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((The 17 pages of St. Patrick's Day + Triple Saturday -- Page 6 of 20))
The Senmurai noticed Royo there immediately, and the two exchanged looks.

“Eleyo,” came the surface-dweller’s armor-tinged voice. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good...”

The answer to that, of course, was no. He felt like he might collapse if he lost focus for even a moment, but that was neither here nor there.

Even now, the Senmurai was making metal hover around himself, as if to intimidate Royo, as if to imply that he wasn’t even tired after that grueling fight that everyone had just witnessed.

These damn supermen...

“Iron One,” interrupted Malast. “Why do you wish to become a god?”

The question seemed to surprise him. “Uh... I don’t.”

Malast looked over at Royo.

Yes. That was the ideal answer.

“Then why did you apparently risk your life fighting that worm?” said Malast.

There came a long period of silence.

Then Hector finally said, “...Wait, what? I could’ve surrendered against it?”

Malast blinked dully at him. “Of course you could have. Are you stupid?”

“Hey, I... What? The last time I checked, none of the contestants were giant slime monsters. I didn’t think that qualified as a proper match or whatever. I thought--agh... I--just... agh...”

“Mm. So in other words, you were fighting for your life, not to win the tournament.”

“Yes! But wait a second! Are you really saying you would’ve teleported us out of there, if we’d asked you to?!”

“Of course I would have.”

“What?! Why?!”

“What do you mean, why?”

“I thought you didn’t care!” said Hector. “You kept on telling us about how much you don’t care about anything, so I thought Garovel and I were just screwed!”

“Ah... hmm.” Malast scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I can understand why you would think that, but still, you could have at least asked, no? It would have been in perfect accordance with the rule I established before the tournament. And I mean, c’mon. I’m not entirely without empathy.”

“Oh yeah? Is that why you forced everyone into a tournament without even asking us if we wanted to participate first?”

“What need was there to ask?” said Malast. “If you didn’t want to participate, you could have just surrendered in the first round.”

“Malast.” The Senmurai broke for a groan of exasperation. “It’s not that simple. Some of these people are my allies, you know. Friends. But others--we barely even know each other. And not to mention, we have completely different levels of strength, too. Pitting us against each other made no sense...”

“Sure it did,” said Malast, though he offered no counterargument.

“It was also kind of cruel,” Hector added.

“What? Cruel? I don’t see how.”

“It was really dangerous and confusing!” The Senmurai was looking around now. “Is everybody okay, by the way?!”

There were a few words of acknowledgment thrown out from everyone else.

“The only casualty in the tournament was that of Seyos,” said Malast.

Hector paused. “So it was dangerous and someone did die.”

“Ah... well... yes.”

Royo wasn’t sure what was happening. Why did it suddenly sound like the Senmurai was winning this argument? And why did the Idle God sound like a child being scolded?