Chapter 499: The Masked Eighth Seed

Joshua was incredibly disappointed and he wasn't the only one. After Charles had defeated Kyle and sent him vanishing from the arena the crowd was either quiet or booing at how bad of a fight that was. They weren't mad at Charles, but were infuriated with Kyle. Everyone was expecting an epic fight between brothers, a fight that would be one where Kyle would be out to try to reclaim his former spot at the head of the World Government Guild. Instead all they ended up seeing was a grown man slapping a whining child that couldn't stop crying about not getting what they wanted. It was just plain sad and everyone knew it.

After watching the match Joshua was certain that Kyle hadn't reached this point in the tournament through his own efforts. Earlier in the tournament he noticed that some people were losing matches on purpose and he figured that was for positioning, but now he knew that it was more likely competitors getting paid off to loose on purpose instead. That would be the only way for someone like Kyle to get this far into the tournament. Of course there was no way he was going to be able to do something like that against someone like Charles, but the man had a combination of having enough money and being lucky enough to get the fight he wanted in the first place. It was just a shame that he wasn't anywhere near ready to actually participate in the fight itself.

Kyle was basically someone with little skill with high stats. He was able to win some of the early matches simply because of the level difference, but he honestly didn't have a chance of beating any participant that had reached level seventy without paying them off. Joshua decided to put the annoyance out of his mind and turned his attention to Charles. Although he didn't really see Charles do much of anything during the fight there was one thing he did notice from his gear and the small exchange between brothers. Joshua was certain that Charles had a unique job after the match and it was because of his gear and the way he handled himself.

After fighting alongside other explorers and even against them through the battle arena Joshua was able to take notice of a certain fact. Those who had a combat job that specifically dealt with a weapon of some kind always seemed far more natural with that weapon than with anything else. Swordsman were amazing with blades, but the second they held a gun they came across as out of sync. The same could be said for any other weapon and this seemed to hold true for everyone. It was the main reasons why it was easy to tell the difference between a dagger user and a thief. The dagger user could twirl their blades in sync with skills with little effort and they seemed like extensions of the body instead of just cold weapons. The thief however usually only used their daggers for sneak attacks or when they were forced to while defending themselves.

Although this was the case this didn't mean that you had to have a job based on a weapon to be good at it, but the difference was clear to see. There was just something natural about a swordsman with a blade that just separated them from other jobs that depended on swords as weapons such as knights. These kind of things were obvious when you looked at someone like Shawn who clearly wasn't dagger specialist. He only ever used his dagger after blinking for a quick kill, he never actually used any skills with a dagger. Even in Joshua's case he wasn't particularly amazing with his weapon. He was decent and knew how to use it, but a heavy swordsman like Ivan clearly had far more technique with large swords than Joshua. It was all of Joshua's other abilities that made him stand out.

The reason this simple concept was able to help Joshua figure out something about Charles was the fact that he seemed completely natural with both his sword and his shotgun during his match. Joshua didn't see Charles use any skills or anything, but his movements and reactions with his weapons showed that he was adapt with more than one kind of weapon. The only other unique job he had seen with a similar situation was Laura's magic swordsman. That job allowed her to be a natural with a blade while also being exceptional with magic.

Whatever job Charles had allowed him to specialize with more than one weapon from what Joshua could see and that was something he was going to have to keep in mind if they ended up fighting against each other at some point during the tournament. Since the match had been so short Joshua had plenty of time to watch some other fights before his next match, so he checked out some other fights for a while until it was finally his turn to go up to the arena again. This time around he was certain the match up would be more challenging. At this point he wouldn't be fighting against people that just barely made it into the bracketed portion of the tournament, or people that had to rely on tricks and items to win for the most part. Things were finally starting to pick up.

Soon Joshua was teleported to the arena where he was surrounded by cheering fans that were excited the moment they saw him appear. He gave them a quick wave before he turned his attention to his opponent and he became a bit more serious once he saw the mask on his opponents face. From the mask alone he knew that his opponent was a member of the Stranger's Guild. This time around the mask only had two lines going through it which meant that the person was higher up on the totem pole of the Stranger's Guild.

His opponent was a woman this time around that was on the taller side standing at around six foot and three inches tall. It didn't surprise him that with her size she happened to have a tank job as a heavy swordsman with the giant claymore like blade on her back. Joshua couldn't see her face to see what kind of expression she was making, but with the way she was bouncing from foot to foot it was clear that she was excited for the upcoming fight. Although she was clearly a tank she didn't wear gear that was restrictive to her movements which most likely meant that she was extremely confidant in her skills and didn't rely on heavy armor to block attacks all the time.

Her sword was nearly as big as Joshua's scale blade, but it was narrower and slightly shorter. Even so it was clear that she had a high level of skill in a similar fashion to Ivan who was able to handle himself well against Joshua when they sparred together during his recruitment. After checking out her gear Joshua decided to focus on her actual level and noticed that she was level seventy-seven which was fairly high level in the tournament for a member of a large guild that wasn't a guild leader. From that alone Joshua knew the match was going to be interesting and he wanted to see how far this new opponent would be able to push him. He tried to see if he could find her name, but she simply entered the tournament under the name 'Stranger's Guild member 21'.

When the countdown got all the way down to one minute left Joshua noticed his opponent pull out a couple of the stones that he had seen all of the members of the Stranger's Guild use. He was expecting her to throw them down to use as obstacles for Joshua to have to deal with like all of the other members of their guild had done, but instead she held them both close to her chest as they started to glow brightly creating a weird aura that started surrounding her body. Eventually the glow started to fade, but Joshua could see that she was being strengthened by whatever runes had been placed on the rocks she had just used.

With only a few seconds left she pulled out her blade and was ready to start the fight. Joshua followed suit as held his scale blade aloft with both hands ready to begin the fight. The moment the countdown started they both charged each other and Joshua could tell right away that whatever boost that the runes had given her was giving her an edge in speed and the moment they clashed blades he was certain that she had more strength behind her blow as well. It wasn't enough to push Joshua back, but he could tell he was having to strain more than his opponent which was a new thing for him.

Joshua kicked out forcing her to avoid his strike and pull her sword away, but she didn't completely back off as she used her heavy sword to block the kick before twisting and cleaving her blade from above forcing Joshua to be locked into another contest of strength. A heavy swordsman was one of the few classes with a plus five strength stat per a level and since Joshua had far more balanced stats it was normal for him to be on the losing end when it came to a contest of strength in a similar vain to when he went up against Ivan. What was odd was the fact that his opponent now had the slight edge in speed which couldn't possibly be the case without those runes.

His opponent started laughing before she disengaged and went in for another swing aimed for Joshua legs that he jumped over before slashing down his scale blade in return attempting to take her by surprise. She pulled her sword around in time and blocked the attack, but was still forced to take a few steps back since she was taking the brunt of the blow. The pace of their clashes got faster and faster and Joshua was quickly realizing that he wasn't going to be able take her out head on without using his aura, but when that thought appeared in his head he only smiled and charged back at his opponent enjoying the clash of blades.

If things were to get serious then Joshua would start to use a few of his own tricks, but for now he was just enjoying the thrill of battle.