Chapter 153

The Challenge

Silence.

The imperial chamber that we were all waiting in felt like the wind had been forcefully sucked out of it, as we all sat and stared, waiting for Mallory’s next words.

With a simple yes, we would have an easy road to peace, a no would mean the war path, and while I was in a prime position to throw the war, that was a lot more work and burden on my conscience than I wanted at this moment.

For now, I just needed Mallory to accept, we would take the win. I had an idea for how we might be able to get the bonus options given by the system, but that was irrelevant right now, as after Mallory made her choice I would have anywhere between thirty and ninety days to come up with a final solution. By then I knew I would have come up with something. But for now, all I needed, all we all needed was for Mallory to say agree to our marriage contract between her and myself.

“While I consider it an honor that one so powerful as you would even consider me as your possible wife.” Mallory begins.

As she speaks, I can already feel her evil little mind turning this simple task into something overly complex that is almost bound to fail. Unfortunately, right now, I cannot call her out on her antics. You know, I get the suspicion that not only does she know this is me in the avatar of the elven King, but she is going to take special liberties with the position she is now in.

“However, my people have a tradition for ensuring that our mate is suitable.”

“A tradition?” I ask, already wondering what type of crazy scheme Mallory will put me through. Is it magical? No, that would be too easy. Something combat related? No, that could possibly cause a war on its own if done incorrectly. Would she want me to write a ballad expressing my love, that would be nearly impossible. Honestly, I have no clue what she is going to demand.

“A dance.” Mallory states after a long pause.

“You want me to dance with you?” I ask, feeling that this is going to get rather complicated here shortly.

“Yes, a dance to see how well we can mesh together as one soul.” Mallory states.

I just stare at her, blinking, though I know it is more for show than anything, as even in my different avatar forms, I don’t use my real eyes.

Seeing that I am quiet, she smiles widely, then continues.

“See, this is our time to dance. It is our way of celebrating life. It's the way it was in the beginning. It's the way it's always been.” Mallory states.

“Footloose?” I ask, speaking the source of the lines that she is blatantly ripping off right in front of me.

“You know of the sacred dance?” Mallory asks, and like that, I realize I walked right into her reverse trap.

Then a second later a new system message all but confirms my thoughts.

Major Territory Quest (Updated): A Permanent Treaty: A Proper Response: You have been given a response to your proposed peace treaty through marriage with the Midnight Hunters Guild. In order to prove yourself worthy enough as a marriage partner, you must dance the sacred dance of Footloose with Mallory and score as well, if not better than her in the dance competition. Rewards: Experience, variable (based on overall performance).

Warning: Losing the competition will result in the loss of face with your faction and can possibly result in a war with the Midnight Hunters Guild.

Minimum Score needed to avoid war: 65 / 100.

Seeing the quest, I realize that I cannot reject this quest as this is part of the quest chain that I myself started. Sighing inwardly, I stand up.

“Sire, you cannot do this.” The main servant and likely major steward of this whole building stated, fear and a twinge of revulsion in his words. “Think of what lowering yourself to this debased form will do.”

Hearing him, I just wave my hand dismissively before me as I begin walking down my grand throne to the smooth open flat floor of the imperial chambers.

Seeing this room, it is almost perfect for almost any form of physical activities, dancing included.

“From the oldest of times people danced for a number of reasons, now I will dance to ensure peace between our great factions.” I state, letting every inch of my body glide across the floor. I make sure to use all skills possible for this.

Moving languidly forward, I try to ooze sex appeal with my maxed-out Seduction skill. Making sure to state my accepted challenge with my hips and my eyes. I use Athletics, Courtly Etiquette, and Focus just to set the stage. I can tell that my charisma, the appearance of this old elven king, who despite being old still looks like he is in the prime of his life, and all my skills are having an immediate effect on Mallory.

Breathing heavily.

She is already having to take in deep breaths to calm her suddenly racing heart, showing that my skills aren’t all just for show. Seeing her like this, I smirk widely, then go in for the kill.

Poof.

In a second, I cast two distinct sets of spells. The first is a simple Smoke Screen, something light and simple that is little more than an elaborate flash bang. Simultaneously, I pump a ton of Nature magic into my second spell, where I create an already dying Perfect Rose.

“Whoa.” The servants and guards that had begun gathering already looked impressed with that minor feat of magic.

Even Mallory’s eyebrows raised slightly, though her reaction was most likely due to the use of a flash bang of a spell.

Seeing the rose that I was now handing out to her, Mallory commented.

“Rather impressive.” Mallory said reaching out to grab the offered rose.

As she did, I bowed gracefully, while never lowering the position of the rose.

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As she took it, she moved in close, at which point I too moved in close as well. While I was trying to make sure my body was in the proper starting position, she hit me with her next line.

