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[Alex]
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Race: Human
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Upon spotting Alex, Soren felt that familiar, embarrassing surge of excitement hit him in the chest, the kind that made his posture straighten without permission.
He had been a day one fan of TKS, he had watched early-access streams, argued in comment sections, memorised patch notes and enemy values in the same way other people memorised song lyrics, so sitting here, watching the protagonist of the story exist as a real person, it would have been stranger if he wasn't hyped.
Alex didn't look special at first glance, not in a dramatic way, not in the way heroes tended to be drawn on covers.
Sure he was handsome, but outside of that, he looked like a normal eighteen-year-old boy with a training sword and a slightly stiff, slightly nervous stance, the sort of student you could pass in a corridor without remembering his face five minutes later.
Which, if anything, made it better.
'Ah, I can't wait,' Soren thought, and he had to resist the urge to grin.
The teaching assistant's voice carried through the arena, crisp and practised.
[Mock duel between Alex and Penny begin!]
Alex moved first.
He didn't hesitate, he didn't circle, he didn't try to look clever, he just darted forward and swung for Penny's upper body with the kind of earnest commitment that was expected from a protagonist.
Penny met him head-on.
Steel rang out, clean and sharp, the two blades connecting with enough force that Soren heard the vibration even from the stands.
Penny's feet stayed planted, her shoulders stayed stable, and Alex, by contrast, bounced slightly on impact, his arms taking the brunt of the collision.
Penny angled her sword and pushed, turning his forward momentum into a sideways stumble, then cut back in with a quick, efficient return swing that forced Alex to retreat half a step.
It wasn't fancy, and it wasn't cruel, it was just the difference between one person who still fought as though every exchange was his only chance, and the other who was relaxed in a way that could only be done with experience.
Alex tried again, shifting his grip, leaning into a second strike, then a third, his blade moving with the straightforward rhythm of someone copying drills; his eyes locked on Penny's torso.
Penny kept answering with minimal movement, block, parry, redirect, her sword was always there, her timing was always slightly ahead of him.
Alex's breathing started to roughen, not loud enough to be dramatic, but enough that Soren could see the tension building in his shoulders, the way his swings lost a sliver of sharpness each time he had to reset his footing.
He attempted to create distance, a small hop backwards, trying to get room to breathe and rethink.
Penny did not allow it.
She followed immediately, closing the gap with a simple forward step and a raised blade, her pressure constant, forcing Alex to either meet her or get driven to the edge.
Alex met her.
The swords clashed again, and this time Penny's blade slid along his, notched his defence aside, and her next cut kissed his arm through the thin academy uniform sleeve, shallow but unmistakable.
A moment later she caught his leg in a similar way, a controlled strike that left a faint line of red rather than anything serious.
Minor wounds, the kind that stung more than they hurt, the kind that told Alex that she could end this whenever she wanted.
Alex still hadn't landed a clean hit.
Soren leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing.
'He's being pushed back.'
Alex's rhythm started to break.
It wasn't a sudden collapse, it was subtle, a fraction slower recovering from a parry, a fraction wider on a swing, his feet landing half a beat late, his balance always just a little behind where it needed to be.
He tried to commit to one bigger strike, maybe hoping brute force would compensate, and in doing so he overextended, his front foot slipping on the scuffed arena ground.
His torso tilted, his centre of gravity shifting too far, and for a brief, ugly moment, he looked weightless, off-balance, about to fall into Penny's blade.
Penny saw it instantly.
Her sword lifted, ready to punish the opening, her expression focused rather than gloating.
And then it happened.
A torrent of golden light burst out of Alex, not as a neat aura but as a sudden, overwhelming flare, flooding the arena in every direction, bright enough that Soren's eyes watered and he had to squint, his heart leaping out of pure reflex.
Conversations in the stands died.
Even other duels slowed, attention dragged toward the source of that impossible radiance.
[Divinity]
Alex's unique skill.
And, more importantly, the proof that the Hero had appeared.
For a heartbeat, the light was all there was, a warm, blinding wash that swallowed outlines and made the arena feel unreal, as though someone had painted the world in gold.
Then it receded, quickly enough that it almost felt anticlimactic.
