An Entertaining Spectacle

Julian was the second son of a thoroughly mediocre mage family.

He possessed no exceptional talent, nor did he harbor the slightest inclination to overcome his shortcomings through hard work. If anything, he was the sort to swagger about and squander his days in idle conceit simply because he happened to be born a noble. Ten years had drifted by like that since he entered the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Magic Tower on the coattails of his family's prestige.

Lately, Julian had been in an exceedingly foul mood.

He was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠creeping up on thirty. The mages who had entered the Tower around the same time were steadily making names for themselves. One had been accepted as an apprentice to a renowned archmage; another had secured a seat in a prestigious research circle.

Meanwhile, Julian remained stubbornly stuck as a low-rank mage. The Tower assigned him nothing but menial errands that even a green recruit could handle, never trusting him with anything of real consequence.

By now, an ordinary man might have swallowed the bitter pill of reality. Not Julian.

"Dammit all! How dare they treat a mage of my caliber like some errand boy! Those senile fools at the top don't have eyes to see! If only our family had more clout! If only Father had backed me more properly!"

He blamed his family's lack of influence. He blamed his parents for not pouring more gold into him. He blamed the higher-ups at the Tower for failing to recognize his genius. Blaming others was, after all, always the easiest balm for a bruised ego.

In his deepening sulk, Julian went pestering the idle drinking companions he usually caroused with.

"Listen up, you lot! Today, Lord Julian here is uncorking a vintage I've been saving for a special occasion!"

He had steeled himself to break out a rare, limited-run bottle of high-end wine, but his companions merely offered lukewarm shrugs.

"Sorry, Julian. I've got to take over the family business now."

"Yeah, we're at the age where we need to settle down. We can't just muck about forever, you know?"

Julian froze.

The very men he assumed would waste their lives alongside him forever were quietly carving out their own paths in the world. Betrayal! An unforgivable, venomous betrayal! And he had called them friends!

Julian felt as though the sky had collapsed on top of him. Drinking expensive wine all by himself carried none of the usual pleasure. In fact, it tasted wretched. Thus, pickled in sour wine and nursing a vile hangover in the bright glare of midday, he dragged his feet into the Magic Tower.

An elderly mage looked up and clicked his tongue in disgust. "Tsk, tsk. Look at the hour... Bah, forget it. Since you're here, take this. Have you heard of this fellow?"

The old man thrust a newspaper into his hands. Splashed across the front page was an article detailing a mage who had wiped out an enclave of demon worshippers.

Julian scratched his scalp in confusion. "A mage working as a stonemason? What kind of mage degrades himself with manual labor like that?"

"He's an unusual sort. They say he wields earth magic, of all things. Go find him and look him over. If you judge him to possess the caliber fitting for the Magic Tower, tell him he has permission to pay us a visit."

"Wait, isn't that a servant's chore? Why on earth should I be the one running errands?"

"Quiet down and do as you're told!"

Wincing at the sudden bellow, Julian jutted his lower lip in petulant defiance and stomped out of the Tower. Naturally, his temper was entirely in the gutter.

"Hey," he barked at the guards trailing behind him. "Do you know anything about this bastard named Reed?"

One of the retainers nodded eagerly. "Of course, my lord! That's all anyone's talking about these days. They say he rooted out demon worshippers single-handedly!"

"Word is he's quite young, too."

Julian's scowl deepened into an ugly grimace. A brat of a mage was soaking up that much attention? It offended him to his core. He felt as though the boy had brazenly stolen fame that rightfully belonged to Julian himself.

"Who is his master?"

"Well... nothing's been made public on that front, sir."

"His family?"

"That either... By all accounts, it seems he's deliberately keeping it quiet."

"Hah! In other words, he has nothing to boast about," Julian sneered. "If he had a distinguished lineage and a prominent master, he'd be shouting it from the rooftops. Why hide it?"

He snorted derisively through his nose. "It's one of two things. Either the rumors are ridiculously exaggerated, or the whole thing is an outright fraud. There's no way in hell a nobody brat actually possesses that kind of skill."

Magic demanded decades of relentless discipline and scholastic research. A mage's prowess naturally scaled with age. Prodigies occasionally burst onto the scene in their youth, of course, but nearly all of them enjoyed the full backing of an illustrious family or the personal tutelage of a grandmaster. Dragons did not rise from muddy ditches. No—they couldn't be allowed to. If a peasant from the gutter could master magic, what did that make Julian?

