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Isekai Terry TOD: Chapter 25 – Meeting People You Don’t Want to Meet, Part 2
🕑 Added 2024-06-17 00:16:55 +0000 UTCTerry was eventually deposited in a room. It was a plain room with a small table and a chair. He eyed the window. It looked like it might be big enough for him to go through, but it wouldn’t be a fun time. He’d probably get cut up pretty badly on his way out since the window didn’t actually open. Plus, when he pulled back the curtain, he saw that it looked down on some kind of interior courtyard two floors down. Resigned that he was just going to have to meet what petty kingling had summoned him there, he leaned against a wall and tried to figure out the best way to get out of this disaster in one piece. He could play along, but that was a losing proposition. He knew nothing about courtly manners. Pretending was as likely to get him into trouble as keep him out of it. Either that, or he’d find himself committed to something without fully understanding what it was or what it meant.
The other option was to continue as he had begun. The stoic warrior and angry gunslinger thing was not the best choice for this situation. Even Terry knew that much. This whole situation had politics written all over it. While he might have been willing to play politics with that woman back at the guild, he wasn’t about to try that shit with professionals. These were nobles. People who had been born and raised on a diet of politics, status, and arrogance. He was, simply put, outclassed, and he knew it. The only real advantage to his brooding stoic routine was that he had laid the groundwork for it. If he continued to act like a man who hated talking and hated everyone who talked to him, no one would be surprised. Offended maybe, but not surprised since it would be consistent. He did remember hearing something about foolish consistency being the… Demon? Orc? Some kind of monster of narrow minds. Unfortunately, he couldn’t weigh the foolishness since he had so little to go on.
The opportunities to demonstrate that consistency started arriving after a half hour or so. First, there was some kind of servant who brought in a tea set. They gave him a wary look and poured some tea. Terry grunted an acknowledgment but didn’t even pick up the cup of tea. He didn’t plan to eat or drink anything that anyone tried to give him in this place. Not too long after that, what he assumed was another servant came in with an armful of clothes. The clothes looked ridiculous, formal, and deeply uncomfortable. The servant eyed him up and down.
“Well, sir, we need to get you changed for your—”
“No.”
“Sir, if you are to meet the baronet—”
“No.”
“It would be quite improper for you to meet the baronet dressed as some kind of peasant,” said the servant, getting haughty.
“I don’t care.”
“At least let me take away those ghastly weapons,” said the servant while taking a step toward Terry.
Terry drew the jian on his right hip and leveled it at the servant, who very nearly walked his own throat into the blade before jerking to a stop. The servant’s eyes were wide and sweat started to bead on the man’s forehead.
“No,” said Terry. “Now, get out.”
There was a much longer wait after that before a couple of brutish-looking men in some manner of uniform came into the room. They both wore the dull expressions of men who followed orders because thinking for themselves had proven too difficult a skill to master.
“Weapons. Now,” said one of the brutes.
Terry eyed the two men. When he’d first been dropped into this miserable world, he would have given in to these men without question or pause. They were exactly the kind of men who did terrible things to people and routinely got away with it back where he’d come from. Of course, that was then, and this was now. Terry didn’t think he’d get out of the fight without taking some hits, but pain just didn’t hold the same fear for him anymore. After all the fighting out in that damnable forest, and especially after the fight with the foliosaur, these two brutes just didn’t look scary. He shook his head at them in a pitying sort of way.
The first brute rushed him and actually managed to grab his arm. Terry wasn’t shocked, although maybe a tiny bit disappointed, that he couldn’t just wrench his arm free. That meant these idiots were strong. But that strength combined with their size made a small room a poor place for them to fight. Terry, on the other hand, was just as strong as they were, but he was smaller and agile. A swift punch to the first brute’s face jarred the man so badly that Terry succeeded in freeing his other arm. After that, the fight didn’t last very long. He could feel himself being guided by the other-knowledge. His blows landed in places that seemed to deliver outsized results. He had a vague feeling that he was targeting nerve clusters and pressure points, but that was just a vague intuition.
The fight ended when he landed a vicious kick on one of the brutes that sent the man and the door to the room crashing into the hallway. Angry now, Terry grabbed the limp form of the other brute and threw him into the hallway. He stormed out of the room and glared around at several frightened looking guards who had swords and spears pointed at him.
“Try to take my weapons again, you die,” he said.
Directing one last glare around at the men, he walked back into the now doorless room. He righted the chair and sat down in it. Grumbling under his breath, he took out a waterskin and drank a bit of water. He found an apple in his pack and ate it while directing baleful looks at the empty doorway. There was another long wait before the man who had fetched him from the gate walked into view. The man looked at the splintered remains of the door and shook his head. Then, he stepped into the room.
“My name is Gilvane,” said the man.
Terry just looked at him from beneath the rice hat he’d put back on after the fight. Gilvane waited for a few beats, clearly expecting Terry to introduce himself. When it became painfully obvious Terry had no intention of playing ball, the man continued.
“We cannot let you meet the baronet armed.”
“Then, let me go.”
A pained look crossed Gilvane’s face when he said, “Ah, yes, that. I’m afraid we can’t do that either. The baronet was quite insistent.”
Terry said nothing. He said it loudly.
“There are rules,” tried Gilvane.
“So?”
“You really aren’t going to make this easy on me, are you?”
“Like you did for me at the gate?”
Gilvane winced, and Terry felt a tiny smidgen of sympathy for the man. Not enough to do a single thing to make the man’s life easier, but he felt it. It was clear that Gilvane knew he was on the wrong side of this and didn’t like the position he’d been put in. At the same time, he’d been given orders and meant to carry them out as well as he could. It was quite the pickle since Terry didn’t plan to give so much as a millimeter on this whole weapons issue.
“I don’t want to take them by force,” said Gilvane.
Terry gave the man a bland look. He didn’t know if Gilvane could back up that threat, but Terry wasn’t going to let the man think it had worked. Indifference had been getting him by so far, so he went with that.
“If an armed adventurer scares the coward, he shouldn’t have had me brought here,” said Terry.
Gilvane’s face twisted with anger, and he reached for his sword. Terry was faster. Before Gilvane’s sword was halfway unsheathed, Terry’s jian was pressed against the side of the man’s neck. They stood there frozen like that for five seconds before Gilvane released his grasp on the hilt in his hand. Gravity dragged the weapon down into place. Terry took a step back.
“I tire of this. Take me to him,” ordered Terry.
“There is a dinner being prepared,” said Gilvane in a tight voice. “The guests haven’t all arrived yet.”
He means some kind of stupid noble party, thought Terry. Nothing good ever happens at parties. Feeling that he’d played along with this farce for more than long enough, Terry simply walked past Gilvane and into the hall.
“Which way to the entrance?” he demanded as he pointed his jian at one of the guards.
The man looked so frightened that Terry thought the guy was going to pass out.
“Never mind,” muttered Terry. “I’ll find it myself.”