When Soren's vision settled, Alex was standing in the centre of the arena, breathing hard, shoulders tense, his sword held low.
Penny was on the ground a short distance away.
Not injured in any gruesome way or sprawled dramatically, just… down, as though something had knocked her off her feet and she had hit the floor before she could react.
Soren blinked.
He hadn't seen what Alex did in that light, and judging by the expressions around him, neither had anyone else.
The spectators took half a second to process, and then the arena erupted into noise.
— Wait, what was that?
— Did you feel that pressure?
— Is that… is that the Goddess's power?
— It's the Hero!
— He's real!
Voices layered over each other, disbelief turning to excitement so quickly it almost seemed rehearsed, but it wasn't, it was the raw shock of prophecy stepping out of stories and into an academy arena.
Alex looked around with an awkward smile, and the small gesture made Soren's brain short-circuit with recognition because it matched, almost perfectly, the kind of protagonist embarrassment the game had always used to keep him relatable.
Alex scratched his cheek.
"Oops, ahaha."
The crowd loved it.
He seemed genuinely flustered by the attention, and he didn't bask, he didn't pose, he just offered that sheepish smile again, then hurried out of the arena as soon as the teaching assistant formally declared the duel over.
Everyone watched him leave with bright smiles and cheers, as though he had just walked off a stage.
Everyone except one.
Soren sat there, still, and waited for the delayed thrill to hit him.
It didn't.
'Is… that it?'
The thought came out flat, and it irritated him, because it felt ungrateful, it felt petty, but it was also honest.
In his memory, the awakening event had felt cooler.
In the game, the cutscene had been framed with better pacing and better drama, Alex fought with everything he had even knowing he was weaker, he was stubborn in a way that made you root for him, and when his body finally failed him and his weapon slipped, when he hit that moment of helplessness, his [Divinity] bloomed in this huge, cinematic surge that made the entire arena go silent before the students started shouting, realising the Hero of prophecy had actually appeared.
Here, in reality, Penny pressured him, Alex misstepped, light happened, duel ended.
That was… sensible, in a way, which made it feel smaller.
Soren exhaled through his nose, almost a laugh.
'…Maybe I expected too much.'
Alex was also Class F, after all.
Alex's stat sheet at the start of the game had been almost as bad as Soren's, everything sitting at 0.5, a weak body, low mana, nothing impressive to lean on.
The difference was that Alex had [Divinity], and the luck of a protagonist, and a story that would bend around him whether he wanted it to or not.
Soren had none of that; he didn't even count as an extra.
'It is a shame, though.'
He wanted to have that heart-thumping fanboy moment, the kind that made you message friends at two in the morning, the kind that made you write essays to express how you felt, instead he just felt vaguely underfed, as though he had been promised fireworks and received a sparkler that went out too fast.
He tore his attention away from Alex's empty arena and scanned the others, letting his disappointment settle into something calmer.
The first familiar face he found made his mouth twist.
Felix.
Felix stood in one of the arenas with that smug grin he wore as naturally as breathing, looking relaxed enough to be insulting, cloak hanging properly, posture loose, eyes bright with enjoyment rather than nerves.
His opponent, a spearman, was moving carefully, trying to find an opening.
Felix did not give him one.
The ground in front of Felix shifted in small, deliberate ways, patches of earth softening, then hardening again, shallow ridges forming where there hadn't been any, and each time the spearman tried to advance, his footing betrayed him, either sinking slightly or catching on uneven terrain.
He used [Gaia] like he was on a chessboard.
At the same time, thin shoots of greenery pushed up from the arena floor, harmless at first, almost decorative, then suddenly more purposeful, vines thickening, stems curling around ankles, low shrubs rising just enough to obscure movement, forcing the spearman to step wider, to waste time, to keep cutting at plants that weren't even attacking him so much as reminding him that Felix controlled the space.
[Bloom].
It was a simple spell in description, but oppressive in Felix's application.
Soren watched the spearman lunge, trying to commit to a single decisive push.
Felix shifted the ground again and the spearpoint went a fraction off-line, missing by inches, and in that same moment, a vine snapped up and wrapped around the spearman's forearm, tugging just enough to ruin his recovery.
