Chapter 20: Ch. 17
Beams of light penetrated the openings of the window, focusing on the eyelids of anyone that they can reach to. Gradually opening my eyes to this annoyance, I had sluggishly crawled out of bed. I had gotten dressed and departed for my final fight leaving Mark to snooze for a bit longer.
The roads were jammed pack with vendors trying to sell their products to the naive. It was the last day of the festival and they were getting desperate to get rid of their goods. One had approached me spouting some bullshit about product make belief effects. I had pretended to not hear him and as I did, he had quickly lost his interest in me. The vendor switching to a new target chose to harass a younger lad walking by.
Having arrived to the location of the final fight, suspicious circus freaks surrounded me.
"Where were you!"
"Am I late?"
"There's a special guest waiting for you! Come with me"
A sketchy man grabbed me and tossed me into the air. The rest of them caught me and then against my will carried and threw me into a building. This lavish room was fit for a prestigious person. It was a bit messy with parchments everywhere but the owner must've been extremely busy. Thump! A loud noise came from my right. In this doorway, a extravagantly clothed man had tripped and fallen down. The noise was loud and to proportion of the noise, it must've hurt as well, more to the pride side.
He quickly recovered, brushed off the dust on his militaristic uniform and calmly acted as if nothing ever happened.
"I am Matthews, Prince of Mathelios"
Still on my ass, I get up.
"I am the mercenary Kaiser, sir."
The proper way to greet the prince was to take off your helmet and kneel until he told you to get up. For the king you would get on both knees to show complete submission. It would've been smart to do that and win his favor so I could be employed by him but I served no kingdoms on a long term. I could be his enemy in the future. So I feigned ignorance on customs. The Prince had shrugged off my ignorance and continued towards his table, taking a seat.
Before he could tell me to sit down, I sat myself down across of him. The vein in his head was bulging, contradicting the fox smile he had.
"So what is that you bring me here."
"Have you heard about the fanatical group Oath of Furin?"
I had heard about their existence in fairy tales although the truth of them existing, I didn't believe. I had never came across one.
"No clue."
"They're a fanatic group capable of healing themselves and dealing immense damage. They can be mistaken for holy people but truth is, they have no gods and believe in none of them. Calling them false even. And we believe the last contestant to be from that group."
"Oh and how can they conjure it without assistance from those little flying critters?"
"We don't have the exact details on how their able to, but we believe they are using dark arts"
"You seem pretty confident about this contestant being a cultist, any proof?"
"Have you seen how a priest heals"
"Yeah their little orb spirit thing coming and doing their little spirit thing uh huh"
"Well a member from the Oath of Furin can also heal as well, although it's quite different. Scaling from how strong they are, they produce a light. If they're weak, it lights dimly. The strong ones are the one who we should be wary of. Their light shines extremely bright, blinding their enemies and healing their allies. Their allies wouldn't be blinded. This can become a very devastating counterattack."
That means Mark…
Having to piece together pieces, he was sprouting quite useful information.
"So why are you telling me this."
"We need you to win."
Well I was going to try to win anyways, thanks man. He had slip a necklace on the table. It had a eye catching granite embedded to it.
"This will prevent damage from below your neck, we need you to take that person out without alarming the general populace."
Thinking back to it… I recognize this necklace. It was the same one Yuane was wearing when I beat the crap out her yesterday. They must've extracted it from her when she was unconscious. That means I was having some trouble because of this Prince. Fuck you. You asshole. Cheat prick. Burning with rage, At any moment my fist could come alive and suckerpunch this pretty boy across the face without me needing to think about. All it would take was one more stupid thing coming from his mouth. I wished I could just laugh it off but the stab to the thigh was extremely painful including having to limp. My toe was not happy and neither was I. I fight frequent but that didn't mean I enjoyed pain.
"I hope you cooperate with us."
"No."
"What?" His tone in his voice stayed the same, though his sly smile turned into a terrifying straight face.
