Chapter 337
Chapter 337: Deceiving Little Girls Again
The crowd stared transfixed at the arena, a surging tide crashing through their chests, sweeping reason clean away.
They had to admit it—Auréliane's performance had shaken every last one of them, completely conquering the entire audience.
But it had been so devastatingly swift.
Was she really a Mage?
Then, all at once, the nobles recalled the crystalline, translucent moonlight blade Auréliane had conjured moments ago.
Ah, right. She was indeed a Mage.
Creating a weapon from thin air on the arena stage—that was indeed something only a Mage could do.
What was so startling, though, was that as a Mage, Auréliane's close-range combat had been executed with consummate fluency.
Granted, the student who had challenged her was admittedly somewhat ordinary. But however one looked at it, he was still a 6th-year student, tempered by 6 years of the Academy's training.
And yet he had been defeated by Auréliane in a single strike.
Even the students who hadn't taken the stage, after witnessing this bout, found their minds reduced to a single thought.
This Princess from the Carencia Empire seemed... a little terrifying.
The foreign ministers, seeing Auréliane win so effortlessly, had smiles draped across their faces—as though they themselves had won a battle that earned the Empire ample face. Their spines straightened without them even noticing, and they swept their gazes across the students to either side, their eyes carrying a trace of pride.
Meanwhile, Auguste's mind was still echoing with Viktor's answer. He had no attention left to linger on Auréliane's dazzling victory.
A little good at everything?
That was obviously modesty.
If one were to translate it accurately—
That sentence should probably be rendered as...
Pardon me, I'm good at everything.
He found it difficult to believe. And yet Auréliane's performance had been a genuine, undeniable shock to everyone present.
What Auguste had seen was not Auréliane's exceptional technique, but rather a kind of composure—the steady calm of a battle-hardened veteran.
Her decisiveness. Even her cold, single-blow precision.
She seemed to know the enemy's every weakness, to understand exactly how to counter them, and to adopt the most efficient method of neutralizing her opponent.
Was this truly something a Mage could teach?
Of course, Auréliane naturally hadn't actually killed anyone.
At this point, a team of medical personnel in white soft-cloth uniforms came jogging up onto the arena, stretcher in hand. They lifted the student onto it and pulled open the fabric of his shirt at the spot where he had been run through.
This sent the crowd into another bout of shock.
Because the student had not a single wound on his body.
Strange.
They had all clearly seen the blade run clean through his chest. Even the student himself had already crumpled to the ground in weakness.
Could this, too, be the power of Magic?
But who had ever heard of a Mage fighting in close quarters? A Mage this good at close-range combat—how were warriors supposed to make a living?
Auguste was still in the middle of these thoughts when Auréliane was already making her way back.
She wore a faint smile on her face. Descending from the stage seemed to have simply let her work off some restless energy, and even her manner toward the King had improved noticeably.
Beneath the gazes of the assembled nobles, Auréliane passed Joanna, came to stand in the aisle by the arena, gave a nod toward Hilda who was seated to one side—without sparing the female student another glance—and then returned to her seat.
At this point, no one dared question Auréliane's combat ability any further.
And how old was she, exactly?
Rumor had it that this Imperial Princess was only 15.
Meanwhile, the students here who had made it to 6th year were essentially all adults.
Auguste spoke in a tone of admiration:
"Truly a spectacular bout. Princess Auréliane, your swordsmanship is outstanding."
Auréliane responded with a smile.
"Thank you."
"It's thanks to my teacher's guidance."
Hearing this, Auguste's thoughts drifted involuntarily back to Viktor once more.
If even the student had reached such a level, then just how powerful was Viktor, the teacher himself?
At this moment, Hilda remembered to rise to her feet as well, bowing toward Auréliane in a show of respect.
"Thank you, Your Highness. Thank you for honoring my wish."
Auréliane only offered her a faint, light smile in return.
Joanna turned to steal one glance at Auréliane, then lifted the sword in her hand and murmured quietly to Hilda:
"Sis, I'm heading off first."
"I still need to prepare for the next round."
Hilda let out a soft "mm," paused for a moment, and replied somewhat absently:
"Mm, do your best."
Joanna lowered her head, gripped her longsword, and quickly left.
Given that Auréliane had already shown her strength, the Princess naturally would not take the stage again. Even if she had wanted to continue competing, the instructors would no longer have wished for her to go up.
It was clear by now that Auréliane's power clearly exceeded the average level of those present.
The assessment matches continued. Student after student stepped onto the arena, doing their utmost to display their talents before the assembled nobles.
The sky grew later and later, and the final match at last arrived.
Joanna faced another formidable student—one who, like her, had won several bouts in a row.
Whoever emerged victorious between the 2 of them would take 1st place in this assessment.
By now, the 2 had been fighting for quite some time.
The student across from her had put her under considerable pressure.
After all, the opponent was also one of the top few students in 6th year.
The match dragged on in stalemate for a long while, the 2 of them locked together on the arena, each searching the other for an opening.
Then Joanna noticed that the opponent's stamina had worn down considerably—their breathing had grown heavy, their movements slightly sluggish.
She felt in that instant that she had found the opening she was looking for. She stamped her foot and surged toward the opponent, launching a slash partway through her charge, driving the blade toward them.
The opponent's lips curved ever so slightly upward. Seizing the moment, they gave the blade in their hand a light, precise flick.
The next second, Joanna's footing buckled, and an immense force sent the longsword in her hand flying from her grip in an instant.
She lost her balance and landed squarely on her backside on the arena floor.
