Chapter 50: The King Maker
Iron Hall students were already arguing about equipment loadouts while walking.
Expedition students carried rolled maps with the urgency of people who had decided team compositions based on terrain preferences and needed to confirm the terrain before committing.
Two students from the Synchronization Chambers ran past while their beasts attempted to match their pace, which worked better for some species than others.
The Evolution Department’s common area had turned into an impromptu team composition discussion within sixty seconds of the announcement.
Arthur moved through it all toward the King’s Arena.
Near one of the plazas, a cluster of upperclassmen was having the conversation that clearly happened every year in this context.
"I wonder which first-years will be entering."
"Leon’s been in the Arena every day this month. He’s probably entering."
Someone else shook their head. "First-years are rarely worth watching. The third-years are the ones to follow. Amanda and Silver are going to face off this year, I’m hearing."
"Again? Every year with those two."
Arthur walked past them, heard enough, and smiled at nothing in particular.
...
The King’s Arena was massive. Arthur realized just how massive when he finally stood beneath it. Crystal screens floated at various heights around the exterior, currently displaying registration information in several colors.
Observation balconies lined the upper levels.
The Simulation Towers rose around the arena itself like a ring of structures. Crystal gates marked the four entry points. Professors and staff moved through the space with the practiced efficiency of people who had run this before.
Arthur looked up and then kept looking. "It’s huge."
You haven’t seen the inside yet," Mithra said.
...
The registration area within the arena’s outer courtyard already had teams forming.
A Stone Giant’s scaled hide caught the morning light in a pattern that made it look carved rather than alive.
A Crystal Serpent moved between two students with the sinuous ease of something that was being diplomatic.
A Phoenix chick, still in its initial growth stage, was making everyone in its immediate vicinity uncomfortably warm.
A Thunder Lion sat with complete calm while its partner argued loudly about something with someone three meters away.
Arthur’s attention drifted toward several third-years standing apart from the crowd.
One stood beside a gigantic beetle.
One carried a beast sleeping on their shoulder.
One stood completely alone.
Nobody bothered them as if there was an invisible wall around them. "Those are the Top Five," Mithra said quietly.
"Top 5?"
"The five students most likely to become the next Student President and Vice President."
Arthur looked toward them again.
One was calmly reading a report while everyone around him argued. Another was quietly feeding her beast. The student standing alone noticed Arthur looking. Their eyes met for only a second.
Then the student simply nodded once.
Arthur smiled and nodded back. "...They’re interesting."
"They didn’t become the Top Five by accident," Mithra said.
He chuckles. "...I want to meet them."
Mithra chuckles and says. "Well, if we become student council members, then sure. For now, let’s touch upon the rules."
"Right," Arthur said with a nod.
Athena had already produced a summary from somewhere, which Arthur was choosing not to question.
"The King Maker is not an arena tournament," she said. "Each round is a simulation expedition. Actual expedition records are used as the foundation, then recreated with variation. The challenges change every round."
Arthur was nodding through this when the courtyard’s general level of sound changed.
A man with a black suit entered through the east gate. His hair was crimson and so were his eyes, and with a bulging build. He walked to the front of the registration area without announcement, and the crowd’s attention followed him there.
"Ajax," Athena said.
"He runs the Arena," Mithra confirmed.
The conversations around the courtyard disappeared. Not because anyone told them to stop. Because everyone already had.
Ajax looked out at the assembled students for a moment before speaking. "The format hasn’t changed since last year, but for first-years who weren’t here. Last year’s third round put one team in a collapsed expedition route simulation. Two of their members were injured in the scenario. Supplies for one direction only." He paused. "Three paths forward, with information that was incomplete on all three."
"I heard they passed," a second-year said.
Ajax nodded. "They did. Not because they chose the right path." Another pause, shorter. "Because when the path turned out to be wrong, they adapted without losing anyone."
The courtyard held this for a moment.
Arthur remembered the Commander standing in front of three Storm Wolf packs while her tribe moved behind her.
...
Four-person teams. Arthur had three.
"We need one more," he said.
Athena had been recruited through a process that had involved the restricted archives and a conversation that still went unreported. She was now reviewing team composition with the focus of someone who had already identified the gap and was running options.
"Someone from the Evolution Department might be willing," she said.
Mithra shook her head. "Most first-years won’t enter."
Arthur started walking toward the registration desk and the adjacent common area where the largest concentration of first-years had gathered.
The response was immediate.
Mithra covered his mouth.
Athena took hold of his right arm.
Vedas took hold of his left arm.
Melo wrapped herself around his right leg.
Arthur looked down. "...Melo?"
She tightened her grip. "Traitor!"
Athy pecked his left shoulder with the precision of something adding the final component to a coordinated effort.
"Mmph?" Arthur said.
"No," Mithra said.
"Leave recruitment to people who do not accidentally terrify everyone they explain things to," Athena said.
Arthur looked at them. "I’ve never scared anyone," he said, when Mithra released his mouth.
Every person currently in contact with him maintained contact with him and looked at him with a uniform expression.
"Leave it to me," Mithra said.
Arthur looked at all of them. "...Fine."
...
Mithra scanned the registration courtyard until she found the brown-haired boy with a small monkey on his shoulder.
