chapter 17

The space was silent, a far cry from the loud arguing of a moment ago.

After the five accused had all but fled the from the court, nobody in the attendance dared to move an inch. Vester swallowed, the persistence silence between them and the King put both him and everyone else on edge.

"A— A thousand pardons my liege, but a-are you okay?"

At Vester's words, everyone's gaze landed on the hand that the king had tried to hide behind his cape that now became a darker shade of red.

"Of course, this is a minor wound."

Gazel shrugged off their shock and fear in truth, he himself was even more surprised than all of them combined.

He had merely aimed to figure out if the tiefling would pose a threat to the world and what would his aim be in amidst their duel.

To his surprise, the Tiefling neither aimed to escape or to use the opportunity to fatally wound him. Instead, the halfling merely enjoyed the short skirmish between them.

At first, he couldn't care less if the Tiefling's goal would have been to injured him. He had figured out that he was took weak to bring him at death's door but much to his surprise, the tiefling was able to land a direct blow at his arm.

The cut itself was shallow but where it was located gave Gazel a quaint feeling of fear.

He accurately grasped where my vein was.

It was the reason why there was too much blood despite the fact the injury itself being shallow.

He had no desire but to be strong.

The world itself was rigged, where the strong would rule over the weak and the weak would do nothing but perish. It was perfectly natural for one to seek strength but the tiefling sought after it with no reason whatsoever.

If he will be a threat, still remains to be see.

Thus, he decided to trust the tiefling for a bit. An exchange between two people that shares the same path.

"But other than that, Vester." The king once again broke the silence, staring at the noble that caused the entire mess in the first place.

This will be my first gift.

§

Rigur and gang were all safe at the edge of the forest.

Between this and that, we had spent a total of five days in the city—pretty much what we expected. Although things didn't go to plan...

Scratch that, nothing went according to plan at all!

I was still feeling a little bit salty that the best I could give Gazel was a slight scratch at his arm. Of course I never had any intention to win in the first place but I had wanted to sever his arm then use the full potion to heal him as a marketing strategy.

But what had happened? Instead it was both of my arms that got blown off! By Hakuro's skill of all things, I had thought I could block it since it was described in the Novel pretty well but turns there's just some things that are impossible to do just by reading.

"Are you still upset about losing, Rimuru-sama?"

"...Of course not, what makes you say that."

"Well... you're pouting."

Tsk, don't pay so much attention to me man.

But overall, I guess it was fine. Not only did we get Kaijin and the dwarves, but I got their full trust and even respect when I had survived a small duel with their king.

I hope Yuuki doesn't move because of that.

I'm 100% sure that the news of me dueling with the King would spread like fire. I just wish that it wouldn't cause any drastic changes to the plot.

With that all out of the way, I took the time to introduce Kaijin and his hapless friends to the goblins.

At least the dwarves weren't racist, I swear to myself that humans are just racist at their core. It's like its in their DNa or something.

We were less or ready to roll...er, run I guess.Ranga, of course, was wagging his tail, as if me riding on him was the pinnacle of his life.

Not weird at all

He was pretty upset when I tried to explain that I needed two of the Dwarven brothers to ride on him, which he immediately responded with glaring at the dwarves as if threatening he'd eat them to fix the issue.

Technically I could but then they'd meet Veldora.

And that would cause a whole lot of different issues. So in the end, I ended up shifting into a wolf so that the four dwarves would split up between me and Ranga.

"Astounding! Your dazzling strength knows no bounds, my master!"

"Hah-hah-hah! Yeah, I'll bet! And you'll look like this someday soon, if you keep it up!"

"We will do our best to live up to your lofty expectations, my master!"

Ranga's eyes sparkled at this new mission in life. The rest of the tempest wolves grew equally excited. Always a good idea to motivate the troops a bit.

So I turned to Kaijin and Gharm to get them to hop on, and…

Well, that's weird. They're all unconscious and foaming at the mouth. What're these guys doing, anyway? Oh well. I knew that practice would come in handy! A little Sticky Thread off my back, and everyone was pulled up and put firmly in place. Success!

And with that, we were off.

§

The one who arrived was a so-called hero.

She had long dark-silver hair tied behind her head, and her light equipment was colored a uniform shade of black. Her beauty rivaled the demon lord's. The only difference was that she was a woman.

A young one.