Please Vote for Your Knight! Chapter 22

A look of surprise crossed Kusto’s blue eyes at the unexpected question.

“Are you the type to hold a grudge too?”

David’s brow furrowed.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what?”

“Since you weren’t going to be a leader anyway, why didn’t you join my team when I had a spot open?”

“That’s up to me.”

“And what exactly do you want?”

Kusto flinched.

‘This conversation is getting weirder and weirder.’

He cleared his throat and pushed himself away from the tree.

“I left your team out because I figured I’d have to deal with all your followers. I chose Dimitri because I at least knew him. That’s all.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

David was about to say something more when—

“Waaaah!”

A scream rang out from David’s team’s camp.

“David, you should go.”

“Seems so.”

David hurried toward the camp.

Kusto returned to the pit where Kilman was trapped.

“You bastard! Get me out of here!”

Kusto crouched down in front of the pit, the corners of his mouth curling upward.

“Your team can pay the ransom for their prisoner, and then I’ll let you out.”

 

***

 

David’s camp was a mess when he rushed back.

Countless monster deer were charging about wildly.

They were particularly focused on one participant who had taken on the role of hunting dog.

After cutting down one of the monsters that was acting particularly threateningly, David asked Pierre, who was busy cracking his whip,

“What happened?”

“He accidentally spilled all the bait scent over himself while taking it out.”

The bait scent was only safe to use one handful at a time.

But he had poured an entire sack of it over his body, so it was only natural that the monsters, attracted by the overwhelming scent, had gone berserk.

On top of that, the frenzied monster deer were trampling over the deer David’s team had already caught.

“W-What are we supposed to do? Those deer were so hard to catch!”

Another follower who had taken on the role of hunting dog lamented.

David clenched his teeth.

“Let’s save our teammate first. Ignore everything else.”

With that order, David rushed toward the teammate in danger.

A good hunting target should have as few wounds as possible.

But David didn’t care.

He cut down the monsters.

With graceful movements, yet sharp and swift!

The places where his sword cut through glowed red, as though straight lines had been drawn across them.

How much time had passed?

He defeated the monsters much faster than expected.

The team members, especially the hunting-dog participant who had spilled the bait scent all over himself, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“T-Thank you, Duke David.”

“Let’s go to the river and wash ourselves off quickly.”

“Yes.”

As David headed down toward the river with him, his eyes widened when he spotted traps installed here and there.

‘These aren’t traps we set.’

Several monster deer that had been charging toward them had fallen into the traps and become tangled together.

Come to think of it, he had wondered why there were so few monsters despite the bait scent spreading so widely.

‘Was it because these traps stopped them?’

Of course, they hadn’t been installed to protect his team. They had probably been set up hoping to take advantage of the situation.

Soon, the owner of the traps appeared.

It was Dimitri.

He stiffened slightly when he recognized David and gave him a brief nod.

“You made these traps, didn’t you?”

Dimitri shook his head.

“It wasn’t me. Kusto came up with the idea.”

“Kusto?”

That guy again?

Apparently thinking he had said all he needed to say, Dimitri fired an arrow and dealt with the monsters inside the traps. Then, together with the team members who arrived afterward, he picked up the game and disappeared.

“Aren’t those ours? Shouldn’t we go after them and get them back?”

The hunting-dog participant complained sulkily.

“They caught them, so they’re theirs. Let’s just hurry to the river and wash ourselves off.”

“But all the monsters we’ve caught so far…”

“It’s fine. We can catch them again.”

David comforted the hunting-dog participant as they headed toward the river.

 

***

 

Raphael was extremely flustered by the situation unfolding before him.

Kusto and Maurice had appeared with Kilman, who was bound tightly from head to toe.

“What took you so long…!”

Team leader Joan was about to angrily shout, but then he noticed the recording orb and lowered his voice.

“We were worried about you.”

Then he shamelessly changed his tune.

Maurice smiled.

“Kilman fell into a trap we set.”

“So you brought him here? We appreciate that, but why did you tie him up…?”

“You do know that when knights play a team match, you have to pay a price to take back a prisoner captured by the opposing team, right?”

“A prisoner…? A price?”

