All the waiting students’ eyes turned toward him, and Mikhail lifted one corner of his mouth in a crooked smirk.
“Yeah, best to get it over with quickly and take a break.”
With that, he stepped forward, opened the closed waiting room door, and walked out ahead of everyone else. As soon as Mikhail left the room, the remaining students’ gazes slowly shifted. Some looked on with pity, while others seemed to silently wish for someone—anyone—to take down the prince.
When he noticed all the attention on him, Jonathan, face pale as death, slowly shook his head in disbelief.
“…Why… why are you all looking at me? No way…”
Sitting on the sofa, Jonathan stammered, shaking his head from side to side faster and faster in growing panic. He was clearly praying it wasn’t him. But no matter how many times he scanned the room, the student designated as number 5 was nowhere to be seen.
“No way… it’s me?”
Thump! One of his close friends from the Hounds Club patted his back lightly in a half-hearted show of support. He, too, looked sour-faced, as if he never imagined his buddy would be chosen for the first duel.
“Yep. You’re number 5. Win and come back alive.”
“Hurry up. Prince Mikhail’s already entered the arena.”
A student pointed to a wall where a massive magitech display was showing a live feed of the stadium.
Uwooooooo!
At that moment, the entire wall filled with a close-up of Mikhail’s cold face. His piercing gaze and blood-red irises twisted ever so slightly, as if annoyed by the crowd’s roaring cheers. Above the prince’s head floated a bold ‘209’.
“Whoa, already? We’re seeing one of the heavy hitters this early? What a surprise! Prince Mikhail himself is gracing the very first match of the tournament! Unbelievable! Now, when will his opponent come out? Don’t tell me it’s a forfeit?”
At Pinyata’s teasing remark, boos erupted from the crowd. Just when things were getting interesting, a forfeit would’ve been pure heresy.
Jonathan wasn’t about to waste one of his precious six chances just because his opponent happened to be a prince. Not even close.
With steely determination, he walked toward the center of the arena, where Mikhail stood casually with his sword drawn, expression indifferent.
As the spectators saw contestant number 5 entering the circular arena, they began shouting encouragement like, “Let’s go, Number 5!” and “Don’t you dare lose!” Just the fact that he walked in wielding his sword single-handedly was enough to clue everyone in—this was going to be a duel between real swordsmen.
The Hounds Club went wild, stomping their feet in excitement, while the aloof Amber sneered at them.
“Two swordsmen fighting only lowers the number of contenders for the Hounds’ victory. Why are they so happy? Ugh, their brains really are all muscle.”
Jonathan, face resolute, approached Mikhail and stood right before him. He nervously fiddled with the hilt of the sword in his hand for a moment, then finally opened his mouth.
“Mikhail… just so you know, I’m going to give it my all in this match. Even if I lose… don’t hold it against me.”
“…?”
Who the hell do you think you are?
Mikhail had been staring down at the sword in his hand but now raised his head with a look of pure incredulity. One glance at the boy’s face, and he recognized him—one of the Garnet students he’d run into a few times in the dining hall or during class.
Seeing the full confidence radiating from Jonathan’s face, Mikhail tilted his head ever so slightly and let out a dry chuckle.
Evaluating an opponent’s skill was, after all, one of the virtues of a competent knight.
***
–”Hey, you’re in the library again today, huh. Did you hear about the prelims for the tournament?”
Adrian, who was carefully opening a fragile, aging book in the library, caught the sound of students whispering nearby. Their voices were quiet enough not to disturb the other students—but not quiet enough to escape Adrian’s ears.
The student sitting right next to the one who asked the question shook their head slightly as they replied.
–”No, I’ve still got an assignment due tomorrow. Couldn’t make it today. Why?”
–”What? You can just stay up and finish the assignment! I can’t believe you missed today’s match… You have to check the school paper later. You’re gonna be shocked.”
–”Why? What happened? What’s the big deal?”
Adrian, who had been eavesdropping on their conversation, turned his head away from the bookshelf. Something happened during the prelims? If something strange occurred, that could be a problem.
The student who first brought it up let out a quiet chuckle at the other’s urgent tone.
–”I’m not spoiling it for you. Just check tomorrow’s paper. All I’ll say is, this year, 209 is the real deal. Every match today ended in a single exchange.”
209? That must’ve been a number assigned to a tournament participant.
Hmph.
Adrian tilted his head slightly, inwardly hoping that 209 was Mikhail. Then, catching himself, he realized how much he sounded like an overbearing guardian and wrinkled his handsome brow ever so slightly.
–“So who is Number 209? Is it someone we know?”
–“Haha, you’ll be shocked when you find out.”
–“…Are you kidding me? I can’t even focus on my assignment right now, I’m dying to know. Just tell me, come on!”
–“Just finish your assignment and check tomorrow morning’s paper.”
Really? They were just going to leave it at that? Adrian rolled his eyes in frustration.