"I'm a mercenary, prince. This sounds like a job. I don't work for free, even if you were the king." I made it clear I was angry, this had also aggravated the Prince.
I had got up and proceeded to leave
"You're funny!"
His loud serious voice stopped me.
"You're treating this very lightly, I think you might want to really reconsider. Ah! by the way the other day I heard there was a murderer running loose."
Truth was I had no option to decline ever since I heard the information. This was why I hated personal request from royalties and nobles, refusal was not an option.
"Fine, but I don't want your necklace."
Slamming his lavish door into his lavish room as I left. The elites were standing outside, staring me down. Their eyes contemplated on whether to arrest me or let me go, it only just needed the simple order of the Prince.
Once I got to the grand area for the match, the circus freaks grabbed a hold of me and forcefully pushed me to a big tent just right outside. Inside was dark and it was hard to tell if anyone was in the corners. A lone candle lit the middle. The announcer for the entire event entered the tent and approached me energetically, sitting down on a bench next to us and patted the seat for me to sit down as well. I took up on the offer, the match wasn't going to start yet. With the whole events earlier, I just didn't want to waste any energy complaining.
This was the first time I had saw him. He wore colorful clothes. Ranging from yellow, to red, to blue. He reeked of an attention whore. His purple hair was in a wild hairdo, most of it went past his forehead. It was a mystery how he was able to keep it up. It went against gravity. He was taller than me as well. His face was covered by a tattoo of a skull. His yellow catlike eyes stood out as his eye sockets were painted black.
"Hey chump" the enthusiastic voice he had put up for the audience was replaced by a cold dead voice. It lacked life. His straight posture broke down and he slumped back, leaning on the bench.
"Make sure you put on a good show you shit. All your matches were shitty and quick. You're suppose to entertain the crowd. Do a lil flashy stunt, hit blades a few times, that ordeal. It's all about the crowd. The crowd you know."
He had pulled out a pipe from his pocket and placed it on his lip. A circus freak appeared out of nowhere and lit it then sprinted away, disappearing. Inhaling, exhaling. He looked at me with his dead eyes.
"Look here… Royalty are going to be present, I need you to put on a good show for them so quit being a quickie."
"I do what I want."
I shrugged, disregarding to his entire one sided talk. He heaved a sigh.
"Ok, how much"
"..."
"You deaf? How much do you want for putting on a good show"
After thinking about it for a minute, I stuck out five fingers.
"Five silver coins, goooooot it"
"No, five gold coins. Right now. If the performance is good, five more after."
"You thieving mercenary"
He snapped his fingers, and moved his wrist in a flashy way along with his hand. A circus freak had sprinted carrying a sack and handed it to him. The announcer grabbed it and shooed him away. It had disappeared off into the shadows with astonishing speed. The announcer tossed the light sack containing five gold coins over to me.
"You better not disappoint mercenary."
He got up and walked. After five steps, he reverted back to his jolly performance and disappeared after he took a turn out of my sight.
"Let me hear your hyyyyyyyyyyppppe! The final battle of this festival is between a mercenary and warrior. Who would win… Cast your bets. I would also like to talk about our suuuuuuuper special guest. Hey! Let's all rise from our seats for them. Introducing King and Queen of Mathelios. Oh and don't forget our handsome and charming young dream man, Prince Matthews!"
How he got to his position so fast, was incredible. Who is this guy. I couldn't see what was going on outside. I was in a concealed spot away from the crowd. A circus freak had came up to me and flapped his arms crazily.
"You want me to go now?"
It had nodded to my question and I got up.
"You can take your seats now. So let's get this battle gooooooooooooing! Give it up for our dear Mercenary! Badadidaduuuom!"
The crowd clapped. Through all this clapping, I could hear one lone voice throughout the crowd shouting.
"What a funny boy."
I had begun stepping, what separated between me and the crowd was a flap of cloth. The room I was in was dark. Parting it, the light funneled in. I had took a step into the stage.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone