Special Chapter 2501, part 2.

~ One of many battles ~

Meanwhile, the Queen is experiencing something else.

As one of her generals, has stopped her leisure journey while she was being carried to her destination, the general is kneeling with one knee on the ground out of respect, while he delivers his message.

General of the Queen's army leads fifty soldiers each, equaling five hundred, as there's a total of ten of them, which leaves a full one hundred soldiers for the Queen to command while in a middle of a battle.

The Queen pinches the bridge between her eyes with her index fingers while saying "What is it, Darti? It'd better be good, seeing as Pon and Ton are carrying me to the battlefield, which you're obstructing right now"

"My apologies, my Queen, but there's somebody that wishes to take upon the challenge of blood"

When Darti finished the message the Queen moved her hand away from her face and with a thoughtful look replied to him "Okay, your apology is accepted, now get on the side of Pon and while we walk there, tell me the details"

"Yes, my Queen" Says the General and stands up, walks to the right maid of the Queen and so he begins to speak while they resume moving towards the battlefield.

"His name is Gradu, he's from a small village south off of the Royal City of Crimson" Darti starts, but the Queen interrupts him with her out loud thoughts.

"Gradu, Gradu, Gradu... Why is that name sound familiar... Hmm..."

Ton from her left, not even a bit tired, it's as if she wasn't carrying a throne and a person on it, answers the Queen "He's the one that's arrogant with a small group of soldiers following him around like he was an exotic demihuman"

"Oh right, the one with decent skills, but with an even bigger mouth"

"That's the one, my Queen" Darti says, agreeing with the Queen's statement "He does indeed speak highly of himself"

"No, no, what I meant is that his mouth is huge, it's hilarious" The Queen brushes off her general's sentence.

"Uh... There is that too, my Queen" Darti agrees, even if he doesn't see the man's big talking hole all that funny.

"Anyways, continue"

"Yes, my Queen. As Ton said, he has a group of followers behind him and they seemed to have stroked his ego enough and talked him into it and if I do say myself, it's not all that surprising to see him have his own followers. The man's definitely skilled, he's better than most of my own squadron's soldiers that's for sure, but..."

"He's not better than you" The Queen finishes it for him.

"Yes, my Queen. And me being the worst rank out of the generals, doesn't bode well for him in the challenge"

"Well, perhaps you're misjudging your own abilities?"

"With all due respect my Queen, while I know that I am the least useful out of the generals right now, I still am a general of the Queen's army and I can say with certainty, that he's not as good as me in any way"

"Are you sure?" Asks the Queen.

"I am" Answers the general with a little bit of confidence showing.

"I mean his mouth is bigger, so he could probably stuff his face with more food than you" States the Queen, slightly throwing the general off.

"Uh... Yeah, you're right on that my Queen" Darti affirms the Queen's notion, albeit slightly confused.

"Of course I am right, then tell me, Darti. isn't that him being better than you in something, therefore negating your statement about being better than him in 'any' way?"

"Um..." Darti faces away from the red eyes of the Queen "Y-yes my Queen"

"Not to mention that he may get lucky, which is a big factor a lot of the times, he could succeed, you do know what would happen then, right?"

"Y-yes my Queen, it means I'd lose my position as a general"

"Well, I'm sure that one of my generals is still better than a mere soldier in the ways where it counts... Right, General?" The Queen asks the last part seriously, having lost the somewhat joking tone from before.

Darti faces the Queen again and with full air of confidence surrounding him "Certainly, my Queen"

"Good, now, seeing as we are closely approaching our destination, I need to tell you that we are starting the battle earlier than previously planned, why don't you use your legs and run ahead of me, to deliver the message to the other generals, while I think of what the challenge should be for the big-mouth"

"Yes, my Queen" Darti says, bows his head, and just like he was passively ordered, runs ahead of the Queen and the soldiers who were following behind her, to accomplish his goal.

And so, the Queen starts thinking of what she could do with this challenge, there's less of them than her games, so she still has ideas for it, unlike with the former for she has done it so many times, that it has just blended to a huge mess of boring situations, she's actually glad that those two talked about her wives, which nobody dares to as everybody knows or at least they should know, that if you say a wrong thing about a Crimson's family wife, that could mean certain death.

So even if it was just a question and nothing more, it still felt good to have something new happen in one of her games, not to mention that she was mildly surprised about Varkon's honesty, not many times does that happen to her, most would just say 'I'm ready' with fake bravado while trying, the keyword 'trying', to hide their fear from her.

Yes, Varkon was scared, but because of his survival skills in war, he stood his ground in front of her presence as best as he could and even tried to joke with her, Maybe she should talk with him, she's pretty curious about how he survived for so long... And what else does he know about her?

While the Queen was stuck in her mind, they arrived at their destination.

As the maids set down the throne, the Queen snaps out of her thoughts, and with an unqueenly 'Oh' sound, she realizes something.

"Has the Queen wandered off in her mind and didn't think of a challenge for the occasion?" Ton asks as she stands in her position.

Yes, that's exactly it, she, instead of thinking of a challenge, thought of her encounter with Varkon and that other one, whatever his name was.

"Indeed so, Ton"

"Would the Queen like some suggestions?" The other maid, Pon, asks from the other side of the throne.

"Hmm... We'll see, maybe something magnificent will pop into my head, seeing as I am amazing, it shouldn't be that hard"

"Of course, my Queen" Both the maids say at the same time and resume being silent. But that doesn't last long as the Queen puts both of her hands on each side of the throne and straightens her back and neck, to allow access to her head.

With a clear and silent command for The Maids, the two of them move in with preparing the Queen's hair for the upcoming battle, so they start braiding it and weaving it in multiple ways, to make it shorter and still beautiful as it would be without their help.

While that's happening, Varkon, Ipatu and some left behind soldiers make it halfway to the destination of the battle.

Also, all of the generals arrive near the Queen and kneel on one knee before her, they have been told that not only are they starting the battle early, there's also a challenger of blood.

So they stay lined up and kneeling while the maids work on the Queen's hair.

The moment the maids finish their work, the Queen stands up from her throne and is ready for the easy battle that's to come, her enemies this time, not even worth the effort of morale raising speech for her army. So might as well deal with the challenge instead.

"You can stand, generals" States the Queen, the generals rising with a 'Yes, Queen' said in unison.

"I imagine Darti has done his job and informed you about the battle?"

The generals' nod in unison, they know that as a group they are not to say 'Yes, Queen' to everything that the Queen says and instead silently and affirmatively nod.

"And about the challenge of blood?"

They nod again at the Queen's question.

"Good, whoever is the general of the challenger, bring him out here, you can also let his... Followers tag along" The Queen said with a pause, as she wanted to refer to them differently than followers at first, but then she couldn't be bothered to do so.

Only the sixth in line nods and goes to do as he was commanded.

"So it's one of Bariq's soldiers this time" Muses to herself, the Queen. The generals nodded anyways as if in agreement, even if they didn't need to do so.

After a minute a group of eight people arrives before the Queen, one of them being Bariq and the rest are of random nobodies, and Gradu, the challenger.

The Queen looks at the challenger and is met with his eyes head-on, he's not backing down.

"Hmm... Okay" The Queen without looking back, raises her hand in the air, with her palm clenched into a punch, except with her thumb sticking out and pointing to the left.

The maids seeing the command, move away from the throne and towards a pole that's closeby and raise the flag of the challenge, which is as the name of it suggests, is completely in the color of blood, nothing else on it, no marks, no writing, nothing.

And soon enough, the entire army of six hundred... Well five hundred and eighty-two, since eighteen members of the army were already there, show up.

Varkon's group also made it just as the flag was raised and of course like the newbie that Ipatu is he questions the older soldier about it.

"What's that flag mean?"

"It's for the challenge of blood and the challenge is fo-"

"I know what the actual challenge is about" Ipatu interrupts the older soldier's explanation "Learnt it from my brother, he was quite optimistic about it, always believed in himself that he'll one day be a general"

"And you knew that, but didn't know that it has a specific flag for it?" Varkon asks slightly annoyed, not only because he had multiple questions thrown at him in the meantime of getting here, but also for getting interrupted.

"Well, my brother didn't talk about that, he probably didn't think that it was important"

"... Yeah, okay" Is all that Varkon says and looks forward, seeing the army forming a huge circle so that mostly everybody could get a looksie at the event, but since they were at the back from the start, they have to wait a while before they make it close enough to really see and hear everything that will go on.

"Alright, we are going to battle earlier, let's get it over with" Starts the Queen, she glances at the man again, but their eyes don't need this time, as the Queen instead looks at his huge mouth.

"Well, big-mouth, you do know that once you put forward the challenge, you can't back out from it, right?" The Queen asks for everybody to hear.

But she's met with silence as Gradu and his six yes-men confusedly look at each other.

Bariq steps in unfazed "The Challenger's name is Gradu, my Queen"

"So that's what it was" The Queen says out loud, showing to all that she had forgotten it "Anyways, big-mouth, answer the question" She continues nonetheless.

Gradu with a bit of reluctance out of being called 'big-mouth' instead of his name steps up, nobody would dare to call him that in his face, well except for the Queen "Yes, my Queen, I don't plan to back out"

"Well, what should I do with you..." The Queen muses to herself, maybe she should've taken some suggestions from her maids, after all.

"You know, since I've had an interesting spectacle earlier, Darti" The Queen calls out to her general.

"Yes, my Queen?" Who steps up from the line.

"Seeing as big-mouth here would be your replacement if he were to succeed, how about you decide on the challenge?"

Darti's eyes widen slightly, but they quickly go back to normal "It'd be my honor, my Queen"

And with that, the Queen sits back down on her throne.

"Per the Queen's request, Gradu, I will bestow upon you the challenge" The general starts by getting big-mouth's attention "Before that, however, my Queen, is there something that you wouldn't want to see right now? Anything that's off-limits?" Darti throws a question the Queen's way.

The Queen just wanted to sit this one out, but of course, she had to be called upon, she thinks for a moment and answers accordingly "You can make up anything you want, but I suppose, duels are boring, so if possible, make do without those"

"Great, I won't disappoint you, my Queen, I already have something in mind" Darti says first to the Queen and then to Gradu "Your challenge will be the same as I was back when I ushered the challenge. And that will be commanding the entirety of the Queen's army by yourself for this battle" When Darti finishes and lets it sit in for several seconds, he sees out of the corner of his eye that the Queen nodded a few times at it, he understood it as a good job when it was just a 'not bad'.

"Okay, obviously since I already took on the challenge I've agreed to anything, but okay" Gradu says back at Darti.

"You seem confident" Comments Darti.

"I am, I think I can do this" Gradu answers back, his followers add to it, but it's just random and generic motivational words, so nobody pays attention to them.

"Darti" The Queen calls out, who nods at her acknowledging that he's listening "Is that all?"

"Um... Yes, my Queen, the same challenge to me was given by you and my apologies, even to this day I don't fully understand the criteria of which is I succeeded in... So seeing as this is clearly an easier battle, I am giving the same to him, to see if he can accomplish better results"

"Hmm... That won't do, you yourself just said that the upcoming battle is easier, general, do you remember what was your casualty count?"

"Of course, my Queen, that would be twelve"

"So, big-mouth, your challenge stays the same as Darti said, bu-" Just then the Queen rudely interrupted by a shouting voice from the crowd of soldiers.

"Brother!" As everybody looks in the direction of the voice, the generals with a pissed-off mood because their Queen was interrupted, they see one soldier smack the voice owner in the head while whisper-yelling at him.

"What are you doing, you moron" Varkon goes off at Ipatu who's rubbing his hurting head.

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't stop myself, that's my brother standing there"

Varkon blinks, then looks at big-mouth Gradu "That's your brother?"

"Yes"

Gradu of course sees the two men as the spot around them has opened up by the soldiers moving away from a few meters, so that the Queen would see who interrupted her. As Ipatu's eyes meet with Gradu, he can't himself from calling 'Brother' out to him again, while he runs towards him, Varkon not expecting the youngun to run to the challenger, wasn't fast enough to stop him.

