Just as the king asked the top three to come, he felt one of his wives staring at him, it was the mother of the twin princess, who sent him a message directly to his ears, through mana vibrations.
‘Your sons did their best too, they brought beasts to be counted and you are ignoring them, I’ll tell my dad you are showing too much favoritism to the Malleus kid and they don’t support you like my family!’.
Norma’s voice was outraged, she saw from the back the slightly stiff expressions her sons put when their father, first called the crowned prince, they respected Terry like everyone, but they still did their best, even when they were attacked by some low-life pirates and Skelefiends, which forced them to kill all of them but the points weren’t counted.
So, they were proud of their scores which were already in the top ten, without counting the magic beasts they captured working together.
Triten inwardly cursed as he thought.
‘You fool, do you think Vincent and Aurora can’t hear you, they are maximum ranked Stellar ranks… whatever if it makes her happy, right now I’m not in the mood to fight’.
“Ryan, Bryan, what are you waiting, the others in the top ten had already showed what they got, only you two are left besides the top three”, said the king with a knowing gaze.
The twin princes nodded at their father and then stood from their seats before they walked to the front stage, their beasts were all dead as they couldn’t keep them restrained and protect themselves from the pirates at the same time.
Two small sized mountains of corpses appeared in front of the judged, with a nod, the subordinate of Vincent inspected them all, some had no mark left but others did, so he manually did the calculations and then added them to the score plate.
“Not bad, you two improved quite a bit”, said the king, the twin princes jumped from the eight and nine ranks, to the five and six, just one rank below the previous top three if it wasn’t for the appearances of those girls who turned out to be black horses in the beast hunt.
The whole place fell in silence for a moment as the three favorites walked to the stage, all at the same time, at the right the young spear of the neo nobles.
“Go Lance, show those traditional idiots who’s the boss”.
“Hooooh!”.
Of course the madman Dominic didn’t even doubt to wildly yell his support and his subordinates followed him.
The full blue armored guy, took his helmet off, it was the first time Daimon saw the so claimed “young spear” real appearance, it was a slim guy with metallic blue hair.
‘Now that is a combination you don’t see every day’, thought Daimon as he caught a glimpse of the mana floating around Lance, he already learned that not even Stellar ranks could notice when he didn’t specifically looked at the bodies of others with is infinity eyes.
The young spear, had blue and silver colored mana surrounding him, in other words he was a rare dual elemental mage, having both water and metal affinities, that explained why he was considered quite talented, not to mention Daimon could tell the guy has gone through some intense training, his posture said it all, someone who hasn’t clashed sword with stronger people, wouldn’t have such firm steps.
The young spear tapped his spear on the ground and a big mountain of corpses appeared in front of him, at the same time one of the many neo nobles brought ten restrained magic beasts who were quite beaten up but alive.
“This is all, Lord Trident Marshal, please”, said Lance as he made a military salute.
Vincent nodded and his subordinate counted all the death corpses first, the spectators were pretty shocked, he was still a few thousands of points apart from the current first ranked which was Tessa’s team.
Then when the live magic beasts were counted, he soon surpassed them and when the subordinate reached the last ones, he realized it was different… they both were red starred magic beasts.
“Early-stage middle Mortal level, as expected of the young spear!”, exclaimed Vincent’s subordinate.
Lance was only a middle stage Lord ranked and yet he captured two early-stage Arch ranked magic beast, it is indeed worthy of praise as capturing a wild beast is harder than killing it, it requires not only strength but strategy, unless your realm fairly surpasses the other party’s.
“Lance Varsi, 110,000 points”, declared Vincent’s subordinate, which earned him claps from the crowd, the previous first ranked which was Tessa had 100,000 points, that Arch ranked magic beast did quite the difference, adding about 5,000 points, it was fair though, not only it was a major realm stronger than him, but it was brought back alive.
‘Hoh, maybe I should have imprisoned those Bottom Shredders, instead of killing them’, thought Daimon but ultimately he shrugged, he didn’t go through all the hassle of framing Adam to take the blame, just to blow his cover to show off, besides he had more than what he needed in storage.
Vincent’s subordinates took the beasts away and Lance did a reverence before leaving, now it was the turn of the son of the Blackfin Duke, judging by his serious expression he wasn’t sure of his victory, but he still did what he was supposed to and took out a mountain of corpses, before he snapped his fingers and one of his father’s subordinates brought also about ten alive magic beasts, they were bigger than the ones Lance captured, but as the count reached the ninth, everyone noticed that he apparently only captured one red starred magic beast instead of two.
Once Vincent’s subordinate finished counting he announced the result in a loud voice.
“Ezequiel Blackfin, 107,500 points”.
Upon hearing the results, Ezequiel gritted his teeth feeling enraged.
‘Fucking stupid pirates getting in my way!’, he screamed in his mind, with this he was sure to get the third rank, because in his mind there is no way the crowned prince will have less points that Lance, still he contained his anger and left, not without making a sharp comment.
“I hope that Lord Trident Marshal gets to the end of this, those pirates were really annoying to deal with, it forced me to kill one of my red starred trophies”.
Everyone understood Ezequiel was putting the blame on the pirates about him, not getting enough points to surpass Lance, but on the other hand, they always were getting tied in fights, so that was probably why he lost for a noticeable amount.
‘Oh, so that’s why my points are so low as of right now’, thought Daimon, apparently even if red starred, if they were killed they only gave him about 2500 points, though he killed about four or five Arch ranked magic beasts, and a lot of Lord ranked ones, his points only reached about 60,000, but it was understandable he killed more Skelefiends and pirates than magic beasts, and they weren’t counted.
