“Begin!”

  Corland grinned at the pretty girl across the sands in front of him as he drew his rapier and saluted her. “It’d be a shame to hurt such a pretty thing. Perhaps you should surrender now and let me take you out after class to celebrate my victory?” He said with a smile. Watching the purple-haired girl across from him, his smile widened as a faint blush colored her cheeks prettily. Girls are so easy, he thought to himself. A handsome face, a show of strength and confidence mixed with a bit of chivalry, and they’re putty in your hands.

  Grinning, he took a step forward, his guard lowering a bit as he anticipated her swoon, only for his instincts to scream danger! Listening to his family training, Corland pumped mana into his [Mana Armor] to manifest a shimmering suit of armor around himself just in time to intercept a snare as it wrapped around his wrist. Wincing, he felt the mana imbued in his skill begin to leach away. Following the snare with his eyes, he saw it leading to a small hole in the sand, and saw the writhing end of it anchored somewhere to the girl’s back. Devious, sneaking the spell through the sand, but snares were weak spells meant to slow enemies down, even if the mana draining aspect was novel.

  So she wants to fight? Fine, he thought to himself. Contemptuously, Corland slashed at the snare grabbing him, expecting the enchanted steel of his blade to quickly disrupt the spell, only for his hand to shake as a crystalline ringing filled the air. The spell held. Before he could move to strike another blow, he felt the snare start to lift him up, so he dismissed his [Mana Armor] and dropped back down as he freed his hand and immediately jumped back to avoid the girl’s follow up blow. All around him he saw more snares spring up from the sand to cage him in.

  She wasn’t going to make this easy on him was she? Fine, he’d work for his victory. It’d make her lips taste all the sweeter when he claimed his prize. [Mana Blade]! Corland wasn’t just a noble playing at being an adventurer, not like some of his classmates. Sure he came from a prestigious family, but his family, like many others in the North, didn’t coddle their children. No, his family was one of several belonging to the Order of the Iron Cross, knights who helped secure the Northern border and hunted down dangerous criminals, including rogue mages. [Mana Blade] was their order’s signature technique, sheathing their weapons in a coating of mana that not only made their blades sharper, it allowed them to easily cut through and disrupt magical spells and enchantments. As the girl’s snares closed in, Corland moved through his blade forms, dispatching the oncoming spells one after the other with swift strikes of his rapier.

  Step by step, Corland advanced, shredding the girl’s spells as they came at him. Every hit stole a little bit of his mana due to their leaching nature, but from the small winces on her face, the backlash of having her spells forcibly shattered was far worse for her than the minor loss of mana he faced. “Give up, and let’s grab a meal together,” he said with a smile as he casually dispatched the latest wave of spells. “I promise you a night you’ll ne—oof!” The air was driven from his lungs as something slammed into his chest from below hard enough for his feet to leave the ground. Gasping for breath, Corland stumbled in the sand as he landed and tossed himself to the side, rolling to his feet as sand geysered up as something slammed into the ground where he’d just been. Seeing a glimmer of something in the dust, he dodged as a small brick shaped barrier flew at him.

  Reactivating [Mana Armor], he felt the ghost of an impact as the spell collided with his own and sent a ripple through the ethereal protection. Damnit, that hit as hard as a warhammer! Before he could move to destroy the barrier pressing into him, another blow from behind sent more ripples through his armor. Eyes flicking about, he saw something that sent a chill through his core. More than a dozen barriers flew at him as even more snares started to appear all around him. Damnit! He couldn’t stand there and tank everything! Splitting off his mana even more, he activated his self-buff skill, feeling his muscles twitch as [Knight’s Discipline] flooded him with new strength and speed. Briefly deactivating [Mana Armor], he slipped out from between the two pressing barriers and counterattacked, slicing through one of the barriers before reactivating his protective skill just in time to absorb a blow to the side. Rolling with the impact, he moved out of the way as a series of impacts chased after him. Like being chased by a giant, he thought to himself. There’s no way this girl is normal!

  As his eyes flickered to the girl, he took in her fetching purple hair and remembered a few rumors he’d heard.A talented commoner with purple hair who’d survived the mad elf’s tutelage and rumored to use barriers well beyond what an Iron ranked mage could use. The same girl who supposedly killed an entire goblin horde solo during the expedition. Who spurned the advances of the son of a war hero and drove him to try and commit murder, who fought the boy to a standstill and survived. Someone the Southern faction held an unknown grudge against and who managed to catch the eye of the Northern lord’s youngest son.

