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Chapter 19: Magic Duel/Business Expansion

  “Sir, you can’t be serious.”

  There I was, conversing with a rather young man—about sixteen years old or so I’d guess—in an alleyway along the merchant district. It wasn’t too far from my house.

  Why was I speaking to such a young man? Well, he was a prospective customer, reaching out to me once I’d finally begun working in my business again as a dungeon deliverer. I restarted the business with a new goal in mind, that being to save lives directly or indirectly. Isla really scarred me enough to motivate me to do that.

  This boy, though, was being unreasonable and unrealistic. “Yes, I am serious, Miss.” He was puffing up his cheeks in a pout. The boy had on a tattered mage robe, looking to be a Terrace Mage robe maybe? I had never met a terrace mage before.

  I folded my arms and sighed. I leaned against the side of one of the merchant buildings that entrapped the alleyway. That boy clicked his tongue too and put his hands on his hips. This conversation wasn’t going the way neither of us wanted it to.

  “Listen, I’m not letting you go into the Treasure Dungeon. It’s very dangerous, and there’s not much treasure there anymore. It’ll be a lost cause,” I told the boy. I really didn’t want him to go, since I didn’t want to see another adventurer die again.

  “I’m sure my friend and I could manage.”

  “No, you guys won’t.”

  “Damn, just lay off me already! You market yourself as someone willing to help adventurers out, so why don’t you do your job?”

  I closed my eyes and pondered that horrifying scene of the Treasure Dungeon. Blood was everywhere, we were all at the brink of exhaustion, one mistake away from being wiped out. That dungeon wasn’t a joke for us, and we were all experienced adventurers, along with a very powerful Fire Mage. If we couldn’t handle it well, then what luck does a two-person party of newbie adventurers have?

  It was crystal clear that this boy didn’t listen to reason, so I stepped forward towards him. From outside the alleyways, the rumbling of dozens of merchant wagons rolling along the street play in the background. The chatter of pedestrians passing by us made me look back. But my focus was still fixed on the young adventurer before me.

  Once we were staring face-to-face as close as I could get to him, I folded up one of the arm sleeves of my mage robe, then snatched one of the newbie's arms. “Look,” I said. I had a faint scar on my arm from the wound I’d gotten from the Treasure Dungeon. “I explored that dungeon myself. This was the result of that.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” the boy barked back and ripped his arm out of my grip. “You just got careless. I won’t.”

  “I can’t let you go, though. It’s too dangerous.”

  The boy winced at my response. He backed up but clenched his fist and stared daggers at me. “I challenge you to a magic duel, then. If I win, you’ll let me go to that dungeon, and provide your services for free.”

  I raised an eyebrow as I unfolded my sleeve. This boy can’t be serious again. A magic duel? Nobody does that anymore. Sure, it was a popular practice when my parents were kids, but that custom died out. That was partly why it intrigued me to agree. It would be fun to finally experience battle with another mage, while also making it an easy way to get this adventurer to back down from digging his own grave. “And what happens if I win?”

  “Nothing, ‘cause you won’t.” I could use some of his confidence.

  “Okay fine, I’ll play along,” I said. This was very unfair for me, as I would gain nothing from this, but I was fine with that. Knocking sense into this idiot was the reward. I slid my tome out of its bag and cracked it open.

  A magic duel, a custom of the old days, was exactly what one would imagine, a duel between mages. The only rule was not to kill the opponent, but other than that it was a no hands barred battle. Whoever was incapacitated, surrendered, or ran out of magic energy first lost. I was at a huge disadvantage when it came to the last loss condition, my magic energy was laughably low. But luckily I had plenty of spells stored up in my tome as of recently.

  The boy gawked at my tome, which was associated with status and experience. It gave off the same effect as seeing a mage with a staff, you know they were experienced enough to wield it properly and wealthy enough to afford it. Although I do know that some nations give out magic staffs to mages who showcase mastery in their specialization, which was where the stereotypical powerful magic with a flashy staff came from. But I digress. The boy likewise raised his hands. It was time to see a Terrace Mage in action for once.

  The boy initiated the fight. “Sedio Missile!” he screamed, then kicked the dust up into the air. He blew it away towards me as hard as he could with his breath, and the dust turned into teeny tiny shards of earth, all pointed to a knife's edge.

  “Waterwark!” I countered, and the tiny shards smashed into the water shield and bounced right off of it right towards the very mage who casted that spell. His mouth was agape in horror.

  “P-petra Insula!” The boy’s hands shook while he casted that spell. I was on edge too, as I had never heard of any of the spells he used. Which one would this one be next?