Finally it was the time for truth for the whole event, the crowned prince was the last one on the stage, he still had that gentle smiling expression which earned him the hearts of a lot of the female nobles, not to mention the support of the king himself.
He placed his hand on his chest and made a noble salute, as he took out a large mountain of corpses from his magic ring, but that’s not what caught everyone’s attention, but the fact that he brought fifteen alive magic beasts, instead of ten like Lance and Ezequiel.
“Ezequiel is right royal father, the Skelefiends and pirates did a play on us, I was lucky to keep more of my trophies than them, so please help me count them”.
The king was smiling from ear to ear as he ordered Vincent’s subordinate to count the points, the guy did as he was told and the crowned prince’s score skyrocketed all of a sudden.
For the first time one of the participants reached the first rank just with the corpses, and there were still the live beasts to count, the first twelve were all just peak Lord ranked which gave him each 150 points, nothing too special through just with that he got the first rank, but when Vincent’s subordinate reached the last three his eyes widened a bit… all of them were red starred.𝒩𝑜𝗏𝑳xt.𝒸𝐎𝑚
“Crowned prince Terry Malleus… 142,000 points!”.
“Woah!”.
As expected, the crowd went crazy, the difference between the second and third ranks was of a whole 30,000 and even without them, he would have still gotten the first rank, he was without a doubt the one to whom all the younger generation in the Clear Water kingdom looked up to.
The king was all smiles right now, he ordered the staff to take the beasts away but he asked his son stay behind, he planned to declare him the winner right on the spot, but as he was about to speak, he saw someone approaching from the participants seats and frowned.
It was that same silver haired youth who didn’t give him any face earlier, not only he refused to hand over a treasure won in a battlefield of his kingdom, but he even dared to seat on a throne in front of him, the king, though it seemed to have helped Daphne, which made the Valas Duchess to not declare war at him on the spot, he left a pretty bad first impression, which was being reinforced again, since he wasn’t even in the top ten.
Still, he had to be magnanimous as the king and be the model for the young generation, so he cleared his throat before saying.
“Ahem, little friend, only the top ten gets to be recognized, I don’t want to sound strict, but we don’t want to lose time since some of us have to discuss major things, regarding what happened earlier”, the king tried to be tactful, but to be honest his voice was loaded with disdain.
Which made Daimon decide to give him a little lesson.
‘I wasn’t going to do it, but since when have I not retaliated when someone insulted me’, he thought as he shrugged.
“I agree with the king, unfortunately since there were too many people coming to the stage, I had no choice but to wait”.
“Oh, and why is that?”, asked Vincent, he still was waiting to see if his suppositions were right, or of his instincts finally failed him for the first time in his life.
“Because they were in the way, it’s going to get pretty crowded in a moment after all”, said Daimon as he waved his hand.
“W-What the hell!”, shouted the subordinate in charge of counting the manual points, a series of three mountains of corpses appeared on the stage, occupying it all, even some of the seats were pushed backwards.
Of course, the nobles went crazy and stated gossiping between each other, while the girls chuckled.
“He’s got that smirk on his face… someone is about to suffer”, mumbled the Risha sisters, while Aisha limited to giggle.
Annete turned to see her younger sister just to see Mellie softly laughing, even the first princess known for being stern and calm had a little smile forming on the corner of her mouth, the same for Jasmine, the normally energetic princess of the Elemental Sea was acting rather serious until a moment ago, when she looked at Daimon.
‘How interesting, I wonder what in the name of the four seas happened… I guess we’ll have a little “talk”, child of the promise~’, thought the queen.
The queen was also surprised to see the Black Empress who has been yawning since the counting started, showing some interest into it, her eyes whose pupils were like those of a snake, slightly opened and her previous gentle aura vanished changing into a threatening one.
“I have to admit it, old snake you have some good eyes attached to your head, what I shame this Empress couldn’t participate on the bets earlier, it would have been a killing”, said Thea as she let her face rest on her hand, with a feigned sad expression.
The nobles who were sweating seeing Daimon’s score going up and up, finally showed some calmness when the count stopped at 105,000, it was still amazing, this silver haired youth was the biggest black horse of this time, but he was short for a few thousands to enter the top three.
The king inwardly let out a sigh of relief and then offered a smile at Daimon.
“Incredible, you nearly doubled your original score, maybe the next year you’ll get to ented the top three, very well done”.
Daimon smirked in response as he shook his head.
“One shouldn’t count chicks before they hatch”, he said.
At the participants area the alfear and dwarf princesses were eating when Femi noticed her friend had a strange expression on her face.
“Tess, what’s with the big face, he didn’t win us for that much”, said Femi who was munching on a piece of meat,
The alfear princess shook her head and then in a rare occasion she took a small plate with a dessert.
“You were worried about your precious shield back then, but I did see that guy’s smile when he captured all of us, the same when he clashed with Adam and Marcus or when he forced the two envoys to do what he ordered… every time he does that, something outrageous is about to happen”, she said as she nibbled on a piece of the cake in her plate.
“Oh really, well certainly he still won us without any sign of trouble, whatever as long as those idiots don’t get to be in the top three it’s fine by me”, said the dwarf princess as she bit her meat and accidentally munched on the fork too.
“Ah damn it”, she lowly cursed, but then she saw her friend sighing.
“See I told you”.
Femi’s eyes glowed as she mumbled.
“Uwahh, are you serious”.
A sepulchral silence fell on the whole area as a blue “globe” descended from the sky, it was a sphere of water which contained around one hundred magic beasts all pretty beaten up but alive, but the number isn’t what caught their attention, but the fact that they could recognize them even from afar… and all of them were Arch ranked magic beasts.