The Lamp That No Longer Shines: A LitRPG Action Comedy Chapter 93: I Really Am a Monster

[Ti]: Sumr Break, Day 4, Morning

[Location]: Open Sea · Grand Masters Regional Qualifier Venue

Hathaway had seen Olympic-level infrastructure projects on Earth.

She had not seen anything like this.

As the Royal Rosas private griffin-carriage punched through the heavy cloud cover, the tournant venue detonated into view below.

A colossal sky-island, commandeered by the Witch Authority, had been forcibly terraford into a fully operational floating fortress.

Surrounding it, packed like an interstellar armada, hovered five to eight thousand auxiliary islands of every conceivable size—comrcial shopping districts, broadcast relay stations, underground betting hubs, and high-altitude landing pads for familiars the size of office buildings.

The Authority had taken open ocean and turned it into a three-dinsional war-city.

Militarized beehive, Hathaway thought distantly, watching Witches and broomsticks weave through the airspace like a swarming hive. Venture-capital budget. Developer-mode infrastructure.

"This is nothing. It's just the qualifiers."

Rhode, crunching on a lollipop, held a freshly printed tournant roster and casually slapped it onto the table.

"Listen up."

She swept her gaze across the private lounge and locked onto three people sitting in the corner.

"Hathaway. Rina. Yenna." Rhode's lips curled into a smile that contained no warmth and considerable professional aggression. "You three rookies are taking the starting slots for the 3v3 team opener.

"Following that, for the KOF Singles, Hathaway—you're our Vanguard. Go out there and establish the club's montum."

In a highly anticipated opening match, you're starting three completely inexperienced substitutes. Hathaway processed this. That isn't just aggressive. That is maxing out the disrespect ter to the absolute hard cap.

When she looked at the rest of the roster, not a single person objected.

Nino simply tapped her datapad, tacitly approving the arrangent as an opportunity to collect live-combat data on the bench.

Alucard radiated the profound relief of a bureaucrat who had just confird she could legitimately slack off backstage.

Tasia rested her eyes, seemingly entirely unbothered by who was sent to sweep up the fodder.

A few minutes later, Royal Rosas was escorted to their designated semi-open [Preparation Zone]—an elevated, open-air platform bordering the lowest tier of the spectator stands.

The view was excellent. The visibility was mutual. Every action the competitors took inside would be broadcast live to millions.

(This was precisely why the official handbook issued a stern, bolded warning: 'While in semi-open preparation zones, competitors are urged to exercise restraint and refrain from engaging in any behavior that violates fundantal Witch morality.')

Standing at the railing, Hathaway swept her gaze up toward the VIP boxes.

She didn't have to search.

Margaret von Ludwig had taken off her sunglasses.

The signature Ludwig crimson eyes spiked from their baseline 150 luns to an emotionally charged 180. When perfectly compressed and fired through the two-milliter aperture of a human pupil, it functioned exactly like a high-powered tactical laser pointer.

Twin pillars of focused red light pierced the arena—and then Margaret started aggressively headbanging, turning the VIP box into a high-speed laser rave.

You don't need glow sticks, Hathaway thought, covering her face. You just need to stand there and vibrate.

Beside Margaret, Anna held a champagne glass with fond exasperation.

And bundled carefully in Anna's other arm, staring at the arena with wide, perfectly calm eyes, was the one-month-old Witch cub, Rory—nestled safely behind a hovering kinetic barrier, because soone in this family had made the one responsible parenting call.

They actually brought the baby.

Hathaway thought briefly about the internal debate from three days ago regarding whether watching blood-soaked slaughter constituted quality early-childhood education.

She raised her hand and waved vigorously. The high-beam intensity doubled, nearly blinding several innocent aristocrats in the adjacent box.

Beside her, Rina leaned over the railing and frantically waved at her own family across the stands.

Wedged between them, Yenna's three golden fox tails flicked in profound, visible irritation.

"Unbelievable," the fox witch muttered under her breath. "Why is it that only my family treats a basic stadium ticket as a 'travel budget violation' and insists on tapping the encrypted aether-net feed from an offshore proxy?"

Rina bead at her. "Yen-Yen! The official caras can see us! Wave at the stream!"

Yenna's ears flattened against her head. She did not wave.

Understandable, Hathaway thought, nodding in silent sympathy. If your parents are currently committing high-level digital piracy to dodge a three-thousand Solar ticket markup, waving at the official Witch Authority trace-caras is basically snitching.

Just as Hathaway lowered her hand, the smile still on her face, an image surfaced, uninvited.

Cold, pre-snow winter sky eyes. An empty seat in the stands.

Where is she right now? Is she still in Holheim? What exactly is this massive family burden that keeps pulling her away?

The thought lasted exactly one second before the arena's broadcast system blew it apart.

