18 Chapter 18: Duel
"Yep" I replied
"Then we start on his signal," Serena said as she pointed to the random adventurer
"Okay," I replied
The random adventurer pointed his arms into the air and quietly waited for the right moment to lower them.
I'm standing in the middle of a giant circle of adventurers in the city. Won't it be too dangerous if I use my magic? Well, maybe it's better this way, at least those guys who were planning on stealing my money will learn how scary I can be.
The man lowered his arm, and in that instant, Serena started moving while chanting.
I waited it out to see what she would cast. It took 5 seconds for her to finish the chant and another second for it to cast.
The spell she cast made around 10 fire arrows form in the surrounding air.
"Hmm... That's slow.. What happens if your chant gets interrupted?"
"Stop playing around!" She said as she gave the signal for her arrows to attack me.
Fire... I usually use ice and never water... all right let's create a Water s.h.i.+eld
"Scutum Aqua" I muttered as I remained still in the same spot
I had formed a s.h.i.+eld of water right in front of myself and it blocked all the arrows as it let out an insane amount of steam
The crowd which was unusually quiet cheered as they watched.
"Wh"
Before Serena could finish what she would say, I countered. I had cast glacies while the s.h.i.+eld was blocking the arrows and waited for the moment for her to drop her guard.
She tried to dodge, but it was too late, my glacies had directly hit at Serena. The area where there was contact froze up and spread throughout her entire body. Covering everything but her face.
"Well then... Checkmat-"
Before I could finish what I would say, Serena began chanting something. The Ice Which had enveloped her body melted, and a lion made of pure fire was formed beside her.
"Oh... That's interesting. You realised that merely casting fire spells won't work. So you summoned a fire lion."
"Stop talking so much! Focus on the fight!" She shouted.
"Yes... Yes.." I replied
I watched the lion as I waited for it to attack. The lion observed me as it slowly approached. It pounced at me in an attempt to get in a bite, but I easily evaded it's attacks with magic stregthening
Chant magic huh.. chanting is like a script which executes a program. Its strength is limited to how strong the script is and what type of script it is.
With concept magic, you can easily control the magic element in however way you want, with practice. It's like you become the programmer itself and create the script. Which is why, with practice, concept magic should be the strongest magic there is, not to mention you don't need to say chanting words. Why I use mine doesn't matter.
"The other difference is... Hey Serena, I will try something I've never tried before! I'll also stop holding back, so as a mage you should think of a way to defend yourself while you're lion's fighting"
"Huh? I already kno-"
Before she could finish what she was going to say, A glacies I had cast flew towards her and hit her leg
"See," I asked as she was casting a spell to heat up her leg
Casting takes too long. I could've put pressure on her while she was unfreezing her leg or I could've just frozen her head from the beginning to stop her from chanting.
"However, that would be boring. I still need to prove my strength so... No more playing around. Glacies."
Above my finger, a slightly bigger version of glacies than normal was formed.
"Hey, you know what happens when ice goes into contact with fire right? It melts. But what if the ice is even colder than the fire? And in this case, will you fire be strong enough to both melt the ice and evaporate the water?"
"What are you talking about? I thought you said you stopped playing around!"
"I did," I replied as I propelled my big Glacies to the Lion
On impact the lion began to freeze up, the fire spread throughout its whole body before it was completely engulfed.
The crowd which was cheering up until a while ago became quiet before letting out even bigger cheers
"What... The h.e.l.l.. You froze Fire!?" She asked
"Yep, even if it didn't freeze the ice would've turned to water and turned the fire to steam."
"Those daggers on your waist... Why don't you use them?" She asked
"Why? Well, it's because we're having a magician battle right? It wouldn't be fair for me to just charge at you with a dagger while you're casting. I wouldn't be able to test your skills and you wouldn't be able to test mine."
"I see... So, in the end, you were still holding back.. I'm a disappointment as a wizard" She said as sat on the floor on the floor with tears filling her eyes
I approached her and sat down next to her
"What are you talking about? You were able to stay concentrated and focused on casting even though I was constantly pressuring you with my movements. Not to mention that fire lion you summoned, that was really cool!"
She began to look at me as I continued to go on about what I thought
"You can't call yourself a disappointment over one loss. Where I'm from people say 'Losing only makes you stronger'. Anyways... So what I'm trying to say is... Don't cry.."
For a moment, she showed me a
"Sorry.." I said as I got up
"But. Thank you... Next time I'll beat you!"
"Yes... Yes... I'm looking forward to it."
"Oi, are you still taking me lightly.." she said as she got me on a headlock
"What are you talking about... I would never dream of such a thing." I said as I playfully tried to get out
"You're doing it again!" She said
As I continued to struggle in the headlock, the adventurer who was the ref of the match, asked us. "So who's the winner?"
Serena was the first to speak up. "It's my loss, I surrender."
Hearing this the crowd let out another round of cheers. As they picked me up and threw me in the air
"W Sto-"
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After the fight was over, The crowd had carried me all the way to the guild, Serena and Ariel followed
Now, me, ariel and Serena are sat on one of the empty tables of the guild.
Most of the people in the guild seem like they trust me a lot more now that they've seen what I can do... Adventurers are weird.
"So.. As our agreement suggested, Ariel will decide on whether or not you join. And I'll just ask you one question."
She slowly nodded her head
"You don't have to give any personal information to join our party, that comes naturally as we find out more about each other. What I wanted to ask was, why our party? Speaking of which, with your skill, you must be able to join any party."