The sword tumbled through the air and hit the ground to one side with a cold, ringing clang.
The opposing student showed neither arrogance nor agitation, and calmly sheathed their longsword.
"Your skill is formidable. If I weren't one year your senior, the outcome might not have been so clear."
"Thank you for the match."
The students watching saw the bout resolve itself—and the winner wasn't Joanna, which caught them off guard.
Even Hilda, watching her younger sister's performance in this final moment, couldn't help but furrow her brow.
Only Auguste spoke up from the side:
"Hilda, your sister is quite impressive—she has real potential."
Despite receiving the King's praise, Hilda's expression remained slightly clouded.
A loss was a loss. Skill was skill.
But for Joanna to have shown such a visible lapse at the very moment the King and visitors from other nations were present—naturally, it put her in no mood to feel better.
The instructors below tallied a point for the victorious student.
After the final bout, that student claimed the top spot on the leaderboard, while Joanna held 2nd place.
The instructor below called out the announcement.
"The 1st-place winner of this assessment is—Yaso Hid!"
The victorious student broke into a wide grin and walked up to collect the prize.
2nd place, naturally, came with no reward of any kind.
Joanna tightened her grip on her sword hilt. The loss left her a little dim.
She lowered her head and quietly left the venue alone.
Seeing this, Hilda drew a deep breath, then turned toward Auréliane and the King with a slight smile.
"My sincerest apologies—please excuse me for a moment."
She rose to her feet and hurried off to catch up with Joanna.
The King smiled and addressed the assembly:
"Well then, shall we be off?"
After all, he had brought the diplomatic delegation here simply to observe the Academy's assessment matches. The matches were over; there was no particular reason to linger.
The students, seeing the nobles and the King still present, didn't dare dawdle either, and departed one after another.
The hour had grown quite late.
The King rose first, and those noble lords followed suit, standing as well.
Auguste turned to address Auréliane:
"The hour has grown late, Princess Auréliane. Allow me to arrange accommodations for you."
Auréliane rose to her feet, a smile on her face.
From time to time she turned her head and glanced at Viktor, as though silently pleading for rescue.
Teacher, what am I supposed to say now?
And Viktor, as though he hadn't seen Auréliane at all, remained seated there in silence as before.
But what no one noticed was that the Crow that had been perched on Viktor's shoulder had, at some point, vanished without a trace.
Then a sound rang out—a walking cane striking the floor. Every gaze was drawn toward it.
Because these noble lords knew very well what the sound of that cane meant.
Even King Auguste looked over.
There stood Grand Duke Festan, risen to his feet, leaning on his cane, addressing Auguste:
"Your Majesty, there's no need to go to such trouble."
"For the time being, please allow the Princess and her party to stay at my estate."
***
Unseen by any eyes, a jet-black Crow bathed in moonlight silently beat its wings and rose into the night sky.
Its wings stirred a faint breeze through the darkness as it flew over streets ablaze with light.
At last, it slipped into a deep, narrow alley and alighted in a corner draped in shadow.
Not far from that corner, Weija heard a voice filtering out from within—a voice of reproach.
"How could you have performed so poorly today?"
The voice was familiar.
That female instructor and her younger sister, presumably.
A lecture beginning, was it?
Perhaps both of them would end up breaking down emotionally, and before long it might even come to blows.
Weija speculated idly from the shadowed corner, as the aggrieved tone of the voice was genuinely grating on the ears.
So it narrowed its eyes and leaned its head out to look.
But what unfolded before it was nothing like what it had expected.
There was Hilda, down on one knee.
In the moonlight, her expression was both grave and filled with tenderness.
And Joanna sat leaning against the steps, her face now stripped of all the determination and composure she'd worn on the arena.
Hilda held a cotton ball and was applying medicine to the wounds on Joanna's body.
She worked with careful attention, tending to her younger sister's injuries, while Joanna accepted it all with a blank, expressionless face.
The elder sister's words of reproach remained remarkably clear in the quiet of the night.
"You could have done better. What happened exactly?"
Joanna kept her lips pressed shut, letting the moonlight fall across her cold face.
Hilda finished binding the bandage around her sister's leg, then looked up—and caught sight of the faint, half-concealed wound on Joanna's arm.
"Hand. There's a wound on your arm too."
Joanna obediently extended her hand and let her sister wrap it.
When all of this was done, Hilda rose to her feet. Joanna looked up at her.
"Don't train at that kind of intensity again next time. Relax yourself once in a while, too."
Then Hilda spoke again:
"His Majesty the King and the others should be leaving soon. I'm going to see them off."
"You rest for a bit, and head back to the dorm early."
With that, she turned and left—and cast one last lingering glance back at her younger sister before she was gone.
And Joanna watched the direction her sister had departed, a trace of self-reproach on her face.
At this, she too rose back to her feet, loosened her body with a few movements, slid her longsword back into its scabbard, and made ready to leave.
Suddenly, Joanna froze in her tracks.
At some point, a small, compact Crow—jet black from head to tail—had appeared before her.
Strangely, it had only 1 eye.
A luminous sheen flowed across its slight body, and a vague, dark aura began gradually seeping from it, spreading outward.
She felt it—the air in this alley had grown stifling. A powerful pressure seemed to coil around her like roiling clouds, wrapping tight.
It was a terrifying force. Cold. Bone-deep.
In that moment, her body had gone so cold it could not move.
At last, the Crow's hushed voice dropped from above—filled with temptation and danger.
Like a cold gleam flickering in the dark of night, it pierced into Joanna's heart.
"Hello there, tenacious little girl."
"Do you... hunger for power?"