Losing fifty points pushed Cohort Dragon Eye right into second place, and not by a small margin too. They were now behind Spearhead by forty points, and such a gap was not something they could easily close, if at all.
The rivalry between the two cohorts had managed to be nip and tuck until now, only about five to ten points keeping one ahead of the other, which was why Kim Yiseo’s anger was justified. However, killing someone was out of the question. Merlin hoped Nora would be wise enough to realize that too. Because, as she was the most rash out of all of them, he wouldn’t be surprised if the tournament was brought to an abrupt end because she had murdered Sangook in secret.
More of fiction than reality, if he was to be honest. But he couldn’t put anything past the degenerate he had for a twin sister.
Everyone sat silent for the first few minutes after they’d all banded together to calm Kim Yiseo, watching as the arena was taken care of in preparation for the next fight.
Chima was up next, set to take on Maya Thompson, a compact girl with light brown skin, shoulder length chestnut hair, and dark hazel eyes. She was also one of the most diverse mages in the competition by merit of her Hex alone. After all, she was an A-Class Creation Mage with a Hex that granted her the ability to biologically transform parts of herself into the characteristics of a butterfly. Perhaps it was even more advanced than that, but Merlin had no clue. Which was why he decided that the silence had stretched on for far too long.
“I think it’s time we came up with a plan to defeat Maya,” he started, drawing his teammates attention to him. “Or are we just going to sit here and mope because of Sangook’s primitive behavior? It’s not like we don’t know how he is. And besides, he did win. Even if he’d acted stupidly, he leveled the playing ground for us again. We should obviously take advantage of that.”
Kim Yiseo sighed, long and low, then leaned back into her seat and folded her arms.
“I apologize,” she said. “Don’t mind me and let’s do what we have to do. I can just kill him later.”
“Please,” Merlin said with a sigh of his own. “No killing.”
“All right then, brute,” Hakyun turned to Chima. “What’s the plan?”
Chima eyed him for a moment, but decided not to turn the waiting room into their dorm room, which Merlin really appreciated.
“I don’t have a plan,” Chima said. “Anyone I make will be useless. We don’t know the full extent of Maya’s abilities, so trying to come up with a definitive path for me to follow just seems like a recipe for failure.” He nudged his head at the TV screen. “Everyone was reliant on adapting during their fights. I think I just have to do the same, no matter what is thrown my way.”
Chima was right. The fact that, unlike Carlos, Sangook had won without needing their help to dissect his abilities and come up with the best way for him to come out on top meant that there was only so much their little team talk could do. What mattered was how the contestants dueled in the arena. They were the authors of their own fates.
However, being complacent was not something they should tolerate. Even if their team talk wouldn’t do much, no one could undermine the importance of putting heads together. What may be discussed could bring about a revelation that one might have missed otherwise.
Chima was smart, all they had to do was make him even smarter. No. They had to make each of themselves smarter.
“Then how about a hail mary?”
Chima inclined his head. “A hail mary?”
Merlin nodded. “Yes. A last-ditch effort, in case everything else fails.” They all blinked. “Look, it’s the same thing we’ve been repeating from the start. We don’t know what they can do, because they successfully managed to hide their strengths from the very beginning. However, we openly went all out in the first round. They’ve got all they need on us, and we’ve got so little on them. But we’ve done well so far.” He pointed at his head. “We can win this, we’ll just need something more…daring—each of us.”
Merlin’s gaze fell on Park Yuri at that moment, because she and Lee Jaehyun were the only ones among them who knew what exactly he meant by that.
“Uhm… Merlin. I’m pretty certain a hail mary spell would result in the match being nulled,” Hakyun noted.
Merlin turned to him. “That’s better than losing, if you ask me.”
“Are you saying we bring ourselves so low to the point that we ensure the match is nullified if we think we’re going to lose?” Kim Yiseo asked.
“That’s not bringing ourselves low,” Merlin argued. “That’s playing smart.”
“Call it whatever you like, that’s bringing ourselves low,” she refuted. “I honestly expected better from you.”
Fuck you!
Merlin didn’t say that out loud, though. He frowned at her instead.
“This is not the medieval times where losing is honorable,” Merlin snarled. “This is a competition that determines if our academy remains in second place or not. Like it or not, this means something to me. And I’m not going to let honor prevent me from ensuring we come out on top.”
