Finally, it was my turn.

'Yea, I'm purely doing this for the plan'

Who was I kidding? Of course a part of me wanted to do this for the satisfaction of getting to beat Arthur up.

I could use my [B - Authority of Fear] to win the match instantly, but I didn't want to take the risk of completing breaking

Arthur's mind. After all, he was very sensitive when it comes to Void fiends, and making him experience the trauma of seeing his father getting killed again won't do Arthur and me any good.

Thus, I resorted to beating him at his own game, swordplay.

"I hope we have a good match!"

"..."

Staying completely silent, I tightened my grip around my sword.

Despite saying that I would beat him up, I wasn't completely sure if I could do so. He was the protagonist after all.

Arthur didn't seem offended by my silence and made his first move... a charge.

Confused at the plainly obvious movement, I thought about the possibilities of his attack.

'Is it a feint?'

'No, it's too obvious to be a feint'

'Is he that confident in his strength?'

'That must be the case'

Thinking that he must have put a considerable amount of force behind his strike, I tried to dodge out of the way.

However, I was one step too late.

Left with no other choice, I raised my sword to block his attack, and braced for the immense force that would soon come. But...

'Huh?'

The strike, it was... weak.

It was not a feint, nor did it have overwhelming power behind it.

Although I was confused, I still continued to attack Arthur.

Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!...

We exchanged a series of blows.

Though it looked like that we were evenly matched from outside, Arthur was actually being pushed back, and I was not even using any of my sword arts.

It was strange, he shouldn't be this weak. Or was it because I was too strong?

Whatever the case was, we were still fighting, mostly because I wanted the fight to last just a bit longer.

Then, Arthur used his magic for the first time in the match.

[Fireball], he casted.

It was an extremely basic Fire spell, but it was effective nonetheless.

Coating my sword in mana, I slashed at the flaming ball that was flying towards me. The ball of flame split in half, before exploding behind me.

[Water ball]

Slash—!

"..."

[Wind ball]

Slash—!

"..."

[Earth ball]

Slash—!

"..."

I sliced every spells Arthur threw at me in half with my mana-coated sword. However,

'Why is he keep using ball-shaped spells?'

In fact, ball-shaped spells were the most basic of spells. They were often used the casters who don't have the sufficient proficiency of mana control to form any other shapes.

I mean, making your attack in the form of a spear would greatly reduce drag and increase the speed, all the while having the same or even greater power than its ball counterpart.

However, Arthur's annoying voice woke me up from my thoughts.

"You... your swordsmanship is indeed decent"

Clang—! Clang—!

"But in the end, what you're displaying have no essence"

Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!

"Your sword, I can hear its cries and sorrows"

"What bullshit are you sprouting?" I accidently said my thoughts out loud.

Arthur, not particularly minding this, continued to sprout more bullshit.

"Tell me, what is a 'sword' to you?"

Well, it wouldn't hurt to humor him for just a little bit so I answered truthfully.

"A tool to kill"

Clang—! Clang—! Clang—! Clang—!

We exchanged blows for a good 10 seconds before Arthur started to speak absolute bullshit again.

"Now I see why the cries of your sword sounded so painful!"

"..."

"People like you only think of swords as simple weapons for slaughter"

"Then what else are they supposed to be?" I was starting to get a bit annoyed.

"Swords are your partners, and your most trustworthy companions on the path of justic—"

Clang—!

"Bullshit!" I was now really annoyed. He dared to project his naive view of the world onto me?

"If you don't believe me, why don't you try to beat me in pure swordsmanship?" Arthur spoke as if he wasn't the one that started hurling spells at me as soon as he was about to lose.

"Swordsmanship?"

"Yes, neither of us will use any mana"

'Hm...'

"Alright then" I stopped a good distance away from Arthur and nodded my head.

"We will go when I count to zero, you alright with that?" Arthur asked.

I nodded.

Then, Arthur started counting.

"Five"

Arthur tightened his grip on his sword as he looked at me warily.

"Four"

He got into a stance and was concentrated on finding even the smallest of openings I made.

"Three"

I also got into a stance and activated [F - Emotionless]. I would definitely need the skill active if I wanted to do that.

"Two"

We tensed our muscles, readying ourselves for the clash of pure swordsmanship, as well as the clash of two opposing ideologies.

The students spectating our match was holding their breath in anticipation.

"On—"

[Splice]

My eyes flashed red as I appeared right in front of Arthur.

Not giving him any time to react, I raised my left leg and...

Crunch—!

"ARRRRRGHHHHH!!!"

I.. kicked his balls.

Arthur rolled on the ground while clutching his crotch. I would have cringed in pain if I didn't have [F - Emotionless] active.

Without waiting for him to recover, I repeatedly kicked him in his face.

Bam—! Bam—! Bam—!...

