Chapter 17

As Jack stepped out of the shady corridors of the novice ward, his eyes were assaulted by variety of bright colors. Sunlight reflected off the dew evaporating off of the green grass and the decorative flowers in their raised beds. Students congregated under the shade of the trees as they are and socialized with each other. It was so much like the idyllic university life that he had craved and been denied. A concrete community college with half of the classes already prerecorded was all he was fated for.

Up the path, a commotion clogged the traffic in the direction of the cafeteria at a narrow point between two buildings. Some of the less fortunate students chose to swing wide of the crowd by taking a longer path around but the richer students seemed almost eager to see what was going on.

“Make way, commoner!” a voice yelled from the center of the pack.

“No, I am a magi now. I can walk this path if is so please!”

Whamm!

An uncomfortable pause passed before one of the brat’s cronies, a husky boy, pulled a sword out of his eye. On the western edge of the crowd was a cluster of students. He recognized the one in the center from first period. He had been the leader of the noble brats in the back row. Inside the cluster, kneeling was a girl with long hair of black and white stripes. That was all he could see of her features as her bangs covered her face. She was holding her side and panting in pain.

“Did you think that a little commoner like yourself had the right to stand in my path just because you are a Magi now?” He accused the girl. “You should be thankful that magic is forbidden on campus or I would have scrubbed your skin off with a Sandstorm like is proper!” He pulled back his leg and kicked her in the face. Blood sprayed over his boot and the ground below as her nose crunched.

“Ahh, MY SHOE! How dare you bleed on me, you ungrateful wretch!” He raised his fist over his head to strike her down when Jack slipped up behind him and swung his boot up and connected with the family jewels.

The brat’s supporting leg buckled, preventing him from controlling the momentum he was building up. He crashed unceremoniously with a sickening CRACK! His face was as pale as his starched collar, arm bent at an unnatural angle. All the wind fled his lungs upon landing, causing him to choke for a few seconds as he struggled to get his lungs working again. The crowded courtyard went still as people turned their attention from purchasing sustenance to the broken man flailing about. An uncomfortable pause passed before one of the brat’s cronies, a husky boy, pulled a sword out of a ring on his hand and pointed it at Jack.

“You are going to pay for that, shorty!”

“Shorty?” Jack protested. Sure, the man was an entire head taller than him, but that was no excuse for getting personal about it.

“I will cut out your blasphemous tongue and feed it to you!”

Ok, now he was just getting creepy, Jack thought.

The henchman swung around powerfully, the tip aimed straight at his face. Jack closed his eyes and cringed back from the sharp bar of metal that was swinging straight at him. There was no thought, only natural instinct. Clang! The sound of metal clashing over Jack’s head caused him to open his eyes and see what had prevented the crazy rich kid from eviscerating him. Virtus stood over him with sword in hand.

“The price for attacking the Adjudicator is death!” He bellowed at the man that had taken a swing at his charge. With no further ado, he cleaved down on the crony's sword arm. Shlorp! The aforementioned appendage thudded to the ground and its former owner started to scream incoherently as he clawed the bleeding stump with his remaining hand.

Virtus peered down upon his victim with disdain. “Acting as if you are grievously wounded,” he grumbled before raising his voice. “I did not use any mana on the blade. Take yourself to a medical Magi and they should be able to reattach it with little trouble before you bleed out. Now go!”

The mob in front of the cafeteria, which had been silently witnessing the whole conversation, moved. Many found that the way into the mess hall was clear now and took it, but more simply decided that a meal was not worth the risk of getting involved and fled in every direction. Soon, only the brat and his cronies remained, sans the one that had his arm removed. That one was stumbling away, a hand in hand.

Pompous brat had recovered enough by that point to focus. He held out what could only be called a magic wand with his remaining hand and pointed it at Jack. “How dare you harm one of mine, Ferrum! Now you will experience what it feels like to see one of your own, harmed.” He had completely forgotten getting kicked in the family jewels and having his arm broken at this point.

Jack stared down at the blood splattered on his shoes and his mind stalled like an engine. He had been in many street fights and scuffles throughout his life, but chopping off an arm; that level of cold brutality terrified him. It was at that moment that he fell back on something he had relied on his whole life. Instinct. When the machinery in his mind finally started to turn, he was already moving.

Runes started manifesting over his left hand. They interlocked one by one until they completed a complicated arcane diagram. A small red ball of Fire the size of a ping pong ball blazed to life in the center of his palm. With a mental command, the Fireball catapulted from his palm and was met mid-air by a bolt of Darkness that came out of the brat's wand at the same instant. The two elemental forces swallowed each other up without a trace an instant later.

“Everyone stop!” Jack held out his hands towards both sides in the universal gesture for ‘this fight is over, back off’. “Now, why don’t we put down our weapons and deal with this in a reasonable manner so that everyone else walks away with all of their fingers and toes?”

“Who are you to order me around?” the brat bellowed.

“He is the Adjudicator! As such he is authorized to issue judgment whenever he deems fit within the bounds of our oldest of laws.” Virtus answered in Jack’s place.

“I can?” Jack asked.

“He can?” Everyone else echoed.

“Let’s back up for a second everybody,” Jack said. As one, everyone still left in the audience took a hesitant step back alongside Virtus. The brat was still on the ground, so he didn’t count.