“I must ask, what else do you keep in that track suit of yours.”

Hearing Mallory, I almost broke character and laughed at the line. I had to hand it to her, as I likely did look a bit ridiculous still wearing the now elongated Midnight Hunter Guild outfit that fit my smaller body nicely as a semi-karate master semi-pajama uniform. While now that I was wearing that same uniform in this avatar, it had grown and stretched to fit this new body that made it look like a long comfy track suit that you would expect an old man to wear, while pacing around the local mall to get into shape.

It was also thanks to this line that I realized that Mallory was trying to throw me off my game. Thinking about it, I realized that she likely had a similar quest to me, where she had to not only meet a certain threshold to prevent going to war, but she also had to do better than me to get the full benefit of her quest.

Realizing this, I smiled. Not the smile of someone who just heard a good joke from a friend. No this was the smile of a predator who realized there was about to be a long hunt.

We were there, in position for about a second, when the Stewart along with a few elves that were in lines behind him all began to line up.

I guess these were the royal musicians, that or the system was letting this play out.

“Sire, at tempo would you want your courtship dance to be held at?” The Stewart asked.

At this, I realized I could set the difficulty of our dance. If I did it slow, we would likely score well on the technical aspects, but likely do poorly in the overall scoring. While I was fairly confident in my ability to get high technical marks, I was not certain about Mallory’s dancing abilities. I know I don’t have the Dancing skill yet, a clear oversight by the system, I did have enough compensating skills and increases to make it so I could keep up with most any tempo.

“We will start off slow, but have an increasing tempo. Every time one of us claps, increase the tempo.” I state, realizing that part of our challenge will be adjusting to a constantly increasing speed.

“As you command.” The Stewart replied, then giving a quick gesture to the gathered elves, a harmonious song began to play.

The music played was a mixture between elven singing, and different variations of humming.

As they began, I saw Mallory begin to move, but before she could take her first step, I took my own. Already she was battling to take the lead of the dance, something that I couldn’t allow, lest I lose points in my own performance.

With that, we began moving.

Here my newly acquired Qi powers and senses paid off big time. Not only could I flow and regulate my own pace and power thanks to Qi, but I could also see Mallory’s movements. She would swirl her energy to move left, and I would already be there, grabbing, gliding, and sliding her into place.

“You move quite well for an old man.” Mallory said.

With this, I realized this was more taunting on her part. Fortunately, I was more focused on the dance and potential ways to improve my rating than focusing on Mallory’s trash talking. This was why I held onto her outstretched right hand, the one holding the rose, then moving quickly, I spun her out then in an instant, I took the lead in the competition.

Clap, clap.

I gave the first clap after ten bars, making sure enough time had passed and I was the first to strike to improve the pace. I also moved my hands back to hold her hands, before she too could think to clap as well.

Immediately the pace increased, and Mallory seeing that even the increasing of the pace of our song could be used as a measurement, deftly moved her rose from her hand into her mouth. We danced more, moving faster, but nowhere close to a pace that would cause either of us to falter with our Dexterity scores as high as they were. I also had over thirty percent movement speeds and increases to Dexterity from my tracksuit, and my recently increased core. This made it so I was more than capable of keeping and seemingly leading Mallory in our dance.

Bend, twist, shake.

“Suddenly tongue tied?” I ask, making sure to use my deep baritone voice that I normally use for Rahul, the real Rahul, not the impostor who has a similar name and back story from here.

Shiver.

Mallory shivers, hearing the voice, and I can almost see her want to respond but she can’t as she is now using her mouth to hold the rose. At that, she focuses her eyes on me and I can only smile.

I know we are playing a dangerous game here, as I can’t let Mallory look too poorly either, otherwise she might not get the required status to marry me as the representative of the Midnight Hunters Guild.

As should be expected by this point, I have finally unlocked the dancing skill, and a sub-skill related to dancing as well.

New Skill: Dancing has reached level 1. Dancing is a Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Sociability, Personality, and Attractiveness based skill.

New Skill: Seductive Dancing has reached level 1. Seductive dancing is a Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Sociability, Personality, and Attractiveness X2 based skill.

Seeing the newly unlocked skills, I knew I was doing something correct. With that, I felt my mind meld with the music. From my perspective I had already won, as I had unlocked two different skills. Granted I would likely need a partner for these, which was why I hadn’t unlocked them earlier, but that was besides the point.

For now, I was just happy to find two new skills that I could grind away at.

Clap, clap.

Mallory used my momentary lapse in extreme focus to increase the speed. Mentally I felt the balance for her state of dancing go up by one point. While I couldn’t tell how well I was doing, I could get a good feel for when Mallory gained points. Meaning I would have to continually keep stepping up and increasing the pace, after an adequate time had passed.