Gradu squints his eyes at the strange man, not recognizing him at all, but as he gets called 'brother' for the third time, he remembers having a brother who he hasn't seen for a long time.

"I-Ipatu?" That is all he manages to get out as he gets tackled to the ground by a huge hug from the younger lad.

"I missed you so much, Gradu" Ipatu says trying to keep himself from crying.

"Y-you, is that really you?" Gradu grabs Ipatu's head and looks at him intently "You've used to be so scrawny and small, what happened"

"Hehe, I grew up"

"I-I... I don't know what to say, but you really shouldn't be here, it's not a place for somebody like you"

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean? I followed in my big bro's shoes and I don't regret it" Ipatu says pridefully getting off of his brother and standing up.

"There's that too, but I mean, right here, right now, when I'm about to take the challenge, you interrupted the Queen and that's never a good thing" The older brother says standing up as well.

But just as Gradu says that to his brother, both of them hear multiple coughs getting their attention, those coughs coming from three of the generals, that being Darti, Bariq, and one who's from the Royal City of Crimson, his name Palion being as proof.

"My Queen, what should we do with this... trash, how dare he even think of interrupting the Queen" Palion says loudly and with huge distaste in his voice, while he looks straight at the Queen, not even acknowledging both of the brothers glaring at him.

"Nothing, it's fine" The Queen nonchalantly says to everybody's surprise.

"B-Bu-" Palion starts to say, completely flabbergasted by the Queen's reaction, normally the Queen would punish such behavior.

"Unlike you, Palion, I didn't stutter, so, is there a problem?" The Queen directs a question the general's way instead, who immediately shuts his mouth and gets embarrassed as he hears the two brothers snicker at him.

"Varkon" The Queen calls out to the older soldier who was left behind by the youngun, he slightly jumps as he wasn't expecting to be called.

"Y-yes, my Queen?" He nonetheless bows his head as he addresses his Queen.

"Take the child away for now, while this impromptu family reunion is... sweet... Is that the word?" The Queen pauses to thing "Well whatever, we have more important things to deal with"

"Right away, my Queen" Varkon says and quickly runs to Ipatu and grabs him by the collar, and just manhandles him back to their previous spot.

"H-hey!" Ipatu shouts while he's being dragged away.

"Shut up, already. You've made enough problems for me and yourself for one day, you should be groveling on the ground by the Queen's feet and asking for forgiveness, be happy that she let you go without any complications" Varkon finally openly shows the accumulative annoyment he felt up to this moment and effectively shuts the boy up.

"Seeing as that's over with, let me get back to what I was going to say. Big-mouth, you will lead my army for this battle, but as Darti lost twelve soldiers in a harder battle, your casualty count is to be less than ten if you wish to succeed, alternatively, if it's more, you will pay for it accordingly"

Gradu was ready for anything that the challenge could've thrown at him and he still is, but now that he has reunited with his brother, no matter how short it was due to the situation, he's having second thoughts about it all, which is a bad mindset to be in, as such insecurities have a chance to not only cost him the sport of a general, other soldiers' lives and something of his, whatever it is that the Queen decides to take. If only he saw Ipatu before he issued the challenge, that way none of this would've started, but it's too late now. So with a deep and heavy breath, he addresses the Queen.

"My Queen, I am ready"

"Good, you may as well begin right away, as we were about to attack the enemy right about now and everybody is already here, so go ahead, show that you're worthy to take over Darti's position" The Queen finishes by sitting up straight, drawing her rapier and impaling the ground while both of her palms are on the hilt as she starts watching with intent.

Gradu's eyes slightly widen in surprise at the news of the battle starting early, he doesn't even have any time to prepare, it's already going awry, but it's fine, he has trained and read all about situations of which you don't have enough time to ready yourself for.

