The Evil God Summoned by the Saintess

Chapter 352: Chapter 350: Hilia Didn’t Mean It

Time quickly came for the quarterfinals—the Top 8 to Top 4 matches.

Starting this round, the Holy Team No.1 would face even tougher opponents.

But apart from watching their opponents’ matches, they didn’t bother to investigate them in detail.

Because Benovia always went to dig up the info on their rivals, condensed it into a useful analysis, and passed on only the most vital bits to Hilia and the other Holy Daughter candidates.

Just like the "Food Chain" team they were about to face now.

Benovia’s expression was extremely odd: "This team is even more ridiculous than our last opponent, the Heretics. They have zero coordination, only barely manage typical team duties, and their races totally fit the name ’Food Chain.’ Judging by their features, we’ve got rat, weasel, fox, wolf, and tiger. I heard originally there wasn’t a beastman with fox ears, but there was a bear beastman. The bear and tiger kept fighting for the top Food Chain spot, so the wolf and tiger ganged up and kicked the bear out."

Hilia glanced toward the Beastman Empire seating area and couldn’t help asking, "Don’t tell me the Beastmen here really have an internal food chain too? Like wild beasts and demons—do they actually eat each other?"

Benovia shook her head: "Before the Era of Calamity, maybe, but not anymore. They’re just still influenced by animal instincts, so ’natural enemies’ have fierce animosity. Even in this so-called ’Food Chain’ team that claims the Beastman Empire has let go of everything... there’s plenty of internal strife. Maybe we can exploit that."

Benovia pulled everyone together to quietly plot their strategy.

A moment later, Doris frowned. "This kind of trick isn’t my style. I prefer just provoking them outright, pissing them off in person."

Phil shook his head too. "Those lines are just... I can’t say stuff like that."

Encore: "I can deliver them, but it probably won’t be convincing."

Benovia: "I talk too much crap. I’ll go on a long rant and they’ll end up ignoring me."

Everyone turned to Hilia.

Hilia: "What are you staring at me for? How could you bear to have the cutest Hilia do something like this?!"

...

Both teams entered the arena. Hilia stood boldly at the front, bowed to the five opponents, and said, "Hello, everyone! So happy to have a chance to learn from the most powerful beastman team. We truly admire your strength."

With that, Hilia instantly made the "Food Chain" team members freeze, their garbage talk stuck in their throats.

Even the cheers in the stands died down for a second.

Hilia carried on: "Making it this far shows your team spirit is incredibly strong. Even though Mr. Hu calls Mr. Wolf and Miss Fox useless deadweights every day, Miss Weasel farts all the time and claims it’s some special air freshener, Miss Fox loafs around and never helps, Mr. Wolf makes Mr. Mouse deliver everyone’s meals every day, and Mr. Mouse spits in your lunch boxes daily... None of this has shaken your unity! Truly admirable!"

With every line Hilia spoke, the Food Chain team’s faces got darker, until finally, everyone glared furiously at Mr. Mouse.

Hilia quickly said, "Don’t glare at Mr. Mouse! Even though he secretly laughs at you for eating his spit every day, he also says he’s the team’s core. It means your team is very harmonious and united!"

Compared to being called lazy, disrespectful, or bossy, hearing about spit in their lunches—especially mouse spit—made everyone else forget everything and round unanimously on the mouse at the very bottom of the food chain.

"Mr. Mouse is the absolute floor of the Food Chain. For team harmony, he sacrifices a lot! It’s fine to let him vent occasionally—he even did something on your beds..."

Hilia didn’t finish her sentence, but all their faces changed and everyone glared daggers at Mr. Mouse.

"No wonder the takeout always tastes funny. I thought all the Northern Alliance’s food was crap."

"No wonder my bed stank yesterday—I thought some heretics had broken in! Did you—did you crap in my bed?"

"What the hell have you done?!"

Mr. Mouse panicked and glared at Hilia. "You—how do you know all that?"

Wait, he’s not denying it—just asking how she found out?

Are all beastmen like this?

Hilia blinked. "Didn’t you brag about it while drinking at the tavern? You even said your teammates could pass the stories around. You’re the boss in your team, no one dares mess with you. Oh, was it supposed to be secret? Sorry, Mr. Mouse, if I’d known I wouldn’t have said anything. Please, I apologize... I hope you guys won’t refuse to give him his share of the prizes over this."

"Is she telling the truth?" Mr. Hu demonstrated what "tiger’s glare" really means.

"I..."

Mr. Mouse was about to cry, but with all four teammates glaring at him, he was too scared to speak.

The referee hurried to start the countdown.

Time began, and the beastman players had to swallow their anger for now and get on with the match.

But all they could think about was rodent spit in their breakfast, and everyone felt sick.

Both their offense and defense became half-hearted at best.

Especially Mr. Mouse—discovering all eyes (consciously or not) focused on him, his hands shook so badly he could hardly draw his bow anymore.

Panic turned to fury.

Goddammit, just because I’m a mouse, you order me around as a slave every day?

I’m fucking sick of it!

If I didn’t keep our backline together, you lot couldn’t beat humans to save your lives!

An idiot tiger who only knows how to charge. A stupid wolf who only bosses people around. A freeloading fox whose only trick is licking up to the wolf and tiger—never does anything herself. A skunk who bounces around looking busy but somehow does zero actual damage... Clearly, I pull all the weight in this team!

The madder Mr. Mouse got, the madder he got.

If I’ve got to take this shit here, I’d rather go home and make babies with mouse girls!

Screw this, I quit!

With that thought, Mr. Mouse started firing a barrage of powerful magic crossbow bolts from his bow, like a machine gun.

As an archery mage, his magic attacks and casting speed were peerless.

If he were playing seriously, he’d be pinning Team Holy One down right now.

But as it stood...

He figured that, even if they won the championship, these bastards would probably keep all his share of the prize.

Mr. Mouse’s attacks instantly went wild.

It looked like his arrows were aimed at Hilia’s team, but in fact, only a few would hit—most just bounced off the referee’s ’air wall’ shield.

And another handful just ’accidentally’ struck his own teammates.

This immediately made Captain Tiger glare at him, "You damn sewer rat! Shooting me on purpose?! Listen, you can forget league rewards now!"

Mr. Mouse’s face went cold. He started machine-gunning arrows toward the Doris Puppet next to Tiger—but "accidentally" every shot hit Tiger instead.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

"You idiot! Can’t you dodge when the arrows come? You been eating too much of my spit or something and gone stupid?"

And just like that, Holy Team No.1 took the first round.

The second round...

There was no second round.

Mr. Mouse took off running, and shouted insults at his teammates before he left.

The others couldn’t take it—how could they stand such humiliation?

They charged after him on the spot. Their coach, having no choice, announced forfeit.

Everyone was all smiles—except Hilia, who could only facepalm.

There goes my pure, innocent image...