Flinging Rocks at Bureaucrats in a Magical Academy

The whistle pierced the field. Second half.

Cuman’s team came out aggressive.

Verryn and Rhel rotated, swinging wide to draw Severa’s team apart, and Cuman drove center with a tight gust under his feet, the silkball gliding low and fast. All three of them zipped past at the same time, and nobody could stop their movement.

The ball bypassed Halma, threaded through a misread gust from Larna, and curled toward the net. The net was empty.

Fabrisse flinched, bracing for the point to land.

A burst of torqueed wind spiraled in from Severa’s side, hitting the ball with a sharp lateral bend just as it crossed the third quadrant.

It skidded away like it had tripped on an invisible thread and veered off course.

Cuman spat a curse under his breath.

The crowd gasped.

Severa stood still at centerfield, her robes fluttering with the last echo of her channel. Her left hand was still raised, two fingers curled in a perfect pivot seal.

Fabrisse hadn’t even seen her move.

“She’s unreal,” Larna muttered.

The game reset. Possession bounced back and forth, but it wasn’t stable.

Severa’s team couldn’t finish their breaks. Verryn had found his rhythm, skimming midfield like a raptor and cutting off every pass aimed at Larna. The moment she tried to break wide, he intercepted with looping drafts, catching the silkball and resetting the tempo. He wasn’t deft enough to catch it and launch it to the net, but he’d managed every block and sent the ball out of bounds so far.

Halma, for his part, tried twice to drive the ball past Rhel, but Rhel’s channeling had a grounded precision. He used a trebuchet-style spell array, coiling wind in dense arcs and then launching backbursts that staggered Halma’s forward motion.

Fabrisse stood at his flank post like he was tethered there. There was nothing left for him to do. So he thought.

He tracked the rhythm of play—the flow of movement, the crossing lines. And slowly, it began to make sense. Verryn was blanketing Larna, forcing her wide, and Rhel was matching Halma one-to-one with precision strikes. Severa could send them the ball ten more times and nothing would come of it.

That left only one weak link.

Cuman.

He was the only one defending their side. And he was reckless. He always overcommitted.

If she didn’t pass the ball forward—

If she kept it—

A forward run. Solo. She could get past Cuman to avoid interception, and shortening the distance meant there would be less time for the opposite keeper to react.

[Intuition +1 | Current: 23]

“Severa!” He called out as the silkball travelled in the air. Severa didn’t turn to him. “Do a forward run!”

“Forward this!” Cuman fetched the ball in the air and shot it directly at Fabrisse. Severa hadn’t intercepted. It seemed Fabrisse had been left out of play for too long that even Severa had forgotten about him.

The silkball was screaming straight at him.

Fabrisse’s heart jumped into his throat. He barely had time to register it. His fingers moved on instinct, snapping down to the glyphplate at his belt. He hadn’t meant to use it. He knew what Severa would say. But—

He raised his hand into a bracing position. The glyph flared.

[DEX Check: 11]

Adequately Fast

[SKILL ACTIVATED: Stillbrace (Rank I)]

A translucent, ivory-colored disc of calm air burst into existence in front of him, barely large enough to shield his chest. He had raise his hands just in time for the Stillbrace to meet the ball. The moment the ball struck, the air rippled like water—absorbing the velocity, compressing, and then releasing.

The silkball bounced cleanly backward, rebounding in a perfect arc.

Straight to Severa.

Severa pivoted off the center circle, glided forward, and raised her hands. The silkball spun back to her in a quiet draft. She suspended it with a tight, circular channel of air. Her head tilted.

She saw it too.

The lane ahead was clear. Cuman had overextended in his push. Terrero hadn’t realigned. There was a gap.

Cuman tensed across the field, cocky grin in place. “Come on, then. Let’s see you try it.” He leaned forward. He was ready to rush in and intercept.

Severa didn’t answer. She charged.

The wind at her heels spiraled low and tight. She twisted past Cuman’s warding sweep like it wasn’t even there, ducked the countercurrent, and sidestepped through the narrowest break in the lane.

Cuman spun to block. Too late.

Fabrisse’s eyes locked on her movement. She bent the air ahead of her like it was a rail, guiding the silkball an inch off the grass.

Rhel flared his wind—a broad, flat cross current—but Severa’s shot came low. Lower than the angle he could counter. The ball dipped, skipped once like a stone on water, and kept cutting forward.

Terrero dove.

But he was too tall. Too slow to reach the bottom corner. The ball streaked under him with a clean whisper of wind and hit the net.

The whistle blew.

Final point.

1–0.

The crowd burst into a fit of applause.

Severa didn’t raise her fist. She didn’t even smile.

She just lowered her arm, turned, and walked back to centerfield like the whole thing had gone exactly as planned.

And Fabrisse—arms trembling, glyphplate still dimming under his palm—realized something else.

He’d just assisted.

Teammates surged toward Severa like filings to a lodestone.

Halma reached her first. “That pivot shot was ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head with a low laugh.

Larna skidded in next, arms in the air. “One-nil against Gollivur? I’m framing that in my soul.”

Severa only replied with a nod. She’d already moved past the match in her mind.

[Sparring Completed: +40 EXP]

[Progress to Level 5: 998/1500]

But before the celebration dispersed entirely, Halma turned.

To Fabrisse.

He didn’t run. He didn’t even walk fast. But he stepped up and offered a hand to pat his shoulder, solid and grounded.

“Good eye catching that weak spot,” Halma said.

Fabrisse blinked. “Huh?”

“You called the forward run. Smart call.” Halma gave him a small smile, then trotted off after the rest.

Fabrisse stood there for a beat too long, his mouth hanging slightly open. Then he felt it—just under the ribs. A flicker of something proud. He hadn’t been a passenger this time. He’d made a call. He’d made a play. It mattered.

“Thanks,” he murmured, almost too quietly to hear.

From the edge of the group, he felt eyes on him.

Severa.

She hadn’t joined the others in their brief chorus of victory. She wasn’t smiling.

Their eyes locked for half a second.

She looked away first.

Fabrisse exhaled slowly. His heart was still hammering, but it wasn’t panicking anymore.

He hadn’t let himself be humiliated. Not this time.