Chapter 29: Victory!

Chapter 29: Victory! Although curious, Xu Tao put the matter aside for now. First, they needed to clear the 19th wave of monsters before them—technically the final wave. "Hup!" Compared to when they started, the enemies were roughly four times stronger by now. Although it still wasn’t much of a problem for them, thinking about if another one of these "defense quests" appeared—and the monsters’ strength increased exponentially too... The thought gave Xu Tao the chills. About half a minute later, Xu Tao and Jehanne finished the last of their enemies. "Alright, that’s it!" he shouted, calling toward Jehanne. "No more waves will appear for 5 minutes! Let’s regroup for now!" "Got it, Sir Tao!" With a wide smile on her face and a jump to her steps, she went back to where Xu Tao stood—midway between where she fought and where the gates stood. As for Pepe... the little pumpkin still had tons of loot boxes to gather, so it was left behind. It should be safe, but just in case, Xu Tao assigned the five on top of the wall to watch over it. At the same time, he sent one of them to alert the other side about the waves being over. Shin Gaoshun was the one who had to call the others over. A minute later, after Xu Tao and Jehanne reached the middle of the wall—right in front of the Log House—the last person finally appeared. "You still remember the terms of the duel, right?" As soon as he arrived, Arthur asked Jehanne with a confident smile—convinced of his victory. "Don’t worry, I don’t hold grudges. Before becoming a king, I’m a humble and honest man, after all." "I see. I wonder where your humbleness went, then?" Jehanne answered back with a sweet smile, but her eyes were not smiling at all. "Enough, you two. Stop with the petty squabble." Xu Tao, however, didn’t tolerate such behavior. "Let’s get down to business. First, let’s tally the total number of kills. We will confirm the kill count with the five observers later if any objection is made." "Agreed." "Please proceed." All sides nodded, confirming that they could proceed with the counting. "Then first, let’s start with myself," Xu Tao said. "I killed a total of 2,324 monsters." "Only two thousand?" Arthur chuckled, his eyes narrowing in confidence. "I killed a total of 9,728 monsters in all! This is definitely my win!" Just as he laughed out loud, convinced of his victory— "And I killed 10,646 monsters in all." Jehanne’s casual addition made Arthur hold his breath. "Combined, we total 12,970 kills. But even if we don’t include Sir Tao’s kills, mine alone is more than yours, isn’t it?" Jehanne’s smile, for some reason, sent chills down Xu Tao’s spine. It was the gaze of a predator, devouring the negative emotions of her opponent. "No... No way..." But Arthur, realizing he had lost, became speechless. Little did they know that the number of monsters increased depending on the number of defenders. In fact, the number of monsters on Xu Tao’s side was 33% more than Arthur’s, since they had 8 people over there, including Pepe in the count. That’s two more than Arthur’s six. That meant this duel, right from the start, was Xu Tao’s win... If he had known about it beforehand and still proceeded with the duel, then he was quite a schemer—but no, he was clueless about such mechanisms. "I guess it’s our win," Xu Tao declared, flat and simple. "You’ll honor your words, won’t you?" Arthur gasped before lowering his head. He took a long, deep sigh, as if lamenting his overconfidence. "I know," he said begrudgingly, before standing proud. "I! Arthur Pendragon! Hereby declare that I shall fight under Sir Xu Tao’s banner until my last breath!" Not only Jehanne, but even the others who arrived at the scene were shocked by this announcement. Jehanne, in particular, had thought that this fake gentleman would try to weasel his way out of the terms they agreed upon—which he didn’t. But Xu Tao simply nodded, accepting the result as is. Hidden intentions? Secret machinations? He didn’t care about those things. Sooner or later, he’d become more powerful than Jehanne or Arthur combined, anyway. At that time, it’d be inevitable for the leadership position to return to him, who held the most power. He was a little disappointed, though. He was thinking that if Arthur truly won, then he would get to train as much as he wanted without being bothered with what he needed to do. Well, if that truly happened, then he’d definitely have become the busiest man in the entire settlement, though. CLAP! "Alright, enough about the duel." Xu Tao clapped his hands, gathering everyone’s attention. "First, listen up. There are three minutes left before a boss monster—or so it’s called—will appear." "Boss... monster? What’s that?" Jehanne asked, curious. "I don’t know either." But Xu Tao shook his head. "But from the phrase, I’m guessing it’s like a boss of the monsters we fought earlier. Think of a big and strong version of that, perhaps?" In groups—be it in the animal kingdom, human communities, or organizations—a boss is usually the most powerful of all. Strength, knowledge, wealth, or such similar things... the boss should be at least three times more powerful than the average. "So, I’m guessing we need to kill that boss monster too?" "Of course." Xu Tao nodded to Arthur’s confirmation. "If we let it be, then this little base we made would definitely get trampled over, after all." Hearing this, Arthur thumped the chest part of his armor. "Then leave this fight to me. Think of it as my apology for proposing a duel all of a sudden." "You..." Xu Tao was shocked, seeing him get so proactive. "Wait, before that—what did you do with the loot boxes?" And he recalled an important matter. Loot boxes were like their little banks of daily life items. Getting more would never hurt. But Arthur tilted his head in wonder, eyes round in confusion. "Loot boxes? What’s that?" he said. "With my Excalibur, all things that are evil are banished from this realm, reduced to fine dust. But even after that, I haven’t seen a monster carrying a loot box or a treasure chest or anything." "Alright," Xu Tao nodded. "You’re banned from fighting monsters from now on." "...What?" It was a sudden but logical choice. What if Arthur fought the boss, and since he "deleted" the monster, no loot box dropped? They would lose out on it... a lot! Xu Tao was pissed, but still, he stayed civilized. Banning Arthur from fighting monsters could hit him in the back of the head later on, but... it won’t be too late to allow him to fight only when that time comes. Follow current novels on freewe(b)novel.c(o)m