The preparation zone's warm-up rack held heavy wooden shields and un-enchanted practice staves.

Hathaway picked up a shield, turning to her two starting teammates to establish a basic baseline for their coordination.

"Alright," Hathaway said, tapping the heavy wood. "What's our standard 3v3 opener? Do we have a formation?"

Yenna imdiately projected a glowing, highly complex holographic grid from her datapad.

Her three golden tails swayed in precise, calculated rhythms, analyzing the arena's ambient mana density.

"I have constructed a dynamic probability matrix. If I establish a kinetic periter at the center line, my spatial algorithms can neutralize 87.4% of standard Vanguard offensive vectors.

"Rina, your assignnt is elentary. You will stand strictly within my overlapping blind spots—Coordinates C3 and D4. Do not deviate. We will algorithmically suffocate them."

Rina bead, radiating weaponized wholesoness in her fluffy tracksuit. "Got it, Yen-Yen! I'll just run around and follow my heart!"

Yenna’s ears pinned completely flat against her head. "Your heart does not possess a tactical subroutine, Rina. Stand. On. The. Grid."

To demonstrate her readiness, Rina enthusiastically swung her practice staff.

The blunt wood slipped from her sweaty grip, launched backward at a mathematically atrocious angle, ricocheted off a tal support strut, and sohow perfectly struck the release valve of the preparation zone's automated catering dispenser.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

Three perfectly chilled, premium high-mana energy drinks dropped neatly into the dispensing tray.

Rina trotted over, happily gathered them up, and handed them out. "See? The wind says we need pre-match hydration!"

Yenna stared at the can placed in her hands. Her expression was that of a devout, lifelong scholar watching a toddler successfully disprove the laws of gravity using a crayon.

"That was a one-in-seventy-thousand geotric deflection anomaly," the fox witch whispered, her voice trembling with profound, academic despair. "I hate you so much."

Hathaway quietly cracked open her drink.

Right, Hathaway thought, taking a sip of the icy, chemically-enhanced liquid. There is no team synergy here. There is only a walking natural disaster, and a mathematician slowly losing her mind.

My tactical role isn't 'Captain.' It's 'Cat Herder.'

Before Yenna could attempt to explain the laws of physics to Rina again, the amplification array suspended over the arena thundered to life.

"Grand Masters Regional Qualifier, Match One! Team Grey Wolf versus Team Glory Rain! Competitors, please enter your Tactical Decision Rooms!"

"WUHOUHOUHOUHOU!!!"

The comntator was a Red Dragon Witch. Hathaway's eardrums vibrated against her skull.

That was not a cute little Charmander "rawr." That was a glass-shattering, seismic, genuinely Draconic roar that could trigger minor earthquakes and rupture low-tier wards.

The massive Mist Screen overhead cut to a split feed: two transparent [Tactical Decision Rooms], audio broadcasting live to the stadium—and, per the global stream, to roughly twelve million viewers at ho.

(This was precisely why coaches traditionally warned their players: absolutely do not discuss your personal life, your ex-girlfriends, or your ongoing shady business ventures in there.)

Team Grey Wolf's coach strode into her room, dramatically shut the door, turned to her players, and delivered her opening tactical address:

"Alright sisters, how are we playing this? Honestly, I'm just here to order the takeout."

—BOOM.

The audience of 150,000 Witches erupted like the arena had been hit by a siege spell.

At the caster's desk, the Red Dragon comntator slamd her table with both fists. "WHAT! Are we witnessing the glorious tradition of the Absolute City Dynasty?! The legendary Mascot Coach ta lives on in the Outer Regions!"

Hathaway buried her face in her hands.

Right. Absolute City. Lin Zhaojun's team. The historical consensus was that with four Arch-tier Witches on a roster, you could tie a lantern cat to the coach's bench and still sweep the Grand Finals.

Hathaway let out a profound, exhausted sigh.

Back in the lab, when Rhode claid the Coach's only actual responsibility was securing the correct spicy mayo ratio on the locker room salmon rolls, Hathaway had assud it was just Royal Rosas flexing their absurd roster superiority.

But watching a third-rate qualifier team pull the exact sa stunt, the horrific truth finally dawned on her.

Rhode wasn't exaggerating, her ga-designer brain realized in total defeat. In this ta, the Coach genuinely is just a catering gig.

On screen, Grey Wolf's captain—a fierce, wild-haired Witch with the general energy of soone who handled debt collection as a day job—cracked her knuckles and issued a brilliantly concise tactical brief:

"Just rush 'em! Pop summons, charge in, and drown GR in bodies. I watched their VODs—they're absolute trash.

"Trash teams get beat! Rush 'em! Rush 'em!"

The Red Dragon comntator ignited: "It's the Zerg Rush! The classic Summon-and-Crash! Ever since the ancient Witch Wars, we have cherished this tactic! Send in the cannon fodder, bomb the field, and—URA! URA!"

