Noah followed Michael down to their room, which was just behind the area where they started in the fight. The fact that each family started the fight in their set side, and not in an opposite position gave Noah a good insight on how battles worked here, but also gave him some questions.

"So, Michael, so we always start on that place every week?' he asked, making Michael turn around while still walking.

"Huh? Of course not, the position of each family within the arena is random. It's set just before each event,

" Michael answered as if he was just stating the obvious, which made Noah realize how stupid of a question that was. Rather, it was common sense that their locations would change. However, the fact that it did not change within the night made Noah understand how important this was.

"I see...

" he responded, thinking about how the strategy would change depending on how the location of the families was in relationship to one another. If they were just by each other, it would turn into a long range battle since they would have easy vision of where the enemy was regardless of the layout of the arena. There was still a lingering doubt in Noah's mind, of whether the arena would be the same for all battles from now on. But of course, there was little chance of that being the case.

"So, is there any rule on how the arena will be from now on?

"

"Hmmm...

" Michael hummed, as he tried to remember for sure how that aspect of the arena worked.

"If I recall correctly, the arena layout will never repeat in the first two rounds,

" he said, taking a pause to think again.

"However, the final round will always be a layout that happened within the first two rounds. So it's one of the six layouts of the day.

"

"I see... So, how many layouts are there?

" Noah asked, but this time the person who answered it was the bearded warrior.

"Boy, don't count on that. The arena has near infinite possible layouts. Even in the premisse repeats itself, like our battle's maze-like style, the layout itself will be different,

" he hopped in with a serious face, as he thought Noah was trying to cheese the system by making a strategy before the battle.

"Don't try to read it. Even if the final repeats the premise, there will be some differences.

"

Noah was a bit surprised at how serious he was at his innocent question, but he understood one thing. This bearded guy was one of the oldest in the group, so he probably had been here many times before. And from how he spoke, they probably had gotten the short end of the stick at least once from someone's overconfidence at reading the layout. It was a rookie mistake in fortresses, thinking they would be the exact same just because they had been there before. Noah had seen this many times in his fortress explorations, especially back in the F rank fortresses, where people would jump to their deaths thinking they knew where the monsters would be.

"God, what a fight!

" one of the mages said as he dropped himself onto a comfortable chair.

The group quickly dropped themselves on the chairs and sofas of the waiting room. The furniture in this table was at least one level above that of the waiting room they had been before. It certanly confused Noah the fact they had taken them there before, istead of leading them here in the first place. Though it was likely that it had to do with the setup of the arena and the process of bringing the important guests first, since they had been taken atop the arena, showing the invitees all those involved in tonight's fight before letting them leave. A large glass window allowed them to have a clear view of the arena, though from below, while a large tv gave them the broadcast view of the arena. As soon as they got in, the bearded warrior muted the tv, mumbling about how annoying the narrator's voice was.

As the group spread themselves, Noah took his seat in a sofa a bit away from where most of the group had sat down. He mentally counted how many spots there were in this place, realizing it was the exact 15 the full group would've had.

It was only now that Noah took his time to look around and see how many people had been injured and were not present. There were only 10 people here. 5 seats were empty, and he'd chosen to sit down were most of those were. Though, for some reason, both the Leader and the bearded warrior had also chosen to sit around this place, in the edge of the room furthest from the entrance door.

"Where's the rest?

" he asked.

"Oh, those are being healed by the organizers, they'll be back shortly,

" the bearded warrior brushed his worries off.

"They're fine. All injuries were light enough they'll be able to come back to the next fight.

"

"I see... that's good. So, what happens if they can't come back?

" Noah asked. He'd already heard something about this during dinner, but making himself sure would take a weight off his shoulders. He also looked around to see all the food and drinks laid out around the room. There was even alcohol available for those who wanted it, but Noah decided that it was not a good time to do so. Apparently, the rest of the group followed this unspoken agreement and nobody seemed to take any alcoholic drinks, all choosing either juice, water or soda. The food was also very simple. And though some were eating one thing here and there, nobody was trying to fill themselves up, granted they had already had lunch a few hours ago.

"Then we fight with less people. It's normal for the final round to have both sides at least one or two people under. We just have to plan ahead with that in mind,

" Michael broke into the conversation.

"So they can't replace the missing people or get substitutes midway into the arena, right,

" Noah asked just to make sure. It wasn't reasonable to think they could, but he asked just in case.

"No, they can't. The team you have in the first round is the people you have until the last,

" he said, with a serious expression. Noah didn't know whether he was angry he had made such a basic question or whether he was just that serious about the rule for another reason.

"That's good for us, but pretty problematic... We were lucky to be in the first fight,

" Noah relaxed, grabbing a drink from the nearby table.

"Yeah,

" Michael agreed, taking a bite off a fruit he grabbed from another table.

"We have three fight's worth to recover. We're gonna have one fight between the semi and the finals too,

" the bearded warrior confirmed how the fight order worked with his remark, making Noah relax about the whole spending too much energy thing.

"What are you guys talking about?

" holding a glass of water, the female healer approached, sitting on the couch by Noah's side.

"The time between this and our next battle. Being able to rest will help us a lot.

" He turned around to face her.

"I see. Because you took down their healer, the battle was easier on me. If not, I'd be thanking the gods for this rest,

" she said, shying away from looking at him.

"Oh, that happened! Hey, Noah, how the heck did you take care of those two so fast?

" A female warrior sitting across from Michael called the group's attention.

"Eh? That? I used my blessing to teleport behind the healer and threw her off the platform,

" he began.

"I was very lucky she was standing on the very edge, if not I'd have to do something else.

"

"Heeh. So you held back from slicing her up or putting her on fire like you did with the mage,

" the female warrior teased him.

"I mean, yeah. Why would I hurt her more than necessary if I didn't have to do it?

" Noah responded, keeping his poker face intact.

"But you didn't hold back from putting the man up in flames. Trully a gentleman,

" she teased further.

"It was the only option to take him out without killing him. I only had one shot at this. Also, I dispelled the fire as soon as he stopped screaming. If I wanted to kill him, I just had to leave him burning,

" Noah shrugged, making the woman widen his eyes a little at his casual mention of killing the guy and how casual it was.

"Hey, hey, stop teasing this guy. It'll just end up hurting you in the process, hahaha,

" the bearded warrior intervened, laughying wryly.

"Either way, Noah, that was amazing. Doing that in the arena is every assassin's dream. You can get a lot of attention and maybe even some sponsors if you have a character in Valorwatch,

" the scout hopped in, calling Noah's attention as he mentioned a game he was pretty familiar with.

"How does that work?

" he asked, breaking his poker face for a second, and making the scout smile as he saw Noah's interest.

"Hey, guys, shut up for a second, the battle will start!

" one of the mages warned them, making everyone's eyes turn to the television with the breadcast of the fight. Granted, nobody asked the bearded warrior to unmute it.. On the top of the screen, a small leaderboard showed the results of their fight, and which families were going in next.