  Could this be her? Reassessing the girl, Corland stopped looking at her like a pretty classmate and as a potential threat. As he dodged and slashed his way closer to her, he considered what he saw. Not her appearance, not the look on her face that seemed so innocent, but what he faced. Leaching snares that could steal mana with a touch and offensive barriers that hit as hard as a knight-wielded warhammer. Dozens of spells manifesting again and again, even as the backlash from broken spells ate at her mind. Still, she stood ready, a sword and shield in her hands even though she hadn’t taken a single step. Eyes watching him, tracking his movements. Defensive. Cautious. Unsure of her skills, but monstrous all the same. Dangerous.

  Something lit in his heart that he’d only felt when sparring against the higher ranked knights of his order. Excitement. Heart pumping, he felt a real grin split his face. Not the charming grin he’d learned to woo women. A more primal one. Excitement at facing a dangerous foe. Grin wide, he pumped his mana into his reinforcement skill and charged for the girl, dodging and parrying her spells as he closed the distance. He wanted to see how good she was with those weapons of hers.

  Closing the distance, Corland thrust his imbued blade into her shell-like barrier. His mana plummeted as his skill reacted with the barrier, annihilating the mana of the spell as his blade pierced through. He shoved down the shock at how much his mana plummeted punching through the girl’s barrier. He wasn’t the only one surprised. He saw the way her eyes widened as his blade penetrated her defenses. She hadn’t been expecting that. Whatever else she looked like, her spells weren’t simple.

  The girl flinched back from his attack, sending his rapier skittering off to the side as she deflected it with her shield. Luck, or skill? Corland frowned as he pressed the attack, grunting as every attack drained more of his mana to punch through her barrier again and again. Every hole sealed itself as soon as his blade moved away, forcing him to go through the effort again and again. Frustrating. But the girl’s spell wasn’t his only concern. As he pressed the attack, she responded, deflecting attacks with her shield or parrying with her sword as she retreated and counterattacked with more of her snares, forcing him to defend as well. Still, her snares were a known quantity at this point. More than a few of his classmates had talked about the strange spell, how it seemed to sap them and get stronger and stronger. But that was only if he let them touch him. Smirking, he pressed the attack, only for his instincts to scream danger!

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  Darting to the side, he saw a variant of the [Arcane Missile] spell slam into the sand where he’d been standing, but his eyes widened as he kept moving. Though [Arcane Missile] and its variants were weak for their ranks, quantity was a quality itself, and what the girl’s attack lacked in quality, it more than made up for in quantity. What felt like hundreds of the spells screamed for him in a massive swarm as more snares grasped for him. The sheer volume was like trying to dodge rain. Difficult, but not impossible. Weaving around the spells, he started to advance again as he danced and cut his way through the coming storm. As he expected, the [Arcane Missiles] were weak, barely doing any damage to his [Mana Armor], but still he dodged what he could. Every bit of mana he preserved could mean the difference between life and death in a true battle.

  He felt a growing admiration for the girl. Her beauty was turning out to be the least of her charms. Most mages depended on their magic to the detriment of their bodies. Sure everyone learned the sword and shield to a basic level, and his opponent wasn’t much better with her weapons than the average civilian, but she had something most didn’t. Raw experience. He could see it in the way she fought. Her training didn’t rise to the bare minimum of most of their classmates, but the way she fought, it was like she learned to fight in battle. There was a certain ferocity to her movements that was beastlike. Like every move was the difference between life and death. Like she fought purely for survival. Despite her lack of skill, fighting her felt less like fighting a fellow student and more like fighting a monster.

  Their fight dragged on for minutes as his mana plummeted, his regeneration fighting a losing battle against the drain of his abilities. But he was seeing progress. The girl’s snares were growing more infrequent, piercing her barrier taking less and less mana, his strikes pressing her to rely more on her weapons for protection. It proved to be the edge he needed.

  Corland’s blade was a well crafted and enchanted training weapon. The only difference between it and his normal gear was the blunted edge of a training blade. So it was no surprise to him when the school issued training sword shattered in the girl’s grip after a parry. Metal shards bounced off the inside of her shell-like barrier as she retreated, a line of red dripping across her cheek.

  “Give up, you fought well but I’ve beaten your magic, and now you’re weaponless,” he said with a smile. Frowning as the girl stayed in a fighting stance, he tried again. “I acknowledge you’re tough, but this match is a foregone conclusion. You’re already bleeding, while you’ve yet to land a solid hit on me. Just surrender, and then we can go get a meal and discuss the future.” Winking at the girl, he extended his free hand in invitation, only to feel something hard as steel wrap around it. He felt his mana begin to vanish as he glanced down to see one of the girl’s snares wrapped around his forearm. Cycling his mana back into his sword, he sheared through the spell and dodged back as more snares erupted from the sand and tried to grab him.