The team leader pretended not to know, despite clearly being aware of the rule.

Just then, Olivier Morty, a top student from the academy, pushed up his glasses and said,

“Abandon him.”

“!”

Everyone was stunned by the decisiveness of his answer.

Kusto shrugged.

“You’re really going to abandon your own teammate? We’re only asking for five boar monsters as payment.”

Only five?

The opposing team members, who had struggled desperately to catch those ferocious boar monsters, were horrified.

Five were more than half of the monsters they had caught so far.

“Olivier is right. Let’s abandon him.”

“He’s a hunting dog anyway. It’s not like it matters if we leave him behind…”

Team leader Joan and another hunting-dog participant agreed.

But Raphael frowned and stepped forward in opposition.

“This is a team match. Not a single member should be left behind.”

“But they’re asking for five boars.”

“Even if we had to give them all our boars, every member of the team should return safely. That’s the meaning of a team match.”

“But…”

“You wouldn’t abandon your comrades on the battlefield and leave them behind, would you?”

The team leader and the hunting dog fell silent.

Even Olivier, rendered speechless by Raphael’s unexpected charisma, nodded.

“Can’t be helped. Raphael has a point. Let’s buy back the prisoner.”

In the end, Kusto’s team successfully exchanged five boar monsters for Kilman.

 

***

 

“Time’s up! All teams, please come out of the barrier!”

Edith’s voice echoed throughout the forest.

The team members emerged from the barrier, each carrying the monsters they had hunted.

“Group 2 will probably have David’s team in first place, right?”

Mila said from the judges’ seats.

Amont nodded, sounding somewhat disappointed.

“I was hoping Dimitri’s team might give them a run for their money. What a shame. Since they drew rabbit bait scent…”

“If they used the rabbits they caught as bait, they could have caught more than expected, but there’s a limit to that as well.”

Ines gave a cool assessment.

Soon, attendants brought the judges the score sheets containing the combined scores of each team.

For most of the groups, the rankings turned out more or less as expected.

The teams that had received deer or boar bait scent took first place.

Most of the teams that had received rabbit bait scent came in last.

Even if there was an upset, fourth place was about the best they could hope for.

Amond resigned himself to the result and unfolded the score sheet for Group 2.

But an unexpected result appeared.

“What happened here?”

Mila exclaimed in surprise.

“Is this ranking even possible?”

“Princess, could we see the recording orb?”

At Amond’s request, Edith summoned one of the birds.

It was a fake bird with a recording orb attached to its eyes.

When the bird spat out the recording orb, footage of Dimitri’s team’s performance began playing on the surprisingly large orb.

“Wow, they really thought that through. They set traps around David’s team’s camp and used them to catch the deer…”

“They even exchanged prisoners. They really did everything they could.”

After watching all the footage from the other teams as well, they announced the results to the participants.

There were no surprises in Group 1.

Then it was time for Group 2.

Looking down at the five teams standing solemnly together, Edith read from the results sheet.

“First place.”

Nervous, Pavel tightly grabbed Denny and Kusto’s hands.

Drin quickly pulled his hand away.

“First place goes to David’s team!”

The strength drained from Pavel’s hand still holding Kusto’s.

He had apparently been hoping for a miracle.

“Don’t be disappointed. There’s still second place.”

Surprisingly, Denny comforted Pavel.

Pavel shook his head.

“The team that got the rabbit scent in Group 1 came in last too. Even if we do well, we’ll probably only get fourth.”

Pavel muttered in disappointment.

“First place, David’s team, hunted 12 deer monsters, 2 boar monsters, and 7 fox monsters, for a total of 169 points!”

“Waaaah!”

David’s team erupted in cheers.

First place in Group 1 had only been 81 points, so this was more than twice as high.

Kusto shook his head in disbelief.

Even after being thrown into a crisis by the attack of the deer monsters, they had still held firmly to first place.

David must have played a major role.

“Next is second place in Group 2.”

Edith paused as she looked over the results sheet.

Excited whispers came from the team that had drawn the boar scent and the team that had drawn the fox scent.

The other participants seemed to think one of those two teams would take second place.

Kusto had already given up hope and waited for Edith to announce the result.

“Second place goes to…!”