I Was Reborn as a Daddy in Another World

Prologue - Part 3

"Kat, are you absolutely sure about this?"

The concern in Val's voice glanced off Katya like a blunted arrowhead off a fortress wall. She was locked on to the back of the tall, blonde man stretching out the muscles of his shoulders across the training ground. Katya stood against one of the thin pillars that lined the area, twirling the gold coin her brother had presented between her fingers.

"Oh, I'm sure," came Katya's response.

The challenge had been both given and accepted in a few heartbeats, but the opponents were given ample time to prepare as the field was staged for combat. Two servants, part of the interloper's retinue, lit the ancient crystal lamps scattered around the field as another three ran stiff brooms over the hard-packed earth between the two groups, kicking up dust. Only half of the lamps would still ignite, but it looked as if the combined light of those that worked would be enough.

A smattering of laughter came from Katya's relatives.

"Your brother's quite tall," Val ventured, "How old is he?"

"Ralt's ten years older than me," Katya replied, "My oldest brother, and second oldest sibling."

"Can he fight?"

"Oh yeah, he can fight."

Ralt drew the curved sabres from their scabbards on his waist and swung them left and right, rolling the blades elegantly as he continued his warm up. Val couldn't help but notice the similarities in the way he handled the blades to the grace with which Katya swung her own enormous greatsword. But it was, Val realised with no small anxiety, a much more refined elegance, a level of effortlessness and skill that made Katya seem like a child swinging a tree branch by comparison, even as he ran through the most basic series of movements.

Val looked back at Katya, but she clearly did not share his concerns. She had the same hungry look of battle lust that Val had been accustomed to seeing in the moments before she would cut through some group of hapless monsters in the Labyrinth below.

"What level is he?" Val asked.

"No idea," Katya answered, "But he's been adventuring with the Swallowtails since he left the academy, so I can't imagine it's low."

"Honestly Kat," Val said, "I... I'm not sure this is such a great idea. I mean, I have so many questions."

One of the servant's hollered to Ralt, who acknowledged the call with a brief nod. All the lamps fit to be lit were now blazing feebly and a rough circle, about five metres across, had been carved into the dusty training ground. Ralt moved away from the rest of the group and approached the circle.

"You've got time for one," Katya replied.

"Can you just explain to me why you have to fight your brother?" Val asked.

Katya offered Val the thick gold coin and, almost out of reflex, he took it from her.

"Because I'm not going to let him take this from me," she said simply, then before he could ask anything further, turned and hefted her sword, swinging it left and right across her body and walked toward the circle.

Val watched her move away. He noticed that the rest of the group, the ones Katya greeted as her cousins, had hung back, so he did the same.

As Ralt and Katya reached the circle and stepped inside, one of the cousins, a short woman in a set of grey robes that marked her as a clerk-arbiter of the gilt council, stepped forward from the others.

"A challenge has been made!" she boomed, in a voice much larger than her slight frame belied, "A price has been offered for the ownership of the Patrician's guild by the first son of the Knetsov family, claiming right of inheritance over all guild properties, members and council voting representation."