"I arrived at the port yesterday... I was bored and I've been travelling by myself. Most parties you see here are only temporary or only stay in this area, not many people actually travel around.. I overheard that you guys were travellers
Ah.. so it was luck?
"Also heard that were claiming to beat wolves and bandits like it was nothing. I thought that i finally found a party which I could travel with.. And you guys looked like you were having fun so i wanted to join in... Before I could do that, I wanted to see how strong you were though so i challenged you to a duel"
Did I really claim it like it was nothi- Nevermind.
"And that brings us to now. So Ariel what's your decision?" I asked
Serena gulped
"I have nothing against Serena, in fact, I'd love it if she joined the party. The only reason I was mad at you was because you didn't consult me first, I was even planning on telling you beforehand that i didn't mind if she joined but you guys rushed into the duel." Said ariel
Oh...
Ariel approached Serena and grabbed on to her hand. Before saying "Welcome to the party!"
"Welcome!" I added on
"Thank you!" Serena said with a bright smile
"Besides, I was getting tired of travelling with an overprotective guy like John.. With another girl here we'll be able to teach him a lesson," Said Ariel in a playful tone
"Wh? Ariel?" I asked
Ariel let out a giggle before saying "I'm joking. I love travelling with john". With a smile on her face
"Oh.. I see... " I replied with a relieved expression
"But um... Travelling with John is fun and... And seeing as we are the only girls here... I hope we get along.." Ariel said as she stretched out her hand for a handshake from Serena
"Me too.." Said Serena as she shook her hand
I don't know why but seeing Ariel make a friend puts a smile on my face
"John you too," Ariel said
"Yes... Yes.." I replied as I put my hand above theirs
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Right now we're heading to a random inn. I have 81 gold coins in total after exchanging the pelt and receiving the bounty and both me and Ariel were moved up to D Rank
Ever since leaving the guild, Ariel and Serena have been quite close ever since they left the guild. And have been talking to each other
It turns out, Serena's 15 and a C rank adventurer. It's pretty good for her age I think.
It's nice seeing her have this much fun talking but I feel left out.
After we arrived at the inn, I was about to talk to the innkeeper before suddenly remembering something.
"Um Serena, during your interview you said something about waiting for the s.h.i.+p of Atlas to arrive right? What do you mean by that?"
"You didn't know? The s.h.i.+p comes once every week and you can't go there unless you go through to the s.h.i.+p otherwise you won't be allowed in. The s.h.i.+p will be arriving tomorrow."
"Wow... I had no idea, thanks."
"It's fine."
After the discovery, I bought a room for 3 and paid in advance for dinner
There goes 12 silver coins.. Unlike 3 Silver for a room with one bed each night in halfaust. When you ask for 3 beds it's 9 silver and the extra 3 silver was for dinner.
The reason why I'm paying for everything is to celebrate Serena joining. Besides Ariel wanted to and my money is technically her money too so there's no reason to say no.
After paying for everything in advance, we were all starving so we had dinner and went to our room
Inside it was pretty big and warm, there were 3 beds aligned next to each other. And another room which appeared to be the shower.
Seeing that, the girls took off their armour and went inside
"John," Ariel said
"Yes?" I replied
"Can you please heat up the water for us?" Ariel asked as she walked out of the bathroom
"Yes... Yes.." I replied and did the following
I walked inside and began to heat up the water in the buckets. Unlike the bathroom in our previous inn, this one was big.
Serena who was watching let out a surprised "Wow.."
"Is something wrong?" I asked
"No, it's just I've never seen someone use magic the way you do... You heated up the water without any chants and even in our fight, I didn't see you use chants... Even though I can use fire magic, if I tried to heat up the buckets it'd end up either evaporating or exploding due to the power"
"It's complicated," I said
"I see... If you do not wish to talk about it, I won't force you" She replied
I feel bad for not telling her but for her own safety, it's better if she doesn't know. Hopefully, Ariel doesn't tell her, she promised not to talk about concept magic with anyone
After I finished warming everything up I told Ariel I was going for a stroll before leaving the room
"Where is he going?" Serena asked
"I don't know, he always does that whenever I take a shower.." Ariel Replied
I can still hear you guys... The reason why I do it is because I'm trying to keep my mind pure!
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I spent the last 15 minutes walking around the town as I waited for the girls to finish taking a shower.
Nothing happened to me but there were people watching me while I walked so I'm guessing my display of skill in the duel wasn't enough.
My original plan was to sabotage those guys while the girls were distracted but seeing as how they didn't make a move there wasn't a need to...
All I did was say "You guys can watch me, just know that if anyone of you tries to hurt them, I'll kill you."
They seemed to have heard it and ran away once they realised I was aware of their presence. But i was bluffing, I think... I don't really have the guts or resolve to take another's life, but that might change
Life in this world is so tiring... But as long as it's fun, I couldn't care less.
I went back to my room and saw Ariel and Serena laid down on their bed
"We've finished taking the shower." Said, Ariel
"Alright, Well, if you'll excuse me," I said before entering the bathroom
I created water, heated it up and used it in the showers like I always have.
Once I was finished, I put on a new pair of clothes and left the bathroom. I spent at least 10 minutes taking a shower. By the time I got out Both Serena and Ariel were asleep on their own beds
I never expected to find my third member this fast. But she's definitely talented.
"Hm? She forgot to take her hat off"
Serena who kept her witch hat on even when she entered the bath, didn't take it off when she fell asleep.
I decided to take her hat off as it looked uncomfortable. When I did I unintentionally muttered the words "What?"
Pointy ears stuck out from her Silky silver hair
"She's an elf..?"