Chapter 85: The List (5)
Lucien stepped further into the gymnasium, the murmur of the crowd shifting subtly, a ripple through water.
His eyes swept over the arena, taking in the high-raised seating that circled the dueling floor like the tiers of a coliseum.
Students leaned forward in their seats, elbows on knees, eyes sharp with curiosity.
Others whispered to their friends, their voices barely carrying over the thick, expectant hum that filled the space.
The dueling floor itself was a perfect square of polished wood, boundaries marked with fresh, chalk-white lines.
Around it, the faint shimmer of containment wards pulsed like heat haze, invisible until the light caught them just right.
They gave the impression of a glass dome no one could see but everyone knew was there, a thin but absolute divide between the duelists and the world beyond.
His gaze slid toward the center, where his opponent was already waiting.
The boy stood stiffly, shoulders squared, hands tight around the grip of a wooden medium broadsword.
His stance was practiced enough to suggest training, but the faint twitch in his fingers betrayed nerves.
His jaw was set, his gaze locked forward, but one could see the tiny shifts, the restless weight distribution from foot to foot, the barely perceptible swallow of a dry throat.
He wasn’t here to bluff confidence.
He was nervous, yes… but he was also here to stand his ground.
Lucien’s eyes flicked briefly to the stands again, scanning for faces.
He spotted Balt almost immediately, leaning forward over the railing, watching with a mix of anticipation and thinly veiled concern.
Beside him was Corin, expression unreadable, his posture relaxed, but his gaze sharp.
Further along, he recognized a few of the students who had been in the Aptitude Test hall with him.
Their conversations had quieted, their attention now fully pinned to the arena.
In another section, a cluster of older students, the same upperclassmen from the cafeteria that morning, were lounging in their seats, watching with interest.
And there, just two rows above his opponent's side, Lucien saw her, the girl Lucien had seen that night.
She stood out immediately.
While most spectators leaned forward in eager anticipation, she looked… worried.
Deeply so.
Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, fingers intertwined as if in prayer, her gaze darting between her lover and the floor as though willing some divine force to intervene.
Lucien’s boots echoed softly on the wooden floor as he stepped into the arena.
The low hum of the crowd seemed to recede, replaced by the steady rhythm of his own breathing.
For a moment, he allowed himself to lock eyes with the opponent, not in challenge, but in acknowledgement.
If his challenger was feeling the weight of the crowd, Lucien carried it differently.
He wasn’t tense.
He wasn’t jittery.
His movements were measured, his expression calm, almost unreadable.
To the one about to face Lucien, that calm might have seemed like composure.
Or maybe it felt like something else, the quiet, steady confidence of someone who didn’t doubt the outcome.
The judge stepped forward, a tall, lean man wearing what looked like the medieval equivalent of a tracksuit, complete with a corded whistle hanging at his chest.
His presence commanded immediate attention without a single raised word.
“What weapon will you be using?”
He asked Lucien, tone brisk but clear.
Lucien didn’t hesitate.
“Wooden saber.”
The speed of the answer drew a flicker of reaction from the boy, a subtle tightening of the shoulders, the faint flare of nostrils.
One of the attendants quickly brought the requested weapon, along with the necessary padding: thick, reinforced fabric for the torso, forearms, and shins, and a makeshift bamboo headguard.
Lucien slipped them on with quiet efficiency, the leather ties pulling snug against his arms.
Across from him, the other boy did the same, the faint clatter of wood and bamboo echoing in the air.
The judge’s voice rang out again, steady and practiced.
“This is a formal, first-year sanctioned duel between Lucien Crowley and Phillip Calvescent. The rules are as follows: No use of magic. Any attempt to cause fatal or excessive harm will result in immediate disqualification. The duel will end when one duelist is disarmed, unable to continue, or chooses to forfeit.”
He glanced between them.
“Do both of you agree to these terms?”
Lucien nodded once.
Phillip followed suit, the motion a fraction slower.
The judge stepped back, giving the space between them a single, sharp look, as though fixing the boundary into reality with his gaze alone.
“Begin.”
The whistle cut through the gymnasium, sharp as steel on stone.
