Slav fell to the ground, and Loki took the opportunity to kick him while he was down. His foot smashed ineffectively against Slav as the brunt of the blow was blocked by the golden shield. His kick couldn’t harm Slav and only caused the young master to roll over harmlessly.
Loki continued to hit Slav, but every single attack failed to do damage. This caused him to be frustrated, while Slav became calmer and calmer.
After escaping from danger time and time again, Slav’s fear receded, and he stopped being frightened and flustered. He began to trust the Money Armor again, so he decided to prioritize his long-term offensive potential instead of his short-term one, as he had done earlier.
He stopped trying to stop Loki from getting close to him, and he stopped throwing grenades made of energy stones at Loki. What he decided to do was to deactivate the extra Throwing Money Metac, curl up into a ball, and take his time to sacrifice all of the money in his possession to create one big attack that would surely blow Loki away.
With his mind made up, he stopped worrying about what Loki was doing. To him, Loki has become a toothless dog. Loki is all bark and no bite now. No amount of Loki’s fearsome posturing can do anything to him, so he became confident in his victory.
He was thinking about this when he felt himself fall from a great height. Then he noticed that Loki had stopped attacking him.
This made him look around, wondering why Loki had stopped attacking him. What he saw was that he was outside the arena while Loki was still within the arena and was looking down at him.
Then he heard Loki say, "You’re out of bounds. I win."
If Loki hadn’t mentioned it, it would have taken him a long time to realize that he had lost the fight because the bounds of the area never crossed his mind during and after the fight.
It is not that he doesn’t know what being out of bounds means in the fight, and it is not that he didn’t know where the edge of the arena was. He was aware of all of these things. They just never crossed his mind in the thick of battle.
After all, this would be his first serious fight in his whole life. So it is normal that he never prioritized staying within the bounds of the arena while being kicked around by his opponent.
Of course, this kind of defeat was unsatisfactory to Slav. He was unreconciled because he lost due to a technicality.
So he shook his head and said, "Doesn’t count. You couldn’t do anything to me. How could I have lost?"
Before Slav could say more and before Loki could make fun of Slav, Skarg interjected from his position in the stands, saying, "That’s enough. You lost fair and square. Let’s put an end to this. I have places to be."
Loki had to swallow the words he had planned, but Bloodhound had no such qualms. The disgruntled swordsman chuckled and said, "Hiding like a turtle in a shell doesn’t mean that you deserve to win, young man. Money isn’t everything. A cultivator needs brains too, or their money will go to waste."
The zombie also said, "Maybe Bloodhound was wrong. Maybe you didn’t inherit your father’s wisdom as he said."
Another leader said, "I still think Skarg is very good at raising slaves. If he were not so good at training his slaves, how else would his family’s slave defeat his son? Or could it be that this Slav boy isn’t truly his son?"
More and more leaders also joined in making fun of Slav and Skarg. The father and son duo bore the mockery with incredible composure and left the arena without bothering to retort.
Skarg truly didn’t care about their words. He wasn’t pretending to be calm. But their words actually got to Slav.
The defeat to Loki was a defeat that he had been afraid of for a while, ever since the competition was announced. Now that his worst fear had come to pass, and he had lost to a slave, he felt ashamed from the bottom of his heart.
As if his innate shame wasn’t bad enough, the other leaders had to pile on him and mock him with everything possible. Their mockery was especially worse when there was an inkling of truth within it. This is why that comment about him being a turtle got to him so much.
Since he didn’t want to dwell on the mockery, he began to review the fight in his mind to see how he lost. He was smart, so he realized some of the mistakes that he had made.
When he remembered that he had given up on the Money Speaks Metac only to later do what he should have done with the Money Speaks Metac with the Throwing Metac, he slapped his forehead and said, "How could I have made such a foolish mistake?"
His father replied, "Because you’re inexperienced."
His father’s words quickly brought him out of his thoughts. He looked up and realized that everyone had stopped and was looking at him. He also saw that his siblings were smiling or chuckling at him, while his father was staring intensely at him.
His father’s intense stare made him hurriedly say, "I’m sorry for the loss, Father."
Skarg shook his head and went forward to ruffle Slav’s hair with his hand. So even though he wasn’t smiling like his siblings, Slav was able to understand that his father didn’t take the loss seriously.
Skarg said, "You tried your best, and that’s all that matters. The fact that you are thinking about what you did wrong and have noticed your mistakes is even better."
Skarg began walking again, so they resumed their journey. As he walked, he said to Slav, "Don’t let their words get to you. Anyone can say anything. It doesn’t mean their words are true. Actually, the fact that they can say whatever they want means that words aren’t inherently valuable."