Face-off against Richard

On that day, everyone from maids, to soldiers, to nobility, was gathered in one place.
The underground training facility.

"Hey, do you think the hero stands a chance ?" One soldier asked his colleague.

"Nah, no way. It's Richard he's up against."

"I wouldn't be so sure, it's a duel of swords after all. Richard's speciality is the bow." Another interjected.

"Ok but how long do you think the commander has been practicing for ? He can't compare."

As I entered the sandy training ground in my Hero apparel, cape and all, I could feel the excitement of the crowd permeating the training grounds.

Most of the voices were skeptical or even incredulous in regards to my success in today's duel, but I figured it only made sense considering who was my opponent.
At the same time though, I imagined that if this much people had elected to still show up to observe this match, either they really hated me and couldn't wait to bear witness to my humiliation or, they were looking forward to the possibility of an upset.
Regardless, today I absolutely needed to win. Otherwise, at best I would remain trapped in this kingdom for god knows how long, and at worst, I could lose my life because I threatened to expose the kingdom's schemes.

I don't have much experience seeing him in action but, thankfully both my master and Seri have given me pointers and tidbits of information regarding his fighting style. So this should be manageable.

While I was giving myself a little pep talk, I suddenly heard people starting to cheer and clap their hands. It seemed Richard had arrived.

"Man look at this form..this guy is a mountain." Said a rookie soldier with amazement.

"Heh, looks like this guy is 'boutta get serious here after all." This time it was Vineli who commented, the captain of the Infantry, one of Richard's subordinates.

"Why is that so surprising ?" Richard said with mild exasperation, as he eyed his comrade curiously. He continued. "Not only has this kid manned up, he also kept his word." He responded with a fearless grin directed at me. "So it's only proper I give it all I've got in return !" Gahahaha, he roared in his usual fashion.

I appreciate the thought bro' , I really do, but you didn't have to go to such lengths to accomodate me you know ? I mean, I'd have welcomed an easy duel where I'd have taken you out by surprise after you'd have underestimated me.. that way it would have saved me from putting my life on the line like this...

"What's with the long face Taiyo ? Did you perhaps expect me to go easy on you ?" Richard said with a smirk. Don't you start reading my thoughts now.. you need to stick to the musclehead stereotype, or I won't know how to handle it...

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The stage was set. So once we were done stretching, the referee announced the rules of the duel.

"Without further ado, let me present you with the canons which will be used to determine the winner of this face-off !"

Following his proclamation, the referee gestured to the entrance. From there, two servants made their way inside the venue, bringing a chalkboard along. On it, two columns had been drawn separated with a vertical line, with both of our names respectively written on either side. Under each name, they planted three knives, below that, a cross, and lastly a square.

"As represented by those knives, the first means of victory will be for one of them to land three direct hits on their opponent." The referee started. "Their second recourse is obviously a KO. If one of them can no longer stand up by himself, the duel will end in the other's victory. That being said, lethal blows are of course prohibited." He assured. "Lastly, victory can also be determined if one of the fighters steps out of bounds with both of his feet." He finished.

Okay so three strikes, a KO, or beyond the lines. Pretty easy to keep in mind.

"Now for the restrictions; long distance weapons, magic, and projectiles of all kinds are banned. However, strengthening arts, spells meant for the enhancement of one's weapon, and chants aiming at disturbing the opponent, are all authorized."

Good. Looks like my curiosity about dark magic will come in handy sooner than I expected.

Indeed, during the last two weeks, on top of being able to resume my training with now both Xenia and Seri. I used the pretext of wanting a reward for my involvement in the war to ask Prakia to teach me about one extra elemental attribute separately from the lessons he usually gave Neil and me. The element in question being Dark.

Still to this day, the scope of what one was able to achieve with this peculiar attribute was limited. The reason for that was simple; nobody other than thieves, assassins, or scholars, bore a keen interest in its specificities. 
 
Such a shame, when it's so easy to manipulate. 
In my case, it seemed I had a high affinity for the element. Humans from this world could theoretically learn and manage all of the existing attributes, however, their affinity to each specifically was determined at birth.
As a result, many chose to specialized in the one or the ones they felt the most at ease with. Which I found to be a waste of potential, but whatever.

Anyway, thanks to Prakia, I had learnt two basic dark spells, "blind", which manifested an eye made of smoke in the palm of one's hand; rendering any who looked at it, even birefly, blind to their surroundings for a few seconds. And "murmur", which allowed my next word or command to have more effect on a subject's psyche. For example, if I yelled stop, anyone within ten meters of me would suddenly feel their legs tense up and would consider stoping in their tracks on reflex. 

