At noon, Ivaline stood before the guild board.

  Not out of boredom.

  Not out of ambition.

  Curiosity.

  A city guild board was nothing like the one in a frontier town. The parchment was denser, layered three deep in places. Ink was darker, stamped with seals instead of hurried signatures. Requests spanned provinces rather than villages—escort contracts assumed rotating shifts, supply logistics, fallback routes. Subjugations came bundled with clauses, contingency pay, penalty margins for failure.

  Some postings weren’t even quests at all—

  They were recruitment notices in everything but name.

  Minor lords raising private forces.

  Border militias.

  Gray-zone outfits that walked just close enough to legality to pass inspection.

  This was work meant for systems.

  For coordination, hierarchy, and replacement.

  Not lone grit.

  Ivaline read quietly, hands resting at her sides, eyes moving without hurry.

  Then the guild hall doors slammed open.

  “WHO’S the one they call a prodigy?!”

  The shout ricocheted off stone and timber alike.

  A young man strode in—late teens, nearly grown, posture loud with confidence that hadn’t yet learned restraint. An iron badge gleamed on his chest, freshly polished, worn like a challenge to the world.

  “I’m the fastest Iron adventurer in this town!” he declared. “How could there be someone younger than me?! Who is it?!”

  No one answered him.

  Not with words.

  Instead, the guild responded as one—

  By turning their heads.

  Every gaze shifted toward the lone girl at the board.

  The boy followed the motion.

  “…HAAA?”

  His face twisted. “This brat? She’s tiny!”

  He marched over, stopping far too close, looming.

  Ivaline had grown over the past three years—nearing one hundred forty centimeters now—but beside his one hundred seventy, the difference was unmistakable.

  “I’m seventeen,” he said sharply. “And you?”

  She considered it.

  “…I’m not entirely sure,” she answered honestly. “Maybe thirteen. Or not yet. Twelve, perhaps.”

  “Five years younger?!” he exploded, as if time itself had personally insulted him.

  Behind her, tension tightened.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Seraphine was physically restrained—again—by Bram and Nyssa. Aldric shifted half a step closer, subtle but unmistakable.

  “I heard an inspector personally examined you,” the boy sneered. “But I doubt it. Maybe he was just some secret pedophile after all!”

  The guild hall froze.

  Then—slowly—

  Every head turned toward Seraphine.

  Anyone who’d been here three years ago remembered that incident.

  Emerald Gale’s careless insult.

  Her spectacular downfall.

  Her decision to follow a girl she once mocked—out of regret, devotion, or something dangerously close to love.

  The resemblance was… uncomfortable.

  Seraphine’s eye twitched.

  “So!” the boy barked, throwing an arm wide. “I challenge you to a duel!”

  The hall fell silent.

  Not the tense kind.

  The concerned kind.

  A beat passed.

  Then a voice—older, tired, and profoundly done—cut through the air.

  “Who, in their right mind,” it said flatly,

  “declares himself a seventeen-year-old adult… and challenges a twelve-year-old child?”

  The words landed harder than any shout.

  The guild burst into laughter.

  The boy’s face burned, but he held his stance, jaw clenched.

  Ivaline did not move.

  Did not turn.

  Her eyes remained on the board.

  “…A duel,” she repeated softly.

  She considered it.

  “Yes!” he grinned. “Right here! Training ring! No killing blows—unless you beg!”

  Aldric spoke before she could.

  “This town’s guild rules,” he said evenly, “prohibit formal duels involving minors unless approved by a senior arbiter.”

  Silence followed.

  Because the rules were clear.

  Formal duels weren’t tavern brawls. They required consent, oversight, and witnesses—either a Silver-ranked adventurer or a party of equal standing to both challengers.

  Ivaline, registered without exception, qualified.

  The boy realized it a heartbeat later.

  His gaze slid past her—

  Straight to the four figures behind her.

  “Four Bastion,” he said sharply. “Be my witnesses.”

  A murmur rippled through the hall.

  Seraphine stiffened.

  Aldric remained unreadable.

  Bram blinked.

  Nyssa folded her arms.

  The boy leaned forward, tapping the head of his long twin-bladed spear toward Ivaline.

  “So? Prodigy,” he sneered. “Or just frontier-town exaggeration?”

  Ivaline tilted her head.

  Not in offense.

  Not in fear.

  In assessment.

  “…You’re not as strong as Gruthak,” she said calmly.

  “You cannot best me.”

  It wasn’t an insult.

  It wasn’t a challenge.

  It was a conclusion—spoken with the same tone one might use to comment on the weather.

  Something in the boy snapped.

  “FU—K YOU!”

  He lunged.

  The spear hissed through the air—

  And struck nothing.

  Ivaline had already moved.

  One step.

  Backward.

  Clean.

  Measured.

  The distance remained perfect.

  To the onlookers, the truth became immediately, painfully clear:

  She wasn’t fast in the explosive sense.

  No blur.

  No burst.

  Her sense of space—reach, timing, line—was absolute.

  In that single exchange, every veteran in the hall understood:

  Ivaline’s mastery of range surpassed his by a chasm.

  “…You want to spar?” she asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “That’s what I’ve been screaming from the start, you dimwit!” he roared, wrenching the spear back into guard.

  “I’m not a dimwit,” Ivaline replied seriously.

  “I’m smart enough to do calculations.”

  The guild broke into laughter, again.

  Not cruel.

  Not mocking.

  Amused.

  The boy flushed—anger and humiliation colliding.

  He inhaled, preparing another shout—

  Then—

  Ivaline smiled.

  Just faintly.

  “I’ll spar with you.”

  The laughter died instantly.

  Steel whispered.

  Breath caught.

  Not because of him.

  But because, for the first time since arriving in the city, Ivaline stood not as rumor.

  Not as curiosity.

  Not as a prodigy weighed against hearsay—

  But as herself.

  The boy grinned wide.

  “I’m Rivel! The fastest to reach Iron rank in this town! They call me Iron Flash! And you?”

  Ivaline met his gaze.

  Her smile softened—just enough to disarm the room.

  “Ivaline,” she said.

  “Silver Ward.”

  And this spar would not measure her against others.

  It would measure her against who she had been—

  And who she had just decided to become.

  And Chronicle, as always,

  Would bear witness.

  Rivel - Iron Flash

  17 Yrs. Iron Rank Adventurer.

  By normal standard he was considered a Prodigy.

  But Ivaline is just out of the norm. In many ways.