Chương 14: 14
Emile's strike was aim to kill. He did not hold back, his intention was to chop Arthur's head off with one swing.
Just before the sword made contact with Arthur's skin, the young man jumped backward at the last minute. Emile was surprised that he had missed, he thought his sneak attack was going to land for sure. However, he did not let that bother him that much, brushing it off as Arthur's stroke of luck, a sentiment that was echoed by the gathered crowd.
"Did you see that? The boy managed to dodge the swing of the sword at the last minute!"
"Maybe he is secretly good at this? Perhaps he did kill Emilio like the rumours said?!"
"Nah, he just got lucky. Did you not see how close that was? If he was late by another second, Emile would have chopped his head right off."
In reality though, Arthur had been watching Emile from the corner of his eyes since the man accosted him on the street. Since they were ambushed by Emilio earlier, Arthur had reasons to believe Emilio's older brother share Emilio's tendency to use underhanded tactic in combat and Arthur was proven right.
He had already noticed Emile was trying to launch a sneak attack at him when the man made his first move but he purposely waited until the late minute to avoid because Arthur wanted to get the crowd talking. He wanted to test out the theory that he came up with earlier, it was the talk of the crowd that contributed to the formation of the Echo.
After he made the evasion, Arthur glanced at the ball of energy above the crowd. It did grow slightly bigger even though it was still a distance away from being done. However, this did prove that Arthur's speculation was correct.
Attracted by the noise of the duel, more villagers started to gather at the village centre. Theirs was a small village with not much entertainment. A duel could prove to be quite a good distraction for a boring afternoon. The late-comers did not even stop to find out what had happened to lead to this duel to the death. They started to split into camps and cheer for their predicted winner. Naturally, there were more supporters on Emile's side. After all, the whole village knew Arthur had failed every adventurer entry test since the first one he participated in and Emile was one of the instructors at the adventurer's guild branch.
This worked in Arthur's favour because if he managed to turn the battle around, he was definitely going to get the villagers talking and that would help form the Echo that he needed to advance his Voice magic.
In other words, instead of waiting for the village elders to come mediate, which was his original plan, Arthur was going to take matters into his own hands. If the villagers wanted a show, then, god damn it, he was going to give them one.
After he slipped away from Emile's sneak attack, Arthur commented audibly, "How deplorable you have to be to attempt on a sneak attack on someone who isn't an adventurer? And you call yourself an instructor? For shame..."
Arthur wasn't one for snarky comments but if that was what he needed to do to hype up the crowd, then so be it. He could hear the chattering that was filtering through the crowd after he said that.
Realizing the people's opinion was slowly turning against him, Emile roared, "I've announced the duel before I made my move! It was entirely fair and square!" Turns out normally people who dished out the insults and provocation couldn't handle the same thing being done to them. Emile was provoked and angry. He branded Arthur with fire of vengeance, thinking about ways that he could kill the man.
Arthur could feel the aggression that was directed his way and all he could think of was how cooperative Emile was being. He was making things easier for Arthur.
Trying to hype the crowd up even more, Arthur made a grand announcement, "But that barely counts because you made your move before I gave my response. Regardless, I shall accept your duel to the death!"
Audible gasps could be heard from the crowd. It was just the reaction Arthur wanted.
"Did you hear what he just said? He was going to challenge Emile to a duel to the death!"
"Has he lost his mind? Before Emile became an instructor, he was a level D adventurer. The man is going to get himself killed!"
"Someone go get the village undertaker, he's going to get a new business very soon."
"Why are young people nowadays wasting their lives just like this? No wonder the population of the village has been dropping."
Emile grinned wickedly. He had no idea why Arthur would agree to the duel. Now he had lost his last bit of defense. Even if his friends arrived now, no one would be able to save him because according to the rules of the duel, no one was allowed to intervene until the duel had been concluded. Arthur was handing him his head on a silver platter, Emile was not going to say no.
"Good, now die!" Emile charged at Arthur with his sword swinging. Majority of the villagers, including Emile thought the duel was going to end in matters of minutes but Arthur's resilience surprised them. He had managed to survive every single attack by Emile even though it looked like Emile slowly had him cornered.
Honestly, Arthur could have ended the duel with a blast of vocal materialization but that would have lacked the necessary build up. Instead Arthur weaved in and out of the attacks while creating the impression that Emile had him slowly cornered.
Thanks to the quest that he just came back from, Arthur had learned plenty of things that enabled him to do such a thing. From watching Billy, he learned the general fighting style of a warrior and from Felicia, he learned how to be quick on his feet. This was how Arthur could put up a good show for the villagers.
"You slimy little..." Emile stopped to catch his breath. Arthur slowed down since his opponent did but he realized too late that this was just a ruse by Emile. "Gotcha!" Emile trusted his sword at Arthur. It didn't look like this attack could be evaded.
One of the villagers screamed imagining the bloodshed.
Just as the knife was about to pierce through Arthur's stomach, the young man opened his lips.
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