Felix didn't rush in, he didn't trade blows, he didn't need to.
He just kept the opponent at the end of the arena, herded, stalled, pressured, as though he were politely refusing to let the duel end until he had enjoyed it enough.
'I was hoping he'd get beaten up a bit.'
Soren's gaze flicked over Felix's spotless clothes, his unscuffed boots, and the fact that his opponent looked more tired than injured.
"Has he even been hit?" Soren muttered under his breath.
Felix, unfortunately, did look impressive.
It was an irritating kind of competence, not a flashy one, but the kind that made you realise he wasn't coasting on talent alone, he had a style, a plan, and the patience to execute it without getting greedy.
'What an awful personality,' Soren thought, and then, grudgingly, '…and what a pain to fight.'
Before he could watch the duel to its conclusion, a sudden shift in the air drew his attention.
A dull, heavy impact sound rolled across the arena, followed by a brief tremor underfoot, not a literal earthquake, but enough that the stands vibrated faintly, enough that heads snapped around.
Soren turned.
His mouth fell slightly open.
In another arena stood a beastkin, silver hair catching the sunlight as though it had been polished, tail low and steady behind her, ears standing upright, posture calm in a way that didn't read as relaxed so much as predatory restraint.
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[Amelia Indras Einhardt]
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Race: Beastkin (Wolf)
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Rank 1 of Martial Studies.
Second princess of Einhardt.
One of the three main heroines.
Soren's brain supplied the titles automatically, as if reciting a character sheet, and yet seeing her in person made all of it feel inadequately small.
Amelia's opponent, Rank 2 of Martial Studies, looked strong, looked trained, their stance was solid, and their weapon ready.
It did not matter.
Amelia moved, and the duel stopped being a duel.
She closed the distance in a blink, not in a magical way, just in a sheer physical way that made Soren's eyes struggle to track her properly, and when she struck, it wasn't a flurry or a messy brawl, it was a single, clean, decisive blow that forced her opponent back, boots sliding, arms jolting from the impact.
The second exchange was worse.
Amelia shifted her weight, stepped in, and hit again, and the sound of it carried, a deep thud that spoke of strength far beyond what a first-year should reasonably have.
Her opponent tried to counter, tried to angle away, tried to regain space.
Amelia didn't chase wildly.
She simply cut off the space.
She was everywhere her opponent wanted to be, her movement economical, her control absolute, and within seconds the Rank 2 was driven into a corner of the arena, guard compromised, breath sharp, shoulders raised with the beginnings of panic.
Then Amelia ended it.
One last motion, faster than the eye wanted to admit, and her opponent hit the ground hard enough to kick up dust.
[Amelia Einhardt wins.]
Soren stared.
'It's wasn't even a fight.'
He had known she was strong, the game made that very clear, but the real thing hit differently, because there was no dramatic music, no cinematic angles, just a person who moved with such overwhelming certainty that it made everyone else look unfinished.
And then, inevitably, his gaze snagged on something else.
'She's pretty.'
It was annoyingly straightforward.
Long silver hair that fell neatly even after moving like that, neon-yellow eyes that made her look permanently alert, toned muscle on a slim frame, the kind of build that didn't try to be bulky, it just promised violence, the wolf ears that twitched subtly as she listened to the arena around her, and the tail, thick and fluffy, hanging down behind her almost to her ankles.
Soren's brain supplied an intrusive thought, soft and ridiculous compared to everything else.
'It looks so soft.'
He swallowed, then immediately felt annoyed with himself.
There was a part of him, small and pathetic, that began to lament that he wasn't the protagonist.
If it were only one heroine, it would be one thing, but Alex had three, and if the story played out even vaguely in the same direction, they would all be the same calibre, all fighting for his affection, all attached to him in a way Soren could only describe as unfair in the most childish sense of the word.
He let out an exaggerated sigh, because if he didn't frame it as a joke, it would sound too bitter.
"Sigh… It's unfair."
He had already told himself, repeatedly, that he didn't want to get involved in the protagonist's story, and he meant it, but meaning it didn't erase the momentary regret that came with being reminded what Alex's orbit looked like.
————「❤︎」————