Silence draped the waiting room for a good second, as Merlin and Yiseo burned their eyes into each other.
“Then how will we win if we nullify every single match?” Jaehyun asked, cutting away the silence.
It took a lot of effort from Merlin to drag his gaze away from Kim Yiseo, but he managed shortly after, lowering it slightly, before turning to Jaehyun.
“Like I said, it’s a hail mary. We only do it when we don’t have any option left. And besides, we’re tied with Crown Academy at the moment. All we need to do is get one more win, and that is all.”
Merlin was certain that was possible. Any one of them could get that win, and if Yiseo was so hell-bent on being honorable, then, well, she should be the one to go ahead and get it for them. But losing was off the table. Victory had to be theirs.
“I agree with him,” Yuri spoke up. “Honor gives us nothing. And it isn’t like nullifying a match is illegal. No rule states that. We should use it to our advantage.”
Yiseo frowned at her roommate, then shook her head.
“Nonsense,” she spat, rising to her feet and heading to the door.
“Where are you going?” Merlin asked.
“What?” Yiseo glanced at him. “A lady can’t head to the restroom any longer?”
Merlin pressed his lips together as she scoffed and left the room.
“Don’t mind her,” said Hakyun. “I think it’s the whole Sangook thing that’s still pissing her off.”
“So,” Chima started, finally breaking his streak of silence. “Hail mary, huh, Mel? Do we have to go that far, though?”
Merlin wanted to say no, but he couldn’t bring himself to.
If he was being honest, his desire to prove himself to his parents was bleeding into his words. They, in truth, didn’t need a hail mary; what was the big deal in losing? It’s only been twenty years since the Cataclysm. Basically, they were still in the start-up stage of magic and magical academies. Who was to say that in twenty more years Prestige Academy wouldn’t be the number one magical academy then?
But if they lost, then he feared that all his efforts would be for nothing. He wasn’t even bothered about his little discussion with Marcus Reed and how it had turned out, but the possibility that Prestige Academy would remain the same after the competition just like at the start made him worry.
No. It wasn’t that. It was the possibility that he would be the same way at the end just like at the start that feared him.
He didn’t want that, and he had to make certain that it didn’t happen even if he had to propose selfish requests.
“Yes,” he said. “We have to go that far. But it doesn’t have to be something so overwhelmingly destructive, though. Just enough that Instructor Park would be forced to call off the match. But only when we’re certain we’ll lose.”
His words settled upon everyone, and they took a moment to consider it. Besides Park Yuri. Merlin suspected she had supported him because she was of the feeling that the moment she cast Solar Flare, her match would be nullified. And yet, it was a spell made specifically to counter her opponent. Unlike the rest, she didn’t have much of a choice here.
“Density is a two edged sword,” Chima began and they all turned to him. “That’s what Senior Sakamoto told me. He’s a density mage, you know? Cool Hex. Apparently, depending on how you apply density to a structure, it can prove to be very useful, or catastrophic. What I’m saying is, this hail mary thing is like density. It might work, it might not. If it works, good and fine. But what if it doesn’t? Considering what we’ve seen from the previous fights, the hail mary would have to be one heck of a spell to push Instructor Park’s hands. What if something catastrophic happens as an aftermath? Not even to the audience or our opponents, but to ourselves? What then? Is it worth it?”
More than any one of them, Merlin knew how unstable magic was. From his attempts at trying to deconstruct them, he knew about their strengths and how destructive they could be, not only externally, but internally. So Chima did have a point.
As for his question, though…
“That depends,” Merlin said, “on what your goals are. I am obviously not asking anyone to listen to me. I can’t use magic, so I’m not like the rest of you. I won’t be putting myself at risk by casting a spell far beyond everything I’ve ever done. But that doesn’t mean I won’t have my very own hail mary. I promise you, I will. I want us to win this tournament, and I’ll do everything in my ability and beyond to ensure that happens.”
At that moment Chima was called and asked to make his way to the arena. In response, he sighed and stood up with a deep breath.
“I understand,” he replied Merlin. “No offense, Mel, but I think I’ll do without the hail mary.”
Merlin’s heart skipped a beat. This was the first time Chima had opposed him, and for a moment, he began to think that maybe he had truly proposed something stupid.
“But in return,” Chima added with a smile, gesturing at himself. “I promise to win.”