Compared to Gaius and Leon’s duel, the rest of the combat test went by with little in the way of excitement. The rest of the nobles sparred with each other, though none did so with the same ferocity and brutality as Leon had demonstrated. However, there still seemed to be a strangely tense air about the room despite this seeming lack of hostility, the kind of tension that comes from people knowing that they had a wild animal loose in their vicinity and weren’t sure when it might snap.
Leon himself was aware of this attention, for many of the nobles kept on glancing at him with varying degrees of obviousness. The two nobles who sparred first, Alcander and Marcus, seemed to be the most overt, but when Leon met their blatant curious gazes, neither blinked. Marcus even gave Leon a respectful nod.
They were the outliers, though. The more Leon looked around the room, the more he saw the other nobles turning away from him, averting their eyes as if they didn’t want to be caught staring. To Leon, it seemed like hardly any attention was being directed toward the nobles who entered the sandpit.
Leon wanted nothing more than to vanish from existence. Anger had made him challenge Gaius, but now he regretted every swing of his blade. He wished Gaius had just kept his damn mouth shut, that the noble hadn’t felt the need to introduce himself. He did his best to just not pay attention to the rest of the room, but it was difficult when it felt like everyone was staring at him when he wasn’t looking.
It became even harder when Gaius returned about ten minutes later, looking only a little out of sorts, and sent a brief glare Leon’s way. That one look came with a hint of killing intent; not enough for Leon to feel like he was about to be attacked, but enough for him to know that he’d probably made an enemy today.
It was to Leon’s tremendous relief that the Tribune finally called an end to the combat test following the last pair of nobles finishing their duel. The nobles made a bit of a show congratulating each other, though not one person spoke to Leon—though he wasn’t too broken up about that. He did notice that Gaius seemed a little quiet, too, only offering his congratulations to the woman in blue.
The Tribune led them outside and directly to a building just a few hundred feet away—none of the rest of the command staff followed, leaving the nobles to finish their enrollment test without an audience. The building they were led to was just a boring administration building with little in the way of decoration, but it was the site for the written test.
Leon barely processed anything about the building, so in his own was he from the previous test. He only managed to bring himself back to reality and to stop replaying the duel in his mind when they were brought to a room which was filled with forty small cubicles. Within each was a table, an extremely comfortable chair, and a stack of papers. Leon and the rest of the nobles were given their own private cubicles and left alone to complete the written portion of their test.
Leon didn’t begin the test immediately. Instead, he just sat back in his chair and took a few minutes to just revel in the relative isolation of the cubicle. To say that the last hour or so had been hellish for him would be to put it mildly, and he needed a bit of time to compose himself and make peace with what he’d done to Gaius.
‘Shit, I’ve barely been here a few hours and already I’ve made an enemy!’ he complained silently. For a brief moment, he contemplated just leaving and not completing his enrollment. He knew that making his way through the Knight Academy wasn’t his only option to find out who was responsible for the fall of his family, but the more he thought about it, the more certain he became that it was still the best option he had. It would take decades if not a century or two for him to accumulate enough power to begin his investigation if he were a guild mage or some other private citizen, and by then any trail that might’ve been left would be long gone. He needed to be a part of the government if he wanted to actually find his enemies before they went to ground or before they found him first.
He just hoped he wouldn’t regret his decision to stay. The embarrassment he felt after losing control in his duel with Gaius was starting to fade, allowing him to think back on it with a little more clarity.
He didn’t regret what he did now as much as he did when he still had to endure the stares of the other nobles. Gaius had gravely insulted him, and Leon knew he hadn’t the eloquence to make a verbal retort. No, the duel was his only option to save what pride he possessed.
So, with his conviction that he was doing the right thing reinforced, Leon finally turned his attention to the written test and got started.
The test wasn’t long, but thanks to the time he spent thinking, Leon was the last to finish. As he turned everything in, the bored Tribune told him the results would be posted in a week outside the main administration building of the Academy, and that he would receive further instructions then.
With all that done, Leon took his leave. He had finished enrollment, and he was quite ready to leave this place. It had taken several hours, and he was starving. The thought of a late lunch at the burger place was the only thing that was keeping him going.
---
Gaius Caecilius Tullius was a proud young man. He came from a powerful Ducal family, even if their power was limited mostly to the Southern Territories. They still had money, influence, and a prestigious name, and he took great pride in all of it. He was fiercely protective of it, and he based much of his identity and sense of dignity upon that connection.
When the barbarian defeated him, it was more than just a personal loss, an embarrassment he had to endure in front of all of his peers and fellows—and her—it was a direct offense to his family’s dignity and reputation. To say that Gaius was livid was to ludicrously undersell the magnitude of his anger.
Through sheer force of will, Gaius managed to hold himself together without disgracing himself further following the defeat that Leon gave him. He was too mortified by his public loss to speak with the other nobles, he didn’t even stick around once the written test was over. He knew they’d all look down upon him for his humiliating loss to the northern savage, so there was little point in doing anything else other than returning to his family’s local estate.
