Well, I guess the nice thing about Raphtalia’s skills is that they didn’t appear so blatantly unusual, like my attacks did. Of course, they had skill-like elements to them, too, but at first sight, it just looked like she had swung her blade around really fast. I’m sure people would realize you were a hero immediately if you started making shields appear in mid-air. Or maybe they would think it was magic? Hmm . . . I still wasn’t sure where that line was drawn.

Both the spectators and the announcer were speechless.

“We . . . we have a winner! Rock Valley’s Paaarrrtttyyyyyyyy!”

The announcer screamed out, and after a brief delay, the spectators burst into cheers. We had finished the fight so quickly that they didn’t seem to know how to react.

“As expected, I still can’t fight at my normal level. I had to use a skill just to be able to defeat an opponent like that in one blow.”

“Yeah.”

“Jingle-jaaaangleee!”

Filo picked up her beloved morning star and came back over to us. I gave a perfunctory wave as we headed back to the waiting room.

“I wanted to avoid standing out, but it looks like that’s going to be difficult.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. You only did what I told you to do.”

We would just have to accept it. Perhaps it was being careless, but I didn’t want to force her to hold back, either.

“You want to go back to the village, Filo?”

“Yup! By the way, where is Rishia?”

“I’ve got her gathering info about the coliseum.”

Rishia was with Raph-chan gathering information on the more powerful teams. I wasn’t sure how much she’d actually be able to figure out, but she was knowledgeable about all kinds of things. I figured it might prove to be helpful one way or another.

“Bye-bye! I’ll be good, so don’t worry about meeee!”

That morning star was quickly becoming her new favorite toy, and lately she had been swinging it around everywhere she went . . . What part of that was being good? I was pretty sure good little girls didn’t go around creating pillars of fire. That was literally playing with fire and just asking for something bad to happen.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t play with that thing too much.”

“Okaaay!”

I used my portal to send Filo back to the village. She disappeared instantaneously, right before my eyes.

“Okay, Raphtalia. I’m counting on you again, tonight.”

“Understood. The time to be depressed has come, once again.”

“Yeah.”

We didn’t have the money, so we couldn’t buy the remaining Lurolona slaves. It was painful just watching them being bought off, but if we didn’t keep an eye on who they were being bought by, then we wouldn’t be able to purchase them when we finally did have the money.