Cursed Explorer of the Arcana

Rank. 112, 0 Points

That's what the board in the mess hall I’ve never bothered to check displays. I’m not dead last only because there are others besides me with absolutely no points who are below my level so that means they should be objectively weaker. It’s mostly points that matter though.

A win is two points, a draw is one for both participants, and a loss is minus one. None of the numbers is three… weird that.

Letting my eyes wander up the list of names turns out to be a mistake.

“Victor is ninety-two, August is eighty-seven and Kayla… seventy-one. Ridiculous...” My frow just keeps growing as the numbers increase and by the time I reach the top… “Rank. 1, 113 Points”

Without a doubt one of the older kids. Anyone above the age of twelve is removed from the list and released from the nest that is Fort Karon. Adventuring, higher education, low-risk jobs… that’s the real stuff.

More importantly, there’s another reason why I was looking forward to squaring off against some mages, some proper human opponents with all types of magic.

***

“You know the drill kids,” Bennett stands right outside the dueling ring, leading the mock battles in the afternoon as usual. “anyone with points in the single digits may now volunteer as the first challenger.”

And as usual, the bottomfeeders are extremely reluctant to take the spotlight. They are the weakest, meekest, youngest, and just all in all treated like doormats. I know I’m in this category but I’m different, I’m cool.

Naturally, my hand swings up to take the chance and gain the benefit of picking my opponent. I already have someone in mind and this would be my best chance if only another girl didn’t feel like proving herself today. Brown hair, brown eyes, average height, and… average everything really. I don’t even remember her name.

“Ah, two hands in the air,” Bennett strokes his short beard. “You know what that means.” The crowd does not go wild, we’re talking about the prospect of a mediocre performance after all. “Into the ring you two!”

Oh c’mon, I was clearly faster. The one time I decide to pick up the slack and go out of my way to put in the work…Argh... Why couldn’t she gather her courage earlier to show off? Young people, I swear…

“I didn’t expect the Rainbow Mage to be my first opponent.” The girl takes her place opposite of me and initiates conversation. A little taunting and shit-talking is common practice.

I already have a nickname, huh? Rainbow… why? Fire is red, or yellow, or white, or blue, water is blue, earth is brown, wind is… colorless but let’s just say it’s green and lightning is more white than anything. Nah, the colors just don’t add up.

Oh yeah, everyone sort of figured out I’m much more than a simple earth mage after I made August lick the floor in the mess hall. After that, Martha saw no point in keeping my Blessing a secret any longer so we just let the cat out of the bag. If this much time wasn’t enough for Mom and Dad to escape the country then they have bigger problems than word spreading about me or so Martha said.

I hope they’re fine, no, I know they are. I learned almost everything from them and I’m fine. As a matter of fact, I’m sure they’re getting stronger even right now, working their ass off and doing their best to protect me the next time. I won’t fall behind, who will protect them if not me, right?

Anyway, the kids took the news of my cheat-like ability easier than I expected. Maybe because they’re young and don’t really care, maybe because the other three have been running around using their specialty for a few days now, or… maybe because it doesn’t matter. Does it affect their life, the world, or anything really? No, and I don’t plan on changing that so I still can’t understand why some dumb adults have to mess up my life just because I’m a bit special. Really special.

Fuck, now I’m a little irritated over nothing…

[Rogue lvl 22]

And she’s going to be the one to fix that.

Now, I know this is a pretty shitty matchup for me and that speedy enemies are the bane of mages but I don’t feel like losing this one.

“What, cat got your tongue?” The girl snaps, understandably, since I’ve let her previous comment go unanswered for a good ten seconds now. That’s embarrassing. “You might think you’re special but I’ll you make it clear just how average you are.”

Okay, the jabs have been a little one-sided. Let’s fix that.

“Wait, who are you?” I try acting as confused as possible without breaking out giggling. “Did you put your hand up on accident?”

