Chapter 147: Overestimating One's Reach
"Let me go, you oaf! Someone's stealing our sword!"
Percival was being squeezed so hard by Arthur that he could barely breathe. His short legs kicked frantically in mid-air, and the moment he managed to suck in a lungful of air, he let out a piercing shriek.
"Stealing? What kind of two-bit thief dares to steal a sword in broad daylight?!"
At first, Arthur assumed it was merely Percival's panicked nonsense. But a heartbeat later, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a skulking silhouette reaching for the greatsword that was still leaning against the severed wooden dummy.
"The sheer gall!"
The sword belonged to the King, but it was the first masterpiece Arthur had ever forged with his own hands. Rage flared in his chest. In two long strides, he closed the distance, raising his hand and delivering a thunderous backhand slap.
In any tactical situation, using a bare palm against a man who already had his hand on a hilt was profoundly unwise. The thief clearly thought the same; seeing Arthur's hand fly toward him, he didn't retreat. Instead, he gripped the hilt and yanked upward, intending to intercept Arthur's wrist with the razor-sharp edge.
The crowd of onlookers gasped in unison. They had all seen the Gwyhyr's terrifying sharpness moments ago if Arthur didn't pull his punch, his hand would be severed at the wrist!
Crr-ack!
The thief didn't just fall; he was launched into the air by the force of the blow, spinning three full rotations before slamming into the dirt.
The weight of the greatsword had far exceeded the thief's expectations, making his counter-parry a fraction of a second too slow. It was as if he had deliberately offered his face to Arthur's palm.
"Yo you! How dare you lay hands on a man of my statush!"
The thief was surprisingly resilient. Despite the beating, he managed to scramble to his feet and roar back at Arthur. However, having taken the full force of a knight's blow, half his face was swollen like a ripened plum and half his yellowed teeth were missing. His speech was so distorted and airy that no one could understand a word.
"Bold blacksmith! How dare you attack a diplomatic mission from Verden?! Do you seek to spark a war between Cintra and Verden?"
Fortunately for the thief, he had... associates. Since he couldn't speak clearly, someone else did it for him.
A middle-aged man draped in a sable cloak, flanked by a dozen guards wearing black-and-gold checkered doublets, stepped forward, pointing a trembling finger at Arthur. His face was a mask of venomous malice, but for every word he barked, he took a step back. By the time he finished his sentence, he had retreated behind a wall of his guards.
"Seize him!"
In an instant, the air was filled with the metallic rasp of swords clearing leather.
Arthur stood in the center of the street, still holding the massive Gwyhyr, but his expression was one of complete bewilderment. He couldn't find an opponent.
Every single one of the sable-cloaked man's guards was already being held at bay by two or three gleaming axes or hammers and the ratio was widening by the second.
The dwarf blacksmiths who had been watching the trial had sprung into action. They were busy handing out blades and maces from their display racks to any passing local, shouting at the top of their lungs:
"Come on, lads! Some stinking outsiders have come to our North Ward to start trouble!"
"Cut 'em down! Anyone who kills a man in a black-and-gold jacket gets his gear repaired for free by me!"
The roar of curses and war cries reached a fever pitch. Skellige mercenaries surrounded the checkered guards with wide, hungry grins, looking at them like open vaults in a bank.
The man in the sable cloak suddenly forgot all about Arthur. He held a piece of parchment sealed with red wax high above his head, screaming:
"Don't you dare! Don't move! I am an ambassador! I am a diplomatic envoy from Verden!"
"What... what's the story here? Why do they seem more excited than we are?"
Arthur looked left and right, unable to find a single guard who wasn't already being handled. He turned to Percival for an explanation. After all, just two days ago, these same dwarves had been trying to bully Percival into surrendering the Gwyhyr's secrets. Their sudden leap to the gnome's defense felt entirely contradictory.
"Tallon Zigrin has been sacked," Percival grunted.
Percival spoke in a low voice, his tone thick with a strange, weary irony.
"Word is, the morning after he lost that wager, the old codger suffered a massive stroke brought on by excessive drinking. Half his body is paralyzed."
"Oh, so that's how it is." Arthur understood. "And you're on the shortlist for the new guild president, aren't you?"
Percival shook his head.
"It's not because of that. The bad blood we had before was all Tallon's doing the old fossil forced everyone's hand. Now that he's down, everyone is naturally looking out for themselves again. These beard-tossers might be stubborn as mules when it comes to sharing their trade secrets, but if you call on them to help crack some skulls..."
The gnome gestured toward the Verden mission.
"Well, you're looking at it."
Watching the diplomatic mission being surrounded and treated like complete fools, Arthur felt a sudden twinge of concern. "Making such a massive scene... you don't think there will be an 'accident'?"
Percival scoffed. "What accident? Unless these fools are suicidal, they'll stay rooted to the spot and wait for someone from the palace to arrive. We're doing the Queen a favor by putting them in their place!"
Unfortunately, as some wise man once noted: when you expect no accidents, that is precisely when they happen.
Just as everyone was praying the situation wouldn't escalate into a bloodbath, a sharp, commanding roar erupted from the center of the Verden mission:
"For honor! Draw your steel against the enemies before you! Long live King Ervyll!"
Arthur spun around in shock. The Verden ambassador, who had been pale and trembling moments ago, now looked like a man possessed. His face was flushed crimson with a sudden surge of blood, and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, ordering his guards to launch a suicidal charge into the crowd.
This idiot is mad... was Arthur's first thought.
But immediately after, he realized the ambassador's behavioral shift was far too extreme to be natural. The current situation simply wasn't enough to catalyze pure terror into such blind, suicidal rage.
The man's mind had been tampered with!
Realizing this, Arthur lunged for the greatsword, yanking it from the ground. He sprang forward like a hawk, diving toward the still-shouting ambassador.
He needed to catch this man alive. He was the perfect specimen to help Borch study a counter-measure for "mind interference"!
"Protect me!"
Arthur's charge was lightning-fast, but its momentum was terrifying. The mercenaries who had been watching the spectacle scrambled out of the way, and the ambassador let out a high-pitched, piercing shriek.
"Out of my way!"
Several guards hesitated, training their weapons on Arthur, only to be met by a roar like a dragon's.
As the greatsword swept through the air, shearing through every blade in its path, the pale blue ripples of a Battle Cry suddenly expanded. The wave produced two entirely different effects on the crowd.
When the ripples washed over the mercenary onlookers, they simply felt a prickling instinct this lad is dangerous, best not get caught in his wake and they stepped back, remaining calm.
The Verden guards, however, were a different story. They had just watched their steel snap like dry twigs under Arthur's blade; under the crushing weight of the Battle Cry, Arthur's silhouette loomed before them like a man-shaped dragon.
Clatter-clank!
A chorus of weapons hitting the cobblestones filled the air. Arthur's arms shot forward, parting the huddled guards like a reaper through wheat. He reached in and seized the ambassador who was currently soaking his own breeches in terror by the collar, dragging him back toward the Moonlight Moss.