Chapter 228 (1/2)

Randidly coughed awkwardly at her words. “That’s… that’s not why I’m shocked…. Why would you agree to that, for me…? I don’t understand.”

Azriel shrugged, turning back to the wilderness. “After winning the Regional Tournament, and necessarily beating me, he would use his influence to force me into it. There were a lot of political reasons for it too, a lot of boring schemes of the elderly… let’s not talk about it. But it was a meaningless promise, and perhaps he knew it. From his perspective though, obtaining my word is much more valuable than using my Style as leverage.”

“So again, why?” Randidly asked, bewildered. It was one thing for him to develop a crush on this attractive, talented woman who had ripped him full of holes. It was another for this woman, who had riddled him with holes, to bet her hand in marriage on him. Even if he had surprised her, that was the difference in losing immediately, and losing to her in 38 seconds, or whatever the time was.

Azriel took a step forward and hopped up onto the low wall. A wind blow, and she swayed slightly, but then she began to walk along the length of the wall.

“I guess… I’m what you call a genius. By some chance, I obtained the skill Crystal Memory. That, along with my talent for spear use, allows me to very quickly see through a move, once I’ve seen it once. My whole life… I’ve been a genius, always chasing the back of Drak, who is 5 years older than me. Every hurdle he would pass, I would rush towards, passing faster, earlier in my life. Chasing him endlessly…I wonder if it was stressful for him. To be heralded as a once in a millennial talent, with a chance to become a Spear Master, and then to have a girl 5 years your junior to be even more talented...”

Azriel spun on her toes, her silver hair fluttering. “But recently… I feel like I’ve caught up to him, but I can’t be sure. I suspect he has more, but he hides it. I have not seen his true strength. I’ve examined all the other contestants… and then are known quantities. They might force him to put up a good fight, but none can make him serious.”

She hopped down and walked over to Randidly. “You don’t believe you can do it. And maybe I don’t either. But I know for sure that no one else can do it, to make him serious, and you have surprised me once before. I said so before, if I see a move… All I need is for someone to make him serious, let me see that last ace he hides. Once I know it, I will continue chasing him, and pass him.”

Then Azriel frowned at Randidly. “Although I’m a genius, I’m not a god. The first time he uses that ace, it would be a surprise, and work on me. So I need-”

“Cannon fodder,” Randidly said, his lip curling.

Azriel nodded, as if this label was pleasing to her. Randidly rolled his eyes. “You know… you are extremely arrogant.”

“Is that a problem?”

The words hung in the air between them. Azriel yawned, and then walked away.

“I’ll be expecting you. I’m staying at the Burning Forge Inn.”

Randidly frown as he watched her departing hips. Waiting for him…? What exactly did she want from him….? To train him?

****

“He’s too weak.” Marco Polo said, breaking the heavy silence in the room.

Shal’s face was stony as he gazed at the ground. He couldn’t disagree with the other spear user.

Divveltian snorted. “And yet he has made it into the top 32 at the Northern Regional Tournament. If nothing else, he improves very quickly. That move that he used for brief spurts… that can be refined, and quickly. He just needs experience.”

Marco looked unwilling to accept that perspective, but could not do anything to refute it. Divveltian frowned at the two of them. “What is the point of complaining now? We are powerless. There is no action we can take. It is all up to him. So we give him as much instruction as possible.”

Shal continued to remain silent, a thin level of fear covered by a thick level of anger in his heart. True… the original goal for bringing Randidly to this world was a vague goal of keeping the honor of the Aemont’s Spear Phantom Style, almost on a whim. To reward the strange individual who snapped him out of his funk in the dungeon, with additional training, was another motivation. But the more he thought about it, the more it had become about getting Randidly into the top 4, and being able to leave the territory of the Spearman School.

For beyond that was a vast, unexplored world, with the label “there be monsters”. And Lucretia was one of them. The one that Shal swore to himself he would crush mercilessly.

But as he watched and waited, Shal’s impatience grew. Why must he sit idly while the world turned…? Although he had received a decree from the powerful Central Styles not to leave the Spearman School… if he wanted… could they stop him…?

There was another part of Shal, however, that hesitated. Because there was a strange stickiness to that thought process. The further he indulged it, the more his mind seemed filled with cobwebs. It was a satisfying and righteous anger, but… in a way, it reminded Shal of the wild discontent of his days before he had encountered Randidly. Those cobwebs had slowly been dispelled as he trained Randidly, both in the dungeon and in the prison. There was something cathartic, honest, and proud about it.