He rubbed his temple lightly with the palm of his hand, then abruptly closed the book he’d been reading so intently. Whatever desire he had to relax and read in the library had vanished.
The moment Adrian stepped out of the library and opened the door to his dorm room, he spotted Mikhail.
He was dressed casually, his face spotless—no injuries, no bruises. Far too neat for someone who had just competed in the prelims. Judging by appearances alone, it was impossible to tell whether he had won or lost.
Catching Adrian’s stare, Mikhail, who had been lounging comfortably, raised an eyebrow. The vaguely pitying look in Adrian’s eyes was irritating.
“…What’s with that look the second you walk in?”
Adrian softly replied as he closed the dorm room door behind him.
“Oh. I was just surprised to see you back so soon.”
What?
Mikhail tilted his head at Adrian’s strange reply. It sounded like Adrian thought it was odd for him to already be back in the dorms.
As Adrian removed his uniform jacket and folded it neatly, Mikhail continued.
“Oh, so you’re assuming I lost in the prelims and came back early?”
Trust Mikhail to pick up on things like that. He had an uncanny knack for this sort of thing. Adrian, halfway through draping the jacket over a chair, turned his head toward him.
“I never said that, exactly… but since you brought it up—how’d the prelim go?”
“Not telling you.”
“Why not? Just tell me. I’m going to see it in the school paper tomorrow anyway.”
“Hmph.” Mikhail curled his lip in a smirk.
“Because I don’t want to. You can just wait and find out from the paper.”
“…Ah.”
The tension in Mikhail’s voice made it clear he really wasn’t going to say a word. Not wanting the conversation to end there, Adrian quickly asked one last thing before Mikhail could lie back down.
“Then just tell me one thing.”
“…What?”
“Your entry number.”
Mikhail didn’t answer. He simply looked Adrian in the eye and gave him a wide, cocky grin. Then he spoke a single number.
***
Adrian woke up at exactly six in the morning.
He pushed himself upright and glanced across the room. Mikhail was still fast asleep, lying perfectly straight. Despite all his smug declarations about how the prelims were child’s play, it looked like they’d taken more out of him than he let on.
Adrian briefly closed his eyes, then lifted his lids to reveal his golden irises in full. As he walked to the dorm door, he waved a hand in Mikhail’s direction and cast a silence spell over the bed.
The front page of The Basamiel Academy Chronicle featured the tournament bracket for the Serichane Festival’s martial arts competition.
“This is…”
Adrian paused at the door, reading the paper’s front page for a moment before suddenly turning around and heading back to his bed.
“I need to confirm this for myself.”
Holding the newspaper in one hand, Adrian looked down and checked for the two red stones beneath his bed.
His thoughts were clear.
Mikhail would win this tournament. But the prize from the Serichane Festival alone would never be enough to buy the sword of Fellen Deeps. And Mikhail… didn’t have the business acumen to earn the remaining 5,000 Tilon in the single month left in the term.
The moment Mikhail gave up on the sword of Fellen Deeps, the weight of his All-Seeing Eye had increased. Adrian had to secure that sword by the end of this year.
Yes—if there was one way for both of them to advance to the next grade despite all these seemingly impossible conditions…
Adrian’s golden eyes turned to the All-Seeing Eye lying side by side on the floor.
He gently ran a smooth finger over the red stones, sighed, and lifted them. At that exact moment, his golden irises trembled faintly.
“I’ll give him the 5,000 Tilon.”
Compared to before, the two All-Seeing Eyes had grown noticeably lighter—about half as heavy. The stones that neither of them could lift even five centimeters off the ground could now both be raised to knee height.
Only now did Adrian understand what these unimpressive stones truly “saw through.”
They pierced through the path of destiny.
“They don’t just get heavier with bad deeds or lighter with good ones… it’s not that simple.”
A vivid image flashed before Adrian’s eyes.
Early in the first semester, he had been walking with Catherine when they happened to witness a sparring session between Headmaster Declaire and Professor Idros.
Adrian vividly remembered how Mikhail’s red eyes had burned with ambition, transfixed by the incredible duel between two master swordsmen—as though he were vowing to become a Swordmaster himself. The memory filled Adrian’s closed eyelids completely.
“Mikhail saw that duel that day, so is that why…?”
That day, Adrian’s stone had grown lighter—not just because he had tried to help Mikhail make a friend.
“Mikhail only saw that duel because I happened to pick up Catherine’s assignment.”
Stray from the preordained path, even slightly, and the stones grow heavier. And…
Adrian’s brow slowly furrowed.
There were no coincidences in any of this.
“Ordinas has chosen Mikhail as its Hero.”
Destiny had already solidified into an irreversible order, closing in on both the prince and the dragon.
Adrian, lips tight, stared silently at the truth before him as if unwilling to believe it.
On the front page of the school newspaper he had tossed aside, bold letters screamed: “Victory in a Single Strike Across All Prelim Matches! Can Anyone Stop the Meteoric Rise of Contestant 209?!”
