Chapter 477: Drinking with Old Friends

After a dinner in which Joshua's father never showed up Joshua decided to go out drinking with Adrian who invited him, Aito, and Henry all to come out for the night. Amy was doing something similar with Naomi and Lilly since the three of them liked to spend time together. Whenever they went out as a group people around them would often think it was strange to see a six foot two inches tall girl going around with two girls that are a foot shorter than her. If they paid attention to them they'd be even more weirded out to find that the shortest one of the bunch in Naomi was the most mature while the other two could be a bit silly and carefree.

Joshua wondered why his father seemed to be avoiding him and Amy during the tournament based off of the way he didn't show up for dinner and barely talked during breakfast. He wanted to ask about Iron Claw showing up since his father would be the one to know the most about the man. They had been rivals in the world of mixed martial arts for more than a decade. Eventually Joshua decided to table that for later and went out to the restaurant that Adrian had invited him to and when he arrived he was surprised by how busy the place was. The crowd of people seemed to be a mixture of civilians that were still talking up the tournament along with a lot of explorers that were involved in the tournament itself.

Based off of how rowdy the place was getting it was clear that everyone was still riding the high that the tournament brought to the hub city. Joshua could see some of the explorers showing off to people about how they did in their matches for the day while others were drinking away their losses at the bar. The place definitely had a great atmosphere and Joshua knew that it was owned by a family member of someone from the alliance so Joshua just asked a random waiter to show him to whichever room Adrian was waiting in.

Knowing Adrian Joshua knew that he would want to join in on the fun atmosphere at some point, but he'd at least be smart enough to get a private room to start things off. The waiter quickly led him to a back room where Adrian, Aito, and Henry were already busy having their first round of drinks. "Good you made it just in time. The drinks just got here." Adrian said with a smile as he beckoned Joshua over.

The room was fairly simple, but had a bit of a Japanese design to it with sliding doors that locked and became sound proof. Outside of a television put on one of the walls it was a fairly simple room with decent décor. Instead of a table and chairs for everyone to sit around there was a kotatsu set up which was basically a shorter table big enough for four people to sit around easily and it was covered with a blanket. There were mats on the floor that would make it much more comfortable to sit on, but outside of that there wasn't any other furniture.

Joshua made his way over and sat down at the part that they had left open for him to sit at as he pulled a beer out of the bucket of ice that was put at the center of the table. Quickly twisting the top off Joshua took a swig of it and admired the nice taste of strong cold beer before looking up at his friends who were doing the same thing. By their either excited or nonchalant attitude Joshua was certain that they had all gotten through the first day of preliminaries without any problems.

"So how did things go on your guys' end?" Adrian said after a satisfying gulp of beer. "Things seemed way too easy to me, but I guess it is just the preliminaries."

"That might be the case but it is a well-designed set up for the tournament. The way things are going just about all of the low level participants will be taken out by the second day of preliminaries." Henry said getting everyone's attention. "There will be ten matches that you have to participate in over the first two days of the competition and if you lose eight of them then you're already out of the later portion of the tournament. After all you have to have a higher win total than loss total to even get the chance to get into the bracketed portion of the tournament later on."

"In other words if you are low leveled and have been forced to go up against people at our level over and over your likely to have lost at least eight times or more by the end of your second day." Aito said nodding in understanding at what Henry was getting at.

"Well then I guess on our third day we can expect to get some tougher matches, though probably nothing worth getting excited for." Adrian said with a frown. Just like usual he became more excitable within seconds as he gave a challenging look to the group. "I guess I won't get much of a real challenge until I start going up against you guys and the rest of the alliance members."

"I wouldn't count on that." Joshua said after sitting his beer down and sitting back with his hands on the floor. "Just look at how the news stations are going through all of the biggest contenders and you can find several people that might put up a challenge for us."

"Yeah I saw that they were showing off some highlights, but I wasn't really able to learn anything from it since so many of the matches ended so quickly." Henry replied. "None of us even did anything serious in our matches since our opponents were so weak. I only used basic spells without any element to them to take out my opponents, Adrian only swung his sword once to end each match which was ridiculous, Joshua just rushed in and ended every match with a punch, and Aito was the worse one here using a damn knife to win each match even though he's a gun specialist."

"No use showing off what kind of guns I like to use this early on." Aito said with a shrug before going back to drinking his beer.

"So you can imagine how little information we were able to get about any other participants that actually have a chance at winning the whole tournament." Henry said looking a little annoyed at the situation. "The only thing I did find out is that there is someone in this tournament that is actually higher level than all of us."

"You mean that Iron Claw guy right. I'm surprised that he was able to get away with just using that name more than the fact he is two levels higher than us. I should have registered with a show name too. It would have been so much cooler."

"Do you know anything about this guy Joshua? From what I could tell from his fights he seemed to be a former fighter like you with the way he man handled people. Two levels isn't all that big of a difference, but it does show that he had to do a lot to reach that point considering if we hadn't gone on the prairie expedition we would have still been around level eighty right now." Aito said pointing out just how odd it was for someone to be two levels higher than them even after their recent surge in leveling.

"I know him, but he was a fighter before my time. He and my father were rivals back in the day. I don't know much about the guy, but since he was the only person to ever win a match against my father I'd have to say no matter what his job is he will be great at close ranged combat. I know for a fact he's an amazing grappler so make sure he doesn't get ahold of you in a fight." Joshua said thinking about some of the things his father had used to tell him about the man known as the Iron Claw. Seeing as how father didn't like to talk too much about him he was sure that the man must have been really good at his job.

"Hmm that makes a bit of sense from what I saw. He tended to choke his opponents out quickly instead of just knocking them out with a punch like you did Joshua." Henry pointed out. "The only thing I was able to find out recently about him is that he's the leader of the number one mercenary group that Vince's group is just behind."

"So that means this is the guy that Vince is trying to compete with. That's a hell of a challenge for him." Adrian said as he watched some of the matches.

"The fact that Vince considers him a challenge and that he's hiding his job instead of just showing that he's a martial artist most likely means that he has a unique job. I've seen a few people in matches that seem to be hiding their unique jobs at this point. Wouldn't be surprised if he was as well." Henry explained.

"Vince would have trouble facing him with his illusions simply because he will likely have great instincts like I do. That's the entire reason why Vince wasn't able to catch me by surprise during the territory war. I can imagine it'll be the same against someone as experienced as this guy." Joshua said as he pulled out another beer and popped it open.

"Well make sure you get whatever information you can about him from your dad. We don't really know what he can do or what the other members of his little group can do as well. They all had no trouble on the first day just like all of us. I'd guess we won't really be able to figure out any useful information until the last day of preliminaries if we're lucky." Henry said before Adrian started to change the topic to some of the more interesting things that had been going on in the entertainment district.

Eventually Adrian got them all out of the room once they'd finished off the beer and they joined in on the madness that was going on in the bar down below. It was a long and fun night of nonsense that would close the day. The next morning they'd be back to doing it all over again.