“Vicente… Rory!” Darek realized who was there to bother them and shouted their names, speaking in a thicker tone to the brown-haired boy.
“Rory, are you challenging us?” The only fat boy put aside the fleeing bird to glare at Rory.
The others in his group frowned, seeing for the first time that boy they had played with for over a year standing up against them.
“Rory, have you forgotten what we know about you?” Darek said, taking a few steps forward as he snapped the fingers of his hands. “Come here. Your punishment will be four teeth!”
Rory clenched his fists and said nothing.
Vicente didn’t want to talk this time and merely ran towards them after these words from his enemies.
Seeing that black-haired boy, a few inches shorter than the tallest of them, running with closed fists to them, the four took up their fighting positions.
They gathered mana in their fists and legs, preparing for combat.
They all knew that Vice was the most talented in the academy in martial arts, so they wouldn’t be the ones to take him easy just because they were outnumbered.
“All right, Rory, later, the whole academy will discover that your mother is a whore!” One shouted, feeling hatred for the clown who didn’t recognize his place.
“You little shits, I’ll make you swallow everything you’ve done to me!” Rory finally began to run at his enemies, moving what little of his mana into his fists and feet.
The amount of mana a magician had could increase during life. But before awakening, a magician’s individual mana growth was more accelerated than at any other time in life.
Not only that, children would not even have to work hard for it to happen!
Their natural talent would work during childhood and adolescence to gather as much mana as possible, which could greatly influence later the magical awakening.
Therefore, children had more and more mana as they grew up, and some of that mana could be used.
This was not enough for them to conjure spells, yet it could strengthen their bodies, raise their recovery rate, and various other things.
With a single movement, Rory leaped towards one of the two weaker ones there, driving his fist into the middle of the red-haired boy’s face.
Meanwhile, Vice jumped at Darek, spinning his body in the air to land a definitive blow on this brat who had long been bothering him.
“Darek, die!” He shouted, spinning his right leg toward the chest of this young blond boy.
Darek was already moving to attack Vice just the same, doubtful that this boy could withstand his kick.
He was the strongest in class 4 and could even compete with some class 5 boys. This recent origin made him disregard his and Vice’s past, and he attacked him with great force to seriously hurt this annoying brat.
“I will soon become the strongest in the academy, and you will be my new minion!” He said, just before their blows collided.
When this happened, the gases in the surroundings of the two shifted, forming stronger winds in the opposite direction.
At the same time, a faint pulse spread from the point of collision between their shins, something subtle but capable of causing a disturbance in the free mana in the atmosphere up to a few meters away from them.
“Aaaagh!”
Then a cry of pain broke from one of the two mouths as they both fell in the direction from which they had jumped.
Vice pressed his teeth against each other but emitted no sign of pain, even feeling like he had kicked a wall.
But Darek was not strong-minded and bellowed in anger, falling to the ground and limping due to the pain in that leg.
“Damn it! Vicente! I will destroy you!” He shouted as the fat boy attacked in the direction of this black-haired boy.
Vicente was faster and jumped back, narrowly deflecting the opponent’s movement. 𝐞𝗻𝐨𝘃𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝗺
Then, as the fat boy missed his blow, the body of one of the other two flew towards him after Rory landed a sharp blow on the first of his opponents.
“Aaagh!”
With those first blows, Rory and Vice stood side by side as their four opponents felt how strong they had grown.
“Good, good! We’ll settle this today!” The fat boy said. “But you’re finished, Rory. You won’t be able to go to the academy tomorrow anymore! We’ll tell everyone, regardless of today’s result.”
“I’ll rip your tongue out if you do that, piglet!” Rory brandished in the face of these opponents, maintaining his fighting pose.
Then one side jumped against the other again, with the two boys deftly fighting their four enemies, but obviously without much of an advantage.
Every time one of them hit his opponent, that person would suffer and make sounds of pain.
But in the meantime, the other two would also have the opportunity to hit them.
At this rate, even though Rory and Vice could give their opponents a hard time and hurt them significantly, they would suffer in this fight.
Soon they would both have blood dripping from their noses and some purple marks on different parts of their bodies, very sweaty while breathing heavily.
The opposing group would be no better off, and one of them would even pass out before the confrontation was over.
“Say what you want about me,” Rory said as he looked at the blurred images in front of him. “But know that I will challenge you weekly after that. Even when we graduate, I will continue to pursue you as long as we live in the same village!”
“Rory!”
“I’ll do the same!” Vice shouted. “Dare to talk about Rory more than you should, and you will have me as an eternal enemy!”
That way, their battle wouldn’t last much longer when adults realized what was happening and rushed over to stop them from continuing.
Children had powers strong enough to get seriously injured, so usually, their parents prevented them from fighting like this.
Each side ran when they saw the adults, each side with their own frustrations after this standoff.
…
Later that night…
“Vicente!” A man’s thick voice reached the ears of the boy lying in his room.
Hearing his father’s voice, Vicente immediately came down from his room, going to the first floor of his residence.
“Vicente! What have you done? I heard a rumor that you were involved in a fight today. Is that true?” This man asked, even though he clearly saw the injuries on his son’s face.
The wounds on Vice’s face had already improved dramatically in the last few hours. His mana could speed up the regeneration of his tissues even though he didn’t know how to do it.
But Andrew could see the wounds on his face and still had asked because he wanted to hear from his son that he had disregarded his orders.
“I fought to defend a friend, Dad. I had no choice.” Vicente got straight to the point as his mother watched him from upstairs with Nina in her arms, and Lauren ran down the stairs.
“Dad, can’t you forgive Vice? He didn’t mean any harm.” She tried to speak on behalf of her brother, while her feminine face showed a worried expression.
Andrew didn’t even look at his daughter, focused on Vicente. “Very well, your motive is not bad. But I will still punish you.
Remember this, Vicente. No matter your intentions, you have to be prepared for the consequences when you break a rule!”
“I understand.”
Then that nearly 2-meter-tall man took off the belt of his clothes and began to educate his son!
For the next 15 minutes, Vice would go through the longest beating of his two lives, suffering at the hands of his father.
But he would shed no tears nor cry out in pain, enduring all that he had to, aware that there was no alternative.
His sisters and mother would avoid observing all this and feel a weight in their hearts. But aware of the responsibility of raising a child that a father had, none interfered with Vice’s education.
“From now on, you will have no more free time. You will go from home to the academy and from the academy to here. The rest of the time, you will accompany me.
Do you hear me, boy?” Andrew asked, as his son trembled in pain but without voicing a word or sound of complaint.
“Yes.”