Reading their master's souring mood, the guards quickly chimed in with sycophantic agreement.

"Heh, now that you mention it, that makes total sense. Those ink-stained wretches will fabricate anything if it sells copies!"

"A pure fraud, plain and simple!"

"To think someone dared make a mockery of the noble art of magic," Julian hissed. "I'll have to teach him a proper lesson."

With an air of pompous majesty, Julian marched straight to the Stonemasons' Union headquarters—and immediately collided with Loty on the street outside.

What's with this gormless clod?

Julian's eyes narrowed. Perfect. He had been stewing in irritation, and now an ideal punching bag had stumbled right into his path. How should he play this? Merely thrashing him felt far too tame. First, force him to his knees to lick the dust off his boots? Or perhaps strip him naked and make him dance in the thoroughfare?

Julian gleefully weighed the most humiliating ways to break this crude laborer. But before he could utter a single word, a hand shot out and seized him violently by the collar.

"You dare insult our senior, you bastard?!"

"W-what?!"

Never in his thirty years had anyone grabbed Julian by the collar. Not even his own father had laid a hand on him!

Completely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thrown off balance, Julian gaped in sheer disbelief at the boy standing before him. He had earth-brown hair and eyes the color of rich soil.

"You think you can just come here and disrespect our senior?!"

"L-let go of me, you filthy commoner!"

Only then did the guards snap out of their daze and pry Reed off him.

Breathing heavily, Julian smoothed down his rumpled clothes. The initial shock quickly gave way to a white-hot fury. A lowborn gutter rat had laid hands on a noble! What was worse, the brat didn't even have the decency to lower his eyes. He stood there, glaring back with unblinking defiance.

"Do you... do you have any idea who I am?"

"Do I need to? Do you know who I am?"

"..."

Julian choked on his own breath, struck utterly dumb by the sheer audacity.

Sensing the mounting danger, Loty hurriedly tugged on Reed's sleeve. "Reed... it's fine. I'm all right, really."

"Well, I'm not," Reed said flatly.

"Hold on," Julian interrupted, his eyes narrowing to slits before a sharp, nasty laugh escaped his throat. What were the odds? He swept his long, grease-sheened hair back with an ostentatious flourish. "So you're Reed. I am Julian Erentir, a mage of the Magic Tower. I came to see what caliber of man you were, but I see I wasted my time. I heard you were playing at being a stonemason, but to think you were this thoroughly uncouth."

"Is that so?" Reed sneered. "I don't find my craft uncouth in the slightest. In fact, there's no such thing as base work. There are only base people."

Julian ground his teeth at the brazen retort. There was no mistaking who that jibe was aimed at.

"A little hollow praise from the crowd has made you arrogant! Do you honestly believe you're something special, you little brat?!"

"I might be young, but I'm pretty sure I'm a far more legitimate mage than some half-baked amateur like you."

"H-half-baked?! You... you little parasite...! I have had enough!"

Livid, Julian ripped a handkerchief from his coat and whipped it onto the cobbles. The ritual challenge of a duel.

"You've run your mouth carelessly, so I trust you're prepared to pay the price?"

"Couldn't ask for better."

Reed bent down and scooped up the silk handkerchief without a moment's hesitation. There was no backing out now. Across the Empire, a duel was a sacred compact. To flee from one was to wear the indelible brand of a coward for the rest of one's days.

Holding the handkerchief, Reed offered a cold, predatory smirk.

The sight of that smile sent an inexplicable shiver down Julian's spine. It felt as though he had stepped right into an open snare. But he quickly shook the unease away.

No. This is my chance. If I crush this boy, every shred of his fame becomes mine! The elders at the Tower will have to acknowledge me!

A towering reputation was not always an unmixed blessing. Out here in the Western Frontier, countless men craved renown, and the swiftest route to glory was always to pull down someone who already possessed it. To strike down this insolent whelp and claim his prestige in one stroke! Julian felt as though Lady Fortune were beaming down on him with open arms.

He had no inkling that every beat of this encounter had fallen squarely into Reed's calculations.

Perfect, Reed thought, watching him with cold amusement. I can bleed this pig dry.

Reed knew men of this stripe intimately. Bereft of genuine competence, they clung to brittle pride and an unearned sense of supremacy. Having clawed his way up from the slums, Reed harbored a visceral distaste for arrogant nobles—a complicated knot of contempt and lingering envy.

