Continuing to lean against the trunk of the large oak tree, I looked down into the forest from which we had needed to walk through to get here.
A lukewarm breeze blew my hair to the side, the fallen green leaves on the ground being blown into the air as well.
“Let’s go back,” Jule suddenly whispered, still leaning against me with her eyes closed, “Mom’s probably already worrying about us.”
Nodding my head in agreement, I pulled myself up, offering my hand to help Jule stand up.
As we descended the hill on which the wizened oak tree grew, making sure to watch our step and avoid slipping as we did so, the rumble of thunder could be heard in the far distance, brief flashes of lightning illuminating the dark gray clouds in the sky.
Suddenly feeling a drop of water hit my skin, I looked up.
Starting off as a faint drizzle, and intensifying to become a heavy downpour, the two of us began to run to escape the rain, but even then, we were quickly drenched.
The longer we ran for, my bare feet sunk deeper and deeper into the mud with each successive step, and before long, I had lost count of how many times I had fallen and gotten back up.
My rolled up to the ankle pant legs smeared with mud, and with raindrops running down my face, I ran after Jule, the surrounding trees and foliage appearing as little else than a greenish brown blur I was going so fast.
Making my way to where the forest just about ended, our little, old farmstead loomed over the distance, surrounded by barren tilled fields.
Standing only one story tall, the house we lived in was constructed from old, not even painted wood, and was small for just how many people lived in it.
I stopped, and hazily looked up at the gray, stormy sky.
Jule turned back, and frantically ran over to me,
“What are you waiting for?” she asked, “We’ll get sick.”
“...I don’t want to go back,” I whispered, though I didn’t know why I felt that way.
The rainwater obscured my vision.
But for some reason, my eyes stung.
Taking my hand into hers, Jule attempted to pull me with her, but I stayed rooted to the spot, not budging in the least.
I felt exhausted. As if I had marched for the entire day, and only been able to get an hour of sleep.
Falling back, I layed spread out on the mud, staring up at the gray clouds that peeked through the trees’ green canopy.
I could probably sleep for an entire year, and somehow still wake up tired.
Jule puffed her cheeks out, and attempted to pull me to the side, where the trees would be able to provide more shelter, only to be met with no success.
Laying down onto the muddy ground as well, she held my hand, and blankly stared into the air with me.
***
Sitting beside the bed Sol lay unconscious in, Lunia blankly stared at the boy's face.
Pale bordering on being pallor, he had an incredibly delicate face, to the point where she was entranced, blankly staring at his pitch black hair, and into his calm, hazy eyes.
But his face’s natural beauty was marred by the myriad of old, dark scars that ran across his skin. Numbering at least a dozen on his face alone, most of them were small, but one covered the entirety of the right side of it, running from just in front of his right ear all the way down to his collarbone.
Lunia held Sol’s forearm, and traced the scars on it with her finger.
‘Like raindrops,' Lunia thought. Colored a pale pink color, they felt strangely smooth.
“How long has he been like this?” someone suddenly asked, walking into the sterile, white room.
“Only a couple hours,” a second voice answered, “His injuries were relatively minor, light internal hemorrhaging, and a couple of broken ribs. Nothing that couldn’t be healed, and certainly nothing that will leave any significant long lasting effects.”
Lunia turned to see who had entered the room, being met with Thalric and a white robed man wearing a leather mask shaped like a bird’s head, who held a wooden board and a sheet of paper.
Sitting beside Lunia, Thalric weakly smiled at her,
“I heard you won all four of your duels?”
Lunia faintly nodded.
In her first two matches, Lunia had tried to use as little force as possible in order to minimize the harm she inflicted upon others, but after she had returned from her second duel, and learned from one of the recruiters that Sol was sent to the healers, she fought her third and fourth opponents with no such courtesy, using any method in her disposal to beat them as quickly as possible.
“Look on the bright side,” Thalric suddenly commented, “At least he won.”
Glaring at the tactless, blonde, middle-aged man beside her, Lunia returned her attention back to Sol.
Wearing a white, button up short sleeve shirt, he appeared as if he was peacefully asleep.