And so he loudly speaks to the entire army "I will refer to squads from ten to one, in the same rank order as the generals. Now, all of you, into your offensive position"

As he finished voicing out his orders, almost all of the soldiers acted on it, the newer soldiers were slow on the uptake and that's not to the fault of Gradu's surprisingly firm and commanding voice, it's due to the presence he has and the way he carries himself, it's okay, not all that great, mediocre at best. That comes with experience and earned respect and valor, so perhaps one day he will be able to command armies more freely, but that's for the future.

The Queen closes her eyes to rest and relax since she doesn't need to do anything, if there will be a moment where she's needed, her maids will tell her. So might as well just take a nap during the whole battle

"Squads one through six, take the front line, with squads eight through ten take the backline to defend them from the swarm of enemies, keep them at bay at first, once you see them scatter out even a little, all in on them, they won't be ready for it. Squad seven, you will scout out for possible traps and areas of a surprise attack while keeping to the sides of all squads" Gradu says his battle plan loud and clear, every soldier just follows with no input of their own.

They are used to following the Queen and the generals to victory, but if they do have some worries to speak out sometimes, they are allowed to do so with full confidence.

"When I give the command to go all in, let the cavalry through and follow right after them" Gradu adds to his plan and with that, the battle is on.

"What an amateurish plan" Scoffs Palion.

"Except that it isn't, maybe in some other area of interest, or against demihumans, this would be a suicide plan, to just all in like that with more front soldiers than back ones, but against fellow humans and with tall trees surrounding the area, This is something close to what the Queen would do, to show some weakness cautiously walking around the trees in fear of traps, just to in the moment of truth, ambush them in plain sight, when they have their inner guard down, it's quite a decent plan" Bariq refutes Palion's rude attempt at mocking the big-mouth.

"Bah, don't even insult the Queen, even if you say that it's a 'decent' tactic at best, the Queen is way out of his league, lumping the Queen with somebody like hi-" Palion rants.

"Yes, Palion, we get it, you obsess over the Queen, maybe read a book on a strategy for dummies, instead of writing your own about her" Kupir, one of the other generals, ranked seventh, jokes, interrupting Palion.

Palion gets red as he hears a few of the generals' chuckle at his expense.

"I don't need to read such an inadequate title, the Queen is the best example for learning, no literature, work of art, or anything else, compares" Palion spews back proudly.

"Of course, the Queen is amazing" Darti agrees, half sarcastically, half not.

The Queen hearing her generals bicker about nonsense, just forces herself to zone out, so she could relax.

She sighs out as she hears nothing... Except for one thing, her maids who are the closest to her... as they count the number of deaths over time.

"One" Pon says first.

"Two" Ton adds after several minutes.

Those two always do this, making sure to document every battle, every death, and every failure, just so that the Queen would have the most information possible for every scenario.

And she can't really fault them for doing it, as she was the one to teach and command them to do it... But this very moment, it's jarring, as the moment she almost lulls herself to sleep, boom, a number drop and she's awake again.

"Three and four" Pon states.

Then right after this time, Ton adds "Five, six and seven"

The Queen has no idea how long the battle has even lasted, as she just wanted to nap, but couldn't get to it, getting interrupted over and over. Most of her battles last more than an hour, but less than three, so who knows how long this one is. But by her estimations, she almost fell asleep at least five times.

But she still tries, for one last time and it seems to be going well and succeeding, no number drops, no interruptions, good, she subconsciously smiles, as she falls...

Right awake, as an interruption happens again, but this time from a general.

"My Queen"

The Queen opens her eyes, not showing any emotions on her face, as if she wasn't trying to sleep, but listened to all of what happened.

She looks to the one that called out to her, to see, the general number one.

"Yes, Verknar?" The Queen says.

"Something bad is about to happen" He says, craning his head into the direction of the battle that seems to be almost over, as the enemies drop their weapons, some flee, and barely any fight.

The Queen looks at the battle scene, quickly analyzing it all.

"What are you talking about Verknar?" Says Bariq and Darti at practically the same time, not understanding what the best general means, all they see is a won battle. Darti can also be seen showing so annoyment at the fact that he's about to lose his hard-fought general position, but he's hiding it well, as the damn big-mouth only lost seven soldiers, he'd need to lose four more for him to keep it, but he doesn't want that to happen, as less loss is better, he's not Palion after all, who would do anything to keep close to the Queen.

