The Duel of Disease: A Short Story by Theerada Kaewubon

The Duel of Disease

“Don’t worry, son. I wouldn’t enroll you if this school was bad. You’ll do great.” Roman’s dad said proudly. Roman was enrolled at Hunter’s Point Community Academy, one of the greatest dueling academies in Yorkian. His father had gone to a different school but had a friend who went there and became a mentor.

“Don’t worry, Roman. I had a hard time but managed to get through it.” His mom smiled as she held his shoulder, “Now go! Or you’ll be late.” Roman quickly nodded and ran with his adventurer’s bag to get to the magibus. He saw his friend and healing mage squad member Aririe wearing the standard healing kit shrunk into a charm(and some improvements to the healing unit created by themselves) and her weapons held by the healers' uniform pockets.

“Oh hey, Roman! Today's midterm exams. You wonder what we’re facing?” Aririe asked.

“I don’t know. I’m pretty nervous considering this shows us how we might react in the finals.” he shivered a little bit but it didn’t last for long before someone wrapped an arm around his neck.

“Don’t be worried, Roman! We’ll be fine. We’re going to beat this system.” Keahi, the “rogue” squad member shouted. He continued his rant about the “overbearing actions” of the school and freedom from “ the corrupt school system.” Rogues were always a bit strange. Extremely skilled but had this quirk of rebelling against authority and being reckless.

They got off the bus and passed a few kids who had bags under their eyes as they ate their breakfast while checking their satchels. The kids were from the Bard unit. Roman could tell because their friend Alderman, the bard came over to help them. Bards were assigned to write/type or sing specifically about the squad they were assigned no matter how “boring” they were. It would help their popularity and would help enchant any enemies in order to be distracting. He was assigned to Squad #498 also known as Roman’s squad. Alderman saw them and saluted.

“Give me something good to write about!” He called and ran toward the teleportation stairs, going into the portal to get to the bard office overlooking the battlegrounds.

As they walked up to the battlegrounds, they saw something that shocked them to their core. Masks and hand sanitizer within a tiny room. This struck fear in all of the students and for good reason. In the past of the Cyber era, students stayed inside and if you went outside, there was an infection which was the disguise for a monster that sent you into a nightmarish trance which weakened you and could only be escaped by the ones with the strongest wills and wits. If you couldn’t escape, you’d be stuck for days, weeks, maybe years!

“Hello, disciples! Welcome to your midterm exams. Due to the monster rates rising, we thought to give you a test that even if you had no training, you would have to face.” Lady Middleton, the teacher for dueling and blacksmithing, said, as she jumped off the teacher’s desk she was sitting on. She turned as another teacher came out of the shadows.

“Welcome to COVID-19. Running from 2020 to 2031 before the people realized it wasn’t a disease but a parasite like a monster. This was a fearsome monster who easily manipulated and captured people for days on end. Luckily, you are all trained and skilled. Now, who would like to volunteer?” Mr. Medicus, the teacher for magic and armor design, elegantly challenged the kids.

“We will!” A squad called from the back. Squad #673, overly confident, heirs to multiple businesses.

They strode up to the room and got into it. When they sat down, a type of gas was sent into the room and their eyes glazed over with a purple haze and they started to go through routines which the students recognized from their history books. They seemed to be in a trance and every time their hands were cleaned or they looked at the door, their shoulders slumped.

On the screen for viewing, you could see them fighting a monster made out of smoke and ink. They already seemed tired as their leader, Sarah waved for them to leave and to let her continue fighting the monster. The other girls, Adelaide and Elizabeth protested against this but Camille, her second in command seemed to trust her and took the other girls and ran.

The rest of the squads were walking to the rooms and soon it was Squad #498’s turn. They walked up and entered into the nightmarish sickly dimension. They were then teleported in a purple forest and instead of it being a sunny day like it was outside, it was midnight. In front of them was a smoke and ink monster with a girl in the school’s armor fighting it. She flipped off it and from the insignia of the Goodman family crest, this was the same monster from Squad #673’s dimension pocket. Roman pulled his swords out while Aririe grabbed her healing gun, and Keahi duplicated. Due to Keahi’s duplicating power, their squad looked like three but packed 16 people.

