Strongest Superhuman System - Chapter 724

Chapter 724: Road Into Japan
Five years ago, the year when the Anima first appeared on Earth, was also the year when the World Cup was supposed to be held. It was the largest tournament in the world, and every single country tuned in for it. But the appearance of the Anima as well as the sudden emergence of superhumans threw everything about that competition into disarray.

The World Cup was not only postponed but it was canceled from that moment until further notice because of the dangers that had presented themselves. The presence of Anima in the world did not allow any organizer to have the freedom to organize such a large event without worrying about being attacked at any moment, and it also didn’t give the citizens from other countries enough confidence to travel over such a long distance while knowing that their ship or plane could be attacked by an anima in the middle of the journey.

And since there were many sports stars that became superhumans almost overnight, it was practically impossible for anyone to hold a fair tournament with the players they had.

Every other sporting and recreational tournament was also put on hold indefinitely because they didn’t know how to properly organize an event while taking into consideration the superhumans that were suddenly present in all the rosters in the world.

This led to a serious decrease in morale of the people all over the world. Many people in the world were dependent on these sporting tournaments for their entertainment, and without it, it was almost like a dark sheen had covered the minds of the citizens, and the government was desperate to come up with something else that would allow them to entertain their citizens and bring in money from their activities again.

This was when the Superhuman Alliance brought up the idea of the Superhuman Tournament.

The Superhuman Tournament was a simple competition held once every two years between select superhumans from every single country in the world. The first tournament was held one year after the first Anima appeared. It was an extremely popular event that was spoken about by many people in America for weeks before it even began. The tournament was a free-for-all battle that involved handling the Anima that were captured by the association with points being granted to the superhumans based on the Anima that they captured and how quickly they were able to capture them.

This free-for-all style of competition gave the superhumans freedom to do whatever they wanted in the tournament and allowed some of the more ruthless superhumans to go all out without any form of repercussion. But the suddenness of the tournament presented a problem. Because of how rushed the tournament was, the Superhuman Alliance was not able to recruit any powerful superhumans who would be able to handle the monsters they brought along.

Why would a superhuman want to participate in a tournament when they can just go out and fight Anima that they would be able to sell to the Alliance for a lot more than the prize money they would win in the tournament?

This ended up with various branches of the Superhuman Alliance having to produce some of their agents as the participants in the tournament, and since those agents were government officials and not entertainers, even with the amount of strength they had, they didn’t have the star power or popularity that was needed to make the tournament as big of a hit as it was supposed to be.

The ratings for the first day of the tournament were extremely high, with nearly sixty percent of every home tuning in to watch it, but after that day, the ratings tanked like a submarine and went into the single digits, showing that people just did not enjoy the tournament at all.

The constant appearance of Anima and the regular fights that happened all around the world had increased people’s tolerance for violence and made it so that they were used to viewing violence on a daily basis. To these people, who were used to such violence, the controlled and amateurish fights they saw in the tournament felt like watching paint dry!

A second tournament was held just two years ago, and this time, the Superhuman Alliance learned its lesson and brought in a few showmen who were capable of keeping the audience entertained during the fights to make sure they actually made some money from the tournament. But even with the increased viewership and the better fight scenes, the tournament was still not able to bring in even half of what the World Cup brings in from its own viewership.

And so, the Superhuman Alliance decided that this year, they were going to try everything in their power to make sure that the superhumans that participated in the tournament were the ones that the viewers were intimately familiar with. They wanted people that the viewers had an emotional attachment to—people who had been at the forefront of the action for the past few years and people who would be able to bring out the excitement from the viewers just by showing their faces.

And that was why Henry was here.

Henry looked Mark right in the eye and laid out his request.

“Mr. Vanitas. I want you to participate in the upcoming Superhuman Tournament.”

Mark frowned as he heard this, and the first reaction that Mark had in his heart was complete and utter refusal. Mark had no desire to present himself in front of people for their entertainment. That was why Mark never bothered to go on social media or even to show his face for a long time! Mark didn’t even do interviews because he thought they were stupid! Why the fuck did Henry think that he would want to participate in something like this!?

But Mark also knew that Henry was a coy bastard. There was no way Henry would bring something like this to him without there being a reason for it. And since the entire reason why Henry set up this meeting was because Henry thought he would be able to help Mark enter Japan, Mark realized that there could only be one reason why Henry would be bringing something like this to him with so much confidence.

“The games are going to be held in Japan, aren’t they?”

Henry smiled once Mark said this, and he nodded. Henry was happy that he didn’t need to start explaining anything to Mark to make him understand better. The Superhuman Tournament is usually cycled through all the various continents that are a part of the Superhuman Alliance. Countries like Germany and Russia, who did not like foreigners being present in their country, were able to opt-out of hosting the tournament completely. This year, the tournament was scheduled to be held in one of the countries in the Asian continent and surprisingly, when they were casting their votes for where the tournament should be held this year, Japan had entered the voting pool.

Everyone knew Japan to be very conservative about who they allowed to enter their country. Japan was one of the fastest countries to adapt to the presence of the Anima, so they didn’t need as much help as other countries to get on their feet. In a way, Japan was almost like many African countries that were very serious about immigration laws.