“Oh my gosh! She did it! She won!”
“Mm.”
Priestess clapped her hands with innocent joy, while Goblin Slayer crossed his arms and simply nodded. Only a few people in the stands were not participating in the thunderous cheering, and his section was one of them.
They were sitting in a private box rather more well-appointed than the general spectator seating. Priestess, High Elf Archer, Guild Girl, and even Cow Girl had been rooting for a victory by their acquaintance the entire time.
“I sure never expected to see those two here!” High Elf Archer said, clapping her hands and adding that they’d become quite a team.
“Mm,” Goblin Slayer said and nodded again.
The elf giggled with a sound like a tinkling bell. “That’s all we ever get from you, isn’t it, Orcbolg?”
“Is that so?”
“Sure is.”
But, well, it wasn’t such a bad thing, High Elf Archer concluded, smiling innocently.
The boy and girl down there were two of the rare people—or perhaps it wasn’t so rare after all?—that Goblin Slayer had looked after and helped. High Elf Archer didn’t know much about honor and glory in the human world, but winning at a tournament had to be a good thing.
And Orcbolg wouldn’t know how to just openly congratulate somebody like our friend there.
If the man in the grimy armor were to suddenly launch into a panegyric to her performance, even the high elf would have to be shocked.
Having reached this conclusion, High Elf Archer promptly turned her attention to other things. For there were so many things to be interested in. For example…
“They said it was a best-of-three contest, but she hit him in the head and knocked him off his horse, so she wins, right?” Yes, for example, the precise rules of this jousting tournament that had everyone so excited. She twirled her raised pointer finger, directing her questions at the bulky man beside her. “How would they decide who won if nobody fell off their horse?”
“Hmm. You saw the lances splinter, I presume?” Lizard Priest said with much gravity.
“Sure did. They both went, like, bam! and vaporized!”
“The shattering of the lance indicates a direct hit. Thus, the one with the shattered lance would be awarded a point.”
If nobody was unhorsed, then destroying your lance earned you a point. If you both managed it—or if you both didn’t—then it was a draw. Of course, sometimes both parties were knocked off their mounts, or they went three rounds equal on points.
“If there is to be a sword contest, then the crossing of lances does not conclude matters.”
Ah, how wonderful was this legalized form of mock combat!
High Elf Archer nodded, trying to ignore the tickle of Lizard Priest’s tail wrapping itself around her leg.
“Those aren’t real lances, though, right?” she said. “They’re designed to break. Doesn’t that make them pretty fragile?”
“Yes, they’re fragile,” said Dwarf Shaman. “Which makes ’em a mite easier on an armored body.”
The dwarf always had a word to say about weaponry. Get a dwarf started on either alcohol or smithing, and he was unlikely to stop.
He informed them that it was equivalent to the force of a “gunshot.”
More, he added, there was once a king who had been killed by a flying splinter.
“Huh,” was all High Elf Archer had to offer to such trivia. She started looking around again. “So that’s why they wear all that armor. I thought it was just humans, you know, preening for one another.”
“It’s true, their equipment certainly is bright and shiny,” replied Priestess, with a sidelong glance at the adventurer in the filthy, cheap-looking suit of armor beside her. He still had his arms crossed and was looking at the pair on the battlefield far below, the boy holding up the girl’s hand, and nodding in what seemed to be satisfaction.
They’re so different, Priestess found herself thinking, but she didn’t mean it critically. Her party leader was this somewhat odd adventurer, and she had no objections to that.
“If someone is unhorsed but takes their mount down with them, it’s considered to be the horse’s fault, and the knight doesn’t lose. The match is annulled,” Guild Girl said, adding with some hesitation that if the rider is knocked unconscious, it’s all over anyway.
Yes—with some hesitation. That provoked Cow Girl’s curiosity. It seemed she and he had been on a walk the night before, just the two of them…
But hey.
She felt she could take that to mean that this evening, it would be her turn. She’d been in a good mood ever since that morning. It was the day of the long-awaited tournament. She could wear the outfit she’d bought yesterday. A perfect excuse to get dressed up—and it had earned her the assessment “It looks good on you…I believe.”
“You look pretty pleased,” Cow Girl said. He did, in fact, seem extraordinarily satisfied and that made her happier than anything. She slid over to him and looked down at him, into the visor of his helmet.
“Hmm…,” she heard, as if he was having trouble parsing the meaning of her words.
She found that indescribably amusing and fought to keep herself from grinning openly.
“Those two—they won!” she said. Weren’t they his protégés? Well, of course they won.
“Hrm…,” was his response. He looked at the ground, was quiet for a moment, and then murmured, “I see… Yes, that’s true.” He suspected he was—he confirmed with a nod—happy.
That was unlikely to be simply because Wizard Boy and Rhea Fighter had been victorious. When they had left their homes, traveling all the way to the town on the frontier, they had been just two among many adventurers. But they had made their way out into the world, and now here they stood, with the eyes of the whole capital upon them. That fact, she was sure, must make him happy.
And you’re Silver-ranked yourself!
Cow Girl didn’t know much about adventurers’ ranks, but she knew you didn’t reach Silver by accident.
“Hey, why didn’t any of the other Silver-ranked people come out for this? You know, the guy with the spear or the guy with the big sword?”
“Ahhh, them?” Guild Girl said, not expecting the question. “They don’t have much interest in things like this…” She trailed off.
Strange. This all sounded familiar to Cow Girl, but…not quite.