A Singing Game of a Guild, a Knight, and a Broken Character

"You don't look like much."
The big man was leaning on a great sword leisurely as I walked towards a spot a few meters away from him. Not leaving my eyes away from that giant of a sword, I reached my position and turned to face him. I was still looking at the sword, unable to take my eyes away from it. It had a very eye-catching design; the blade was as wide as the man was big, with a sheen that seemed like it was forged with fire magic––no doubt it was Spellcraft. The sword was definitely not one of those legendary Mageswords wielded by heroes of the past, but it was something that only Spellsmiths of the New Age could make––and you could count how many there were of those magic-wielding blacksmiths with your one hand. It was the first time I was seeing what was called 'a poor imitation of Mageswords' by the ancient Great Sages: the Spellblade.
A Spellblade was a sword forged with special methods and knowledge from ancient long-lost scriptures rebuilt by the Spellsmiths of the New Age. Unlike Mageswords which were crafted entirely out of mana (magic energy) itself, Spellblades only had magic spells cast on them in their forging process by Spellsmiths, still using physical materials, even if the materials were magical.
A Magesword it was not, but still a magic sword it was. Its power could not compare to the real thing, but a real Magesword was a weapon to kill those ancient Magic Lords of yore. There was not a single Magic Lord who survived to see the New Age, and only normal humans who wielded a bit of magic were left. A lesser weapon against an even weaker target––Spellblades were deadly enough.
"Everyone says that before they fight me, and they always take it back after." I now answered the big man's previous comment of my appearance. He was right though––I didn't look like I might be able to give him even a few seconds of real fight; I was more skinny than the average youth, with muscles just starting to show on my arms; poking out but too shy for my liking. My height was a little shorter than average for my age, and my limbs weren't long, my reach short and my legs meant that acceleration wasn't my thing. Fighting the giant with only this body was madness. But I had something else besides just body and physicality.
The man made a face. "I wasn't there when they tested your skills for the first time but I did hear a lot of things. I had thought what kind of brute I would be facing…" He smiled strangely. "They said you were a child, and at first I didn't believe it. After all, you defeated one of our few A-ranks; the strongest, in fact: Dagon the Drake, the one said to be the next Dragon. He's very famous, you know? And his title is well-deserved; he's set for the S-rank promotion exam in less than a month from now, and yet…" He suddenly laughed.
I took the time to say, "I always know who I'm fighting. Dagon the Drake. He was strong, alright. Strong for a weakling, if I have to put it. He fights with his special technique, the one passed down to him from his master the Dragon: Dragonborne mystic technique. One of the techniques was a special type of fire magic that he was most proficient in, which gave him the right for the title of Drake. He fought me by casting that magic on his sword, which somehow wasn't even a Spellblade. Of course, he didn't use it immediately, only after I showed him the difference in our strength. That was his trump card, and he used it in his desperation. Small good it did for him, though. Nothing changed."
The man––Ser Ars Leint the Adventurer Knight of the House Leint––looked at me straight. "I heard that it wasn't even a true fight. You defeated him as easily as you might have butchered a gremlin. You also used fire magic, didn't you? Now, I heard all this from the guildmaster, who heard it from the arms trainer who supervised your fights. The adventurers you fought also put in quite a few words––though Dagon was sullen and quiet and didn't say anything. The thing is, any sane person who hears of that stuff will be hard-pressed to believe, and I was no different. Until now. Until I saw you in the flesh, right in front of me. I can sense it." Ser Ars Leint shifted his grip on the Spellblade greatsword's hilt, but he didn't lift it. Fire shimmered subtly on the blade, softly splashing across the base end to the tip edge. I watched the scene, fascinated. So that's what happens when you channel mana on the blade after you imbued it through the hilt… The sword blade's razor edge had dug into the ground, and now the ground gave way as the fire melted it slowly. The sword he was leaning onto was sinking, so Ser Ars Leint had no choice but to hold it up. As he lifted the Spellblade, his arms also lit up with a glow, but it was colorless, a dull white that was in contrast to the draconic red.