If a formal duel presented itself on a silver platter, why not use it to fleece the fool of every coin he carried? With that gold, he could finally purchase an introductory magic tome! A puffed-up noble like this had to have at least four gold coins on him, surely?

Thus, both men stood glaring at each other, each privately plotting to skin the other alive. Julian wanted glory; Reed wanted cash.

"Hmph! I'll send word regarding the time and venue later."

"Don't run away," Reed replied smoothly.

Neither considered the possibility of defeat. Each was utterly convinced that victory was already his. What neither noticed, however, was that among the curious onlookers gathered in the street stood an eagle-eyed journalist hunting for his next headline.

By the gods... it's a scoop!

Julian stormed off, muttering curses under his breath.

Loty, who had been staring in a daze, turned toward Reed before suddenly throwing his arms around him in a bone-crushing embrace.

"Reed! I... I think I've completely misunderstood you all this time!"

"...Misunderstood me?"

"Sometimes I thought you looked down on me! But to think you cared about me this much...!"

Reed flinched slightly before patting Loty's broad back with an awkward rhythm. "Everyone in the Stonemasons' Union is a brother, right? I only did what was obvious."

"You really are the greatest guy in the world!"

Loty squeezed tighter, sniffling openly. Standing just a few paces away, Shaka watched the display with half-lidded, thoroughly unimpressed eyes.

"B-but will you be all right?" Loty stammered, pulling back with genuine worry etched into his features. "He's an affiliated mage of the Magic Tower. If you get hurt or killed because of me..."

"Don't worry about it. He's only 13 Rt."

"Rt?"

"Never mind, just an internal metric."

Returning to the union hall, they promptly reported the incident to Guildmaster Darahalt. Reed had quietly braced himself for a severe scolding over picking a fight with a noble mage.

Instead, Darahalt slammed his massive fist onto the oak desk with a thunderous crack!

"What?! Calling stonemasons base laborers?! What century does that pompous ass think we're living in?!"

Fiercely proud of his craft, the dwarf guildmaster was entirely incensed by an insult directed at stonemasonry as a whole.

"You did damn well, lad! That bastard didn't just insult Loty; he spat on every single brother under this roof! If we let that slide, every mongrel in the city would laugh at us in the streets."

"Still, he belongs to the Magic Tower," Reed pointed out carefully. "Won't this cause complications?"

"Once the duel's settled, both sides can resolve it quietly behind closed doors. The Magic Tower has nothing to gain from picking a feud with our union anyway. But! You have to win, Reed. Are you confident?"

"Yes, Guildmaster."

Seeing Reed's calm, unwavering response, Darahalt gave a satisfied nod. In all the time he had known him, Reed had never been one to spout hollow bravado. Reassured, Darahalt sent the two apprentices on their way and wasted no time spreading word of the confrontation among the craftsmen.

Before long, Reed's standing within the union skyrocketed to unprecedented heights.

"Going toe-to-toe with a mage for the sake of a brother? I could never have done that."

"Phew, no kidding. A mage, of all things! Just thinking about it turns my knees to water."

"Reed's a mage too, you know."

"Oh. Right, forgot about that."

The noble spectacle of a craftsman plunging straight into peril for his comrade set the stonemasons' rough hearts ablaze. It was an outpouring of pure admiration—born entirely from their blissful ignorance of Reed's mercenary greed.

At that very moment, Julian was returning to the Magic Tower.

Predictably, the reception awaiting him was the exact opposite.

"Have you completely lost your mind?! I sent you to observe a prospect, and you went and challenged him to a formal duel?!"

Julian blinked in shock.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Did you honestly expect praise?! Ha! You whined that evaluating him was an errand fit for a servant, yet you couldn't even manage that much without causing a disaster!"

The elder mage felt his blood pressure soaring to dangerous heights. If the fool before him hadn't been a noble by birth, he would have bounced an iron-shod staff off Julian's skull ten times over. But screaming wouldn't undo the mess. The milk had already spilled across the floor.

With a weary, gut-deep sigh, the elder rubbed his temples. "I'll have to open discussions with the Stonemasons' Union immediately. The best course is to hush this up as quietly as possible... But since matters have come to this, you must win. Do you understand me? If word leaks out that a Tower mage lost to an unregistered hedge wizard... ugh, my head."

"O-of course, Master! He's just a green brat. I'll slaughter him!"

"And who's going to clean up the political bloodbath if you kill him?!"

Groaning through a throbbing migraine, the elderly mage pulled out a sheet of parchment and began penning a missive to Darahalt.

