Chapter 300 - Bluff
Chapter 300 - Bluff
"You are the king of the kingdom?" Jenkins asked. He could not believe that a king would go to such lengths. But soon after, Jenkins dryly laughed as he realized something.
"Ha. I see. So you're the kind of king who's willing to die for your people."
Meanwhile, hearing those words from Jenkins' mouth, Tristan only laughed internally. The enemy was helping him make his lie much more believable.
"I am already here, King of Arcadia. Now tell me, what do you plan on doing now?"
Now that the highest-ranking person in the ship, the captain, was here, Tristan quickly moved to execute his first plan.
[Blood Seal].
Unfortunately, immediately after Tristan tried to use it on him, he was met with unpleasant news.
[Unable to comply.]
[Target is beyond current capabilities.]
Tristan reflexively clicked his tongue when he saw that his spell failed. "Damn… that's a shame," he unconsciously muttered under his breath.
He was hoping that the captain would be one of those pencil pushers who had a high rank but low capabilities. Unfortunately, to be able to resist his stage 3 [Blood Seal], this man was at least as strong as Janus, if not stronger.
Seeing Tristan inaudibly muttering after saying absolutely nothing for a while, Captain Jenkins asked with suspicion, "What are you trying to do? Are you perhaps trying to mind-control me as you did to Captain Siegfried?"
Tristan did not expect that Jenkins would know about this ability of his, much less mention it. He slightly flinched in surprise, and it was quickly caught by Jenkins. That fleeting second gave Jenkins the answer he needed.
"I see. It appears that you really do have the ability to control minds. I assume that you failed to use that ability on me. Well then, surrendering now would be a good idea, don't you think?"
Jenkins was confident that he had the upper hand. However, Tristan's next move surprised him. Of course, with the impression he previously got from Tristan, Jenkins did not expect him to immediately surrender without a fight. Even so, he did not expect that Tristan would laugh out loud at the mercy he showed them.
"Hahaha! Captain, I didn't expect you to have such a sense of humor. Now that you're here, I can make sure that more of you will die here with this blast. Captain, isn't it you who's supposed to surrender?"
Tristan's voice was clearly filled with confidence and mockery.
While it was true that Tristan was willing to use that alternative if he really had to, he was only bluffing to see how they would react in the situation.
Despite his words, the captain remained calm. Without haste, he said to the device in his hand:
"Open hatch A-19."
Right after Jenkins uttered those words, Tristan was startled to see the big steel wall behind him slowly open up. Behind it, he could see a huge pane of glass. Curious, Tristan carefully walked closer to the glass, and with a closer look, he noticed that the cruiser ship was already hovering on top of the Arcadian capital of Prontera.
Captain Jenkin replied with a smirk, "I'm disappointed you thought so low of me. I already instructed the pilot to make sure we'll crash toward your city if anything happens to the ship. I wonder, how many casualties will there be if you blow up the power engine?"
Tristan was stunned for a second. He did not expect that the captain would not think of his own life. At the same time, the captain's confident smile amused him.
"Are you serious, Captain? Are you willing to go down in flames together?" Although the captain seemed confident, Tristan was still unconvinced.
Unfazed, Jenkins simply answered, "You're from a lower realm, so you probably don't know this, but if my ship is here, it means the full force of the Empire is already behind me. We don't mind being the first to die, we live and die for the emperor!"
The captain's eyes had no trace of hesitation whatsoever. Instead, Tristan felt that he was actually determined to bring them all down with him. At this point, Tristan was convinced that if the situation forced him to, the captain would not hesitate to drag them down in flames.
"Very good, Captain! I'm impressed!"
It appeared that Tristan could not bluff anymore. In all honesty, Tristan did not care much about the Arcadians who would die from the crash. Rather, he believed that crashing the cruiser ship onto the city would be more beneficial for him. Just like what he did in Caerleon, people overcome by fear were much easier to handle. Fortunately for them, Tristan never planned to blow up the ship.
Seeing the large pane of glass, however, gave Tristan a new idea. He walked closer toward the glass pane and away from the powerful engine before casually asking,
"How strong is this glass?"
Captain Jenkins immediately shook his head in response. He could not understand where Tristan was going with this, and he did not like the feeling. "What are you trying to do!? There is no place to run! No matter where you go, we will hunt you down!"
As if not understanding where the captain was coming from, Tristan turned around and explained, "No, no! You've misunderstood me, Captain, I'm not trying to run! I was just wondering, is the glass strong enough to bear a bird's crash?"
Jenkins was even more confused by his question. "Are you crazy, elf!? What are you talking about!?"
"Haha, of course not, Captain," he brushed off the captain's remark about his sanity. Turning around, he pointed toward the sky and asked, "You see that? If it crashes here, will the glass break?"
Seeing that it was actually such a mundane topic, the captain became bored with the weird talk. This elf must have something wrong with his head, he thought. He still could not understand why the major wished to speak to such an elf so much, and it baffled him.
'Does this elf really think a bird would be able to break the glass?'
But before he could ridicule Tristan, he realized that something was actually flying toward the glass at a fast speed. However, it was not a bird.
It was a red flying creature.
"Dragon!!"
Craaaackk!!!
The glass pane was quickly broken by the red dragon with silver back; it was Narra, who came here following Tristan's summon.
As soon as the glass broke, the ship violently shook. Right after, they could feel a strong wind and themselves being vacuumed outward, causing many of the space knights to lose their balance and fall.
Tristan, however, simply glared at the captain and said, "It's too late to surrender now, Captain."
[Blood Legacy]