The girl’s face goes tomato red in an instant. I already won the first part of the duel, the rest should be child’s play.

“Both sides ready?” Bennett goes on with the ceremonial stuff.

I nod.

“I’ll show you how serious I am!” The girl just growls walking towards me before Bennett could even signal the start of the bout.

I don’t mind and honestly, I’d also happily go out of my way just to mess with the old man and his authority any other time. Despite that urge, I stay still and simply nod again for him to continue when his questioning eyes find me after the blatant lack of sportsmanship from my opponent. This just makes it seem like I’m really not taking her seriously.

I don’t know why but thinking of my parents really soured my mood so I’m feeling a little, very petty right now. Thankfully someone volunteered to help me with that. Let’s not forget, it’s her fault for raising her hand.

Her slow walk quickly turns into a full-on sprint with two kitchen knife category daggers appearing from under her clothes. Rogues and their trickery… With that said there’s no guarantee those are the only weapons she has on her.

We wear no protective gear, no armor, and no magical gadget inscribed to defend us in case we mess up. That’s the dueling ring’s job. From what I’ve seen it reacts not to danger or voice command but blood or other injuries. The instant even a drop of blood is spilled it forms a bubble around the injured duelist.

‘Isn’t this sort of dangerous?’ was my first question. And the answer made a lot of sense. First, getting hurt a little is not necessarily a bad thing was the reasoning Bennett gave me. Yeah, I almost spat in his face for that. Then he pointed out that a punch here as a first ouchie is a lot better than an arrow through your chest in a few years. Get used to it basically. Other than that we’re nowhere fast enough to outplay the ring’s defensive mechanism and accidentally kill each other.

I wonder if I could prove him wrong… I don’t want to but it makes me wonder.

I’m not just daydreaming as my opponent approaches and the blades in her hand are starting to smoke. Smoke? Super black whisps of dark… ah, the dark element. The beauty of this ring? I can freely use fire magic since she’ll be wrapped in the bubble even before her skin can turn red.

Let’s mess with her a little, shall we?

Judging by her pulled-back left hand and maybe a little help from Premonition her opening move will be a left swing. Maybe to spite Martha about her comment on my weapon Skill or maybe to show off a little a sturdy longsword of stone rises out of the ground right at my feet and I grab it. I don’t actually grab it with my hand because I doubt I could lift it in the first place, instead focusing all my control on the weapon, raising it to intercept the incoming swing.

However, before the girl could actually close the distance the dark wisps on her weapon spread down her arm, up her shoulder and over her entire body. The moment her entire body is covered in back her eyes flash white and she splits into three in a cloud of dark fog. The bodies move as one, closing in on me from three sides with their knives all aimed at… heart, neck, left hip, informs Premonition.

But I fail to come up with a solution, my mind consumed by blind panic and my body frozen as the familiar threat closes in.

The shadows, they’re here to take me, they came back. It’s just like back then… I’m surrounded by darkness, helpless, hopeless… Mom, Dad please come back, please help me, please… stay safe.

The spark of panic gets extinguished just as quickly as it appeared. Resolve, courage, discipline… no, all of those traits are children compared to pride, and my pride is unwilling to accept this outcome.

Shit, shit, shit, what witchcraft is this. Are these just decoys, is only one of them real? I underestimated her and now I’m the one getting embarrassed… That, I cannot allow.

By now the simple irritation has turned into something much more.

Instead of backing away as one would expect from a frightened Mage, I burst forward snarling like a savage beast with a wave of fire moving along with me. As the flames wash over the shadowy figures the bright red begins to eat away at the foggy black, proving these are no mere decoys but proper copies very much capable of hitting me. But there’s no bubble.

They are not real. They’re not the shadows haunting me, these ones can’t hurt me. But then where’s the girl?

Relying on my momentum I slash through the flaming figure of darkness in front of me and as expected the girl is right behind it, coming in with a followup attack. The absolute basics Dad taught me of close quarters are enough to know how to swing my sword, albeit not with my muscles but my mind.

