehan, giving him a chance to defeat his mirror image (though I won).

Then Gio faced the weakest character, Sabi, wasting our strongest card in an anticlimactic battle.

Next, Akata faced the strongest, Tian, and lost.

Finally, Unahar faced Garam, a natural enemy to Switch users, and Kanel faced the nimble lioness Junias, despite being a sniper.

Other matches followed similar patterns. Most of the draws seemed to unfairly disadvantage first-gen characters, almost as if the unique abilities were chosen to counter them.

Yet Blance, true to his cautious nature, immediately dismissed the idea.

“Manipulating the roulette? That can’t be. The very term ‘roulette’ implies random selection. The system wouldn’t lie about that.”

“No. The commentators never explicitly stated from the start that the roulette is ‘fair.’”

Even after I laid it out like this, Blance still seemed skeptical.

He muttered to himself, “Does the roulette really need to be explicitly fair?” and then, suddenly, he had an epiphany.

I continued, “Remember what was different about this round compared to other games? We didn’t receive notifications through our status screens.”

By now, Blance and Shemarin would have pieced this together. I just articulated it.

“Previously, we got announcements titled and explained through manuals, like ‘Subordinate group participation allowed,’ and so on. But for this match, we only heard the rules through the broadcasters at the market. And that oral announcement was made by one of the commentators.”

The system gave all the authority for this dueling match to the commentator NPCs.

I saw two purposes for this:

First, to avoid the system being blamed for any unfair arrangements, directing the players’ and viewers’ anger toward the commentators.

Second, to give characters a hint that the game was manipulated by the commentators, leading them to realize this.

Shemarin, who had been nodding lazily, chimed in, “So, this duel isn’t under the control of an objective system but rather the subjective whims of that administrator? That administrator has emotions. Remember how scared they were when you yelled into the mic, Rudel? And how excited they get commentating each match.”

“…Indeed.”

Finally, even the usually rigid and heavy-minded Blance agreed with us.

“I naturally thought the lack of status screen announcements was because of policy changes transitioning to the second generation. But that’s not the case.”

It’s likely that us figuring this out was intended as part of the content for the real-world viewers of this dueling tournament.

The viewers probably found our intelligence a bit chilling.

“So, what should we do?” Shemarin asked, her voice rising with excitement at the situation.

“What else? We need to overturn this.”

That response was mine.

We began discussing in the inner corridor of the coliseum how to disrupt this unfair, contradictory dueling match.

“It’s simple. We just have to take over the commentary booth,” Shemarin proposed.

No better plan came to mind. The others agreed, and we delved into the specifics of the plan.