(Heartfelt thanks to 'Luo Jin Fanhua', 'Super Otaku Youth', 'Supreme★Anime Culture', 'Qiankun Zaohua', 'Pokémon', 'Gale Demon King F', 'Book Friend 160514100914401', 'Hongmeng Land', 'Fei Ye | Sleepless City', 'This Guy Actually', 'Unknown◎Mo Yan', and 'Ling Xing Can' for their rewards!)
"Preliminaries?"
The enormous voice from the sky left Noah, Mira, Juvia, Laxus, and Gajeel rooted to the spot.
Preliminaries?
The Grand Magic Games actually had preliminaries?
Why had they never heard about that?
It was not just Noah and the others. At that moment, contestants staying in every inn throughout Crocus shared the same question.
That was because previous Grand Magic Games had never had any preliminaries. The main competition had always begun directly.
Teams from guilds all across the Kingdom of Fiore would compete at the Grand Magic Games venue, eliminating one another according to victory and defeat. In the end, the guild of the last remaining team would become the number one guild in the Kingdom of Fiore.
That had always been the format of the Grand Magic Games. There had never been any such thing as preliminaries.
Naturally, this left contestants from all the guilds confused.
Amid that confusion, Noah stepped onto the balcony and looked up into the air.
There, a huge holographic projection hovered.
It showed a short figure dressed in flamboyant clown-like clothes, with an enormous pumpkin for a head.
This person was presumably the referee of the Grand Magic Games.
Under Noah's gaze, the pumpkin projection began explaining things to the people of Crocus with a humorous tone and exaggerated gestures.
"I know everyone must have many questions, but this could not be helped. There are simply too many teams participating in this year's Grand Magic Games—113 teams in total. With so many teams crammed together, arranging the competition would be rather difficult.