Needless to say, this magic was limited. Not only that, but if I wanted to maximise its effects, in murmur's case, I needed to avoid words or commands that were too drastic. For instance, instead of yelling stop, I should rather shout slow down ! 

I just hope I won't mispronounce the command under the stress. It was my one fear.

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"I see that our fighters are ready to dive in. Then without further delay, here are the stakes in play for this duel !"

As the arbitrator's call, the servants in charge of the chalkboard revealed what they had just written under each of the columns.

"Woah, I pity the hero..." Said a spectator. Mirroring the thoughts of many others.

"No way... hey change my bet, I'm all in on the hero !" Came the overly enthusiastic voice of a soldier I recognized. "A-ah.. n-nevermind..." He retracted as his earlier shouting had apparently reached the ears of Richard.

Suppressing a chuckle of my own at this interaction, I confirmed what was written on the board.
Good, looks like Richard kept his word.
Obviously, since we could not simply go ahead and present the real wager we had agreed on, I had worked with Richard on different modalities to present to the referee and higher authorities.

"In the event our Hero, Taiyo-sama, won this duel.. sir Richard vows to follow the former's instructions to a T for all battles to come for a year."
The revelation drew a few giggles and derisive snorts from the nobility and servants. Of course, I thought. These people had never seen me fight or even train. They would never expect me to win.

"Now, if the one coming out on top turns out to be sir Richard.. the hero will have to undergo personnal training with sir Richard for the same period of time I mentioned before. A whole year !"
At that, the crowd erupted in cheers and laughter.

"Get him Heroooo !" 

"Don't fall in hell !" They cheered, with a smile plastered on their faces.

Yikes...

As the referee lifted his arm up and siwftly brought it back down, the duel started.

Let's try to land the first strike !

Judging it wouldn't favor me to linger too long in this fight, I dashed forward.

"Now, now, don't be so hasty, let's enjoy it." He taunted, with a fearless smile.

I knew I had a lot to gain by purposely dragging this on, putting on a show of being evenly matched with the commander of the second division, but that wouldn't do. Time is ticking, I thought.
And there's also no guarantee he will be satisfied if he feels like there wasn't a huge difference in power between us, so it's better that I try my hardest to make it quick and as one-sided as possible.

With my determination propelling me forward, I landed about two meters before him and made a sharp one-eighty.

"That bastard !" I heard Richard growl.

With this sudden turn, the momentum of my charge had left my cape flying behind me, so I turned around upon landing to momentarily use it as a smokescreen while I squatted down.
Completing a full three-sixty while crouched, I used this second impetus to land a low kick behind his heel to try and trip him.

"You–" Even as my underhand tactic worked, in a split second decision Richard managed to roll away on his side to absorb the impact of his fall and dodge my thust.

"Hey that was sick !" Marveled a few soldiers at this surprising opener.

I'm not done yet !  

Launching myself to his pursuit before he could get up, I shouted. "Stay down !"
With the help of murmur, one of the two spells in my arsenal, I managed to further impair Richard's ability to quickly get back up. However, right as I was about to slash at his shoulder, he discarded his weapon and caught my blade with both hands. And, with a forceful pull, he managed to disarm me and throw my sword away.

"?!" I was stumped. His hands were now wet with blood but he had managed not only to turn the fight around, but also to deprive me of my weapon.

"Strike one for sir Richard !" Yelled the ref. It seemed this strike had still allowed me to take the first step towards victory.

At what cost though.. Indeed, now stripped of my only mean of dealing meaningful damage to him, I stood at a huge disadvantage despite being one strike ahead and unharmed.

As for Richard, after slowly getting up and ripping a part of his shirt to prepare a makeshift bandage for his bloody hands, he put on a serious face and looked at the crowd around us.

"Does anyone present still thinks that this duel is unfair ?!" He asked the public in an intimidating voice. 

No one responded.

"'Thought so." He snorted.

Forget what I said before, this guy is freaking badass.

After allowing myself a moment to appreciate Richard's chivalrous spirit, I quickly returned my focus to the issue at hand.

I hate to use it so early but I don't see any other way to give myself a chance to claim back my sword. Left with no other option besides using the only other spell I could pull out, I prepared myself to charge once again.

"That's a nice look you've got in your eyes. Now bring it on !"

At his invitation, I once again dashed forward. This time I would use blind. And in order to land it successfully, I had to make sure not to give him enough reaction time to avert his eyes.

"Freeze !" I shouted. But the moment I did it, I felt a tinge of discomfort in my torso.
What was that ? I wondered briefly. Well, as long as it works..

Thankfully, it would seem that my spell had affected him. So using the short window of opportunity it gave me, I tried to bring my palm in front of his face to cast blind. However...