The stands answered as one: "URA!"

Hathaway turned to Rhode. "Are these people... actually reliable?"

Rhode waved her lollipop, entirely unbothered. "When you're playing against teams with zero tactical discipline, brainless rushing is genuinely optimal. Fancy footwork is for high-elo."

The other half of the split-screen looked like a different species entirely. Team Glory Rain wore matching uniforms. Their coach had a whiteboard and a laser pointer.

"We run a 3-3 advance formation. Sarah and Mia, you suppress the flanks. Isabella holds center and plays positional defense. All summons strictly high-resistance Mummies and Heavy Armored Zombies. If they attempt a hard flank, Sarah—you imdiately abandon the sideline and fall back to support Isabella at the center line..."

"Glory Rain! Glory Rain! Glory Rain!"

Incredibly serious. Incredibly rigorous.

So serious that even the Red Dragon comntator couldn't help herself: "It's just the qualifiers, but they're acting like this is the Grand Finals!"

The match began.

GR executed to perfection. A disciplined phalanx of Mummies and Zombies locked shields and advanced in an iron-triangle formation. Professional. Completely flawless.

On the other side of the field, Grey Wolf scread, dumped their mana pools, and summoned an ocean of Orcs and Goblins.

Then they mounted their brooms behind the tide and personally led the charge.

What followed was a masterpiece of pure, structural violence.

Fireball carpet-bomb from the air. Sky-blackening [Arcane Missiles].

Then—brooms abandoned mid-flight—all three dove directly into GR's backline with force-blades drawn, [Dragon's Might] burning through their spines.

BOOOOM—!!!

GR's textbook formation shattered on contact.

And here was the thing about Witches: when they started slaughtering low-value targets, every single one of them was a god of war.

Even drowning in green tide, GR fought like their eyes had turned red.

Hathaway watched one of them completely ignore a [Chain Lightning] hurtling toward her—face-tanking the paralyzing agony just so she could finish casting a [Ring of Fire], incinerating a hundred Goblins while screaming with what was clearly joy.

They got addicted, her ga-designer brain noted, cold and clinical. The bloodlust hit and they forgot the objective. Execution failure. The bloodlust chanic overrides strategic subroutines every ti.

Ten minutes. GR eliminated. Grey Wolf took the first ga.

Hathaway slowly lowered her hands from the railing.

Is this the Grand Masters Qualifiers?

If you asked her how the match was: hilarious. If you asked her confidence level: it had just experienced a server-crashing, ergency-maintenance-required, catastrophic inflation.

Since transmigrating, she had sparred exclusively against monsters—Rhode, who functioned as a humanoid siege ram; Bella, a mobile nuclear arsenal; Victoria, who she didn't need to finish classifying.

She had subconsciously calibrated those nightmare stats as the baseline for average Witch combat power, living every day in bone-deep fear of insufficient firepower.

She had never, in either of her lifetis, seen Witches this bad at PvP.

A predatory smile touched her lips. I can take them. Not bravado. A calm, data-supported conclusion.

Inside the Grey Wolf Decision Room, the Takeout Coach was vibrating with joy.

"Great job, sisters! Since we won this one—tonight at midnight, I'm treating everyone to the Midnight Rose district, my—Mmph! Mmph!"

Grey Wolf's captain lunged across the room and clamped a hand over the coach's mouth. Her other hand pointed frantically at the massive LIVE BROADCAST indicator blinking red on the ceiling cara.

The coach blinked adorably. Mumbled two muffled words around the restraining hand.

"My bad."

The stadium lost its mind.

The Red Dragon comntator slamd both hands on her desk. "Just for Grey Wolf's impeccable taste in nightlife! I officially support them today! As everyone knows, the White City's Midnight Rose district is famous for—"

The door to the comntary booth exploded open.

Two furious Witch Authority Supervisors stord in, physically disconnected the microphone cord from the console, and issued a severe, on-cara yellow-card warning while 150,000 Witches whistled and cheered at the spectacle.

Hathaway sighed helplessly.

What professional integrity are you expecting from the bottom tier of qualifying rounds?

The subsequent KOF Singles settled the rest. Grey Wolf's captain executed a brutal 1v2 sweep; her teammate secured a clean solo kill right after.

Final score: 4-1. Team GR eliminated.

"Next match! Royal Rosas versus Iron Compass! Competitors, please enter your Tactical Decision Rooms!"

Standing in the prep zone, Hathaway instinctively thought: Royal Rosas? Oh, it's Rhode's turn to fight—where's a good spot to watch from?

The next second, Rhode grabbed her by the back of her collar and dragged her down the tunnel like a misbehaving kitten.

Right. Dammit. That is my team. I am the one fighting.

This was confird, lived truth: when a Witch was genuinely nervous, possessing four independent cognitive threads only ant she could space out infinitely further and more thoroughly than any normal person.