The missive radiated a desperate desire to smother the spark before it became an inferno, and Darahalt promptly consented to the terms.

"Whew."

The elder mage finally let out a long breath of relief. The worst had been averted. Even in the improbable event that Julian suffered an upset, the Magic Tower's prestige would remain untarnished so long as no one witnessed it. Having spent the entire afternoon running about extinguishing fires, the old man returned home late in the evening.

His elderly wife greeted him with a worried gaze. "Dear? Did something happen at the Tower?"

"Just some half-wit causing trouble, but it's handled now. Nothing to worry about."

"Don't push yourself too hard."

Patting his wife's hand reassuringly, the mage drifted into an exhausted slumber, confident that peace had been restored.

The very next morning, he opened the daily gazette over breakfast and nearly dropped dead from heart failure.

"What in the gods' names is this?!"

The Empire was a civilization steeped in a martial spirit.

Its founding sovereign had been a conqueror known as the Knight King, and the blue-blooded nobility of the modern era traced their lineages directly to the knights who had sworn their blades to his cause. The old feudal days—when an emperor summoned his vassals and contract-bound lords marched to war with personal levies—were gradually waning.

Knights now drew weekly wages in coin rather than collecting land rents, and lords increasingly paid shield taxes in lieu of marching to the front lines. With those revenues, the Emperor maintained regular Imperial knightly orders and professional standing armies.

Some claimed the old era was dying.

Yet martial strength remained the supreme virtue of the realm. A mighty noble earned adoration; a skilled knight commanded envy; and a man of power garnered respect regardless of how humble his birth might be. In such a culture, duels were not merely tolerated—they were celebrated.

The people of the Empire loved a duel.

Even noble ladies were no exception to the bloodsport. At aristocratic tea parties, it was hardly uncommon for young debutantes to draw steel over differing opinions on imported black teas.

"My, what a fierce lunge, Lady Clara!"

"Ohoho! Your blade wavers, Lady Beatrice! Could that be hesitation in your heart?"

Such was the Imperial appetite for violence. So when the morning papers hit the streets, the public reaction was nothing short of volcanic.

There was no better spectacle in the world than a public brawl. And among brawls, nothing rivaled a clash between mages. The newspapers sold out across the city within the hour.

"Who do you have your coin on?"

"The Gravekeeper, obviously! You think a man who slaughtered demon worshippers is a pushover?"

"Bah, don't be an idiot. The other man is from the Magic Tower! In the arcane arts, age is king—the older you are, the deeper your reserves! The kid is far too green."

"Standing up to a nobleman for the honor of a disgraced comrade... Reed, was it? Now that's a man of true conviction."

"Aye. A real man among men."

The citizens dissected the impending clash on every street corner. Since the embers of Reed's triumph over the cultists had yet to cool, the fresh controversy caught like dry brush in a gale. The narrative hooks were simply irresistible:

Aristocrat versus commoner.

The Magic Tower elite versus an independent maverick.

A seasoned veteran versus a rising prodigy.

Every contrast was drawn in sharp, vibrant strokes. Laborers argued over pints in the taverns; farmers traded theories across the irrigation ditches; noblewomen whispered over porcelain teacups; and gentlemen squabbled over chessboards in the smoking parlors. Illicit betting rings were already springing up in back alleys to take wagers on the outcome.

To walk the streets of Morasil and remain ignorant of the duel was to be completely excluded from civil conversation. As printing presses groaned under overtime runs, Reed's name echoed from the East Gate to the inner city walls.

Then, at the height of the frenzy, a critical question dawned on the populace.

"Wait... so when and where is this duel actually happening?"

"How should I know? The paper says it's under negotiation!"

"Then let's go ask the source!"

A massive, clamoring mob surged toward the Stonemasons' Union. Loty, who happened to be sweeping the front steps with a straw broom, went pale and tried to scramble back inside, but a dozen rough hands snared his tunic before he could cross the threshold.

"Hey! You there!" a burly tradesman barked, shaking Loty by the shoulders. "When is the duel?! Where is it being fought?! Just give us the location!"

Thoroughly terrified and overwhelmed by the sea of eager faces, Loty's brain short-circuited.

"H-huh?! W-well... the duel is supposed to be held in secret, just between us where no one can watch... Ah! Wait, the Guildmaster said I wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠supposed to tell anyone that—"

"...?"

A heavy, stunned silence hung over the street for three seconds.

That afternoon, a full-scale riot erupted on the doorstep of the Stonemasons' Union.