“Rule... the great abyss beyond!”
“Should you one day find yourself being consumed by the darkness within, come to me. I shall release the power sealed within this right arm of mine, and show you my true form — that of the Lord of Darkness. It will take me little effort to subjugate a paltry darkness such as yours.”
“The power sealed in the right arm... of the Lord of Darkness!”
“I said quit it already!”
There was another resounding smack as Alicia slapped him across the head.
While Sain was touring the stalls with the two girls, Melia was making her way toward the main school building, which was open to the public during the battle expo. On the first floor of the building was an information center with associated consultation booths displaying a plethora of pamphlets from Jenifa.
She drew some odd gazes as she walked, presumably because her maid uniform was a rare sight, but the gazes disappeared once she circled around to the back of the building. Whereas its front entrance had been bustling, its rear was far more secluded. She approached what looked like a storage room.
“Piece of sh... That los...”
“Yo, calm... Rox...”
In the shadow of the structure, some students were whispering to each other. They were just out of earshot, so she held her breath and crept a little closer.
“Anyway, that loser needs to learn a lesson... so I’m gonna teach him one. And it’s gonna hurt.”
One of the speakers was Sain’s second opponent in the tournament, Roxas. Surrounding him were a number of his flunkies. After their match concluded, Melia had caught a whiff of trouble from Roxas. Something wasn’t right about the way he’d glared at Sain. Figuring his hatred might boil over into a misguided attempt at violence, she’d decided to check on him in secret.
The current holy knight, Sain, was a person with the purest of hearts. When he’d been acting as the holy knight, his magnanimous personality had earned him the trust and reverence of many. At times, however, his innocence had also endangered him when bad people tried to use it against him. It was Melia’s job to keep her master safe from such situations, and she’d suspected Roxas of being up to no good when she witnessed him circling behind the building, so she excused herself from the group to follow him. Turns out, he was indeed up to no good.
“But Roxas, what’re you gonna do , exactly?”
“Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s fast and painful... We gotta get this done fast. It’s gonna be a lot harder tomorrow.”
Rage bubbled in his voice as he spoke. At the same time, there was the sound of metallic objects grinding against each other.
“Lucky for us, we got plenty of weapons.”
“H-Holy— Roxas, where did you get these?”
“They’re weapons you can borrow for the tournament. I took a few from the storehouse.”
His flunkies proceeded to examine the weapons as they spoke.
“So, how about we pick a good place, get him to go there, and then pile on him and beat his face in?”
“Sounds good to me. As for the place... Here’ll do fine,” said Roxas, agreeing to the suggestion. “Don’t use magic. It draws too much attention. Stick to the weapons. And make it hurt.”
“Got it. Heh... This oughta teach that dumbass to act up.”
“Yeah, it’ll be good punishment. Arrogant losers need to be put in their place, after all.”
They might be a bunch of thugs, but they were a motivated bunch, and if she let them be, it wouldn’t be long before they started going after Sain. She was going to have to take care of this right here, right now. With her mind made up, she stepped out into the open.
“I’m terribly sorry to disturb you while you’re busy doing the scheming villain thing, but could you... I don’t know, maybe just knock it off?”
Her sudden appearance shocked the conniving crew. There were three of them — the exact same trio that had harassed Sain when he was registering for the tournament a week ago.
“You... You’re that loser’s maid, aren’t you?!” he screamed with fury.
“Oh shit, Roxas, what do we do?”
“This girl was pretty damn strong...”
The two flunkies started to panic, but Roxas remained calm and picked up his sword nearby.
“Keep it together! There’s three of us. We can take her!”
Reassured by his words, they composed themselves and each took a weapon.
“Ugh, nothing is ever simple, is it?” Melia said with a tsk.
She had hoped to resolve things peacefully, but the three armed thugs baring their teeth at her made that seem unlikely. Her eyes narrowed, and she simultaneously observed all three of them, waiting to see how they would move.
“Move around her! And keep her surrounded! But don’t get too hasty to fight!”
His two buddies obediently spread out toward her flanks.
“Wow, now that’s playing dirty,” she said as they surrounded her from three sides.
“Hmph! You won’t be talking for much longer. But don’t blame me, ’cause you’re the one who walked into this!” he roared as he came at her with his sword raised, choosing physical brutality over magic to avoid attracting attention.
After watching a whole match between him and Sain, Melia already knew some of his tendencies in melee combat, and she easily dodged his strike before sweeping his legs out from under him with a kick.
“Augh!”
He fell backwards and landed on his rear. In an effort to help their leader, his two buddies mounted a concerted attack, but her magic beat them to it.
“Sprites of crystalline veil, roam the endless mist — Londo Mysteria. ”
White mist filled the area.
“Wh-What the hell?!”
“Mist?!”
It was an example of compound magic using fire and water, which was Melia’s forte. Compound magic was usable only by fivekind, and even then, only a handful of them. It was very likely that none of the three thugs had ever witnessed this spell before. Trapped in its hazy shroud, they could do nothing but thrash about in confusion.
“Eugh!”
She swung her hand like a blade at the closest figure, hitting him in the back of the neck. He fell to the ground.
“Gyaah!”
She did the same to the figure opposite him, who went down as well.
“Shit! You freak—”
A gust of wind cleared the haze, revealing two unconscious forms and a flustered Roxas. He took in the scene. Then, he immediately spun on his heels and made a run for it. Melia rolled her eyes.
“Oh, come on. Do you really think I’ll let you get away?”
All things considered, he might just be desperate enough to make one last-ditch attempt to hurt Sain. As a self-respecting maid, she wasn’t going to risk any harm befalling her master. In his panic, Roxas tripped over a hump on the ground and fell, giving her a chance to easily catch up. She quickly dashed up to him to finish the job...