The loud sound of me kicking Arthur's face and stomach rang throughout the training ground. Luckily, Anna didn't judge my attacks to be fatal, and thus didn't intervene.

Well, Marie tried to jump onto the platform to save Arthur but was held back by Anna.

"Y- you promised t- that you would be pur—" Arthur spoke as he somewhat recovered from the worst pain a man could experience in his entire life.

"What did it fucking look like? I lied"

Arthur had a look of disbelief on his face as I said that.

I then activated [F - Emotionless] again, and kicked him in the face a few more times before squatting down and coldly whispered in his ears.

It was a small whisper, small enough that even an A+ ranked individual like Anna couldn't hear what I said, but just loud enough for Arthur to listen to each and every of my words clearly.

"See what I did there? In a real battle, no one will give a shit about your bullshits"

"Wh—"

"Shhh, I'm not done talking"

"..."

"Good boy" I mockingly patted his head.

"..."

Glaring at him coldly, I continued.

"That is why you have to throw away that soft mindset of yours to get stronger. After all,"

I paused for dramatic effects.

"You won't be able to avenge your father if you keep being like like this, oh great Hero of Light"

Arthur hung his mouth open in surprise as I said that.

Not giving him the chance to sprout any more of his bullshits, I hit the back of his neck with the flat side of my sword and knocked him out.

"Theodore Gray wins"

Unlike when other people won, there were no claps, no cheers, only complete silence.

That was, until someone finally broke the uncomfortable silence.

"ARTHUR!" Marie shouted as she went to check on Arthur.

Seeing that he was still alive, Marie used Wind magic to quickly carry him to the infirmary.

SLAM—!

The sound of Marie slamming the door of the training ground shut seemed to have woken everyone up from their stupor.

"THAT COWARD DARED TO USE DIRTY TRICKS AGAINST MY BELOVED ARTHUR" a girl screamed out.

"YEA! DO YOU HAVE NO HONORS?"

"GO TO HELL, COWARDLY BASTARD"...

Nobles and commoners alike were cursing at me for being dishonorable and whatnot.

Well, it was mostly girls and boys who wanted to curry favor with those girls that openly insulted me.

Others were either giving me looks of distain or didn't seem to care at all.

'I expected this much'

In fact, I had expected this kind of outrage immediately after Arthur suggested that we use pure swordsmanship to fight.

Well, I did not care anyways. Rather, I couldn't even care, since I still had [F - Emotionless] active.

Considering how egotistical I could be due to the influence of Marcos' memories, I would definitely lash out at everyone if I didn't use the skill.

Well, Krista and Raun came and tried to talk to me. But I promptly ignored them.

I didn't have any energy to deal with them right now. And talking would just deplete my mana faster. I wouldn't want to pass out in a room full of girls trying to skin me alive after all.

Thus, I spent the rest of the lesson standing in a corner.

***

"Alright, class dismissed" Anna said as she quickly left the training ground.

As we didn't have any more classes on the schedule, I walked towards my dorm room.

Well, of course things didn't go as smoothly as I wanted them to be.

"Hey! Stop right there!"

"..." I ignored the annoying voice and continued walking.

"I SAID STOP!"

"..."

"LISTEN TO ME!"

The owner of the voice grabbed my shoulder and forcefully turned me around. She was... well, I didn't know what her name was. She was probably an extra who had a crush on Arthur.

"..."

"I'll make you pay for what you did to Arthur!"

"..."

"Say something!"

"..."

"GOD! JUST SAY SOMETHING AND TAKE THOSE STUPID SUNGLASSES OFF"

I wanted to stop her but alas, I was too late. She reached for my sunglasses and ripped them off my face, tossed them to the ground and stomped on them.

Grinning at the 3 pairs of broken sunglasses on the ground, she turned her head back up to me, only to be absolutely horrified by two dull gray eyes staring back at her like they could pierce her entire soul.

"AHHHHHHH!" Shrieking in fear, she fell to the ground and tried to crawl away from me.

"H- HELP ME!"

"..."

"P- PLEASE S- SPARE ME!"

"..."

During that entire exchange, I just stood still, not moving even by a little bit.

Sighing at the absurdity of the situation, I continued back to my dorm, not caring about the weird and often hostile gaze I received from every students in the hallway.

'Looks like my reputation is going down once more'

Arriving at my dorm room, I didn't even try to take a bath or have a meal.

Instead, I just plopped down onto my bed. It was a long day for me after all.

'Am I forgetting about something?'

'It's probably not important'

And thus, I fell into deep sleep.

***

"He forgot about me, didn't he?" A young girl with pink hair and blue eyes pouted as she was standing outside the gate of Avaron Academy.

The girl, whose identity was Alicia Gray, had been waiting for Theodore to pick her up and get her to his dorm room for around 5 hours now.

It was getting dark. She really didn't want to stay in the streets during the cold night. Thus, there was only one thing she could do.

[Refraction mirage]