"Now the only thing left to figure out is do we let him know now or do we wait to see if he gets impatient at some point?" Patricia asked with a mischievous smile.
"Well, I'd say we could at least let him sweat it out a little," Kim replied offhandedly, reaching for another piece of fire-browned toast.
She really didn't care if the king was happy with a longer wait or not. He was a man, so he shouldn't be able to just make his timetable theirs. Especially since they were the ones who saved both him and his son the night before. If he didn't appreciate that, then Kim knew that even if he was on the up and up, she wouldn't be able to fully trust him going forward. Especially if there was anything that concerned Elin directly.
Thinking of Elin, Kim looked down at Elin who was sleeping peacefully again, a few crumbs of toast on her cheeks. Although, she certainly had enjoyed the fried eggs the cooks in this kingdom had made.
However, despite the agreements she was hearing from the others in the room about making the king wait, she suddenly started to feel restless and bored. Unlike Elin, she didn't really feel that tired.
Or at least tired enough to fall asleep here. For one thing, these chairs weren't nearly as comfortable as most chairs in her world were that could easily be found in waiting rooms, where comfort wasn't something the business who furnished the waiting room really cared about. Where she'd been sleeping the night before was much more comfortable than these chairs.
"So, what do we do to waste the king's time?" Jonas asked. "Should we do a game of charades and pretend that it's part of our decision making process if we get caught in the middle of it?"
"What's charades?" Leon and Elwin both asked in the same moment Owen replied, "Charades might be a little over the top here. Especially since I'm not sure we have that much time. To explain it and to have at least a round for each person to take a turn."
Kim suspected Elin wouldn't know what charades were as well. Though, with her asleep, at least she wouldn't have to explain it to her later. Assuming Elin didn't overhear any conversation about it after she woke up.
"What if we catch up on what we've been doing since we were last together like this?" Elmo suggested. "I mean, we know a little of what each other's been up to, given the announcements, but that's not really telling us what exactly has been happening with each other."
Owen laughed. "The kid's got a good point," he remarked.
"Well in my case and Patrick's, we haven't done much in the way of anything most would consider useful," Patricia replied, apparently not even waiting for a consensus on if they should discuss any of this or not. "We just merely traveled around to different towns and cities. There's certainly a lot of variety in regards to cultures in this world."
"Well, that would certainly support the idea that others have been brought here from different worlds themselves," Elwin remarked. "Especially if each world had at least one distinct culture. Though, at least in my world, there were at least ten different cultures I could name right off hand."
"True," Jonas said. "The country I live in has countless cultures that bleed into each other, which in turn creates essentially new cultures as well. Given time, eventually the cultures will probably make at least one new culture that didn't exist before, but that's probably going to take at least several decades if not generations to happen."
"That's good an all, but what've you been up to?" Patricia pressed. "I mean, aside from completing the portal challenge and all that."
Jonas sighed. "Well, we helped save a village from being overrun by the goblins. The same village that all of you stopped at briefly after we left the dungeon. Then we also were attacked on the road to here, so it's bee a little eventful for us," Jonas replied casually.
"You kow, that's lacking a bit of detail," Patricia griped.
""Not much more than yours did," Jonas returned with a smile.
"Not a bad comeback," Patricia remarked, before falling silent.
"What we did was we went and trained mostly," Bart said.
"Enough, squirt," Elwin told Bart.
"What? It's not like they'll know what kind of training or exactly what it involved," Bart protested.
"The runt's right," Leon said to Elwin. "No matter what they might think, there's too many possibilities to what kind of training we did. I mean, naturally they're not going to assume we were trained in an occupation or anything, but unless you provide more details than just 'training,' then you wouldn't know what exactly it means."
"Maybe, but we didn't agree to telling them what we'd been doing," Eliwin complained.
"True, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't at least say something about it," Owen interjected. "After all, we've fought together a few times already, so why not give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean, it's not like they're Stanley with that politician system f his."
"You've encountered Stanley?" Elmo asked, sounding rather surprised.
"Yeah, we met him," Elwin said, sounding more grouchy than when Bart had volunteered what they'd been doing for the past little while.
"Uh, did something go bad with it?" Elmo asked, sounding like he was feeling like he was missing a detail or two.
Kim certainly could relate. She wasn't sure what Owen's group meant by them encountering Stanley, but she had a suspicion that it at least didn't go in their favor. Although, it was possible that Stanley's group, if not Stanley himself, had either tricked them or just flat out ripped them off rather than just beating them in a friendly competition of some kind.
While they had been friendly up until this point, Kim was a little surprised at how quiet they'd become. Even Elin was being louder than they were, merely mumbling something she couldn't make out in her sleep.
"So, what happened with Stanley's group? Jonas asked, when the silence had stretched on for a few minutes. "You don't have to say anything that puts you and your group in a bad light if you don't want to. Just if you don't give us anything, all we'll be able to determine is that you just have a grudge against him and his group."
"Well, I guess we should at least give you some more information about what happened," Owen said with a sigh. "It's not so much that he ripped us off, but rather that he'd convinced us not to pursue something that netted him a completed challenge as a result."
Jonas nodded and Kim agreed. She could understand why that would create problems. Although, she suspected that it was probably a little more complicated than just that. After all, if she remembered correctly, Stanley had a politician's system, and politics to Kim were always complicated, even when they were at the simplest state.
So, it was very possible that Stanley had done something that merely made them feel that way, although Kim suspected that since this was a 'system' instead of actual politics, that she might be overthinking it herself and that it was much more straightforward than she was giving it credit for.
"So, you're sure that he did something that you feel is a problem?" Jonas asked, clearly trying to clarify a poit.
"Yes. He convinced us that the Giant Anaconda and Giant King Cobra were more dangerous than the ice wolf pack," Owen replied. "Yet, even though I could see in his thoughts that he didn't believe that to be true, he was even able to convince me in what he was saying."
Kim nodded. Certainly sounds like a politician. Ones that were good at their job would be able to spin horrible things into something else entirely. Almost like they were able to change someone's condition just by changing the name of the condition. Where logic says that just can't happen. Someone who's paralyzed from the waist down doesn't become something else just because you change the name of the condition they're afflicted with. Yet, some politicians seem to have that very ability.
"You know, I suspect that Stanley is the most dangerous person in this competition," Kim remarked. "We might need to deal with him before this next challenge, or he might just very well make it so we all end up being stuck in this world like the king."
"Well we're not going to give up trying to win this just because your group is currently in the lead," Patricia remarked. "I'm sure there's a chance we'll be able to pull this off."
"Hey, I'm not saying anything about that," Kim replied. "I'm just saying that I could see Stanley making it so none of us get o the reuired number of challenges needed to win this."
"That's assuming there is a way to win in this competition," Jonas remarked. "I mean really win."
"What're you saying this time?" Leon asked.
"Just that the announcer hasn't said how many challenge completions we need to win this, or at least I'm pretty sure he hasn't, but as far as we know, there isn't a point where we'd be able to win. So, this all might really be an exercise in futility."
"My, you're a ray of sunshine this morning," Patricia remarked.
"He does at least have a fair point," Elwin admitted. "There's been nothing to determine exactly how many completed challenges are needed to win this. So, we can't say for sure that the people or creatures running this have any way for us to actually win it."