Chapter 173. A Duel
Finley suddenly felt the weight behind him lighten, and then heard the sound of sothing heavy hitting the ground.
His horse also quickly regained its balance after the sudden decrease in weight, and under Finley’s command, swiftly pulled farther away from the other knight.
That knight had just been about to strike Finley when he saw Eric knocked from his horse by one blow from Fran’s sword, allowing Finley to widen the gap between them at once.
At that point, there was no longer enough ti for him to go after Finley, so he gritted his teeth and charged straight at Fran instead.
He had intended to take advantage of the mont Fran landed, while her balance was still unstable, to eliminate her first and strip Finley of that support.
But to his surprise, Fran moved with astonishing agility. With a smooth twist of her body, she landed directly back onto the black horse that was still racing forward, causing his plan to fail yet again.
Even so, there was still nothing fatal about it. He still had a chance. As long as he could catch up and knock Fran from her horse, he could erase Finley’s advantage.
But the mont he urged his mount onward, he was shocked to discover that his horse could not catch up.
Gritting his teeth, he could only pull out the enhancent potion at his waist and stab it directly into the horse’s abdon.
He had not originally intended to use that thing. He had only bought it as a precaution, just in case.
And just as he had expected before the duel began, both Eric’s horse and Cliff’s horse had been injected with enhancent drugs from the start in order to strengthen their mounts’ abilities.
Under those circumstances, he had almost no chance of winning, so he had not used the enhancent drug on his own horse.
But now things were different.
A mont earlier, he had glanced around and failed to spot Cliff anywhere. Although he did not know what had happened to him, he knew the rules of the duel well enough. Since Cliff was no longer in the arena, that ant he had already been eliminated.
And now Eric had also fallen from his horse, which ant he was basically no match for them anymore.
So at present, the only real opponent he had left was Finley.
Now that he actually had a chance of winning, he decisively used the enhancent drug, intending to deal with Fran first and then rely on the drug’s effect to fight Finley swiftly afterward.
He had already imagined exactly how things would unfold from there.
But reality refused to develop according to his expectations.
In stunned disbelief, he watched as even after being boosted by the enhancent drug, his horse was still distinctly slower than the black horse ahead of him.
No matter how hard he urged his mount, no matter how desperately he tried to make it run just a little faster, all he could do was watch the black horse gradually widen the distance between them.
Only then did he truly understand what it ant for there to be a difference in mounts.
It left him utterly baffled. Had the other side’s horse also been given enhancent drugs? How else could it be this fast?
But no matter how many doubts filled his mind, it changed nothing.
Finley chuckled from the side, urged his horse forward, and ca at him with an axe.
Up ahead, when Fran saw the two of them clash, she slowed her pace.
That knight still wanted to make one final struggle.
“Brother Finley, for the sake of how we once fought side by side, could you at least grant a fair duel?”
What answered him was Finley’s smiling face, one lit with a rather excessive excitent. Finley did not slow in the slightest, but he still bothered to reply.
“Haha! What was that? I did not hear you.”
He had already been furious back at the start, when he had been chased all over the arena by three knights at once.
Now that he had finally weathered the bitter and reached the sweet, there was no way he was going to let such an opportunity slip away.
---
And so, under the joint assault of Fran and Finley, Fran ultimately won the battle without ever revealing that she herself was also a full-fledged first-rank professional.
When they finally defeated that last knight, thunderous cheers erupted across the entire arena.
Only quite a few of the nobles on the high platform wore dark expressions.
Many of the local nobles had already chosen sides before the duel began, and most of them had thrown their support behind Eric and Cliff. They also knew that those two had a fairly close relationship.
But the result had completely exceeded their expectations.
In the end, it was Finley, the man no one had favored before the battle began, who claid victory.
After hesitating for a long while, one young noble finally spoke to Earl Ian.
“My lord Earl, I feel that Eric and the others were simply a bit unlucky...”
Before he could finish speaking, another noble slapped him sharply and forced him to stop.
Earl Ian cast them a glance and said sternly,
“Hosting the knightly duel was Duke Theodore’s order. If you have any objection to the result of the duel, you may voice it to Duke Theodore himself...”
The noble who had interrupted the young noble glared viciously at him and hurriedly made him apologize.
Only then did that young noble realize that knightly duels could not be manipulated the way they usually controlled the city, through all sorts of backdoor thods, and he imdiately apologized.
After that little incident ended, everyone on the high platform descended together and approached Finley and the others, who were still celebrating.
Seeing that his family’s knight had won the battle, Stefan hurried forward to celebrate as well. But when he saw Fran, he awkwardly turned his head aside.
He also knew very well that he had done nothing in that duel. Even without him, the result would not have changed in the slightest.
At that mont, Earl Ian ca before Fran and asked,
“Warrior Elan, would you be willing to join Duke Theodore’s order of knights?”
Ian fixed his gaze on the person who had shone so brilliantly in the battle just now, and spoke words of recruitnt first.
Fran smiled faintly and replied,
“My apologies, but I have urgent business and must head to the Northern Frontier. I cannot agree to that.”
Using the sa explanation as before, Fran turned him down, her gaze sweeping over the entire crowd.
What surprised her a little was that the Earl Ian before her was also a first-rank professional.
That startled her sowhat. She had thought that, as one of Duke Theodore’s most capable subordinates, he would have been a second-rank professional.
There were far fewer second-rank professionals within Antir than she had imagined.
She did not let any of that show on her face.
“Is that so? What a pity.” Ian truly did appear to regret that Fran could not join Duke Theodore’s order of knights.
Imdiately afterward, Ian called Finley over to his side and declared in a loud voice,
“Knight Finley, you have won this duel. As long as you win one more match, you will beco the new lord of Whiteflower City...”
After hearing that, Finley burst into hearty laughter. He had already realized just how dazzling Fran’s performance on the battlefield had been.
If, before this battle, he had only entered the duel with a try-it-and-see attitude, then now he was filled with absolute confidence in victory.
“Do not worry, my lord Earl. I will defeat the winner of the next group and beco the new lord of Whiteflower City.”
Earl Ian showed no particular reaction to those words. In Ian’s eyes, that was perfectly normal. So what if a victor spoke a few harsh words after winning?
But those sa words stabbed straight into the hearts of the young nobles behind him, and they all turned their vicious gazes toward Finley.
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