The bench delivered their pre-match blessings just before the rookies stepped into the glass-walled box.

Nino tapped her stylus against her clipboard. Her expression remained precisely as warm as a quarterly audit. "If I see basic ballistic calculation errors on that field, you already know what's waiting for you in my classroom."

It was a threat. It was, structurally, also a protective warning—delivered by a person who would dissolve into ash before admitting she cared about her students.

Alucard stepped forward. The Archon looked like a benevolent grandmother who had finally received her retirent pension.

Her complexion was luminous—genuinely, suspiciously glowing, in the specific way that only ca from knowing you would not be working today—as she delivered soft, unhurried head-pats to Hathaway, Rina, and Yenna in turn, her expression the picture of maternal serenity.

Bella swept forward, pointing at the tactical room doors with full theatrical authority. "My kin! Go forth! Let those ignorant mortals tremble before the Eclipse! Let your nas beco a brand burned into the very depths of their trembling souls!"

Yenna responded with a carefully polite dry laugh.

Rina, however, pumped her fists with blinding, weaponized enthusiasm. "Yeah! We're gonna burn their souls so hard, Yen-Yen!"

Yenna looked like she wanted to spontaneously evaporate.

Then, Tasia shifted her gaze.

The Empress hadn't spoken a single word since Rhode announced the roster. Her pale grey eyes swept across Yenna, then Rina, and finally anchored on Hathaway.

For a fraction of a second, those sovereign eyes seed to pierce straight through Hathaway's flesh, bypassing the roaring mana and the carefully constructed mask of calm.

Tasia didn't speak. She rely held the gaze, her expression entirely unreadable, and offered a microscopic nod.

Instantly, the violent, erratic hamring in Hathaway's chest—a frantic, suffocating tempo she hadn't even realized was crushing her lungs—began to steady.

The ice in her palms receded into a cold, sharp focus. She didn't know what Tasia had seen, but the invisible, crushing weight vanished.

Just as Hathaway took her first step toward the glass doors, a hand closed gently around her sleeve.

Bella.

The unfathomable, terminal chuunibyou dropped every trace of theatricality. She spoke in an incredibly low, slow cadence—her single crimson eye sharp and entirely, unnervingly sincere:

"Use your madness.

"And the power of your dark side."

Hathaway paused. Looked at Bella's eye. Offered a polite, carefully constructed smile.

She tossed her cousin's perfectly-on-brand eighth-grader dialogue into the ntal trash bin with practiced efficiency, and finally stepped into the [Tactical Decision Room] with her two teammates.

Click.

The heavy soundproof door sealed shut behind them, cutting off the deafening roar of the arena and the presence of the bench. Only the three of them remained in the sudden, pressurized silence.

She had experienced the blood-drunk ecstasy of her Witch biology once before, hunting monsters.

But her Earth-born morality had subconsciously convinced her that PvP would be different. These were Witches. Sentient beings. Surely, stepping into an arena to butcher her own kind—even with Resurrection Stones—would trigger hesitation, human guilt, or at least so moral revulsion.

It didn't.

Instead, as the enclosed space sealed her in with the impending threat, a total, deafening override flooded her nervous system.

The adrenaline spiking through her veins, the hyper-awareness of every breath, the sudden, overwhelming urge to strike first and strike fatally—it all blurred together into a singular, absolute violence.

Her body made no distinction between a Palebone Dragon and a human opponent. The bloodthirsty cells of an apex predator, slling the ozone and the tension, fully unleashed themselves.

They manifested into sothing gentle and cruel, stroking her hair from the inside.

Hathaway looked down at her hands. Long, pale, and completely still. She slowly clenched her fists.

The bottomless mana pool inside her—roaring like a volcano held at one degree below eruption—pulsed rhythmically through her circuits, injecting her previously floating senses with the tangible, grounding reality of holding life and death at her fingertips.

So, she thought, with perfect calm. I really am a monster.

"Refine your mana, pipsqueak."

Rhode's voice crackled over the room's comms channel. Through the soundproof glass partition, the battle-hardened Vanguard was watching her from the bench. She winked her left eye and tilted her head in a classic, unhurried gesture. "Deep breaths."

"I will," Hathaway answered softly.

She smoothly swallowed and made a convincing show of settling her nerves.

Letting them think I'm nervous is infinitely better than letting them realize I am currently running multiple threads calculating the most efficient vectors for dismantling an enemy team.

BEEP.

The broadcast tone signaled the end of the tactical phase. The heavy outer doors facing the arena ground open.

The roaring wind and the wall of sound hit her simultaneously. Cold air, thick with ozone and gunpowder. The crowd a living, breathing tide of noise that had no ceiling.

Hathaway took a deep breath.

She strode forward with steady, predatory steps, and entered the killing field.