Duelcrest Academy

17. Broken peace

The following weeks went by with an unnatural sense of calm flowing through the school building.

It was as if Valentine's tragic end had made all my classmates fall in a collective catharsis.
After witnessing such a gruesome end, it seemed like everyone just wanted one thing: to forget everything that happened.
So the days flew by in a forced sense of normalcy.

Every Monday, however, to remind us that it hadn't all been just a bad dream, one of our comrades vanished into thin air.
But even these disappearances, initially met with dismay, were now becoming part of our routine.

Up to that point, the fight for survival hadn't been particularly fierce. The eliminated students had been nothing more than sacrificial pawns, almost incapable of winning any duels.
Had the school really selected them with the sole purpose of turning them into cannon fodder?
If their plan was to desensitize us to the death of our classmates, well, perhaps they were allready succeeding.

However, I knew that things wouldn't continue to go so smoothly forever.
I was now aware that among us were people with special powers, and soon, once put under pressure, they wouldn't hesitate to use them.
For this reason, I had to act in advance.

Instead of resting on my laurels, after Valentine's defeat I continued to duel relentlessly, to the point of easily reaching the top position in the rankings.
Collecting as many points as possible would make my life easier when the competition would inevitably become more fierce.

However, I had a more important reason to exert myself: protecting Amy.
I knew very well her low magic potential was going to paint a target on her back sooner rather than later.
I needed to do something about it.

For this reason, I had made an effort to ensure that my duels were seen by as many people as possible. I wanted to make it clear to everyone that I was not someone they wanted to mess with.
I then made sure to spend as much time as possible with Amy.

"If you mess with her, I'm going to make you pay."
,
That was the message I wanted to send.
And so far, my plan had worked: no one had dared to challenge her and for now, she was comfortably sitting around the middle of the rankings.

To improve our chances of survival, I set another task for myself: observe our classmates to identify the most dangerous ones.
Obviously I had no way to tell if behind an unassuming student lurked a terrifying innate power wielder. So I mainly focused on identifying the most skilled magic users, by spectating as many duels as possible.

Between everyone else, one girl immediatly stood out to me.
Her name was Celeste and she was the first daughter of Duke Fitzroy, a powerful lord said to be the King's right-hand man.

The fact that the offspring of such an influential noble had ended up in this deadly trap made no sense.
Did the Sovereign really thought it was a good idea to send the heir of his most powerfull ally into this death trap?

Anyway, that girl was going to be a problem.
I could clearly remember seeing her name right below mine, when the headmaster had ranked us by mana level on the first day.
And, after witnessing some of her duels, she knew very well how to put all that mana to use.
Unlike me, who loved to crush my opponents with sheer power, she seemed to favor a more tactical approach.
When she challenged a boy particularly skilled in fire spells, Celeste Fitzroy conjured up a violent downpour that, if it hadn't been for the magical barrier, would've probably flooded the entire dining hall.
She then unleashed a lightning storm, electrocuting her helpless opponent. She protected herself by summoning a large dome of stone. Luckily the poor boy was only injured and recovered after a stay in the infirmary.
Those spells were definitely advanced though, there was no doubt she would be a tough nut to crack.
I hated fighting tricky opponents.