‘If I know my brother, He’ll be sitting on a rooftop somewhere watching over Lu like a proud father, casually pretending like he doesn’t care.’ I stopped outside and my eyes took in the whole campus grounds out in front of me, and sure enough, there he was, right on top of the grand hall. How he got up there… Well, it didn’t matter anyway.’
As I walked over to the grand hall it wasn’t long before people recognized me… I did kind of stand out… Of course, there were the obvious things. My hair, my eyes, my height… But looking around it became pretty clear I was also the only one with blue as one of my family colors… So my blue armor was just another dead giveaway.
“You there! I challenge you to a duel!”
‘Great…’ I turned to see four men walking towards me and felt my heart rate accelerate, thinking back to a street fight I was in that started in a… Similar fashion. “I don’t suppose I can just walk away…” ‘I think I even said something like that.’
“You and your sister took down my brother on his own turf, Of course, you can’t just walk away.”
I blinked, shaking my head as it started to ache. “What?” ‘am I hearing things? It feels like someone is digging through my old memories and scattering them through my brain…’
“I said… Once you receive a challenge on the battlegrounds you have to accept, so long as the prize is equivalent. I challenge you for every mark you have.”
‘Yeah, that’ makes a lot more sense…’ “Fine, fine. I’m assuming you have at least 2 then. So I get two marks when I win right?”
He smirked. “Yeah, that’s right. We’re next.”
‘Next… We aren’t just doing it right here?’
“MATACH!” An official yelled and he started walking towards a small paved circle that resembled the sparring grounds from my home.
‘Wait, I already walked this far? I thought I was still off in the distance, but I guess I’m… Nevermind, I’ll think about it later.’ “You challenged me, so I picked the fighting style, right? How about this, you can use whatever, and I’ll do the same, sound good?”
He smirked again before agreeing.
‘He must not have seen me fight last night… I guess I would be a bit full of myself if I assumed I’d get famous that fast… There were hundreds of people there though. Although it was over quick, so I imagine not many actually watched it.’ I sighed. ‘This guy isn’t even fast… And he’s not that strong either… Well, he is a lot tougher than those bandits… He’s wearing armor too which is kind of weird.’
“Miss, are you ready? You haven’t drawn your weapon.” The official asked.
“Oh, right, sorry I’m ready, this is fine.”
Without so much as a second thought, he shouted “BEGIN”
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“Are you mocking me!” With a straightforward charge, the man ran across the arena.
‘From what I remember, all sword styles taught here belong to one of three schools, but all three schools have the same foundational movements, the one movement most commonly practiced, and thus the most likely to be the opening move of a novice would be…’
He lifted the sword high above his head and slashed downwards. ‘There it is… Although his strike holds nothing on Vestidian’s.’ I turned to the side and leaned, dodging so crisply I felt the flat of the blade brush against the armor over my chest as lunged forward and hooked his ankle, shoving him to the ground before stepping over him. “Right then, this is over. Can I go now?”
He tried to sweep my legs from behind with another slash, standing up with the sword's momentum as I hopped over the blade and kicked him in the face. ‘I haven’t even had to use my arms yet… Although admittedly, I didn’t actually hurt him that much.’ He growled and charged again. ‘So the duel isn’t over when he hits the ground? Should I just choke him out? Or maybe I should test my strength? It would be nice to know how exactly I actually stack up against an average guy.’
I crossed my arms and blocked another downward strike, feeling my veins flood with manna as my muscles absorbed the impact and my bones ached, my manna rapidly draining. ‘Yeah, screw that… Absorbing blows drains manna way faster than just moving around…’ All of my muscles started to feel a dull ache, if only slightly. I could have probably continued on like that for a few minutes, but I would have been drained afterward for sure. ‘Best to not show off too much I guess.’ I rotated my arm around his blade, grabbing the top and shoving it into the ground before lunging forward again and caving in his face with a quick jab from a metal fist right to his nose. He wasn’t unconscious, but he was too disoriented to move, so I went ahead and just flipped him, opened his coat, and took the marks. After grabbing them I started to walk away.
“HOLD ON! I CHALLENGE YOU!” One of his buddies shouted.
‘It’s gonna be a long day… Isn’t it…’
“YOU’RE DIRTY TRICKS WON’T WORK ON ME!”
I just sighed again. ‘I’m fine for now since I need to collect marks anyway… But I wonder how many idiots I can run into before I start to get pissed.’ “Oh yeah, sorry. It was pretty unfair of me… Fighting barehanded against him, with his greatsword… I should have probably taken my armor off too…”
He didn’t respond as we both walked to our starting positions. “We fight for four marks. Oh, and just use whatever you want like the last guy.”
As the judge shouted to start I scanned him. He was tougher than the last guy for sure, but still didn’t hold a candle to Lu… However, that being said. I was a bit worried about how draining it would be if I ever had to take one of his strikes head-on. ‘I’ll end this quickly. It was good to test my strength, but I can’t waste manna. I don’t know how long I’ll have to keep this pace up.’
He charged and just like his friend led with a head-on strike… I figured why bother changing my response, so I did the same thing as well. His quick footwork got him out of my ankle hook though, so I took another step forward and wrapped my arms around his shoulder in a standing arm bar, leveraging it to fold him to the ground. “Forfeit now I break your arm.”
“Never!”
‘I guess the answer is two…’ I growled, starting to get annoyed, the moment I heard his shoulder pop though I suddenly thought of the feeling of a wolves neck snapping in my hands and froze, stopping time while I gathered my thoughts. ‘That scared me… But I didn’t actually hurt him yet, it was just a little pop from the way it moved, not because of the pressure…’
Thinking about it, I didn’t want to actually permanently ruin his shoulder… So I quickly changed into a chokehold and put him to sleep in a few seconds, again looting his unresponsive body before his friends drug him away. ‘I’m starting to see why Grama likes fighting with her hands so much. I actually feel pretty fast like this, and it’s like these idiots have never learned how to fight against someone that isn’t swinging a sword at them.’
“Anyone else?” ‘Actually, Mara never talked about an official hand-to-hand style other than the one Gramma taught her, and Gramma isn’t from Skorveyati.’ Both of the other two raised their hands. ‘Why am I surprised…’ The one thing that was surprising was that one of them used a spear… He was good with it too… But once I grabbed the shaft that fight was over just as quick. In the end, I walked away with 20 marks in total, all the marks they had on them. The judge let me turn them in for two 10-point marks, and when it was finally over I managed to sneak away, following the people I just stomped to the grand hall. ‘It’s not so much that I’m stronger than them… Even with magic we aren’t that different, if anything I might be a bit weaker, although I am a bit faster since my body is so much smaller and lighter.’ I looked down at my hands, closing my fingers to a fist. ‘The main difference is that… They just suck at fighting real opponents… It’s like they can only think one move at a time, and only about what move they are trying to use. Well… They are just kids.’
After they walked in they timidly went up to the front desk and received new 1-point marks before leaving. ‘Interesting… But with a system like that… Can’t I just go beat them up again endlessly?’ I brushed it off, refocusing as I walked up to the girl at the front desk. ‘While I’m here, I should look for a map of the area. Yamaria is older, so she won’t be in the same building as me… I should at least learn where she is staying.’
“Ah, hello miss, I've been waiting for you, we have another mark for you right here, but you can only get a new one once a day alright?”
‘Well… That answers that question at least…’