Chương 20: Mage VS What the Hell is She?! (Flare's POV)

(Flare's POV) (Flare's POV) I was, by any reasonable measure, the best mage in my batch at the Mage Guild in Aethre. This was not arrogance. Arrogance implied doubt underneath it. I had no such doubt. I had passed my B-rank application test at nineteen, faster than most in the Aethre Adventurer Guild's recorded history. I had the documentation to prove it, the test scores to back the documentation, and the practical results that made the scores irrelevant. The invitations had arrived. I declined every one of them.

Not because I was waiting for something better — though I was — but because I had standards. The other parties at the Adventurer Guild were fine. Competent, adequately organized, and would have made good opportunities for someone whose ceiling was lower than mine. My ceiling wasn't lower than theirs. I was waiting for someone higher. An archmage, perhaps. Or I could aim to become one of the top ten mages myself and skip the waiting entirely. I liked to think I had the talent for it.

In the meantime, I took solo quests, because standing still had never been something I did well. It also kept me sharp, and paid for the hat, which was a significant ongoing expense. The hat was enormous, beautifully made, and tilted at precisely the right angle. It was my signature, and signatures mattered. I waited.

The morning it happened, the plaza was louder than usual. Loud enough to reach me through two floors of inn and a closed window, which the plaza did not generally manage. I was a light sleeper by necessity. Solo questing built certain habits. But the noise had me sitting upright before I'd fully processed why. I dressed quickly. The hat went on last, adjusted to its correct angle. I went down the stairs and out through the inn door. The street was full.

I moved through the edges of the crowd, using my hat as a battering ram, until I found a position with adequate sightlines. I saw them. The top two archmages. Faust and Legrand. I watched them. Legrand, especially. He was, after all, the pinnacle of magic in this generation. My legs moved on their own. I registered that I was pushing through the crowd. I registered that I had arrived in the open space before them.

I registered that two archmages were looking at me, and that several hundred other people were looking at me too. Riding the momentum that had appeared from nowhere, I extended my hand.

"Can I join your party?" Faust clicked his tongue. His stare was frightening, given how tall he was.

"Move." Legrand reached over and clapped a hand on Faust's shoulder.

"Come on. Give her a moment."

"Make it quick." Faust didn't shrug the hand off, but his voice stayed flat.

"We have a meeting with the other eight about the Dragon King and the new Demon King."

"Sure, sure." Legrand waved him off without looking back, already stepping past him toward me. He was around my height, which made him several times less frightening than Faust. He also had a gentler face. Almost angelic, to the point where he could pass as either male or female depending on the angle the light hit his face. He put a hand under my chin and tilted it up slightly. I let him, looking directly into his mismatched eyes: one deep black, one shiny gold.

"Sorry, but we're not open for applications right now." He smiled.

"I-is that so…" It felt like time had stopped, and by the time it started again, I hadn't even noticed they'd already walked past me. I didn't mind. I was still in a daze from the encounter.

The next day, I went to the Mage Guild to submit my transfer request to Leveron. The adventurers here in Aethre had grown consistently annoying. A group of F-ranks had asked me to join their party the week before, apparently under the impression that a solo B-rank mage was simply looking for company. I'd declined as politely as I could manage, which was not very. Then there was the old adventurer, easily three times my age, who had asked me for a one-night stand outside a tavern. I rejected him.

He seemed genuinely surprised. I found that more insulting than the proposition itself. Leveron was my hometown. I already had my license as a mage. I'd already paid off the hat. Based on those facts, I couldn't find a single good reason to keep staying. I could always come back later, once I was strong enough to actually challenge one of the ten archmages myself. Who knew. Maybe that would end up being sooner than people expected. That was when I saw Faust, scolding some new mage with long red hair.

I recognized her. She'd registered at the Mage Guild around the same time I had. I hadn't heard much about her since, which meant one of two things: either she was underperforming, or I was simply talented enough that my entire batch had been left behind in my wake without my noticing. I decided it was the second one. Which meant that she wasn't untalented at all. She was just being compared to someone considerably better. That happened to people. It wasn't her fault, exactly.

