Entering the cafeteria, they saw that it was almost completely empty. Many students, on weekends would go visit their family or travel to the town, to have some fun with their friends, so only a small amount of people stay in The Academy to do something.

Looking around, they noticed Brendon and Sarah sitting in the usual place at the back, with a lot of food on the table. While walking up they were soon seen by them and both of them made a unique expression. Brendon’s was that of surprise, while Sarah’s expression seemed to have become a bit sour.

When they finally go close enough to speak, Brendon took the initiative to greet them, as well as ask a question. “Hi, how come you came here together like this?” The curiosity was evident in his voice.

Ariel casually answered him in a simple way. “As I have already told you before, I went to the library to read some books, and by chance I met her there doing the same. We talked for a while and lost ourselves for a bit, when the time came to meet up with you, naturally we went together.” This was quite a common incident to happen, but Brendon wouldn’t give up this chance to tease his sister so easily.

In an honest look, like he had just remembered something, he responded. “Now that I think about it, Erna always did seem to be fond of books. I guess you found something in common, this should greatly help improve your relationship.” Saying this, Brendon sent a mischievous smirk towards his sister. She noticed this, and as a result her eyes started becoming slightly colder.

On the other hand, his words made Erna’s smile stiffen a little, making her feel quite awkward about talking on this topic, while standing right next to Ariel. She stood there for a good while, thinking how to respond.

In the mean time, Sarah mouth was twitching a bit and her clenched fists seemed to want to beat Brendon to a bloody pulp, at the same time, her eyes were releasing a chilling killing intent.

Seeing her expression, Brendon broke out in cold sweat, knowing that he went too far this time. He knows that it is fine teasing Sarah a little, but he also knows how scary she could become when angered.

He quickly decided to grab on to a life line and spoke towards his best friend. “Ariel you should sit down and grab something to eat. You must have gotten hungry reading for so long.” Seeing that Brendon was trying to desperately change the topic, Ariel decided to help out his friend and spoke. “In fact I am feeling quite hungry, thank you for the offer.” He sat down in an elegant manner and started picking something from what was already on the table.

Erna followed suit, and also sat down to fill her stomach and at the same time taking the chance to erase her feeling of awkwardness.

While still feeling his sisters angry gaze on him, Brendon let out a sigh of relief, feeling lucky that he didn’t get “punished”, which is probably attributed to Ariel being here, since she wouldn’t want to show “that” side of her, in front of him. Feeling grateful towards his best friend’s existence, he decided to quickly think up of an interesting topic, which would further bury his previous words.

Managing to come up with one quite easily, he spoke out. “By the way, Ariel, have you already heard of the newcomer dueling competition that is happening in three weeks time?” Brendon asked.

Lifting his head from his food, Ariel answered in an uninterested voice. “It’s the competition where every single new student has to fight someone, isn’t it?” He only knows the most basic definition of the event, excluding, all the bullying and superiority battles.

Sarah besides her brother nodded to his explanation. “This is definitely what it was intended for, but now students usually make use of this competition to settle their personal grudges and bully the weak people. You don’t have much fighting capabilities, so you must be careful and tell us if anyone has bad intentions towards you.” Sarah’s expression was that of extreme worry and concern, even while speaking, she seemed to be very strict about her warning. Her show of care truly made him feel happy to have such great friends.

As he was thinking, Brendon spoke again in a more positive tone. “Not counting those fools who ruin the event, it can become quite a fun show to watch. I will try to get some good seats to watch the competition, so that after our fights we could get some enjoyment out of it.” Brendon was clearly interested in seeing the other freshmen abilities and wanted to see some exiting and unusual fights.

Right after Brendon finished speaking Erna, on Ariel’s side, joined in on the conversation. “You have to accept at least a single duel, or you will be expelled, but the possible rewards for showing great promised are certainly worth it.” Erna spoke her opinion, which caught Ariel’s interest.

Turning to look at her he asked. “What are the prizes, to make even you say it was worth it?” Ariel thought that as an archduke’s daughter, they surely must be something money couldn’t easily buy.

Erna gave some thought, before replying. “It is always different, but from what I heard, some past times there were powerful magic items, beasts, unique spells, growth enhancers and other such things. What’s more, it is personally given by the top level people of The Academy, which is a huge honor in itself.”

Ariel was surprised, the given items weren’t something that unique, but if it was considered precious, then they must have been of a very high level, what made him even more curious was the higher ups she had mentioned, so he decided to ask about it. “How powerful are they?”

This time, the one to answer was Brendon. “Each of them, don’t have to show respect even to kings themselves. I don’t know their actual power rank, but you can guess that they are extremely powerful.” Brendon’s words made Ariel become awed by the powerful people who had the right to act as they liked. This was exactly what he had wished to achieve, even in his previous life, but failed. Now he gets another and a much more likely, chance.

Suddenly, he recalled the old man he ran into in the corridor, which propelled him to ask about him. “Do you know anything about an old person with white hair, blue eyes and expensive dark blue clothes with gold trimmings…?” Giving the best description he could recall, he threw the question about the old man towards Brendon.

Thinking for a while with serious look on his face, he responded. “I don’t recall anyone resembling the person you described, but from his clothes he should be a high ranking elder, maybe you will get a chance to ask somebody more informed, about him in the future.” Brendon couldn’t think of anyone and only gave a helpless sigh.

