Twelve targets were set up in the courtyard where my duel was supposed to take place once I finished 'inspecting' my weapons and failed to find anything else I could use to stall for time. Six of them were little more than buckets and bricks mounted on a wall separating the streets beyond the wall from the Guild Hall's crowded courtyard, the remainder were sad facsimiles of living targets made out of straw and strapped to wooden poles. The only upside I could see about firing on an inanimate object instead of a living target was that the buckets and straw wouldn't scream bloody murder or fight back if my aide or I somehow managed to miss their vitals. With that said, filling the air with some very vocal discouragement about fighting my aide and I was hardly a downside. Thankfully, I was able to convince Guild Girl that I needed to inspect our weapons before testing them out, allowing my aide and I to witness what our opponents were capable of while I tried to think of a way to stall for more time.
Whatever plans I had for running away instantly vanished the moment I saw Female Knight spawn a bolt of lightning from her sword which arced to a human shaped bundle of grass with explosive results. The formerly human-shaped practice target was missing its entire torso afterwards, leaving the remaining limbs scorched and glowing thanks to the few embers lucky enough to survive their shocking birth. Heavy Warriors' attempt to ready himself left me feeling even less confident about my odds of surviving a fight with him. Seeing him draw his massive sword with a single hand and twirl it around like a cocky commissar would a bolt pistol instantly told me that my odds of beating him through strength alone were nonexistent. Still, between fighting a psyker with a sturdy looking set of silver armor that would make an Adeptus Sororitas green with envy or a man that looked capable of arm wrestling a Space Marine without losing a limb in the process, there was no doubt in my mind that I would stand more of a chance against Heavy Warrior than his feminine partner. Not only did I lack Jurgen's innate ability to nullify any of her Warp spawned powers, but without a weapon capable of punching through armor like the melta he already had in hand after watching our challengers' display, I had no chance of winning against Female Knight. Luckily Jurgen seemed to already know what I was going to ask of him, apparently divining what a real hero would have asked of him instead of whatever fanciful plea I would have offered him instead.
"Female Knight's armor looks tough, you want me to handle her while you take on the Catachan looking guy, commissar?" My aide asked me, unleashing a full blast of his eye watering halitosis in my face as he did so.
"Yes, perhaps that would be best. I'm not sure how thick her armor is, but if it is anything like terminator armor, I'd be better off trying to punch her with a krak grenade strapped to my fist than fighting her with my chainsword." I joked, my attempt at alleviating my nerves with a bit of humor flying over my aide's head completely.
"I think I have a few krak grenades stored somewhere if you want to fight her instead. I just need to find them first…" Jurgen said. He started to dig through the tangled web of netting and pouches that enveloped him, but I made sure to put an end to his little search before I gave him any more terrible ideas.
"Forget about the grenades for now. We don't know how long we're going to be stuck on this planet or if we'll be able to restock our supplies before we leave. Let's save anything we can't immediately replace for an emergency." I said, finally deciding that our upcoming duel was not worth using our limited supplies.
While I was sure that a couple of krak or frag grenades would leave quite an impression on the gathered adventurers, Female Knight especially, I was far from comfortable with the thought of wasting valuable resources to prove a point. The power packs for our weapons could easily be recharged, so long as we were able to set up a campfire and throw our ammunition in them for a few hours. I was quite thankful I picked up that handy trick early in my career, otherwise I hardly would have considered using our lasguns and Jurgen's life saving meltagun as much as we did both decades ago and upon landing on this backwater agri-world. The two of us had four spare power packs between us that we could use on any given day, allowing us to be fairly generous with how we use our ammunition in the future. Jurgen would need to choose when to use his meltagun or swap his lasrifle to full auto with care, less he run completely dry in under a minute, but unless we were pitted against a horde of greenskins or some other army equal in size and tenacity, there was no chance of us running into such an unthinkable situation.
If I had any clue as to how often I was going to be proven wrong about this, I would have considered learning how to use one of the primitive weapons from this lost planet instead of choosing to believe neither of us would ever find ourselves facing such a ludicrous number of enemies.
