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Wizard Boy had a thought: It was good that that man wasn’t here.
“I knew we couldn’t leave things to that king of ours. He invited this trouble,” the knight grumbled, but Wizard Boy ignored him and looked around the tournament grounds, his hand on the thing he kept at his hip.
A flock of monsters—gargoyles—was attacking the spectator seating and the royal box. He’d just seen someone smash one of them. Pretty good work.
That one was kind of reddish colored. Think it was some sort of fire demon…?
It was probably quite serious stuff, then—but this wasn’t the time to be ruminating. The bulk of Wizard Boy’s attention was turned toward the girl, who stood on the field of combat, and on the gargoyle above her. The way it circled made the boy think of a vulture or a buzzard.
Not that I’ve ever seen either of those.
He didn’t know if they really circled over dead bodies. Maybe he would find out one day.
If vultures didn’t let their prey escape, well, neither did this gargoyle. It had both the rhea girl and the knight pinned.
Just one thing to do, then.
For the second time, he was glad that guy wasn’t here. He wouldn’t have admitted under torture who it was who had instilled in him the habit of always picking up things to throw.
In Wizard Boy’s hand was a boomerang.
His mentor had given him grief about it: It was hellish magic, forbidden magic, a spell from a foreign land.
So what? Who gives a shit?!
The boy took one step forward, then two, gaining momentum, and then he let the thing fly.
“GARRRGG!!”
However good humans might be at throwing things, though, they were never going to get a hit 100 percent of the time. The boy didn’t know whether gargoyles felt emotions, but when it juked out of the way of his boomerang, he would have sworn it was laughing at him.
But the boy was laughing, too.
“Iacta! Toss!” he shouted.
His entire body glowed a faint green with magical energy. The object of the word of true power that he wove from his mouth was not the boomerang but the blowing breeze.
What wizard worthy of the name didn’t know the true name of at least a passing wind?
The boomerang’s trajectory took an impossible turn, veering around.
“GOYYYYYYY?!!!?!!?”
In the grip of the wind, the boomerang did exactly what the boy wanted, cutting through the air and slamming against the monster’s wings, which vaporized with the impact.
Whatever magic one might use to cause stone wings to beat, when deprived of those wings, there could be only one result: a fall—and then death.
The drop from that height was more than enough to smash stone to pieces. The boomerang passed over the pile of debris and returned safely to the boy’s hand. A magic/flying-stick combo, Wizard Boy’s very own new battle tactic: the telekinetic boomerang.
He didn’t have time to admire its effectiveness in battle, however. He was too busy shouting at the top of his lungs: “Finish hiiiiim!” His voice echoed across the coliseum. “Send his ass flying!”
No doubt the knight did not grasp what he meant. He probably thought the young mage was exhorting them to finish off the monster.
“I certainly will,” the knight replied. “Simply let me handle this, and all will be well. From the very start, you should have—”
He didn’t get to finish. Why would anyone have listened to him all the way through?
The rhea girl bellowed:
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“Eyes on me!”
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She threw aside her ruined helmet and tore off the shoulder girdle that was dangling from her chest armor.
“We’re not finished yet! You can’t just decide this is over!”
“?”
The knight appeared perplexed: This was another pronouncement he didn’t understand. He stood dumbfounded, and then his muffled voice could be heard from under his own headgear:
“What are you talking about?”
“My—our—battle with you! I don’t care about anything else! And I mean anything!” She gestured around with her arms, her whole tiny body bouncing as she shouted. “This is the entire world!”
This was everything. They were going to settle this. Win or lose: That was everything there was.
Pierced by the gleam in the girl’s eyes, the knight took one unsteady step backward. “You wish to continue our contest…?”
“Damn right I do!”
“But…” His voice wavered, troubled and confused. He held up the shattered remains of his lance. “I have no lance.”
“You have your sword!”
She was not going to let him get away. She was not going to let him find an excuse.
Rhea Fighter drew her sword, the one her grandfather had given her. The nameless but beautiful blade he claimed to have found in a dungeon under the mountain.
The greatest under heaven? The strongest in the world? She couldn’t be those things. But she could try. And she wouldn’t let anyone laugh at her for it.
He had. This paladin had pointed and laughed. Told her she shouldn’t even bother.
You wanted this fight? You’ve got it.
“Come at me!” she howled. “I’m gonna rock you!”
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§
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Curse these adventurers. As pleasant as plague rats.
Even as the vampire pursued the enemies, who had fled into one of the holes of his abode, he had time to reflect. To a servant of the No-Life King, the ruler of the night who had occupied the capital, adventurers were as dust underfoot.
Yet in spite of that, they had stopped the Demon Lord and his minions from spreading the Death around the four corners.
That affront was difficult to ignore.
If these bandits were going to come sneaking around his domain, he would have to punish them properly.
“Come out, come out, little adventurers…” The vampire crossed his arms as if he had all the time in the world. He shoved aside goblin corpses as he went. In his voice, there was the slightest hint of haughty magnanimity and something that sounded almost like compassion—but wasn’t quite. “If you’ll surrender like good boys and girls, I might even offer you eternal life.”
Eternal life as my slaves!
Not as servants of the night, no—the thought didn’t even cross his mind. One of the intruders had been an elf woman. If she was still a virgin, then there was every chance she might become a banshee, and he couldn’t have that.
Instead, I’ll enjoy sucking her blood for the rest of the eons.
This vampire was not so bored as to cultivate any buds of rebellion. There were plenty of ways in the world to enjoy an unending life without risking such danger.
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