"Welcome students, future mages and knights of this empire. For the new students who will be joining us this year, I am the royal academy's headmaster, Oswald." The old man spoke, gaining my rapt attention, though not really because of Oswald and his speech.
"What is the 7th Arcana?" I thought aloud to myself as I read the notification.
'...' My face twitched. 'Seriously. Just for talking.'
"You all really have nothing better to do than to listen to a student mumbling things they vaguely remember hearing about. Do you?" I said, hoping whichever bastard it was, heard me.
'Ahh. The 7th arcana again. The very thing that started all this.' I thought as I looked at the quest reward. As for escaping attention. I probably didn't need to do anything, they would see I'm as boring and ordinary as anyone else soon enough I'm sure.
"And with that, I wish everyone luck in their studies for this academy year." The headmaster finished his long speech and disappeared as quickly as he appeared. The whole hall burst into applause at the boring speech.
"Wow! The headmaster is amazing isn't he!?" A short pink haired girl beside me practically screamed, sparkles in her eyes.
"I suspect he's one of the bastards who ruined my reward." I accidentally let my thoughts out loud, probably due to never being around many people for so long.
"Eh!?" The girl next to me squealed in confusion. "How could you call the headmaster a bastard! That's blasphemy!" The girl continued.
"How is it blasphemy? Does he have his own religion?!" I retorted.
"He's half a god! Do you not know what a demigod is?" She shouted.
"I know what it is, but that's just the damn name we assigned rank 6! If he was an actual demigod shouldn't we have all kneeled and prayed on instinct?!" I answered annoyedly.
"Grrr!" The pink haired girl was standing up now and glaring at me, that's when she suddenly calmed down. I thought she had realised the stupidity of the conversation and stood up to leave myself when I felt something thrown at my back.
I turned around and caught whatever it was with one hand.
"I, Moxia Mo Haringberg! Challenge you to a duel! The loser must do whatever the winner asks!" The pink haired girl yelled so loudly the entire hall fell silent and looked at us.
I gripped what turned out to be a glove in my hand as a vein popped on my forehead. "You know what. I accept!" I shouted back, my laziness being momentarily overtaken by my urge to beat this shortie up.
"Very well! Both of you move to the arena!" Another voice called out and I looked back to the podium to see a handsome teacher in their black and gold attire with long blond hair and wearing a golden monocle.
"Wait. Right now!?" I almost yelled. 'Shouldn't it be arranged in like a few days or something?!'
…
'How did this happen…' I wondered as I drew my sword which had come with the school uniform. It was a sturdy and simple longsword with a black handle, blunted edges and the academy's symbol.
I looked across from me at the short pink haired girl, who was a knight of epic proportions. EPIC DISPROPORTION! She's using a massive wide edged claymore that was almost larger than she was!!! Worse still it was one provided by the school. How was that even an option!? I wanted to cry but I had nowhere to put my tears.
"Since both competitors are ready. The duel will commence once the countdown hits 0." The blonde haired teacher, who I had conveniently learnt was the assistant headmaster, Damswell.
I dropped my sword's sheath to the ground as I held the handle with both hands and stayed in stance.
"You can do it little brother!" I vaguely heard my elder sister over the, "Beat him up lady Moxia," "This jack*ss dares challenge our idol," "We'll kill him if he hurts our idol." And other similar threats and encouragement.
'How troublesome.' I complained, realising I had picked a fight with someone well known and popular. I regretted my hotheaded actions. I should have refused, but for some reason this shortie just pressed all my buttons. If I had known she was popular I would've bowed out and ran away. Regardless of what I did now I would probably be remembered and thus be involved in trouble when I could be sleeping soundly instead.
'I'm sorry system! I've deviated from our goal, but never again!' I apologised to the system, which had given me one task in order to become strong, yet here I was ruining it.
Like a god answering my prayers, the system seemed to forgive me. The problem was that I was planning to aim for a draw to get the least attention, but a victory? I had no idea how to do that without drawing too much attention to myself.
"0! BEGIN!" The assistant headmaster suddenly yelled and I was woken from my thoughts as Moxia shot at me like a train. 'Rank 1?!' I realised. With that speed she was definitely rank-1! Wasn't she only in the first year?
I didn't even have time to think and my mastery level in the physical enhancement skill kicked in allowing me to recover my mistake of not focusing at the start and block the incoming sword strike. However it wasn't a claymore for no reason. I was hit back so far I ended up only a metre away from the arena's edge.
"What a heavy strike…" I muttered, not repeating the same mistake as I parried the next strike to my left and let the momentum guide me into a kick to her stomach. The hit connected with her arm which she had switched from holding her claymore to block.
Moxia went flying across the arena like I had in the first exchange and I used the opportunity to get to the centre of the arena and return to my neutral stance, not bothered enough to chase her as she was kicked away to try and exploit the opening.