Should he admit that he lied and let go of his other stock?
But he worked really hard on those! He wanted to drink as much as he wanted one day!
He could still remember the feeling of when he was preparing these. When he was crushing the fruit, adding ingredients, and pouring them into the vats.
He was really, really looking forward to drinking them!
Similarly, everyone else was drooling just at the image of it, especially those who had a sip before. Interestingly, even those who hadn’t were drooling.
They had all tasted the amazingness of anything that came out of this inn, so even those who had yet to taste Finn’s booze felt desperate for it.
So now that the topic was opened and they knew the stock was limited, the question of who would be blessed to taste it was up in the air.
Tension was high amongst the adventurers, while the staff, including Finn, rummaged their brains for ideas. They really feared a brawl would start. After they fought and hunted monsters for most of the day for at least a week, people’s bloodlust was at an all-time high.
"Hm..."
"Hmmm..."
After a while, Durgan stepped forward with an idea to keep the peace.
"Then let’s do a fun game! Whichever team wins would get the vat! Paid for by the guild, of course!"
This way, they could turn this into a friendly and fun competition instead!
In the end, they decided on doing a few rounds, and those who won each round would receive a bit.
The first game was...arm wrestling, kinda.
They did not separate men or women, but they did separate magic vs physical awakened folk.
For the magic-awakened folk it was...whoever held on to a spell for longer.
Finn announced that he had 5 small bottles he could give out, so they decided on five games.
For arm wrestling, this was obviously a fight amongst the few fortified-level folk who’d represent their own teams. A person could only join one game, so those who weren’t fortified-level didn’t bother joining this one.
In the end, after a few cracked tables (Tumble sniffled a bit), Victor won in the end!
He also earned a sound smooch from his wife, definitely sharing the bottle with him.
Next was the battle of the mages. This didn’t need to be limited to rank too much, because some people had better techniques and could control magic better than others, regardless of level. Some lower-ranked people also had specific skills for it, so it would be unfair to just get someone who ranked highest to represent the team.
For the mages’ games, they were simply asked to summon 1 kilogram or one cubic meter of an element to which they had affinity.
For example, wind users and fire users gathered the element by volume, while those with solid elements gathered per weight.
Whoever maintained their elements would win this round. Interestingly, but not that surprising, Leiah won this round despite not being the highest-level mage.
Nona and Marcus stuck with her, giving her googly eyes. If they didn’t win any of the next rounds, they still wanted to have a sip! Just a sip!
Leiah: "..."
After that was a pair game called ’Three Legs Race’ wherein one leg of each pair would be tied to the other, and they had to walk with ’three legs’ and back.
To make things more exciting, the flags they had to get were a few hundred meters outside the barrier. Of course, there was a fortified level user holding the flag, and another guarding the way there to ensure people’s safety.
It was a high-paced game with about five pairs trying it out, and Finn swore they all looked like they were about to enter a death game. It was quite funny.
The winner for this round was the siblings Hudson and Herbie, getting a bottle each, and they screamed in celebration.
The next one was a game of tag, limited to awakened-level people only. Anyway, the booze would be intoxicating only at that level, considering it hadn’t been long since he made it.
The game happened outside the barrier, and they limited it to toughened this time. Someone who already won (and therefore would not get prizes) would be the first one to be ’it’, and whoever was captured would also look for others.
The winner would be the last person found. The limitation was that they could not enter the barrier until the game was over, otherwise, they would be disqualified.
The winner of this round was an earth user, who was a sly bastard who used his earth skills to hide underground, right next to the barrier. He got a lot of hate, but he didn’t mind, and later—after he received his bottle— he would just hide underground again to enjoy his alcohol alone.
Inexplicably, another game of tag happened then, looking for him so they could get a sip, as if they weren’t just hating on him.
The final round was a team of four called mount-and-take, which was similar to Earth’s Capture the Flag game with horse-rider gameplay.
Three members would be the ’horse’ and the leader would be above them holding a flag, though in this case, it was someone’s ripped extra pants.
This one would get 4 winners, so the competition was wilder and boisterous. To minimize the damage to the inn, they also limited the team compositions. The ’legs’ could only be awakened or toughened levels, while the rider could only be an awakened level person.
This caused the movements of the legs to be fast, swift, and exciting, and the awakened rider would be challenged to keep up their balance, all while targeting other people’s ’flags’.
Finn had to admit it was quite thrilling.
"WHOOAOAA!"
"GET HIM! GET HIM!!!"
"WIN! WIN!!! I NEED THAT BOOZE!"
"If you win this game, I’ll wipe away all your debts to me!"
One had to remember that there were now more than a hundred people squeezed into the space. He was fortunate that he had leveled up the inn so people could lie down comfortably. It was still very lively, though, and it reminded him of those rallies.
It was quite chaotic, and the cheers were rabid , but Finn and the staff were laughing out loud.
Ah, he didn’t want to admit it, but he’d definitely miss this boisterousness.