The Second Command: Defend
"I formally request a duel."
Rayan Erhardt said.
The air inside the laboratory stopped cold.
I looked at Rayan.
Rayan looked back at me.
Only the professor furrowed his brow.
"Rayan."
"Yes, Professor."
"Do you understand what you are saying right now?"
"I do."
Rayan answered. His voice was calm.
But I could see it.
The sentences floating above his head.
DESIRE FOR HONOR RESTORATION
I pressed my lips tightly together.
I must not laugh.
If I laughed now, I might actually get beaten to death.
"That menial worker interfered with my spell formula."
Rayan pointed at me.
"And without the professor's permission, no less."
"He stopped the spell from running wild," the professor said. "Before your fingers flew off."
Rayan's face stiffened slightly.
But he did not back down.
"Then we can prove it on the duel ground."
"Prove what?"
"Whether that one is someone who can handle spells."
Rayan's gaze locked onto me.
"Or whether he merely interfered with my formula by chance."
I raised my hand.
"Uh."
Both pairs of eyes turned to me at once.
"I can't use magic or anything."
"……."
"I'm serious."
I spoke as earnestly as I could.
"Spells? I've never learned any. I can't do swordsmanship either. Earlier I just wrote what I saw because the characters appeared. A duel is a bit……."
The corner of Rayan's mouth lifted.
"Then all the more reason we must duel."
"How does that follow?"
"A menial worker who cannot even cast spells interfered with my formula."
Rayan said coldly.
"If that claim is a lie, then you have made a fool of the entire Academy."
Ah.
So this is how he's playing it?
I looked toward the professor.
Please stop this, the look said.
The professor sighed.
"Academy duel requests are difficult to refuse when there is a legitimate claim of damaged honor."
"Excuse me?"
"Of course it will not be a duel to the death."
"Do you think that is comforting?"
"Try to block as best you can."
"Professor?"
"You."
"Me?"
In that moment, sentences rose before my eyes once more.
DEFEND
I stared at the single character floating in the empty air.
Defend.
To block.
Right. That much I understood.
The problem was that I still had no idea how to use it.
The Academy Duel Ground lay behind the training hall.
A round floor.
A circular boundary drawn in white lines.
And spectator seats ringing the whole thing.
Most of the students who had been in the practice room earlier had followed us out.
Word had already spread, it seemed.
"That menial worker is dueling Young Master Rayan."
"For real?"
"A menial worker?"
"But he stopped Rayan's spell, didn't he?"
"Does that make sense?"
It did not make sense.
I thought the same.
I stood in the middle of the duel ground and sighed.
Rayan stood opposite me.
It had not started yet.
I looked again at the character floating before my eyes.
DEFEND
I understood it was a character for blocking.
But how was I supposed to use it?
I glanced back and forth between Rayan and the professor, then carefully drew the character in the air.
"DEFEND"
Nothing happened.
Not a blue light, not even a breath of wind.
"……It's not working?"
It had clearly said second command candidate.
So why was nothing happening?
Just then, red mana gathered at Rayan's fingertips.
The professor spoke from the edge of the duel ground.
"The rules are simple."
His staff tapped the floor.
"If your opponent is rendered unable to fight, surrenders, or is forced outside the barrier, you win."
"Am I allowed to surrender?"
I asked.
The professor looked at me.
"If you surrender before it begins, you will no longer have a place in this Academy."
"Ah."
I was finished.
Rayan smiled.
"Do not worry. I will not kill you."
"That is the part that worries me most."
"I will, however, confirm just how far you can go."
He raised his hand.
A red line was drawn through the air.
FIRE
And another character attached beside it.
BALL
Launch Direction: Forward
Output: 2
A fireball…?
Fireball…?
My eyes went wide.
This time it was not a single character.
There were two.
And beneath them, small information rose.
I muttered reflexively.
"It's flying straight at me?"
Rayan's eyebrow twitched.
"What did you say?"
There was no time to answer.
A red fireball came flying toward me.
Fast.
I could not dodge.
I clenched my teeth and raised my hand.
The character that had given no reaction earlier.
"DEFEND"
I wrote that character in the air again.
This time it was different.
The instant Rayan's fireball drew near, a cold sensation wrapped around my fingertips.
It was nothing like flame.
It felt as if I were touching a transparent wall with my bare hand.
The character completed itself.
A thin membrane spread before me.
BOOM!
The fireball slammed into the barrier.
Heat brushed my face.
But it did not touch me.
The flames scattered across the surface of the membrane.
The duel ground fell silent.
I slowly opened my eyes.
The faint character still floated in front of me.
DEFEND
I blocked it!
I muttered without meaning to.
"Whoa."
Earlier there had been no reaction at all.
And the next moment, the spectator seats erupted.
"He blocked it!"
"That's a defensive formula!"
"No way. Defensive formulas are advanced-course material, aren't they?"
"And a menial worker?"
"Wait a second."
Someone muttered while staring at the character still hanging in the air.
"I've never seen a defensive formula like that."
"What's different?"
"Normally you raise an earth wall or an ice sheet to block."
"Or you make a barrier of wind."
"But that one……."
The student's voice grew quieter.
"He didn't create anything."
"He just… blocked it?"
A single faint character still remained in the empty air.
