Angry Argument Attack

Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with an excuse to refuse an upperclassman. Making matters worse, I saw Anmori walking in our direction. Thankfully, Hayashikaze reached us first.

“Can I join?” he asked. “Looks like your party could use a healer.” He shot a smirk toward Akemi Anmori, who returned it with the most evil smile I had seen in my entire life.

Once all the parties were formed, the coach tossed a thin strip of paper into the air. It caught fire and was quickly consumed by blue flames.

“Oni fire. So cool,” I heard Blooming Flame Blossom mutter under her breath.

“First years, you’re going to start with fluffletails,” the coach announced. “Last year, lots of teams stumbled at the inter high because they were hesitant to fight something so cute.” Snapping her fingers, a white ball of fluff with round eyes and long ears popped into existence.

“They may look harmless, but if you let your guard down, they’ll give you a nasty kick.”

One of the first-year girls, an orc, raised her hand. “Coach, the poor thing looks like it’s frightened.”

“Don’t be fooled. It’s not shaking with fear. It’s shaking with rage. Right now, it’s imagining you all dying horrible deaths. Dungeon monsters hate anything that’s not a fellow dungeon monster.”

Curious, I raised a hand. “How does it know the difference between dungeon monsters and regular animals?”

“How should I know? Maybe they have some way of sensing if a creature is made from draconic magic or not. It’s not important. They want to kill us, so we have to destroy them first.”

“But how do we know they hate us?”

The coach looked like she might strangle me, so I lowered my hand. I’d probably asked something she didn’t know the answer to. Robolina came to my rescue. “Coach, if I may.” She pointed at the fluffletail. “Thoughtpeek.” She then pointed toward the rest of us. “Broadcast.”

Suddenly, images of death flooded my mind. The orc girl, falling from a cliff. Myself, run through by a sword. Hayashikaze, torn apart by wolf-like monsters. Robolina, crushed under a large boulder. The way her body dented, it knew she was made of metal.

“It’s intelligent?” I gasped.

“Probably not,” Robolina assured me. “Dungeon monsters are created from the dreams of dragons, like Athena from the head of Zeus. They have no minds of their own.”

“That’s right, they’re not even alive,” the coach added. “There’s no reason to feel guilty about destroying them. Enough talk. Spread out and get started.”

Technically speaking, golems weren’t alive either, but I doubted the coach wanted to debate philosophy. She definitely didn’t want to deal with my followup question: Why do dragons dream of fluffletails?

Once my party reached an empty section of the track, three fluffletails appeared before us.

“Fireball!” Blooming Flame Blossom yelled. The resulting ball of fire was twice as large as the student council president’s. She must really have put her entire soul into it. All three fluffletails let out high-pitched screams as the flames consumed them.

“Leave some for the rest of your part,” the coach called out before summoning three more fluffletails for us.

Purify." Hayashikaze sprang into action, a beam of light erupting from his hand to strike the nearest training dummy. It ignited in white flames and vanished, promptly replaced by another.

“My turn! Fireball.” Blooming Flame Blossom lobbed a fireball into the air. It landed atop a training dummy, completely engulfing it.

It was the only attack spell I knew, so I followed her example. “Fireball.” My first shot missed and crashed into the magical barrier behind the monster. Embarrassing, but now I knew I actually had to aim. “Fireball.” My next shot landed.

I’d taken out my first monster using magic. Sure, I only knew a couple basic spells, but that was enough for the first real practice.

At least, I thought I was. My heart sank when a monster shimmered into existence. It was a small water elemental. My fire spell was useless.

“Fire!” Blooming Flame Blossom yelled. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” As far as I could tell her attacks had absolutely no effect on the elemental she was targeting.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Fire magic doesn’t work on creatures made of water.”

“Sure it does. There’s no enemy you can’t beat with fire. It’s just a matter of how much. With enough heat, this thing will evaporate. Fire!”

To say I was skeptical would be an understatement, but as Blooming Flame Blossom continued to pelt the elemental, a small amount of steam began to rise from its surface. Maybe she was on to something. At the same time, her attacks started to slow. This was taking too much mana.

“Fire!” I shouted, thrusting my hand toward the elemental. “Fire!”

“Hell yeah! Let’s do this.” Blooming Flame Blossom pumped her fist into the air. “Fire!”

“Fire.” Hayashikaze was barely audible over Blooming Flame Blossom's whooping and hollering.

Bubbles were now forming on the elemental’s surface, and it pulled itself up to a menacing height. “Look out! It’s about to attack,” I called out. That attracted its attention, and it surged toward me, a living being of scalding water. Barely dodging in time, I could feel the heat as it passed by me.

