Chapter 57
Chapter 57
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: A Humiliating Lesson
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In an instant, a crowd gathered around the grand training grounds, forming several rings.
Watched by countless seniors, Loan stood facing the Crown Prince.
The two faced each other from a distance.
The surroundings were utterly silent.
The Union members shared their thoughts in hushed tones.
"Even after hearing something like that to his face, it can't be easy to show such resolve. He's got guts."
"I hope he wins. I just hope he doesn't make a mistake under pressure."
"Hasn't he already won in terms of looks? He looks more dignified, doesn't he?"
"Stop with the nonsense. They say the royal family's secret techniques cover mastery of all weapons. Is he also skilled in hand-to-hand combat?"
"You should assume the royal family has absorbed all the secret arts of fallen houses. The situation has gotten strange, but it'll be a good spectacle."
"I heard that Oz's specialty is telekinesis, but they've both set aside their weapons. It's hard to predict the odds."
"The Governor-General herself suggested it. No way he's planning to lose."
In fact, Loan was thinking about the Governor-General.
Without her intent, this coincidence would not have become an inevitability.
She had opened the path, so he had to walk it.
A voice echoed across the training grounds.
"Now, we will begin the sparring lesson between His Highness the Crown Prince and Oz Loan of the Faith Division."
It was a sparring lesson in name only.
The Crown Prince of the kingdom would give a lesson to a new Union member, offering encouragement.
That was why neither of them held a weapon.
Considering their respective statuses, this was natural, but on the surface, it was decidedly advantageous for the Crown Prince.
Loan bowed his head to the Crown Prince.
"I am Oz Loan of the Union's Faith Division."
"Show me what you've got. If you defeat Us, We will acknowledge that unique magic of yours that supposedly detected treason."
Crown Prince Denian spoke calmly, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.
It was hard to believe he was the same person who had been so provocative just moments before.
A calm, composed atmosphere.
His inner thoughts remained a mystery, but Loan believed his opponent's competitive spirit was genuine.
A mist of mana instantly bloomed.
The light and dark mana that had been seething within his body still surged around the Crown Prince, failing to find harmony.
‘This is my first time against a martial artist.’
He had a goal in mind.
To use magic as a supplement and consolidate the physical techniques he had practiced for the past few days.
"Fuu..."
He quietly steadied his breathing.
Convection had been swirling around Loan's body for some time now.
The Crown Prince beckoned slightly with his fingertip.
"Come."
The first move was offered, and he accepted without hesitation.
He placed his feet on the Narrow Path extending toward the Crown Prince.
In an instant, Loan's body slid forward, reaching the Crown Prince's immediate vicinity. He was fast enough to startle the prince.
Simultaneously, he established his Domain and added his body's rotation to the swirling vortex of mana.
Just as he had added power to Lucas's sword.
Or like someone long ago who had exploded the mana in their body to throw a punch.
‘Tch…’
He forced the unwelcome face from his mind and enveloped his fist, propelled by momentum, in condensed Convection.
A fist shot toward the Crown Prince's face.
In that fleeting moment, the Crown Prince's brow furrowed even more.
Having entered the Domain, he tried to move his feet, but noticed a subtle resistance and immediately crossed his arms to block.
Bam—!
The Crown Prince was pushed back, his feet dragging along the floor.
The Narrow Path hadn't been broken, so Loan immediately followed the line.
"Weren't you a mage?"
The Crown Prince muttered, righting his posture.
With a crack, his foot shattered a paving stone.
He shot forward. The prince closed the distance much faster than Loan had anticipated.
On the prince's wrist, several bracelets jingled at once.
A bony fist and a chaotic mass of mana filled Loan's vision.
A flurry of blows rained down.
It was incredibly flashy.
He read the trajectory of the fists in advance, but dodging them all was impossible.
Loan reinforced his Domain.
Fwaaa—
He mixed even the mana emitted by his opponent into his own, turning the flow to his advantage.