Ariel felt slightly down cast thinking about this elusive old man, when he heard a happy voice full of pride and arrogance that was originating from somewhere near them, in the cafeteria. “If it isn’t my princess, I have been looking everywhere for you, since some time ago.”

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Turning his head to the side, Ariel could see a tall, decently built youth, seemingly around the same age as him. He had a head of black hair and dull, grey eyes, his face could easily be called handsome, which was full of self confidence. Currently he was walking towards them, while smiling.

Undoubtedly he was the one who called out to them, Ariel turned to look to Sarah, since she was the only princess here, but she only shrugged her shoulders. Turning to look at the only other woman in the room he let out a sigh. Since it wasn’t Sarah, the only other person he could have spoken to was Erna and “princess” should be a nickname he gave her.

Ariel looked towards Erna’s face, only to see her frown. From the young man’s words they seemed to be quite intimate, but her expression was telling him that this was not so.

When the youth finally stood right in front of the table, he spoke again, while looking at Erna. “We haven’t seen each other for quite some time shouldn’t you at least be saying hello?” He obviously was thinking that they were quite close. Erna however didn’t share those same feelings. “Lord Vern Hevorin, I don’t recall being that close to you, so maybe you wouldn’t talk so familiar to me.”

Hearing the name she spoke, Ariel instantly recalled who he was. The one in front of him was the heir of Hevorin duke house, which he had previously discussed about, how they were acting slightly suspicious. They have long since wanted to become archdukes and now that Erna’s family only has her as an heir, it would be quite easy to merge their families if she would become his wife. This was most likely what they are gunning for.

Unfortunately for him, Erna disliked Vern very much, because of his frivolous personality, so she quickly rebuked him, while unconsciously inching towards Ariel.

Vern furrowed his eyebrows as he spoke. “Don’t be like this. Our parents are thinking of us as a perfect couple, I think we should spend more time together to get to know each other more.” He shamelessly spoke those words, but suddenly, he noticed Ariel by Erna’s side, towards who she was moving towards. Seeing his unbelievably handsome looks, his face instantly fell as he started getting jealous, which was clearly heard in this voice. “And who might this be, also why is he acting so close to you?” It could be seen that he was extremely hostile to him, as if he had slept with his wife.

Ariel just politely introduced himself in a composed manner. He knew that showing any weakness is bad in these situations. “My name is Ariel Whitestone, a freshman from the officer branch.” Hearing his introduction, ridicule appeared on Vern’s face. After hearing Ariel’s introduction, he thought that there is no way he would lose to a useless person like him, no matter how handsome he was. But Erna’s next words made him petrified. “He is my fiancé and you should show some respect to him.

Vern’s face started to contort in anger as he remembered where he had previously heard the name Ariel. As far as he knows, he is basically a cripple who was lucky enough, to be engaged to his future wife, as well as his number one enemy. He instantly protested to Erna. “How is a weakling better than me in any way? To me it seems like he is not fit of you”

It was obvious from his words that he wasn’t putting Ariel in his eyes, which made the twins get even angrier from his presence than before, but not having time to do anything, Erna lashed out in an aggressive tone. “No matter how you see it, for me he is at least many times better than you, so shut up and don’t try to dictate who I should be close to.”

Her sharp words left Vern speechless, but he quickly started to rage. “If he is so good, then he wouldn’t be scared to duel me at the competition would he?” Vern had a hideous expression on his face as he spoke.

The face of the three people quickly fell and they wanted to protest, but they were silenced by Ariel’s unexpected words. “If you are so adamant about it, then I will accept.” Clearly, his words were surprising even to Vern although soon he started to laugh and speak. “I guess you at least have so courage and here I though you barely know how to speak. I will take pleasure in showing my princess how worthless you are.” It seemed learning that Erna didn’t have much of a liking towards him, made him explode.

After finishing speaking, he turned around and after giving his last glance towards Erna, he walked out of the cafeteria.

Silence rained over the table for a moment, but soon, Erna started shouting. “Why did you accept it? He is obviously not planning to let you off, that easily.” She was very angry at him for accepting, as well as angry at herself for involving him. She only wanted to make Vern stop pursuing her by quickly rejecting him, but she didn’t expect that it would end up like this.

The twins didn’t speak however their faces betrayed their thoughts. Ariel calmly replied. “I couldn’t decline it, since even if you did something about him, he would just send other people” He has long since though about all the possibilities that could happen and their outcomes.

Erna however couldn’t accept it as she spoke. “You could have had me challenge you, if so he couldn’t force you.” Hearing her words Ariel nodded in acceptance, but spoke words which made her unable to reply. “I could have done that, but that would completely ruin your prestige.” His words made her feel even more, guilty, but he still continued. “However, the most important reason I did it, was because there comes a time, when a person has to prove his worth to himself in situations like these, or he will regret it for the rest of his life.”

His last sentence left the three speechless. They felt that no matter what they said, it would only end up as an insult to him. Seeing his friends like this, he spoke again, in a softer tone this time. “Don’t worry about it. You should know that I never risk, without having a plan. It also seems to be getting late. I should be heading back first, see you all, by the way, you shouldn’t be staying up too late, its bad for your health.”

After saying this, Ariel stood up and left without looking back, just like he usually does. However this time it left a much more profound impression, as the person in question was obviously less nervous about this problem, than his friends who had nothing to do with it. This left them smiling helplessly, as they saw Ariel’s shadow disappear into the doorway.

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If you want to read further, visit https://verathragna.wordpress.com/ I will always have an extra chapter there