“When you first get here at the beginning of the year you are put into a mansion based on your age and gender, the orange mansion is for girls that are 12-14, the green mansion, where your brother and I will stay is for excelling male students, or those who are 16-18.
“Ok, but what does this all have to do with me?”
“I'm getting there. You see you only stay in the mansions for the first 7 days of the year, minus the first night. Afterward, most students join or create a guild where you will be awarded funding and resources based on their guild's collective previously evaluated strength, as well as continually tested strength. Think of it as being a part of an independent army.”
“So then in other words… I have to make friends…”
He tilted his head, rubbing his hand through his short spikey hair. “Did Airsidh seriously not tell you any of this?” I sighed, and he continued without waiting for a serious answer. “Anyway, the 14-day evaluation begins tonight, someone already tried to sneak in to take you down a peg while you were in the shower. The water running through the pipes creates noise, so people can use that to tell when you're the most vulnerable.”
‘Someone… Tried to attack me?’ I slowly grabbed my arm over the scars. “Th-thank you… For watching out for me I mean…”
He flipped another knife into the air and eyes my eyes followed it, as he started to move his other arm suddenly the knife seemed to appear in his opposite hand and was pointing right at me. “The idea is simple, anyone can be your friend, but everyone is your enemy.”
‘Sure it looked cool… But I’m pretty sure I could have blocked that.’
“You take your opponent's mark as proof of victory. That thing you got with your key, hanging off the end. Most battles will be fought during the day though in front of the professors at the battlegrounds. People do this to show off, both to them and to older students planning on starting guilds. At the end of the day though, the only thing that matters is how many marks you get. People using underhanded tactics are usually commoners trying to rank higher, but every now and then a noble kid will abandon their honor code and try something too. The school allows this because knights need to know how to fight against real opponents and monsters, and other nations don’t care about our code of conduct after all. Besides, if you can fight you can fight, and if you can fight they have six years to turn you into a knight, no matter what you were before.”
“I see...”
“You sure? This is kind of a lot if you haven't heard any of it before, made my head spin when I first got here.”
‘It’s certainly not a traditional school… But I think the survival of the fittest is easy enough to understand… “So then what guild are you in?”
“I'm in your brother's guild, the Stone Dragon. We only have a few members but we're strong. You can team up with us if you want.
“Airsidh is the leader?”
“Yeah, he is. He's also the only noble in the guild more or less.”
‘In order to really use my ability properly I need to be in charge… What's more… I can’t lean on him too much or people will think I’m weak. While being underestimated isn’t a bad thing, it will be much easier to garner support for advancement if I’m seen as strong… And I’m shooting to become king after all…
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“How do I start my own guild?”
“Of course… You are a Nayanathulu after all… Well, I tried. Sorry Airsidh.”
‘What's that supposed to mean?’
“Honestly I don't know all the details, I do know this though. If you want to start a guild you're going to need at least three members counting yourself, and you're going to need to show your capability by collecting at least 1,000 marks all together.”
“Hm… so if I fight for 8 hours a day and treat this like a job, assuming each fight lasts around 5 minutes that's 12 keys an hour and 96 keys a day, at that pace, I would only need my two partners to gather around 170 each. Although, as it drags on I’ll probably be able to take multiple marks from each duel right? So in theory I could gather all of them myself fairly quickly by challenging stronger opponents… Of course, that’s assuming I win. Technically speaking I probably have more combat experience than anyone I’ll be fighting, so that should give me some form of advantage, among the others I have from my innate abilities and strength.”
“Turns out everything your brother said was true.”
I slowly looked up at him. ‘I was mumbling out loud, wasn’t I… “What uh… What did he say?”
“You’ll have to ask him that.”
I sighed again. “We both know he’d never tell me…”
The door burst open and three women wearing all black sprung into the room with daggers drawn.
Gild reflexively threw one of his knives striking a girl in the shoulder and sending her to the ground in pain. “Really now… you ladies should be more careful…”
They rushed towards him from both directions but in one swift movement, he went from sitting cross-legged to standing on one hand and kicking them both, sending them flying against each wall. “I swear… No one in this country knows when to quit.” He walked over to the girl who he stuck with the knife.
“No, stop!” she yelled.
He reached down and pulled out the knife inspecting it. “You should really go bandage that wound, don't worry though, I didn't hit any of the small muscles in your shoulder so it will recover just fine. If you… Ugh…” He let out a deep sigh.
‘Did she just faint?’
The other two ran away as soon as they stumbled to their feet.
“Amateurs…” he scoffed. “Great… Now what should we do with her? I know they were armed but they weren't here to kill you or anything, so don’t be too harsh. Oh, now’s a good time to let you know that we are mostly in charge of our own medical care for these weeks as well.”
‘So no doctors? That’s a bit…’ “Like you said, we should stop the bleeding.”
“What?”
“If she keeps losing blood it will take her too long to recover… And the wound could get infected if you’re expecting a little girl to treat the wound by herself…”
“She didn't try to kill you true… but she is still clearly the enemy.”
“Everyone is the enemy right… But you also said anyone could be my friend.”
“You’re the whole family is nuts… You know that? Not just normal nuts too, but you all different kinds of nuts…” He sighed and went over to my armor chest.
“Hey! What are you doing that's my!--”
“Relax, knowing Sidh he must of… Ahhh, here it is.” he pulled out a vial of green liquid and a rolled bandage. “It would be too hard to jury rig something because of where the wound is.
“I see… and you said… Airsidh put that in there for me?”
“Yeah, he worries about you a lot so I figured he'd do something like this.”
I knelt down and began taking off her armor. “You slipped the dagger in between the leather plates?”
“I had to, I couldn't have taken three at a time without weapons, even if they were novices.”
‘That’s not really what I was asking…’ “You mean… you couldn't have taken three at a time and protected me… right.” His face twisted confirming my assumption. “For the record, I’ve beaten him in a fight before… My brother… I’m not useless.”
He chuckled as he walked over and stayed my hand. “Just bad at putting on bandages.”
I let out a small growl as he moved me to the side and took her shirt off to properly bandage the wound. “I told you before, right? I have a bunch of younger sisters too… Sometimes… It doesn’t really matter if they can take care of themselves… Or even if they're stronger than you… You still can’t help but look after them…”
After bandaging the wound he put her shirt back on for her and stood up. “I can’t say for sure, but I bet you’ll get it when you have kids someday. It’s probably kind of like that.” He said as he stretched his back, letting out the sounds of an old man.
‘Wanting to protect someone stronger than you? So… Everyone I care about then?’ “I think I kind of get it already…”
He chuckled. “I’m glad, honestly I thought you’d be insulted.”
“Should I be? I mean… Having someone willing to protect you even if you are stronger than them… Or having someone want to protect me at all… It sounds wonderful… No matter the reason. How could I be mad about that? I’m really… Happy… Thank you.”
He paused, staring at me for a moment as his pupils suddenly dilated. ‘I said something weird again didn’t I…’