The Crown Prince's breathing faltered for just a moment.
‘Still? Even Lucas eventually figured out the Domain…’
There was enough time for that thought.
The sound of flesh hitting flesh, several times.
Loan parried all of the prince's fists to the side with his palms.
Perhaps he didn't know how to react.
The prince stamped his foot hard and retreated a good distance away.
"You bastard!"
His voice was breathless.
Loan enjoyed the sight of the prince's face contorting in rage.
‘Up close, he's quite ugly. Lacking in both intelligence and refinement.’
His pursuing footsteps carried a natural excitement.
As the prince's clothes touched the Domain, they fluttered with a rustling sound.
Startled, the prince kicked off the ground with a thud and retreated once more.
The humiliation the Crown Prince must have felt was naturally transmitted to Loan.
A pleasant chase ensued.
‘Where do you think you're going?’
He cast [Convection Shift], [Velocity Control], [Friction Coefficient Increase], and [Gravitational Acceleration Adjustment] in succession on the rising floor fragments, trapping the Crown Prince.
Inside the grayish-brown vortex, the Crown Prince's face twisted even further.
His appearance, stained with sweat and dust, was far from that of a nobleman.
‘This suits him better.’
He poured on more dust and dirt.
Shhh-shh-shh!
Had he pushed him too far?
Suddenly, the Crown Prince thrust his palms forward and swung them wide.
The mana seething inside the prince's body ran rampant, following the direction of his hands.
The mana, now consumed by darkness to the point of being turbid, in that one instant—
KWA-BOOM!
—exploded from the center of the prince's body.
An invisible shockwave shattered the wall of fragments Loan had created.
Even the Domain enveloping Loan and the Crown Prince was scattered to pieces.
"Pant, pant..."
Having consumed a significant amount of his magic, the Crown Prince gasped for breath, glaring at Loan.
He was bent over at the waist, hands on his knees.
Of course, Loan wasn't unscathed either.
He had used up a great deal of his already limited magic.
But as long as he could still stand, it wasn't a problem.
Loan didn't avert his gaze, breathing slowly again as he drew in the surrounding mana.
The thin flow of mana gradually returned to its original form.
Loan once again levitated fragments and dust into the air with a low hum.
As if intending to turn the Crown Prince into a mud golem.
"You crazy bastard."
Even after exchanging several fierce attacks and hearing such harsh words, Loan remained unfazed.
No, he was the same as when he had started. He looked incredibly serene, and in a way, even seemed to be enjoying himself.
As if he possessed a vast amount of magic unfitting for his age.
Seeing this, Sarah and Miguel, who had been doused with water last time, felt a strange sense of pride.
Now that things had turned out this way, being beaten by a junior no longer felt so shameful.
"That attack last time. It wasn't a fluke. He's no ordinary guy."
"I knew he had good senses, but what are we supposed to do if he's good at fighting, too? Is it a relief we're not in the same division?"
While the two of them could reflect on the past so calmly, the heart of the person currently involved was completely shattered.
Watching the approaching vortex of earth, Crown Prince Denian stretched a hand toward the platform and shouted.
"A sword! Give me a sword!"
The royal officials, watching the Governor-General for a cue, were unable to act.
The Governor-General, who had been watching all of this with her eyes closed, finally spoke.
"This sparring lesson is now over. The administration will clear the area and finalize the merits and rewards."
At the Governor-General's declaration, Loan dispersed his Convection.
The scattered dust and rocks were neatly gathered into a cone shape on one side.
The Crown Prince was flustered by the sudden change of events, but he shot Loan a glare before turning and leaving.
He realized too late that asking for a weapon was an admission of defeat.
* * *
A trip to Shiong might be added to his existing reward.
Loan was in a great mood, so he invited Sophie and Lucas to have dinner with him at a restaurant in the commercial district.
Since he rarely had a reason to spend money, he let his friends order whatever they wanted.
His two friends ate as if they were possessed. Both had received rewards, but there was no reason to refuse a meal paid for by a friend.
