Chapter 8
Chapter 8
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 8
Chapter Title: Duel Preparation #04
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After finishing her counseling session with Arthin Ludwig, Senia was inwardly praising herself with a sense of pride.
"Hehe, he looked in a much better mood when he left, and it seems like he and I got a little closer too. Doesn't that mean I've leveled up as a teacher?"
She felt immensely proud of herself for neatly resolving his troubles. The method she'd used back in her school days to console her cheating club senior still worked wonders even now.
Grasping his hands warmly, locking eyes to convey her sincerity—it was a technique from the tiger beastkin tribe that her senior Lena had taught her, and it had proven effective once again.
"It was different from consoling a senior heartbroken by betrayal, but seeing how Violet was deliberately avoiding him must have hurt him just as much!"
Violet was so strikingly beautiful and doll-like pale that even Senia, as a woman, could see the appeal. Perhaps Arthin had been harboring a crush on her.
Senia pulled out her student roster and decided to jot down next to Arthin's page that he was nursing a one-sided love for Violet. To care about a student's heartbreak like this— it was a moment of realization that her tremendous talents extended beyond alchemy.
"Oh no, I forgot to ask him something important."
Arthin had requested regeneration potions and mana activation potions, and she'd filled a basket with them as promised, but she'd completely forgotten to ask what he needed them for.
Normally, he'd ask for healing or mana potions, but he'd specified the exact formulations for regeneration and mana activation potions, which suggested some very particular purpose.
"And the recipe he wrote out was so precise it could be published in a journal—not textbook level at all... A formula even I didn't know. Where did he see it?"
His student file just listed him as a mage, but maybe back in his family territory, he'd gotten private lessons from a knowledgeable alchemist.
It was common knowledge that submitting papers to academic journals was key to gaining recognition as an authoritative alchemist, but there were also reclusive scholars and mystics who hated exposing their secrets to the world, passing knowledge only to a select few.
"I should have the assistants search through some journals later!"
It wouldn't just be a chore; it'd be a huge help to her graduate assistants too!
As she chuckled to herself in admiration of her own thoughtfulness, a pale-faced figure approached from behind.
"W-what... good news do you have, Miss Reeves?"
Senia turned at the familiar stammering voice to find Urdan Helik, the first-year student affairs teacher, looking even paler than usual.
His sallow complexion, thick glasses, and stutter made him seem incredibly shady, but as her seniors had said, he was actually remarkable and kind-hearted. He diligently supported her even in her role as homeroom teacher.
"Oh, I just wrapped up a great counseling session with Arthin. He was really down, but after talking with me, he perked right up!"
At the mention of Arthin's name, Helik's already ashen face darkened further. It looked like he might faint from anemia any second—maybe she should whip up some supplements for him.
"A-Arthin was here?"
"Yes! Just a bit ago. Is something wrong with him?"
Helik silently handed her a single sheet of paper. Upon closer inspection, it was an application to rent the 2nd Arena.
"Why are you showing me a rental form, Mr. Helik? It doesn't look like there's any issue... Is it because it's not a training match but an official duel?"
"L-look at the applicants closely. Things are about to explode."
Wondering what the problem was, Senia glanced at the user list and shot up from her chair in shock. Her ample bosom jiggled noticeably even under her robe, but the tense Helik Professor focused solely on her expression.
"Rexton Wise of the Wise Family versus Arthin Ludwig in an official duel. And the Wise Family is sending an imperial knight as their proxy."
Senia felt the world spinning. After that entrance ceremony fiasco, now an official duel? With a proxy no less?
"Arthin is sending a proxy too, right? He is nobility after all."
Senia pressed her palm to her pounding chest, but she ended up mimicking Helik's stammer. An imperial knight?
But there was no way for Helik to ease Senia's worried gaze. Reality was far more dire than the teachers had imagined.
"N-no. Arthin Ludwig didn't request a proxy."
"He's a mage! A beginner mage just stepping into the basics—how is he supposed to fight an imperial knight?!"
The scrawny Urdan Helik before her was now in his mid-forties, fretting over baldness and his kids' skirt lengths, but Senia had heard rumors that he was formerly an imperial knight.
The reason he taught first-year swordsmanship was the academy's way of instilling manners in brash young sword prodigies.
"W-we can't outright stop the duel itself. We'll have to persuade the students... I'll ask my kingdom disciples to help."
If it were just training, student affairs head Helik could block it, but an official duel tangled in noble politics was different.
The academy had to remain neutral among factions, so meddling in noble disputes lacked justification—especially for formally submitted duels with mutual consent, which required emergency-level authority to halt.
For newbie homeroom teacher Senia, she was effectively powerless. She could only pray this stammering student affairs head would resolve it.
'No way those potions he requested were to prepare for the duel, right?'
She couldn't say for sure, but from the recipe and ingredients, they boosted natural healing and partially activated physical abilities. For a student clueless about real combat to beat a knight with that? It'd be a miracle.
'Please, Arthin! Don't do anything reckless!'
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ If the Empire was upheld by its mighty knight-led army, the Republic Federation's pride was its undefeated Golden Fleet.
Tasked with guarding the continent's coastlines, ocean trade routes, archipelagos, and city-states, they had successfully repelled demonic invasions for 300 years—a key reason the academy was located on a southern island.
But if the Empire's might highlighted the Three Sword Saints among knights, the Federation's pinpointed not massive ships but five individuals, known as the Five Supernaturals.
