The crisp, dry wind of the Vireldrian badlands swept across the deserted landscape, kicking up small eddies of dust that swirled around Kian's boots.
A duel? Kian thought, his mind racing as a cold sweat began to break across the back of his neck. Oh! Wait. What?
Kian stared at the four familiar figures standing across from him. He blinked, rubbing his eyes, momentarily convinced his mind was playing tricks on him. He felt as though he had not seen them in actual years—the weight of nostalgia and sheer exhaustion pressing heavily on his chest. But in reality, it had been just three short weeks since their last encounter.
There they stood, the colorful, chaotic quartet: Red, Pink, Brown, and the one who stood out the most, the nine-year-old prodigy, Black. Despite her small stature, Black commanded an intimidating presence, dressed in her typical oversized, flowing cloak and the classic conic hat of a Mage. The fabric of her dark robes rippled softly in the wind.
While Kian was still deeply confused by the strange distortion of time he felt, he looked around the area to ground himself. It was a deserted, barren landscape. This was the notorious, empty stretch of road leading towards the East from the Imperial Capital of Vireldria.
A few yards away, a handful of low-level slimes crawled and jumped around, their gelatinous bodies squelching softly against the dirt. The color-coded kids completely ignored them and treated the monsters like background pebbles.
Suddenly, phantom words were recalled from Kian's memory, echoing clearly in his mind: "As for the location of our duel, we will use the place where we first met…"
Then it hit him.
He remembered the specific condition Black had laid out during their last conversation.
Kian froze, his muscles locking up entirely.
Red looked absolutely ecstatic, practically vibrating in place as his hand hovered near the hilt of his weapon. Pink's eyes, on the other hand, were sharp, and highly calculating. She was leaning forward slightly, clearly expecting something spectacular and interesting to happen in the impending duel.
Then, a sudden, flat voice cut through the heavy silence.
"I'm ready," Black announced, stepping forward. Her small hand gripped a staff that looked twice her size. "Let's start the duel."
Kian noticed Black's expression, and a shiver ran down his spine. She had a completely cold-blooded look on her face—a stark, unreadable stare that made Kian genuinely believe she was ready to incinerate him alive with a high-tier fire spell without blinking an eye.
The tension hung suffocatingly thick in the air.
Thump. Thump.
Kian's heartbeat was rising like a trapped bird.
Just a few minutes ago, his sole objective in life had been simple and peaceful. He was supposed to be heading back to his remote home village to live a quiet life, perhaps to become a simple farmer tending to crops or a humble fisherman enjoying the calm of the sea. His encounter with the four of them today was entirely unintentional.
Just my bad luck, Kian thought, screaming internally. What a strange, horrific coincidence. How come we met in the exact same place at the exact same time? Is fate playing a cruel prank on me?
Kian looked back at Red's incredibly excited expression. The boy looked like he was about to witness a clash of titans.
What the heck is going on? Kian thought desperately as his hand instinctively drifted up to feel the stone of the red pendant he was wearing underneath his shirt. This pendant. I thought this would bring me some good luck. I paid good money for this. This artifact must be a curse!
In reality, Kian had hit the nail directly on the head. The pendant was indeed cursed. It was quite obviously a defective, malevolent magical artifact because it had been sold to him by a shady merchant. Unfortunately, Kian had completely fallen for the merchant's elaborate sales talk, hook, line, and sinker.
"Is something wrong, Kian?" Pink asked, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness as she tilted her head. "Should we start the duel now?"
Black tilted her face in slight confusion, her large conic hat shifting precariously on her head as she observed Kian's face.
"How do we start a real duel between great warriors?" Red interjected loudly, throwing his arms in the air. "Man, I've never seen a real, high-level duel before! Do we clap? Do we throw down a gauntlet?"
Great warriors? Kian thought, a bitter, hysterical laugh bubbling up in his throat. If only that were true for me. I'm not strong at all, and these terrifying kids don't even realize it! I don't want to die yet!
Desperate, Kian bit down on his right thumb, a nervous habit that usually kicked in right before he panicked. He needed a strategy, and he needed it immediately.
I need to think of a way out of this, Kian thought frantically. I know these kids. They absolutely won't accept 'no' for an answer, especially when it comes to a fight. If I refuse, Red will call it a test for them anyway, and Black will probably blast me to prove a point.
"Ehem," Kian loudly cleared his throat as he tried to inject some false confidence into his trembling voice. "I... I'll be..."
