-Break-
Location: Cursed Sea District of Căderea-dracului
Φ As I rush around with boxes filled with a wide variety of objects. I see one of many different nightmares with tired expressions in rather tattered clothes. I stop in front of them and say, "D-D-Do you need clothes?"
They stare at me and look confused for a moment, before seeing the Church cross around my neck, and then say, "Yes, that would be nice."
I activate my legacy on one of the boxes, from inside the box I create darkness absorbing the contents, and then I wrap the darkness from my legacy around the box and then spit out some clothes which I caught and hand to the nightmares, whilst saying, "I hope you enj-joy."
"God bless," they say back. Smiling, I quickly place Käärid's substance onto the people and start moving forward to the next people.
"That makes 85 people helped, you're doing good, Cyrus."
Since we finished setting everything up, Dumnorix and I have been racing around looking for people to help and aid, so I can win our bout. Even if it's only small, I want to have a victory against him so I can hold my head up high. Yet his ability to run at high speeds gives him an unfair advantage in a contest like this.
So I devised this strategy to help me win. If he can move faster, I can carry more weight while keeping a similar speed, and by using my legacy's ability to absorb mass like it did with the Basileia crystals, I should be able to quickly give out the items inside without having to stop.
Though it's hard to use my legacy precisely like this. I struggle to keep it on my sword or my tail usually, and it seems my legacy works better on things of a certain strength, which these boxes don't qualify as.
Yet I will keep going, because I don't want to lose again, especially to Dumnorix. I will protect everyone, like they have protected me from now onwards.
Φ Cyrus dashes around the cursed sea district looking for anyone who needs food, clothes, shelter, or maps around the city. Helping each one without allowing a single person, whether young or old, to go without help.
The old lady he carries on his back says, "Thank you, young man, you make me feel like a young nightmare again."
Pointing a young couple towards an inn, Cyrus says, "To think humans allow their young babies to do such things. Gross."
Kneeling in front of a crying child, Cyrus hands him some candy from one of the boxes, and the kid quickly eats it, then sticks out his hand and says, "More."
Seeing two nightmare fighting in front of a store, Cyrus picks them both up and drags them away, and the shopkeeper, running out, shouts, "THANK YOU!"
The young lady crying in front of him says, "Why? Why won't you stay with me? I finally found my prince after so long, and the first thing he did was abandon me when I needed him. What kind of cruel joke is this?" Cyrus starts to panic and puts his hands in front of his body. He shakes his head from left to right, but she just grabs his hands and says, "It's because I AM UGLY, ISN'T IT!" Cyrus places both his hands on his head as her tears continue to fall.
Φ Just follow the roads and paths Cyrus, and use you're body as best as you can, you legs that can run without stopping, you're muscles which can carry all of the weight in the world, and you're ears which can her the smallest of cries, use them all for the sake of securing you're victory. TRY YOUR BEST!
-Break-
Location: Church of the Cursed Land/Nolādēta Zeme
With Dumnorix standing beside me, I take a moment to look at him, and I see that he does not look winded at all, not even the slightest bit. What's going on there is no way his stamina didn't take a hit from all of the work we did today. I am sturdier than he is, and I feel drained.
Käärid's, in front of us, says, "It seems both of you have worked rather hard today, and I thank you both for your efforts."
Dumnorix says, "No problem, it was barely any effort."
Feeling anxious, I say, "WHO WON!"
Käärid says, "Ahh yes, if we count up the total number of people who feel satisfied with your help. I would say that Cyrus helped around 10,000 people today, and if we were to compare that to Dumnorix, he hit around 100,000. In terms of satisfaction, Dumnorix made almost every single one of those people satisfied, and you got around half."
Falling to my knees, I say, "What?"
Pointing his finger towards the sky, Dumnorix says, "The greatest in all creations crushes his opponent yet again!"
"How? How did you beat me?" I say, grabbing Dumnorix's shoulders.
"You really want me to tell you're tale of defeat? Well, it's simple: just look at you. You're tired."
"Of course I am!"
Pushing his fingers against my forehead, he says, "No, the very fact that you're tired tells me how you went about doing this. Let me guess, you ran across the main roads looking for people to help using your sight, hearing, and sense of smell, right?"
"Of course I did."
"What a stupid idea. You'd tire yourself out doing such a thing, and your productivity would drastically drop near the end of the day. I am sure most of your unsatisfied people came during that time."
"Then how did you do it?"
"I asked for help."
"What? That isn't allowed?"
We both turn to Käärid, who says, "You both weren't allowed to ask for others to hand out things to people, but that isn't what Dumnorix did."
"I talked to people and found the spots where they gathered, along with a series of other shortcuts. Radonitsa is a festival in Cyrus, there are many different large events going on every single moment here. I then planned out my route, and how long it would take me to reach each area, and when I helped people, I told them to send their friends and family to the next area, so they would come to me instead of me coming to them."
"What?"
"You tried to use you're physicality to brute force this, and just like with our fight earlier, you can only get so far without using your head, Cyrus. Having a strategy and a plan is what allows adults to actually fight, unlike children, Cyrus."
My head drops low as the weight of my failure falls upon me. He completely outplayed me. He got over ten times the work done as I did using far less effort, just by making a little plan. I lost, I lost again!