  The young mage waved his hand up in the sky, and a pillar of stone was conjured up out of thin air. It levitated slightly above the ground, but was big enough to shield him from the redirected Sedio Missile. Well played.

  This time he didn’t wait for me to respond. He charged at me, hand outreached towards. I wasn’t about to let him make his move either. “Stas—”

  “Disperse!” he pointed a finger right at me and screamed.

  Somehow, I felt the Stasis spell being casted out of my tome dissipate. The spell failed, even though I had plenty of magic energy stored up in there. What was going on?

  “Petra Sagita!” The boy was closing in on me, then clenched his fist, and a stone in the shape of an arrow appeared in his hand. Then he threw it, it shot forward as fast as an Accelerated projectile.

  Why do all Terrace spells have weird names?

  I immediately brought out Waterwark to deflect it, and the spell bounced right off as planned. I followed up, “Accelerate!”

  That Petra-whatever spell was already as fast as an Accelerated object, so using Accelerate as it ricocheted off my shield made it twice as fast… too fast for him to react.

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  “P-petra—” He couldn’t cast another spell in time. He staggered off his feet and fell flat to the cobblestone pathway. The stone projectile barely grazed the top of his head and slammed into a wall behind him. Luckily the wall was strong enough to absorb the hit without too much damage inflicted. The mage was sprawled out on the floor right in front of me, I had won.

  It was noon now, the sun making its way over our heads to blind us and give us unwanted sunburns. I was especially susceptible, given my pale skin. But that didn’t matter at the moment, since the young mage was checkmated by Yours Truly. I pointed the tome at him.

  “Gah! Okay, I surrender! You win…” He prostrated himself in front of me, the color leaving his face.

  My first magic duel victory! Albeit, it was against a literal beginner mage. He had a few good tricks under his sleeve, but I felt like had I been more knowledgeable in Terrace Magic, I would have won much easier.

  I shoved my tome back into its bag and averted my eyes from the young mage. “Don’t go into the Treasure dungeon, alright? I don’t want to see another missing adventurer quest pinned up on the tavern boards.”

  “Right… sorry Miss. We’ll find an easier one.” The boy swept off the dirt on his short black hair, then jumped to his feet. “Sorry for the trouble.” He bowed.

  As he was leaving, I had this sudden urge to stop him. What exactly did he do with that Disperse spell? Where did he learn that? Nobody taught me that when I was learning basic Displacement Magic. “By the way, where did you learn magic? That Disperse spell was quite unusual. Never saw it cancel out a spell before it was even casted.”

  I turned around and he tilted his head. The pedestrians walking past us on the stone pathway glared at us. “Hm? You really never knew you could cancel spells? I’m sure you do it all the time with Stasis, even if it was already casted or not.”

  I understood what he meant immediately, and it was a huge revelation for me. Disperse wasn’t made specifically to counter Stasis, it was just insanely efficient at canceling it out, just like it could do with every other spell. All this time I’d used Disperse to break free from Stasis, when I was just canceling out the spell in reality.

  “And…” the boy coughed, then continued. “I learned magic in the New Lucrez Kingdom’s Magic Academy, under Professor Carlon Glaciare.”

  Professor Glaciare?! I bit my lip and jolted backwards. That was my father’s name, how in the hell did he land a job as a magic school professor?

  “Alrighty! I’m off then! See you around, I’ll be waiting for a rematch.” That boy finally left me, walking away and disappearing into the bustling foot traffic right ahead of us. I was dumbfounded. “Father?”

  “Huh?” What took the boy’s place was a much older boy. A real man this time, Lio the Cauterizer. He had turned around the corner block and had appeared right when I was left alone. “What about your father?” He put a hand on his hip and the other reached out for my shoulder. Lio had been quite touchy recently.

  “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” I didn’t live with my parents anymore, and they were in a completely different country too, so it didn’t matter.

  “Okay, if you insist.” He let go of my shoulder and slapped my back. “Let’s go, then. We can review the delivery requests while we grab a bite.”

  I veered my head behind me to see him staring at me with those gold eyes again. It was apparent too that his hair was growing much longer since he was now keeping some of it into a ponytail. It made him look like a young scholar at a royal palace or something. It fit him well. Maybe I should start putting my hair in a ponytail too…

  I nodded my head and walked ahead of Lio into the flow of the foot traffic. I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to be working, that boy had distracted me big time. We had other orders to go through, and others to talk to as well, so I just hope I don’t get into another magic duel. That would be unfortunate.

  X X X

  “You what?”

