“The Pentacle Trials? What’s that?” Miri asked as she gazed at the flyer, which contained a collection of words overlaid on top of a symbol of a pentacle—all arranged in a stylish manner.
“You’ve never heard of the Pentacle Trials?” Madame Laveau said. “It is a competition taking place every year that pits the strongest adventurers from all over the city against each other in a series of specially designed challenges, one that tests your skills in combat and dungeon raiding. It’s a great spectacle, one that many people would be watching. Therefore, anyone who competes in it would undoubtedly have the chance to gain a massive amount of recognition depending on how well they do. Plus, if you are able to win all of the trials, there’s even a prize pool of 500,000 gold. Hundreds compete in it every year, but only one gets to take home the prize.”
“5…5…500,000 gold?! By the goddess, that’s quite a large sum of money,” Anne remarked astonishingly. “With a prize pool like that, the competition must be fierce.”
“Oh, indeed it is. You can bet that the best of the best will be there, all striving to be the victor. It’ll be quite the challenge, for sure,” Madame Laveau pointed out.
“A challenge, eh?” Miri said with an eager smirk. “I kinda like the sound of that.”
“Of course you do,” Anne said with an eye-roll. “When Madame Laveau told you about the job with the chimeragon, you’d barely even hesitated. You are nothing if not eager for a challenge.”
“Damn right I am,” Miri replied. “The chance to get wealth and fame by competing in a high-stakes competition? You can absolutely count me in!”
Besides, who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned tournament arc? Miri thought. Pretty much every shounen anime has it nowadays. Naruto has the Chūnin Exams. MHA has the U.A. Sports Festival. Dragon Ball has…just a whole bunch of them. This will be my tournament arc, one where I get to show everyone what I’m made of.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Miri,” Anne said. “However, before we dive headfirst into this, perhaps it’ll be best if we know a few details about the competition itself, such as what kind of challenges we’re likely going to face.”
“I believe I can fill you in on that,” Madame Laveau said with a smirk. “Now, the Pentacle Trials are slightly different every year due to having different special rules and taking place in different settings. However, the general structure of it remains largely unchanged. The entire competition is broken up into five trials, with each contestant needing to pass all of them in order to win.
“The first trial is Scavenger Hunt. Like the name suggests, the goal here is to collect one of the special ‘star runes’ scattered throughout a large area, usually in a forest or woodland biome. There are 100 star runes total, meaning that out of the countless contestants, only 100 will be able to pass the first trial. 80 of the runes are embedded into the hearts of magically constructed monsters wandering the area, meaning that you’ll have to defeat the monsters in order to obtain them. As for the last 20 of the runes, they will not be embedded in any monster but are instead hidden in secret locations, with a list of hints provided to you at the beginning of the trial to help you find them.
“The second trial is Solo Battle. The 100 contestants who passed the first trial are then randomly paired off with one another in a 1-on-1 battle. However, they are generally grouped together based on their highest affinities, meaning that mages are paired off against mages, knights against knights, clerics against clerics, etc. To pass this trial, you only need to win the battle, simple as that. At the end of this trial, the 100 contestants will be cut down to 50.
“The third trial is Dungeon Raid. The remaining 50 contestants must form into 10 teams of 5. Each of these teams must then clear a specially designed dungeon as quickly as possible. Out of the 10 teams, the 5 teams with the fastest times will win this trail and move on to the next one.
“The fourth trial is Team Battle. The 5 remaining teams must face off against each other in a 5 vs 5 team battle, round robin-style. However, before this trial starts, team members may choose to swap teams with each other so long as both members agree to it. At the end of those battles, the team with the highest wins gets to move on to the next trial.
“The fifth trial is Pentacle Royale. The 5 remaining contestants from the winning team are placed in a small arena where they get to fight in a free-for-all battle. The last remaining contestant left standing will be declared the winner of all the trials.”