But I realized that I didn’t really care. I worked and moved just enough to feel that I had reached the sixty-five-point threshold that had been set by the quest before this contest began.

I could feel when I reached that threshold as I felt the system tell me about my status change.

Chime.

Minimum Score needed to avoid war has been achieved (65 / 100).

Now this might seem like cheating, but as soon as I got to that threshold, I took it easy. I felt myself relaxing, letting my body and movements naturally move me into the places and positions I would need to be at.

Of course, while I felt my body relaxing and moving freely, Mallory seemed to press and tighten her movements.

“Calm down, relax.” I wanted to say to her, but she was focused. I also knew that she was in her competitive mode and would likely see me trying to fluster her.

Clap, clap.

Despite my apparent ease with keeping up with the pace of the music and Mallory’s movements and her want to constantly take control of our dancing, she did manage to continually gain points by clapping and increasing our tempo.

This was fine by me, as these were easy points to achieve, as I wanted Mallory to win. Well not win but do well enough that the Midnight Hunter Guild will have a better foothold in this treaty. Honestly from my position, I was at a win-win regardless of how this went. Though obviously my primary goal will be to make it, so the Midnight Hunters get the better end of the deal here.

That is why I played loose after reaching the required threshold to avoid war on my end. After which I eventually found myself giving way to Mallory’s movements, letting her dictate where and how we would move.

At one point, I don’t know how, I ended up with the rose within my mouth. This revelation of our reversals of fortune was further driven home by Mallory finally starting her trash talking again.

“Now let’s see you keep up with this.” Mallory said.

This was where Mallory began moving so fast that she was almost a blur. Still, I did just enough to keep up with her, not outpacing her, not trying to outpace the music, but becoming one with the moment. If I really needed to, I knew I had Celerity ready to go, but I never needed to use that.

Instead, I just let her gain her points of approval slowly.

Then as I felt her meter slowly filling out to its maximum, she began acting faster and faster.

Then finally, I spun her away violently, keeping pace with our frenetic pace and the speed of the music.

Being close to twenty meters away, I could see the power rising within Mallory’s body. There was a swell and surge of Qi energy within her legs.

Dash.

Mallory sprinted towards me, and I felt time slow down as I activated Celerity on reflex.

The world slowed, but I didn’t let time go to a crawl. Instead, I began leveraging my body, infusing Qi throughout my legs, torso, and arms.

Then it happened.

Lifts In the River.

My Qi infused hands reached out, grabbing Mallory around her torso and then lifting her up high above my head. I locked my arms out, to hold her in place.

Then right at that moment my moment of Celerity dropped, as I suddenly felt many different forces impacting my frame. I felt my bones shatter and crackle under the sudden force and tension. I felt my body almost giving out from the weight that seemed to be enough to cause me to buckle under the sudden strain.

This is where I did what every Olympian would do if left at the end of a routine and needed just one little push to complete the operation and finish on a high note.

I cheated.

Telekinesis.

Using Telekinesis, I did multiple things. First, I held up Mallory’s body at multiple points, making it so she kept a perfectly flat shape that made it look like she was flying on my outstretched hands.

Then after holding for a solid three count, I released my Telekinetic hold on her body, pushing her up, while letting Qi and Healing energies both flow through my body healing all the small micro fractures I sustained from the attempt.

Dropping her to the ground, she bounced lightly on her toes.

Applause.

By now those who had gathered, which were most of the royal knights all gathered around and began clapping and cheering the performance.

Honestly, I had never expected there to be a dance off option in this world, but was glad I could have been a part of it.

During this time, while the applause was deafening in the royal chamber, Mallory chose this moment to speak.

“You caught me?” Mallory said, clearly surprised. I guess she expected me to be run over by her charge.

Pulling out the rose from my teeth, I replied back, “nobody puts baby in the corner.”

“You are terrible at quotes, you know that?” Mallory stated, her voice low enough so that only the two of us could hear her.

Silence.

I was about to respond with my own snarky comeback, but at that moment the applause broke and it was just Mallory and I together. This was when I did the only thing I could think of.

“Now that you have seen my skills with your own eyes. Am I worthy?” I asked, then I held out the magical rose that had both of our saliva on it by this point. Fortunately, my hands were gloved so I didn’t have to experience the spittle firsthand. Mallory on the other hand, would have to feel both of our mucus, that is assuming she accepted this marriage proposal, though I was fairly certain by this point, Mallory had greatly improved the rewards possible for the Midnight Hunters guild, given her dancing performance.

With that, we all waited.

Mallory looked at the flower and winced slightly at the drop of drool that rolled down the stem and onto my gloved hand. Then she spoke.

“I…”