327 Chapter 327: Spies and Lies

When I neared the end of my briefing, I noticed one of the students visibly approaching us. He was trying to be discreet, but his movements caught my eye for some reason. A tanned young man in a black uniform, with dark hair and piercing brown eyes, he stood out to me because of how fluidly he weaved through the crowd of students without attracting their attention.

I would have missed him if I wasn't so paranoid and summoned Corvus to keep watch from the edge of the anti-spy spell. The guy was almost a professional.

Almost.

"Guys, your four o'clock. Someone's trying to get near us, for some reason. Don't turn around to look at him. We don't want him to find out that we are aware of his presence."

My friends went rigid for a second, but didn't give themselves away. Harrison didn't move, but I could see him watching the approaching guy from the corner of his eye.

I stopped my briefing, and with a nod, we dispersed for the moment, to carry out with our own preparations.

Craig deliberately stumbled out and almost crashed into the approaching guy.

"Whoa! Sorry! What are you doing here?" he gave the guy's shoulder a strong squeeze – to the extent the guy winced in pain. "I didn't see you. My bad. You okay, bud?"

The guy mumbled something – an apology, and loitered there. Craig watched him with a raised eyebrow.

"Hmm? You look very familiar. Have we met before?"

"No," the guy in the black uniform said quickly. "I'm sure this is the first time we're meeting."

"Realy?" Craig pretended to think for a moment, and then shrugged, as if to say it wasn't important. "Are you looking for someone in particular?"

"Uh, no."

"Okay. Well, sorry about that, bud. I hope you're not too badly hurt."

"No, not at all."

Craig then rejoined us, right as we began moving our position. Just as I suspected, the guy tried to follow us. Very subtly, but he maintained the same distance, no matter where we moved.

"Plan B," Craig muttered, winking at Sheila.

We decided to stop for a while. The guy paused for a moment too, and even though he took care not to stare in our direction, it was obvious that he was keeping tabs on us. This time, it was Sheila who took the initiative. She jogged in the direction of where the guy was, pretending to catch sight of her friend and waving toward her. Before the guy could respond, she barreled into him, knocking him over.

"Ah! I'm so sorry! Are you all right?!"

"No, I'm…fine. Sorry. I…"

The guy was a little flustered, totally not expecting to be bowled over in such a manner. Sheila started dusting him off by slapping him, hard, causing him to flinch.

"I'm sorry, it's my fault you got dust all over your uniform."

"No, it's really all right."

"What's up, Sheila? I saw you fall over. Are you all right?"

This time, Craig showed up, and made a show of wanting to help. He paused dramatically when he stared at the guy in black uniform, and then pointed exaggeratedly.

"Hey! I know you, weren't you…there, earlier? Why are you here again?" he scowled. "Were you following us?"

"No…it's just a coincidence."

"Ah…!" Sheila suddenly cried out, drawing a few stares to herself. She was pointing at the fallen guy, trembling theatrically. "I know you! I remember you now! Weren't you the guy stalking me outside my school a few months ago? I already told you that I'm not interested! Stop following me around!"

"You…!" Craig flared up, his nostrils flaring in rage. "You are that stalker?! No wonder you look so familiar! You have some balls, bud, still stalking my girlfriend like this. Looks like the beating I gave you back then wasn't enough, eh?"

"No, you really have the wrong person!"

"Then why are you following my girlfriend around?"

"No, I seriously am not stalking your girlfriend!" The guy was panicking now, and backing away. Either he was not a professional or he simply hadn't been trained to deal with this sort of situation.

"Really?" Craig sneered. "Dude, I literally just caught you following us around. I even asked if you were looking for anyone in particular. Why are you still sticking so close to us if you are not?"

"I…" the guy faltered when he realized everyone was staring at him. He swallowed, bowed, and quickly left the area without another word.

"That did it." Sheila sighed. She leaned against Craig, so as to reinforce the performance. "Thank you, Craig. That stalker really gives me the creeps. I thought he would leave me alone after that time, but seems like he's determined…"

"It's been hard on you," Pearl remarked in amusement, trying to conceal a smile.

"Who was that?!" Ding Ke Po, for some unknown reason, showed up again. I groaned. This guy was probably the real stalker here, showing up whenever. To be fair, he probably just saw the commotion and approached us out of curiosity.

"You tell me." I shrugged. "Some random idiot who was stalking my friend's girlfriend."

"Hmph." Ding Ke Po's voice was full of scorn as he watched the guy disappearing into the crowd. "Judging from his uniform, he's probably from Edgar Pole Academy. That's one of the strongest A-ranked teams in the Federation. Because of that, he probably thought he could go around stealing the girlfriends from members of lower-ranked teams. Arrogant bastards, the lot of them."

"Uh-huh." The truth was a lot more complex than that, but obviously I wasn't going to say anything. For all I knew, Ding Ke Po could be an Assassins Guild spy. Best to keep an eye on him. Just in case.

"Be careful, though." Ding Ke Po looked at us worriedly. "Knowing how these guys operate, he will call his entire team to attack yours just to seek revenge for this humiliation, or refusing to yield to his carnal desires and surrender your girlfriend."

Craig snorted. "They are free to come at us whenever they want. We'll crush every single one of those arrogant douchebags then."

"You do realize that they are an A-ranked team and you're C-ranked, right?" Ding Ke Po tried not to roll his eyes.