Regardless of how little ammo we would realize we possessed in the future, at the time it seemed that we would barely have a need to use anything other than our lasguns to defend ourselves on this planet. Jurgen also informed me later, once he had a moment to check his personal stockpile in private, that he had eight krak grenades, three frags, and one melta bomb that he hadn't found the time to use during our escape from the daemon worshipers that ruined my retirement plans. Most of them had been acquired from the corpses of Chaos Cultists that hadn't quite been expecting the retired guardsman and commissar onboard the ship they commandeered to be carrying any weapons, an assumption we were more than happy to disprove to the first few heretics we came across. A few of the grenades and other surprises Jurgen had on him hadn't been acquired from our fallen foes, and I could only shudder at the thought of how long my aide had been carrying those destructive armaments after forgetting about them for Emperor knows how long.
After our opponents had finished their warm-ups, neither one taking nearly as long as I would have liked them to, Guild Girl approached me and Jurgen as the crowd that gathered to bear witness to our duel became increasingly rambunctious as the moment for blood to be shed drew closer. There had to be at least a hundred people, humans and abhumans of all shapes and sizes standing on the opposite side of the courtyard of the wall mounted targets.
"Female Knight and Heavy Warrior say they are ready to fight, have you already finished inspecting your equipment, Commissar Cain?" Guild Girl asked me, thankfully unaware of how little attention I gave my weapons as I instead chose to focus on our opponents.
"Ready." Jurgen said, offering the woman a quick salute in a respectful display I was frankly shocked to see being directed at a potential rival I could rely on for support. Apparently Guild Girl left quite the impression on my aide for him to treat a clerk like her without any hostility. "You go first, sir. There won't be much left of those targets once I'm finished with them."
Recognizing just how right he was after recalling how much damage his meltagun could do, often times using it to melt down ceramite plated doors instead of a means of burning holes through an armored opponent our lasbolts couldn't hope to penetrate, I made my way to the center of the courtyard and drew my chainsword. While I was hardly as out of practice as I made myself sound earlier, a few months of travel in the Warp before a rude awakening from some heretics cancelled my plans for a peaceful life did not do me any favors. Any practice I could take advantage of now could only help me shake off any still lingering rust I hadn't gotten rid of already. With that thought in mind, I thumbed the activator of my chainsword and soon found my apprehension of the coming duel fading away as the sound of my weapon's gnashing teeth filled the air with one of the few sounds of battle I had ever found to be comforting.
The crowd that had been idly chattering away as they waited for the real show to start or had been making bets as to who would come out victorious, a few of them which I ensured my aide took part in after informing me that he somehow earned some of this planet's currency, fell deathly silent as my roaring of my chainsword drowned out their voices with its uncaring commitment to the Imperium's service. Although it wouldn't be put into service against xenos or heretics anytime soon, or so I futilely hoped, my chainsword's machine spirit sounded just as eager to cleave through a few bundles of hay as it was The Emperor's enemies.
Not wanting to waste anymore daylight than I already had during my bogus inspection of my equipment, I ran towards the first strawman on my right and swung my chainsword at it's head, decapitating the mannequin without any resistance and sending his head flying into the portion of the crowd that had made the mistake of assembling beside my targets. Next I spun around and slashed diagonally at the second target with both hands, bisecting it with ease and cutting through the pole supporting my first target as well. Feeling confident and wanting to put on a bit of a show for the crowd, if only to make the few gamblers hoping to profit off of my failure nervous, I pulled out my laspistol and fired a single shot below each of the buckets on the wall in behind the last remaining strawman before me. If each bucket represented the head of my enemy, then I landed a lethal blow through the heart of every single one of them, my lasbolts blasting a small, smoldering crater in the stone wall underneath them and spraying a few pebbles from where they hit. With the three ranged targets taken care of, I made two vertical swings at the last remaining target, slicing off both of its limbs with practiced ease before finally cutting straight through its torso, kicking the top half to ground as it fell to make sure my footwork was just as sure as my swordsmanship.
The crowd didn't dare make a noise after my display, and fearing that I might not have done myself any favors by showing off in front of them, I called over Jurgen so that way he would be the center of their attention instead of myself. "I think that will have to do for now. Go ahead and make sure your sights are lined up, Jurgen." I told him as I made my way back to the crowd.
After noticing that he was going to test the meltagun instead of his lasrifle, our encounter with Goblin Slayer and some light target practice on the local wildlife proving that his aim was still true and the creatures here were delicious when cooked alive by a lasbolt, I quickly ran back to the wall and clambered looked over it make sure no one was wandering behind it to avoid any unfortunate accidents. Either everyone in the Frontier Town knew better than to stand behind the wall the Adventurers Guild used for target practice by now or the noise from earlier scared them off. Satisfied that there would be no civilians getting the last surprise of their life thanks to any potential negligence on my part, I gave Jurgen a thumbs up and quickly took my place beside Female Knight and Heavy Warrior as they and the rest of the crowd got ready to witness the might of Jurgen's favorite weapon.
