Duel (1)

  The two men stood sentinel, staring each other down from an equal distance in the space before my fragmented home. Without context, this situation was bound to seem hostile, but given the nonchalant smirk on Oliver’s face right now, this obviously wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him. Adjusting his glasses, he exhaled a fervent breath, suppressing the excitement previously been coursing through his veins and sorted himself for battle with that simple gesture.

  “Alright Owen, let’s make this quick.” Oliver carelessly tossed those words to his opponent, and in the next instant, blue particles of light begun to emit from his body like sparks from a forge. At first, the mana escaping him resembled small bubbles being carried off by the wind, but after a few seconds the intensity of their emission suddenly tripled, and soon enough the small orbs of mana escaping from him conformed to a uniform state, enveloping his body in a dense veil of blue aura that swayed like the flame of a low burning candle.

  “My pleasure.”

  Owen answered in a calm, yet commanding voice. Unlike Oliver, his expression was a lot more tense. Reaching for the short-sword firmly affixed to his waist, he took an offensive stance, couching down low and angling the bladed weapon mere inches away from the ground.

  As I stood side by side with Julia and Vreena, the three of us could only look on in anticipation at the spectacle that was about to unfold. Strangely enough, even though the both of them were still towering over me, I got the feeling that there was hardly any difference in the perspectives we currently held.

  “Liam, I know you’re excited to see your father fight but don’t stray off too far from me. It’s about to get a little dangerous out there.”

  “Mhm. All right mother, I’ll keep close.”

  Without even turning around, the shallow words escaped me unconsciously.

  “Good grief, you really do take after him. As soon as either of you hear even the slightest mention of a fight you start tuning everything else out.” Julia sighed reluctantly. While her voice did sound somewhat strained, I could tell she hadn't spoken those words out of dejection.

  “Looks like those two are already quite a handful, if he’s this into fighting at four years old who knows what he’ll get up to in the near future.”

  “I don’t even want to think about that Vreena, but then again...” Julia paused briefly and allowed her hand to rest on my head.

  “...I suppose boys will be boy- wait! Liam! didn’t I just tell you not to wander off!?”

  Without even realizing it myself, it seems I’d instinctually reacted to the unbridled display of power in the distance.

  “Ah! Sorry I just wanted to get a closer look.” I responded gingerly to her cry

  Julia closed the distance between us before and squatted down to my height. “Looks like I’ll have to keep an even closer eye on you little man.”

  “I won't go anywhere this time.”

  “Fufu, so you say. Ahh, Vreena can you deal with the stray shots? I have a feeling things are about to get a little wild.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “That was my intention, you’re obviously too lazy to bother with it yourself.”

  “I’d be more than happy to, but right now I’m watching Liam~” Julia pulled my body closer to hers after saying that, though none of us bought into the appeal of her melodic tone.

  “If you say so.” The elder’s reply was doused in sarcasm.

  “Lady Vreena! Can you give us the signal to start?” An anxious voice echoed across the would-be battlefield. There was no need for a verbal retort; raising her wooden staff, Vreena slammed the archaic looking object onto the floor as the prelude to her next command - “Begin!”

  After that one word, Owen vanished – No, that was just how it appeared at first. Channeling the strength from the soles of his feet up to the very bones in his knees, he lowered his stance even further before darting off the ground with enough force to rattle the space around him. In the wake of his dash, countless blades of grass were immediately displaced from their rooted position.

  Darting over the sunlit field like a charging hawk, he firmly clutched the shortsword with both hands, and angled it for a deadly thrust that was sure to pierce his foe clean through if it ever connected. Crossing the gap between him and Oliver in the blink of an eye, the glistening blade he held was inching closer towards its target with each passing second, and yet, Oliver did nothing.

  He simply stood at attention, hands by his side with the same confident smirk from earlier curling even further up his lips.

  Up until the moment where the sword was within less than a finger’s reach of his chest, he hadn’t taken a stance, drawn a weapon, or even chanted anything. It seemed absurd at first, but the reasoning behind his careless demeanor was revealed before I could finish processing the situation.

  With a casual stomp from Oliver, a dull sound echoed across the battlefield. Following in its wake, Owen’s body was immediately blasted away like a flailing leaf in the wind. His armored frame bounced along the ground like a carefree stone before coming to a halt in the very spot he was originally been standing in.

  “I figured as much, there’s no way he’d ever get the drop on Oliver with a straightforward attack like that.” Stepping past us, Vreena mumbled aloud as she narrowed her eyes on the unfolding clash.

  “That’s true, but maybe he was just testing the waters to see if he could bypass Oliver’s reaction time with sheer speed. It’s not like he’s got much of a choice, I mean he’s a close-range fighter after all, he has to close the distance between them somehow.”

  “I know, but still straightforward tactics just aren’t going to work in a one-on-one match like this.” Both Julia and Vreena were commenting on this supernatural fight as if it was the most natural thing in the world, regrettably, I had no concise input or predictions to offer.

  With that thought, I tilted my head back, only to see Julia’s neon green Irises staring down at me.

  “Oh that’s right you wanted to know about Savants and Radicals. Well, in a nutshell, Savants are the people who control elemental magic like fire and water, while Radicals possess magic that’s different from the elemental kind. So, your father is a Savant and Owen’s the radical, I don’t know if you saw that just now, but Oliver used wind magic to blast Owen away.”

  “I saw that, but mom, father told me he was a dualist. Isn’t that something different?”

  She placed a hand to her cheek, taking a few seconds to decipher the essence of the concept she was about to convey.

  “A dualist is just a savant that's able to use more than one type of elemental magic. Did you get that Liam? Or should I go again?”

  At some point Julia’s focus completely shifted from the ongoing battle and centered solely on me.

  “No, I think I get it now. Thanks again mother.”

  I formed a gentle smile, inciting the spread of the crimson color on Julia’s cheeks. It wasn’t hard for me to figure out just how much she loved seeing me make this face, to her it was something of a reward.

  “They're going at it again you two.”

  Vreena’s words drew our attention back to the tense clash. Despite being flung more than twenty feet across the round, Owen was already continuing his fierce assault without even so much as a scratch on him.