The crowd went silent in an instant, the air thickening with the weight of the moment.
Phillip shifted his stance, the broadsword held in a guarded position.
The faintest tremor still ran through him, but his feet were planted firmly, eyes locked on Lucien.
Lucien’s grip tightened subtly on the saber.
His breathing stayed even, his steps slow and deliberate as he began to move.
The calm in his posture was almost unnerving, not the restless energy of someone about to throw themselves into the fray, but the cold patience of someone measuring the exact moment to strike.
And in that stillness, in that measured approach, Phillip felt it.
Not arrogance.
Not overt hostility.
Something heavier.
Menace, wrapped in composure.
The duel had begun.
***
Lucien stood there, bamboo headgear slightly loose, wooden saber in hand, and the steady thrum of the crowd filling the gymnasium like the hum of a great machine.
On the outside, he was still, calm, unreadable.
On the inside?
His brain was having a very different conversation.
If this were back in his past life, the world of the visual novel, this whole thing would have been routine.
Duels were practically the Swiss Army knife of the game’s plot progression.
Jealousy?
Duel.
Petty disagreement?
Duel.
Someone took the last sandwich in the cafeteria?
Duel.
You could bump shoulders with another character by accident and somehow be defending your honor ten minutes later in the courtyard with half the student body cheering you on.
It was, as he remembered, a mechanic that players either loved for the drama… or despised for how utterly RNG-dependent it was.
There was even a whole forum thread titled “Duels: The Casino of Narrative Progression,” where speed runners complained about the maddening unpredictability.
You could have a walkthrough down to a perfect science, but the moment a duel triggered?
Your precious run could die to the random number generator deciding your chosen character would slip on a leaf mid-swing.
The technical jargon was buried somewhere in his memory, combat outcome seeds, adaptive victory bias, affection-state modifiers, but it all boiled down to this: you never truly knew who would win.
And worse yet, the outcome could completely derail certain story routes.
Entire love interests could lock themselves away if they lost.
Which, come to think of it, was hilarious in hindsight.
And now, in a cosmic act of karmic comedy, here he was, an unwilling protagonist in his very own live-action RNG nightmare.
And, just to twist the knife, the reason for this duel was so on-brand for the visual novel it was almost insulting.
Phillip Calvescent, First Year, had challenged him over… the honor of a maiden.
Or, as Phillip had dramatically declared, “To avenge the slight dealt unto her virtue!”
Lucien resisted the urge to groan even now.
In the game, this would have been a 50/50 coin flip for who the player was backing romantically.
But here?
He wasn’t controlling the outcome.
There was no quick save.
No reload.
Just him.
His gaze shifted to Phillip across the dueling floor.
The boy wasn’t trembling, exactly, but there was a certain stiffness to him, a tension in the way his jaw was locked and his shoulders squared.
The medium broadsword looked comfortable enough in his grip, and his stance wasn’t half-bad either.
Lucien had seen plenty worse in-game NPCs.
That said… the girl in the stands, Phillip’s supposed “maiden”, looked like she was halfway to fainting, clutching her hands in front of her face and murmuring something that could only be prayer or catastrophic predictions.
That either meant she had no faith in him, or Phillip’s track record in these situations was… less than heroic.
Lucien inhaled deeply, pulling his mind away from sarcastic tangents and forum nostalgia.
This wasn’t a cutscene.
This wasn’t an RNG dice roll.
If he lost here his status in the academy would tank before he’d even settled in.
A single bad impression could follow him for years in a place like this.
No.
He couldn’t underestimate the guy.
Even if Phillip was just another pompous first-year, Lucien knew better than to take any opponent lightly.
He exhaled, centering himself, feeling the wooden saber’s weight settle into his palm.
His mind began to clear, focus sharpening until the crowd became background noise, the lighting of the gymnasium fading to a soft blur at the edges.
And then, Phillip moved.
No hesitation, no testing jabs, just a sudden forward dash, the boards beneath his feet creaking under the force, his medium broadsword arcing down toward Lucien in a clean, decisive swing, and the world seemed to slow to an edge as Lucien prepared to react.
