Part Nineteen — A Fair Fight, Mostly

　The job came through Voss, Millhaven's guard captain, passed along with the specific apologetic tone of a man asking a favor he knew was too big for the coin attached to it.

　"Village two days south's got a bandit problem," he said. "Normally I wouldn't ask outsiders, but this crew's got someone throwing actual spellwork around. My men can handle blades. Can't say the same for whatever's been burning down grain stores at range."

Mana user, probably. Definitely not anti-mana, or he'd have said "burning down the village," not "grain stores." Small distinction, but it matters.

　"We'll take it," Doran said, before I'd finished the thought, already reaching for his gear.

　The village itself was smaller and more frightened than I'd expected — the kind of place where "bandit problem" meant something closer to "actively being extorted for months," judging by how relieved the headman looked at three strangers showing up with weapons and no immediate demand for payment upfront.

　"They come every few weeks," he told us. "Take what they want. Anyone argues, the one with the fire hurts them. Burned old Bennett's whole storehouse to prove a point, once."

There it is. Confirmed.

　"How many, total?" Doran asked.

　"Eight, maybe nine. Only one does the — the burning thing."

　Fenrik and Doran exchanged a look that needed no words.

　Eight or nine ordinary bandits was a Tuesday.

　The one throwing fire was the actual job.

　They came two days later, right on the pattern the headman had described, loud and confident in the specific way people get when nobody's ever pushed back hard enough to teach them caution.

　Doran and Fenrik handled the ordinary numbers with the kind of efficient, almost bored competence that came from years of exactly this — no wasted movement, no unnecessary risk, blades doing precise, economical work while I hung back, waiting for the actual threat to make itself known.

　It did, eventually — a wiry man near the back, hands wreathed in an unmistakable gold-toned glow, hurling a bolt of condensed flame at Fenrik's exposed side the moment he'd finished dealing with an ordinary opponent.

Not on my watch.

　I intercepted it before it landed — not with brute force, but with the same precise control I'd spent years building, a thin lance of anti-mana meeting the fire bolt head-on and simply unmaking it, the gold light snuffing out like a candle caught in a draft.

　The mana user's confidence didn't survive that.

　I watched it drain out of his face in real time, replaced by something closer to genuine fear.

　"That's not—" he started.

　"No," I agreed, walking toward him at an unhurried pace that I knew, by now, was more unsettling than any show of aggression could be. "It's not the same thing you're used to fighting. I'd imagine that's becoming clear."

I don't even need to push hard here. That's the part that still catches me off guard sometimes — how much of a gap there actually is, even against someone who's clearly put real work into what they can do.

　He tried one more bolt, larger, more desperate.

　I unmade that one too, close enough this time that he felt the heat of his own failed spell against his face.

　"You've got maybe five seconds to decide whether you're running or continuing to make bad choices," I said, still perfectly pleasant. "I'd pick running. Statistically, it's worked out better for people in your position."

　He ran.

　The remaining bandits didn't hold together long without their supposed advantage backing them up — Doran and Fenrik mopped up the rest with the same tired efficiency they'd started with, and within a few minutes the village square was quiet again, littered with the aftermath rather than any ongoing fight.

　"You alright?" I asked Fenrik, checking the shoulder that fire bolt had been aimed at.

　"Fine. You got there before it mattered."

　He glanced toward where the mana user had fled.

　"That was... quick. Even for you."

　"He never had a real chance," I admitted. "That's not me bragging. It's just the actual gap between what he's got and what I've got, even half-trained. Kind of unsettling, honestly, thinking about it too hard."

　Doran, cleaning his blade nearby, grunted his agreement.

　"Good thing to know, though. Which threats are real threats, and which just look that way to people without our context."

Fair point. Doesn't make it feel less strange, being the reason for that particular gap.

　The headman tried to pay us more than the job was worth, out of what was clearly relief rather than any real ability to spare it. Doran talked him down to something reasonable, same as always, and we left the village the next morning considerably lighter in obligation than we'd arrived.

　"You ever think about what it means," Fenrik asked, once we were back on the road, "that most of the trouble we run into, you could probably end in about four seconds if you actually wanted to?"

Yeah. More than I let on, honestly.

　"Every day," I said. "It's part of why I don't want to. Doesn't feel like a fair fight most of the time, and I don't love being the reason it's not fair. Doesn't mean I won't, if it's needed. Just means I try not to need it more than I have to."

　Fenrik didn't say anything else, but I caught him looking at me a while longer than the conversation strictly called for — the same weighing look I still, sometimes, caught Doran giving me too.

They know what I am, mostly. They still choose to walk beside it anyway.

I don't think I'll ever stop being a little amazed by that.