Chương 43: Four on Four

"A contest?" one of the Dupes asked.

"Let's call it a duel. Four on four." They were all Irons, just the same as us, and with any luck, they weren't the best. But these also weren't the average sappers, and if we were playing by the rules, then I couldn't deploy my Art to mess with them.

"Brawl and I have no rankings to lose…" I muttered, then glanced at Sage.

"I am ranked one hundred and five," Sage said.

"How?" I whispered.

"You haven't duelled anyone."

"Druids are ranked differently, mothbrain," she shot back.

"It doesn't matter," Anchor said.

"It's too late for our ranks to matter, and our performance tomorrow on the examination will affect our standing far more. I, for one, am more than happy to release a little rage on these scumbags."

"Release a little anger and win, right?" I muttered.

"Scumbags?" one of Anchor's old squadmates asked. He wore his hair in a high ponytail—it practically stuck out the top of his head, like a helmet's plume.

"We're just doing what we have to. And in the end, we'll be sappers, and you won't. Always going on about honour and the right way of doing things. Well, orcs don't play fair, so why should we?"

"You've never been to the front, Plume," Anchor replied.

"You wouldn't know the half of it." Ah, I thought. He's appropriately named.

"Yeah, and so what? We're going to get ourselves a high wage and comfortable jobs guarding the king in the innermost rings of Eraen-Kalora, and you'll get shipped back to the front, where you'll die in a few months."

"At least I'll die with honour," Anchor said with a smirk.

"Let's begin." He'd already strung his bow, but it didn't matter—we weren't allowed to use bows and arrows in sparring. It was too dangerous, too many chances of us killing each other or harming a bystander. So that meant archers had to work with their melee skills only. That meant pure archers couldn't properly display their skill yet or be useful. But what were the chances of Anchor's old squad seeing that?

"Anchor, wait," I said.

"Let us—" Before I could finish, Anchor rushed forward and struck Plume horizontally across the gut with his bow, making the man keel over. As far as I was aware, that was incredibly stupid to do with most bows—for the excessive wear it put on them—but then again, maybe Anchor had a specially crafted bow.

"Honourless bastards," Anchor snarled.

"Leaving me on my own three days before the exam, letting me get stuck with an Atoning." Something told me the Atoning part was where his anger truly came from. Enough that he didn't care about preserving his bow. A second Dupe punched Anchor in the cheek, sending him sprawling to the side. He skidded across the sand of the training pit, trailing spittle out his mouth.

"That's what you get for being a horrible squadmate!" Plume jeered.

"Sage," I whispered.

"Can Morph do anything to fight?"

"You want me to help? More than just heal?"

"Yes?"

"I didn't think anyone would— Look out!" One of the Dupes rushed at me with a training sword and shield. I darted to the side and picked up a spear from the rack, while at the same time, Brawl struck the man in the chest with a meaty forearm, sending him skidding backward and making him drop his shield.

"That is what you get for touching one of my brothers."

"Phrasing…" I groaned.

"We need to work on phrasing…" I gave my spear a whirl and tried to leap into battle, tried to get close to Brawl to help out, but Plume hit me in the back with a wooden axe, launching me back the other way. I slapped the side of my head and jumped to my feet, trying to refocus. Within seconds, my enhanced Focus kicked in, and I took stock of our situation in a blink. Brawl didn't even have a weapon yet.

Anchor had rushed in too quickly, ruining everything for us, and we didn't even have a chance to arm up properly or make a formation. Instead of retreating and trying to recover, Brawl charged forward, attacking Plume and another of the enemy Dupes and taking the pressure off me—and leaving Sage and Anchor exposed. The third Dupe, the man with the sword, was rushing toward them. They didn't have a front-liner to protect them. I sprinted toward them, trying to intercept the sword Dupe.

I lunged, about to block a sword strike, but a vine curled up and wrapped around my ankle, tripping me. My gaze flicked over to their druid—the maybe-elf girl. She held up a staff, and green light circled around it.

"You used an Art!" I snapped.

"Prove it." She smirked and flicked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

"I saw— Oh, whatever!" No one else was watching to prove her wrong or right. And I didn't have time to argue about fairness. She was too far away to strike, and Anchor and Sage needed help more. I'd just have to deal with it. The Dupe with the sword, who was rushing Anchor and Sage, had tackled Sage off of Morph, leaving her to crawl away. He pushed her down to the sand and punched her in the nose, before Anchor wrapped his bowstring around the man's neck and pulled back.