Käärid, clapping his hand, says, "Don't feel down, regardless, you both still single-handedly helped us through today, allowing us to finish up far earlier than we thought. Now I can let clergy and the lay workers out to enjoy the festival, also-."
Käärid reaches into his pocket, pulls out some money, and hands it over to us, saying, "This should be enough to fill you're bellies for the day, so go and enjoy yourselves today, alright."
Grabbing the money and then throwing half to me, Dumnorix says, "It was a pleasure to help, and if you need any more from the greatest in all creation, don't be shy and just call on me."
"Thank you."
As they chat away, all I can do is grip my fist too tightly, and blood starts to drip. How the hell am I going to protect anyone if I am outclassed so easily? What am I supposed to do to close the gap between us? "Dumnorix, let's fight agai-."
He presses his finger on my lips and says, "No way."
"WHY NOT!"
"Stop being a child, and lower your voice. Please tell me what has changed within you intellectually, physically or spiritually. With a strong resolve, you have already lost in a physical fight, and even in terms of strategy, you have already lost. So, unless a breakthrough has happened in the last 5 minutes, all you're going to do is keep bashing you're head against a wall until I feel sorry enough for you that I give you a free win."
Lowering my head, I say, "I can't lose here."
"That sentence is nonsensical, as I can't not be the strongest. If you don't want to lose, get stronger. Even a young child has enough pattern recognition to know that you can't just force you're way into victory. I won't accept any more of your challenge while we are at Blestemate."
"No, I can still fight."
"Cyru,s if you dare to challenge me to another fight without being fully healed up, I promise to kill Orb."
"How dare you!"
"Then don't be stupid and do as I tell you bo-." Before the words boy can leave his mouth a flying kick from mini Abbán rams into his cheek knocking him into the ground.
Then while on the ground, mini Abban says, "I heard that you dumbass! You think you can go threatening to kill our allies? HAS YOUR BRAIN ROTTED!"
Smiling with all the confidence in the world, Dumnorix says, "It was an empty threat, I was just joking!"
Smashing in Dumnorix's face, Abbán says, "IT WASN'T FUNNY!"
-Break-
Location: Cursed Land District of Căderea-dracului
Φ With all of their backs against the floor, Iancu, Maple, Willow and Suzuka look up towards the sky, and Willow says, "Nothing works. Literally nothing we could think of works."
Maple adds, "I didn't think one person could be this bad at so many things."
Iancu scowls, "I think you might be cursed in more ways than one."
Suzuka, standing up with vigour, says, "You know, being lonely is not the worst thing ever!"
Ilus in the other room says, "HOW MEAN!"
Willow says, "Well, what are we supposed to do? Unless you can find a woman who loves that smell, I think your fate is sealed."
"I said that at the start, and you guys just made it far worse throughout today!"
Suzuka, Willow, and Maple bowing their heads say, "WE'RE SORRY!"
Walking into the room Ilus says, "It's fine I expected it."
In his hands are a series of different types of confectioneries, the most prominent of which is a giant cake. In contrast to almost everything within Blestemate, the confectioneries look like holy regalia passed down from kings to kings.
Yet as their smell hits the children's noses, they all back away except for Suzuka, whose mouth waters.
"I made you guys some food as thanks."
Iancu screams, "WHY DO THEY SMELL LIKE THAT, IT'S EVEN WORST THAN YOUR OIL!"
"When I bake, the smell kind of fuses with all of the food and mutates into something far worse."
Maple says, "I have smelled rotten carcasses far better than this."
Williow adds, "I would sooner eat shit!"
But Suzuka takes some of the cake and stuffs it into her mouth, and says, "It's delicious!"
"Huh!" The other three in the room say.
Grabbing some, Suzuka says, "You guys need to try some."
They all back away out of fright, but with speed, they cannot keep up with her. She stuffs pieces of cake into their mouth, and in mere moments, all of their expression soften with ecstasy, and Suzuka says, "Right, right!"
-Break-
With nose clips on their faces, they all sit around a table and enjoy the sweets.
Maple with a smile says, "It must suck for the only thing you're good at to be ruined by you're curse Ilus."
"Don't remind me, or I might cry."
Suzuka, standing up, says, "Don't let that stop you now. This food is delicious, and I am sure you'll find one who can admire you as much as I admire it."
Taking some cake, Ilus says, "Thank you for you're kindness, but after today I have simply given up on such things. I realise that only food can be my one true love in this life, and I am ok with that."
"NO! That's way too sad, no one deserves to be lonely."
Rushing to the window of his house, Suzuka screams, "ANYONE! THERE IS SOMEONE IN DESPERATE NEED OF LOVE! PLEASE COME AND HELP HIM!"
Ilus, covering his face, says, "No, Suzuka, stop. This is too embarrassing."
But she screams, "HE IS AN AMAZING COOK, AND HIS BODY IS VERY SOFT AND HUGGABLE! COME ONE ANYONE, I DON'T EVEN CARE IF YOU'RE A FREAK!"
"Why are you screaming, Suzuka?" Orb says, standing outside the window.
"I FOUND THE FREAK!" She says, grabbing Orb.