(Attendance… plz…)
….
"What... just happened?"
"Did His Majesty really lose to that adventurer?"
"Hey, is this real? Am I dreaming right now?"
"Was His Majesty holding back? Or did that kid pull some kind of sneaky trick?"
Nobody on Gazel's side of the plaza believed what their eyes had just shown them. Or more accurately, every single one of them was actively refusing to believe it.
Their minds were doing the small protective work of denial, looking for alternative explanations, trying to arrange the last few seconds into any shape that wasn't the shape they had actually witnessed.
King Gazel was on the ground.
He was still sitting there, technically, even though his body had long since finished processing the physical details of the fall.
The dirt had his weight now, his sword was somewhere off to his left, and the great shadow he had glimpsed in the final moment of the duel was still burning behind his eyes.
He wasn't quite sure whether he was still seeing it or only remembering it. The line between the two had gone somewhat blurry.
But he had lost. That part was certain.
His eyes came back into focus as he looked around and took in where he was. The dirt under him, his own knights standing behind him well outside the dueling space, and in front of him, Reinhard, still on his feet and still composed, wearing the same calm polite expression he had worn when the duel began.
I lost.
Gazel looked down at his open hand and closed it slowly into a fist, testing the weight of his own body, as if he weren't entirely sure he was here and not dreaming on his own couch back in the Armed Nation of Dwargon.
The verdict came back quickly. He was here, and this was real.
He let out a slow breath through his nose.
Arrogant. Who isn't, exactly?
Every man was arrogant in some way. Especially the ones who told themselves they weren't, because telling yourself you weren't arrogant was just a quieter kind of pride. Gazel knew that about himself, and he accepted it.
But he wasn't arrogant enough to call himself the strongest in the world. He had never let himself get that far gone. There were monsters in the world who could have flattened him and his nation in a single exchange if matters had ever come to that, and there was always a bigger fish somewhere on the map. Gazel knew this the way most men knew the names of their own children.
What he hadn't expected was to find a bigger fish here, in the heart of the Jura Forest, standing in a plaza of a monster town with red hair and polite eyes and a phrasing like I'll meet your expectations.
It seems... those words weren't an exaggeration in any way.
He looked up at the adventurer, and he tried to work out exactly how old the young man was. A human, clearly. Going just by the face and the way he spoke, maybe sixteen to twenty-two, somewhere in that range. Or maybe he was older than he looked, the kind of man whose appearance had simply settled young.
Reinhard returned his dueling blade to its sheath with a quiet motion, stepped forward, and extended a hand down to him.
"King Gazel," he said simply. "That was a good duel."
Gazel considered the offered hand for a moment, then reached up with his own broad dwarven grip and took it.
Reinhard helped him to his feet with an ease that was worth noting on its own.
Gazel was a heavy man, built like a dwarf and armored like a king, and Reinhard lifted him up off the ground as if he were lifting an empty glove.
The chatter on the knight's side was still going, climbing in volume. Gazel turned to face them, and his voice cracked across the plaza like a whip.
"Silence."
They went silent instantly.
Gazel turned back to face Reinhard, and there was a slight, ironic twist at the corner of his mouth now. "I apologize on my Knights behalf. It seems the arrogant one here was me. Yes, that was a good duel. Though from what I saw... you weren't even going at full strength."
Reinhard laughed softly at that last part. "Do you resent me for it?" He already knew the answer.
Gazel snorted. "No. If I did, I wouldn't be standing here. So if you're asking whether I resent you for not killing me, the answer is no. I don't."
"Haha, I thought you would. I'm glad I was wrong."
Gazel looked at him for a long moment, and something in his expression said that he could see his opponent had already known he was going to lose before the duel began.
Reinhard's only real concern hadn't been whether Gazel would win, but whether Gazel would take the loss poorly and make some rash decision afterward out of wounded pride.
"I'm not the kind of man who does that sort of thing," Gazel said, as if he'd read the thought directly off Reinhard's face. "And yes, I'll agree that we kings carry a certain pride in ourselves. It comes with the job. But that doesn't mean I'd threaten the safety of my kingdom for the sake of my pride. My pride is in the safety of my kingdom and its citizens, not the other way around." He paused, then added with a slight incline of his head, "That said, there's one thing I'd like to ask you, if you'll allow me."
Gazel's respect for Reinhard had shifted, visibly, and he was no longer bothering to hide the shift.
