The knight stepped forward, his boots echoing across the now-silent arena. His gaze, steely and unreadable, locked onto Wesley with quiet intensity.
"My goal is simple," the knight said. "I will fight you—not to humiliate, not to dominate—but to see you. If you are deemed worthy, even if you have no Mana now, I will train you. Even if it takes the rest of my life, I will make you into a true Knight."
The declaration hung in the air, heavy and absolute.
Wesley nodded stiffly. "Understood, sir."
In truth, he wanted none of this. But saying no now would only make him look suspicious—and worse, it might ruin the good will he accidentally accumulated.
"In this world," the knight continued, "there are those born without Mana, and some who awaken it late. Sometimes much later. But even if your Mana doesn't surface until your bones are creaking and your hair is white, I will see it. I will know."
Wesley smiled awkwardly. Hopefully, you see nothing, he muttered internally.
The crowd quieted, waiting, as the knight raised his wooden sword and Wesley raised his mop.
The duel began.
Wesley took a hesitant step forward, then darted in with a wide horizontal sweep of the mop, aiming low toward the knight's legs. The knight shifted his stance and smoothly stepped back, avoiding the strike with a fluid pivot. Another attack came—a jab to the midsection. The knight parried with ease.
But then, he paused.
The force of the mop had felt… solid. Too solid.
Wesley attacked again. A faint overhead swing, one that masked a sudden twist and sweep at the ankles. The knight leapt back.
Then again—a flurry of feints, taps, and awkward stabs. At least, they looked awkward.
But they weren't.
The knight furrowed his brow. The rhythm was off, not in the clumsy way, but in the intentional way. Wesley's footwork was too balanced, his recovery too clean. Every move looked casual, but in reality, it was calculated.
This wasn't amateurism. It was disguised precision.
He blocked another mop strike, then blinked. That felt heavier than a wooden staff should've been. Was he imagining things?
"Interesting…" the knight murmured.
Wesley's mop came spinning around in a crescent arc. The knight dodged, barely, the mop's wind brushing his shoulder.
And yet, even as he counterattacked, Wesley didn't press the offensive. He stepped back, feigning fatigue, even panting slightly. The audience didn't notice it, but the knight did.
He's pretending, the knight thought. He's holding back.
Again and again, Wesley attacked—just a little too hard to be random, just a little too soft to be committed. His movements were measured in deceptive inches, not recklessness.
The knight blocked, parried, tested. And finally, after several exchanges, he disengaged. Wesley staggered back, fell to one knee, and panted as if exhausted.
"That's… enough… right?" Wesley said between fake breaths. "I-I gave it my all…"
In his head, he was screaming. Please, just say I suck. Say I'm unworthy. Let me go. I'll head to the next arena and farm more system quests.
The knight stood silently, staring.
Wesley lowered his head further. Sweat dripped down his temple—not from the fight, but from stress. Please don't notice… please…
Then—
"Your movements…" the knight began slowly. "They're sharp. Sharper than any student I've seen this year."
Shit.
"Your strikes—restrained, precise. You don't swing to wound. You swing with control. You measure. You think."
Oh no.
"You don't move like someone who's untrained. You move like someone who's drilled these actions over and over again."
Stop it.
The knight stepped closer, and Wesley looked up, trying his best to look confused.
"Did you train on your own?" the knight asked.
Wesley opened his mouth to lie—No, sir, I just mop floors and spar with rats—but the words didn't come. The weight of the knight's stare made it impossible.
"I—uh—just… maybe it's instinct?" he offered weakly.
The knight smiled. "Instinct honed through sweat and repetition."
Wesley wanted to cry.
I'm not trying to get trained! he screamed internally. I'm trying to farm cleaning missions, damn it!
On the side, Gabe's eyes narrowed.
He watched Wesley pant and pretend, watched the mop swings he knew shouldn't have hurt—but did. He remembered the moment in their earlier bout, when his Mana suppression was active and yet… somehow, Wesley still pushed through.
Something wasn't right.
No. It hadn't been right from the start.
He gripped the wooden spear he'd left at his side. His gut twisted.
He couldn't be hiding his Mana, Gabe thought. Could he? No, it can't be… but if he is—
The knight's words echoed in his head.
"You move like someone trained…"
That was it. That confirmed it.
Wesley wasn't ordinary.
He wasn't just some nobody janitor.
Gabe's heart thudded in his chest.
And Wesley, still kneeling, still pretending to be tired, was panicking.
Fuuuuuuck, he groaned inwardly. They're onto me. If this keeps up, I'm going to be trapped here. I just wanted to finish the quest and move on!
He glanced up at the knight, who still looked at him with admiration.
No more admiration! No more training! Please, just let me go be a background character again!
But the knight only smiled deeper.
"I figured you out," he said.
Wesley froze.
The knight's eyes were sharper than before, his smile long gone. The calm, instructive tone had vanished too—replaced by something quieter, darker, and far more dangerous.
"I repeat, I said, I figured you out," the knight said.
Wesley blinked rapidly. "Wh-what do you mean?"