"This is not good indeed" The Queen interrupts Verknar's train of thought of how he should explain to the two who asked.

Darti and Bariq look at each other and the other generals also look at the Queen, as they also don't really know what's about to happen, it seems only Verknar and the Queen realize.

"My Queen, should I intervene?" Verknar asks.

The Queen stands up from her throne, stretches her body, with cracks going all over. She moans while doing it too, which makes some of the generals quite uncomfortable, especially Palion, as in his eyes, a sound like that shouldn't be made by the fearsome and amazing Queen, it should be made by a cheap lass from some run-down bar, but he keeps that to himself.

"Verknar, this is the challenge of blood, you know the answer"

"I do, but I thought if it's worth losing more soldiers than any of our recent battles, but I suppose you're correct, my Queen" When Verknar finishes saying that, all of the generals get serious, they could lose more soldiers here? Against these weak enemies? And on the brink of victory, when more than half of them surrendered already?

With renewed seriousness, they pay attention to the battle again.

"Charge! Go! Time to finish this, Cavalry, go all in!" Gradu's orders can be heard from far away.

The Queen hears the order and stops stretching... "Verknar, intervene" She says seriously.

Verknar without even caring that the Queen just went against her own words or the challenge, springs into action, jumps onto his favorite horse, darts down the path to the battle, so he could stop what's about to happen.

"I don't know what's going to happen, but he won't make it" Says Kupir.

"No, it seems that he won't, but he may stop some of it" The Queen comments.

"So... Could the Queen explain what's about to happen?" Darti asks hoping for an answer.

The Queen opens her mouth to start explaining, but she stops herself and says something different "Watch, it's about to happen, it won't be a pretty sight either"

The generals look towards the battle and the Queen was right, it isn't a pretty sight, as the moment they looked they saw what happened.

All the cavalry who were charging after the fleeing enemies were instead led to a trap, they wanted to be followed.

"This is crazy" Darti says as he sees the act happen.

"Shit" Palion swears out loud, if it would be any other moment, he would get teased for it, as he's a noble, and swearing like a peasant is 'beneath' him, but nobody can look away from the wreck that is the sight right now.

"They are killing themselves" Bariq says sadly.

And indeed they are, the enemies who lead the cavalry to traps, are running into them headfirst, holes, several feet deep with very sharp spikes from the very trees of the battlefield. The enemies just run, fall, and the horses that were after them, can't steer or stop themselves in time from their human rider commands, fall into them too, getting pierced clean through, along with the humans.

The enemies were also laughing before it happened, just as they were about to trigger the trap and fall, they were heard screaming in crazed joy.

And the Queen can just hear her maids speak at the same time.

"Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty and twenty one" They stop counting as the last cavalry falls into a hole, dying almost immediately with the human.

It only lasted until twenty-one, because Varkon managed to intervene in... Well not really in time, but he did stop it from continuing, by riding to the backline and the archers, to command them to shoot friendly horses. Which helped a lot.

Multiple cavalry units would ride together in few numbers, very close to each other, so when one horse fell over, the other few would get tripped too and they all would soon fall.

The suicidal enemies not realizing that their trap plan isn't working anymore would still run into the holes laughing, being the only ones dying.

"It's over" Kupir states and does a small prayer for the lost souls, both ally and enemy alike... Even if he hated their tactic.

The Queen throws a glance at Gradu, seeing him look on the battle with a terrified expression, completely forgotten the challenge of blood, now all remorse for the lives lost due to his actions.

"It's hard, isn't it?" The Queen whispers to herself. The maids are the only ones to hear again, as they are always close to her.

Verknir rides to Gradu and snaps him out of it, by giving him the flag of victory, Gradu raises it and the soldiers of the Queen's army erupt in cheers, they will celebrate, as they do after each victory, be it a small one, big one or somewhere in between.

But before that, there's something to be done... About the penalty of the challenge of blood.

~ End of Special Chapter, part 2 ~