Chapter 39

The Baron greeted us with overbearing arrogance as we finished our preparations and stepped forward.

“Are you truly certain a Red Duel is what you desire?”

“I don’t mind. Who is your representative?”

I looked over the Baron’s attendants. They all had tough-looking mugs. Ideally, I hoped for the Rat-boy. He looked the weakest.

“What are you prattling on about? I said the proxies would be our respective attendants. Naturally, these five shall be your opponents.”

The Baron’s men let out sneering laughs as they clashed their weapons together.

How dirty! If there were a trade show for villains, these guys would be on the cover of the brochure. Their subtle “small-fry” energy was almost impressive in a twisted way. In a period drama, they’d be the corrupt officials backing the crooked merchant.

“Come now, ready yourselves! The audience is waiting!”

To pull off something so refreshingly cowardly in front of a crowd took a certain kind of talent.

“I guess I’ll step in too, then. Fiene, stay back,” Yoshioka said.

I might get overwhelmed alone, but with Yoshioka, we’d be fine.

“I’ll start with some magic as a deterrent. Hopefully, they’ll surrender after that…”

“Got it. If it looks dangerous, I’ll throw you on my back and scale the wall. Whisper, whisper—”

After a quick tactical briefing, we faced the attendants.

From a slight distance, a man and a woman observed the two groups—the Baron of Kammerstett and the Knight Bachelor of Ebba-berg—confronting each other in the temple plaza.

It was Elke and her three companions, the ones who had been staying in the same communal room as Kota and the others. The man seemed somewhat excited, perhaps caught up in the fervor of the spectating crowd.

“To think they’d actually go through with a Red Duel.”

He was dressed as a merchant, but his bearing and gaze were anything but mercantile.

“They must have confidence. Either way, this is the perfect chance to find those documents.”

Elke had been caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the Baron they had been tracking for days, but she saw it as a golden opportunity to fulfill her mission. While the duel raged, the Baron would be distracted. Moreover, the plaza was packed with onlookers. If things went well, she could slip the target documents out of his luggage.

The original plan involved Elke using her charms to seduce the Baron and stealing the papers after he fell asleep following their tryst. This way, she might avoid having to be held by a man she found repulsive.

“I wonder how those guys fight?”

“Focus on your own mission. We have our own work to do.”

Elke and her crew began to move through the darkness illuminated by the bonfires.

Seeing only the two of us preparing to face them, the Baron’s attendants grew increasingly tense. It was likely because we seemed so composed while facing five opponents.

“Hah! It’s all a bluff! I’ll have you know I’m the man feared as the Black Panther of Melda!”

A man wielding a spear let out a roar. Where even is Melda?

“Then I am the Lion of Kawagoe,” Yoshioka retorted.

Why are you competing with him?!

“Then I guess I’m the Hawk of Shonai,” I added. Just to be polite.

“Crush them!”

At the Baron’s signal, the attendants leveled their spears in unison. Since the plaza was an open space with no obstacles, the spear was the most effective weapon. Moving as one, the attendants raised their weapons and charged.

“Go for it, Yoshioka.”

“Right…”

The crowd shrieked as a wall of fire suddenly erupted. The attendants were forced to screech to a halt before the roaring flames.

“Oh, you can manifest a much higher wall than before!”

“I can. I’ve practiced so I can make them up to about one meter now.”

The wall of fire Yoshioka created roared as it burned. It was hot enough to make my face flush even from a distance. Soon, the wall shifted into a circular shape, completely trapping the five enemies inside.

“Come on then, bring it on!” Yoshioka challenged.

Well, that’s probably impossible for them. We should probably be encouraging them to surrender at this point.

“What’s it going to be? Do you want to keep going?” I asked.

The attendants remained silent and didn’t budge. Maybe they couldn’t move.

“Dammit! Just jump over something like that!!” the Baron barked.

Even a high jumper would struggle to clear a one-meter wall of flames. They probably could do it, but they’d definitely get burned. The attendants looked trapped between a rock and a hard place, seemingly more afraid of the Baron’s scolding than the fire.

Since it wasn’t good to drag this out, I fired a Paralyze Ball at the immobilized group and ended it.

“We win. Please give up on the private room.”

The Baron looked incredibly frustrated, but I could see a flicker of fear on his face as well.

“…Are you two knights as well?”

“No. We are merely attendants.”

“Chea—”

Chea?

“That’s cheating!”

I’m the last person who wants to hear that from you!

Still, in this world, being able to use magic is usually enough to make someone a noble. Only high-ranking nobles tend to have subordinates who can use magic, and even then, those subordinates are usually knights themselves. Clara Ansbach might be the only person in the entire Kingdom of Saxens who employs “mere attendants” capable of magic.

And so, the duel was settled. Clara-sama returned to her room to rest, much to our relief. However, there was one more bit of trouble after the commotion.

The Baron—who was essentially “audacity” in human form—demanded that everyone else be kicked out of the large communal room so he could use it all for himself. It was infuriating, but we couldn’t exactly defy a noble’s order. We also hesitated to report it to Clara-sama, who had finally managed to fall asleep.

“You could sleep in the stables or the chapel…” the priest offered as an alternative.

Since I didn’t want anyone messing with the bike or the trailer, we chose the stables. The Baron’s attendants, naturally, chose to sleep in the chapel—they probably found it awkward to be in the same place as us.

Come to think of it, I wondered where Elke and the others who were in the communal room went. They were nowhere to be seen when the duel ended. Maybe they got scared and ran for it? No one wants to get caught up in trouble, after all. Since Elke was a beauty, she likely would have been harassed by the attendants or the Baron, so escaping was probably the right call.

(I heard later that Baron Pech of Kammerstett was imprisoned a few months after this for embezzling public funds. Apparently, he had been lining his pockets by skimming profits from a state-run silver mine. He tried to play innocent at first, but they found a second set of ledger books as evidence and he gave up. As the saying goes, “Heaven’s net has large meshes, but nothing slips through.” You can’t get away with being bad forever.)

Blitz seemed happy to find out we were sleeping in the stable. He’s cute like that, so why won’t he let me ride on his back?

“Senpai, you stopped halfway through my massage earlier. Please finish it.”

Fine, fine. He worked hard today, so I’ll give him a bit more of a rubdown. After I gave him the full-body “Special Course,” Yoshioka fell fast asleep on the straw, looking very content.

Then, Blitz started snorting and huffing at me.

“You want one too, Blitz?”

He rubbed his neck against me. I gave him some light strokes using Level 1, and he, too, drifted off into a peaceful slumber.

“Want me to do you, Fiene?”

“No… it’s scary.”

She really doesn’t need to be that terrified.

It’s been a long day. I’m a bit tired myself. I wish someone would give me a massage. Sadly, I can’t use Golden Fingers on myself.

Feeling that slight dilemma, I drifted off to sleep.