The four of them stopped talking and waited intensely for his response. Their eyes looked so incredibly serious, so unnervingly intense, that it felt as if they were prepared to execute him on the spot if he gave even one wrong answer.
Kian swallowed hard, his throat feeling like sandpaper.
"What is going on?" Black asked, her voice dropping, her staff glowing with a faint, ominous violet light.
"Let's take a break for now," Kian blurted out as he waved his hands frantically in front of them. "I'll be going somewhere first. Yeah! I mean... I need to go to the bathroom."
"What?" Red blinked.
The four of them dropped their jaws in unison, the sheer anti-climax of the statement hitting them.
An awkward silence settled over the badlands. Even the nearby slimes seemed to stop jumping, pausing to look at Kian in disbelief.
Then, Pink cut through the silence.
"Hehehe," she laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck. "I see. Kian needs a... a bathroom break."
"Yeah," Kian nodded vigorously, sweating profusely. "I really need one. In fact, I need a whole hour. Modern warrior digestion issues, you know? Very complex."
I just need to buy some time, Kian thought, his internal survival instincts taking full control of his brain. While they sit here tightly and wait for me like idiots, I'll slip away into the rocky terrain, hit the main road, and run as fast as my legs can carry me.
Pink shrugged and looked at the others. "Okay, one hour then."
"Excellent. Don't go anywhere! Stay right there!" Kian gave them a stiff, robotic thumbs-up. He turned on his heel and walked away with deliberate, casual slowness. He made sure to keep his pace steady until he successfully rounded a large, jagged boulder, effectively breaking their line of sight.
The moment he was hidden, Kian's casual demeanor shattered.
"Step one: escape!" he hissed to himself, instantly dropping to a low crouch. He hoisted his traveling pack higher on his shoulders and took off into a frantic sprint, veering wildly away from the eastern road.
The terrain was a chaotic maze of crumbling sandstone pillars, dried-up riverbeds, and thick, thorny bushes. Kian figured that if he kept the sun to his left, he would eventually circle around the valley and hit the northern trade route back to his village. He ran with a desperate, frantic energy. His heart pounded in his ears.
"Goodbye, duel! Goodbye, terrifying magical children!" Kian wheezed, leaping over a low-crawling green slime. He ducked under a rocky archway, scrambling up a steep incline. His boots slipped on the loose stones, but the sheer terror of Black's expression fueled his muscles.
He ran for what felt like a solid twenty minutes, twisting left at a fork of jagged rocks, then darting right past a peculiar, skull-shaped boulder. The badlands all looked remarkably identical, but Kian was confident in his absolute direction. He was a survivor. He was going to be a fisherman. Fishermen needed good navigation.
After another ten minutes of intense sprinting, his lungs were burning, and his legs felt like lead. He slowed down to a brisk walk, panting heavily. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked around. The towering rock formations seemed to have thinned out, opening up into a wide, flat clearing.
"I think I made it," Kian gasped, a triumphant, breathless smile breaking across his face. "I must be miles away by now. Let's see where this clearing leads..."
He confidently strode past a final, large, jagged boulder and stepped out into the open air.
Kian stopped dead in his tracks. His smile instantly vanished. The blood drained from his face so fast he felt dizzy.
Directly in front of him, sitting on some smoothed-out rocks, were Red, Pink, Brown, and Black. Red was casually skipping stones at a nearby bouncing slime. Pink was playing with a small dagger. Black was sitting perfectly still, her giant conic hat tilted slightly downward as she dozed off.
Kian stood there, frozen in absolute, cosmic horror. His jaw dropped so low it practically hit the ground. He looked back at the path he had just emerged from, then looked at the kids, then looked down at his own feet.
I was running in circles! Kian realized, his mind shattering. The skull-shaped boulder, the rocky archway... I literally navigated myself right back into the lion's den!
The rustle of his heavy breathing caught their attention.
Black's eyes snapped open. She adjusted her hat, her unreadable, cold-blooded gaze locking instantly onto Kian's trembling figure. A faint, knowing smirk seemed to touch the corner of her lips, though it might have just been Kian's sheer panic hallucinating.
"You're here," Black said flatly, standing up and gripping her magical staff. "Should we start the duel?"
Kian's soul practically left his body.
Oh no, Kian thought, his eyes wide with terror as he gripped his cursed red pendant through his shirt. I'm completely, entirely doomed.