“So, what did he say?”

“I think he was impressed. A bit.”

“Yeah, yeah, but what did he say?”

“It was obvious to him that my gauging was completely flawed in Ratho but not my selection.”

“By the Fada, I swear you’re doing it on purpose.”

Mahon held back a chuckle as he finally answered his friend.

“He wants to meet me tomorrow evening. He said he needed to think a bit, and he was not sure he could help me himself, so he had to consult a friend.”

Zac sighed and gulped the ham sandwich he had been holding the whole story. The duo was sitting in their usual hideout, the little area under the trees in proximity to the First Red residence.

“And here I thought it would be the final conclusion of this never-ending story. Do you usually make everything so complicated?”

Mahon shrugged and cut himself a piece of cheese before answering.

“I don’t find it complicated. My gauging is flawed because of Nightmare, and I sought an experienced professor to help me with it. The man tested me and now needs some time to think about it before giving his answer. It’s simple.”

Zac glared at Mahon as he tore through his just-made sandwich.

“Did I already say that I hate you?”

Mahon burst out laughing before he answered his friend.

“Dozens of times.”

Zac pretended to be offended before laughing as well. They chatted and joked a bit more before going back to the house. When they silently entered inside, the other nobles were nowhere to be found. Usually they stayed until late in the living room and Mahon and Zac always were careful to move in silence not to arouse the nobles' ire.

But tonight it seemed the other nobles had not hung out in the residence and so Mahon and Zac went into the dormitory without further caution. As Zac opened the door to their room, he stopped abruptly, causing Mahon to bump into him and the two friends were pushed inside by Mahon’s momentum.

“Oh! Zac and the commoner! Nice to see you!” Tiarsus exclaimed as Mahon took a look around.

The five nobles were inside the dormitory and they had conspiracy looks and mischievous smiles plastered on their faces.

“What’re you doing here?”

“What do you mean, Zac? It’s our dormitory, can’t we be there?” Tiarsus answered with an innocent smile.

Zac threw a worried look to Mahon but the Nightmare commander shrugged while whispering.

“Ignore them. They can’t do much here. Let’s go rest.”

With a nod, Zac went to his bed while observing the chuckling nobles whereas Mahon did his best to ignore them and laid on his couch with a satisfied sigh. He saw Zac rummaging through his belongings for a time before stopping and looking around. Then he went back to searching with more energy, but it seemed he didn’t find what he was looking for as he raised his head and looked at Mahon in distress.

Mahon laid on his elbow in order to have a better look at the situation, however, before he had the time to say something Tiarsus preceded him.

“Did you lose something, Zac?” He asked innocuously.

“Yeah, I can't find my…” Zac started before turning back to the noble and realizing what had happened. “...no-dream pills.”

A proud look on his face, Tiarsus was holding the little box that contained Zac’s pills. He shook it and the sound of no-dream pills clattering inside was the only noise that could be heard in the weird silence that followed. After long seconds, Zac decided to play along, but he already knew deep inside what was coming.

“Ah, thanks, Tiarsus, you found them...”

He then walked to the noble and extended his hand to reclaim his box. But Tiarsus looked at his hand without doing anything.

“My pills? Please?”

“Oh, right! You’ve come back to your senses then?”

“I’m sorry?” Zac said, taken aback by the question.

“Yes, you know, you were playing commoner before and commoners surely don’t need no-dream pills. So I was wondering if you had finally come back to your senses and started acting like a noble.”

Zac’s face turned black as he looked at Tiarsus. In a last urge of reason, he managed to swallow most of his anger and his voice came almost normal as he spoke.

“Don’t be silly, Tiarsus. Give back my pills.”

“It seems he still wants to act like a commoner, it’s a shame.” Tiarsus said to the other nobles and they all giggled along. “You won’t need this then... I’ll keep it with me if you somehow change your mind.”

Tiarsus pocketed the box and then gestured for his followers to come after him as he left the dormitory. The door closed and Zac turned back to Mahon, who had been a silent witness to the whole scene.

“Fucking stupid nobles!” Zac swore angrily as he pulled his hair in despair.

“Practicing euphemism?”

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“Fucking. Stupid. Nobles.”

“Now you sound more like a madman.”

The comments somehow calmed Zac as he looked at his friend in exasperation.

“Can’t I at least rant peacefully?”

Mahon chuckled, but he didn’t add anything as he let his friends calm down by himself. After a few minutes, Zac sat on his bed and exhaled a long sigh.

“Let’s focus on the positives. We got to spend even more time together!” Mahon cheered.

Zac giggled and smiled back at his friend. “How is that a good thing?”

“I could teach you more hand signs and strategy.”

“Ah, no, no, no! Night is for resting!”

“Didn’t you say sleep is for the weak, we need to work hard for our objectives?”.

“Jokes aside, we have to work harder and get our asses out of this stupid place. I can’t stand them anymore. But to do that, we need to rest properly. And now…”

“Don’t worry, Zac, we’ll go to Nightmare and relax. I’ll guide you.”

Like last time, Mahon waited for an anxious Zac to fall asleep before going to Nightmare himself. There, he found Zac among the few people hanging around the spawning point and led him to a place less distant than his usual resting place. Zac wanted to rest and they couldn’t spend half of the night walking to a good place. Anyway, Mahon guided his friend away from the spawning point and the people that tried to rest there so they wouldn’t be disturbed.

