February ~ 23!

<Someone sliding down on your left, prepare to block a… gonna say punch?> Sarge commented idly as an utterly exhausted lady with her face pressed against the stone held onto the wall without being able to reach for the next handhold. Her eyes lit up as she saw Grant come in range, and took a feeble swing at his outstretched hand.

Grant ignored her and slapped the hand she still had clinging to the wall with the flat of his blade, causing her to release her grip and fall backward. He expected a scream, but a quick glance revealed she’d fallen asleep halfway to the mud below.

“Look at that! The underdog of the event strikes down yet another competitor!” The announcer’s voice boomed, making Grant nervous. The shouting official never spoke up without something else being added to the mix. They were now eighteen hours into constant climbing, and anyone without a certain level of physical cultivation had fallen away hours ago. “We call competitor two-nine-two ‘The Retaliator’, since we haven’t ever seen him initiate the first attack! Maybe some other people should try and use his example of good sportsmanship!

For a long moment, Grant thought the man was done, and had just popped in to compliment him. No such luck. “The walls are about to pick up speed. Since we want to make sure all events will be able to be held over the next few days, it looks like our Vassals got an influx of potions from House Saturday: today’s event sponsor! Remember the motto of House Saturday: Change Your World.”

“Sure, sure.” Grant grumbled as he focused on putting one hand in front of the other. “Change your world. Change it for the better, House Saturday? For the better, right? Answer me, House Saturday.”

<You get pretty strange when you get tired.> Sarge informed Grant as though he didn’t already know that. <I don’t mind it, frankly. I’ve always told people it’s fine to grumble so long as you get the job done. Kick coming in on your left.>

Grant moved February Twenty Nine into position to stab into the approaching foot, simply holding it so that the attacker would impale themself if they continued. They stopped, and the wiry attacker scuttled off around the wall in a way far too reminiscent of the spiders Grant had needed to fight off recently. “Method cultivators are so weird.”

<That guy is pretty strong, Grant.> Sarge warned after a moment of contemplation. <If you have a chance to take him out of the running again, take it. He’s one of the most serious competitors I’ve seen up here.>

“I just wanna climb my rock.” Grant puffed as he continued upward. “It’s a pretty rock. There are many rocks like it, but this one is mine.”

<Someday when this is all over, you can open a world-renowned Kenjutsu dojo.> Sarge figured that if Grant was getting loopy, he needed to provide a distraction. <You know that if you ever get a chance to make Vassals, they get a lesser version of me? Imagine that… dozens of me surrounding you on all sides.>

“Are… are you trying to make me jump off and aim for a sharp rock on the way down or something?” Grant quipped with a snort, getting a grunting chuckle in return. “On that note, Sarge… can I have Vassals?”

<Not unless you restore February Twenty Nine to a full day.> Sarge answered after a moment of thought. <If I become more than I am now—something real—you’ll be able to have fifty Vassals. If you manage to become the Calendar King, you double the number of Vassals you can have, meaning you’d be able to have a full hundred students at any given time.>

“That’s…” Grant’s eyes showed stars as he thought of the possibilities. “I’d-”

<Not to mention that you’d likely be able to make some other followers. Not entirely sure, since I’m just a sword spirit that doesn’t yet have full access to the capabilities of this weapon.> Sarge took note of a few contestants coming their way slowly. <I guess we’ll find out together.>

Now moving with renewed vigour, Grant finally broke his streak of defending only. As other people sank down toward him, he *slapped* them with the flat of his sword. Usually targeting their heinie was enough to make them yelp and fall, but he had severely underestimated the masochism of many of the competitors. A good chunk of them would do their best to endure before fighting back, but oddly enough not a single one attempted to dodge.

He wasn’t sure if this was due to the fact that none of them had ingrained survival instincts, had never been in a fight, or had been in a fight; but the Februarian kind, where people just directly traded damage until one passed out. Either way, Grant didn’t find a single proficient fighter, and soon there were no more competitors in any kind of realistic range. The fast climbers hurried to move higher, and other people moved into less dangerous areas after they saw people dropping left and right.

<Too bad this doesn’t count as defeating Vassals.> Sarge wistfully mentioned as Grant caught up to an upward-fleeing opponent and smacked him off the rock face. <So I’m guessing your fatigue was more due to boredom than any actual muscle sleepiness?>

“I don’t know.” Grant realized that his actions were out of the norm for him, but the swell of cheers and people chanting his number… it was intoxicating. “See anyone else you think we can take out?”

