“I’m not saying that the crazies can’t be useful. They sure can be, especially the ones that keep making it out alive. It’s just that there needs to be someone to keep them on a leash, so to speak. Someone to keep them from fucking things up and unleash them only at the right moment.” - Eugen Ross, retired mercenary.

“From the way you look, I believe you are not worried about the madam, Captain?” asked councilor Estelle as she noted Reinhardt’s perfectly calm look despite his wife fighting a duel to the death before him.

“Oh, I know when Friede is fighting seriously and when she’s just enjoying herself, Madam Councilor,” replied Reinhardt nonchalantly to the question. “Right now, she’s just enjoying herself, so I see no reason to worry for her.”

“Yeah, mom’s got that look on her like Aly used to when she got a new toy back when she was smaller,” added Erycea just as relaxedly. Neither she nor the other watching mercenaries seemed to be the slightest bit worried for Elfriede, with some even cheering her on. “She said she wouldn’t take long though, so I bet that guy’s going to drop dead soon.”

“Eh, you know your mother. It’s not often that she gets to enjoy herself, so let her be if she wants to take that poor sod up for a while,” said Reinhardt with a shake of his head. “Rather than that, Madam Councilor, I would like to inquire whether we should expect more of this sort of… interruptions in the future or not?”

“I can say that at least from de Kars, there will be no more of this bullshit,” replied Estelle with some vehemence in her voice. She was clearly quite annoyed at how the nobleman turned councilor behaved. “In fact, within a week we should be done stripping him off his councilor position. At that point, it’ll be up to his people whether they want to elect a new councilor or to no longer count themselves as part of the Free City. I have a feeling that they would likely elect a new councilor, now that de Kars had lost most of his personal forces.”

“Most? Certainly he didn’t only have that few people under him, no?” asked Reinhardt with some curiosity. He only recalled the people from the two duels his people fought against the nobleman’s, which only totaled to sixty-two people on the noble’s side lost at most. “Even if he has a small territory only sixty people sound far too few to have as a military force.”

“Well, he has a couple thousand, if you include the conscripts. You pretty much wiped out the vast majority of his core loyalists though, as well as most of his knights,” explained the councilwoman. “Vincenzo and Adrian are pretty much his last hopes of clinging to power there, as I heard that his people had been predisposed to electing a new representative instead. Him losing them should seal his fate, doubly so once we kick him out from the council.”

“Before you ask, getting rid of Vincenzo and Adrian de Kars will be counted for bonuses that we’ll discreetly pass over to you later,” added the councilwoman, referring to the list of councilors that had been given to Reinhardt, with bonuses promised for helping get rid of them one way or another. “If the others could be cowered from having de Kars as an example, it’d be nice, but otherwise, you know what to do.”

“We certainly do, Madam Councilor,” replied Reinhardt with a smirk on his face. “As long as the pay is right, as they say.”

Right around then, Elfriede seemed to have had enough of her fun as she made her move to end the fight. She parried another of her opponent’s blows with the handguard of one blade, though this time she cut it much closer, and caught her opponent’s weapon around the middle of the blade instead of near the tip. In turn, that gave her enough reach to strike back at her opponent, and this time, her blade left more than just a flesh wound.

The mithril edge of her blade sliced through the thick fabric of the gambeson as if it wasn’t there and went into her opponent’s flesh even as her strike carved a wide, gruesome tear across her opponent’s abdomen. The cut was more than deep enough to have completely severed the layer of muscle there, and as a result, the man’s intestines spilled out from the wound, unabated.

Even with the wound – it was a fatal one if left untreated, but not immediately so – her opponent refused to give up, and mustered his willpower to charge in a suicidal manner towards Elfriede. She nonchalantly pushed his blade aside, however, and hooked the back of his knee with her other weapon, which caused the man to fall on his back.

He attempted to get up and fight once more, but found himself unable to stand, as Elfriede had severed the tendons behind one of his knees when she hooked his leg earlier. He struggled, but the best he could manage even while using his sword as a crutch was to raise himself into a kneeling position, unable to fight or defend himself.

“We yield! Cease the fight!” yelled Councilor de Kars from where he stood amongst the spectating crowd.

“The duel was supposed to be to the death, is it not? Or is it only that when your side is winning?” quipped Elfriede back even as she approached her kneeling opponent, who grimaced at the pain he was experiencing. “This is no petty disagreement you nobles love to fight duels over in the name of your honor or whatnot. This is a duel between people who have agreed to stake their lives as the wager. Who the fuck are you to insult that!?”

Even as she finished her words, Elfriede swung one of her blades, and after a moment where he looked dumbfounded and unable to believe it, the head of Vincenzo de Kars fell off his neck and rolled on the ground until it stopped near Elfriede’s feet.