Wesley raised both his hands immediately, shaking his head so vigorously his glasses nearly slipped down his nose.
"No, no, no," he sputtered, his voice squeaking just enough to earn a few scattered laughs from the crowd of onlookers.
"I—I'm just a janitor, remember? I sweep floors, I mop up your spilled soup, I clean the latrines when you brats forget to flush. What would I possibly gain from fighting you? You're a sixth stage Apprentice Mana Knight! That's suicide!"
The murmurs of the crowd thickened like smoke curling upward, rising into eager whispers.
The boy who had challenged him—tall, broad-shouldered, and brimming with that raw arrogance that only young knights-in-training carried—smirked with the smugness of someone who believed victory was already written.
His blade, still sheathed at his hip, glinted beneath the torchlight as though it were hungry for blood.