Less than a dozen minutes later, Mahon decided on a spot with some flat rocks, the best area to look for in Nightmare. As much as he had wanted to, endless and comfortable meadows didn’t exist in the nightmarish land and only an unfriendly rocky landscape lay wherever they looked. While Mahon did his usual exercises, Zac fell into a mix of sleep and meditation. Although sleep was a poor description of the kind of drowsiness Zac was in. As strange as it was, there was no way to sleep in Nightmare.

First, you were not tired as you appeared in Nightmare, as if all of your body fatigue had been left in Ratho. Whatever you did in Nightmare was relaxing for your body in Ratho. It did lay unmoving in your bed, after all. Secondly, if you somehow did find a way to fall asleep in Nightmare, then you would just wake up back in Ratho and interrupt your resting. That’s why meditation was the best option. It allowed you to rest from mental exhaustion and was the closest you could get to a real sleep. If you were used to meditation and Nightmare, then there was almost no difference between the two.

Unfortunately, Zac was both a novice in meditation and had been only once before in Nightmare. When he woke up the next morning, he had that elegant zombie look on his face that announced to the world how happy he was to be awake.

That’s how Mahon found himself dragging a grumbling Zac out of his bed and pushing him on the way to Slander lesson after a quick breakfast. The walk chased away most of his remaining fatigue and he was almost back to his usual form when they reached the training area and started their warm-up. As usual, the duo immersed himself in the training until it was time for the sparring in the rings. And as if to balance Zac’s poor sleep, a long expected announcement brightened their day.

“You’re used to your new rank by now, so we will change the training groups accordingly. Your new group is determined by how well you did during the past week.”

Slander glanced at the panting students recovering in front of him.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself if you’re promoted. Don’t be ashamed of being downgraded, either. It’s just training! What I want to see is people doing their utmost to progress. Is that clear?”

“Yes!”

Although still recuperating from the last running exercise, the students knew better than not to answer their instructor. Their reaction seemed satisfying enough for him and he started to list the people in the new training groups.

Without surprise, Mahon and Zac were among the last, with most of the First Red. But that had nothing to do with why they were grinning stupidly. No, the important part of the announcement, for them, was the promotion of Tiarsus and Travaran. Mahon and Zac were all smiles, and they clapped their hands together as if it was them who had been promoted.

“Ah, I can’t believe how much I had waited for that instant…”

“Precisely. It feels so good… No more beating and back to proper training!”

But as they rejoiced, Mahon noticed Tiarsus talking with some of the First Red that stayed with their group. He pointed them to Zac, but the enthusiast noble shrugged it off.

“Well, I don't worry much about the others. They are just followers. They wouldn’t dare do as Tiarsus. Besides, I think they’re weaker than Tiarsus and Travaran, so they might not even be able to beat us. I don’t think we have to worry about it.”

Mahon nodded at Zac’s explanation. It made sense, but he still felt uneasy about the whole thing. Maybe Zac was a bit overjoyed at the situation and Mahon didn’t want to shoot down his happiness, but the nobles were also planning something. That much was obvious.

Maybe not now. But something in Tiarsus’s eyes screamed they would pay sometime.

The teams formed and the first fights started in each group. Mahon’s opponents were the calm duo with which they had done their first patrol, Gantar and Aurae. As always, the two teams eyed each other while moving in a circle. Mahon observed the situation with his veteran’s eye and, seizing the initiative, he gestured his plan to Zac.

A second later Zac propelled himself forwards and rushed to Gantar, the slowest of their opponents. Mahon moved in perfect synchronization with his duo and feinted to Aurae before exerting his tired muscles to turn at ninety degrees in the direction of Gantar.

The move was nothing fancy, but it was well executed and it left Aurae on the spot while Gantar was forced to deal with two opponents charging him from two different directions.

Although the man was less agile than his duo, he had possible counterplays and Mahon watched him attentively as he closed the gap between them. His brain was working overdrive to predict the man's next move as Mahon hoped they could force him into a difficult position.

The distance shrank and, upon contact, Gantar took a step back to steady his position and Mahon smiled victoriously. At two versus one, and given Zac’s acceleration, there was no way the man could stop their momentum.

What followed next gave Mahon reason, and Gantar was expelled from the ring in the next instant. Carried by their first elimination, the duo circled Aurae without wasting time and at two versus one, she was swiftly taken care of. She had lost confidence in the fight once Gantar had been out, and she scarcely resisted their assault.

Proud of their first victory, Mahon and Zac congratulated each other and went to rest before their next fight.

“Good job! It seemed we progressed much by fighting Tiarsus. The fight was almost too easy!”

“Yes, I think we got a bit lucky, though. Gantar made a mistake and with him so quickly out, the rest of the fight was already decided.”

Zac acquiesced, but a happy smile still lingered on his face until they started their second fight. However, their opponents were too obvious and at the first sign of attack from Mahon, they rolled out of the rings without resistance.

Mahon and Zac exchanged a surprised look, but their next fights revealed the truth. The First Red nobles were all losing on purpose. The fights barely lasted an instant before Mahon and Zac won. During one of the fights, Mahon had waited too long before flashing a signal to Zac and their opponents had thrown themselves out of the ring without even waiting for an attack.

“The bastards. They want us to win everything so we’ll rank up and be with Tiarsus again.”

“There is worse than that, Zac.”

“Worse than Tiarsus? Really?”

“They let us win every time. We don’t even fight.”

“Yeah, that’s why I said! You’re a bit slow sometimes, Mahon.” Zac joked, and it earned him an annoyed glance from Mahon.

“Listen, what I mean is that if we don’t fight, we don’t train. That means we will never rank up.”

Finally, understanding dawned on Zac as a mix of fury and fear reflected on his face.