Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! Chapter 177: 177-Hail Mary

Read chapter 177 of Reader Mage-Stubbing August 10! by A_Random_Turtle on NovelPedia.

Losing fifty points pushed Cohort Dragon Eye right into second place, and not by a small margin too. They were now behind Spearhead by forty points, and such a gap was not something they could easily close, if at all. The rivalry between the two cohorts had managed to be nip and tuck until now, only about five to ten points keeping one ahead of the other, which was why Kim Yiseo’s anger was justified. However, killing someone was out of the question. Merlin hoped Nora would be wise enough to realize that too. Because, as she was the most rash out of all of them, he wouldn’t be surprised if the tournament was brought to an abrupt end because she had murdered Sangook in secret. More of fiction than reality, if he was to be honest. But he couldn’t put anything past the degenerate he had for a twin sister. Everyone sat silent for the first few minutes after they’d all banded together to calm Kim Yiseo, watching as the arena was taken care of in preparation for the next fight. Chima was up next, set to take on Maya Thompson, a compact girl with light brown skin, shoulder length chestnut hair, and dark hazel eyes. She was also one of the most diverse mages in the competition by merit of her Hex alone. After all, she was an A-Class Creation Mage with a Hex that granted her the ability to biologically transform parts of herself into the characteristics of a butterfly. Perhaps it was even more advanced than that, but Merlin had no clue. Which was why he decided that the silence had stretched on for far too long. “I think it’s time we came up with a plan to defeat Maya,” he started, drawing his teammates attention to him. “Or are we just going to sit here and mope because of Sangook’s primitive behavior? It’s not like we don’t know how he is. And besides, he did win. Even if he’d acted stupidly, he leveled the playing ground for us again. We should obviously take advantage of that.” Kim Yiseo sighed, long and low, then leaned back into her seat and folded her arms. “I apologize,” she said. “Don’t mind me and let’s do what we have to do. I can just kill him later.” “Please,” Merlin said with a sigh of his own. “No killing.” “All right then, brute,” Hakyun turned to Chima. “What’s the plan?” Chima eyed him for a moment, but decided not to turn the waiting room into their dorm room, which Merlin really appreciated. “I don’t have a plan,” Chima said. “Anyone I make will be useless. We don’t know the full extent of Maya’s abilities, so trying to come up with a definitive path for me to follow just seems like a recipe for failure.” He nudged his head at the TV screen. “Everyone was reliant on adapting during their fights. I think I just have to do the same, no matter what is thrown my way.” Chima was right. The fact that, unlike Carlos, Sangook had won without needing their help to dissect his abilities and come up with the best way for him to come out on top meant that there was only so much their little team talk could do. What mattered was how the contestants dueled in the arena. They were the authors of their own fates. However, being complacent was not something they should tolerate. Even if their team talk wouldn’t do much, no one could undermine the importance of putting heads together. What may be discussed could bring about a revelation that one might have missed otherwise. Chima was smart, all they had to do was make him even smarter. No. They had to make each of themselves smarter. “Then how about a hail mary?” Chima inclined his head. “A hail mary?” Merlin nodded. “Yes. A last-ditch effort, in case everything else fails.” They all blinked. “Look, it’s the same thing we’ve been repeating from the start. We don’t know what they can do, because they successfully managed to hide their strengths from the very beginning. However, we openly went all out in the first round. They’ve got all they need on us, and we’ve got so little on them. But we’ve done well so far.” He pointed at his head. “We can win this, we’ll just need something mor