A strengthening spell, I thought as I observed. Magic also had weight to it, and the stronger the spell cast, on an object or not, the heavier it would become, and it would sag the air and make dents on the earth. Mana was a substance that could create and produce phenomena; everything about it was shrouded in mystery, and so there was no explanation as to why it would have weight like any physical object.
"You're deliberately doing that, right?" Suddenly Ser Ars Leint came with a question, "On purpose, you've changed the magical frequency of the manaic aura and pressure you release out of your body. You set it so that only people with the highest threshold of manaic sensitivity can feel and sense it. And through that…" Ser Ars Leint's refined knightly smile shockingly turned savage and bloodthirsty, but there was endless fear that couldn't be hidden in the depths of his eyes, which made his face crooked and his smile stiff. "…you showed me a glimpse of your true power."
I had the gall to grin. "Is that why you're sweating, Ser? Don't worry, I always only show it for a few seconds. You should have seen only the tip of the iceberg."
"…That's very reassuring." Ser Ars Leint choked as relief smoothened his face. But a shadow of the previous bloodthirstiness and the fear still remained. Ars Leint the Advent Knight was in fact a bit of a battle junkie, though with the wide gap he'd glimpsed between me and him, his fervor to fight me should be severely smothered. "Do you still want to fight? Or more to the situation at hand: Do you still need to test me for that S-rank title?" I asked him, grinning lazily in my mind, which I felt leak outside to my mouth. If my complacence offended him and stoked his battle junkie-ness and we ended up fighting, that would be good too, or so the thought fleeted through my mind. It was the first time I faced someone who wielded a Spellblade, much less one who activated it right in front of me. I wanted it to be my first time clashing swords with one…and also defeating one.
Ars Leint had had his burning sword pointed at me all this time, ready for the duel test that would decide my eventual rank as an adventurer for the guild of Lankgrest. Now he brooded on it for a moment, but even after a while of weighing what he should do, in the end, he didn't cancel the activation of the Spellblade's powers, nor did he put away and lay down his sword. He looked at me determinedly, looking like he had made up his mind. "One attack; I will use my strongest one. I want you to receive it bare bodied, see if even my full strength wouldn't leave a scratch on your unprotected skin. If it does, and I'm able to draw your blood, no matter how shallow the cut, and even if only a bit of skin peeled off, then we shall commence the duel, because that would mean I am capable of cutting you."
"You want me to strip?" Others would have been indignant, but I was laughing inside. Of course, I knew what Ars wanted; it just felt like a good point for a witty comeback, though it seemed like the knight was more of the serious type. He either ignored the sarcasm in my words, or just did not care about them at all. And also, it wasn't all that surprising that he said what he did. After looking at a part of my true power, he would have grasped that I had an abnormally high defense, if he had been seeing the right way in the right direction. Though telling me to become bare bodied (aka naked) so that he could strike me defenseless was a bit queer, if you look at it from a third perspective.
Like I had expected, Ars only raised an eyebrow, not bothering himself in humoring me. "Yes. If you can be so kind to take off your armor. Just your top, please. And not your bottom, no, do that with anyone else except me and the same gender."
I copied him and raised my eyebrow, but I turned to my armor wordless and raised my gloved hand to lay it on my chest. Then I recited the magic words "Ingaarl" which meant to open or perhaps to unseal. The armor was a standard-forged one that I had bought from a reasonably good blacksmith in his armor shop in some city I passed in my journey. It wasn't any magic armor nor was it a Spellplate that was as expensive and rare as Spellblades. It was just ordinary panoply that I strengthened slightly with weak spells. I also added in functions that made it easier to wear and take off, amongst other things. One of them was the function to seal and unseal with one specific magic word. The joints of the armor would then separate and fold in on itself, over and over and falling back until finally it would turn into a box of steel that dropped to the floor. I didn't bother picking it up and took off my undergarment, which I thrust aside carelessly. I spread my arms and grinned. "Come to Papa."
Ser Ars Leint gave no reaction but to lunge at me.
The last I remember was my own scream.