21 Leaders

"What's the matter, Agios?" asked Vlasfimia, staring down at his fallen brother, currently suffering from immense pain.

"T-That's low Vlas!" he responded with certain difficulty.

"Indeed, that's a low strike, why mention it?" asked Vlas as Agios struggled getting up to his feet.

"Shut up, you know what I mean" said Agios back before getting slapped in the face.

"Come on, I heard you're part of a knight establishment, show me what you can do or are the noble knights just a bunch of pansies?" Vlas taunted him.

Agios decided to reciprocate by throwing a punch right in Vlasfimia's face or rather his mask, not resulting in anything except for his hand to hurt.

"Holy shit, how hard is that mask, I think my thumb's broken" spoke Agios.

"That's because you're not punching correctly, your thumb is supposed to outside of the fist, dumbass, what do thay teach you at knight academy or whatever?" remarked Vlas, appaled by his brother's lack of knowledge.

"What do you mean?" asked Agios.

"Look, the thumb is supposed to be right here, the way you did it is the best way to break your own thumb" Vlas showed how it was done before demonstrating the effects it by punching his brother in the jaw.

After some more time, it was clear that in term of hand to hand combat, Agios was no match for his brother and he was soon forced to give up.

"You doing alright down there?" asked Vlas.

"Shut up" simply responded Agios, his voice muffled as he was face first on the ground.

"You got your duel, so we're fine now, right?" he then questionned.

"..."

"Great! Now that you're done with this, go get some bitches, you need it" advised Vlas before walking away back to the dungeon.

Agios who was still face down on the soft soil raised his head with a displeased look on his face, he had just been trashed in the middle of the street as a duel and as the rules of duels in Marianna islands stated, one couldn't provoke the same person twice and since Agios was too attached to his honor, there was nothing he could do anymore.

"And I don't need any bitches! I only need true love, I am a goddamn knight! A real knight not a romance novel knight!" he shouted at Vlas in the distance, making sure to use his wind magic to carry his voice onlly to him and avoid disturbing the people.

Standing up and removing the obscene amount of dust that had gotten on him, Agios looked at the building Vlas had come from and saw a man dressed in a very gentleman way.

"Thee did get fuck'd up" said the man before also walking away.

"What?" spoke Agios out loud.

"How long as this guy been there?" he then wondered.

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Now that this had been taken care of without much issue, Vlas was going to prepare for the meeting to sell the monsters, it had been faster than expected, Agios was as much of an idiot as he used to be, a surprise to be sure and a worrying one for Vlas, as his big brother he worried of how he would fare when he was that much of a moron.

Vlas shook his head in exasperation has he kicked a goblin into a wall, taking care of his brother hadn't been into his plans, he didn't actually have to but he was so pathetic it was painful to watch.

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Far away from all of this, in a nicely decorated office, a woman with thick brows was staring at papers as if they had murdered her entire family three times over, these were but tax papers and this look had never changed since the first time she had laid her eyes on the numbers.

"Fuck this bullshit" she muttered under her breath.

"Edwund! Come over here!" she yelled out and some time later a man wearing a similar armor to hers showed up in the office.

"Is something the matter miss Kolmin?" he asked, knowing very well what was the matter.

"Take my place, I can't deal with these anymore" she said pointing at the papers like they were actual living beings.

"But leader, these papers require your own signature" he said.

"Just imitate it like always" she responded raising her eyebrows as she did so.

"Oh and you'll be coming with me to the meeting alonside Ilignol" she suddenly added before leaving her own office like she was thief.

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In yet another office, another woman with antennas on her head was in the process of filling the same kind of documents but as she was doing so, she suddenly stopped and started looking around as if she had lost something.

'Where did it go?' she wondered, she was certain that her pencil had been here a moment ago.

Upon realising that it was still in her hand a few moments later, she shook her head and finished filling in the documents and started doing something else.

In a week, the meeting for the various clans of adventurers would take place and as it was custom to do so, she would need to choose one of her members to take with her.

As she was thinking about it, she found herself thinking about something else, the fact that Duaparc would be participating this time, she had heard of it and wasn't sure what to think of it, Duaparc herself was fine but her clan was pretty much a criminal organisation.

Remembering what she was originally thinking about, the woman rubbed one of her antennas in wonder and decided on someone, it would certainly serve as a learning experience for that person.

She grabbed the pile of documents and exited her office.

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Meanwhile, in a third office that looked like the furnitures had not been replaced for centuries, a man with an enormous beard was doing exactly the same thing as the previous two, it seemed like taxes were always on time everywhere.

"Mmmh, is that new?" he muttered to himself as he looked upon a certain part of a document.

"Yep, that's it, they added a tax based on the artefacts owned, what a bunch of rats" he spoke out loud, petting a cat that was resting into his beard.

"We'll need to talk about it" he once again spoke out loud, it seemed like this man always spoke by himself.