"That was quite a show, Commissar. No wonder your kingdom calls you the Hero of the Imperium. I don't think I've seen anyone tear apart a few dummies like you." Female Knight said, the smirk she wore while making her unsubtle jab worrying me more than anything she could have said.
"Please, I'm an above average swordsman at best." I told her honestly. While my skills and kill count might be somewhat impressive compared to the average guardsman, when compared to the countless Space Marines and other augmented humans and xenos in the galaxy, I was hardly selling myself short of whatever talents I had compared to their inhuman strength and reflexes. My few triumphs against Tyranid hive tyrants, Chaos Marines, and daemons had been nothing more than sheer luck or a quick blast of Jurgen's melta allowing me to compensate for our physical differences before my superior opponents could finally start to take me seriously.
At least, that is what I always thought about my swordsmanship. For some reason Heavy Warrior seemed to be as enamored in the myths surrounding me as the average Imperial citizen. "There's no need to be humble about your skills, Commissar. I don't think I've seen any rogue or warrior draw a ranged weapon in a fight and hit all of their targets before." He said. "Certainly not without taking a few seconds to aim first."
His flattery made me genuinely feel a bit more confident in myself, but not nearly enough to stop dreading the duel I was about to be involved in. "I appreciate your flattery, but perhaps we should watch what Jurgen can do now. With that said, I wouldn't watch him too closely." I said, offering to the adventurers around me, more so to my opponents than anyone else around us. "You might want to close your eyes before he takes the first shot. I wouldn't want you two to be at a disadvantage because my aide blinded you both before our duel."
I followed my own advice at the same moment I saw my aide aim his melta at the targets on the wall, the sight of white hot light pouring through my eyelids and the screams of a few unfortunate spectators that had been watching him a bit too intently filling the courtyard not long afterwards. The three beams of light and the acrid smell his weapon released faded soon enough, and when I finally opened my eyes there were three large, gaping holes draped with molten stone pooling towards the ground that were already starting to cool. For those fortunate enough to blink at the perfect moment or cautious enough to close their eyes before Jurgen fired his melta, those few people were left completely awestruck at the destruction my aide had caused. There were even deep ruts in the ground behind the missing sections of wall, proof that the melta had done so much more than burn a hole through the thick stone he had been aiming at.
A brief moment of silence passed, occasionally punctuated by the moan of someone complaining about their temporarily damaged eyesight and a few prayers of unknown origin from among the crowd, before someone finally decided to break the silence. Unsurprising, it was my aide that took it upon himself to fill up the void of noise that had filled the courtyard.
"I'm ready to duel whenever you are, Commissar. I won't disappoint you by losing to Female Knight, sir." My aide said, looking like a juvie that had just gotten an action figure of yours truly while clinging onto his prized weapon. More than a few adventurers ducked for cover when he turned towards me and pointed the barrel of his melta in their direction.
Female Knight and Heavy Warrior seemed to be at a complete loss for words at what they had witnessed, no doubt dreading which one of them would be Jurgen's opponent which I hoped they would also feel about a fight against me. Heavy Warrior gave his partner an inquisitive look that was met with her slack jawed mouth continuing to gape at my aide, until she finally found the nerve to speak.
"I forfeit my duel against your aide, Commissar." She said, although I could hardly laugh at her with the way she resembled a recently acquired Eldar slave looking at the rest of their miserable existence after their first day in Commorragh. I would know that look quite well, as I had seen it on a thousand faces after my own run in with those abhorrent xenos slavers, my eventful encounter with them being a stretch of my life I prefer to keep locked away whenever possible.
"What? I thought you said you wanted to duel the Commissar!" Heavy Warrior shouted in surprise at his partner's sudden change in demeanor.
"Do you want me to fight Commissar so you can fight his aide instead?" Female Knight asked him.
Much to my surprise, her partner looked ready to argue in favor of that arrangement until Jurgen's malodorous aroma washed over all three of us and choked off Heavy Warrior's reply with its abrupt appearance.