I’m aware my charge is foolish and that I’d lose the melee nine out of nine times, I’m not furious enough to turn dumb. The fire mirrors my state of mind, rushing at the girl from both sides like frothing waves of red and orange.

The tables have turned.

With nowhere else to go she takes to the air, exactly what I hoped for. Releasing the fire just like a deep sigh, I pull water from a nearby pool prepared for water mages, turning it into a massive whip or more like a tentacle and slamming it down on my opponent. Another shadow just like the previous ones splits from her with blades crossed to block the attack mirroring its master, a cute response.

The darkness is crushed under the force of my magic and just like the clone, the girl doesn’t fare much better. I’ve long discarded my sword because… I don’t really like it, and instead, let the stone split into tiny projectiles, all of them now hurling after the Rogue to finish this off.

Dumb duels. Useless… Oh.

This is when I recall why exactly I’ve been looking forward to these afternoon bouts. Besides climbing the ranking. I forgot to check how dark magic might work, or use my new Skill…

With a simple thought, I make the finishing strike accidentally miss, delaying the deployment of the bubble and my opponent’s humiliation. The fight only lasted like ten seconds.

The first thing I noticed from how her trickery works is that the shadowy figures she creates can always execute only one simple move. The second is that her own actual shadow loses some of its depth a bit every time she uses it, almost as if she created the clones from it. The color does slowly return but there’s one more thing bugging me. How the fuck can shadows have substance?

I activate Mana Vision finally taking things seriously but also feeling like something cold is trying to squeeze my eyes and head right away. It’s a demanding Skill. The girl hesitates for a second after she lands, probably baffled by her luck of surviving my attacks unharmed, before retreating a little and running circles around me again. She thinks I'm the prey...

C’mon, do your shadow thingy, let me see.

As if on command the girl throws one of her knives with another white flicker zipping through her eyes. I’m not blind, I can see it coming, Premonition can see it coming, so blocking it is a question of which method to use mostly. As expected the knife splits into five little blades of darkness all flying at me with pretty shitty accuracy I’m not gonna lie.

In the end, I decide to pull all the water in front of me as a shield to slow the weapons rather than straight up blocking them with an earth barrier. I need them intact to study.

The knives were obviously just a diversion and if I had to guess she’s currently circling around me to deliver a strike from my blind spot. Or at least that’s what I’d do. Before dealing with that, however, I need to see what these constructs of darkness are made of.

It’s… folded, like those paper animals Dad made by folding a simple sheet a couple of times. Mom was pretty grumpy after that, paper is pretty expensive supposedly. What I’m dealing with right now is like paper, except it’s… the layers seem to give structure to the shadow constructs but at the same time they pass through each other seamlessly, like a normal shadow.

By now my headache gets pretty hard to endure and the girl should be only steps away so I abandon my inquiry. Enough messing around.

Turning on my heels I’m only met with a wall of black fog instead of my opponent but I don’t panic. I do something stupid instead. For a second, a blink, I active Mana Vision again, gaining a glimpse behind into the world of mana where amidst the black dust cloud of dark magic a human figure is revealed.

“Got you.” I grunt before the colors fade again.

Before I can attack however, a monster, a massive demon of shadows emerges from the dark cloud. It pounces at me with claws, teeth, and any other bodily weapon imaginable threatening my life… sadly, I don’t care. I saw no shadow constructs or any other creatures in the fog enshrouding half the dueling ring which means this is just a trick, a decoy, a desperate try.

Lightning crackles around me, through my hair, down my arms and between my fingers before jumping into the darkness. A sound similar to someone flicking a glass window can be heard instead of a scream, grunt, or any other noise an injured person makes before the shadows disperse and a big round ball of arcane mana is revealed with my little mouse inside.

“That’s enough, winner Elyssia.” Bennett declares, making me sigh in relief.

That’s right, this time I was the cat.