Chapter 192: 190 – KGF/Dealmaker

When Zel finally asked if she, too, intended to build and teach her own martial art, the blonde answered that she hadn’t planned on teaching it, but now that she thought about it, revolvers and similar repeating guns becoming popular was an inevitability. 

Zel posed a second question, one that got Zef to actually think about the answer for a moment - the name of this would-be close-quarters combat doctrine.

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“What I’d call it? KGF, for Knife and Gun Fighting. Easy. That plain a name would probably drive some people away though, so…” she trailed off for a moment, then shrugged in indecision. “I don’t know, Mantidrake Arts ‘cause Mantidrakes breathe fire and also have big ol’ stingers?”

“How about Dragoneater? Those snakes both breathe fire and possess bladed tails,” a third voice cut in from the direction of the gate, that of an older woman with a slight Kargarian accent. Arnys.

“That sounds good,” Zef admitted thankfully, but her voice immediately grew cold and businesslike with the followup. “But I’m sure you’ve not come just to advise me on a naming scheme. I thought you were busy.”

“I am busy, this is just a golem projecting my image while I control and speak through it so that I technically fulfil the stipulation of closing out your contract in person,” grinned faux-Arnys, the projection’s subtle flickering and uncanny lack of realism becoming more evident the closer it came.

She - or rather, it - reached into its cleavage, pulling out a hefty sack, its real hand and the sack both clipping egregiously through the projection. It tossed the sack to Zel’s feet, which landed with clanging appropriate to two-hundred gelt Aquila coins, accompanied by the clinking of smaller denominations. By the sound and size of it, there must’ve been a sum nearing ten-thousand contained within.

“You may expect the rest of your payments to be delivered by way of golem over the course of the coming weeks. It’ll go down as merchants leave, contact my daughter for details and if you believe the agreement has been breached, et cetera et cetera…” recited faux-Arnys gesturing a circle with her hand, the wrist warping and clipping through itself. 

The golem then approached and reached out its other hand, the projection around the limb flickering away to reveal a scroll nestled amidst carved human bone. 

“I do have another deal to offer you, one I believe you will take. I will have my people help you handle the initial recruitment drive, vetoing included, if you agree to an exhibition match against me next Sunday. I would experience Ikesia’s Storm-soul Cultivator for myself.” 

After a few seconds’ scrutiny from Zelsys, Arnys added: “The scroll has the rules, I just need your verbal agreement or refusal.”

Upon cautiously taking the scroll and reading its contents, Zelsys agreed, and upon an enthusiastic expression of approval, the uncanny golem was on its way. The projection of Arnys flickered into an unassuming man before it even reached the gate.

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Zef saw what the scroll said. It really did only contain the rules for a traditional Kargarian-style Duel - the goal was not just to incapacitate the opponent, but to put on a show and show off one’s skills. As such, while wounding was entirely permitted, actively trying to kill was not, and the death of one combatant automatically disqualified the other. 

Zef also knew that, what the scroll didn’t mention, was the extreme extent Kargarians went to to permit the fighters to fight to their fullest while minimizing the risks, with a complex millennia-old ritual that would be cast over the arena over the days leading up to the duel, all but ensuring that neither of the contestants could kill the other intentionally, and that any incidental lethal wounds could be detected and treated in time.

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It was also a major feat of magic whose demanding material and manpower requirements made it a near exclusive luxury of the wealthy, with even lesser nobles using lesser, less effective substitutes in their own duels.

In the short while it took her to relay this information to Zelsys (much to the latter’s great relief and growing eagerness to fight the clan matriarch), and after the half-hour discussion on the unfettered flamboyance of Kargarian culture, someone new came around. It was Halxian this time, apparently not having gotten to get a good look at the sect.

Despite his politeness Zelsys still couldn’t stand him, and he only played it up because he knew it to be the case.

He asked if she knew when the sect would be ready for its first round of recruit selection, which she rebuked by telling him to come around next week and herself asking if his father knew when the Slayer’s Guild would be ready for resurrection. 

Halxian’s answer was “come around in two weeks”, with the additional details that the recent quake had convinced the senate to fast-track the process, and that a closed-down inn across the street from the sect was being renovated into the guildhouse. Two weeks. That would be cutting it quite close to Ubul’s supposed revival.

They had to turn away a few more would-be recruits that day, and strangely enough, one interesting person showed up asking to be considered for recruitment - The Mercenary.

“I know an opportunity when I see it. This… This screams lucrative contracts,” he said.

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In the occupied city of Rigport, in the midst of Lighthouse Square, there laid the splattered form of a thing that had once been a man. 

None had dared approach it, not for fear, but for revulsion, both the sight and stench having engraved itself in the people’s minds for the rest of their lives.

They had left him there on purpose to put the cruel general’s disgrace on display, deciding to wait until the following day to dispose of his corpse in the hopes that the veritable wall of gut-churning stink would at least weaken slightly by then. In the time immediately following his defenestration, both the Charred Judge and Crimson Comet vanished, the Lady in Red seemingly having been the last person of note to see either of them.

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