"Do you think I should have kept the beam on the lowest setting, sir? I want to make sure that the melta is powerful enough for the duel." Jurgen said, putting a permanent end to whatever intentions either adventurer had of going against him. If only Heavy Warrior felt as hesitant to fight me as he did Jurgen.
"Uhh… no, no I think I would rather spar against Commissar instead." Heavy Warrior said as he tried his best not to look at the pools of molten slag that had once been part of the wall surrounding the Guild Hall's courtyard.
"Then it's settled." I said, doing my best to hide the despair I was feeling at having to face such a strong opponent. There was no hope for me backing out of this duel after the display my aide put on, and since I could hardly let the crowd think Jurgen was the only one of us capable of defending themselves, I had no choice but to present myself as a brave and headstrong duelist once again. "What will the rules of our duel be? I doubt you intend for this to be a fight to the death." Whether or not it ended up that way due to our respective weapons being incapable of wounding each other non-fatally had yet to be seen, although I was not feeling confident about the odds of that happening.
Guild Girl must have overheard our conversation nearby, and apparently sensing a need to establish a few guidelines for us to follow, suggested a few conditions to decide the winner.
"The winner will be decided by whoever strikes their opponent first with their weapons, whether or not they draw blood or merely touch their armor. Disarming your opponent or forcing them to yield will also count as their defeat. Does this sound acceptable?" Guild Girl asked us, supplying us with a set of rules that was not unlike those that the Reclaimers chapter of Astartes followed in their own duels.
"Sounds fine to me." Heavy Warrior said.
"I agree, as unlikely as I think it is for either of us to yield before we are defeated." I told her.
With both of us in agreement to the terms of our duel, Guild Girl led us both into the middle of the courtyard where both Heavy Warrior and I took our positions on opposite ends of the makeshift arena. The crowd that had been making their last few bets or finally recovering from their temporary blindness at the hands of my aide's meltagun fell silent as we readied our weapons, the roar of my chainsword drowning out all but a few shouts from several of the adventurers I had already spoken with earlier today.
Spearman was unsurprisingly cheering on Heavy Warrior, while his partner was carefully tallying up the bets she had been collecting in her hat until now. "Go ahead and show that guy what a real adventurer is made of!" The idiot shouted, barely ducking in time to avoid being gagged by a tangled shot at him from Witch. The short scuffle between him and the man that had fallen victim to the sticky gag thanks to his quick reflexes brought a small smile to my face before more cheers and jeers filled my ears.
"You've got this Heavy Warrior!" Female Knight shouted from beside my aide who wasted no time in showing his own support.
"Show them why you're the Hero of the Imperium, commissar!" Jurgen shouted, assailing Female Knight with a short blast of halitosis that sent her reeling away from him.
There were plenty of other people in the crowd cheering us on, some of them also declaring how much money they were expecting to make depending on which one of us came out victorious. Rather than focus on the myriad voices of people I had never met before, I instead tried to seek out two faces in the crowd to see which of us they were supporting. Witch didn't let much of her emotions show, but the quick wink she sent my way when we locked eyes told me enough about who she thought the winner would be. The other person I was hoping to see for some inexplicable reason wasn't there, the grungy set of armor I was looking for either hidden behind the sea of bodies obscuring it or the man it belonged to deciding he had better things to do than watch a pointless duel. I couldn't say why I was looking for Goblin Slayer in particular, perhaps out of the small sense of camaraderie I had tried to foster in the two days we travelled together, but I put the feeling behind me just in time Guild Girl to step out from between us and allow the duel to finally begin.
The duel began without either of us saying a word, the roar of my chainsaw drowning out whatever idle chatter was spreading throughout the crowd as Heavy Warrior charged me at full speed, as if the heavy sword he was gripping in front of himself like a shield weighed nothing to him. After seeing Space Marines wearing far heavier armor move just as fast, I was less surprised than most people would have been from his sudden dash towards me. Rather than meet my opponent in a head strong charge or risk trying to take out his legs with my laspistol, I simply prepared to evade whatever attack he was going to unleash on me once he closed the distance between us. As fast as the Heavy Warrior was, he was still wielding a sword that was just as thick and tall as he was. He might be fast, but after watching him earlier, I knew I could parry his blade or evade it with ease due to its unwieldy size that a man or monster larger than myself wouldn't be able to avoid.
