What?!!"
Everyone in the room exclaimed in unison, completely befuddled by the nonsense that came out of Barbro's mouth.
"I request that Arthur Pendragon dragon be executed far his Slight against the first prince, that is me"
Barbro properly articulates himself, prompted by the surprise in the looks of everyone in the room.
"Your Majesty, please don't be hasty!"
Marquis Bulloupe was the first to speak as he hurriedly entered the room, wiping off sweat from his forehead, his warrior physique was long gone and a simple jog down the hall was enough to make him sweat, he felt pathetic.
"Oh you're Majesty!"
Bulloupe quickly did a bow as he realised the king was in the room, which should have be an obvious guess considering this is where Barbro said he was going, he also took note of the individual in the room and he couldn't help but squint Slightly as he saw the other nobles
"The Marquis is indeed correct,my son. What has gotten you so riled up?"
He asked while waving Dismissively at Marquis Bulloupe, the king projected a come expression after the initial shock of Barbro's statement although inwardly he was questioning if he had somehow failed as a father, as the first prince Barbro should know the importance Arthur carries.
"Father that Commoner, is very disrespectful towards not only me but towards the crown as well, how can we have a knight that scoffs at the authority of the Royal family, he needs to be executed to set an example"
"Marquis Bulloupe, what happened?"
The king asked. He figured Barbro was not going to give a straight answer, so asking the Marquis seemed to be the better.
"Father, did you not hear what I said? You would take the testimony of the Marquis…."
"Babro enough, let the Marquis Speak"
The king silenced his son before gesturing for the Marquis to speak. The prince took a glance at Marquis Bulloupe, who cleared his throat before speaking.
"I'm afraid the situation is minor your Majesty, I believe sir Arthur simply did not adhere to common noble etiquette as such the prince feels insulting by that, we had invited sir Arthur for a drink but he didn't not drink anything we offered him"
The Marquis lied. He figured it was better than telling the truth however, what was more important was to keep news that Prince Barbro wanted Arthur to be executed to be kept at minimum. Arthur possessed power he could not fathom. If he hears of this, Barbro just might be killed. However, at the same time, keeping such a dangerous individual in the castle wasn't ideal, but what can he do? Arthur might be more than just a human. The Marquis just didn't wish to incur Arthur's wrath, his aura alone could nearly kill.
"Is that so, then this can be settled with an apology from Arthur"
"Father are…"
"Enough Babro, I hope you realise that Arthur is not an individual that can simply be discarded. He, much like Gazeff, is an invaluable asset that is needed in the kingdom. You can be as angry as you want, but Arthur will not be executed. Understand!"
The king said with finality, his voice having risen a few slight octaves, marking the first time he raised his voice against his children since the death of his wife. Babro could only stare at his father, a feeling of disappointment washed over him, his anger was not quelled, but it simmered beneath a facade of calmness.
"since when has Royalty needed to place peasants in such high regard?"
The question was rhetorical, as the prince quickly turned on his heel and left once he said as much.
'I will not let such humiliation be forgotten. If father will do nothing, then it's on my hands to deal with it'
The prince Thought, as he exited the room, it was obvious that his father was not the man he assumed, never mind the fact he would not take his word, but what was more appalling was the fact that a king, a ruler meant to not only be in charge of his land but to also command respect and condemn all who dwell within it, such a king now could not condemn a commoner, it was disappointing.
Marquis Bulloupe quickly bid his farewells and hurriedly followed after the prince, leaving the room in silence once again. The king could only sigh and slouch on his seat. The crown was beginning to hurt his head, but he couldn't take it off.
…
Arthur found himself in the training grounds. He had shed his armor and was now wearing normal clothes, the type that was more suited for combat. The knight of the princess was seated on the floor with both his legs crossed together as he was deeply meditating and was completely unaware of the looks of contempt his fellow knights were giving him.
The training grounds were hardly ever empty, there are always a few knights in there sharpening their skills, however despite Arthur being Renner's knight for a month now, many still envy him with some outright hating him, of course since Arthur was a knight of the princess they could do nothing and since they were weaker they could do nothing as such they could only be silently jealous.
Currently what Arthur was attempting was to further understand Sukuna's cleave and dismantle or fillet and dissect, if he wants to achieve something like a domain expansion then he figured it was imperative that he understand the technique deeper and right now he was feeling the mana in his body and circulating.