DEFEND
Output: 1
Remaining Barrier: 70%
Rayan's face hardened.
He glared at the traces of the Defend I had made.
More precisely, at the place where his fireball had vanished without leaving a single mark.
"……What the hell are you?"
Rayan's eyebrow twitched.
"No, I honestly didn't think it would actually block just now either!"
I meant it.
I truly had not known.
I had simply followed the character that floated in front of my eyes and written it.
And it blocked.
A fireball.
And rather convincingly at that.
The problem was that the students in the spectator seats were taking that fact far more seriously than I was.
"There's no way that was a coincidence…!"
Their gazes stung.
Wariness.
Curiosity.
And expectation.
The worst of them was the expectation.
I still did not know how to do anything.
Just now I had only blocked by luck.
Yet people already believed I would pull something off next time as well.
Only three days after arriving in another world.
I learned for the first time how terrifying other people's expectations could be.
"I refuse to accept this."
Rayan clenched his teeth.
Red light bloomed again at his fingertips.
The professor's expression changed.
"Rayan. Do not raise the output!"
"The duel is not over yet."
Rayan's voice dropped lower.
"I will see just how far that menial worker can truly go…"
He raised his fingers into the air once more.
This time the motion itself was different.
Rayan's fingertips raced as if tearing through empty space.
Before the first stroke was even finished the second stroke followed, and the third stroke bent while leaving a red afterimage.
It looked as if he were slicing the air with a blade tip.
Red lines overlapped in the air, curved, and locked together as if biting one another.
Each time a character completed, its meaning slammed into my head.
Fire.
Flame.
Continuous.
Launch.
And beneath them a small warning rose.
Output: Excessive
Spell Formula Unstable
I frowned.
"That looks dangerous again, doesn't it?"
The professor seemed to sense it as well.
"Rayan!"
But Rayan did not stop.
"Do not worry. I will control it this time!"
Flames split from Rayan's fingertips.
One.
Two.
Three.
Red fireballs rose one after another.
The spectator seats stirred.
"A continuous formula?"
"Isn't that advanced-class material?"
"Young Master Rayan must be really angry."
No.
I understood he was angry.
But why was he shooting that at me?
I stepped backward.
Yet the circular boundary on the duel ground floor was already close behind me.
There was little room left to retreat.
Once more a single character floated before my eyes.
DEFEND
Right.
I had blocked earlier.
Then I just had to block this time as well.
"Here I come."
Rayan said.
And three fireballs flew at me simultaneously.
The first.
I hurriedly overwrote Defend in the air again.
BOOM!
Blocked.
The character in the air trembled.
The sentence floating beneath it changed.
The second.
Before the membrane could even stabilize, the next fireball slammed into it.
BOOM!
My arm went numb.
My fingertips ached as if they would tear.
"Ah, wait."
The third fireball closed in right before my eyes.
I could not dodge.
I had to block.
I clenched my teeth and forced strength into my fingertips.
"DEFEND"
Block it.
I said block it!
But the character did not grow stronger according to my will.
It only trembled faintly.
The third fireball struck the barrier.
BOOM!
CRACK—!
This time the sound was different.
It was the sound of something breaking.
The transparent membrane shattered into pieces.
But the third fireball scattered along with it.
Heat brushed my face.
I staggered back a step.
I lived.
Barely.
My shoulder throbbed and my fingertips shook.
But I was still standing.
Rayan was also gasping for breath.
The red mana that had gathered at his fingertips had almost vanished.
The spectator seats watched us while holding their breath.
Was it fortunate that it ended at this level?
That thought had just brushed through my mind when I saw it.
A character that had not yet disappeared.
SPELL FORMULA UNSTABLE
That sentence was still flickering faintly near Rayan's fingertips.
"……Huh?"
A sound slipped out of me unbidden.
Rayan also looked down at his own fingertips.
His face went pale.
"Wait."
He muttered.
"Why is it still……."
In that instant the remaining red mana at Rayan's fingertips twisted.
Flame clumped together.
It was not a proper fireball.
An unstably torn mass of fire.
A flame sphere that burst out late, with no set trajectory.
A fourth one.
Screams erupted from the spectator seats.
"There's one more!"
"Dodge!"
The professor's staff moved.
But it was too late.
I had already lost my barrier as well.
I tried to write Defend again.
I raised my fingertips.
I tried to draw the stroke.
But my hand trembled.
The first stroke smeared.
It stopped there.
It never reached the second half.
An incomplete character held no power.
The fourth fireball came flying straight on.
BOOM!
Heat struck my body.
The impact rode my shoulder and shoved all the way into my side.
My breath cut off.
I rolled across the floor just like that.
"Guh—!"
It hurt.
It was insanely hot.
I was not on fire.
Yet it felt as if embers had been driven under my skin.
I clenched my teeth and dragged in a breath.
In that moment, air heated all the way into my lungs poured in.
"Hhk, kkh……!"
My vision flashed white.
Until just a moment ago it had looked almost like a game.
If I simply wrote the characters, the world responded.
So I had misunderstood.
Knowing the meaning and being able to write it did not mean I could properly control it.
Beneath the scattered remnants of Defend, a new character rose faintly.
RETURN
I stared at that character while lying face-down on the floor.
No.
What good does telling me this now do?!