Arc 6. A seemingly endless loss
Road to a Hero:
Three Chances in Another World
Chapter 41. Been there, done that
After the twenty-four hours pass, near the lake within Constal’s park, is Peter, patiently waiting for Lance to show up for their fight. Across the lake is Gray and his group, watching Peter prepare himself.
Soku: “You think Lance will show up?”
Edward: “You’d think so. His pride wouldn't let him miss out on this.”
Rosemary: “I kinda hope he doesn't, Peter might get hurt.”
Gray goes to add to the conversation, but he's far too embarrassed about his recent actions. Though, almost instantly, Lance walks down the stone path and onto the grass, standing across from Peter.
Lance: “Alright, you ready? Your rabbit ass made me wait a damn day to kick your ass. So you better not baby out!”
Peter clenches his fist, but he remains calm and states his claim.
Peter: “Dueling rules. The only way to lose is either, one, give up, two, get knocked out, or three, die. I see you’ve got some gear on you, basic armor.”
Lance pats his thick-plated armor, smirking at him. He then looks at Peter, finding him dressed in his blue overalls, a red cape with a thick neck, red-tinted goggles, and a belt filled with various poppers. He also has a large satchel with even more gadgets, a rifle on his back, his rope dart, a wrist talon, another large gantlet, a backpack, and a flintlock. He’s over-stacked with heavy equipment, which is obvious to everyone, even Peter, but he’s too scared to be without everything he might need to win. Lance starts immediately, running at a full straight towards Peter. Peter freezes for a second, but he quickly tosses explosive poppers at Lance. Lance can dodge them with ease, letting them explode behind him. Lance swings his fist towards Peter’s face, so Peter rolls backward, tossing a stun popper at Lance, which creates a large flash. Peter then pulls out his flintlock and attempts to shoot Lance, but it’s just a prototype that Gray had helped him on, so it malfunctions and crumbles under pressure the second the trigger is pulled, exploding in his hand.
A small crowd of people begins to form and everyone watching, including Gray and his friends, wincing from a shared embarrassment. Peter then quickly tosses a handful of explosive poppers at Lance, and since he’s still there so many, he fails to dodge. The power on them is very low, but many create a large enough blast to throw him backward. Lance’s thick skin protects him from the blast, but he’s still winded long enough for Peter to throw a smoke popper. This creates a small cloud of white smoke that burns Lance’s eyes and creates a small opening for Peter to throw even more explosive poppers, using up all of his ammo in his belt's pockets. He then swaps to his baldric, a belt over his chest with pockets, which also have poppers in them.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Lance, who's extremely aggravated by this point, leaps toward Peter and dodges the poppers, landing a clean hit to his face, and sending him flying backward. Once he lands, he smiles at Lance, confusing him. Unknowingly, Lance stepped on a patch of dirt filled with explosives, creating a giant explosion that sent him tumbling back into another patch of them.
Soku: “He set up traps. Smart.”
Edward: “I wouldn’t expect less of him. But Lance is trained and his body is durable, to a superhuman degree.”
Rosemary: “And that punch looked like it really hurt! A few more of those and I don’t know if Peter can get back up…”
Peter rummages through his satchel, looking for anything else to help him. He then turns to see Lance charging at him once more. Instead of dodging or running away, he sits and waits, perfectly timing his counter. Lance throws another punch toward Peter’s face, which he had predicted, as he throws up his right hand, using the large gauntlet on it, which just happened to be a deployable shield. It opens and blocks the blow, but it almost breaks directly on impact.
Peter then swipes at Lance with his wrist talon, slashing his forearm, but he’s met with a swift kick to the face, launching him into the bank of the pond. He then grabs a familiar weapon, the same one he had used against Arthur, his explosive launcher. And in his bag are three shots it can fire, which he does. He quickly loads the large ammunition, pulls back the handle, and pulls the trigger right as Lance gets up to him. Lance barely moves his head out of the way, uppercuts Peter, grabs him by the leg, and slams him to the ground, right on his back. This also smashes his rifle, making it useless. The constant explosions cause the surrounding audience to run away and call the guards over, who are patiently waiting for the fight to end.
Rosemary: “We need to step in! Peter could die!”
Soku: “Peter’s not dumb enough to let that happen, he'll just give up.”
Edward stands up and begins walking around the pond, but Gray pulls on his arm to stop him.
Edward: “Gray, let me go. Peter’s pride won’t let him give up! And Lance is far too unpredictable at this point!”
Gray: “No, I won’t let you go. I’ve been in Peter’s position, and I’ve felt this sense of Pride. If you stop him, no matter what he does, if you don’t let him do it, he can’t crawl out of what he’s in. Despair can be with anything, you know this as well. I didn’t stop you when you went to fight Moro, and you would’ve gone to fight him if I had. It’s closure.”
Edward: “Okay…but Moro needed to be taken down. When we fought I brought that on and I wasn’t gonna kill you, both times. And Arthur didn’t kill you because all those knights and rulers were there, Peter’s not gonna be saved by those lazy guards.”
They both look over to see Lance placing his leg on Peter’s chest.
Lance: “It’s over rabbit. For a day’s prep, you didn’t do much. No super gadgets, hell most of them broke. You suck, you’re not strong, you’re not useful, hell, you’re not even fun to be around. Keep mopping and stop doing this dumb shit. All I got is my strength and I got past everything you -”
Whilst Lance continues to monologue, Peter impales Lance’s leg with the wrist talon, causing him to cry out in pain. Lance goes to smash Peter’s face in, but Peter uses the opportunity to throw his last explosives in Lance’s face, hurting his eyes. He then rolls backward and kicks Lance in his crotch, giving him another opening. He then throws the rest of his flashes, creating a large blast of blinding light. This further irritates Lance’s already irritated eyes and gives an opening. Instead of wasting time and loading the explosive launcher, he simply throws the ammo at Lance. The explosive is only the size of a baseball, but it still packs a massive punch, creating so much force it crumbs Lance’s armor and shatters multiple bones. Peter then throws his last remaining poppers, including the stink poppers and smoke poppers. Everyone’s impressed, even the guards, but Peter’s long-lasting string of small victories comes to a head when Lance, filled with rage, comes barreling out of the smoke with blood-red eyes. Peter throws the last explosive ball, which is dodged, leaving Peter with one weapon left.
Peter blocks Lance's attack with his much lighter wrist talon, and due to it being lighter, it’s not as durable as Gray’s model, so it crushes on impact. In the moment of truth, Peter grabs the rope dart and throws it at full force, but there's no hope. Lance moves his head out of the way, catches the rope, and pulls Peter forward, bashing him in the face. Peter goes flying back, knocked out. He quickly gets up, watching as Gray and the others run over and Lance is laughing so hard he can’t contain himself. As his adrenaline begins to wear off, he feels his broken cheekbone, nose, and cracked skull. His mind is wavy, his vision blurry, but he knows that he must get out of there, so he runs and runs as fast as he can. They go to chase after him but Gray stops them again, shaking his head.
Gray: “I’ve been here, I told you this. I ran, and so did he. Now it’s only time till he makes his choice.”
End of Chapter Forty one