Yuri could vividly remember the day he first came to the duel city. He remembered the day he saw his first-ever duel.
Ten years ago, the last match of the duel city’s Babel Roulette. On one side, the Human Tribe Administrator, Velt Helrik. On the other, the mix-blooded duelist, Iron-blood Reilly Malbork.
Under normal circumstances, this would be where their enthusiasm reached its peak. But—the battle was cruelly one-sided.
“—Sorry I gotta do this to ya, Reilly.”
His scraggly black hair fluttering in the wind, Velt easily lifted a massive sword over his shoulder. Despite being from the Human Tribe, he had tempered his muscle to the limit, the armor formed by his sheer bulk harder than steel.
In contrast, the human facing him couldn’t be any more different.
“...Hahah. I thought I could do a little better than this.”
Glossy black hair cut at the shoulders. An orderly, refined face on top of a slender body. But by this point, that body had been notched with countless wounds. Torn clothing revealed pale skin that oozed a deep red, the flow of blood staining black clothes a darker pitch before forming blotches on the ground.
Even so, Reilly stood, never crumbling. Heavily wounded all over, the Iron-blood Duelist never let go of a black sword, glaring at Velt the whole time.
Taking note of this, Velt smiled, satisfied.
“Well I’ll be, you may be a brat, but you’ve got more backbone than most of the opponents I’ve faced. Most of them lose their nerves just because they’re facing me.”
“Hahah... Of course they do. They’re facing the strongest opponent.”
Spitting an unorderly breath, Reilly refused to unhand the sword. The murderous intent and fighting spirit released by every fiber of the duelist’s being would never falter .
“That’s why...I don’t want to let it end yet.”
With quivering hands, Reilly remained in fighting position. Even faced with such a tremendous foe, the duelist would never fold.
Fully aware of the weakness of a mix-blood, Reilly continued to fight.
“Because I’m—a duelist.”
Hearing those words, Velt made a gentle face. “I can’t say I hate that part of you.”
“You think so... That’s a bit troublesome...”
“Hey, don’t be like that. But regardless... It’s about time to close the curtains.”
He could hear the voices of the spectators. The ear-piercing, angry screams and jeers. Their words clearly displeased Velt, but the show had to go on.
“...I didn’t want to have to end it like this.”
No sooner had he finished his words than the ground began to shake and warp. Born from the distortions, countless swords—a ludicrous number—sprouted from the ground as if to form a mountain. The oversized blades gathered around Velt, waiting upon their king.
“—Since I recognize you as a duelist, I’ll have to go all out.”
The summit of the Human Tribe, Velt, confronted Reilly with the utmost respect.
Yuri didn’t really remember much about how it ended. Velt had used Armament, and Reilly had lost. Young as he was, he could at least understand that much.
However, there was one thing he simply couldn’t comprehend.
“Hey, Papi. Why is everyone shouting that old man’s name?”
Voices boiled over from the hall, each and every one of them singing high praise to the victor, Velt Helrik.
The boy’s question caused his father to tilt his head curiously. “That’s because the person who won is the Administrator, the strongest human in the world.”
“Not at all! The pretty one was stronger, wasn’t he!?”
Seeing Yuri vehemently shake his head, his mother replied with the beautiful, kind look only a mother could give. “I see, Yuri. You like his opponent, the mix-blood person better, do you?”
“Yeah! If he’s mix-blood, that means he’s like me, right!?”
With a gentle smile, his mother showed him her pointed elf-tribe ears. “That’s right. Just like you, he has the blood of another race running through his veins.”
An existence born between the Human Tribe and another. But a mix-blood could also be called a sudden and temporary aberration. Their appearance was no different from the Human Tribe, and their physical abilities weren’t that different either.
His parents hadn’t explained it at the time, but his master would fill him in on the details afterward. Among the eight greater tribes, the Human Tribe boasted the sole dominant gene. That was why mix-bloods came in Human Tribe form, and should a mix-blood have children with a pure human, the genes of the other tribe would be lost and the bloodline would return to being purely human.
However, Yuri’s home... The Eniastar house was stubbornly fixated on remaining mix-bloods. Its precepts regulated marriages with other tribes, and they had been honored for a great many years.
That Yuri Eniastar would be born as a mix-blood was a fact that was determined from the moment the Eniastar House decided to preserve its mix-blood heritage.
His inability to become a duelist had been determined long, long before he was born. But Yuri was still a child, and no one had told him this.
“I’m gonna go meet that person!!”
“Eh? Meet—Hey wait, Yuri!?”
Shaking off his mother’s grasp, Yuri sprinted off. There was something he needed to ask Reilly no matter what.
Running through the venue, dodging security guards, Yuri slipped into the hall of waiting rooms for participants. And it was there that he heard a certain conversation.
“—I’m sorry, that’s the only way you can continue to fight.”
Velt’s low, heavy voice came from one of the rooms.
“Reilly, the way you are now, you won’t win no matter how hard you struggle. It ain’t just me, you won’t be able to beat those guys from the other races, and you won’t be able to climb any higher.”
There was a weight to the words he spoke with pity. But as the Human Tribe Administrator, he informed Reilly of the bitter truth.
“If you keep going the way you are—you won’t be able to continue on as a duelist.”
“...I see,” Reilly finally replied. “I’m thankful to you, Velt. You went out of your way to waste your time looking into it for someone as flawed as a mix-blood duelist like me.”
“...Don’t say that about yourself.”
“But I’m not wrong, am I?”