Is this tournament doomed to fail from the start? Was Vivienne about it getting closer than before? Wondering what Sally would position him this way, Norbert had to ask.
“And what if I don’t want to quit the tournament?” Norbert asked her.
“Rumor among the organisers is you’re going to face Arzlan next,” Sally said, looking up at Norbert and gauging his reaction.
Blowing air out of his mouth, Norbert dismissed it with a wave of his hand: “As long as nothing funny happens, Arzlan isn’t that much of a threat.”
Sally's eyes widened in disbelief. “You believe you can simply march in and defeat one of the undefeated champions from past tournaments? And you're not concerned about any potential tricks, especially considering how the Kreevss have been provoked?” Sally's voice was laced with worry as she questioned Norbert, her fingers nervously toying with the piece of paper in her hand.
Norbert stepped forward, taking the piece of paper out of the commander's fingers as he opened it up. Inside, the single word ripped in the paper was ‘Martitia’.
With a calm demeanour, Norbert stepped forward, taking the piece of paper from Sally's hand. Folding it neatly, he stowed it away in his coin pouch, planning to examine it later. Meeting Sally's gaze, he explained his rationale and his unwavering confidence in facing Arzlan: “Last time, I was trapped by Hyeon, unable to break free. This time, they won't be able to make any blatant moves.” Norbert shrugged, continuing, “And it's not like I haven't grown stronger since then.”
Norbert's mind raced, calculating the odds. “Arzlan has been here far longer than I have. The likelihood of him having undergone a significant evolution is high,” Norbert mused, tapping his chin as he tried to piece together the timeline. "The only issue is the timing. A few days to strategize would be advantageous.”
Sally sighs, trying to think of a way to convince him to stay. “How many days would be preferential?”
Norbert sized it up in his mind, counting how long it would take for his mask to get fixed and adding an extra day to find a way to operate the teleportation gates to get the kids out of there. “Four days at a minimum. Five would be nice before needing to fight again in the tournament.”
Sally nodded, “You have five days, but afterwards, you're needed. Wrap up everything you can and lose after facing Arzlan. I’ll say you need to train for the next days, so that’s why you’re not around.”
“And the Kreevss?” Norbert asked aloud, wondering if they would be placed in their bucket, away from causing him any issues.
“They will run rampant here as they are now. We aren’t letting any of them move into Morenas through the portals,” Commander Sally told Norbert, breathing a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t always need to watch his back for them.
As he thought about them, the next idea came to him: How would he be able to move the kids over to the other side? He left that for the moment, wanting to tackle getting himself ready and even trying to find someone to move them out of there.
“I guess you're not going to allow a stream of children to go through a portal,” Norbert asked, hoping that with the deal they had made, he could get something more out of it.
“Sadly, no, Travellers are a rare commodity. Not even you have enough coin to hire one of them out for fifty people.” Sally said to him.
“Then how does The Frontier pay for them?” Norbert asked, not seeing how they could spend that much coin on how many times he had been moved around himself.
“Private commodity, and protection provided to them. Every country wants another’s travellers.” Sally told Norbert as she started looking out the window to the side of him. Norbert opened his mouth to ask the following question on his mind.
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“Why?” He asked, like a child to their mother, at every answer that was given to them.
“Because they know all the gates in their network. With one, a section or the entire country can easily be yours.” Sally provided.
He is unable to stop himself from whistling at the understanding of what he could be dealing with: “And anyone that cannot give them protection is used with exuberant amounts of coin to stop anything shady from happening?”
“That is one of the reasons why they charge a high price.” Sally provided it to Norbert.
Standing there, waiting for Sally to continue, Norbert heard nothing more from her. The conversation had died to nothing as the two of them stared at each other.
He nodded, the information he needed for the moment given to him. He nodded, reaching for the handle and opening the door as he stepped out.
He closed the door behind him, not once hearing Sally's outcry for him to return and be given another piece of information. Leaning against the door, Norbert breathed in momentarily, kicking off the doorway as he walked down the hallway, heading out of the stadium and towards the gate he had travelled to get to this city.
***
Standing in front of the gate, his coin pouch heavy from his collection to the mansion for the rest of his coins, he did not know who he might need them from as he showed his identification, passing through as he stepped through the blue portal in front of him.
His body elongated once more, his stomach feeling queasy underneath himself until finally it stopped. Stepping out in the bustling room he came from, quickly walking away from the gate before it changed to the following location, Norbert made his way through the crowd.
Finally able to stand up straight, placing the damaged mask over his face as he made it to the big open doors. He was standing on the steps, looking to the left and seeing the tree towering over everything else in the city.
Staring, seeing the damage he had made, what felt like years ago fully recovered, Norbert could not see a single sign of damage. Happy that those days of terrorizing Norbert were behind him, whistling as he made it to the street, he wanted to deliver the mask as soon as possible before finding wherever Obsius would be in this city.
***
Opening the door, Norbert looked down at the shop, not seeing any major difference compared to the last time he had been there. He heard the banging of metal on metal radiating around the shop, pieces that they had made standing proud, waiting for a buyer to come in.
He was changing his vision to magic. Norbert saw the style similar to his own on all the equipment and weapons and, having seen the engraver having put herself to work, compared to the sparse ones he found in the colosseum city. There, it was much less common to find works such as this. Seeing the engraver sitting at the desk, Norbert shouts over the echoing of the smith in the back of the shop, "Beckia, how's it been? Have gotten into a bit of a tussle and was told to come back here to have it fixed."
The engraver looked up from her work, the light she was creating at the end of her tool darkening; Norbert saw a fine chisel placed next to the piece of work and looking up and down Norbert for a moment, trying to place him but was unable to do so in his current clothes wrapping around him until she saw the mask in his hand, recognition dawning on her face. "Ah, niece Nancy's boy. How has the mask helped out?" She asked joy in her voice over one of her products being used and a returning customer.
"It has been very helpful indeed, especially against the Grimm. That's part of the reason why I'm in this neck of the woods," Norbert stated as he walked to the desk and placed the mask and the back of the helmet there, positioned so the deformation was clearly visible.
Before he could let go of the mask, Beckia picked it up. Holding it up to her face, she twisted the piece of metal around as she looked internally at the mask, her fingers going over the runes within, seeing the damage that had been done to them.
"It still works; it just doesn't join as snuggly as before. And not having a hole in the helmet makes me feel more protected, at least," Norbert told the engraver.
She placed it on the table before looking up at Norbert. “That I can see must have taken quite a beating for that to happen. Sadly, I wasn’t able to watch.” Beckia told Norbert.
As he sat there smiling, unable to hold it in anymore. “Have you seen the current tournament?”
Beckia looked at Norbert like he was a fool. “Only a bit, mostly working here.” Pointing around at the room around them.
Norbert nodded in response as he looked at all the extra equipment now around them, the fact now disturbing him as realisation slowly crept into his mind. Pushing it back again, Norbert turned back to the counter. “Well, did you see the last fight between Morenas and Grimm?” Norbert asked as he pointed to the mask on her counter.
Realisation drawing on her face, “Get OUT!” The two words screeched out of the woman’s lips.