However, as soon as Gaius was left alone in House Tullius’ palace in the capital, he screamed in anger and frustration, lifting his plush armchair and smashing it against the ground, his mind projecting the savage’s smirking face onto it as Gaius’ anger turned it into a pile of wood chips and scrap textiles.
But that one act of destruction wasn’t nearly enough. Gaius’ heart madly beat, his anger raising his blood pressure until he heard nothing but the roar of blood rushing through his veins. His eyes spun around the room, seeing the condescending look the barbarian had given him when he delivered the final blow and the looks of pity and derision his fellow nobles had displayed when Gaius woke up.
With a furious roar, Gaius slammed his hands down upon a nearby table, smashing the intricately-carved wood to pieces. Next came the rich shelves and cupboards that lined the walls, the rest of the chairs, even the sofa in front of the hearth. All of it Gaius destroyed, venting his fury and frustration on it.
Finally, Gaius’ eyes landed upon the last unbroken piece of furniture left, a silver mirror hanging above a desk. It was a gorgeous thing, but the gleaming silver frame reminded him only of her hair.
Gaius had lost in front of her. He’d been made to look weak in front of her. He wanted to believe that she was as angry about this as he was, he wanted to think that if just asked her about it, she’d tell him that it wasn’t a big deal.
But he knew better. Even if Valeria wasn’t now laughing about this behind his back, mocking him with the rest of her friends and all the other nobles who’d borne witness to his humiliation, the same couldn’t be said of everyone else in that room. The enrollment test had been over for barely two hours and Gaius knew that the entire city had probably already heard about what happened. They were all probably laughing at him, every one of them.
‘He did this…’ Gaius thought, his thoughts finally turning back to Leon. He felt nothing but hatred for the sneering, arrogant, repulsive savage. He was a product of such inferior breeding and yet he dared to do such things to Gaius, his superior in every way!
Gaius knew that he had no other option. To regain his pride and honor, to regain the ability to look the woman he’d someday make his wife in the eye, he’d have to seek his revenge.
---
Leon awoke the morning after the enrollment test quite tired and a little apprehensive about the day ahead of him. He and Charles had agreed to take a day off from training, though Leon was loath to set it aside completely. As a result, Charles was sleeping in, but Leon had other things he wanted to do during the day.
The most pressing of his tasks was to visit the capital’s Heaven’s Eye Tower and arrange for the purchase of the ingredients Xaphan needed for his potion. The demon needed a kick in the pants to start his recovery, and since he’d be providing Leon with power at the same time, Leon was only too happy to comply with that request.
The fact that he’d seen that Elise was in the city was certainly not a factor, of that he was sure.
Still, he made an effort to properly prepare himself anyway. He shaved what little hair was on his face, took a long shower, did what little he could with his short hair, and dressed in the cleanest and sharpest outfit that he had. Finally, he finished with a short half-hour meditation to center himself and prepare himself to deal not only with the world at large, but also with the bold and beautiful Elise.
He wasn’t sure if he was going to run into her or not, but he figured that it was better to be prepared than to leave it to chance and wind up embarrassing himself. Again.
[Well aren’t you just the cutest little thing, getting all dolled up like that,] Xaphan said mockingly.
[Screw you, demon.]
[Looking forward to meeting that Elise girl that much, are you? Do be a dear and try not to utterly embarrass yourself this time. The way you acted when the two of you met had me so mortified that I couldn’t even speak! A partner to a Lord of Flame ought to have more composure than that…]
Leon had no words to respond, but his face immediately grew bright red. Whether it was anger or embarrassment that had his face flushing up, he couldn’t entirely say, but he thought it probably a mixture of both.
[Hmmm… ‘Elise Raime’. Has a nice ring, doesn’t it? Hey, is there any way I could convince you to name your first-born after me?]
[Enough, demon.]
[No, no, you’re right, I shouldn’t be so presumptuous. After all, there’s no way a shy little cherry boy like you could ever get a girl like that.]
[Shut up.]
[Yeah, she probably wants someone who is actually capable of talking to her without his face glowing brighter than me. But hey, you never know, maybe she’s into charity and will give a little bit more than the time of day. Honestly, though, she probably just saw your aura and decided to go prospecting, if you know what I mean. So just keep that in mind while you’re drooling all over your shoes when you see her next—]
[I’M GOING THERE FOR YOUR DAMNED POTION! Maybe I shouldn’t bother, I can just as easily stay here and read instead.]
[All right, all right! You need to lighten up, kid, I was only playing around a little. Besides, there’s no guarantee she’ll even be there, right?]
Leon sighed. Xaphan was right about that last bit, at least, Elise might not actually be at the Tower.
[What was that sigh? Relief or disappointment at the idea?]
Leon clenched his teeth in annoyance, but he had no answer for Xaphan. His heart was beating fast and his hands were shaking slightly, but it could just as easily be from anticipation than dread.
Regardless, he soon left his room and went to get some breakfast. He’d have to keep it light, though. The last thing he wanted to worry about was eating too much and heaving it all back up out of anxiety.
---
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