Ch.180Fortress of Blades. Amarantin (5)

Morning, nine o’clock.

For those living a normal social life, this would be the time to get up, wash, eat breakfast, and prepare for work.

Of course, as an adventurer… the habits of working people didn’t really matter to me, but if we were going to duel, it would be better to start in the morning so we could finish before lunch.

With that thought, I advanced to the center of the square with my greatsword strapped to my back.

My opponent had arrived earlier and was waiting for me. We drew our weapons and pointed them at each other.

“Viktor Walker. A wandering knight who serves the sun.”

“Mason Beck. Basilisk Slayer.”

A basilisk was a monstrous creature in the form of an enormous snake.

Taking down such a monster would certainly earn one the title of Slayer.

Well, I was the one who had chosen this duel opponent after all.

“Here I come!”

Mason moved first.

He kicked off the ground and began swinging his massive hammer wildly. I tried to deflect the hammer’s head with my greatsword to gain the initiative.

Clang!

The sound of metal striking metal rang out, and both our stances were disrupted simultaneously.

Thud-thud-thud!

“What?!”

Seizing that moment, I used Behde to bind Mason before he could regain his stance. Not knowing I could use marks, Mason had no choice but to allow my blade to reach his neck.

Scrape…

As the sharp orichalcum blade began to cut through his beard, he closed his eyes in frustration and surrendered.

“I yield.”

“Hmm.”

I withdrew my blade and thrust my greatsword back into the ground of the square.

Mason picked up his hammer with disappointment and trudged back into the crowd, from which a second opponent emerged.

“I’m next! I’ll be your opponent!”

“Then come forth!”

The next challenger was a warrior who wielded dual blades.

Unlike my greatsword + greatsword combination, he used a longsword + dagger combination, which meant the dagger was for defense and the longsword for offense.

“Arakashi Shei! Here I come!”

“Hmm!”

As I drew my greatsword, Shei charged at me roughly.

My greatsword strike was blocked by his dagger, and the sharp edge of his longsword narrowly passed through my armpit.

Thinking quickly, I trapped his blade with my armpit and shook it. Shei wisely abandoned his longsword, reversed his grip on the dagger, and began stabbing at me repeatedly.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

The dagger couldn’t do much damage against my armor, but he was consistently disrupting the movement of my arms, which had a wide range of motion, effectively preventing me from using my greatsword properly.

We had agreed not to use aura in our duel, but there was no way to remove the enhanced physical abilities that came with aura, so I was left almost helpless against his quick strikes that landed before I could react.

But then…

Swish!

“What!”

Crack!

While we had promised not to use aura, we hadn’t agreed not to use prepared weapons, so I summoned two daggers I had previously marked, entering into the same dagger combat.

When I dropped my greatsword and summoned the daggers, a confused Shei took a punch from me and fell back.

One might call it cowardly, but weren’t we adventurers, not knights?

…Oh, come to think of it, I am a knight, aren’t I?

…Well, if he didn’t like it, he shouldn’t have challenged me to a duel.

With that thought, I used Tuta to grasp my greatsword again and waited for Shei to get back up.

Shei rose unsteadily, and I kicked over the longsword that was lying nearby to him.

Clang!

As the longsword landed at his feet with a crisp sound, Shei hesitantly picked it up.

“Why did you—”

He couldn’t finish his sentence.

Because I sent him flying with a Behde-Ignatus-Tuta combo.

The strategy of distracting his attention had been quite successful.

Having quickly dispatched two opponents, I returned to the center of the square to await the next challenger.

*

At 4 PM, just before the sun reached its zenith.

I finished the duels with a record of 7 wins and 3 losses.

If I had more stamina, I might have been able to defeat all ten opponents, but my energy faded toward the end, and I couldn’t properly fight the last three.

I won’t make excuses about how they came at me one by one while I fought continuously.

As a Knight of the Sun, I must purify everything that denies the sun, and to do that, I needed to build enough stamina to easily handle ten challengers.

This defeat was purely due to my own inadequacy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Since these were ordinary duels rather than fights to the death, and since everyone just wanted to test their skills, no one suffered serious injuries.

Just some crushed bones throughout the body, that’s all.

Of course, that would be a fatal injury by ordinary standards, but for aura users, it was nothing significant.

Whether it was an open fracture or a comminuted fracture, one maintenance spell with aura would seal the skin and melt the bones back together, so full-body fractures were hardly a concern.

“I feel like a human slime.”

“Did you have to use such a slimy metaphor?”

“Yes.”

I dismissed Lucia’s complaint with a single word and silently accepted my wife wiping away my sweat.

Even as a Gold rank, I was newly promoted and still far from being a true Gold rank who could fight the strongest beings that mortals could kill while walking the line between life and death.

In truth, I was ranked Gold because I was now a genuine Knight of the Sun carrying a holy relic. If judged purely on skill, I would probably be somewhere around Iron or Steel rank.

The necessity to become stronger was overwhelming, but the means to do so were always limited.

“It’s not easy… becoming stronger…”

“What! You still won 7 out of 10, so let’s round up and call it a win! Honestly, isn’t that impressive enough?”

“Our brotherhood can use aura too, but we’re not confident in… how should I put it…? Fighting hand-to-hand like you do.”

The dwarf brothers said they awakened their aura at the time of past accidents.

Berkman, the older brother who loved bombs, awakened his aura when a poorly made bomb exploded, sending shrapnel throughout his body as he was dying. Haukman, the younger fire-loving brother, awakened his aura when he was burning orcs with a flamethrower and oil leaked, setting his entire body on fire as he was dying.

After awakening their aura, they chose to carry more luggage and heavier weapons to spread bombs and flames rather than facing enemies on the front lines. As a result, they developed an awkward combat ability that could blow my head off if they accidentally hit a close-range vanguard like me.

Of course, their true combat power came from their bombs and flames, so one would have to get past those first.

“Now we need to go to the place marked on this map. You might know about it.”

I said, handing over the partially burned note from my pocket.

“Ah… this letter.”

“You know about it?”

“Before we got trapped here, we received an offer from a wealthy man. He said an airship had crashed on the Besfeld Coast, and he wanted us to repair it for his use…”

“And?”

“We don’t know what happened after that. We were short on money at the time. So we accepted the offer and were heading to Besfeld Coast when we ended up in Amarantin… Well, you know what happened next.”

“Hmm… this is getting complicated… we’re also after that airship.”

“Is that so?”

The dwarf brothers looked at each other with folded arms, thought for a while, then nodded and said to me:

“Don’t worry, Captain! We’ll prioritize the Iron Walker party!”

“The man made the offer first, but whether he knows we were trapped or not, he didn’t send anyone to help us! Whatever the circumstances, it was just a verbal contract, and we didn’t receive any advance payment, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Hmm… I see.”

That was fortunate.

I had been anxious about whether the dwarf brothers would value their prior contract or their loyalty to the party more.

As expected of a race that values debts of gratitude and grudges. They were uncompromising when it came to favors and resentments.

“Then let’s depart early tomorrow morning. I’ve gathered all your equipment… In our party, I as the party leader take all the money first and then distribute it according to needs. Do you have any objections?”

“Not really. We craftsmen are used to that.”

“I have no complaints either. If that’s what the party leader says, we follow. Especially when the party leader saved our lives.”

“I’m glad we understand each other.”

After a good day’s rest, we set out toward Besfeld Coast.