  We were inside a tavern, both of us munching on hearty sandwiches. All around was the usual atmosphere of drunkards passed out all over the place and bards running from table to table to play an entertaining song with a story behind it. They were darn good at playing those hand held harps.

  Lio himself looked perplexed, dropping his sandwich on his plate and wiping his hands on a nearby wipe cloth. He gripped the ends of the chipped wooden table.

  “Yup, it's the truth. I'm still shocked.” I nodded my head. This was about my magic duel with that boy. Magic duels were an extinct tradition, so having participated in one in this era was unheard of.

  “Wow. Not even I have any experience in magic duels.”

  My master cleared his throat then picked up a handful of papers at the center of our table. “Guess it’s time for business, then. We’ve stalled quite enough.”

  When I started up my business again after a lengthy hiatus, I had recruited Lio as an employee to help me make deliveries or accommodate any adventurers. I realized that to really make a difference and to save more lives, I needed more hands. Lio happily obliged, and I was of course paying him a decent wage to pay his rent.

  The logistics of my business involved a commission based system. People would reach out to me through lettering to commission my services, from which I put up my business mailing address on quite a few taverns in town. Then I’d gather the letters and decide which ones were worth pursuing and letter them back to meet up. That was the exact protocol I did with that boy. The only reason I ever reached out to him was because of the little heart attack I got from seeing the mention of the Treasure Dungeon in his letter. I went out with the sole purpose of stopping him. Luckily things were somewhat smooth with convincing him not to go, that was one life saved.

  Speaking of services, I added a new one to my list. It was solely a delivery business, but now I added a delivery escort to the service, meaning that we would provide an escort to bring any adventurers out of a dungeon at an arranged time. In a way it was still a delivery service, it was just that we’d be delivery people out of a dungeon. This service was incredibly valuable too, considering the escort would involve an expert rank Fire Mage. May I remind you that Lio is only one rank below the highest rank possible? Yeah, he was that powerful, I wouldn’t doubt anyone for wanting escorts left and right once I give out that tidbit of info.

  Lio brought the papers to eye level and squinted. He read out the contents: “This one’s a delivery of food to the Aqua Dungeon by the Royal Palace. This one’s an escort out of the Magic Dungeon just outside of Galligar. This last one is another delivery of food to the Garden Dungeon by the plains, but quite a lot of it.” He put down the papers and looked at me.

  I bit into my sandwich and took my time chewing. The meal was absolutely delicious, but I wasn’t trying to let it distract me from my thoughts.

  There were three requests available for us to complete. The problem was that we only had time for about one or maybe two if we rushed it. But I’m worried about quality over quantity of our work. I had a look at the papers too, and the one at the Magic Dungeon was out of the question, since they requested a date of escort to be sometime next week. That meant I couldn’t do it soon, this client planned pretty far ahead so there was not much I could do but contact him about the details and wait until next week. That only left the other two.

  One was at the Aqua Dungeon, while the other was at the Garden Dungeon. Both were extremely easy to deliver to, now that I thought of it. The Aqua Dungeon only had weak sea monsters guarding it, which proved my Water Magic to be effective. The Garden Dungeon was pretty much the safest dungeon out there, so safe that people go there to picnic with their families. The only monsters there were slightly bigger rabbits, so I assumed all that food was for a picnic.

  “Hm… Let’s do the Garden Dungeon,” I said. “It would be the easiest to do, and we could hurry up and finish the one at the Aqua Dungeon if we’re fast enough.”

  Lio gobbled up the rest of his sandwich and patted down his flat stomach. It bulged out of his robe a bit from all the food he ate. “Okay, sounds good to me, Boss.”

  Boss, ha! We were starting to have fun little nicknames for each other. I always make sure to remind him that I started it first. I caught a glimpse of him picking at his teeth with a toothpick.

  After he finished, he pointed to the paper in my hand about the Garden Dungeon. “What’s the name of the client? We should make sure to remember their names before meeting them.”

  Oh yeah! He was right. I mean, he always was most of the time. “Good idea, I nearly forgot to look over the personal details.”

  I set my sight back on the paper before me and traced my finger to the very bottom where the client’s name was inscribed.

  The name made me nearly hurl up my lunch. My body hopped to their feet on their own, on instinct. My loud yelp frightened the bard behind me who was about to play us a melody.

  “What? What’s wrong, Charliette? Tell me.” Lio had also risen to his feet.

  I didn’t bother saying the name. It was best for him to see it himself. He ripped the paper from my hands and read through it.

  It was Dalat. That annoying Displacement Mage who fought alongside Fiar and I at the Dungeon of the Dead.

  He was finally back.

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