After the little sparring event, several guilders entered the arena and escorted Slavos to the guild infirmary using a primitive stretcher. I just watched them take him out, but honestly, it was just because I was too tired to actually stand up.

One of the guilders took my attention, and was the only pme I was sufficiently acquainted with. Madriel. He walked to my side, holding a clipboard and writing down a few things.

“That was a good fight, Sed. Truly breathtaking.” He smiled and offered his hand.

I took him on his offer and he helped me stand up. Man, it really was hard, tiring, but well worth it, if only for the things I’ve gleaned from it.

“The medical team was supposed to be for you, you know? They were truly surprised, as am I, with your performance.”

“You had that little faith in me?”

“Not quite. It’s only because Sir Slavos is one of our stronger adamantiums.”

As we were talking, Nis jumped from the spectators and to the arena and ran up to me. She immediately punched me on the part of my body that Slavos kicked. Namely, the abdomen.

It stung. So, so bad. I wanted to scream, but I managed to keep it in. It would be against my aesthetics to look pathetic now after my grand debut.

I glared at her, to which she replied with a wink and a laugh as she ran off to who knows where. Well, she wouldn’t get lost, I think.

She’s becoming less and less of what my initial impression of her is. Damn, where did the composed and ever-helpful Nis go?

“Well, whatever. I guess I should just be glad that you guys had the forethought of bringing in a healer.”

“A simple matter.” Madriel giggled, using the clipboard to hide his mouth.

I gave him a look like I didn’t believe what he just did. His only reply was a wink. Coquettish bastard.

I sighed and placed the spear back in my pouch, then looked at Madriel. “You know, I think I smell money. Did you people book-keep the match?”

“Of course. It is one of the few ways the guild scrounges up spare gold to keep the yard in functioning order. Magical implements to protect the audience are no small keep.”

Huh, I didn’t know that. Well, I never went to the yard anyway, so I probably just missed the information.

Another set of information that I did not know. Was it brought on from the lore, or was it something entirely new? I took a mental note of it, just like every other information I’ve gathered thus far.

“And I’m assuming I get a cut from this, as does Slavos?” I crossed my arms and glared at him.

“Why, yes, of course. It is the very reason I came here.” He said with his business smile and gave me the clipboard. He also passed over a pen for me to use. “Please sign on this paper, and we can immediately give you your share of the earnings.”

“Well, I won’t say no to free money. Gimme.”

It was a simple matter of signing on the paper. Once that was done, he gave me a pouch of gold coins from his back and excused himself from the scene, saying he was busy from the impromptu event.

At that, I was left alone in the arena. The audience had already left, and the few that were left was just lying down on the bleachers. Some people do just loiter in the guild. I shrugged my shoulders and left to look for Nis.

~ - ~

It was the next day that I returned to the guild. They had informed me that Slavos would awaken in the morning, so I left early. I left behind Nis, who was still enjoying the embrace of her blankets.

The guild infirmary was set to the left of the building. It was a room twice as large as the backroom, and had many beds across its area. There was only one person manning the entire operation, and it was a woman of significant height, so much so that she barely fit into the door frame.

She was a Trovian, a living machine of sorts. A creation of the old Messenian Empire and were originally called ‘Wargears’ in the historical records. After the collapse of the Messenian Empire, many ‘Wargears’ were destroyed, but many were also appropriated by the civilizations at the time, and they used them to guard treasure vaults of nations. Hence, their new name.

It’s said that the weakest Trovian has as much strength as a young dragon, in a sense, it’s around Gold-rank.

It was only until 500 years later did a researcher among the civilizations realized that the Wargears had a ‘sentience’ switch within their bodies, and tried it out. This one single action caused a Trovian revolution that brought many nations to their knees. The Trovians destroyed the switch so that they could never be enslaved again, now they were free to do what they wanted.

Many Trovians still existed, but it was rare to find one working as a doctor, much less a doctor for biological tissue, which made this Trovian a unique one. She was written by one of our younger members, and she had a quest tied to her that lead to discovering an old Trovian factory, although it only became available once you had the ‘Blacksmiths of Chaos’ expansion.

But, that was neither here nor there. I just recalled background information.

“Ah, you must be the one I’ve been hearing so much about. The up and rising adamantium, uhm, what was it?” She sounded so confident, but it broke apart as she spoke.

“Sed Immer. Nice to meet you.” I offered a handshake.

She smiled. The stone-like skin of her face moved unnaturally and reminded me very much of an earth golem. She took my hand on hers and shook it delicately, seemingly afraid to hurt someone.

“Doctor Octavia. The pleasure’s mine, Sir Sed.”

There was a pleasantness to Doctor Octavia’s smile. It reminded me somewhat of Mexxiah... of Claire.

Doctor Octavia looked to the side and pointed where she was looking with her chin. “Sir Slavos is awake. I’m sure you’re here to meet him.”

