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Chapter 2 – 10 (part 1)
The Day Before the Duel
Word of the duel spread quickly…. mostly because the Duke spread the word. According to him,
“If you challenge him in no uncertain terms and let a lot of people know about it, there"s no way he"ll be able to back out.”
Even if the duke"s actions seem only natural, they still seem awfully black bellied.
Thanks to the word getting out, the city seemed have a kind of festive mood to it. All due to a rookie adventurer, somehow picking a fight with a n.o.ble. Yet both the Guild and the Duke had approved of the duel.
For the people of the city it was rather abrupt, but still something that could be fun and entertaining. At places here and there in the city, people were placing bets on either side.
The Guild seemed to be managing a lot of the bets. The payout rates currently set by the Guild were: 3.5x for me, whereas the semi-Baron had a rate of 1.2x. The people who knew of me were betting on me, but most of the people in the city were betting on the semi-Baron, as they thought there was no reason he should lose to a newcomer. Lilly, her sisters, and the innkeep thanked me for such an easy way to earn some money.
Incidentally, since Flute-san was a bookkeeper for the betting, it meant that she was unable to bet herself and was bitter about it.
After thinking it over a bunch, I decided to bet on myself.
“h.e.l.lo, Flute-san. Is it alright if I bet too?”
“Ah, Tenmsan. As long as you don"t bet on your opponent, it"s fine.”
I could hear some of the city residents around saying things like “What an idiot” or “Lucky~ Our payout is going to increase”.
Those adventurers who knew of what I"d done and had bet on me were desperately trying to contain their laughter.
“So, how much would you like?” Asked Flute, as she took out the betting tickets.
“1,000,000G please.”
I said and took out a platinum coin. Things got noisy after that, with two different types of cries. One type was cries of joy from those who had bet on the semi-baron. The other type was booing from the adventurers who had already bet on me.
Those who had bet on the semi-baron said things like “That"s a genuine idiot” or “He"s going out of his way to increase our bets, what a nice guy” and so on, while snickering.
The adventurers who bet on me were saying “Pay more attention!” “This idiot is lowering our payout rate” “What a moron” and such, gus.h.i.+ng forth with foul language.
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“Okay, the bet is accepted. Please take care not to lose this.”
Flute said, back to her usual ways. I took my betting ticket, and the jeering continued on even as I left the Guild.
A little after that, some people heard the rumors about me and switched their bets over to me. But more importantly, people started to bet increasingly large sums on the semi-Baron, so that by the end the payout rates had changed to 3.6x for me, and 1.1x for the semi-baron.
The duel was to take place tomorrow around noon, and it looked like the semi-Baron would arrive this evening. I decided to go back to the inn so I could make sure my weapons were in good shape. However, on the way there, I sensed I was being watched. It wasn"t just one or two people either.
At first, I wondered if they wanted to see me because of the duel. But it wasn"t that kind of watching at all. I changed where I was going and went to visit Primera at the Knight"s Headquarters instead.
“Tenmsan? What"s wrong?”
As soon as I was finished with the receptionist, Primera came out. I explained the situation and right away Primera had one of her subordinates go out through a back door and investigate the surroundings. Before long, the subordinate (dressed in plain clothes) returned and reported. He confirmed four adventurer-looking men that he didn"t recognize, gathered in the back alley.
“I don"t know if they"re just monitoring Tenmsan, or out to do harm, but in all likelihood, they"re subordinates of the semi-Baron.”
said Primera, judging the situation. I agreed with her. Or rather, I could only think the same at first.
Thinking some more about it, I said,
“Primersan. Would it be alright if I stayed over at the Knight"s Headquarters today? I can give some kind of compensation for it, of course.” I proposed my idea.
Primera wasn"t able to decide on it by herself. “I"ll go and ask the other captains.” she said, and stepped out for about 10 minutes.
When she returned,
“The other captains gave their permission. On the condition that we organize the armory, though.”
she said with an apologetic face. While I didn"t understand why she would make that face, she guided me to the armory. Once I got there I immediately understood.
“This is… really something, huh…”
Laid out before my eyes was a chaotic ma.s.s of miscellaneous old weapons and armor, practically piled up into a mountain.
“I"m really sorry! One of the captains heard that you could control a large number of golems. He thought that if it was true then there"d probably be no concerns about injuries, and agreed on the condition it"s cleaned.”
Primera apologized. Still, if it was only this much stuff it wouldn"t be that big of a deal, so I accepted it.
“This will save us a lot of trouble. There were broken and old things that were left here, and before we realized it, it had become this really hard to sort out mess.” She said.
“Which division was responsible for this?” I asked, and she quickly looked away.
“……The fourth division.” She replied in a soft voice.
“It was your responsibility?!”
That was the moment I realized why I had gotten pulled into this.
“I"m sorry! All of the people from my division are really bad at this kind of thing…….”
She bowed her head down incessantly.
“Hahh…. Well, it was me who asked for a favor first so I guess it"s fine… but, just to make sure, send out a few people to help watch over me, please.” I asked, hoping to prevent any crimes.
“Please leave it to me. Some people who are free right now can help out.” she said, misunderstanding.
Five people were gathered and brought over.
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“Well then, Tenmsan, let"s get to it!”
For some reason, Primera was one of the five, even though she was a captain.
“Don"t you have things to do as a captain!?” I said to Primera.
“I"m already done for the day!” she responded, full of energy.
If the situation was like this, I thought it was probably fine, and then went outside. I summoned 50 small sized golems and set them to work.
First, I made the golems move everything outside. I had them separate them into weapons and armor, putting them into different piles for each type.
For the weapons, if you included even the ones missing parts or broken, there were 300 in total. There were 150 spears, 100 bows (with 400 arrows) and 100 various other weapons.
The armor included around 80 s.h.i.+elds, 40 chest plates, 10 suits of full body armor and 30 other pieces of armor.
I took the opportunity to move the shelves and racks outside as well.
Around an hour later the golems had finished. I then made the golems divide them into either a chipped or rusted pile and then a completely broken pile. While they worked on that I started to clean out the inside of the armory.
I first filled the room with a thick fog to dampen everything down, then washed it using water magic. After the dirty water was removed using wind magic, I used earth magic to patch up the spots in the room where there were cracks or dents. After that, all that was left was to dry the room out using wind magic.
Doing all that took almost another hour.
Outside, the golems and the knights worked together to sort everything.
“I finished cleaning the room.”
“Wha! Already?!”
Primera was shocked. Anyways, the room that had been in such an unfathomable state of disorder, had been cleaned up so well that now you could easily see the walls again. It was even repaired on top of that.
“Tenmsan. Want to join the knights?”
“No thank you.” Primera"s shoulders slumped, as if my response had weighed them down. Giving her slumped figure one last glance, I joined the sorting work.
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