🍖🍖🍖
THE Hundred in Torino didn’t hold their meetings in the forest at night, but rather at the port. Illuminated by torchlight, men with bare torsos stood in a circle in a wide-open area. In the center, there were two men exchanging blows. To be honest, the atmosphere was unusual. Even my party members found it hard to approach the group.
Unlike the other Hundreds, the main members of which were warriors, adventurers, and knights, these were men of the sea, so it appeared that fighting unarmed was the rule. The dull sound of flesh colliding echoed around the port.
“What should we do?” I asked.
The four of us looked at each other. The men watching the fistfight were drinking together and cheering. It definitely didn’t feel like they would welcome a bunch of outsiders.
“Fistfights are out of my wheelhouse,” Kylan said. “I think you might be better suited, Darion. You’re huge, to start with.”
“Yeah, but those guys are bigger than me. There’s no way I can beat them,” Darion replied timidly.
The way things usually went, Kylan and Darion would enter the circle and fight first, the Hundred’s boss would show up, and then it would be my turn to fight. This was because it would have been extremely unnatural for me, a wizard, to participate in the fighting before my other party members.
Besides, I wasn’t enthusiastic about joining the Hundred’s fights. I was only reluctantly doing it because Kylan and Darion always got themselves in a jam, and Belinda would plead with me to help.
That’s probably just the kind of person I am. I’m only motivated to do something when I see that I’m really needed. Yeah, I’m that kind of weaselly person. Come to think of it, I’ve always been like that, even in Farune. Maybe by joining and journeying with Daybreak, I’d been forced to confront that side of myself.
Tired of trying to push each other to participate, Kylan and Darion turned to me. “Why don’t you go in right away this time, Marcus?” Kylan suggested.
Usually, I would have refused and forced the two of them to do it first, but somehow or another, that whole song and dance felt pointless.
“All right, I’ll go. Hold my staff.” I tossed my staff to Kylan, then took off my robe and handed it to Darion. Both of them seemed to have been expecting me to be reluctant to go, and they were surprised.
“Are you sure? I mean, you’re a wizard, right?” Kylan said, asking something he already knew the answer to.
“Today’s wizards are really physically strong too,” I said. I rolled up my sleeves and flexed my biceps.
As I headed over, the men grinned and welcomed me in. I was still wearing my ten-times-gravity armlet. It would be the perfect handicap.
Now, let’s get started.
✦ ✦ ✦
🍖🍖🍖
I fought the thugs to my heart’s content.
As a matter of fact, I wasn’t actually that bad at hand-to-hand fighting. My master, Cassandra, had always fought with no holds barred, so I had learned the basic punches and kicks—she had literally drilled them into me, physically speaking.
Still, the Hundred here were all used to brawls, and they were tough, so it wasn’t easy to beat them. This was especially true of the number one here, a stylish man with a thin mustache and black hair tied up in a ponytail. He was incredibly strong, and he had probably been trained in martial arts or something, because his kicks really stung. In the end, I beat him with my endurance.
Maybe it was because my body was so heavy, but even though I was punched and kicked countless times, I felt refreshed, somehow. In contrast with using swords or magic, it wasn’t a bad feeling to come into direct contact with others while fighting. I had only come to the west in the first place to eat some food that actually tasted good, but when I was fighting, I didn’t even care about that anymore.
My party members looked busy treating the fallen members of the Hundred. I didn’t really get it, but they seemed to have been inspired by our fistfights, and had already gotten close with the members of Torino’s Hundred. They weren’t paying any attention to me at all.
Then, as though on cue, the space in front of my eyes suddenly shone with a white light. I felt a bit dizzy. It looked like it was finally time.
Someone appeared out of the light—Frau.
“I’m here to bring you back, Breezy,” she said.
Wow, I wish she wouldn’t call me by that name.
“Have you been having fun?”
“Yeah,” I replied casually.
“Everyone is waiting for you, Mars,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Are they struggling?”
“A bit.”
“Then let’s go. I am the king of Farune, after all.”