  “This again? I’ve already beaten this trick. You won’t get me with it again.” Destroying the snares as they pushed him back, he felt his mana dip lower and lower with every destroyed spell. Even though the barrier around her seemed weaker, she didn’t seem to be in any danger of running out of mana soon, while he had already reduced his enhancements to the bare minimum to extend his stamina. Still, he was confident he’d win. Fighting his way through her snares again, he closed with her and began their dance again, but where before he aimed every blow to try and end the fight, he started to mix things up. Instead of aiming for her head or chest, he threw blows at her legs, her feet, her head, any part of her he could see, and he started to mix up his attacks. Most of his attacks were unpowered as he conserved his mana, glancing off the barrier protecting her, but others pierced through as he activated [Mana Blade] at the last moment, easily cutting through her weakened barrier.

  Thrusting and slashing at her, Corland worked to overwhelm the girl with spell backlash and exhausting her mana, trusting that between his own mana-fueled abilities and his greater physical strength and skill, he’d wear her down and claim victory. The strategy worked as he forced her to react to every attack as if it would pierce through, pushing her to burn through her physical stamina as well as her mana, keeping her on the back foot and unable to easily retaliate. What few snares she managed to cast his way he shattered with a quick blow before pressuring her again. Another few minutes passed as he wore her down before it finally happened. As his [Mana Blade] imbued blow pierced through her barrier and into her shield, he caught it just right.

  Perhaps it was a flaw in the metal, present since the shield’s creation as the training equipment offered from the school was far from the best quality. Or maybe it was the accumulated damage of countless blows by numerous weapons. Whatever it was, as Corland’s imbued blade stabbed into the shield’s rim, he punched through the metal and wood protecting the girl and into the flesh of her arm, pulling a scream of pain from her lips.

  Jun screamed in pain as Corland’s blade broke through her shield and stabbed deep into her forearm through the leather armguard and her uniform enchanted by Shiori. As the boy pulled back, his blade, still shining with his mana, sheared through the leather strap holding her shield to her arm. Backing up, Jun threw all the mana she had into her barrier as she examined her arm.

  Blood stained her sleeve and the armor strapped above it as blood leaked out of her wound, the the uniform around it already repairing itself. As she put more distance between herself and Corland, Jun felt the blood running down her arm, making it slick and hard to grip the handle of her shield. The damaged strap holding it to her arm didn’t help much either, causing the heavy thing to move painfully against her wounded arm. She didn’t think she’d be able to keep using it.

  I should just surrender, Jun thought to herself. What’s the point? I’ve already used everything I have. Though her regeneration was rapidly refilling her reserves, her opponent had already proved he could wear her down faster than she could maintain her protections, and her main offensive strategy seemed all but useless against him. Whatever his sword ability was, it destroyed her snares and barriers far too easily, and her [Purging Missiles] barely scratched his armor spell. And now she was weaponless.

  Not yet, a voice in the back of her head said. She still had something left. Jizo. Calling him was as simple as breathing now as she pulled him from her soul. The bladed shield manifested on her uninjured arm as it radiated comfort and protection. He wouldn’t let anything harm her.

  “A conjured weapon? Interesting, but I fear you lack the skill,” Corland said with a smirk as Jun started to advance.

  Part of her knew he was right. Their fight so far showed how far the gap between their skills were. A few months of training was far from enough to let her fight on even footing with someone who felt like they’d trained for years, but still she advanced as Jizo nudged her, guided her forward. Charge. Deflect the thrust. Slash. Stab. Jab. Barrier. Dodge. Just like in training and against monsters in the Forest, Jizo guided her as she fought. At first, her advance was slow, but with every passing second she sped up as she gained more confidence in her movements. Her blows came faster, harder, more sure as she started to push the boy back, harrying him with spell and claw and shield. With every step, she saw the boy, so thoroughly beating her before, start to retreat, his mana weakening. After a minute, the mana coating his blade vanished and his blows stopped cutting through her snares in a single swipe. Two minutes, and the armor spell around him popped as Jizo scored a glancing blow against his wrist. Three minutes, and his speed and strength seemed to plummet, making him barely faster than she was.

  Gasping for breath, Jun froze as the boy dropped his sword to the sand, his hands raised with Jizo’s claws inches from his throat. “I surrender,” the boy said with a laugh.

  “Winner, Jun!”