Free Web NovelChapter 25: Another one!
The cafeteria was loud.
We picked up trays at the counter, paid through the academy meal system, and Kira led me to a table by the window where the noise from the main floor thinned out.
Two seats, away from the cliques. She’d clearly used this spot before.
I set my tray down across from hers and started eating.
She’d brought one of the printed summary sheets with her. She slid it across the table between our plates as she sat down.
"While we eat. Talk to me through the gates."
"You’re a hard woman, sigh."
"Talk."
We began speaking about the gates. Kira nodded between bites of her sandwich, corrected me once on the beast population numbers, made me repeat the corruption rotation back to her until I had it down.
Halfway through her explanation she got a small piece of lettuce on the corner of her mouth and didn’t notice.
I leaned across the table and brushed it off with my thumb. "You got something on your lips."
She froze mid-sentence.
The flush hit her cheeks fast. Her eyes flickered down to my hand and then back up to my face, and the explanation she’d been mid-way through evaporated.
"You had a—"
"I know what I had."
"It was distracting."
"You..."
"You’re cute when you’re flustered."
She buried her face in her water glass for a long sip and didn’t come back up until she’d composed herself.
[Rewards Delivered: +5 Affection (Kira), D-Rank Armor.]
That was when multiple shadows fell across our table.
Four of them. Boys, mid-teens, they were all well built, massive shoulders and arms. Hands in pockets. The one at the front wore a badge of a C-Ranker.
I recognised the boy half a step behind him before I recognised the leader.
It was the E-rank from yesterday. The one Soren had verbally dismembered in front of the whole class for complaining about Cecilia’s escort. He’d shrunk into his seat at the time, and the look on his face right now was the look of a kid who’d spent the night since then telling himself that this morning, he’d come back with an older brother and even the score.
The C-rank at the front took his hands out of his pockets.
"You’re the F-rank everyone’s been talking about."
I picked up my fork and took another bite of my food.
Kira’s hand had gone still on her summary sheet.
"I heard," the C-rank continued, voice loud enough to pull eyes from neighbouring tables, "that you’ve been making trouble with my subordinate."
The System chimed.
[CHOICE A: Verbal slap. Reward: +5 Strength.]
[CHOICE B: Walk away. Reward: +1 Charisma.]
[CHOICE C: Hit him first. Reward: +5 Stamina, academy disciplinary mark.]
I picked A.
I set my fork down. I leaned back in my chair, one arm slung over the backrest, and looked the C-rank up and down.
"Your subordinate. Is that what we’re calling it? Just say that you have a bastard child you want to take care of, no need for pleasantries."
A snort came from the table behind us. Someone covered it badly with a cough.
The C-rank’s jaw tightened.
"You little—"
"Little. Sure. Go on."
He took half a step forward.
"Don’t get cocky just because you beat Roman Vale." His voice dropped into the register guys his age used when they thought they were being menacing.
"Roman underestimated your cunning tactics. You won on pity and luck. Those tricks aren’t going to work on me, F-rank. I’ll break both your legs and let you crawl home."
I tilted my head. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
"I’m afraid that I will have to break all three of your legs if you don’t leave me alone."
"You...I’ll—"
"You’ll do what. Slowly? You’ve been working up to a sentence for thirty seconds. I’m starting to feel guilty about my lunch getting cold."
The C-rank’s face went red.
The E-rank from yesterday, the original complainer, had gone very still. Whatever he’d thought was going to happen when he brought his master to the cafeteria, this wasn’t it.
The C-rank reached up and unclipped his badge.
He threw it on the table between our plates. It landed on the corner of Kira’s tray with a small flat clatter.
"I challenge you to a match."
I looked down at the badge. Then up at him. I let my eyebrows lift, slow.
"Why would I fight you?"
"Because you—"
"Genuinely. Why. Your face? Your subordinate’s hurt feelings? I have a meal in front of me and a beautiful girl across the table from me, and you’re standing here interrupting both of those things to challenge a guy two ranks below you to a duel. Read the room. Go home."
[Reward delivered: +5 Strength]
He stayed where he was.
His chest rose and fell. His fists had clenched at his sides, the knuckles white, and the cafeteria around us had gone quiet enough that I could hear night crickets even though it was day. Half the room was watching now.
He’d locked himself into the moment by raising his voice, and walking away from it without a match would cost him more than the match itself.
He didn’t budge.
"Fine. Fine, fine, fine. If you want it that badly, you can have it. But if you want me in the ring, you put something on the line. I don’t fight for free anymore."
His head came up. "What."
I pointed at his right hand.
"Your mana ring. The one on your index finger. I like it. It looks nice. Hand that over if I win."
His eyes dropped to his own hand. The ring on his index finger was a simple silver band with a faint blue gemstone set into the metal, the kind of mana piece that ran somewhere in the high six figures on the open market. His father had probably bought it for him. He stared at it for a long second.
Then he looked back at me, and the cocky tilt of his mouth came back in full.
"Fine. When I win, I take that mana ring in your hand. Deal?"
"Deal."