"What kind of servant of Gate are you, huh, who would punch a lady in the nose! Have some chivalry, man!" I rushed in and kicked the sword out of the enemy Dupe's grip. A moment later, Morph shifted back into his golem form and towered over the Dupe. The golem let out a woody growl, then opened his mouth and unleashed a roar of wind. He threw a fist at the Dupe Anchor was restraining, but the Dupe wrenched himself to the side.

Morph's fist hit Anchor in the forehead instead, sending the archer skidding back across the sand pit.

"Bloody tree!" Anchor yelled.

"Control it!" I slammed my spear into the Dupe's side, knocking him down to the sand, then said, "Morph, restrain him! I'm going to help Brawl!" I raced toward Brawl, but before I could get there, Plume knocked the man under the chin with a heavy punch. He had gotten too close for Brawl to deal with, and the druid was manipulating vines to restrict him. She'd raised a few tendrils, wrapped them around Brawl's arms, and held his arms out to the side, exposing him.

I attacked the druid first, kicking her back and knocking her out of the pit.

"Stay down." This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. But she'd already done her damage. Plume struck Brawl under the chin a few more times, until he finally slumped down, unconscious. One of them was out, but one of us was down too. I skidded to a halt, torn between both skirmishes. I split my focus, making a quick analysis of the situation. Morph hadn't listened to me. He had gone to protect Sage instead of restraining the sword-wielding Dupe.

At the moment, Anchor was scuffling with him, but he had the upper hand. Even worse, he was using some kind of Art to slow Anchor's movements. And even with me knocking the druid out of the arena, she was using another art. She held out her staff, compressing Morph with some kind of nature magic, preventing him from reaching Sage. Sage crawled toward him, shouting something and pulling herself with her arms, but it was futile. Anchor had been right. They were scum.

And I should have made sure the druid was out for good. I shrugged internally. There was no way we were winning this. Too much had already gone wrong. Sage and Anchor were done for. But I wasn't just going to give up. I charged toward Plume and his buddy. I struck his companion in the head with the shaft of my spear, using a technique Shave had taught me, but it didn't take the man out of the fight like I'd been hoping.

I skirmished for a half minute, lunging and swinging, and after a few jabs to the stomach and another harder thwack to the head, I knocked out Plume's companion—but it wasn't enough. Plume jumped on my back, which I could have dealt with, but the third (on the other side of the pit) had forced Anchor to yield. And now he raced over to help restrain me. I tried to throw my immediate assailant off, and after a few tries, I was successful, but I wasn't fast enough.

The third Dupe grabbed my arm and put me in an uncomfortable hold, and after a few seconds of struggle, he pushed me out of the arena. Should I keep going? They didn't fight with honour, so why should I? But I was better than that. I wanted to be a sapper to make a difference, to stand up to assholes like this. I surrendered, tossing down my spear, and Plume spat on my back.

"Useless Atoning. Should've picked the mines. Now get out of here. Maybe do us all a favour and quit, while you still can." ~ ~ ~ A half hour later, we sat at the edge of the training pit. I nursed a few scrapes and bruises, Sage wiped her bloody nose with a rag, and Anchor was pulling splinters out of his forehead. Brawl was slowly waking up, and Morph had turned back into a walking, scuttling stool for Sage. We'd been silent, but finally, Sage said, "No one's ever punched me before."

"It's a miracle," Anchor grumbled.

"But someone surely would have if you weren't the Ealdorman's daughter." He folded his arms.

"You're useless without your plant. We're going to fail tomorrow. We're all going to get redistributed across the front lines and fed to the orcs to slow their advances."

"Not me," Sage said. Anchor rolled his eyes.

"It's the truth," she insisted.

"You don't have to rub it in."

"It's what you were created to do. Fight. Nothing else."

"Guys…" I muttered. I tried to think of something useful to say, but I couldn't come up with anything. And I still didn't know enough about the team's capabilities.

"Sage, can you walk on your own?" I glanced over at her legs. They were made of wood and vines, just like Morph's limbs, but they seemed permanently locked—about the same shape her legs would've been if she had been a regular young woman. But they barely moved.

"Not yet," Sage grumbled.

"Perhaps when I am a Steel. More likely, when I reach Titanium and can devote massive amounts of Presence to them."

"How close are you to Steel?"

"I'm stuck," she said.

"It's hard to explain. Our magic is more esoteric than yours. And it's no good to stuff a Dupe's mind. Your body already went insane once. I don't need to make it happen again." I shook my head.

