42 Chapter 7 (1/2)

It was painful watching Bruno interact, or rather fail to interact with everyone else. I mean, why did he have that huge hammer of his clutched in his hand? Did he mean to threaten people into talking with him?

Looking around, I picked out another awkward figure among the mingling contestants. Lionel looked equally lost in a social situation, not surprising as he had spent all his life either in the gladiatorial pits or playing second fiddle to Messi.

Speaking of the pits, I saw him clutching his right shoulder with his left hand, the knuckles white from the applied pressure.

It suddenly dawned upon me that his reticence might have a cause other than social ineptitude. He might be having flashbacks to his days as a pit slave, what with the coliseum inspired stage.

I rebuked myself internally for forgetting to bring it up with Marquis Ursa when he had come around to solicit suggestions on the architecture of the stadium.

Feeling guilty, I immediately made my way to him when Phobos and Deimos had joined me after getting rid of the entanglement of the contestants who had tried to strike up a conversation.

Deimos, as the temporary leader in the rankings, garnered quite a bit of attention and Phobos had to rescue her from the crowd.

Lionel was startled out of his reverie by our approach, his muscles tense, a throwback to his time in the pits where being alert at all times was what often decided who would cross the thin line separating life from death.

Slowly extending my hand to him in a non-threatening manner, I held his shoulder firmly. I felt him finally relax, the tension in his muscles draining away.

Exhaling the last of the tension and stiffness, he spoke gratefully, ”Thanks.”

The four of us weaved our way through the groups of people towards Bruno. From the corner of my eye, I watched Lionel.

At six feet tall, he outstripped me and after dealing with his mental block, he had relaxed greatly, his gait the confident prowl of a hunter. His years surviving in the pits had left wounds on him, both mental and physical, but they had scarred over, the new flesh and psyche much more tenacious than before.

He might be theoretically weaker than my first opponent in the qualifiers, but I wasn't confident of besting him when it came down to a real battle. His battle-experience far outstripped mine.

The fact that he had been fortunate enough not to meet a Tier 2 opponent didn't really mean that he was a soft target as most of the gambling houses were betting.

It just meant that his first opponent would lose badly due to underestimating him. Of this, I was confident.

Especially, after what had happened last night.

I turned my gaze to the stands. There sitting in the place reserved for the Felidae contingent, at their head sat a father and daughter pair.

The fifth elder and his daughter, Ororo Felidae, Lionel's fiancée. No, after yesterday night, his wife.

Catching my gaze, the Fifth Elder gave me a nod of encouragement while the normally lethargic Ororo, waved to Lionel enthusiastically.

He waved back awkwardly and I smiled.

Lionel, the Fifth Elder and Ororo, all shared the bloodline of the beast known as the Puma. It had another name: Cougar. Women in their lineage matured late and were notorious for being attracted to younger men.

When the First Elder had brought the sixteen-year-old Lionel back from the pits of Sparta, Ororo had instantly taken a shine to her formerly enslaved clansman. He had been a bundle of nerves and insecurities, his imagination painting ever more fearful images of what his new masters wanted from him the more kindness that was showered on him. His body, trained within the jaws of death, responded to his paranoia, the only way it knew how… violence.

When everyone was at a loss on how to erase his mental scars, Ororo stood, snorted disdainfully, marched up to him and proceeded to beat him thoroughly into the ground.

She might have been spoilt rotten by her doting father and quite lax in her exercises but, she was already eighteen then and at the peak of the first Tier. She was lazy, not stupid and Lionel, for all his battle experience was still a mundane boy, yet to awaken his magic.

After that, he had followed behind her buttocks like a duckling behind his mother and at some point in time, they had fallen in love.

The blessing of the Earth was closely tied with one's willpower and that was something the leisure-loving princess Ororo seriously lacked. Thus, even when the time came for Lionel to leave for the competition, she had yet to awaken at the age of twenty.

Yesterday night, the first thing the Fifth Elder had done after catching up to the capital hurriedly from the Felidae estates was pay me a visit, requesting me to join his daughter to Lionel in holy matrimony.

Apparently, the guilt at having provided no help to Lionel in the competition had caused Ororo to set a firm resolve to concentrate on her training and the spike in willpower coupled with her late-maturing genes finally kicking in had catapulted her into Tier 2 and she had subsequently turned Feral.

Thankfully, her father had been there to supervise her and had subdued her. They had already been hurrying along towards the capital when they met the messenger sent by Father to the clan about his advancement.

I wasn't naïve enough to believe that my skills were why he had invited me to draw the contract for his favoured daughter. It was clearly an attempt to win my favour after it became clear which way the political winds blew. He was jumping ships.

I sighed at the memory. Really, clan politics sucked out my soul. I questioned myself once again whether I really wanted to be the Head.

Oh well, in this case I wasn't complaining. Even though the results of the Calligraphy and Painting competition ranked me at thirty-three, just behind the most prominent news-painters and Tamers in the province, it wasn't enough to get me a high-level commission for my services as a Tamer.

Thus, I was glad to accept the Fifth Elder's favour if it meant I could create my first ever contract for someone other than myself.