Chapter 112-
‘Is that the best you can do?’ Mordecai’s voice taunted Dorin in his mind. ‘I’ve already seen all your attacks, may it be wind, water, fire, earth, and lightning. So what else can you do?’
Dorin didn’t answer.
He tried his best to chase and hit the medic, but none of his attacks can seem to touch him. He wanted to release everything, drown in the power of his lightning as before...
‘As before?’
His opponent was a powerful mage from the capital, He didn’t need to worry about holding back or a possible overkill. He can just have some fun again.
‘Again?’
He looked up at the sky and called to the darkness, calling pillars of thunder down upon Mordecai.
Still, the attacks didn’t work.
‘Still not good enough.’ Mordecai laughed inside his head. ‘Useless. Should I proclaim myself as the winner now?’
Dorin’s eyes shone golden. He no longer cared what happened before or here after.
‘Not yet.’ he entered Mordecai’s mind.
And he had a feeling as well that he had done this before.
But When?
‘Finally!’ Mordecai’s voice sounded relieved. ‘I was worried the manipulation she used on you was stronger since she’s always by your side.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Dorin asked him.
‘Have you been wondering why you have a sudden feeling of deja vu?’ he asked. ‘Doesn’t this duel seem like something we’ve already gone through before?’
‘I... I don’t understand...”
‘I guess her hold on you is really that much stronger. You were her treasure after all.
‘Her who?’ he asked, starting to feel annoyed in spite of his control over his emotions.
‘Your friend Eirian,’ Mordecai continued. ‘She has been manipulating you, and have altered the memories of everyone in this class, except for the medic Benette.’
‘How could she possibly do something like that... when she arrived the next day...’
‘The next day of what event, Dorin?’
Dorin fell silent.
He blinked twice, thinking hard on the event that happened before the day his best friend Eirian was supposed to have arrived in campus.
‘Do you remember now, Dorin?’ Mordecai’s voice broke his thoughts once more. ‘Are you done yet?’
This question caused something to snap in Dorin’s mind as he clapped his hands together and drew an arcane symbol in the air.
“Eirian would never do that,” he told the medic.
He could hear murmured voices behind him, but they seem so far away.
He didn’t care. All that matters right now is that he defeat the person in front of him.
He recited words of power and stretched both hands to his sides.
A huge arcane symbol appeared from where Mordecai and him stood.
‘Are you summoning a catastrophic spell?’ Mordecai’s voice asked him.
‘The opposite of life is death,’ he told him instead. ‘As light is to darkness... as order is to-.”
“Okay, I admit defeat!” Mordecai suddenly called out, snapping his fingers, as well as Dorin out of the mind control.
“Huh?”
Dorin looked around.
The remnants of the incomplete spell still hang in the air.
“W-what the...!” he quickly undid the bindings and unsaid the words of the catastrophic spell he was about to invoke!
He was also just in time to dodge Johan’s fist from hitting him in the face!
“What are you doing?!” he glared at Johan.
“The hell! I thought you were going to open hell again!”
“A-again...”
Dorin touched his temple as his head suddenly ached.
“Here, let me help you with that, number 12,” Mordecai said with a big grin. “Johan, hand Dagon over.”
Mordecai touched Dorin’s temples as soon as Dagon perched on his shoulder, and hoped that the young thunder mage’s memory of their past duel would finally return, before Eirian does.
“O-huumnn...” Eirian yawned as she dodged another of Boulvar’s attacks. “Are you sure you’re trying to beat me?”
“Eirian! Stop playing around!” she heard Dorin cheering in the crowd and saw him with a big smile on his face.
“Ah, but I’m already doing my best!” she answered back, glad of all the attention, now that they were the only duel remaining. “I can do this with my eyes closed!” she bragged.
And she did.
This seems to give Boulvar some confidence as he tried extra harder to hit her. His wind attacks got noticeably stronger as well, as she dodged one after another.
“Are you ready to give up yet, big guy?” she asked, opening an eye to peek at her opponent.
“Not yet!” replied Boulvar who was suddenly on top of her, raging down at her with his bastard sword.
“Oops! Almost got me there!” she said with a laugh, looking for Dorin who was probably laughing at her right now.
But Dorin was no longer at his spot.
She saw him walking away with Mordecai towards the other end of the field.
“Please keep your eyes on me, Ms. Eirian.”
Boulvar was once again, on top of her. Eirian evaded a vertical slash, but the wind that followed it sent sharp gashes towards her that ripped the edge of her skirt into shreds.
“Are you finally getting serious?” Eirian asked him with a smile, and was greeted by another slash in reply.
It was then that she noticed something she didn’t notice earlier.
Her large opponent, Boulvar, kept charging at her like a bull. And like a bull, he kept his gaze down.
“Why don’t you look at me and tell me you can’t fight anymore?” she tried coxing him, but her opponent still kept his head bowed and stared at every movement of her body instead.
And this time he seemed more intent in his attacks than he was before.
Eirian tried to look at where Dorin went, but every time she turned her eyes away, Boulvar would attack with his sword and his wind.
Until Eirian got irritated.
“Guiscard Boulvar,” she suddenly called his name as he charged at her once again. “Stop before you...” she paused and smiled. “Hurt yourself.”
Eirian’s purple eyes gleamed.
Boulvar’s eyed widened as his outstretched right arm raising the bastard sword, suddenly buckled. His sword slipped from his hand, while the wind attack which accompanied it, backfired into a sharp whirlwind that exploded in Boulvar’s face in a spray of crimson blood.
The students nearest the two shrieked as some blood splattered over them.
“Call the medics! Quick!” Dean Alcione cried out.
“I’m on it!” Benette called back.
He was afraid something like this would happen, that’s why he decided to stay even after Mordecai challenged Dorin to a duel.
He quickly got to Boulvar’s side to checked his vitals.
His head and torso was so badly slashed by his own wind attack, that his face was thorn into shreds. His right eye was gone from the socket, his nose cut off, as well as his lower lip and parts of his chin. What he was more worried about, though, was the blood pumping out from the deep gushes on his neck and chest.
“He’s not gonna make it!” said a student near them.
“That’s arterial blood pumping out his neck! With that much blood gone...”
“And we don’t have medics here good enough to heal him!”
“That’s too, bad.”
Benette looked back at the person who spoke last.
He saw Eirian there, standing with a sad little pout on her lovely red lips, while her eyes said the opposite.
They were as cold and as hard as Boulvar’s hand that was gripping his arm.
“No.”
He found himself saying as he stared at the woman standing over them.
“This is just a flesh wound.”
Saying that, Benette started to heal the quivering body in front of him.