Chapter 1449 Tournament

The sun could be seen rising over the far horizon, sharing its brilliance and warmth with the citizens of New Brittania.

The day that everyone had been waiting for a long time had finally arrived. After three years of absence, finally the long-awaited Knight Tournament was held once again. Lively clamor filled the streets of Camelot City as residents rejoiced at this grand event.

The tournament was held at the same venue as its predecessors. A rectangular-shaped grass field that is over six hundred feet in length and two hundred feet in width. Its two sides were occupied by extensive platforms which were made to accommodate large audiences, with each platform having a capacity of several thousand people.

But even with such a large capacity, there were still tens of thousands more people who had come to witness the event. Since there was no place for them anymore, they were forced to stand outside the platform. Even so, their enthusiasm did not dim one bit.

Situated right in the center of the platforms, there was a special area prepared for the King and Queen, as well as the other high ranking nobles. Thanks to Klea's invitation, she and Luna sat there among the important people of the kingdom.

It was unfortunate that there was limited space, hence Kastan the Quintins Guard Captain and Glita weren't able to sit together with the two of them.

"I'm sure that girl is still very happy down there, watching the event up close," said Luna when she saw Klea's face, to which the latter nodded in response.

It wasn't long before the sound of horns reverberated through the air, playing a melodic tune signaling all the tournament participants to make their way into the field. Loud applause and thunderous cheers echoed through the air as the crowd of audience welcomed their arrival.

Lined up in an orderly manner, a total of six hundred young squires, ranging in age from 16 to 21 years old, could be seen on the field. Most of them came from various noble families that previously belonged to the 7 kingdoms; whereas for those who were of commoner origin, there were just slightly above a hundred of them.

Even though King Arthur continued to encourage those who were not noble to enter the tournament, there were still not that many who joined because most of the commoners had barely any combat training, basic equipment or confidence in entering the tournament and competing with the descendants of noble families.

On the other hand, directly across from Britain's young people stood the Danes. Apparently, they had brought over a hundred Viking youths to participate in this event. The sight of them brought quite an awe to the residents of Camelot.

Some of the younger squires seemed to be intimidated by the Danes who were mostly physically bigger than them. However, when they heard the cheers of thousands of people of New Brittania, they once again straightened their backs and stood tall.

Jarl Haraldson who sat in the VIP seats looked excited as he spoke to the King sitting beside him. "Such a grand occasion. Thank you for inviting us. I'm really liking this!"

The reason Arthur purposely went ahead and invited the Danes was not just to improve the relationship between the two kingdoms. He was also hoping that the Danes would be able to present the youth of Brittania with a better challenge, which would then hopefully give birth to a much better knight.

Just like the format its predecessor adopted, the top hundred of these 600 participants would receive the honor to be knighted.

King Arthur stood up from his seat and walked up to the platform facing the hundreds of participants. As his gaze swept over them, he opened the tournament with a short speech on perseverance.

As soon as he finished his speech and gave another encouragement, a loud bell rang through the air, officially announcing the start of the tournament.

The first of the five days tournament finally took off, and just like before, it started with the challenge of bow and arrow.

When he saw the objects being brought forward, the Jarl exclaimed loudly, "Aaahh, you Britons are good with those. I don't think we Danes will stand a chance."

The challenge was to take 10 arrow shots to hit a target 300 feet or 400 feet away, with the latter would earn them double the points. Most of the young Britons chose to not to take risk and shoot at the 300-foot target as they aimed for the knighthood.

On the other hand, the exact opposite took place on the Danes' young Vikings. Since they didn't need such a title, they all went ahead and chose the 400-foot target, competing against each other to see who was the best.

At the end of the day, even though half of the Danes did not pass the minimum number of points, four of them managed to make it to the top 10 archery champion. The exhibition drew applause from the audience, especially for the Danes who were surprisingly good at archery.

On the second day, the audience returned to the arena which had been transformed to three long wooden rails in preparation for the second challenge, namely jousting. Once again, Jarl Haraldson commented with a chuckle, saying that horse riding was Danes' weakness.

"If this was a battle in the water we could certainly win, but on horse there is no chance for us Danes."

That was a fair comment, something both noble and common folks of the Briton know and agree on. However, despite such known facts, they were still able to fight competitively against the Britons.

Those Danes' young Vikings might not be skilled at jousting, but apparently they had come prepared with a tactic of hitting the horse and bringing the fight on ground. In the end, shockingly six Danes managed to enter the top 10 of the jousting challenge.

The unexpected outcome was another blow to the people of Brittania, one that brought the mood of everyone down. This was especially the case when they remembered that the third challenge would be something the Danes excelled at; the close combat challenge.

When the second day concluded, once again Jarl Haraldson was chuckling with a smile as he said, "I hope there are no hard feelings between us. My young Vikings were just lucky, that's all."

It might appear so to some, but to others who knew even a little about combat, they could clearly tell that these youngsters brought by the Danes were fully prepared for this tournament.

Gwen stepped forward and responded to the Jarl's words with a smile. "It's only the second day. We shall see what happen tomorrow"

As for Klea, when everyone left the place, she stayed behind doing her own thing.