According to the slave trader, the opening ceremony had been held earlier today around noon, and the tournament bracket had been announced. He said the teams that were lucky enough to be seeded wouldn’t be fighting until the latter half of the tournament. We were fighting in the very first round, so I already couldn’t help but feel like things were a bit unfair. Then again, this was nothing compared to being framed and left penniless mere days after being summoned to another world, and then being stigmatized on top of that.

The time for our match was drawing near. It was evening now. The tournament started sometime around noon, I think, so it had been going for a while now. Our opponent for this match was some mafia-sounding team called . . . the Topak Family. The odds had already been fixed, but if we came on full-force, practically screaming, “Actually, we have the Shield Hero!” then the opposing team would probably be flooded with support. They might end up with really nice weapons and equipment and huge amounts of support magic being cast on them nonstop, and that would really suck for us. Even worse, it was possible the organizers would force some kind of weird handicap on us.

I wanted to keep as low a profile as possible while still making people think our party was amazing. In that case, maybe we should finish them off with a single blow and not even leave anyone time to give them support. Or we could pretend to struggle and make it look like we just barely managed to win. Either way, we would have to see how strong they were first.

“For now, you lead the attack, Filo. Raphtalia, you provide support from behind. If you can show the spectators an illusion, then do that.”

“So it’s up to meeee?”

“Yeah.”

“What is the point of deceiving the spectators?”

“Make it so that we don’t stand out too much. For example, if you can make it look like we’re struggling, then do that.”

“I think it should be possible, but . . . Don’t you think that’s a bad idea?”

Hmm . . . It wasn’t against the rules, but then again, it could be problematic if the organizers stepped in. It was a risk we had to take.

“Even so, Raphtalia, at least make it look like I’m attacking the enemy. I don’t want anyone figuring out that I’m the Shield Hero.”

“Then what about your skills?”

“I’ll just have to avoid using them as much as possible. They’ll probably just think yours are special techniques you developed on your own.”

Up until now, I had been using my skills nonstop left and right, so I was a little bit worried. Regardless, it would be best to avoid being noticed if we wanted to advance through the tournament without having to face any unnecessary obstacles.