Save for their first encounter at the bakery, Lunia couldn’t recall a single moment where Sol didn’t appear as if he was running on one hour of sleep and sheer force of will. He just had a perpetual air of exhaustion and fatigue, to the point where on those rare occasions she had seen him in the absence of light, she had always mistaken him for some undead specter. Though, whenever he smiled, everything that otherwise spoiled his face, from his scars, to even his hollow, almost lifeless eyes, melted away, and he shone.
Like a beautiful star in the night sky.
Suddenly, Sol’s eyes quivered, and slowly but surely, he opened them, regaining consciousness.
Forcefully sitting up from the white bed, Sol attempted to rub his eyes, only to immediately flinch. Unbuttoning his shirt, he poked his ribs, wincing in pain as he did so.
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“I’d recommend against doing that,” the bird headed figure ordered, the clear lenses of his mask exposing his piercing, yellow eyes, “Owing to the relatively short period between time of injury and time of treatment, you’ve been mostly healed, but it’ll still take at least a week for you to completely recover.”
Four black tally marks stitched into his robe over where his heart was, the healer began to write on the sheet of paper he held.
“Avoid tough foods, lying down on your belly…” he listed off, “And finally, any strenuous activities. You are a student, but your health comes first, healer’s orders.”
“Is there any ointment or balm you can make for him that might expedite the healing process?” Thalric asked.
“Of course, but due to the relatively unserious nature of the injuries, the treatments with a corresponding value do run the risk of side effects, and…”
Ignoring Thalric and the healer’s conversation, Lunia bit her lip.
“...You were crying in your sleep,” she tentatively stated, “Did something happen?”
Staring out the window, Sol turned to face Lunia.
“It’s fine,” he reassured, “Nothing important.”
About to inquire further, she was interrupted, as a lithe black golem suddenly burst into the room, and walked in front of where Sol lay.
“Student Sol,” it stated, “You have been chosen for further testing. Please make the requisite preparations, and follow me to the dueling chambers as quickly as possible.”
“With who’s authorization?” the healer yelled, pulling the humanoid golem back, “All he needs to do is rest. That’s it.”
“Negative, senior healer Fos. Head Elphid has personally ordered for him to be tested further.”
Despite his face being obscured, Lunia could tell the healer was distressed by the golem’s words.
“Just give me a minute to get dressed.”
Shocked, Lunia’s head shot back to Sol.
Lunia opened her mouth, intending to convince him to rethink his decision, but no words were able to leave her throat, as Sol weakly smiled at her.
Somehow, in the warm, orange glow of the setting sun, Lunia thought he looked especially lonely.
***
Unscrewing the metal cap of the small glass container in my hands, I gingerly lathered the white, sticky ointment within all over my chest. I focused especially on the area around my ribs, which had turned a sickly purple color in the time I was unconscious.
The oily, viscous liquid quickly seeped into my skin, and although the skin remained discolored, the pain radiating from my injuries began to lessen in intensity, until finally becoming numb.
Nodding in satisfaction, I resealed the glass container, and set it aside onto the stone table in the middle of the preparation room.
I had only used about half of the ointment the healer had made for me, and it felt like a waste to use all of it when I already felt fine, so I intended to save it.
Putting my tunic back on, strapping on a leather chest piece, and wearing a masked leather helmet, I entered the dueling arena with the three weapons I had taken in with me earlier in the day.
A man in the same completely black robes as in my previous duels stood in the middle, while on the opposite side of the room, a blindfolded girl with long, shiny black hair lazily leaned against a long polearm that resembled as scythe, the only difference being that the blade was vertical.
As the door behind me audibly closed, her head shot up, and she clicked her tongue.
Waiting for just one second, she immediately rushed at me, her bored, apathetic expression morphing into a joyous one, and a faint smile forming on her face.
A hundred thousand thoughts ran through my mind at once as I dropped the mace in my hands, and held my spear steady.
Leaping into the air, she pulled her scythe polearm back, before suddenly spinning, and slashing horizontally at me.
Holding onto my lance with both hands wide apart, I blocked her strike with the pole of my spear, and began to kick at her stomach, when she clicked her tongue again.