The moment Heavy Warrior was close enough to strike me, he swung his sword down at me in an attempt to crush me with the massive weapon, an attack that I was able to narrowly avoid by stepping to the side and answered by thrusting my chainsword towards his side. To my surprise, Heavy Warrior let go of his sword and leaned back to avoid my thrust before slapping the flat side of my chainsword away with the back of one of his gauntlets. As surprising as it was to see him readily let go of his weapon, I kept ahold of my chainsword and brought it back under control with one hand as I pulled out my laspistol with the other.
I didn't know if his armor was sturdy enough to withstand the force of a lasbolt, but I was not able to find out as Heavy Warrior returned to grab his sword once more and pulled it out of the ground to shield himself from the couple of lasbolts I fired at him. His sword glowed a faint red where the lasbolts impacted, leaving me once again impressed at how thick his sword was. I would have taken a bit more time to appreciate its size if Heavy Warrior had not swung it horizontally at me in an attempt to cut me in half at the chest.
I ducked beneath his blade just as I heard the wind being pushed by his blade screamed in my ears, and seeing an opportunity to end the duel quickly I raised my laspistol in an attempt to fire off a single shot at his unguarded chest. Heavy Warrior must have realized what I was aiming for, as all he did was thrust his knee at my outstretched arm to throw off my aim and cause my shot to fire harmlessly into the air instead of hitting him in the chest. The giant of a man then pushed me away with a single hand as I tried to aim at him once more, knocking me on my back and giving him time to ready his sword once more as I scrambled back onto my feet before he could close the distance between us again.
Believing I had the advantage with the current distance between each other, I fired several more shots from my laspistol aimed at various parts of his body in the hopes that one of them might hit. Much to my awestruck surprise, Heavy Warrior blocked most of them with his sword and evaded the few that he couldn't. How any human could react so quickly was a mystery I intended to solve as soon as possible, although considering that the tag both he and Female Knight were wearing had a silver tint to them, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had some experience dealing with opponents similar to myself in the past. Regardless of why he was able to turn my laspistol into nothing better than a flashlight, my favored firearm obviously wouldn't be of any use to me and quickly holstered it once more as Heavy Warrior approached me once more. If he wanted out fight to turn into a test of swordsmanship, then I was more than eager to entertain him long enough to make my eventual yield seem believable.
I had no intentions of endangering myself any more than I had to, and since yielding seemed like an acceptable loss after watching Heavy Warrior block over half a dozen shots with his sword which was still faintly glowing in places, I was more than willing to accept a loss to save my own skin. Still, I couldn't just give up before showing off my talent with a chainsword in case someone else decided to challenge me, or Emperor forbid, someone from the Imperium learned that I gave up in a duel as their representative without putting on the best show I possibly could. While I would need to put myself at some risk in a close quarters duel to make my yield seem like it wasn't made out of pure terror, so long as the crowd was entertained then any failure or cowardice on my part, my defeat would be easily overshadowed by my overall performance.
It was with the slim hope of being able to keep all my parts attached that I met Heavy Warrior's blade with the gnashing teeth of my chainsword, our weapons locking together as sparks flew from where our blades met. I could feel something starting to give way in the heated metal of my opponent's sword, my chainsword likely starting to tear through the thick slab of metal that was attacked onto his handle, and Heavy Warrior must of recognized this too as he quickly broke our stalemate by pulling his sword back and allowing me to go on the offensive.
I carefully prodded his defenses with a series of strikes and thrusts aimed at his arms and legs, all of which were deflected by Heavy Warrior as he struggled to find a moment where he could stop defending himself. The two of us fell into a steady rhythm soon, with Heavy Warrior starting to smile as he became more relaxed and parried my half-hearted attempt to slash at his limbs with ease. His sword was left a large scar wherever he deflected my chainsword with his own sturdy blade, something that neither of us paid much attention to at the time. Both of us had to be careful, as by this point our fight had taken us near the bundles of hay we destroyed earlier, forcing us to step carefully less we misstep and lose our balance and end the fight in the most embarrassing way possible.