Lists varied by one or two names depending on the source, but everyone unanimously crowned Lin Shaopeng as the strongest among the current Five.
Even the gods of the Southern Church acknowledged his prowess, proven seven years ago when he single-handedly halted the Demon King's Wild Hunt raiding the Federation's archipelagos. Revered as a god-like human across factions, he was called the War God.
Lin Shaomei was the youngest daughter he doted on immensely. Thus, she lived luxuriously at the Pelkas Merchant Group under her father's old friend, but returned home each winter to spend New Year's with family.
Young Shaomei hated going back. Her father's home was always noisy, thanks to sweat-drenched disciples training year-round to become pupils of the doting "War God" dad.
Suddenly, Shaomei recalled those foolish disciples practicing footwork even in hailstorms. The scene before her now was no different.
"How many minutes has it been? Isn't it over an hour already?"
"Precisely... 2 hours and 30 minutes left."
When Arthin declared he'd train in martial arts, Shaomei and Jorba could only be stunned. He was a hermit among hermits who'd refused outings with noble ladies or beach trips with her.
So Shaomei, suspecting his resolve might last three days at most, devised a ploy.
She'd prepared a grueling schedule that would make even her family's trainees—who often failed entry tests for martial artists—gasp in horror.
Of course, no way could Arthin endure this circuit training mashup of dozens of hardcore drills for even two minutes. Plus, the gear he wore took her ages to get used to.
The restraints, freshly arrived from home, adjusted perfectly to torment the wearer—making one step feel like dozens of sprints. The strength bags were magic items that constantly shifted weight to prevent adaptation.
Her plan: After five steps, he'd cry uncle, she'd remove the gear. Minutes into hardcore training, he'd quit; she'd graciously offer her real regimen.
A psychology tactic called door-in-the-face—to boost his motivation, then hook him on martial arts with her encouragement.
Jorba, hearing the scheme, canceled a date with girls from another class to watch the fun in the private training room Shaomei borrowed via Gold Dorm perks.
"Huff, huff... Three minutes passed, right, Shaomei?!"
"Huh!? Oh, one minute's up! Now roll the wheel!"
At her words, Arthin dropped his pole and gritted his teeth before a wooden cartwheel reaching his chest, hoisting it up.
These were impossible for him normally. Yet he chugged some potion for stamina, adapted his body, and for strength-lacking drills, maxed his power then surged mana like crutches to force through.
"That's barbaric! No clue how good that potion is, but by morning, mana overuse and soreness will leave him bedridden!"
"...More importantly, can someone at Arthin's level manipulate mana that delicately?"
Shaomei shook her head vigorously. If everyone could brute-force hardcore training like that, no one would struggle against lowly demons.
"Martial artists, swordsmen, mages all use mana, but boosting physicals like a knight, wielding it bodily like a warrior, with mage-level precision in output and direction... That's not beginner mage territory."
Either way, it was beyond a novice like Arthin. Even genius Shaomei, inheriting her father's martial legacy, couldn't match that crude yet refined method.
"He's weird, right?"
"...What do you mean?"
Gazing at the dehydrated-looking, sweat-soaked Arthin, Jorba turned to Shaomei.
"You feel it too, don't you? How Arthin's changed so much since enrollment."
"..."
They remembered the brilliant, confident child he'd been, and how he'd crumbled.
Years of bullying by Rexton Wise and Sion Idris, plus neglect from his grandfather fearing the grandson threatened his beloved eldest— it confined young Arthin Ludwig to a secluded mansion room.
Yet post-enrollment, he'd transformed unrecognizably, like the old abuse never scarred his personality.
He'd occasionally act like the old Arthin for them, answering questions only he'd recall.
But this was definitely not the Arthin they knew. If merchant Jorba Pelkas noticed, perceptive Shaomei—who cared only for him and herself—certainly had.
"Does Big Brother Arthin changing bother you, Young Master?"
Her speech shift signaled sharp nerves. That silly dialect was an act for close friends only.
Arthin saw her as an innocent little sister, but her eyes now were deep—even Jorba, a master merchant, couldn't plumb them. Act or truth? Unknowable.
"Big Brother Arthin suffered beyond what he could bear. Can't he live for himself without it being selfish?"
"...That's not it. It's like he sold his soul to a demon. For his sake, we should suspect. He's been off since challenging Rexton, whom he couldn't even look in the eye."
Speech, gaze, mannerisms—all changed. Jorba itched to drag him to the church saint senior.
But Shaomei's fox-like—rather than bearish—gaze at him lacked irritation, thanks to her fondness for Jorba, differently from Arthin.
"You don't get it yet, Young Master Jorba."
"Me? What don't I get?"
Current Arthin felt alien to Jorba. To Shaomei, it was eerie familiarity mixed with strangeness. Yet no discomfort—she'd swiftly grasped and accepted it.
"Rexton's nothing. Big Brother endured far more pain and sorrow—for us, for everyone."
Her words plunged Jorba into deeper confusion. Something about Arthin he didn't know?
"Don't worry, it's not what you think."
Gazing at Arthin as the final routine ended, she grabbed towels and potions. Her face reverted to the bright, big-sisterly little sister act.
"Just let Big Brother enjoy it. Got it, Young Master?"
With that, she dashed to diligently wipe the prostrate Arthin's sweat.
Frowning at her parting words, Jorba decided to keep watching as always. Something was off, but Shaomei—who'd always guarded Arthin—likely understood better.