Roman ducked under the whirling arms and slid through the monster’s legs and sliced. The monster seemed to fall a touch bit forward with the sword disrupting his footing. With the monster being distracted, Aririe had switched out her regular healing energy bullets with dark energy bullets. She shot the monster’s feet and it was starting to fall on top of Roman. Sarah ran over to grab Roman and dragged him out.

“Just as a favor.” She said as Aririe kept shooting the monster soon as it tried getting up. Kaehi pulled out his scimitars and gasped. The monster then blasted him into the trees.

“What did you see, Keahi?” Aririe desperately asked as the monster loomed over them.

“There..there's someone in there!” Keahi exclaimed and the kids looked closer to see inside the monster that there was indeed a person inside there. It seemed to be a girl floating while unconscious. “The monster was getting flung around in ways that were convenient for me but I thought it was just the forest! Camille has wind magic so she must have come back after dropping the girls off somewhere.” Sarah gasped as the monster got even closer. Aririe looked at her enchanted surgical equipment then looked at the monster holding Camille in his body. She breathed in and ran forward but Roman grabbed her wrist.

“Aririe, it’s too dangerous! You can’t go!” Roman yelled desperately but Aririe pushed him aside.

“As long as I’m a healer, this will always be something I follow. Someone has to help.”

Meanwhile…

“Charles, you’re sure this is a good idea, you know what happened back then!” Lady Middleton exclaimed loudly. The two had lived through the pandemic and seen the ambulances and the other students leaving Zoom calls until it was just them and the teacher. She was worried about the students because even though they were trained, the concept of the test would be extremely dangerous due to the students not being informed on this.

“Don’t worry, Jane. Have a little faith in our disciples, won’t you?” Charles responded calmly as they looked at the screen and then looked at the Bard office room. That room was usually more worried than the people doing the exam. There was already the suspected thrown papers and screaming.

“Really? Why are you trying to jump into a smoke monster? My squad is utterly stupid.” Alderman sighed worriedly as he quickly took notes on the battle strategies and movements.

“Well, my team is worse. One of them abandoned the other members to knock herself out and get stuck in a monster while the other one is still fighting even though she’s exhausted.” Emily, the bard of Squad #673 replied while laying her head on her desk.

Both of them groaned and smiled as the squads got into formation and went back to their notebooks.

Back in the sickly dimension…

Aririe ran in and the team gasped as she was enveloped into the monster. Roman’s brain then went into battle mode. “ Kaehi, make your clones and surround the monster. Sarah, come with me.” He commanded as he whipped out his sword. Kaehi nodded with a thumbs up and out came the clones. When tendrils of smoke came, they chopped them back. “ Pretty bossy if you ask me but okay,” Sarah said and followed him. He then chopped the monster’s right leg. Her eyes widened as he kept hitting the leg.

“Are you crazy?! Camille and Aririe are in there!” She blurted loudly. Roman turned her head with a frustrated expression. He removed his sword and his fists tightened, his head slightly shaking. He stepped forward and shouted, “You think I don’t know that!? Just trust me, Princess Aurora. This will work.” He turned back and she smirked and sprinted over to the other leg.

Roman was known as the shy guy so him being appointed as the leader was shocking but now Sarah could see why. They kept chopping and the monster fell. Aririe burst out with an unconscious Camille and the group ran over. However, the exertion of the battle exhausted Sarah as she fainted. Roman caught her just in time and saw the dimension door. Sarah mumbled weakly, “No- we have to keep going.”

Aririe shook her head and kept carrying Camille as she kept healing her scratches

while surrounded by Keahi’s clones and Kaehi hitting the front area. They kept running until suddenly a monster jumped in from the side. Two people rushed forward in which one of them held a giant sword and stabbed it as someone was holding out their hands and grit their teeth. The monster collapsed into the dirt and the two turned around. “Sarah! Camille!” The two were revealed to be Elizabeth and Adelaide. They ran over to see Sarah injured and slightly awake. Elizabeth pulled out a notepad and wrote out bandages and Adelaide raised the stats of healing on it. They applied it to the wounds of Sarah and Camille and they were back to standing although in a drowsy state. The group felt the ground wobble beneath, they turned around to see the forest fall behind. Kaehi got his clones to carry Sarah and Camille while the girls were trying to stop it from falling on the squads. The groups got to the door and while the forest was falling, they ran. Kaehi had to suck up his clones in order to get in but this made Camille and Sarah fall off the platform.