Dusk bathed the rust-colored gleam of metal, while the distant horizon melted the setting sun into a smear of gold. Rosaline's little boots had barely touched the cracked road when the taxi lifted into the air behind her, startling several seabirds pecking at trash.
Her gaze then fell on the dump beside the town, where discarded magic guide equipment had piled into rolling mountains, like a vast mechanical graveyard.
According to the town's residents, many years ago, this had once been one of the most prosperous areas on Ish Island, as well as the island's only port.
But with the construction of the new port in the Tower District and neighboring Grayport City, the port in Blackwater District had gradually declined, before being completely abandoned during the Silent War twenty years ago.
Since this was not her first visit, Rosaline lifted her skirt and expertly weaved through mountain after mountain of metal junk, quickly finding an open space hidden among the "peaks."
Sure enough, Hans and Mary were there, sitting on a metal sheet nearby as though waiting for something.
"Hi, you two. Good afternoon."
"Huh, Rosaline? Why are you here?" Hans looked over in surprise.
"It must be because you hung up on Mom just now. Mom has location tracking," Mary said from the side.
Like Rosaline, Hans and Mary were twelve and eleven years old respectively, both typical middle school students. Hans was a refined-looking boy with medium-length brown hair, while Mary was a girl with curly red hair and round glasses. Though she was not as pretty as Rosaline, she had an excellent bearing of her own.
"Aunt Susan has been worried about you two... But why did you suddenly come here without saying anything? I didn't even know..." Rosaline asked. She appeared calm, but her unspoken meaning was obvious—why hadn't they invited her along when they came out to have fun?
"There's... a special situation today. I made an appointment to fight someone, so I was afraid you'd get dragged into it..." Hans said quietly.
"An appointment to fight?"
"This is what happened." Mary explained from the side. "My brother and I have a few good friends at school. They're all from Blackwater District and came to study at Black Tower Middle School, so we usually help each other out. One of them is called Tang Ji. He's always being bullied by a guy in his class named Briel. My brother happened to see it recently and stopped him, but the teacher arrived too quickly, so they didn't end up fighting..."
"Briel was obviously in the wrong to begin with. He always discriminates against students from Blackwater District, but Briel's father is an executive at Black Tower Pharmaceuticals, so the teachers refuse to deal with it. Then he asked my brother to come out this weekend for a fight..."
"I see." Rosaline nodded. The matter was not complicated. It could even be called nothing more than a squabble between middle schoolers.
But it could also be made into something bigger. Black Tower Middle School was located in the Tower District. As its name suggested, the Tower District was an urban area dedicated to serving Black Tower Pharmaceuticals employees, and Black Tower Middle School was likewise an elite school. On one side were children from the slums, and on the other were the children of executives. Even when the executive's child was clearly at fault, the teachers could only smooth things over, until it eventually became something to be settled off campus.
In the teachers' words, this was a class conflict... Rosaline felt a vague, half-formed understanding arise within her.
"Where's Tang Ji?" After looking around, Rosaline suddenly remembered that one person involved in this matter had yet to appear.
"He's a coward. My brother helped him, but he didn't dare come," Mary said with a pout.
"No, Tang Ji said his family wouldn't let him come." Hans shook his head, determination appearing on his refined face. "I believe he wasn't lying to me."
Mary opened her mouth, but said nothing more. In this regard, she could understand Tang Ji too. After all, her parents worked desperately to earn money so that she and Hans could attend Black Tower Middle School, enter Black Tower Pharmaceuticals in the future, make something of themselves, stand atop the Black Tower Building, and rise to the very top of Ish City. Tang Ji's parents surely thought the same way.
At the same time, for children their age, such enormous expectations became mental pressure, making them increasingly timid and fearful of causing even the slightest trouble for their parents.
The three waited there for a while. Around ten minutes later, a somewhat contemptuous voice rang out from above and not far away. "Heh, you really dared to come, poor bastard."
Rosaline looked up and saw a middle-school-aged boy standing on a hovering skateboard, looking down at them with a disdainful expression.
Behind him followed two skinny boys who looked like lackeys, as well as a floating mechanical construct. The construct had only an upper body, and glowing rune rings flowed across its cross-section. It appeared to be some sort of intelligent bodyguard.
"Who's afraid of whom? Don't forget, my Rune Studies grades are still better than yours," Hans said with a cold laugh.
Rune Studies was something ordinary people only became qualified to encounter after entering the legendary university stage. It was the beginning of the path to becoming a mage.
But Black Tower Middle School was completely different. Starting from their second year, these middle school students—most of them children of company employees—had the chance to learn it. They only needed to purchase a discounted active rune group to enroll.
Thus, Hans was doing so, and Mary would do the same once she entered her second year. It was just that active rune groups were extremely expensive. Even the cheapest type cost fifty thousand, and each injection could raise magic power by ten points, with the effects growing weaker and weaker.
"Rune Studies is Rune Studies, and actual combat is actual combat... Poor bastard, you know nothing about my fists." Standing on his board, Briel slid down the junk mountain before lightly jumping to the ground.
His gaze swept across Hans and Mary before finally settling on the unfamiliar blond girl. He asked coldly, "Who are you? What school are you from? Did this poor bastard bring you here to back him up?"
He had never seen someone with Rosaline's bearing among the people of Blackwater District. Every gesture she made, whether sitting or standing, carried a natural elegance that made him somewhat suspicious.
"My name is Rosaline. I'm Hans's friend." Rosaline gave a slight nod. "I won't interfere in this matter, but only on the condition that your conflict doesn't go too far."
"You bitch, that's a big mouth you've got. Who do you think you are, acting like you're qualified to interfere in the boss's business?"
"Boss will show this brat what's what in a moment. Let her watch closely!"
The two little lackeys behind Briel immediately began shouting.
Briel smiled at their clamor, apparently enjoying the feeling of having others speak for him.
He said nothing more and turned to Hans instead. "What are the rules for a one-on-one fight here?"
"It's just a fight. What rules do we need?" Hans said disdainfully. "No tools other than Magic Guide Terminals. That's it."
"Let's add a wager. The loser has to crawl around and bark like a dog in the school courtyard in front of everyone, or it won't be interesting. Don't tell me you're scared?"
"You think I'd be afraid?"
And so, once the wager had been set and the other onlookers had been told to move away, Hans and Briel were about to engage in a tense mage battle in the open space between the mountains of junk.
Rosaline was nervous and concerned as well, but aside from worrying about Hans, it was mainly because this was the first time she had seen a mage other than her teacher take action. It would provide a good reference for a novice mage like her, who had trained for two years, and let her quickly gauge roughly where she stood among others her age.
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