Finally the day came. It's friday and my blood is boiling. On Fridays there are no noon classes. Only morning ones, as for my morning class of today. I hate it to the point I wish I was back on earth only to be able to pick up a gun and blow my brain out. It was etiquette and boy am I bad at it.

How to properly greet and talk to nobels, how to walk and eat among a bunch of other things. Yes, this is an obligatory class. Reason being, high ranking adventurers will have to deal with nobles, not to mention nobles themselves and knights.

At the very least, the teacher had a tiny bit of mercy for us of the rank one class. Since this is the basics of the basics she wasn’t as strict as one might think. That is as long as you were putting in effort. If she caught you slacking off she would do a one-eighty and become worse than an ogre.

Hell, there was this one girl that acted all rebellious and got her ass handed to her. The teacher literally made her walk with heavy weights all over her body on a tiny wooden plank. Back and forth, back and forth. By the end of the class the girl was literally crying for mercy. That being said, her methods are extremely efficient. The weights seem to have forcefully straightened her posture in such a way that her walk held a certain grace for a while before going back to normal.

In my case I didn’t have much trouble and the teacher even complimented me. Not because I was a natural or because I had previous etiquette knowledge from my life on earth. It was because I had used my overload to boost my control over my body. This is a new thing I discovered while messing around with it in my free time.

By using the life force produced by my soul ability I could control my body in ways normal people couldn’t. For example, I could make unusual bone formations to grow out from my bones. Or make my muscles over proliferate making me look like a hulking mass of muscle. A similar thing can be done with my nerves and other body parts.

However, doing any of this takes a lot of concentration not to mention a substantial amount of mana. My soul ability seems to be limitless in what it can do but at the same time it is a limitless void of mana that no matter how much I pour in I can’t seem to reach its maximum capacity. Guess it has to do with having a fragment of a god’s soul.

“Hey Lia, you really aren’t nervous?”

“Calm down Milly. I said it already, that guy has no chance of winning”

“Please be careful okay”

We exchanged those words before I entered the waiting area for the duels. I had met with Milly to have lunch which consisted of a sandwich. Don’t let my simple description fool you, those sandwiches were amazing. The bread was toasted with garlic and butter to perfection. The chicken fillet was tender and juicy not to mention the sauce used. It also had vegies and the portion was rather large.

Anyway, going back to the duels. I was informed yesterday that my duel was going to be today. I actually expected it to be tomorrow or even the day after. Looks like mister snotty noble pulled some strings to have it be today.

The rules and how the duel works is rather simple. First of all, there is no risk to the participants life as there is a sacrificial doll in place or rather, three of them per participant. The work by linking the dolls to a person, when said person takes damage the doll will take it in their stead.

As convenient as these dolls may sound, they are rather useless outside circumstances such as my current one. What I mean is that the dolls need a lot of preparations to work. Not to mention they only work in a designated area and that's not the end of it. The original creator of the doll had planned for its use in war. However, due to the restrictions it is close to impossible to do so.

Back on topic. For a participant to lose they have to be thrown out of the ring or at least one of their dolls has to take enough damage to be destroyed. The reason for there being three dolls is for safety purposes as an attack may exceed the damage two dolls can take.

Also, the fight’s have a maximum duration of thirty minutes. If the match reaches the time limit the winner will be decided depending on the amount of damage their dolls have taken. If both dolls are in pristine condition then it is a draw.

Participants are allowed to use any equipment they like as long as it is not illegal by the kingdom’s laws to do so. The participant may request the academy to lend them gear in case they possess none.

Now that final one was the most important for me. Why? You ask, well put it simply, I am sure our dear Samuel will come decked in some kind of super expensive armour holding a just as expensive minoken. I plan to use the shitiest of avilable swords alongside my normal academy uniform. The only piece of my normal gear I will be using will be my super cozy coat.

“Miss Amelia, are you sure you wish to only borrow this wooden sword? We could at least hand you a steal one alongside some leather or plate armour”

“I am sure”

This had been the fifth time I had to tell the clerk this and to tell the truth my patience was starting to run thin. Thankfully this had been the last time he had tried to convince me. I get that he might be worried about me. However, at the moment he was nothing more than a bother.

As you heard the man say, all I had borrowed was a wooden sword. To be specific, I had looked for the most worn out one handed wooden sword I could find. The poor thing had a few cracks here and there not to mention the blade had a few chips missing. I had set a small challenge for myself, otherwise this fight wouldn’t be fun. I wanted to win the fight before this poor thing got destroyed.

While sitting inside the waiting room I could hear the roars of the crowd as the battles went on. Most of them lasted but a few minutes. Some, however, lasted up to twenty minutes. How do I know this? One could easily tell when a match was beginning and ending by the cheering of the crowd which would reach its peak at these points.

While waiting I continued considering a small problem I had thought of. Should I use magic or not? If I use magic, should I use my improved spells or the normal ones? I had been considering these two questions for a while now.

Magic is allowed in the duels and as a matter of fact is commonly used. That being said, my case was a little different. I possess an absurd amount of mana. I am not saying I am the person with the most mana in the world or anything of the sort but I for sure should be in the top one percent.

If I wanted to, I could pump a bunch of mana into a simple spark spell and cause an explosion equivalent to a grenade. Were I to use the same amount with my improved version of spark and the explosion would be nothing short of a tactical missile. With that amount of firepower I could get rid of Samuel in an instant. However, would that be a humiliation? I doubt it. Being defeated by overwhelming power is not humiliating.

What I want is for him to boil in anger at being made the laughing stock of everyone present. For that purpose magic is not a viable option, much less strong magic. I continued pondering the problem for a while more before deciding to not use magic unless he used a powerful spell. I would also restrain the type and power of the magic I would be using.

By the way, another problem I had to deal with for this fight was Naru and Pyrka. The too had sternly opposed the idea of me using any other weapon. I will say that the tantrum the threw was something to behold. In the end I managed to pacify them by promising to go hunt a strong monster with them in hand later this weekend.

“Miss Amelia, you battle is next, could you please come with me?”

A soft spoken lady entered the waiting room as she had done a few times before. In that moment I felt a rush of excitement run through my body. I was finally going to beat that guy to a pulp. With some spring to my step I placed the wooden sword on my shoulder and walked out the room with the lady.

A short walk through a rather tight corridor later I could see the exit towards the arena. My opponent walked out from a similar corridor on the opposite side. A resplendent silver and gold armor covered his body as a large two handed sword hung from his back. I couldn’t wait to punch that condescending smirk off of his face.

“For the next match we have Samuel Rasey, a well known combatant for most of you I am sure!”

“He has won all matches he has had so far. However, this is not surprising as his gear and skills are match made in heaven”

“Against him is the new comer Amelia bellevie”

“She is a new student that got in this year. However, don’t let her looks deceive you, her test scores were off the charts!”

The commentators were having their fun, that much was obvious to me. No matter, I actually like this kind of atmosphere, it makes things more exciting both for the audience and the combatants.

“With introductions out of the way, let's hear what our combatants have to say before the match!”

“Miss Amelia, I am a merciful person. If you surrender now and apologise I will let this matter go!”

“Don’t make me laugh Samuel. Getting cold feet are we?”

“You insolent! Do you plan on fighting me with such poor gear! Are you so poor you couldn’t even ask the academy for some gear!?”

“Well, I thought that if I used anything better it would be unfair for you. Now that I think of it, this wooden sword might still be too much. Should I use only my fists instead?”

“You!”

“Well, ladies and gentlemen, with everything said, let the match… Begin!”