Her head shooting up so that her black blindfold looked directly into my eyes, she sneered, before she suddenly pulled her vertical scythe back. Not able to react fast enough, I forcefully stopped my spear from continuing on its path, but that momentary opening I had exposed was more than enough for the blind girl to significantly exploit.
Kneeling down to the ground, she attempted to sweep my leg.
Frantically leaping into the air, I was powerless to do anything as she punched out, and knocked me back down to the ground.
Pulling out my short sword, I tried to get back up and fight, but she pressed my chest back down to the ground with her boot, and after spinning her vertical scythe and gaining momentum, she began to swing her polearm down at my head.
Straining, but in the end failing to move my head out of the way, I pulled out my sword, intending to cut her, but instinctively I knew she would end up killing me before I cut her.
“Thank you very much, student Cassia,” the man in black robes suddenly intervened, holding the blind girl’s polearm in place in the air, “That’ll be enough.”
Stabbing her vertical scythe down into the ground, the blind girl clicked her tongue once again, before offering her hand to me.
Having accepted her hand, she pulled me up, before smiling at me.
“That was a nice block,” she complimented, before taking her polearm back, and turning around to walk back to her preparation room.
“Wait,” I yelled.
She stopped walking. I took that as her intending to listen to what I was about to say.
“How were you able to attack me so accurately despite your... condition?”
Wordlessly, she pointed at her ears, before continuing to walk forward.
***
“...Next is Thalric’s bunch,” a blonde haired man calmly stated, reading off of a packet of pages bound together by a metal pin to four other people seated around him, “Sent to Thaloria Kingdom, to the recently established Elef barony, bordering the Old North. Lunia Elef, daughter of Baron Kaelor Elef, potential reaching up to the 9th star, won all five of her matches. I recommend her to be placed in S grade. All in agreement?”
Four hands raised in unison.
“Good, at what rank?”
An incredibly muscular, bronze skinned man, sitting to the blonde’s left, raised his hand,
“I say four.”
At his words, a red haired, one eyed woman at the head of the table stopped leaning her chair back, and focused her attention fully on the topic at hand.
“You’ve gotta be fucking with me,” she snorted, “The highest I’d put her is 9th. Scratch that, put her at 10th.”
“Elphid, please, be civil,” the blonde man sighed, “Why do you say that?”
“Too inconsistent. From the statements I read, her first two matches, she went easy on her opponents, drew out the battle unnecessarily, while her next three she beats them all to a pulp in not even a minute.”
“I see your point,” the blonde replied, “But we have to take into account, her potential is at the 9th star. That’s the highest this class.”
“Doesn’t matter. First,” she held up one finger, “This year’s class is abnormal. I know there’s at least one other 9th star, and that’s not even taking into account the fact that the average star this year is higher than the previous classes. Second,” she held up another finger, “Doesn’t matter if a muddy river stone is a diamond, gold, silver, or if it’s just a regular fucking rock. At the end of the day, if it stays in the stream, it’ll just remain covered up, never able to properly shine.”
“Those in agreement?” the blonde man asked, and seeing two other hands raise, one from Elphid, and the other from a bored looking man with short black hair, he sighed once again.
“As I agree with Elphid, lets move onto the next one. Sol. Commoner, potential reaching up to the 5th star. Won his first two matches, though the second one left him injured, and after recovering, was forced to fight in what was the overall fifth match, but for him, was his third match, which he quickly lost. Any suggestions?”
The red haired woman immediately raised her hand,
“C grade, tentative third rank.”
“Why do you say so?” the blonde man asked.
“Showed a decisive willingness to use lethal force in his second duel.”
“But he’s 5th star?” a bespectacled woman with long, green hair interjected, “C grade I get, but in the top ten?” she shook her head, “No way.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the red haired woman responded, “Even a decisive 3rd star will always outlive a weak willed 7th. No discussion, he belongs in the top ten of C grade, and even if he doesn’t,” she shrugged, “He’ll lose his position. Not like these initial rankings even matter.”
“I agree, temperament is all that matters at this point in time,” the blonde haired man finally stated, as he rested his chin on his interlocked fingers, “Those for placing him in the top ten of C grade?”
Seeing three raised hands, he nodded.
“Okay, onto the next group…”