“We’re almost there. Inferno shield!” A wall of flames erupted from the ground at Blooming Flame Blossom’s command. The elemental momentarily shrank back, then belly-flopped onto it, dousing the wall.

Taking advantage of the reprieve, I cast as many fireballs as I could. The bubbles within the elemental grew larger, and its surface came to a roiling boil. It tried to flow into an upright position, but with a sickening hiss, it collapsed. We didn’t even need to evaporate it fully. The heat alone had been enough to slay it.

“Did you see that?” Blooming Flame Blossom glomped me from the side. “We did it together.” That was certainly true. Together, we had done what none of us could have pulled off on our own.

“Are you done messing around?” The coach’s words poured cold water on our celebration. “You wasted far too much mana taking down a juvenile elemental. How do you plan on completing the rest of your leg after a performance like that?”

Now that she pointed it out, it did seem like a very inefficient way to fight a water elemental. But what choice did I have?

“Don’t worry about it, Coach.” Blooming Flame Blossom’s tone was dismissive. “In a real race, the captain wouldn’t put a fire mage like me up against a water elemental.”

“And why wouldn’t he? You’re perfectly capable of wielding lightning magic, Ms. Honor Student.”

“As if I’d be caught dead doing something so uncool. Fire magic is where it’s at.”

“DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME?” The coach’s outburst was so fierce that all my muscles clenched up.

Blooming Flame Blossom took a step back, but when she spoke, she was as defiant as ever. “Duh. Run around the track and slay monsters. It’s literally a game.”

“Wrong. This is preparing you for a career in adventuring. I guarantee you that the monsters don’t care one bit about your aesthetics. If you try to pull something like that in a real dungeon, you’ll put your entire party at risk.” Raising one arm, she summoned another water elemental. “Now, do it right.”

Keeping her burning eyes on the coach, Blooming Flame Blossom pointed one hand at the elemental. “Fire.”

“That little stunt just got your friend taken out,” the coach growled. Reaching down, she curled her large fingers around my neck. “You’re on the bottom level of a dungeon. It’s so dark you can barely see your hands in front of your face. If you don’t get him out soon, the monsters will have him for dinner.”

“Fire.”

The coach’s fingers tightened around me. With another wave of her arm, the water elemental disappeared, replaced by a much larger elemental. “What you thought was a juvenile turned out to be an adult, and you can hear more nearby. Unless you kill all of them, and fast, your entire party is done for.”

It was getting hard to breathe. I feared that the coach might snap my neck if she got any angrier. With my eyes, I silently pleaded with Blooming Flame Blossom to relent. She looked back at me, a conflicted expression on her face. I didn’t really understand her dilemma. Wasn’t lightning magic cool in its own right? But I could tell by the way her fist shook that she really didn’t want to do it. Looking away from me, she reached back out toward the elemental.

“Lightning.” Bolts of electricity shot from Blooming Flame Blossom’s hand. The elemental instantly exploded into millions of droplets.

So she hadn’t really needed my help after all. The teamwork was just an illusion.

I expected the coach to release me, but she kept a firm grip. “Good, now do it again.” Three more elementals appeared.

From behind me, I heard Robolina’s voice. “That’s enough, Coach. You’re hurting Sei.”

Air rushed back into my lungs as the oni released me. “Nonsense. He was just helping me with a little demonstration. Besides, you know that monsters are going to do a lot worse during the relay.”

Yuumondou stepped forward. “No, I agree with Robolina. That’s no excuse for a teacher to lay hands on a student. Practice is over for today. Let’s talk this over in the principal’s office.”

“Practice isn’t over until I say it’s over.”

“Phantom Grasp.” Robolina summoned a spectral hand to grab the coach, but the coach jumped out of the way.

“You want to attack me? Do you have any idea how many--”

Another green hand grabbed the coach’s neck from behind and lifted her into the air.

“Doesn’t feel very nice, does it?” Robolina’s tone shocked me. I’d seen her at odds with the coach before, but this was definitely going overboard.

“You little brat,” the coach growled. She summoned an iron club and smashed the spectral hand holding her. It released the coach. As she fell, time slowed, as if in slow motion.

Robolina thrust her hand out in front of her. “Sanctify.”

The coach’s eyes widened in fear and several nearby students gasped. Whatever this Sanctify spell was, it was evidently dangerous.

“Stop!” I jumped at Robolina, hoping to pull her arm down so that the spell would target the ground. She turned her head to look at me, we locked eyes for a moment. Her face contorted into an expression of surprise. She pulled back her arm but forgot to cancel the spell.

A glowing white orb flew from her hand and slammed into my chest.