The smile on Heavy Warrior's face soon faded once I feigned a two handed overhead strike that he seemed intent on catching with the flat of his sword, and I instead changed the grip on my sword as I attempted to slash at his chest armor with much more speed than I had in any of my previous attempts at passing by his defenses. The giant of a man was barely able to stop my chainsword from tearing into him by blocking it with his sword only a few millimeters away from his chest. Unwilling to let my opportunity pass and feeling as though it would be best to end our duel by 'accidentally' losing my grip on my chainsword once he inevitably deflected my weapon away from himself, I put all of my strength behind my weapon as I tried to force Heavy Warrior's weapon back. Rather than knocking my blade aside and allowing me to drop my weapon in a way that no one would think was intentional, Heavy Warrior stumbled backwards onto one leg which suddenly left me putting my full weight behind my blade while he was now at my complete mercy as he tried to stop me from tearing through his armor. I would have given him a moment to recover, but unfortunately for the both of us the additional weight that I suddenly found myself pouring into my weapon further aided my chainsword in its attempt to cut through Heavy Warrior's already heavily damaged sword.
With a final groan of defiance, the massive sword Heavy Warrior defended himself with broke in two and he fell to the side as my chainsword started to sweep towards his chest, as I was too astonished to do anything but allow my weapon to continue moving perpendicular to the slab of metal it cut through no matter who or what laid beyond it. My breath caught in my throat for a moment as my chainsword sent sparks flying as its spinning fangs bit into his armor. Thankfully, sparks were the only thing my weapon was able to send flying as it raked against my opponents chest, only glancing across his armor as he fell to his side now that he suddenly was unable to brace himself against his weapon. He laid there, staring at his broken sword in shock as the crowd around us remained silent, the only sound in the Guild Hall's courtyard coming from my chainsword as it's roar started to fade once I finally deactivated it.
Everyone gathered for the duel, Heavy Warrior, Guild Girl, the crowd, and myself were frozen in shock as we all processed what had happened. Only Jurgen seemed willing to ignore the absurdity in front of him, and his familiar voice instantly pulled me out of the stupor I had fallen into after claiming victory from the jaws of defeat.
"Well done, sir. I knew he didn't stand a chance against you." My aide said, his abrasively repugnant aroma clearing my head and motivating me to act now before someone else took the initiative away from me.
"I do believe this is my win, Heavy Warrior." I declared to the crowd at large as I walked over to him and offered him a hand back up. The man accepted and let me pull him back up, although he was still too shocked at what happened to his sword to say anything. "It's a shame what happened to your sword, though."
For what it was worth, I was genuinely sorry about destroying his weapon. I knew plenty of guardsmen that were attached to their weapons, snipers more so than most, and Heavy Warrior appeared to be heartbroken at what I did to his sword.
"It's… it's fine. Dwarven Blacksmith can probably fix it. If not, I'm sure it won't take too long for him to make me a new sword." He mumbled before walking back to Female Knight who was already getting ready to comfort her partner over his loss.
With my opponent defeated, his weapon lying broken beside me and my aide, the crowd suddenly started cheering now that they were no longer too surprised to think straight. The random hollering and cheers soon coalesced into a more organized chant, one that brought me just as much dread hearing since it was said with the same vigor that the civilians of the Imperium would shout the title forced upon me by the Commissariat.
"Commissar! Commissar! Commissar!" Was the rallying cry of the crowd around me, and as much as I wanted to run away and hide from their praise, I instead struck a pose that felt suitably heroic and waved to the newest bunch of dupes that had fallen for my farcical reputation. As much as I hated being the center of attention like this, knowing that I would be able to carry around quite a bit of respect amongst the gathered adventurers made it all a little more bearable.
I was so absorbed in giving the crowd what they wanted that I never noticed Guild Girl was nearby until she was standing beside me with a pair of keys dangling from her hands. "Congratulations, Commissar Cain. Female Knight wanted me to give you the keys to your room while she tends to Heavy Warrior." The blonde girl said as Jurgen accepted the prize on my behalf.
"Ah, how generous of them. I'll be sure to thank them personally the first chance I get." I said as I watched Jurgen wander over towards the direction I last saw Witch in.
"I must say, I'm surprised you accepted Female Knight's challenge. Not many nobles would consider dueling a Silver ranked adventurer." She said, leaving the part about how she didn't expect me to win unspoken. Since I had been assuming the same thing up until I somehow managed to win thanks to a fluke, I could hardly blame her.
"I am no noble, Guild Girl. All I am is a man who simply wishes to serve The Emperor as best as I can and protect all of those under his watchful eye." I prattled. Sure, there was something to be said about how much I wanted to be protecting the servants of The Emperor from the safety of the back lines without putting my own life at risk, but I was not going to tell anyone that for as long as I lived.
