Chapter 103 War
Translated By: Naervon

“Alright! The moment that you’ve all been waiting for has arrived! One hour has flew by and now let us welcome the final stop for the compet.i.tion! Who will receive the recommendation letter to the highest Academy 【Avalon】, let us antic.i.p.ate the upcoming performance!!” Xiaer waved his big hand, as if to spread his infectious mood to the crowd! Xiwa followed up naturally
“Then, let’s use our biggest applauses to welcome our first topic of the fourth round, War!!!”

War was a topic that never dies down, especially for the kingdoms in the empire. Due to resource shortages and other causes, the countless small kingdoms will often start wars amongst each other, to swallow other kingdoms or be swallowed. This has been enacted constantly throughout history, and only the empire stood strong, overseeing the smaller kingdoms like an adult watching his kids fight and play.
Darmiala was the first up, and she knew the difficulties of this topic.
But, having reached this far into the compet.i.tion, there was no reason for her to give up.
So when the night slowly fell upon the duchy and the crowd gradually quieted down.
She opened her mouth and notes of a song came out.

The melody was sweet with a slow pace, and at this moment, ZhangLing was dressed like a soldier. He held Darmiala’s hand and silently moved his mouth as if he was holding back tears to say his farewell to her.
Darmiala’s song continued as she pointed her finger at the ground next to her, suddenly, a small sapling of a tree sprouted out of the earth and appeared by the two.
This was a water attribute third stage magic called 【Tree of Wisdom】, which allows the caster to grow a tree out of nothing, but the chances of the tree surviving is very low.
When the song reached this part, it changed
“You will come back and see me when the flowers bloom, right?”
ZhangLing nodded his head with a solemn expression and then walked off on the road to join the army.

Darmiala’s song continued, and the little tree kept growing with each pa.s.sing day. Finally, the war arrived. Darmiala’s song suddenly changed its longing melody and pace to a rapid and invigorating battle song, and at the same time, she cast a 【Shadow Bending】 spell on ZhangLing who stood at the far side of the stage where a scene of a warfield was acted out. Suddenly, with the spell reaching ZhangLing, thousands of ZhangLing filled the stage to the brim, and with that, ZhangLing let out a blood curdling warcry along with his ma.s.sive killing intent, so loud and with the song that his warcry and aura made the audience feel as if they were there on the battlefield, feel as if they were part of that moving moment!

But, just when ZhangLing’s side was about to achieve victory, a prepared effects arrow appeared falling from the skies and accurately pierced ZhangLing’s heart. With blood gushing from his chest, ZhangLing gazed at the arrow in his chest with disbelief all over his face and kneeled powerlessly to the ground. With the thousand shadows fading away, ZhangLing’s lonely figure was in the spotlight as he slowly coughed up blood and fell p.r.o.ne on the cold hard ground.
The song changed once more as Darmiala replicated ZhangLing’s p.r.o.ne body with shadow bending once more, filling the stage with thousands of dead bodies. Her voice became filled with sadness and grief, as the war ended, giving the feeling of a important historical moment being finalized.
ZhangLing’s mouth was still leaking blood as he reached out as if to grasp something in the air, and at the same time, on Darmiala’s side, the tree has grown to a towering tree, and the green sprouts has turned into branches dotted with flower buds that were slowly opening. As each pink flower opened, the entire tree was adorned with a crown of pink, and with a gentle draft blowing past, the flower petals rode on the wind. Darmiala raised her head as waiting for her other half to return to her, and ZhangLing’s hand finally grasped a single flower petal. He pulled that flower petal to the wound on his chest, and tears flowed out of his eyes as he took his final breath.

The song slowly came to an end, and as the last notes died off into the silence, the stage was covered by darkness once more.

Many in the crowd couldn’t resist the tragedy and cried their hearts out, and some who have experienced this grief first hand were reminded of those dark days and were also filled with tears. The performance was just like a recollection of all the emotions of countless wars.
{tl: I almost cried too while translating this ;_;}

*clap* *clap clap* *Clap Clap Clap*
Sounds of clapping rose out of the crowd and reached the stage, at first slowly, but as the momentum built up, the clapping was as loud as thunder when the reached the stage, almost shaking the stage physically.
“Thank you!” Darmiala gave a slight bow, and seeing so many people cheering for her, she was extremely happy on the inside.
In the VIP section, Claude nodded his head in acknowledgement, because this topic contained some of his suggestions as well, so seeing it being so liked by the audience, he felt some accomplishment too.

“What a beautiful yet sad performance on War, Miss Darmiala’s singing fully expressed the uneasiness when parting for war, the will and determination on the battlefields and finally the grief and sadness after the war. I will stop blathering now. The max point per judge is 10 points, let us turn to the judges and see what they think.”

“You were able to grasp the heart of war very accurately, so either you have experienced war itself or you have studied war quite frequently on your own. But neither of these matches your aura, so the idea most likely came from your partner Mr. ZhangLing correct? But your performance was very outstanding, and you used both magic and martial technique perfectly, so I will give you 9 points!.” Simon was the first to speak out this time. He loved the performance because that grief and loneliness touched his heart, and this was irreplaceable by other feelings.
Darmiala slightly bowed to express her grat.i.tude, because 9 points is definitely not a low score, and knowing fully well the pickiness of the judges, 9 points were probably the maximum amount of points the judges were willing to dish out.

The next to speak out was Rafi Nasi
“The core of the performance were good, but too shallow, the acting was not bad, but too over exaggerated. 7.5 points.”
To receive this many points from someone as picky as Rafi Nasi, Darmiala was satisfied. She gave Rafi a bow of thanks while tasting bitterness inside.

At this moment, the next judge in the line up Ray Lindauer actually woke up! He yawned and chomped the air a few times before wiping the drool off of his chin and said
“The song was alright, let’s see, how about a 8.5 points.”
Nicole almost went super saiyan mode when she heard that reason. She resisted punching Ray to the moon and held herself back from screaming at Ray whether he was here to see the performance or to hear songs!