"Hey... You must be, Alex... I heard a lot about you."
The voice was surprisingly innocent, cutting through the tense silence of the arena. Sunny turned to face the speaker: a small girl, looking no older than fifteen, dressed in elaborate, ancient Chinese attire. She tilted her head, a smile playing on her lips, her hands politely clasped behind her back.
'Another one?' Sunny sighed inwardly. The competition was already exhausting.
He adopted a facade of weary confusion. "Why are there so many kids here? Can't your parents hold onto you guys?" he asked, his tone deliberately dismissive.
The little girl's smile brightened, a strangely genuine reaction. "It's so good someone cares about me. No one in the human Kingdom has ever cared, not even once," she said, her large eyes filled with a manufactured sadness.
'Human kingdom?' Sunny frowned, immediately engaging his system. He ran a quick profile check and the resulting stat block stunned him.