Loan stared blankly at Lucas for a moment before speaking.
"That man... it seems he's not only physically unwell, but mentally too. And not very bright, either."
"Huh?"
Lucas asked, stuffing two chicken legs into his mouth at once.
"I'm saying he's a bit lacking."
"Why are you looking at me when you say that?"
"There's a reason."
Loan was about to offer a compliment, but held his tongue.
On second thought, realizing the existence of the Domain after only two encounters wasn't worthy of praise; it was to be expected. It would have been strange if he hadn't.
Loan decided he needed to add more variety to his Domain.
"By the way, Loan. Are you really trying to go to Shiong to find a cure for ghouls?"
Sophie asked, nibbling on thinly sliced grilled vegetables.
She added that she'd heard it from a senior in the Honor Division.
Loan replied.
"Yeah. I'm not certain, but I think holy magic might help."
"Anyway, this bastard Loan is so damn lucky. How did he get the Crown Prince to pick a fight with him like that?"
Of the six duchies, Shiong is the farthest from the Kingdom of Grafton.
This was true in terms of distance, but its sheer inaccessibility made it seem remote from everywhere.
A small nation deep in the mountains, built around the Holy See.
The reason this place, possibly smaller than a large noble house, could proudly call itself a duchy and survive the long wars was because it was the only place where the authority of a god remained.
"Maybe it's like Loan said, he's sick somewhere. He's just mean-spirited."
Loan nodded at Sophie's comment, which had omitted the subject.
Lucas chimed in.
"That's weird. If it were me, I'd be truly happy, without a care in the world. You could learn all sorts of secret manuals and techniques, live lavishly in the vast royal palace, and then become king."
Watching Lucas speak with envy, spittle flying from his mouth, Sophie smirked for a moment.
Then she leaned over the table and whispered.
"That might be exactly why he has a sickness of the mind."
"Huh?"
This was the first time Loan was hearing this story.
He tapped the back of Sophie's hand, urging her to continue.
Sophie began, saying she had overheard the elders talking about it once.
"You know about the current king, His Majesty Simon, right, Loan?"
"Yeah. He was the previous king's younger brother."
The former king, William Ormond Grafton.
He reigned for a long time, leading the efforts to maintain balance between the duchies and stabilize the people's livelihood.
Even the Grave couldn't act openly. Thanks to him, the world was at peace.
It even got to the point where people joked that his only flaw was ruling for too long.
But even such a wise king...
"I heard the former king was assassinated."
Lucas said, his words barely intelligible as he chewed his food.
Still, Sophie carefully glanced around before lowering her voice even further.
"Yeah. They say it happened because the crown prince at the time, Leopold, plotted treason. The former king lost his life in the process of his younger brother, the current King Simon, stopping it."
It happened twelve or thirteen years ago.
In the kingdom's history, that's very recent.
That's why the books Loan had read didn't contain detailed accounts of it.
He had only learned the rough outline after coming to the academy.
Lucas asked.
"But what does that have to do with Crown Prince Denian being sick?"
"During the attempt to stop the treason, a bloodbath swept through the royal family. The former king's faction, the current king's faction, and the then-crown prince's faction were all entangled..."
"So he was traumatized at a young age?"
"Probably. That might be why he reacts so violently to the word 'treason'."
Listening to their conversation, Loan began to understand some of it.
Certain events experienced in one's youth can have a great impact on how one lives their life, even after becoming an adult.
Wasn't it the same for him?
His decision to uproot the Grave, including Le Tell, was a desire he might never have had if he hadn't grown up in the shelter.
This time, Sophie leaned close to Loan and whispered directly into his ear.
"Anyway, there's a rumor that the royal family will be watching you now that you've beaten the Crown Prince. Be careful. Nothing good comes from getting involved with the royals, except for promotions."
It was a very cautious warning.
She had lowered her voice so much that, in the end, it felt like only her warm breath tickled his ear.