"Have you lost your mind, Dragon Rider?"
"No, I have not. Bully me."
"Perhaps you have me mistaken. I'm the one who gets bullied. Unwarranted, by the way. I do nothing, and in return, I get degraded. Just because I cannot use Atherstrom. What do you think of that?"
After our short back and forth, the girl's expression finally changed for the first time. It was just slightly. A mere raise of the brow.
"But you can use Atherstrom. I sense it every time you are angry. I can even sense it now. You want to hurt me, don't you?"
I want to hurt her? Seriously, what is this girl talking about?
I wanted to turn around and leave the conversation right there. In fact, I wanted to leap off the rooftop and traumatise the students playing in the field as they watched my body splatter against the marble field.
But what I did, was stay right there, listening to what Cleopatra had to say.
Why? I do not know. Perhaps it was because I sensed some truth in her words. Maybe I did want to hurt her, for standing by and watching me get bullied by others.
"Bully me, William. Slap me, punch me, grope me. Do whatever you want." She said, her voice returning to its emotionless tone.
And yet still, I had no idea why she was asking me to do any of it.
A dragon rider couldn't be bullied. They were the reasons why the empire held so much power. If I hurt her, her father could ride into school, and have his dragon, Alkavashka, eat me alive, and then ride it to my family home and burn them down.
Not that I would care too much... Maybe my family deserved it.
I ran a hand through my brown hair and laughed out of stress.
Cleopatra watched me, mouth straight.
"If you're worried about what my family will do, do not worry. They will not find out."
"Oh yeah? What if I hit you so hard that I break your pretty nose? What would you say to your brother and father when they asked why their perfect daughter's nose was suddenly crooked?"
"...That would not happen."
"Why not?"
"Your body is not strong enough to hurt me. Without Atherstrom, a human's punch will feel like a fly landed on my face."
"..."
I don't know if she was trying to awaken rage inside of me, but it seemed to work.
I balled up my fist and swung it at the dragon rider before I could even tell what was happening.
For a moment, I thought I noticed a smile on her face before my fist crashed into her cheek, and sent her falling to the ground.
I couldn't quite remember. All I could focus on was the relief that I felt spreading through my entire body after proving her wrong.
"A fly, huh?" I breathed, enraged. "I don't think that a fly can send a grown lady knocked onto her ass."
Cleopatra's face remained unchanging as she looked up at me from the floor. Her skirt has been ruffled, now revealing more of her bronze-skinned thighs, which were more plump than one could imagine, but I turned my gaze away. I was not that sort of man.
Suddenly, a tear ran down her cheek. I thought I might feel bad for this, but I did not.
She tempted me. She was the one who told me that my punch would do her no harm, so why should I feel bad when I proved her wrong?
"Oh, stop crying, dragon rider. Your family has claimed the skies, and yet the fist of a weakling like myself has managed to bring you to tears?"
I started losing myself.
"Come on, get up and let me do it again. Let me show you what the strike of the Atherstromless can feel like. Yeah... That's right, get up!"
That's when it happened.
[System Initiating...]
[Selecting A Suitable System...]
[System Found! You have awakened: Bully System]
As I felt the words fly through my mind, I spotted Cleopatra smiling at me through the glimpse of my eye. She wiped her fake tears from her face and rose to her feet, smoothing out her school uniform.
"What... What is this?" I stuttered, not knowing what was going on.
The dragon rider had a look on her face that suggested she knew exactly what was going on. It was then that I noticed this was all a part of her act.
"Atherstrom can be used by all living beings on Greenhart. However, few utilise it in different ways than the rest. We call those people, The Few."
The Few. I had heard of such a term before. In fact, it had been used to describe the very family of Cleopatra herself.
There was no magic that could command dragons, so the world had never known how exactly it had been done. They were the first to earn the title of The Few.
Since then, no one else had joined this select set of people. According to Cleopatra, that had changed... With me.
"You are one of us. You may not be a dragon rider, but judging by your reaction, you have discovered what is called The System. We still do not understand it ourselves, but we know that it has done great good for our family."
I stood there for a few moments, stunned.
Why would I be one of these people? My family were regular in all ways, so how did this make sense?
No, there was a more important question to ask.
"How did you know..."
Cleopatra kept that cool look on her face as she shrugged her shoulders.
"A hunch.'
Before I could respond, she was already making her way down from the rooftop.
Before leaving me alone to brood in my thoughts, she looked at me from over her shoulder and spoke once more.
"Now that you are a part of The Few, I hope not to see you bullied again. It hurts to watch."
And with that, she was gone.