<I really, really don’t.> Sarge seemed hesitant about something. <Anyone remaining is almost certainly in the top twenty percent of physical cultivators in the District. Look up at them, and I’m sure you’ll see what I’m talking about.>

Grant did so, just in time to see the spidery-guy from earlier get hit hard. The man fell off the wall and caught himself a half-dozen feet lower. He shot up the wall, grabbed his assailant, and bodily chucked them off the wall. Grant managed to get out of the way of the falling man, then looked up to see another body being tossed at him. “He’s aiming people at me!”

<I’ll tell you again, take that guy out if you ever get the chance.> Sarge muttered darkly. <The way he moves, he’s trained for a long, long time. There’s no way he’s new to all this like most people are. If you can’t get him down, stay out of his way.>

“Don’t think that’s going to be an option, Sarge.” Grant stared up at the man as he looked around for more opponents. Unfortunately, everyone else had scampered away from the duo of people knocking people down, and the man clearly decided it was time to take Grant out of the running.

He was coming down for them. Grant started to get excited.

<You outrange him, we can certainly use that.> Instead of getting worried, Sarge got right into strategy. <The biggest issue is if he gets in your way or decides to try and take you with him. Don’t let him get you into a grapple, his grip strength must be terrifying to move around the way he’s doing.>

“Keep him out of range, keep climbing, don’t let him grab me.” Grant adjusted his sheath for easier access to February Twenty Nine, then kept his eye on the competitor as he hurried up. One nice thing about having only one person above him was that he hadn’t had any issues with oily traps or the like, though it seemed the difficulty was ramping up again: the wall was becoming smoother, and finding new handholds was becoming more taxing. “Hey! Zero-four-two! Go away.”

“No can do, two-nine-two!” Came the cheery reply. “At this point, all the easy wins are all gone. You’ve been holding out somehow, but with your size, you’ve gotta be just hanging on.”

“I’ll cut you.” Grant warned as competitor zero-four-two drew closer to him. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”

“Ladies and gentleman, it appears we have a situation developing! Competitor zero-four-two and two-nine-two, the favored to win and the underdog, are closing in on each other!” The announcer roared into whatever was amplifying his voice. “Are we going to have an upset on our hands?”

“Doubt!” The crowd shouted in reply.

Grant tried to adjust his path when he heard that. “Well, that’s just lovely, isn’t it? Zero-four-two, if I throw a protein bar past you, would you go after it?”

He expected the man to be insulted, or to challenge him for thinking he’d take a bribe, but the man laughed instead. “More likely to fall if you hit me with one of those bricks than anything else.”

“No joke, good thing I left all of them on the ground—oh wait.” Grant whipped a bar upward, hitting zero-four-two in the foot and actually almost making him lose his foothold.

“Did you really just-?” Zero-four-two roared out a laugh and let himself drop, his feet aimed right at Grant.

The young man braced himself and swiped upward with February Twenty Nine as the feet closed in, only for the man to glow a soft brown and slam his hands and feet forward. He came to a perfect stop above where the sword was aimed, his limbs partially submerged in the stone. Grant glared upward suspiciously, “Was that a spell? Are you already a Wielder?”

“Yup,” his opponent confirmed, just before cracks radiated outward and surrounded Grant’s position. “Nice to meet you, kid.”

With a stomach-turning *slurp*, the land Grant was attached to was cut away and began to fall.

<Oh, no you don’t.> Grant’s leg jerked down and he kicked off the falling stone as a pinpoint-precision spark jumped into his nerves. He tucked and rolled, slamming into the stone and possibly breaking his nose. No notification appeared, but he chalked that up to possibly being in combat and not wanting to be distracted.

A foot lashed out and kicked February Twenty Nine out of his grip, and it went spinning toward the ground. Another attack came at him, so Grant yanked his sword out of the air and slashed; leaving a long laceration on the unprotected calve.

They locked eyes, and zero-four-two took that moment to knock the sword out to the ground once again. Grant had it back in his hand the next instant, fending off the follow up kick. “I can do this all day.”

“No need.” Zero-four-two showed a half-smile, then did a backflip off the rock wall.

Ten feet before he would have the ground, the announcer called out, “The competition ends! If you are still in the air or on the stone wall, congratulations! You advance to the next round! Please hop off, and we’ll record your information right away!”

“Phew… couldn’t actually keep that up all day. Twice more maximum,” Grant muttered to himself. His mana pool was already below fifty percent, and each use of that ability cost a quarter of his entire mana pool. Grant stared at his strange rival, who was the first to get to the announcer and collect his token. “Sword Saints… that man is terrifying.”

Then the cheering washed over him, and he looked out over the crowd. Hundreds of people were chanting his number, and he felt a deep glow in his chest that erupted into a smile on his face. He blinked, and found himself falling toward the ground, only to be caught by a wave of muddy water that washed him over to receive his winner's token.