Chương 65: Chapter 60: Operation Skull Tap

Cuman Gollivur spent so much time in the Kinesthetic Ring that Fabrisse had stopped wondering where to look for him. If he wasn't sparring, he was usually bothering someone who had no interest in arguing back. Having an audience only made him more obnoxious. Today, for some reason, he had learned to juggle. Three spellflares moved between his hands, each compressed into a bright sphere of aether.

Cuman kept one in the air while passing the other two back and forth, occasionally sending one high enough that he had time to turn before catching it. Fabrisse had to give him some credit. Holding a spellflare together for more than a few seconds was unpleasant enough, and Cuman had been doing this since they arrived. Miro was nowhere in sight. Fabrisse watched from behind a low hedge.

"He juggles now?" Tommaso crouched beside him, chewing the stem of a conjured mint leaf.

"He juggles pride. One of these days, someone's going to drop it for him." Judging from the orange sparks coming off Cuman's fingers, pride was quite literally what he was using.

"He's good at it."

"Yeah, unfortunately." Tommaso glanced over the hedge.

"You can still hit him, though." He gave Fabrisse a pat on the shoulder.

"It's your show. I brought the mitts. You bring the motivation." Fabrisse looked at the glyph waiting in his peripheral vision. [QUEST: Rock and Retaliation] [OBJECTIVE: Launch projectile at target's face with emotional intent] [REMAINING TIME: 26 hours, 17 minutes] [BONUS OBJECTIVE: Humiliate him publicly] [BONUS REWARD: 5 Progress Points] He slipped on the Thaumaturge's Throwmitts of Misguided Bravado.

As soon as he pulled the laces snug around his wrists, his shoulders drew back and throwing something at Cuman Gollivur began to seem like an excellent idea. Tommaso grinned.

"You ready for Operation Skull Tap?"

"That's not the name."

"It is now."

"Do you get to name operations?"

"No."

"I see why." While they had been talking, several of Cuman's usual followers had gathered around him. Rhel was there too. Cuman had stopped juggling long enough to demonstrate something to a first-year, correcting the position of his shoulder while the boy tried to form a kinetic projection. The poor student looked like he regretted it. Fabrisse reached into his satchel and picked out his smoothest Stupenstone. Through his rigorous testing, this one flew at a 2% faster speed on average.

"All right," Tommaso whispered.

"Follow the plan I've carefully crafted." Calling it carefully crafted was generous. Tommaso was at least prudent enough to write it down. Step 1: Fabrisse would enter the Kinesthetic Ring from the southwest quadrant at "sixty-five percent confidence speed." Step 2: Once Cuman noticed him, Tommaso would use delayed combustion to knock over a stack of sparring dummies. The delay was 1. 3 seconds. Step 3: Fabrisse would use the distraction to run at Cuman and throw the Stupenstone at his face.

Tommaso had named this The Curveball of Righteous Spite. That name was not better than Stupenstone Fling. Step 4: If the stone hit, Tommaso would cast a glamor over Cuman's head: CRITICAL HIT: EGO FRACTURED There had originally been an enchanted slow clap afterward. Fabrisse had made him remove it because a personalized glamor followed by Tommaso's own enchanted applause rather defeated the purpose of having an accomplice. The firework shaped like a raised middle finger had also been removed.

Step 5: Dramatic retreat into the sunset while maintaining eye contact with witnesses. Leave. They were indoors. Fabrisse had objected to most of the plan. Tommaso's response had been to ask whether he had a better one. He did not. Liene probably would have had one. Fabrisse was beginning to think he had chosen the wrong person to help with his revenge. The Thaumaturge's Throwmitts of Misguided Bravado gave another tremor around his hands. He checked the remaining time. 26 hours, 17 minutes.

He could still back out. There was plenty of time to do that. Fabrisse looked across the ring at Cuman. He probably wasn't going to.

"All right," he mumbled.

"Step one." He stepped out from behind the hedge and followed the perimeter of the Kinesthetic Ring. He quickly discovered that sixty-five percent confidence speed was utter nonsense. He tried walking normally instead, although Tommaso had apparently infected him with the idea that his normal walk looked suspicious. He passed two third-years sparring with blunt-ended rods. One of them looked over. Fabrisse kept walking unsuspiciously, hoping she would lose interest.