I nodded at her words and left for the left side of the room. There was only one person behind the curtains, and of course it was Slavos. His silhouette was large and unique.

“Sir Slavos! I hear you’re awake.” I shouted in an excited tone as I pulled back the curtain.

There, on his bed, he had a small lantern on the desk, and a few books lying around his bed. He was reading, as usual.

Slavos closed his book and put it on the bed, then flashed a smile with his monstrous teeth. “Oh, Sir Sed! That was a marvelous fight!”

I smirked. “Keep telling me how to fight with finesse, why don’t ya.”

Slavos chuckled and shook his head. “That was my mistake. You are quite the trickster, Sir Sed. I had thought you were a bonehead who only knew brute force, but you have corrected me in a most grandiose fashion. It was my mistake to underestimate my opponent.”

I took a seat on one of the unoccupied beds and faced him.

“I wanted to thank you. For the fight. It has given me a lot to think about, and answered a lot of my questions. I suppose its say to safe that I’m strong enough to protect myself.”

“Aye, that you are. There are few who can best me in combat, and you are one of them.”

I smiled and started a more serious conversation with him.

“But, enough about that. I have a more pressing concern we need to talk about. In regards to you.” I said and clasped both hands together and set it on my lap. I stared at him in the eye.

It seemed like he understood with those words and gestures alone as he sat upright from the bed. He removed his monocle and let it hang from his horn.

“You are Slavos Darsin, the Paladin of Tomes, are you not?”

His eyes grew wide, but immediately returned to normal as if he was prepared for it.

“Correct. It is no secret, Sir Sed. I do correct you though, in that I am no longer the Paladin of Tomes. Call me Kingslayer, a mere betrayer and traitor to my people.”

There was a bitter tone to his voice. His expression darkened, and he laughed self-deprecatingly.

“It’s comedic. It’s a choice I deemed correct even now, but I cannot shake the feeling that I am no better than the king I slew.” He looked at his blunted sword that was hanging from its sheath on the bed.

“An executioner sword, have you heard of such a thing?”

“A ceremonial sword more than anything, used to execute the nobility for transgressions related to life. Said to be a symbol of purity and cleansing. Always sharp for ease of the execution.”

Slavos smiled and took the sword from its sheath. It was a dull gray, and hardly any sharper than a table’s edges. It was a sword that had no tapering to keep its heft. He brought it close and raised it to the air.

“This was the very sword I used to decapitate the king in his sleep. It was the least painful way to the afterlife.” Pained, he continued. “But the very action to stop a war, to save the people had sullied this sword’s purpose. It was no longer a sword that cleansed the filth of the upper class. No, now it was a weapon of a betrayer. Now, it is everything that it shouldn’t be.”

He said, tracing his fingers across its blunted edge.

I was silent for a moment. Though I already knew what had happened, it didn’t change the fact that the emotion was palpable to me. I decided to choose my words carefully from this point on.

“Why do you tell me this?”

Slavos sighed and returned the sword to it’s sheath and looked at me, staring right through my eyes. It was as if he was peering through my soul.

“I tell it to you because you have bested me in combat. Those I deem worthy, I tell them my story, and I ask them what they think. Am I hero that saved countless lives, or was I person unheroic and pathetic?”

I gulped. It was a heavy question, and I was wholly unqualified to answer it. After all, I wasn’t a denizen of this world when it happened.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before answering.

“Does it matter what I think? Let me lay down the facts for you.”

I opened my eyes to see Slavos mulling it over.

“At the end of the day, you saved countless lives with the cost of one. I’d say that’s a good outcome.” I said, stood up, and circled to the other side of his bed. There, I took his sword from the sheath and pulled it out.

“You may think you have sullied this sword’s purpose, but I think you’ve only done what it wanted. Let me ask you, who would benefit from the death of nobility? The king loses his standing, the upper class grows wary, the web of politics entangle even more, but ultimately, the people rejoice. For once, they’ve found justice against a class of people that merely exploited them.”

I grasped the sword’s handle. The blade started to glow a brilliant white, and subsided after a moment. The executioner’s sword now seemed a little more proper. I moved my finger to the blade, and a slight touch was enough to prick my finger. A droplet of blood stained its width. I smirked to myself, and returned to the sword to Slavos.

“It may be a cynic view of the purpose of a sword, but it’s valid as anything else.”

Slavos took the sword and looked at it. It now shone with a brilliant reflection of his blue scales.

Slavos mumbled, seeming to understand something.

“You’re no hero, but you’re not pathetic either. A man that would kill his liege to save a nation from a war is just a person who has massive balls of blue fucking steel. So, let me ask again, does it really matter what I, the great Sed, thinks?

Slavos chuckled and returned the sword to its sheath. “When you put it that way, no, not at all.”

“There you have it. One soul searching done.” I said and smacked him in the shoulder. “The victors goes the spoils, right?” I asked.

Slavos smiled and nodded his head.

“Perfect. Sir Slavos, be a member of my party.”