"Fine, then. I was going to ask if there was anything I could do to help, but…"

"S—sorry," she whispered.

"But there's nothing anyone can do. It's all on me." We had a hot-headed archer who tried to fight hand-to-hand, a healer who couldn't walk, a brawler who sucked at close quarters fighting, and then there was me. Who had only been in this world for two months, and didn't know what I was doing. How was I supposed to even take charge? It wasn't official, but everyone except Morph seemed to be taking orders from me.

"Well, I for one am ready to get this over with tomorrow," Anchor said. He stood up with a huff.

"That's it for me. I'll be at the mess hall tomorrow morning, bright and early."

"I need a bath," Sage muttered.

"Come on, Morph. I guess we'll be going home in a few weeks. You always wanted to live the rest of your life in a cage with me, didn't you?" Morph chittered something at her, and she shook her head, then let him carry her away. I waited with Brawl until the man woke up completely, then explained what had happened. We still had a team, but things weren't looking good for tomorrow. ~ ~ ~ I couldn't sleep that evening.

I laid on my back, staring up at the ceiling, trying to ignore my roommates' snoring, but it didn't work. Eventually, I snuck out of the barracks. At this point, did it matter if someone caught me? Chances were, tomorrow was going to go the exact same as today. Maybe one of us would even get killed, because that would be just our luck.

I snuck out of the barracks, then climbed up to the building's thatched roof and lay on the slope, enjoying the cool air and staring up at the sky—at the stars and the massive orb of Welkinmere, and its pale white eye staring back at me. It was probably just a massive storm, like Jupiter had, but it felt like an eye.

"Rough day?" came a voice from behind me. I groaned, then glanced over my shoulder. I didn't recognize the voice—it sounded too much like all the other Dupes. Anchor knelt on the peak of the barracks' roof.

"You know exactly how it went," I said.

"You were there. Now, why are you up here?"

"I'm an archer. My Perception is better than anyone else's. I heard you sneaking out and decided to follow you." He snorted.

"Besides, [Stealth] is one of my Skills, and I wouldn't be much of an archer if I couldn't climb up to a high place and get some kind of vantage point."

"What do you want, then? Tell me I don't belong here?" I paused.

"You're probably right. I shouldn't have been summoned. I grew up with a cushy, average life. I shouldn't have thought I could be a soldier. God, I hated group work so much in school. Always someone to let you down, always someone to screw things up."

"Always someone else's fault, isn't it?"

"You're telling me you didn't at least contribute to our loss today? Sometimes it is other people's faults."

"Point taken." Anchor crossed his arms.

"But you let their druid stay in play. You tried to command Morph instead of letting Sage do it. You're telling me you have no control over your own destiny?"

"Doesn't feel like it. I couldn't even die properly. Then I got sent here. No choice in the matter."

"If you jump off that roof and snap your neck, you'll die properly."

"Thanks."

"Well, am I wrong?"

"Did you just come here to nag me?" I flopped back onto my back."

'Cause I came out here to try to relax."

"There's always something you can do to control your own destiny," Anchor said.

"That's the principle the first kings founded this nation on. That we didn't have to let the world of men be ruled by the Dark Lord. We didn't have to succumb to his evil whims. And when we sealed him in the Bane-lands, that was the doing of Gate too. By our strength and honour, by the ideas of our nation, by our will to find freedom…we were victorious."

"I thought you hated me. But it sounds like you're trying to help me."

"Yeah. Well, I realized I don't want to get sent out to some random battalion in the south full of good-for-nothing slackers who are now getting massacred in droves because the Warlord was blind to the orcs' plans." He shook his head.

"And despite everything that went wrong today, you fought with honour."

"Why should I lead?"

"Brawl has a good heart, but he's not the sharpest sword on the rack. Sage is a pampered Lady who has to devote just as much attention to keeping her golem in check, and she'll spend the rest trying to heal us."

"And you?"

"I'm a half-blind archer, soulstealer. I know my limits."

"So it's gotta be me, huh? That's what you're saying?"

"I'm telling you that there's still a chance tomorrow. And yeah, I don't want to let a soulstealer lead me, but someone needs to take charge. I'd rather serve under an honourable Atoning than a dishonourable Dupe."

"Are you ready to be led, then?"

"That depends on how convincing you can be tomorrow." Anchor scowled.

"I'm sorry for what I did today, Levi. I shouldn't have charged, and I'll wait for orders next time. But we need you. You put this squad together. Now finish the job."

"Yeah." I clenched my fists tight.

"You're right, though. It's not over yet."