The knight turned his gaze toward Instructor Heiron, who raised an eyebrow in silent inquiry. Then the knight spoke, slowly, carefully.
"My friend, can you cast a silence dome? I'd like to have a private conversation with this janitor."
Instructor Heiron didn't question him. He nodded once, raised his wand high, and without a single chant, the tip flared to life in a vibrant green. The magic didn't shimmer gently like most spellcasters—no, it erupted. Flames of emerald fire danced upward like rising tendrils, spiraling with thick, pulsating energy. The air around the arena bent with the sheer pressure of mana being condensed into a spellform.
Wesley instinctively stepped back. The fire twisted mid-air and arced around him and the knight, and then—BOOM!—a dome of crackling green mana fell around them like a curtain, sealing them inside a burning silence.
Outside, the crowd became still. Their mouths moved, but no sound came through. To them, it was a lightshow. To Wesley, it was a prison.
The knight exhaled in satisfaction. "There," he said, smiling almost too casually. "Now, no one can hear us."
Wesley's heart beat like a war drum. "What… what do you want?"
"Tell me," the knight said smoothly, eyes gleaming, "are you a noble?"
Wesley nearly choked. "H-Huh?! What?! What the—what are you talking about?!"
The knight chuckled. "Come now. Don't pretend. You don't have to lie here."
Wesley's eyes twitched. "I'm not—what are you basing this on?!"
"Oh, everything," the knight said casually. He gestured at Wesley from head to toe. "The way you hold yourself. That posture—it's too proud, even when you pretend to shrink. The way you move—it's smooth but covered in awkwardness, like someone trying to blend in among farmers while forgetting they were trained by private tutors their whole life. And then there's your face—clean features, your hair well-trimmed despite being a janitor, your hands calloused but in the wrong places for someone who scrubs floors for a living."
Wesley swallowed hard. He thought he'd been careful. Clearly not careful enough.
"I don't know what you're—"
"Your accent," the knight cut in. "Refined, clipped in certain vowels. Your way of speaking—it's measured, not learned from the streets. You might be dressed in rags, but your eyes haven't seen the gutter. You've never really starved, have you?"
Wesley stared. What the hell was going on?
"And," the knight added, grinning, "no Mana. Nobles who don't awaken Mana are often sent away. It's a disgrace to the family, especially among the lesser bloodlines. Shipped off to remote territories, stripped of their name, and forced to 'earn their keep' in shame. But they're still different. You are one of them, aren't you?"
"I—what?!" Wesley said again, unable to form a coherent thought. He had no idea if this knight was scarily perceptive… or if he was just accidentally spot-on.
But the knight waved it off like it was nothing. "Don't worry. It's not that rare. It's common knowledge among nobles and military branches. I've seen at least four in the last two years."
Wesley coughed, stalling. "Well… I mean, sure. That would make sense. You don't awaken your Mana, your family sends you off, right?"
The knight nodded. "Exactly. You're no different. But—" his gaze narrowed "—you made one mistake."
"…What mistake?"
"You underestimated me."
Wesley blinked. "What?"
"You underestimated all of us."
"I—what are you talking about?"
"You think just because you're from noble blood, you can walk in here, pretend to be weak, and pull one over us," the knight said slowly. "But you're not weak. You're holding back. I saw it. You move like a trained fighter, yet you fumble like a child. That's not lack of skill. That's arrogance."
Wesley's mouth opened, but no words came.
"You came into this fight thinking, 'This knight can't tell the difference.' You thought you could fake weakness and I'd believe it. That I wouldn't notice the polish under your dirt. That I wouldn't feel your control behind your swings. You judged me."
"No—wait, I didn't—"
"You did," the knight said coldly. "You judged all of us. You looked down on us because we're not born with your crest. You assumed none of us could see the truth. And I gave you my respect. I said I'd train you if I saw something in you. And what did you show me?"
Wesley's throat felt dry.
The knight took a step forward.
"You showed me dishonor."
"I didn't mean—"
"You don't respect this training. You don't respect this academy. You don't even respect the path of Mana. You treat it like a game—just another tool for your own gain. You're not trying to awaken Mana. You think that we are not worthy and that no one in this backwater academy would be able to awaken your Mana."
Wesley's eyes widened.
And then the knight's tone dropped, sharp and cold as a blade.
"I even thought you had honor. But it turns out you're just selective. You're calculating. You saw us as stepping stones—no, worse. And for that—"
His hand tightened around the wooden sword.
"You, janitor," he growled, "are punishable by death."
Wesley's heart stopped.
"You insulted this academy. You insulted me. And you insulted the very spirit of knighthood. If I have to do it with this wooden sword, then so be it—"
The knight's aura erupted, invisible to the eyes but felt like thunder. A pulse of hostility swept over Wesley like a crashing wave, pressing against his chest, threatening to choke the air from his lungs.
The silence dome flickered with the force of the sudden animosity.
Wesley stumbled back.
His spirit tells him that this wasn't just a fight anymore.
This was an execution.