"Wait for it..." Tommaso whispered from behind the sparring dummies. He had somehow made crouching there look criminal. Cuman's voice carried across the ring.

"No, no, no, you idiot. You can't throw it like a dying rabbit and expect arc correction to save your honor. Are you a dying rabbit? No? Then throw again." A few people laughed. Fabrisse winced.

"Now," Tommaso hissed. Fabrisse broke into a run, waiting for the blast. Any time; any time now... Nothing exploded. Fabrisse glanced toward the dummies as he ran. They were still standing. Behind them, Tommaso was waving both hands at him. mouthing: Wait. Wait. Fuse delay. Oh, for— Fabrisse was already in the open. Cuman turned.

"Uh," Fabrisse said. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Oh, look." Cuman cracked his knuckles without interrupting the spellflares passing between his hands.

"The lawn ornament with eyebrows. Are you finally learning kinetic projection, or are you lost?" Fabrisse had already missed the distraction. If he waited any longer, he would miss the rest of the plan too. Roll. He went down too fast. His shoulder struck first, and then his knee hit the ground halfway through the roll. That was enough to ruin it. Fabrisse scraped across one of the chalk lines before getting a foot underneath himself and stumbling upright. White dust covered his sleeve.

There was grass stuck to his cheek. Cuman was still juggling.

"Was that part of it?" FP: 15/31 Spellcasting efficiency and stats drop by 30%. Oh no. I even have fewer chances to land the rock on his head now.

"Wha—?" Cuman blinked.

"Distractioooon!" Tommaso yelled. A flame dart shot past Fabrisse and struck the pile of training dummies. The resulting explosion was considerably larger than anything Fabrisse had understood to be part of the plan. A torso went spinning across the ring and landed on the other side. Foam padding slapped the first-year across the face. Everyone around Cuman ducked or threw up their arms. NO! You weren't supposed to blow up the dummies! You were supposed to blow up NOTHING! He should have asked Liene.

They were definitely getting disciplined for this. Cuman stared at Fabrisse. More specifically, at the Stupenstone in his hand.

"You little runt." Cuman's grin disappeared.

"You came here to throw that at me." Fabrisse opened his mouth. An apology would probably have been sensible. A lie might still work. He managed neither. Cuman spread his hands. The three spellflares stopped. Green aether mingled with orange sparks, stretching between them, forming a triangular array behind him as wind began circling his forearms.

"Oh no," Tommaso said from somewhere behind the wreckage.

"Showboat stance." Fabrisse brought the Stupenstone back to throw. Cuman thrust one hand forward.

"Let's see how you like throwing!" Air struck Fabrisse in the chest. His arm jerked wide, and the Stupenstone slipped from his fingers before he could throw it. [Damage Taken: Disorientated] Then Cuman snapped his fingers. The three spellflares broke apart behind him. Pieces of green-orange aether shot across the grass on either side of Fabrisse, forcing him away from the edge of the ring. Another struck the ground near his foot, and Fabrisse jumped back. Cuman came after him at an infuriatingly leisurely pace.

"FABRIIIIISSE!" Tommaso shouted. Fabrisse backed away.

"What?!"

"GO SNOWGLOBE!

"What does that mean?" Snow hit Fabrisse's ear. It was July. What? He can cast snow spells now? A gust tore across the ring before Fabrisse could question this further. Snow came with it, thick enough to swallow Cuman from the waist up.

"What the—" Cuman threw an arm across his face.

"MOVE!" Tommaso barked. FP: 9/31 [Thaumaturge's Throwmitts of Misguided Bravado's Passive Effect Activated] Fabrisse ducked and ran. The Stupenstone he had dropped was still lying in the grass. Its ivory glow showed through the snow, and Fabrisse veered toward it only to catch his foot on a training cone. He stumbled forward, stepped on the hem of his own robe, and went down flat on his back. Somehow, the Stupenstone had ended up right beside his hand.

