I felt bad interrupting the two of them while they were so excited, but there were things I had to confirm.
"Um… will we be fighting bare-handed?"
"Hmm? Does Ambassador Marie want to fight bare-handed? If you have confidence that's fine, but normally we use blunted swords. You'll get injured, but it shouldn't be fatal."
Ah—so injuries were expected after all! If you smashed at each other with swords you were bound to get hurt. In the worst case you might even die.
Paying no attention to my worries, the Duke puffed out his chest.
"Don't worry! Ambassador Marie doesn't even need to fight first! Nominally it's Marie Kingdom versus House Kirchhoff, but you're a guest, so you can just stand there with a big dooon! House Vélez will do the fighting."
He answered proudly, but I felt no reassurance at all. I would have been more comfortable if he had said something like "I'm counting on you. Do your best!"
Anyway—
"Where are these blunted swords?"
