“I guess it would probably take a while to explain how that happened, wouldn’t it? You’ve really become something, little Raphtalia . . .”

She seemed to be getting sentimental . . . Everyone was watching us!

“Hurry up and make some more of that lightning from earlier. Raphtalia and Filo, you two do some kind of showy attack that looks like a finishing move. I’ll use some flashy skills, too.”

“Understood.”

“Okaaay!”

Sadeena cast one of her more impressive-looking lightning attacks over a wide area. It spread out all the way to the arena walls with a thundering roar. I did my best to look like I was struggling and put out my shields to protect against her all-show-and-no-go attack. Then we waited for Raphtalia and Filo to attack. The two of them fired off their own flashy skills back to back.

The truth was, it was all just being staged, using illusion magic. In the meantime, we continued our conversation.

“Why couldn’t you have fought in your animal form from the start?”

If she had used that form from the beginning, Raphtalia probably would have recognized her right away . . . Apparently Raphtalia didn’t know about Sadeena’s human form, either. If she had, we wouldn’t have ended up in a mess like this.

“Oh? Take a look at yourself, little Rock. I could ask you the same basic thing, you know? Using my human form is like wearing a disguise for me.”

I could understand what she was trying to say. We were wearing kabuto helmets and other equipment to conceal our faces. For Sadeena, her human form wasn’t her everyday form, in other words. I was tempted to make a snide remark about how that must have felt. I’d have to ask her about it later.

“Well, what should we do about this, then?”

I returned my thoughts to the problem at hand. If Sadeena wasn’t our enemy, that meant we should be able to settle this battle by talking things over.

“We have a ton of money bet on ourselves. You figure out a way to lose on purpose.”

“As much as I’d like to, I’m afraid I can’t do that. I need the money, too, and I’ve already used quite a bit of it, actually.”

“Alcohol?”

“Oh shush. I’ve been buying up the village children, with a little help from a merchant who has a thing for me.”