Chapter 252 - The True Goal

"Sir Zaos and sir Ferix, please, present yourselves in the arena," The narrator said.

Zaos's turn finally arrived, and the participants opened the path for him to pass. Although they did that, they also glared at him as if they were trying to make him nervous or something. The ones who weren't so stupid evaluated Zaos's from head to toe.

"Hey, isn't that the heir of Sielders' family?"

"You mean the kid who was rewarded by the king the other day?"

"He looks bigger with the armor now…"

"Idiot, black clothes are supposed to make one look slimmer."

Zaos frowned while hearing those murmurs. As expected, he really disliked being the focus of the attention. Regardless, soon enough, Zaos forgot about that when he saw his adversary for the match. It was a man in his twenties that had light-brown hair. He seemed pretty light on his feet. Zaos assumed that because his set of armor wasn't covering many parts of his body and they were mostly made of leather. Aside from that, the trademark of that guy was his red spear.

"There sure are many spearmen in this kingdom… I wonder why," Zaos thought. "It is not like there are many heroic tales of spearmen in the kingdom."

Regardless, Zaos drew his sword, and the people around him began to murmur again. They were talking about how it seemed he was trying to compensate for something with a weapon of that side and about the fact that rumors say that he uses magic to swing that sword around. Both of them were annoying in so many ways…

"Fight!" The narrator said.

Zaos quickly assumed his Ox guard since he imagined the spearman would try to end that quickly with his speed, but he only lowered his stance to react to any movement as fast as possible. His spear was also pointing at Zaos's legs as if he was planning to make him even slower and increase the gap of their speed. Zaos didn't want to waste all day in the arena, so he charged first and tried to hit the spearman with a single lengthy thrust. The spearman reached on time and blocked the attack with his spear, but the weight of the attack pushed him backward for several meters. Not to mention, his arms and weapon vibrated for quite a while.

Zaos didn't let the spearman recover and attacked the same way as before. In the end, the spearman tried to fix his stance and counterattack since Zaos's left side was open while he thrusts his sword like that, but he suddenly gave up on it when he saw that huge sword approaching his chest. Even if he succeeds, there was a chance that he could get cut by the weapon, and a small cut of a sword of that size could take his life.

In the end, the spearman blocked the attack again, but once again, he was pushed back several meters by the strike. Zaos prepared another strike, but he stopped when he saw a crack in the enemy's spear. Half a second later, the weapon broke into two pieces. Without any choice, the spearman raised his arms, accepting his defeat.

"I guess this is what you can expect from a spear that isn't made entirely of steel," Zaos thought.

"Sir Zaos is the winner!" The narrator said.

"I am not… oh, yeah. I am a sir, now," Zaos muttered.

The spectators applauded both fighters, even though the fight didn't last that long. Regardless, Zaos returned to the anteroom, but before he could enter, he heard Nyana's voice, and then he found her waving her hands toward him, and she looked pretty excited. Zaos smiled in satisfaction before returning to the anteroom.

Once Zaos returned, he noticed that the glares were long gone. Finally, the idiots gave up on their stupid tactics, but now they were thinking about how they should deal with Zaos's ox guard. It wasn't like he could attack using his weapon like that, but they assumed that he was the main way of attacking. While they weren't wrong, they weren't exactly right either.

"Sir Drannor and Sir Gustav, please, present yourselves in the arena," The narrator said.

Much to Zaos's surprise, Drannor would fight soon after him… that was quite the coincidence, or was it? No one knew how the matches were decided, after all. Zaos began to feel like that whole situation had some other meaning aside from being a festivity for Ameria's birthday.

In any case, Drannor's fight ended even faster than Zaos's. The enemy was a big warrior who had a massive battle-ax as his weapon. Although his swings were big, each one cut the air and made a terrifying sound, even when they missed Drannor by a paper-thin margin.

After dodging two of those attacks, Drannor finally dashed forward and then hit the enemy's shoulder with his spear. Still, his spear didn't pierce all that much since the big guy was also wearing thick armor, but that worked well to break his stance. The big warrior stepped backward, trying to recover his balance, but Drannor hit his bent knee with the butt of his spear and then made him fall on the ground. After that, he moved his spear to the face of the warrior and stopped a few centimeters away from it.

"I wield," The big warrior said.

In the end, Drannor offered a hand to make the big guy get up, but he had to use those to help. Drannor was fast, but he wasn't physically strong enough to raise a three times larger guy. That made the spectators laughed a little, but Zaos didn't find that amusing.

"The blockhead really wants to make an impression for some reason… why? It is not like his reputation is bad or weak…" Zaos muttered.

Zaos confirmed the feeling that the whole tournament had another goal. He wasn't stupid, so he soon found an explanation… the royal family was trying to boost Drannor's fame in order for him to become Ameria's husband.