The next morning me, Erik, Terra, Elisabeth, Sophia and the other Royal Guards all gathered in front of the mansion, getting ready to depart.
I packed my spear, dagger and wand with me keeping the last 2 hidden and wore some leather armour I found in the basement under my shirt, I can't be too careful.
Terra was wearing similar armour and brought a wooded staff with a green crystal on the end.
I could recognize it as a plant mage staff, a Mid Grade Magic item by the looks of it. It was slightly weaker than my wand as it had a D-ranked Plant Magic Crystal as opposed to my C-ranked Lightning Magic Crystal.
Before we left Aunt Miranda spoke to Beth me and terra,
"Take care of each other and stay safe. Jack if you don't feel well let Erik or Terra know and they will help. Terra looked after him, ok." she said
"ok" we both said.
The whole trip takes about 2-3 days so we had a lot of time to ourselves.
Me and Erik rode in the same carriage, I was reading some books I grabbed from the mansion's library the night before, Erik did some wood carving with his carving knife and Terra decided to ride with the Princess.
I wasn't really surprised as Terra doesn't have any girls her age to talk to. Plus what girl wouldn't want to talk to a prince
as it was the middle of fall we all agreed to sleep inside of the carriages as they could keep heat better and gave the 4 extras the knights came with to the guards.
The first day wasn't very eventful, but on the second day, things got weird.
In the morning as I opened the book I was reading the night before I noticed the smell of perfume on the pages. I didn't pay much attention to it and just thought someone must have gotten some on the book last time it was read.
That night though as I got back into my carriage after having some food I found the Princess holding my spear and admiring it.
Normally I wouldn't have minded but sneaking in here and touching my stuff without my permission was not something I liked.
She somehow didn't notice me so I grabbed one end of the spear and infused my magic into it giving the Princess a shock.
I pulled the spear out of the carriage after she dropped it and she slunk away into the shadowy corner, ashamed that she was caught.
Whistled to one of her knights who I could see was searching for her. I pointed with my thumb back toward my carriage and walked away.
I told Terra about it and asked her to find out what that was about and she agreed.
The next morning I talked to Terra again and got some answers.
Apparently, the princess saw the spear while we were leaving the mansion and was fascinated by the spearhead and wanted a better look so she snuck into the carriage to get a good look at it but I caught her.
I doubted it, I kept the spearhead wrapped in cloth and never took it out. At no point could she have seen it without taking the wrapping off? The only way she would have noticed its odd design was if she snuck in before.
When I asked her about it she seemed flustered but gave the same story but one slight difference. She said she saw my dagger and wanted to know if my spear was the same.
I never told anyone I had a dagger on me! Not even Erik and Terra knew.
She had been sneaking around and spying on me while I slept.
I made it a point to lock the carriage doors from then on.
The next day during the noon break we took I was watching the Royal Knights training the Rondo Guards. Turns out the guards managed to persuade the knights to train them.
As I was watching, one of the knights noticed me and asked "Would you like to train with us, kid?"
I looked at the man, shrugged and said "Sure, I need to try fighting against different opponents. Give me a second."
I quickly went to grab my spear.
The knights were surprised I had a spear like it and some asked where I got it and I told them I got it for my birthday from my dad.
Some of them chuckled. I didn't like that.
I suggested a spar rather than teach me combat forms.
One arrogant knight stepped forward and agreed.
One of the knights, who I could tell was a spellblade, walked up and cast a non-lethality spell on the weapons to prevent us from injuring each other.
As we got into positions I noticed Terra, Erik and the princess watching from a distance.
I smiled and turned to my opponent.
He wielded a Mace and Tower Shield combo and wore heavy armour. A combo that sacrifices speed for defence while maintaining damage.
As one knight counted down we both stared into each other eyes while I suddenly placed one hand on my dagger.
The moment the battle started I flung my dagger toward the knight's head, catching him off guard. He raised his shield to protect his face.
When the dagger hit he lowered it and yelled "The spell wasn't cast on the dagger you idiot what if I didn't- what?!"
Once the shield of lowered, he could see I was no longer in front of him.
*Bop*
I hit him on the head with the spear from behind.
"Winner! Jack!" one knight said while the other laughed.
He was mad and demanded the reason why I threw the dagger. I explained I aimed for the shield, to confuse him.
He demanded a rematch and I agreed.
I picked up the dagger and let them cast the spell on it as well. This time he added in the stipulation that I can't throw the dagger and I agreed as well.
When the match started I threw the spear instead.
As the spear flew at him he was surprised but noticed it wasn't aimed at him but slightly to his right.
As I saw that he was distracted by the spear ran up to his left, pulled out my wand and cast a lightning shock on his armour.
Due to the conductive power of metal, I hit his entire body in one go.
I won that match too.
He demanded a rematch again claiming that I used magic so I cheated.
I countered that we never said magic was against the rules but agreed, I was having fun.
For this match, we agreed on no throwing weapons and no magic.
When this match started I ran up and tried to poke him in the face with my spear, he raised the shield and swung at the top of my head.
Something he didn't realize is that the whole time I have been standing on my toes.
When I suddenly got shorter, he panicked. He was already at a disadvantage because I was already short, but being even smaller than he thought made things even more difficult, especially since his tower shield made it difficult to see me.
As I saw him panic I moved to his left taking advantage of his limited vision of me and stabbed him with my dagger in the kidney.
He somehow managed to dodge the blow but tripped over my spear that I dropped to the ground to his right.
He fell over when he stepped away and I watched as his shield trapped him underneath it. I walked over and sat on top of the shield.
"Winner! Jack!"
he didn't want to accept he had lost 3 times to an 8-year-old, the knights wouldn't let him live it down anytime soon, and tried to act for another rematch but I declined.
He demanded a rematch and said I shouldn't use petty tricks to win my battles.
I turned to him and said "When fighting a dragon, do you use tricks to win against or do you stand still to win? Your tactics may work when facing other people but against monsters that are smarter and stronger than you, you will die." I left
the other knights were shocked by my insight but the arrogant knight didn't like that and still insisted on another rematch
He thought I got bored of beating him and just said that as an excuse but it was actually because I was tired and didn't have any other plans to defeat him.
Currently, I'm not one to fight directly unless I know I can win.
I can't summon Volt as part of our contract is that I can't summon him 2 days out of the week and today was one of them unless it was an emergency or we discussed an alternative beforehand.
As I walked over to the viewing party Terra and Erik congratulated me and asked how I did all that.
I explained that the knight was arrogant and underestimated me because of my age in the first round.
In the second round, he realized that I knew how to throw a dagger but didn't think I was good at hand-to-hand fighting and didn't expect that I could use magic.
In the last round, he knew I used tricks to win battles so he stood his ground and didn't let me distract him. Because all his focus was on me he didn't pay much attention to my footwork or what was on the ground.
The trick I used to make myself look taller was something I learned from Rishik, the lizardman spear fighter adventurer who taught me how to use a spear and how to trick my opponents.
Thanks to his teachings I can fight people so long as they either underestimate me or are so angry they don't realize I led them into a trap.
Through my explanation, the Princess who was nearby didn't say anything but listen to every word I said.
A little while afterwards to set out again.
We continued and 2 hours before sunset we arrived at the now-destroyed village of Thornbranch.