He is essentially a male version of Artoria as such, this means he has the dragon core, but the dragon core is like a mana generator, basically making him a Mana tank. This led him to conclude that the cursed technique was using magic to activate rather than normal cursed energy, basically making it a magic technique.
'I'll still refer to it as a cursed technique'
He thought the rules in Jujutsu was that a domain expansion was a sort of physical manifestation of one's innate domain that is imbued with the cursed technique.
'An innate domain is basically my mind space, something that reflects my mind and soul, so in order to do a domain expansion, I need to know what my innate domain looks like'
He thought the idea of a mind space was completely fiction to him, as such, he doesn't know how to see his own mind space since that idea was never something he willfully practised to do.
"NO wait. My innate domain should be the natural state of my mind without any thoughts or feelings, what my mind looks like when I centre my thoughts and remove all distractions from it"
He uttered in a whisper, with that figured out he was about to begin to try to go deeper into his meditation, however he realised something else, Mahito was able to achieve his domain expansion by experiencing a near death situation, a situation that forced him to gain an understanding of his soul.
"Fuck this is getting complicated"
He exclaimed before opening his eyes and seeing the knights looking at him, decided to ignore them Arthur got up from his seated position and walked towards one of the training dummies.
"Before learning a Domain expansion, I need to first master the technique"
Whispered, currently he can only unleash a couple of slashes using his fingers and hands, each finger is a slash of its own however Sukuna could unleash hundreds of them with a single of his arm, He needs to get the first, understanding the technique may lead to understanding the Doman, honestly this was just so he won't have sit for hours trying to clear his mind of any distractions, he was never into meditation in the first place.
"Do I even need a domain expansion in the first place? Or do I want it because it's cool?"
He asked himself, with Excalibur he could safely assume that he was at least among the heavy hitters of this world, so was learning Domain expansion really necessary? He didn't know.
"What do I even want out of this life? Is getting Renner my end goal, where do I take it from there?"
In the old life, the objective was to simply live, there were no powers or magic as far as he knew, so any dreams of going to the top were purely because he just wanted money to support himself. During that undead incident with Khajit, he just wanted to enjoy himself, however aimlessly traversing this life would be no better than his last life.
.....
"What should we do?"
Lakyus questioned the princess who was seated opposite of her holding the piece of paper that contained information they got from an Eight fingers base. The paper held info on the supply chain of the black dust drug, where it was going, to which city and it included where it was being produced.
Seeing such information Renner could not help but hum in contemplation, there were a lot of cities that The black dust was being smuggled into at large quantities too.
"for now we need to keep this a secret or rather your team will operate secretly to destroy the production of black dust"
"Excuse me princess but we need to raid these locations and destroy Eight fingers for good, with the help of the army, we can easily get rid of the locations in the Capital"
Lakyus objected,her voice carrying much more passion than usual. Renner raised a brow as she heard, it seemed that Lakyus saw something that caused her to feel this way as such Renner decided to change her statement just a bit.
"Yes I agree, we need to put an end to Eight fingers, however think about it, if we raid all the locations in the capital then they'll just move stuff around and change locations in other cities, secondly there are nobles in league with them, the very fact that we're Mobilising a raid will be known to them and they'll be prepared, we need to act with caution and move in secret."
Renner explained and Lakyus's hidden anger at her earlier words faded, she understood that what Renner was saying made sense, however despite that she still didn't feel like letting 8 fingers continue any longer than it already has.
"Don't worry, your team can still go to the locations where the plant that makes black dust is farmed, we'll set aside the human trafficking for now and focus on this, since like you said even if you saved the people they still want to go back, so by getting rid of black dust we'll be killing two birds with one stone"
Lakyus could only nod at her words as they seemed to make a lot of sense. Her sense of urgency hadn't faded, but she could see the logic and could only agree to it. Haste makes waste after all
.....
A/N: I'm kind of torn between giving Arthur Sukuna's exact innate domain, or just given him his own innate domain that worked exactly like Sukuna's, like an innate domain is what you are born with and it reflects you, Sukuna's domain reflects him, his evil nature but the mc isn't sukuna so it feels like I'm just giving him something he isn't suited for.
Thoughts on this? Should I just give him Sukuna's domain and leave it at that or what?
I also kind of wanted to show Renner and Arthur interact more, but this would have been much longer, I chose not to. Next chapter, we're seeing eight fingers again.