Jack facepalmed and counted to ten in his head. “No, I meant...never mind. Just tell me why you were beating on a girl in public.” Jack unconsciously glanced around for the girl, only to come up empty. “Where did she go?

The brat, who now wore an anxious expression, flinched. “My apologies Adjudicator, but that commoner cut me off and refused to give me any face. I had the right to punish her as I saw fit.”

Jack absorbed the words and turned to Virtus, his new legal advisor. “Is that true?”

Virtus sighed, obviously he regretted displaying his knowledge of Imperial law. “Lord Curtis has the right to discipline any commoner that has yet to reach the first tier in becoming a Magi. As I do not know if said individual was successful in binding a sigil, his claim is questionable at best and a minor infraction at worst.”

Jack absorbed this information and tried, furiously, to come to terms with the fact that he was in a society that was not only okay with but encouraged social stratification and public beatdowns. It hadn’t really sunk in before now because of his distraction with a new world, a new job, and magic. Looking back, it was obvious that everyone was stepping on eggshells and he just did not have the context to notice. He didn’t know anything. If beating people in the streets was considered normal, what else was happening behind closed doors; what was he allowed to legally do about it? The fact was that he was angry, there was a voice screaming in his head to declare a crusade right there and force his morals onto these people. But that voice had never helped him, so he ignored it.

“Curtis, right?” when the brat nodded, Jack loomed over him and continued. “I come from a place where beating someone for their social station is unacceptable behavior. I reacted as a man in my society is expected to act when someone is being hurt. Do you understand where I am coming from?”

Curtis nodded.

“Great!” Jack affirmed with a smile. “I’m really glad that we are getting this chance to talk things out. Just know that if I ever see you, or anyone else that might be watching, that public beatings and corporal punishment are to never happen in front of me ever again. I know I can’t change your behavior or society by making this declaration. This is merely a warning. Understood Curtis?”

Curtis nodded.

“Excellent. I am going to go to lunch now. Have a good day Curtis.” Jack tipped his imaginary hat to the confused noble and left for his table. He was starving.

…

As soon as Jack and Virtus got out of direct earshot of any passerby, Virtus rounded on him.

“Would you be so kind as to set aside a moment of your time?” He hissed through clenched teeth.

“Sure. Let’s talk over there.” He pointed to a small alley between the campus basilica and a student store nearby. After Virtus nodded in approval, they headed over there.

Once inside, a strange metal contraption appeared in the guard's hand. It unraveled two long blades that whirred in place there, at the same time his eyes started to shine silver while he looked around in every direction at once.

“This location is secure and warded from intrusion.” He announced while putting away the strange device. All of a sudden, his demeanor shifted from calm readiness to that of aggressive confrontation. It was breathtaking.

“What in the Almighty’s name were you thinking back there? Do you have any notion of the consequences harming a lord in public will have on you?”

“But you said that I could do it.” Jack defended weakly.

“I said that you were within the bounds of the law...after you had already acted. You had no such assurances when you brutalized the manhood of one that is among the most politically powerful houses in the Empire! People of means, that possess hundreds of ways to make one suffer under the bounds of the law as well, do you wish for them to apply those methods to your own person?”

“Ugh, well no. It can’t be that bad, can it?” Jack pleaded with his bodyguard for assurance.

Virtus took a deep breath. “Tonight, there is going to be a grand Quorum in the imperial palace. Every Magi of means will be attending for the express purpose of discussing what they are going to do with you. Now you have alienated the nobility, not once, twice. Whatever you do I plead that you avoid making the same mistake a third time, or your supporters may not be able to protect you.”

The bottom fell out of Jack’s stomach. He had thought that as long as he had ‘little miss princess’ on his side, then he could avoid getting yanked around by politics. That led him to ask a question. “But you said what I did was ok? If that’s the case, why should I stop from fulfilling my role as the Adjudicator?”

“Law only means anything when it is enforced. Did you have law enforcers on your homeworld?”

“Yeah, we had police, sheriffs, marshalls, forest rang—”

“Then, did you ever avoid committing a crime because you were worried that these ‘police’ would detain you?”

Memories flashed through his consciousness like a slideshow depicting all the times he avoided getting caught by cops trying to turn him into child services. It was surprisingly easy, as his memory was almost eidetic after his transformation.

“Maybe.”

“That is enforceable law. Where the power in charge applies manpower to keep the people from committing crimes. Here in Eternity, the municipal law enforcement is done by the constabulary branch of the imperial guard. Other territories employ their own law enforcement locally. Do you follow my reasoning so far?”

“Yes.” Jack nodded. He had heard a little of this before.

“That is excellent. The laws I referred to earlier are from a document named the Conclave Agreement. It was the first intertribal peace treaty ever signed between the three nations. At the time, it was the Sentinel that enforced the document by threatening to summon their champion to punish any that chose to infringe upon it.”

“Wait, does that mean…?” his mind tried to wrap around the bomb that Virtus had dropped on him.

“That is right. You are in charge of enforcing the peace between nations. Are you strong enough?”

“You should know the answer to that question better than I!”

“Indeed, hence the impetus for this conversation. Take my humble advice, if you are not strong enough to face the tide, do not rock the boat!”