God of Trash

Walter stepped onto the field. Instantly, Rhys knew he was serious. The aura rippling off of him left no doubt of that. If there had been any true friendship to this ‘friendly duel,’ it was gone now.

Rhys stepped back. He smiled. Good. If he could do nothing else, at least let him draw out the truth to this visit in front of all his other students. If they didn’t know it from his duel with Mae, let them see it from his duel with Walter. There was no intention on the Purple Dawn Academy’s side to be anything but destructive. Not from the beginning until now, was there ever any intent to have a friendly spar.

“Rhys Foundling,” Rhys introduced himself again, clasping his hands.

Walter barely inclined his head. “Walter Tournors.”

“You’ll have to forgive my ignorance, but are you from noble families?” Rhys asked. Now that he’d fired up Walter, what better to do than slow things down and let him stew in his frustration a bit? Walter wanted nothing more than to tear him into pieces. Letting the fight start now would give Walter exactly that release. So he was going to build up as much frustration as he could, and put Walter on the back foot mentally, because if he didn’t, he would die. He needed all the advantages he could get right now.

“Hmm?” Walter all but spat in his irritation.

“You and Victor both introduced yourselves with a great emphasis on your surnames. If you were ordinary children… or orphans, like me, you wouldn’t put any emphasis on your family name like that.” Rhys paused. “Well, Victor’s behavior already told me he was, but…”

“That’s correct. We’re from noble families. Noble mages.”

“Mmm.” Walter, too, had already told him he was a noble, or at least, from a good family, from his good behavior and his gentility. For all that rich kids were all insufferable brats, some of them had been taught how to behave before they were sent out into the world. Walter had clearly been taught manners by hook or by crook, and Rhys greatly appreciated his parents for doing their part. “You know, I’m just an ignorant country boy, someone who was found as a child. Tournors, when compared to Victor’s family, how does it rank?”

“Low.”

Lower nobility? Ah, that explained it, then. That was why he actually had some semblance of self-control and manners. The higher nobility had no reason to teach anything to their children, but the lower nobility still had to fear the upper nobility. There weren’t many benefits to a feudal system, but the fact that the nobility, too, had a hierarchy, and everyone who was even a little bit rich didn’t have the right to generate horrid brats for the world to deal with, was certainly one of them.

Well, maybe he was a little biased, given his original upbringing in a bottom-of-the-middle-class family. But he had the right to be biased, after all the bullshit he’d put up with at the hands of brats, whether they were his incompetent bosses or the popular kids at school. He’d experienced enough brats to know how irritating they were, right from his heart.