Sun was watching the registration process from a position approximately forty meters from the nearest team-formation cluster, which communicated his intentions quite clearly.
She walked toward him.
His monkey saw her first and tapped Sun on the shoulder.
Sun turned and the moment he saw her, his face turned pale. "It’s only been one month," he said, when she was close enough. "I need at least two or three more before I can begin making any kind of meaningful—"
Mithra shakes her head and says, "You can repay some of it by helping me out with a task."
The monkey on his shoulder tilted its head. Sun looked at the monkey, then at Mithra, with the expression of someone calculating whether this was better or worse than the alternative. "What kind of task?"
"Join my team for the King Maker Tournament."
Sun looked at her. Then at the registration area. Then back at her.
"I appreciate the thought," he said with a beaming smile, "but I have no particular interest in making a fool—"
"That’s interesting," Mithra said, pleasantly. "There is this thing I recently learned. It’s called interest- "
Sun swiftly knelt down before her while giving her reverent yet confident smile. "I would be honored to join your team," he said, "and to contribute whatever skills I possess to its success, my lady."
"Wonderful," Mithra said with a smile.
The monkey looked between them and then sighed with a shake of his head.
Mithra extended one hand which Sun took and stood. "You do know," he said, dusting his knee off, "that I’m going to be excellent at this."
"I know," Mithra said.
"I just want it noted that I’m joining on those terms, not because of the debt conversation."
"Noted," Mithra said.
"The monkey agrees."
The monkey slowly nodded.
Sun sighed. "...Even he’s against me."
...
Arthur looked around at the other teams who already had a full set of four members. And registration is almost closing.
"...Where’d she go?"
"Just give her a bit."
And thirty seconds later to the surprise of everyone, Mithra returned with Sun.
"Our team is complete," Mithra said.
"Good to see you again," Arthur said.
Sun looked at him with the expression Arthur had learned to recognize as Sun preparing for a conversation that was going to make him tired.
"Likewise," Sun said, in the way people said words that meant the opposite of what the words meant.
"I’ve been thinking," Arthur said, "about losing the bet. Did it help? Becoming wrong about something you were confident about. A lot of people find that kind of experience makes them more open to other possibilities."
Sun went still.
"I only ask because you seem more flexible than you were a month ago," Arthur continued.
"Are you saying he has grown?" Mithra held her chin.
"Yep! I think he is becoming more adaptable."
Sun closed his eyes. "...Please stop..."
"Why? I am just complimenting your growth."
"How," Sun said with a blank look, "do you keep making that sound like a compliment?"
Arthur tilted his head.
Athena kept writing. "It is a compliment."
"That," Sun said, "does not improve the situation."
Mithra was laughing quietly in the background.
Athy hooted once, which Arthur had come to understand as agreement with Athena’s assessments.
...
Golden light arrived before Leon did, because Mephistopheles was large enough now that the crowd’s instinctive awareness of the light preceded the crowd’s awareness of anything else. Students shifted without meaning to, the path clearing in the way paths cleared for things that had earned the clearing.
Leon walked through the registration area with Mephistopheles, and his eyes found Arthur’s, and Arthur waved.
Leon walked over.
"You have a team," he said.
"So do you," Arthur said. He hadn’t seen Leon’s team but he assumed so.
Leon glanced toward the Simulation Towers. "I’m looking forward to seeing how far you get."
Arthur grinned. "I was about to say the same thing."
Leon smiled, and it was the smile that was still small but was present more often than it had been a month ago. "Good."
He walked toward his registration point.
...
The teams assembled when Ajax called them in.
Hundreds of students filled the Arena.
Ajax stood at the front and the room was quiet before he began. "The King Maker Tournament," he said, "exists to discover who people will follow. We are looking for leaders."
Arthur instinctively gripped Vedas’ shoulder without realizing why. Vedas looked over. Arthur hadn’t realized he had done it. Vedas smiled quietly and then looked back toward the simulation.
Arthur remembered the Commander standing in front of her tribe. Everyone behind her trusted her. Mithra noticed but she didn’t say anything.
Then the floor of the King’s Arena began to change.
It started at the edges and moved inward: crystal structures rising and shifting.
The light that filled them was not the morning light of Pathfinder Academy but something different, the light of somewhere else.
Forests materialized between the rising structures. A mountain range appeared in the distance, which should not have been possible inside any building.
Arthur wasn’t looking at Ajax anymore. Instead he watched a bird disappear behind one mountain. And then a few seconds later, it emerged from the other side.
He laughed. "Those aren’t illusions... It’s real."
Athena blinked. "You noticed?"
"The river’s changing and the birds."
The current shifted with birds moving through the sky and clouds drifting.
Clouds moved.
Arthur grinned. "...It’s alive."
Athena quietly nodded. "Every simulation continues evolving while you’re inside it."
"Wait... Does that mean the tournament already started?" he said.
Ajax’s expression had moved from the neutral authority of a speech into something that was considerably closer to what it looked like before his expression went neutral.
"It began the moment you entered," he said.
Arthur’s grin widened. "...Now this..." He looked around the living world. "...is an adventure."
The light swallowed them.
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