The Perfect Knight and the Illusionist (BL)

MARIUS

It was a starry, breezy night.

As there were sixty of us in total—five per group, three groups per team, and four teams in all—there was no suitable inn in the area for us to stay. We were given sleeping bags to use under the big tents we had set up earlier in the day after our arrival. Some students fell asleep relatively quickly—like Dimitri—while others, like me, didn’t find it so easy to sleep in the open space.

I was lying between Thomas and Dorian. Thomas was one of those lucky ones who seemed to find it easy to sleep anywhere they lie down. Dorian, on the other hand, was lying down so quietly and without any movement at all that anybody would have been excused for mistaking him for dead.

After struggling for another half an hour or so, I decided that perhaps I wasn’t tired enough to sleep. I had to skip my nightly exercises as Sergeant Becker told us to just go to sleep early and get plenty of rest for tonight.

’It couldn’t hurt to take a bit of a walk...’

With that, I quietly got out of my sleeping bag and headed toward the open area leading to a forest, away from the field near the residential district we set ourselves up on. Feeling the cool night wind against my face and the even cooler hilt of the sword by my side felt soothing.

But then, as I approached the woods, I saw a silhouette of someone sitting on a rock.

Even in the dark, I recognized that it was Skylark.

"Skylark, what are you doing here?"

"Oh hi... Mario," he said, without rising up.

"Can’t sleep? I thought you had no problem sleeping outdoors," I asked.

"Well, the sleeping bag is comfortable enough, yeah," Skylark answered.

"Then what brings you out here?"

"How about you?" he asked me instead.

"I just couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d do some exercises."

"Gees, don’t you ever get sick of it?" Skylark said, shaking his head.

"Do you ever get sick of potatoes from Erdville?" I joked.

"Ha... I don’t know how they are even comparable..."

"We all have something that we are used to. Familiarity brings comfort, I guess."

"I see."

Then we stopped talking for a moment, just cooling down in the night breeze.

"The festival they are planning here for tomorrow," Skylark said, his voice low, "doesn’t feel ’familiar’ to me, Mario."

"I thought you love festivals? You talked about them many times before. And you like music and dancing—not that we’d have a chance to do any of that ourselves here."

"No, that’s not it. The festivals I know are..."

Skylark paused, shook his head, and said, "Never mind."

"It’s okay. You can tell me," I assured him.

"Festivals are supposed to be free, as in having a free spirit. But... why are we here, Mario? Sergeant Becker was laying down so many rules and we are... basically here to make everyone follow those rules."

"Without rules, well, the crowd would be unruly, literally."

"But it’s a festival. It is okay to be unruly—that is the whole point."

I looked at him carefully under the moonlight. Although he was arguing back, he didn’t seem argumentative. Rather, there was a hint of inexplicable sadness on his face.

"Maybe back in your village...the crowd was small and manageable. But this is the capital. There’s going to be a lot of people tomorrow. And when there are lots of people, there are bound to be troublemakers."

"Selling hand-picked vegetables is ’trouble’? Selling wine instead of beer is ’trouble’? Heck, even just ’standing around in one spot for too long’ is causing ’trouble’?"

"Well, the first two are clearly breaking rules. The last one is suspicious behavior."

"Who does the granny selling carrots and onions hurt?"

"Rules are rules, Skylark."

"Okay, stupid rules—but fine, they are rules. But then, how is someone standing and doing nothing suspicious? Shouldn’t suspicious people actually be doing something... suspicious?"

"It’s a festival. People are supposed to be doing enjoyable things. Someone not mixing in and doing nothing is suspicious, don’t you think?"

"Oh, Mario—can’t you see?! WE are stopping people from doing fun, festival things!"

"No, Skylark," I knew I had to be firm here to help him understand, "we are taking precautions so that more people can have ’fun’ in a safe manner."

"God, even Boring Brad knows more about fun than you, Mario."

"Who is Boring Brad?"

"This boy back in my village who’s always so uptight—yeah, I see it now, you are just like Boring Brad, ’guys, you can’t do that. Mommy told us not to do it.’ Gees, Mario Vayleencraft is just like Boring Brad."

"I don’t think I like that comparison, Skylark."

"Boo hoo, cry more. You are no fun," Skylark sneered, jumped off the rock, and began to run toward the woods.

"Hey, stop! It’s dark—it could be dangerous!" I yelled after him.

Without stopping, Skylark turned his head and shouted back,

"Catch me then! Let’s have some fun! Ha!"

Then he began to fully sprint.

Since he turned this silly conversation into a challenge, I wasn’t going to lose. So I started to run after him as well, thinking that I would catch him easily as I was much faster. However, once Skylark entered the forest, it was a totally different story. He seemed to have no problem zig-zagging through the woods at great speed, jumping over obstacles, and swiftly changing directions without stopping, all in the darkness.

"Hey! Stop! You might get lost."

"Haha, Mario! YOU might get lost!"

Then embarrassingly, he was proved to be right.

I lost sight of him, and I lost my sense of direction as well. I was no stranger to wilderness and had hunted at night too, but I always took precautions and carefully examined areas as I moved. However, I completely lost myself trying to catch Skylark as he changed direction every few steps, and I was no longer sure which way was which. I could have looked at the stars to get some idea, but the sky was mostly blocked by the thick branches and abundant leaves, so the night sky wasn’t very visible to me.

"Skylark, come back."

I spoke alone, hoping that he was near enough to hear me, and stood still with nothing to do.

"BOO!"

Skylark then suddenly appeared and shouted into my ear. He must have crept up from behind—just how did he do that without me being able to sense him...?

"That’s for standing around doing nothing, Mario."

I didn’t know what to say to that.