This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

Chapter 745: Chapter 745: Bookie of the North

The train screeched to a halt, steam curling along the platform as Elias stepped off with a practiced grin and a suspiciously large duffel bag slung over one shoulder.

“Celestial City Arena, here I come,” he muttered, eyes gleaming. Strangely, if one looked closely, there seemed to be a golden dollar symbol in his pupils…

Within minutes, he was already setting up shop—not in a shady alley, not tucked discreetly behind a stall—but boldly out front, right across from the ticket checkpoint to the tournament venue.

A large foldable betting board thumped open beside him, followed by a rapid-fire blur of hand-written odds and names scribbled with colour-coded chalk. Names, stars, college logos, and crude doodles flew across the surface with barely legible annotations and bets for things like “Eternal Second Place,” “Losing a Limb,” and “Will Cry”.

“Get your bets in! You’ve got five minutes before the second-years enter the 3v3 stage!” Elias called, voice slick and confident. However, there was still some disappointment in his voice as he internally grumbled about the inefficiency of land transportation. The idea to set up a betting ring for the National Tournament had occurred to him a few days ago, but due to how slow travel by train was, and how far his family home was, he was only just arriving now. He had hoped, at the latest, to arrive before any of the day’s matches had started. That way, he could catch people as he entered the arena; now he was left with a far less busy plaza since most spectators were already in their seats in the arena. All that remained were some diehard fans who were unable to get tickets and so congregated together to watch on the large screen outside the arena.

“Odds for Dark Moon’s trio winning in three matches? Sitting tight at 1.5 to 1. Think Frozen Sun’s second-years are gonna pull a miracle? I’ll give you 9 to 1. Make your heartbreak profitable!”

A few nearby fans placed modest bets, eyes wide at the boldness of it all. Clearly, they had never seen someone so bold as to set up a gambling ring on the royal family’s land.

Then a shadow fell over him.

Elias turned slowly.

A squad of royal guards strolled down the main promenade, their golden armour polished to a mirror-shine, red cloaks stitched with the crest of the Celestial Empire fluttering behind them. The weakest among them, if Elias was identifying their aura right, was at least a 6-star beast tamer.

He paled.

“Now, let’s not be hasty, good sirs,” he said, raising his hands. “I’m but a humble servant of capitalis—AH!”

The lead guard, a tall woman with narrow grey eyes, flicked a coin toward his stand.

It clinked once and settled on “Dark Moon Win.” Another guard threw down a few credits and marked “Serena declared MVP of the match.” The rest followed with minor variations—Serena knockout odds, Soren’s predicted kill count, and more.

Elias blinked.

Then nodded solemnly.

“My honoured patrons.”

With the betting board now validated by literal royal soldiers, a swarm of students and casual viewers surged forward to place their bets. Elias rubbed his hands together and grinned.

Business was good.

—————————

Inside the Arena – Seconds Before the 3v3 Match Between Frozen Sun and Dark Moon College

The atmosphere was electric.

Frozen Sun’s second-year team stood across from Dark Moon’s.

Arlen sat out of the 3v3 as expected—his earlier energy expenditure from activating his Gift left him drained, and the rest of Frozen Sun’s second-years stepped up to fill the void. Among them were:

In the center, a stocky girl with twin braids and a twisted vine bracelet, she had an unusual affinity for ice-attributed plant-type spiritual creatures—a rare combination in the wild, with the few ice-attributed plants being almost exclusively in the far north where Frozen Sun was located.

A tall boy with long white gloves who fielded a variety of bird ice-attributed spiritual creatures. Most notably was a blue-grade, Azure Glass Gull—a rare ice and light dual-type avian that distorted light around it with each wingbeat.

Lastly, was a soft-spoken, expressionless boy with a sharp gaze who brought a heavy-bodied, crocodilian beast of pure ice with jagged teeth coated in frost—a Shiverjaw Wyrm— along with two other reptiles. It was clearly his strongest contract, which was unfortunate because it also clearly had some remnant dragon’s blood, and so the second Soren’s contracts appeared, it did suffer from bloodline suppression and was unable to play to its full strength.

On the side of Dark Moon, as previously planned, Serena, Dwayne, and Soren took the field with their complimentary contracts.

As the announcer boomed their introductions and a fresh round of screaming echoed across the crowd, Serena turned slightly toward the boys on either side of her.

“Don’t get in the way,” she said mildly.

Dwayne’s smirk twitched and then vanished.

Soren cracked his neck. “It’s not me you need to worry about.”

Dwayne, despite his usual cockiness, was aware that his performance in this tournament had been lacklustre. He had lost a 1v1 battle to a school only in the top 30, which was shameful. Moreover, the few group matches that they’d lost since had been largely due to his mistakes…it makes sense that both his teammates and even some of the teachers had begun to lose confidence in him.

However, if Dwayne had an excess of something, it was his confidence—almost overly so. So despite his current lacklustre performance, he still truly believed that once he shook off the nerves from his first ever tournament appearance, he’d perform even better than Kain, Serena, Soren, and Kairos combined.

Clenching his fist from the internal pep-talk, Kairos refocused on the match.

“Begin!”

The battlefield erupted into motion.

Serena summoned three contracts at once—her Elemental Guardian in its fire form, the evolved Prismarin, and the Starweaver.

Meanwhile Soren summoned his lightning attribute Amethyst Dragon, Water dragon, and Wind dragon.

Dwayne kept the same lineup since the beginning of the tournament: Noxious Clouding, Leviathan, and Stormstrike Siren

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