It was just the natural consequence of standing near me. And for Faust, I wasn't particularly interested in him himself. My odds of ever joining his party were essentially zero. Legrand would have been the better target, but he wasn't here today. Too bad. I moved closer anyway. I couldn't deny I was still intrigued.

"You don't have the talent to be a mage. Get out." Faust's glare stayed perfectly icy throughout. I felt a little sorry for the girl, but not everyone got to be a mage. You needed real talent for magic. That wasn't cruelty. That was just how the world worked. She ran past me. Our shoulders collided. She gave a quick, hurried bow and kept running. I shrugged, moved to the counter, and made a mental note not to provoke Faust. I bet that man would end up alone forever.

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Teasing Jett's brother had seemed straightforward and satisfying. Jett himself was not easy to tease. He responded well at first, but the longer you kept at it, the more it inevitably curved into a lecture on how beautiful he was, which was deeply unsatisfying. I'd made that mistake once. I had since sworn never to tease a narcissist. Kardan wasn't easy to tease either. He'd just look at you with an expression that carried one clear, unspoken question — are you okay in the head?

— which produced the same unsatisfying result. Both of them were reliable party members, but as a person, I had my doubts. Jett's brother, though, had reacted. Even his face was unremarkable, something visible and human had happened on it when I teased him. So I'd kept going. Then the mage had stepped in and taken the spotlight for herself. She was already trembling before I'd done anything at all. Excellent.

"Ara?" I leaned closer, arranging my expression into something that was, technically, a smile.

"I'm not that scary, you know?" Her trembling intensified. Her feet didn't move an inch. Interesting. I leaned in closer still. Her hair was red, long, and loose around her shoulders.

"By the way, you look kind of familiar…" I tilted my head, studying her face.

"Hmm… Where have I…" I snapped my fingers, then hit my palm. She looked exactly like the one who'd quit simply because she got scolded once. I doubted her goals had ever been that grand, if a single scolding was enough to send her packing.

"Ah. You're the new mage without talent." Though, I had my doubts they were actually the same person. Nobody put rocks on their head. I kept teasing her a little further, curious whether she'd finally snap. Then I noticed she was carrying a bow now, not a staff. A career change? Well, I supposed that couldn't be helped if she genuinely had no talent for magic. And archery was long-range too, so I could at least see the logic in it. Maybe Kardan would finally have an opinion about this. I turned to him.

"Hey, Kardan, do you remember her at the Archer Guild?"

"Not interested." Kardan didn't look up.

"Come on, don't be like that. Were you there when she registered?"

"Just because she has a bow doesn't mean we registered at the same time. Hurry up and get this over with. We still have to walk." He sat on a rock and started wiping down his bow.

"Ugh. Why do you need to make me remember that when I'm having my fun right now?" I complained.

"Forget about that killjoy." Jett made another pose, one hand on his hip, chin tilted upward.

"Observe my beauty instead." Well. I'd tried. Talking to either of them was never any fun in the end. I returned my attention to the far more interesting person in front of me.

"Anyway. Small world, isn't it?" I smiled.

"I always wondered what happened to you. And seriously, why archery? You know the Mage Guild is not on good terms with the Archer Guild." Which was true. I'd once overheard our Guild Master arguing with the Archer Guild Master about renaming their class to "bowuser," or maybe "bowman" like swordsman. The Archer Guild Master had found the suggestions deeply insulting. The two guilds had been at odds ever since. Our Guild Master had even gone so far as to try recruiting the churches to the cause.

His reasoning: "Don't your high priests carry the same title? Archpriest? Let's take the Archer Guild down together." I didn't find out how that particular pitch had gone.

"It's because you mages are obsessed with the word arch," Kardan said, joining in for once. That was new.

"Is that the reason? How stupid." Genuinely, it was a stupid reason.

