Ten Copper Coins
The towering palace walls shut out the bustle of the Royal Capital. At noon the next day, Himmel's party was summoned to the royal audience hall. The mirror-smooth marble floor reflected the murals on the dome, solemn-faced courtiers stood on either side, and the air hung heavy with incense and power. Frieren and Lowell, as "companions," had been seated off to one side near a massive pillar, like spectators watching a stage.
On the throne, a king with a flowing white beard and a golden crown studied the young people below him with eyes that were somewhat cloudy but still sharp.
"...The defeat of the Demon King concerns the safety of the continent, and your courage is commendable." The king spoke in the drawn-out cadence peculiar to the court. "The royal family has decided to support you with ten copper coins for your journey."
He motioned for an attendant to present a small money pouch to Himmel. Pathetically flat, it lay on the attendant's velvet-lined silver tray.
The hall fell silent, with only tendrils of incense smoke drifting upward. The courtiers kept their eyes lowered, as though the reward were perfectly reasonable.
The Shield Hero, huh, Lowell thought.
Himmel looked at the ten copper coins, a flicker of surprise crossing his handsome face before giving way to an expression of exasperation and amusement. Rather than offer thanks or anything of the sort as an ordinary person might, he straightened slightly, his short blue hair especially conspicuous in the light streaming through the stained-glass windows. A faintly self-deprecating smile curved his lips, and he spoke clearly, even with a touch of his characteristic ease, as though stating an obvious fact:
"Your Majesty," he said, tossing his hair, "sending us to challenge the Demon King with just ten copper coins to 'see us on our way' sounds..." He paused, seemingly searching for the right words, before settling on them. "More like a joke that isn't very funny."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the air in the audience hall seemed to freeze. The courtiers' sharp intakes of breath were faintly audible, and one nearly dropped the writing board in his hands. The wrinkles on the king's face seemed to deepen in an instant, and his fingers tightened slightly around his scepter. In the eyes of the strictly hierarchical royal court, this was no longer an honest objection, but an almost contemptuous provocation—an insinuation that the king was stingy, or that he regarded a mission on which the world's survival depended as child's play.
In the midst of that deathly silence, a flat voice sounded bluntly, stating a simple fact. It was Eisen. Arms folded, the dwarf warrior wore no expression on his bronze face as he offered an objective assessment:
"Ah, true. That would probably only buy a few days' rations for the road, and the cheapest kind at that."
That unvarnished agreement was the last straw. The king's beard trembled slightly. He was silent for a few seconds, then glanced at the captain of the guard beside him and gave the slightest nod.
"Clatter!"
Armor suddenly clattered! A squad of axemen who had long been standing by rushed in through a side door, their gleaming axe blades flashing coldly in the light. They surrounded Himmel, Eisen, and the innocent Heiter in an instant and roughly seized them to drag them away. It all happened so fast that even Ruby froze for a moment.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" Ruby finally reacted, jumping to her feet like a kitten whose tail had been stepped on, her red curls practically standing on end. She pointed at the king on the throne, her face red with anger, no longer caring about etiquette. "You rotten old man! This is too much! Are you giving ten copper coins to beggars? Himmel only told the truth, and you're going to chop their heads off?!"
Heiter looked entirely innocent as two burly guards held him by the arms. He didn't struggle much, only pulling a miserable face as he looked at the shiny axes, then at the king, and tried to smooth things over in his usual slick way. "Uh... well... Your Majesty, why get angry? How about... I lick your shoes to show how sorry I am?" It sounded absurd, but his expression was unusually serious, as though he really were proposing a workable solution.
Yet the king seemed to have little reaction to Ruby's even more "treasonous" words. His gaze fell on the bristling Ruby, and a barely perceptible shrewdness flashed in his cloudy eyes. His tone even softened a little.
"Ruby," he said, addressing her by name, "has your father, Duke Grendel, been well lately?"
Ruby turned her face away with a huff. "How should I know? What do I care how that old stick-in-the-mud is doing?"
The king smiled, the way an elder might at a sulking child, but his words left no room for doubt. "I can let them go... but you must promise me you'll go back and see him. After all, you're his only heir. What kind of behavior is it to stay away all the time?"
"I won't..." Ruby instinctively started to refuse, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Himmel and the others being shoved almost out of the hall, a sharp axe blade nearly touching Eisen's neck. She stamped her foot anxiously, her little fists clenched tight.
The king calmly raised a hand as if to give an order. "Guards, behead—"
"Hey, hey, hey! Stop!" Ruby cried hastily, like a small animal backed into a corner. "I'll go! I'll go, all right?! But I'm only taking one look! Just one! Once I've seen him, I'm leaving!" She shouted as though to emphasize her reluctance, but anyone could hear the compromise in her words.
The king lowered his hand in satisfaction, and the axemen stopped, though they kept their prisoners restrained. Himmel looked at Ruby helplessly. Heiter breathed a sigh of relief and murmured a blessing from the Goddess. Eisen remained expressionless, as though he hadn't just come close to losing his head.
Off to the side, Frieren and Lowell quietly watched the farce.
Frieren had produced a piece of Star Candy wrapped in clear cellophane from somewhere and was carefully unwrapping it. The "guillotine crisis" unfolding in front of her seemed less important to her than whether the candy would stick to its wrapper. Only after she had successfully put it in her mouth did she raise her green eyes, glance toward the throne, and offer a flat assessment:
"Human politics is such a hassle." Her tone gave no indication whether it was distaste or a simple statement.
Lowell leaned against the pillar in a relaxed pose. Hearing her, he chuckled softly, his gaze passing over the young people forced to compromise before returning to Frieren. His tone held its usual languor and a hint of insight.
"Yeah. Forcing a little girl to go home like this... tsk."
His gaze finally settled on Ruby's back, still stubbornly straight despite her compromise. He shook his head slightly, as though he had seen something both amusing and exasperating.
Having secured the promise he wanted, the king waved his hand, and the axemen withdrew like a receding tide. The atmosphere in the hall remained strange, but at least the gleaming axe blades were gone for the moment. Even so, the road to the Demon King's Castle had, at its very beginning, been tinged with the subtle colors of a struggle for power. And Ruby's little face was full of frustration at being "forced to go home" and intense resentment toward a certain "rotten old man."