Shake, shake. Shake, shake.
Xavier felt himself sway back and forth. Silence and darkness... before a muffled voice broke through.
"...vier! Xavier!" Bruce was lightly holding Xavier by his shoulder and rocking him back and forth in an attempt to wake him up. His efforts were rewarded after a couple of minutes had passed.
Xavier opened one of his eyes and looked up at Bruce, not moving his head from resting in his arms. "What is it? Isn't it still early..."
"Stephan is gone!"
"...Huh?" Xavier quickly shot up from the inn room's desk and felt a crack in his back. Usually, he welcomed these with more than open arms. But this crack... felt peculiar. He immediately fell over to the floor.
"Uh... You good?" Bruce leaned over and stared at Xavier from above.
"That crack felt overly awkward in the moment..." Xavier sat up, slowly this time, and stretched properly, with haste.
After he finished stretching, he equipped all of his gear that had been resting at the side of the desk. As he slid his second leather gauntlet on, he heard the window open. A cool breeze quickly zipped throughout the room... And so did the cheers of a crowd.
"So loud..." Xavier sighed and looked away from the window, annoyed by the sudden influx of noise.
"I... I found Stephan..." Bruce called back to Xavier, his voice sounding both severely annoyed and defeated.
Xavier turned around, one of his eyebrows raised. He softly moved over to Bruce and peered out of the window. His eye twitched as he let out a low chuckle, a smirk on his face. "I have never, in my entire life, met someone so magnetized towards trouble..."
Down on the streets of Mesios, amidst a large, circular crowd surrounding two young boys who wielded swords and a rotund, bald man with a mustache, was Stephan. He stood there, his usual grin on his face, with a prompt from the system in front of him.
***
[Heart of the Blade] (Class Quest)
Description: Defeat the young sword prodigy in a duel to earn your title as a swordsman.
Reward: Access to a class, 3 silver moons, two of the Great Roswelle's scriptures.
The bald, rotund man called out in a booming voice. "Begin!"
Stephan dismissed the system and shifted his focus back to the duel.
One of the participants, the one who started farther from him, looked more like the "young prodigy" being advertised. He was wearing more expensive-looking clothing, and he had a prideful aura about him. His sword stance seemed to be basic, but extremely well-trained. It seemed as if the young boy had more years of training than he had been alive.
His opponent, however... seemed like a random passerby child who just picked up a sword for the very first time. His stance was shaky, his grip was loose, and the nervousness in his eyes was apparent to anyone who paid more than an ounce of attention.
The inexperienced child let out a battle cry and dashed towards his opponent. He raised his sword high above his head and brought it down in a swift motion, attempting a single decisive blow.
A slight smirk grew on the young prodigy's face. He swiftly evaded the other child's blow, immediately returning a swift strike to the abdomen with the guard of his sword.
The boy folded over with a strangled wheeze, the wind knocked clean out of him. He staggered back a step, sword arm trembling, and swung one last time out of pure desperation. It connected with nothing but morning air. The prodigy sidestepped, almost bored, hooked a foot behind the boy's ankle, and sent him sprawling across the cobblestones to a mixed chorus of groans and cheers.
The referee raised a meaty hand. "Victor! Young Cassian remains undefeated!"
Xavier leaned further out the window, resting his chin on his folded arms. "Poor kid didn't even land a hit."
"To be fair," Bruce said, "I don't think anyone in that crowd has."
Below, the referee turned to address the onlookers, his mustache bristling as he puffed out his chest. "Who among you dares challenge the prodigy next? Step forward, and Cassian shall humble you as he has humbled all who came before!"
A familiar, entirely too confident voice rang out from the crowd.
"I will!"
Xavier's face fell into his palm so fast it nearly bounced off the window frame. "Of course he will."
Bruce was already halfway out the door.
***
By the time Xavier and Bruce shoved their way through the crowd, Stephan was standing inside the makeshift dueling circle, gladius drawn, grinning like he'd already won.
Cassian, still catching his breath from the last bout, looked Stephan up and down. His nose wrinkled as if he'd smelled something unpleasant. "You're not from around here. That armor... or, well, lack of it. Are you a fool, or simply suicidal?"
"Bit of both, probably!" Stephan's smile didn't waver.
The referee raised his hand once more. "Rules are simple! First to yield, fall, or lose their weapon loses! Non-lethal strikes only, or I end the match myself! Begin!"
Cassian didn't wait. He darted forward with the same clean, practiced footwork he'd shown moments ago, his sword flicking toward Stephan's exposed side. Stephan didn't dodge. He didn't even try.
He just let it hit him.
The flat of the blade cracked across his ribs, and Stephan barely flinched. Cassian's confident expression cracked for the first time all morning.
"...That should have hurt."
"It did!" Stephan laughed, and then he moved.
Where Cassian fought with precision, Stephan fought like a landslide. He closed the distance in a single lurching step, his gladius swinging in a wide, reckless arc that Cassian barely ducked under. The boy scrambled backward, footwork faltering for the first time, clearly unused to an opponent who simply refused to respect the concept of self-preservation.
"Hold still!" Stephan bellowed, swinging again.
"Why would I do that!?" Cassian's voice cracked with something between outrage and genuine fear.
Xavier, watching from the crowd's edge, sighed. "He's going to win this by being too stupid to lose."
"Historically accurate," Bruce muttered.
Cassian tried one final gambit, darting low for a strike at Stephan's legs. It was a good plan. It would have worked against anyone who valued their own shins. Stephan simply stepped into the blow, let the blade skim off his thigh, and used the opening to slam his shoulder square into Cassian's chest.
The prodigy hit the ground hard, his sword clattering away across the stones. He looked up, dazed, at the tip of Stephan's gladius hovering an inch from his throat.
The referee's hand shot into the air. "Match! The challenger wins!"
The crowd erupted, and Stephan threw both arms skyward with a whoop of victory that echoed off the surrounding buildings.
[Class Quest, "Heart of the Blade," complete! You have unlocked the Swordsman class! Rewards have been distributed accordingly.]
Stephan dismissed the notification, grin still plastered across his face, and sheathed his gladius before offering a hand down to Cassian.
The boy stared at it for a long moment before reluctantly accepting, letting himself be pulled to his feet. "You fight like an animal."
"Thanks!"
"That wasn't a compliment."
Xavier finally reached the front of the crowd, dragging Bruce along by the sleeve. "Congratulations on your class, oh mighty Swordsman. Also, please put on armor before I have an aneurysm."
"Nah."
Bruce, meanwhile, had gone quiet, his eyes fixed on something past the dispersing crowd. Xavier followed his gaze to a modest shopfront across the square, where a hand-painted banner flapped lazily in the breeze: Mesios Tinkerer's Guild — Open Trial Today!
"...Xavier."
"Yeah?"
"I need to go look at that sign."