The reasons for it were piling up in his head faster than he could sort them. A young man who had defeated the Orc Lord, who had according to the reports slain thousands of orcs in a single strike, and whom a Dryad of the Great Jura Forest had come out personally to speak for, introducing him as the Alliance Leader of the forest itself and themselves as his subjects.
Which technically made him the leader of the Great Jura Forest as a whole.
For Gazel, age stopped mattering after that. The Alliance Leader of the forest was a position that deserved respect on its own, regardless of how old the person holding it looked.
If Gazel had refused that respect, he would have been insulting not only Reinhard but the Dryads as well.
That was a path to earning the wrath of the forest, and Gazel had not become a successful king by walking down paths like that one.
Reinhard gave him a small nod. "I don't mind the question, if it's one I can answer. Please, ask."
Gazel opened his mouth to speak, and the question was already half-formed on his tongue. It was a question whose answer he was fairly certain he already knew, but he still wanted to hear Reinhard say it himself. He began. "Was there a possi..."
"Well, well, well. What a sight awaits me."
Gazel didn't get to finish.
A new voice had drifted in from the side of the plaza, and Gazel's head turned toward the source of it.
Another high-born monster had just arrived, moving with the unhurried walk of someone who had nowhere urgent to be and was enjoying what he saw.
It was Hakurou.
Gazel stared at him for a long second, and something in his face shifted in a way that had nothing to do with the duel or the shadow. It was the expression of a man recognizing someone he hadn't expected to see again, someone who belonged to a much older part of his life.
"If I may..." Gazel began slowly, his voice losing its kingly weight and becoming something more careful. "Are you... the Sword Ogre?"
Hakurou came to a stop a few paces away, his weathered old face settling into a slow warm smile. The kind of smile a man wears when he's looking at something from decades past that has just walked back into his present.
"...Hahaha. What a sight indeed. Who would have ever thought the child I found wandering lost in the forest all those centuries ago would now be standing before me as the king of the dwarves?"
Rimuru, who had been watching the whole thing from the side with an expression of mild bewilderment, stepped forward and tilted his head at the old swordsman. "Wait, so you know King Gazel, Hakurou?"
Hakurou turned to face him, his smile still in place. "Lord Rimuru. I didn't before, not by that name. When I found him several centuries ago, he was still a child, alone and lost deep in the forest. I took him in on a whim and taught him my swordsmanship. I had no idea the boy I once trained had grown up to become the Dwarven King standing in front of us today. And it seems he's grown into a better swordsman than I ever was."
He laughed softly at his own sentence, a low rumbling sound.
Gazel inclined his head with an almost ceremonial respect. "You honor me with your words, Sword Ogre…. I meanMaster Hakurou. I see you have a name now."
"Oh," Rimuru said, his eyes going a little wide. So if Hakurou had been here from the start instead of off with the evacuation, this whole incident might not have happened in the first place. He let out a small breath of relief. Well, I guess that means I don't have to worry about Gazel and his kingdom anymore, right?
He recovered his composure and cleared his throat. "So, I think there's nothing left to misunderstand between us. Why don't we continue this conversation inside? I'm sure it'll be more comfortable."
Hakurou gave a single approving nod. "That is a fine idea, Lord Rimuru. What do you say, boy... I mean, Your Majesty?"
Gazel laughed, and this time the laugh had real warmth in it. "I would be honored, Master Hakurou. I came here to speak with sli… I mean Rimuru about several matters anyway."
He turned back to Reinhard.
"It seems I'll be asking my question later. Is that all right?"
Reinhard offered him a small polite smile. "I don't mind the time or place. You can ask me whenever you like. If it's something I can answer, or something I know, I will."
"Hahah thanks."
Reinhard then turned to Rimuru. "Rimuru, you should let Shion and Shuna and the others know about this so they can, you know, stop."
Rimuru's eyes went wide. "Oh, damn, I completely forgot. Good reminder. Souei..."
Before he could finish the command, a quiet voice answered from directly behind him, the kind of voice that had been waiting silently somewhere in the shadow of the plaza for the entire duel and was now stepping forward because its name had been called.
"Understood."
Rimuru laughed under his breath. Haha, always so fast and reliable, my ninja guy.
….
A/N: so, how was it? I hope it was to your liking and you enjoyed it. Dont forget to comment and throw some stones if you can. See y'all in the next chapter.
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