Guild Girl seemed satisfied with what I told her and walked away, probably to continue whatever work she had abandoned to oversee my duel. The rest of the adventurers slowly started to file back into the Guild Hall as night started to fall and darkness began to sweep over the courtyard. A few adventurers offered me some congratulations, and for those that would be able to drink a few extra rounds of amasec thanks to choosing the right person to bet on, I returned their kindness with some congratulations of my own. I didn't accept any of the free drinks offered by some of the luckier gamblers or advances from few of the women that were giving me a look I would have instantly pounced on in my younger years, but I made sure to let them know I appreciated their offers all the same. Right now, all I wanted to do was enjoy a good night's sleep after all the absurdity of the past few days now that I was not hopelessly frakked.
I waited out in the courtyard until the last of the crowd filed back into the Guild Hall before deciding to track down Jurgen and see what our new room looked like. I didn't have search for long, and his familiar odor assaulted my sense long before I could think of where he could have possibly run off to.
"Ah, Jurgen, there you are. What were you doing while you were gone?" I asked him.
Rather than answering me with words, he pulled a rough looking leather sack out from the tangled netting he used to carry all of our supplies and opened it up to reveal a small fortune of bronze and silver coins stored inside.
"Emperor's Bowels!" I exclaimed. "Where did you find that?"
"You told me to place a few bets during your duel. This is what I won." He told me.
"How did you even get enough of this planet's currency to win that large of a bet?" I asked him.
"Goblin Slayer gave me this sack and a bunch of coins inside it when I left to make you some tea." Jurgen told me. "He said it was our share of the rewards for clearing out the goblin nest we met him in."
"Oh." I said. After seeing what was probably a couple hundred coins that I didn't know I had earlier and realizing that both Jurgen and I were richer than either of us could have hoped for now, I couldn't think of anything else to say.
Once again, I found myself thankful that Jurgen was just as resourceful as he always was now that we were somewhat well off in terms of funds. As we headed up to our rooms for the night, I was making a list of things we would need to buy to make our stay on this backwater planet enjoyable and a couple of ways to thank Guild Girl and Goblin Slayer for helping us into our current comfortable position.
For once, everything seemed to be going right for me. I should have known that our current luck was not going to last forever, but nonetheless, I was lulled into a false sense of security, something which I would pay for dearly in due time.
Author's Corner:
Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, has finally shown the Adventurers Guild just how valuable and destructive of an ally they have upon allowing them the privilege of witnessing what Jurgen is capable of with a melta. Only time will tell what further antics will arise from this moment.
Corny summary aside, while I am *fairly* sure a meltagun does not use the same power packs as lasweapons… they will be using the same ammo in this story because the meltagun will never see further use after this otherwise. Nobody wants that, right? I certainly know I don't.
Anyways, time for some comments!
Simplicity-exe: How lacking my life has been to not be familiar with this Cain fellow. He is absolutely roasting both his aide and the Slayer and I love it. If his canonical self is written anything like what you have presented then I greatly look forward to getting my hands on those books!
There is a reason I called him the Imperium's Patron Saint of Luck, Bullshitting, and Sarcasm in an earlier blurb. Although I doubt I can ever do the character justice, I will sure as hell try my best. I strongly recommend looking up the video on Cain done by Bruva Alfabusa on Youtube if you want both an accurate and entertaining preview before reading the books.
Havel the Hebel: As far as I know, the Goblin Slayer universe never mentioned gun powder...
Funny you should mention the existence of firearms in the Goblin Slayer universe. There just so happens to be an incredibly minor character that uses one that was introduced in one of the most recently translated light novels. Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, I do enjoy reading the novels over the manga and anime for most series I enjoy.
"E": (Another long comment I am too lazy to copy concerning lore, amongst other things.)
Considering that even some of the cursory elements of the lore contradicts itself at times, I will most definitely be using the bits and pieces I like the most from W40K and GS when mixing them together. As for the grammatical errors, I like to think of it as getting a bit *too* into character since this story is supposed to be his account of his time in Goblin Slayer's world. A bit of purple prose coming from a guy trying to sound more sophisticated and heroic than he thinks he is doesn't seem too out of place if you ask me, the occasional frak up in grammar which is definitely on purpose makes it seem even more human.
Yeah, that sounds totally believable…
Well, at least I'm not going full Jenit Sulla.
That's it from me. Thank you all for continuing to read this story!