"Hah !"
Feigning a two-handed overhead slash, Richard used the fact that I crouched down to prepare a dodge, to instead kick me right in the shoulder with the sole of his shoe. Pushing me back a few meters.

Gah !  What the f*** !  

After taking his blow head-on and unprepared, I immediately tried to rotate my shoulder to see if that was not dislocated. Ok at least it's still usable. The pain stung but at least it looked like I would still be able to hold my sword. 

I need to pay more attention to my angle of attack. I'm left-handed after all.
Usually, in a swordfight against someone sharing the same dominant side as you, it was common strategy to slash diagonally towards the opposite side. The goal being to target the unguarded side of their body first. But in my case, attacking in that same fashion against Richard who's himself right-handed, meant that I was trying to force this issue on his most guarded side. Needless to say, this was suicidal. Especially unarmed.

Should I just gamble and try the same move again ? With this strategy I ran the risk of falling for the same trap again but, I figured that if he was in indeed not underestimating me, then maybe there was a chance he'd expect me to lay a trap of my own when he saw me approaching twice in the same way.

Psyching myself to ignore the fear and prepare my body to move out of the way at the last second if need came to be, I once again ran towards him.

"Hah !" Reverting to his earlier posture, Richard positioned himself to launch that same over-head slash.

"Blind !"

This time I got it, before his blade crashed down I managed to dodge at the last moment and brough my palm close enough to his face so he wouldn't be able to look away. Great, now–
But right as I was passing by him, likely catching my intent, he kicked on instinct in the direction he supposed I'd gone in.

"I only lost sight of you for a few seconds, don't think it'll be enough to prevent me from finding you." He roared, clearly pissed off.

I had managed to reach my sword at last, but I'd taken a huge kick to the back in the process, leaving me momentarily gasping for air.

"Strike one for the hero !" Came the announcement from the referee. Back to square one.

"Regulate ! Sharpen !"

Richard suddenly performed two arts. One was for regulating the blood flow and allowed one to tank hits more easily, and the other allowed him to move faster. It seemed like I could no longer hold on to my trump card.

"With his golden hands he who manipulates the blood of the earth plunges these hands in the inferno just to grace this blade with but a drop of the purest liquor known to exist. Magma Blade !"

Using the only chant I had managed to learn and control, I turned my blade a bright red bordering on yellow, raising its temperature to a degree close to that of lava. But the moment I did...

Ow ! What is this pain ?! As soon as I channeled the mana into my chant and activated it with the keyword, I felt a sharp pain just above my stomach, at the base of my ribcage. It subsided after a few seconds but it surprised me enough that I missed the timing to properly move to block Richard's blow coming at me from above.

"Crap–"

Holding my blade horizontally over my head with both hands, I desperately hoped that he would control his blow to avoid bashing my skull.

"?!" A collective gasp could be heard from the crowd. Everyone was holding their breath.

I'm..fine ? Slowly opening my eyes again, I was greeted with Richard's face being inches away from my own. A dumbfounded expression on his face.

"S-second strike for Richard ! His weapon is no longer usable !" 

At the ref's call, I leaped back twice in succession to put some distance between Richard and me and studied the state of his weapon. Where did the blade go ? I wondered. But when I looked at the ground, a few centimeters away from the position where we had supposedly locked blades, I saw more than half of Richard's blade lying on the ground. It had been cleanly cut off about ten centimeters away from the guard.

No way, was this weapon unhancement always supposed to be this strong ? I was at a loss for words. During my training with this application of magic, I had only been able to reach the point where the blade was hot enough to burn wood upon touching. Did my mana stores grow that much larger in the span of a week ?

The last time I experimented with this chant was two weeks ago. Prakia had told me that my mana pouch would probably continue to grow at a steady rate for another five years or so, but to think such a short period of time could make such a huge difference, I was the first to be surprised at this development. 

Or maybe I was actually on the verge or reaching this level and that extra week only served to push me over the edge ? This was also a possibility. Regardless, I was now in the commanding position for the remainder of this duel without a doubt.

Recognizing that, Richard held both of his hands in the air in a show of surrender.

"I concede." He finally said, wearing a bitter expression.

"T-then, victory goes to the hero.. Taiyo-sama !" Managed to shout the referee.

At his confused procclamation, everyone present recovered from their stupor and began to applaud louder and louder until even shouts and cheers entered the mix, celebrating both my victory and a breathtaking duel. 

T-That was tense... 

It's in a state of both relief and bewilderment that I saw the curtain fall on this brief but unnerving event of my daily life in this world of swords and magic.

An event that would mark the beginning of a long-lived collaboration and friendship with a man several decades my senior.