Death Mage with an SS-Rank Talent-Chapter 124

As soon as Aaron returned to his position, Erika asked, "So, what number did you get?"

"69", Aaron replied with a weird smile. "What’s yours?" he quickly turned away from the weirdness he felt after he picked up a random token and saw the number, but there were no takebacks just because you didn’t like the number.

"Mine is 96. Cool, right? Our numbers are reversed, however you look," Erika said with a smile.

Aaron couldn’t think at all when he heard her token number.

His number is 69, while her number is 96, which, as she said, is the reverse of each other, no matter how one looks at it.

If you replace the first number with the second number, it would become the number of the other one and the same goes for if the numbers were inverted.

"Did she not know what the number 69 represents? Maybe not everyone’s mind would be as gutteral as mine", Aaron thought and let it go.

"Yes, that is true", he responded to her with a smile.

He felt that there was no need to make it sound bad when she was not thinking about that like that at all. To him, maintaining the status quo as much as possible was better, but he had no idea that almost similar thoughts were swirling in her mind.

When Erika got the token and saw that her number was 96, she almost freaked out. She wanted to change, but she knew there would be no such chances. Moreover, if she tries to change the number, that could cause an embarrassing situation. So, she acted as if nothing was wrong.

It was better that, she felt.

When Aaro returned with his token, she casually asked his number and was surprised to hear when he answered.

The number that Aaron got was much more lewd than hers, as most would refer to 69 for such activities, as the number 96 wouldn’t appear as people doing it, but the number 69 does.

When she asked him the number, there was a subtle hint of embarrassment on his face, which he quickly covered by not before she saw.

When she heard the number, she understood why there was a hint of embarrassment, but she quickly diverted that, which eased him a bit.

"I hope that we don’t fight each other", Erika said.

"Yeah, I hope so too", Aaron said.

To him, she was the only friend he made in his year. So, he didn’t want to fight with her, as that could damage her chance of reaching the five-member team that would participate in the tournament a month later.

The tournament in a month would give out substantial rewards for the winners. Not only would the alliance reward the winners, but so would the academy they belong to.

So, no one would miss out on such a chance at getting so many rewards.

Though Erika got vague mentions from her father, Aaron knew that there was going to be a crisis soon. To overcome that, he needs to get that spot in the five-member team.

Whether he can win in the Inter-academy tournament or not, once he gets on the team, the academy would be sure to invest a lot in the team, which means he would get a lot of resources to improve himself.

Though he was the topper of the alliance exam, which decided where the awakened students would end up, it was so long ago. It has been months since that happened.

Who knows others have developed, they can defeat him, as they too could have reached levels near to him, as he spent so much time lately on getting to know about various things that he had no access to, and also using loot dungeons as he needed credits to learn such knowledge, which a student who came from rich and powerful families have already might have known.

He can’t underestimate anyone.

So, his first thought was to make sure that he ends up in the five-person team, no matter what. Though Erika is his friend, if they fight each other, he would try his best to defeat her.

With a crisis coming, he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her, as she is the only friend he has in the first year. So, he wanted her to be on the five-member team, but he couldn’t sacrifice his chance for that.

To Erika, he was the genuine friend that she had made.

Aaron was a bit bad at making conversation with others. So, he failed to make friends, even at school. Erika, on the other hand, was not like that, but she only felt that Aaron was her friend because whatever he said or did with Erika felt genuine to her.

This was because he didn’t recognise her house name.

Everyone who wanted to be friends with her was because of her house name, not because they actually wanted to be friends with her.

Though her father didn’t delve into the details, she understood that there was something big that was going to happen in the future, and she wanted Aaron to survive, and for that, the resources that the academy would pour into them and the rewards from the upcoming tournament would help them very much.

Like Aaron, she too couldn’t miss out on this opportunity, not even for Aaron.

This is why they didn’t want to face each other in these duels, as that means one of them would be eliminated.

---

"Okay, now that everyone has a token. Let’s start the duels. The ground here is large enough to hold four matches at a time, and that’s what would happen. The students who hold the token numbers selected stay, while the others go to the spectator stand", the vice-headmistress spoke.

"Next, the computer would pick four pairs of numbers. Each pair would fight one another on one of the stages. When their fight is over, then a new pair would be selected, even if the other three matches are ongoing. So, watch the match that you like, but also pay attention to others occasionally to see if a stage was cleared and if your number was called".

"If the student doesn’t appear within three minutes on the stage after the number was selected, it would be an automatic forfeit. So, pay attention if you don’t want to be eliminated before the duel".

"Let’s roll the dice and see which numbers would be facing which numbers".

Buzz!!

"The first pair is 12 and 72. Come on to stage 1".

Buzz!!

"Next is 44 Vs 69. Come on to stage 2".

Soon, the remaining pairs were called on to the other stages.

"Good luck", Erika said, as she turned towards the spectators’ stand.

Aaron is going to fight early on, while she has to wait until her number gets selected.

They were both relieved that they were not going to fight each other, but there are many stages, and they might have to in one of those stages, but they could only wait and hope that doesn’t happen, at least until the last four from the winner set remain.

This way, even one would get more resources than others, everyone would get some, which would help them probably in the future.