Through the gap beneath his raised knee, he could see Cuman perfectly. Fabrisse grabbed the stone. This might actually work. I must stone him. He scooped it, channeled, and threw. The mitts burned with kinetic heat. The glyph flared. The Stupenstone screamed. Cuman turned, just in time to catch it right between the eyebrows. The spellflares winked out. His balance failed. Cuman hit the ground. A snowflake landed gently on his left cheek.

[Quest Completed: Rock and Retaliation] [Reward Granted: Spectral Appraisal (Rank I)] [Bonus Objective Achieved: Humiliate him publicly] [Reward Granted: Progress Points +5] [Title Unlocked: Petty Strategist (Temporary)] Fabrisse stood there, stunned, while Tommaso slid beside him in a cloud of conjured frost. They stared down at the unconscious future of inherited mediocrity. It felt great seeing him like this. Was this satisfaction? Pride? He couldn't tell.

He just knew his chest thrummed loud and his knees felt like static. Fabrisse turned to Tommaso.

"I did it." Tommaso nodded eagerly.

"He got stoned." They fist-bumped. The sun blazed behind them for some unknown reason. They turned back. The 'sun' was a burning training dummy. Tommaso opened his mouth, "Right. That one was probably a bit much." The scorched husk of foam and cloth tipped sideways with a theatrical fwoomp, sending a thin curl of smoke into the air. [Sparring Completed: +222 EXP] [EXP: 2820/2800] Congratulations! You have reached Level 6. You have gained 3 Attribute Points. Leveled up! That was for sure not sparring though...

A dozen students stood around the Kinesthetic Ring, staring. A few were still crouched from the explosion, and the first-year had somehow ended up holding a piece of foam padding from one of the dummies. Fabrisse lowered his hand after their fist bump.

"So, uh. Now what?" Tommaso slapped him on the back.

"Now we establish what happened."

"We know what happened."

"Yes. They don't." Tommaso turned to the crowd.

"Good afternoon, everyone. You have just witnessed an unfortunate altercation between two students." That was one way to describe it.

"Cuman Gollivur, entirely unprovoked, attempted to intimidate a fellow student through the use of kinetic spellflares." Someone near the back raised a hand.

"Wait, weren't you the one who blew up the—" Tommaso smiled over him.

"And in a heroic act of instinctual self-defense, young Fabrisse Kestovar—famed rock-flinger and part-time duck whisperer—used a basic thaumaturgic tool of resistance to subdue a belligerent upperclassman." Tommaso was several classes above Cuman.

"I remind you all, this is permitted under Synod Clause 107. 1. b, Reasonable Defensive Thaumaturgy in Response to Imminent Harm."

"There is no way you know the clause number."

"I read the handbook." One student shrugged.

"I mean, he was being a jerk again."

"Cuman's always yelling at first-years," someone else said. The girl with the clipboard pointed toward him.

"I saw him throw a chalkboard because it misspelled his name."

"His name was spelled correctly."

"I know." The first-year was still holding the piece of foam that had hit him.

"Is anyone going to check if he's breathing?"

"He's fine," Tommaso called.

"You can't kill smugness. It just regenerates."

"This is insane," Fabrisse muttered.

"Yeah, but look around." Tommaso nodded toward the edge of the ring.

"Nobody here likes him. Even his henchman's leaving." Fabrisse followed his nod. Rhel was already halfway to the exit with his head down, whistling to himself.

"Rhel!" someone called. The whistle got louder. Tommaso watched him go for a moment, then turned back to the others.

"Right. If anyone official asks, Cuman cast the first spell and Fabrisse acted in self-defense. The dummies spontaneously combusted due to poor maintenance, which I believe was already documented in Facilities Report 217-C."

"Is that report real?"

"It is now." The girl with the clipboard looked at Cuman, still sprawled on the grass.

"Well, I saw him cast first." The first-year raised his hand.

"Me too." Nobody contradicted them. Fabrisse looked around the ring.

"Are we actually doing this?"

"Nothing beats the power of mutual hatred." Tommaso patted him on the back. This might not end with an Instructant dragging him into an office after all.