"You do realize that rankings are bullshit and not absolute, right?" I responded with a shake of my head. "You guys read too much LitRPG or cultivation stories and get obsessed with levels and ranks. Dude, the real world doesn't work so simply. People's strength can't be so neatly categorized into levels and ranks. So what if they are ranked higher than us? Should we just roll over and let them kick us then? Just because they are ranked higher doesn't mean we can't defeat them, or they automatically win. If everything is based on levels, ranks or unrealistic fantasy bullshit, then what use is there in holding tournaments? Just as a formality to confirm people's ranks? What is the use of having matches? Isn't it because it's entirely possible that a lower-ranked person can beat a higher-ranked one? Isn't it because it is possible that ranks aren't everything and don't determine the outcome of a match? Isn't it because a person's strength shouldn't be so neatly categorized into ranks and levels?"

"…uh…okay." Ding Ke Po was backing away now, completely intimidated by my rant. He could come up with no rebuttal, nothing, unless he was the childish type of commenter (such as Meatballs) who could only respond with insults, calling me stupid or lazy without actually justifying why I was stupid or why it was lazy writing. "…do your best. See you guys later."

I waved at him as he left to rejoin his team, and turned back to my friends with a smile. That felt refreshing, even if some readers were irritated.

"Let's go back to strategizing."

*

After our stategy meeting, we were all called by the tournament staff to board the trains. That wasn't anything out of the ordinary. The train we were assigned to was obviously going to take us to Aurora City.

At least that was the plan, but…

"Um…why are we going to Olympus City?"

That made no sense. We were assigned to the Aurora City District, but for some reason the train was taking us to Olympus City, if the holographic screen at the front of the train that displayed travel information was to be believed.

Everyone looked at each other, and shrugged.

This changed nothing, albeit causing a fair bit of confusion. Perhaps Olympus City was one of the cities located within the Aurora City District, but if that was the case, what happened to the Olympus City District?

"We still don't know what the actual details of our mission are," Harrison continued over from the briefing. The strategizing we did in the square was mostly based on me preparing everyone for the advent of an Assassin ambush, and to share with them my improvised plan of defense. Thanks to everyone's input, we had polished up several details, raised points that I had overlooked, and improved it further. A pretty impressive feat, given the short amount of time we had to do it.

However, we said nothing about that aboard the train. Probably because the train, just like the hotel and dormitory we stayed in, might have listening devices and bugs implanted in the walls, the seats or even the windows.

By the way, the other academies were speculating about what the qualifier might be about, based on the information and details they received yesterday, making guesses while looking at the map. But, like us, they had no idea what the qualifier was going to be. A Battle Royale in Aurora City District? Were we going to be thrown into the wilderness and asked to collect objectives, just like what Instructor Feng Hai did during our training camp? Maybe we were assigned to hunt specific monsters and bring their heads back? Or was it a siege event where one group would be the attackers and one group would be the defenders?

There were way too many possibilities. Thanks to that, Castian and his Caliban Academy, as well as the students of Quetzalcoatl Academy were unable to gather their coalition of low-ranked academies and come up with a strategy. Their original plan was to form alliances in order to have a superiority in numbers, but that depended on the content of the qualifiers and the rules of elimination. Unfortunarely, the tournament organizers had not revealed anything regarding the qualifiers, and thus they were completely stumped. For example, if it turned out that the qualifiers would be a siege event and the committee had already decided which academy belonged to which group, then whatever alliance they had forged would completely fall apart.

Sucks to be them.

"No point wasting too much time speculating and guessing," Harrison assured us. "We'll find out when they tell us. But I personally think it'll be similar to Instructor Feng Hai's outdoor training during the camp a few months ago.

"Do you think Instructor Feng Hai is on the tournament organizers' committee?" Lily asked curiously. "Is that why he has hints on what sort of qualiifiers this would be?"

"I don't think so," Yue Chu replied with a frown as he scrolled through a holographic list. "His name is not listed under the committee."

"It's entirely possible that Instructor Feng Hai is just guessing, and the qualifier might not be an outdoor event like the one he trained you guys in," Bu Fan cut in, his armed crossed and his eyes closed as he leaned back against his chair. "He's probably just making an educated guess, or he just trained you guys according to his own experiences and credentials, without giving too much thought to the tournament itself."

As much as I disliked the guy, I had to agree that he had a very good point.

"Whatever the case, I guess we'll find out eventually." Harrison sighed. "For now we should rest as much as we can, so that we'll go into the qualifiers fresh and unexhausted."

"We also have to remember that our opponents aren't just teams from other schools or the monsters in the wilderness." Even though I left it unsaid, I knew my friends were aware of who I was referring to. The Assassins might or might not, but they probably wouldn't cancel their plans for ambush over such an ambiguous statement.

"Yeah!"

My team chorused enthusiastically, and then we all drifted off to do our personal preparations. Most of which included sleeping on the train. After all, it was going to be a long trip – the train normally took a whole day to travel from Southampton City to Aurora City.

It would probably take a similar duration to get to Olympus City, which was also located in the north, not far from Aurora City…

Unbeknownst to me, someone was watching the trains from a safe distance, a smile creeping up his face.

"What's the matter, your highness?" Elem asked as he lazed around in the couch. Roland Rothwell turned to him with a grin.

The Amazerian Prince had returned to his empire a while ago, but thanks to the wonders of the Internet and of streaming, he was able to watch the live broadcast of the Global Federation's national tournament.

"Nothing. I was just wondering how our old friend is doing."

"Old friend?" Elem repeated, puzzled. Roland didn't answer and instead kept his eyes on the screen, where the train ferrying me and my friends trundled along the tracks.

"Let's see how far you can go, Richard," he whispered eagerly. "I hope you'll continue to entertain me."