Me Against The World

I woke up early in the morning, I thought I was the first one to wake up but I find my father tending to our cattle. I belong to a family of farmers. Despite my parents being exceptional mages, they decided to live a normal life like any other normal people.

"I see that your not all talk!" my father said right after noticing me. "Good morning, father." He just winks at me and turns to the direction I am most likely to go, the open fields.

It has been my training grounds ever since I failed the test horribly. "Go break a leg. Your mother will probably heal you still." He said nonchalantly as if asking me to actually break a leg. "Wow, did that just came out of my father's mouth?" he just looked at me and raised his brows, and smiled.

"I was joking. Come on, you looked like you don't know me. Now go, I'll take care of everything." Hearing that, I ran to the fields to start my experiment. Unbeknownst to me, my mother has been observing us since the beginning. "You really are spoiling our son too much." She spoke like a ghost that father did not even sense her standing behind him.

"God- oh! Agatha! Stop scaring me like that! I almost had an attack!" Alfred moaned. "That kid had been giving it his all to get that result. I just can't stand here and do nothing. This is the least I can do for him. You know full how painful it is to be a Void Mage." He added.

"Let's not talk about the past. I understand, which is why I also don't want him to suffer the same fate. The moment he realizes that there is no changing his fate will be his despair. And I don't want that." Her lips trembled as she watches the strange explosions happening on the open fields.

KABOOM!

KABOOM!

"That's two in a row. Damn it! Why can't I get it right?" as usual, my body is covered in dust and dirt. With all the dirt flying around after every explosion that I made using the common fire spell, Firebolt that I barely even recreated perfectly, I am bound to look like a farmer that just jumped in a mud pit.

"This is frustrating. Very frustrating. I want to die so badly." I said to myself. "This is the result when I try to recreate a spell that belongs to a certain type of nature. It either ends up like nothing happened or a great disaster."

At first, after trying all the common spells from all the other types of nature, the fire nature's Firebolt is the only spell that had any significant changes after using the spell over and over again. All the other common spells changed nothing of a sort, they are all failures and this spell is the only one that looks promising, but I was wrong. This is the same result that I have been dying to improve for the last 3 years.

Maybe lady luck is just not on my side. I tried various ways to make it work but all the imagination bullshit did nothing to help with the progress.

KABOOM!

I was sent rolling to a tree this time and take it as an opportunity to rest. "I thought you are going to continue doing that stupid training of yours. Looks like even idiots like you know how to give up." Mark, a friend of mine said while sitting comfortably on a tree branch. "Shut it, Mark. I don't want to hear you yapping away at me." I retorted knowing that he will be the only one to talk me down.

"I'm just telling you the truth. You know what they say, the truth hurts." I glared at him and he happily continued to tease me by making faces. "It's not good to talk like that to William, Mark. You know how much he is going through."

An angelic voice cuts in and I immediately recognize the owner of the voice, Hannah. She is referred to as the goddess among my peers because of the way she talks and comforts everyone making her befitting of the title she gained.

But, there are exceptions to that.

"Hi, Hannah." I greeted her and she happily walked up to me and greeted me as well. "Hi, William. You're still stubborn as always." She says with the most angelic smile I have ever seen.

I smiled in return. "Yes, but could you please move away? From this angle, I can see your underwea-! Keuk!"

Right before I was about to finish what I was saying, Hannah mercilessly smashes her right foot on the pit of my stomach, though I have seen a great view. It's not much worth it for the pain.

 "I see that William doesn't change at all. A pervert will always be a pervert?" she said with an extremely ominous smile. "Spare me the sermon. You're the one walking up to me that close so, of course, I'd see something I don't intend to see until I reach a certain age!" I retorted. It's true. Though Hannah is the best choice for people my age, I tend to pick someone that I know I have a chance of winning over.

"That's just hilarious. If the other guys learn about this, they'd beat you up real good~." I glared at Mark again for the second time, and this time he quiets down like a puppy, the next thing I know. Hannah was the reason why he quieted down after giving him the same ominous smile.

"No one's going to know. What happened here, stays here. Am I clear, Mark?" and just like earlier, Mark nodded so easily. Even I can't bend him like that, I guess being an older sister really have that much impact. "So, what brings you guys here?" Hannah reached out to me and healed the damages that she caused along with the injuries that I had while experimenting.

"You know why we came here." Mark opened his mouth at last after keeping silent for a moment. "It's because of the upcoming test, William." Hannah cuts in sternly. Based on her voice, I can tell that they intend to stop me again this year.

"We've had this talk in the past, and my answer is still the same. I don't plan to give up. I'm taking the test again this year." I persisted. I can immediately see the disappointed look on their faces as I insisted on taking the test again.

"This will not be the same test anymore, William. The threat of the magical beasts is becoming greater, the Tower Masters decided to change a part of the test." Hannah added in.

I don't know what they meant by that, but it looked serious. Their father, which organizes the test every year in our region is also a close friend of my parents which might partly be the reason why they are hell-bent on making me change my mind.

"I don't care. I will be a mage. I will do whatever it takes to pass the test!" I berated. Even when I acted like a brat, Hannah's expression did not change, and reminds me of my mother with her calm and gentle demeanor. "You know this year will not be different. You will only endanger yourself, William." Mark says as he flings a ball of flame toward me and I instinctively hurled a lame fire bolt to repel his attack.

 "MARK!"

KABOOOOM!

The victor was clear, I spit the dirt out of my mouth when I found myself rolling on the ground after our spells meet. As expected of a real mage, a complete failure of recreation of a fire spell will not best the strength of a complete spell.

SLAP!

Hannah slaps her brother so bad that I can feel his pain. "How dare you do that! What will father think if he learned that you did something like this?!"

"To hell with it! Someone needs to show William the reality that he is living in! Screw this! I'm leaving! Go die for all I care!" with that Mark left with a bitter look on his face.

"I'm sorry, William. Mark just values you so much that he doesn't want to see you hurt. Please understan-"

"Leave me alone. Please."

I could not even look her in the eye. She tried to even heal me but I refused. "Just go." Her silence explains how painful it was to her. I heard her slowly walking away but at the same time, I can feel her gaze over me as her footsteps completely disappear from a distance.

I went home early that day and went straight to my room, locking myself in for the rest of the day. The next morning I woke up and my injuries had all healed and thought that my mother must have been really worried and barged in without my permission.

Seeing as how the door remained open, I went to close it and heard them talking in the living room.

"I'm sorry about what my son had done. I heard everything from Hannah. I am very sorry."

"It's fine. William did not suffer heavy injuries."

"Alfred, you and that kid are so much alike. I want to continue rooting for him too but this year, the Tower Masters have decided to change a bit about the test. I'm afraid this will prove to be impossible for William. I hope you talk to him about this soon before it's too late. That kid is smart, he has a bright future ahead of him. It's just not in the future that he seeks."