"Both of your guilds are stupid," Jett added, unhelpfully. I looked back at her.

"And what is that stupid rock, anyway?" It had been bothering me for a while now, if I was being honest. My hand moved toward it. She swatted my hand away. I blinked. Had I gone too far? Then she spoke.

"Watch it, second-rate mage."

"Hehh… did you seriously just call me second-rate? A mage without talent, calling me second-rate?" I laughed. I turned to Kardan.

"Hey, Kardan, she just called me second-rate! By a mage who got kicked out of the Mage Guild for having no talent at all!" Kardan sighed, which was fine. Kardan sighed all the time. I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye and looked back at her.

"Want to play with me, then?" She nodded. She had guts. I'd give her that much. Now that I looked closer, she was no longer trembling at all. Interesting.

The distance I put between us was professional. Forty feet, give or take. Enough room for a mage to properly work with. Or, presumably, an archer. Behind me, I could hear Jett and Kardan.

"Want to make a bet?"

"This is a waste of time." I looked at her.

"Ready?" She nodded. Her hand moved to the rock on her head. I raised my hand.

"Fire—" Something wet slapped me across the face. My focus shattered instantly.

"What the—" I looked back to the front, one hand pressed to my cheek. She was running toward me at an alarming speed. I clicked my tongue.

"Fire Ball!" She sidestepped right. No, left. No, somehow both left and right at once?! Looking closer now that she was barely a meter away, I registered the second problem: an unknown creature running alongside her, matching her stride. Both of them were carrying a rock. I took a step back and stumbled over my own feet.

"Ehh?"

"Otter Rock Smash." Her rock swung directly toward my face. No — not the face. Jett appeared between us. His sword caught both rocks on the flat of the blade.

"Sorry, but I can't let you kill her." She kicked off the ground and went backward. No, she flew backward, clearing the distance to the tree behind her in a single clean arc, and landed neatly on a branch. She set the rock back on her head and looked down at me with cold blue eyes. Jett whistled as he sheathed his sword. That's not a mage! That's not an archer either! What the hell is she?! The thought arrived all at once. The jump. The speed. The rock. The second creature, with its own rock.

None of it fit any category I had a clean box for. Maybe they teach that at the Archer Guild now? I glanced at Kardan for confirmation. No. That couldn't be it. Whatever an archer was supposed to be, it was bows and arrows. Not rocks. Not a strange creature that appeared out of nowhere holding one. Whatever it was, it had crossed forty feet faster than I could complete a single incantation. I gritted my teeth. Did I just lose? Me? To a mage everyone agreed had no talent? Jett extended a hand toward me.

"That was embarrassing." I pouted my best pout. I took his hand anyway, because the alternative was getting up unassisted, which would have been more embarrassing.

"Hmph!" I walked. Quickly. Past Kardan, who regarded me with his usual expression of comprehensive indifference.

"That was embarrassing."

"There's no need to repeat it!" I broke into a run, which I was fully aware looked worse than walking, but which my legs had apparently decided on without consulting me. Behind me, I heard Kardan's footsteps following at an unhurried pace. And then Jett shouted, "Why is this creature attacking me?!"

"Jett, we're leaving you behind and taking your share." Kardan's voice stayed perfectly flat. A pause. Then Jett was suddenly behind me.

"Who told you to decide that? Are you the leader, Kardan? Are you actually the leader? Because nobody informed me — hey, what are you putting in your ears?!" I slowed slightly. Just enough to breathe properly. Just enough to glance back over my shoulder. She wasn't watching me anymore. I faced forward again. I let out a sigh. Somewhere behind me, Jett had escalated to volume. Then he stopped.

"Wait, are we forgetting something?"

"Probably not important if you forgot," Kardan said. Jett laughed.

"True." He kept walking. I sighed, put one hand on my hat, adjusted it to its correct angle, and kept walking. I won't lose the next time we meet. And I swear I'll have already snatched one of those archmage seats by the time we do.