'Speaking of heroines…'
Soren scanned the arena, searching for a specific person, and it didn't take long.
'There she is.'
In another ring, a short, somewhat chubby girl with hazel eyes and brown hair was moving in frantic bursts, her steps quick but unsteady, sweat already visible at her temples, expression tight with concentration and strain.
.
[Olivia]
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Race: Human
.
'I feel sorry for her.'
Olivia was Alex's childhood friend, and also one of the main heroines, but unlike Amelia, she wasn't built to overwhelm anyone in a direct fight.
She was a priestess.
Her opponent pressed forward cautiously, clearly aware she wasn't dangerous in the usual sense, but also clearly aware that priests had tricks, and Olivia responded by doing the only thing she could do without throwing herself into a losing trade.
She ran.
Not mindlessly, but desperately, trying to keep distance, turning sharply whenever the opponent tried to corner her, occasionally lifting her hands to chant something small and defensive, a faint shimmer that looked more like a comfort than a wall, something that bought her a second rather than changed the fight.
Her breathing was hard, her movements beginning to lose crispness, and Soren could see the calculation behind her eyes, the hope that if she lasted long enough, if she just kept moving, maybe her opponent would get impatient, maybe stamina would do what offence could not.
It wasn't heroic; it was just pure survival.
Soren watched her almost trip on a tight turn, recover, and keep going anyway, and the feeling in his chest shifted into something quietly sympathetic.
After seeing two out of three heroines in the flesh, a question that had always been abstract and distant to him suddenly felt oddly real.
'I wonder who he'll choose.'
Back when Ivansia had been a part of the game, romance hadn't existed, not properly, not in any way that changed the plot.
Here, though, the world didn't have patch notes, and it didn't have writers keeping people on rails.
If the heroines fell for Alex here too, it was highly likely they would act on it, eventually.
'It would be stupider to expect them to stay silent forever.'
Crushes didn't vanish because a story needed them quiet, and Soren had already seen, through Lilliana alone, how differently people could behave when they were real rather than scripted.
He closed his eyes briefly, thinking.
'I remember there being so many arguments about who would win… Personally, I was always team Olivia.'
Not because Olivia was his favourite heroine, she wasn't, that spot belonged to Crusch, the third and final main heroine, but Olivia had the childhood friend advantage, the history, and the intimacy that the others couldn't replicate.
Back before demons invaded their village, Olivia had been bullied frequently for her weight, and Alex was the one who stood up for her, the one who took hits and insults on her behalf, and after that they were inseparable, so close that when Alex announced he would apply to Stellaris Academy, Olivia had declared she would too, refusing to be left behind.
In Soren's eyes, it felt wrong for Alex to end up with anyone other than Olivia after that kind of long, stubborn loyalty.
Then his brain offered a practical counterpoint, because the world was not his preferences.
'Well, he could always pick all three… polyamory is legal here…'
The thought sat there, blunt and factual, part of this world's social fabric.
Soren didn't like the idea personally, he was a fan of pure-love stories, the kind with one person chosen, one person treasured, but curiosity still tugged at him, because legality meant it wasn't some niche scandal, it was a genuine possibility, and he wondered what that would look like when it wasn't a trope on a screen.
Would it be equal, or messy, or negotiated with contracts and family expectations?
Would it be romantic, or political, or both?
'…I wonder what Crusch is up to right now?'
His mind slid naturally to his favourite heroine, Crusch Fialova, the third princess of Fialova.
Born to a concubine, no legitimate right to the throne, and yet her siblings still treated her as a threat, isolating her in the palace anyway, paranoia eating their good sense, leaving her with no allies until she fled to Stellaris Academy the moment she was old enough.
'That's not until next year though.'
By the time Crusch enrolled, Alex would already have started making a name for himself as a second-year, which was why she got involved with him in the first place, using the Hero's proximity as protection.
Soren felt a small, private disappointment that he likely wouldn't even get to speak to her properly, not if he kept his distance from the protagonist's story the way he intended.
Then the teaching assistant's voice cut across the arena again, sharp enough to snap him out of his thoughts.
[Rank 96 and 83 of Arcane Studies, please come down to the arena.]
At the sound of his rank, Soren's body moved before his mind finished adjusting, he stood, stretched his shoulders once, and started down toward the arena with a calmer face than he expected.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
Thanks to the previous duel, Soren had gained a little confidence in his abilities, but the forest had carved caution into him too deeply to ignore, and he didn't intend to treat that confidence as permission to relax.
.
▶ Main Quest: First Steps (1) ◀
[Details: Win all three duels.]
[Difficulty: C]
.
The difficulty still read C.
It would have been comforting if it had dropped after his first win, but it hadn't, which meant the quest wasn't grading him on whether Doron was pathetic, it was grading him on what came next.
Soren stepped into the arena and let his gaze settle on his opponent.
Eugene stood quietly, posture composed, eyes focused, not performing for the crowd, not trying to provoke, and that alone made Soren feel more alert.
This one wasn't here to posture.
[Mock duel between Soren Arden and Eugene begins.]
Unlike Doron, Eugene didn't speak.
He watched.
He held a defensive stance for a moment, as though measuring Soren's habits, then, when Soren didn't rush in, Eugene made the sensible choice and took the initiative.
His hand rose, palm angled, and a magic circle formed with clean, practiced lines, bright yellow and stable, the kind that didn't wobble or blur at the edges.
Soren's breath slowed automatically.
He didn't panic, but he didn't dismiss it either.
Eugene spoke the spell name clearly, not loudly, just with certainty.
"「Shock」"
A bolt of electricity snapped forward.
Soren moved before it reached him, shifting left with a sharp step, cloak fluttering, and the lightning struck the ground where he had been, leaving a scorched mark in the arena floor and a faint smell in the air that made Soren's skin prickle.
His stomach dipped.
Not because he had almost been hit, he had dodged in time, but because the spell had looked wrong.
Not in form, the spell was basic tier, he knew it, he had memorised it, he could recite its expected strength at each rank in his sleep, but Eugene's casting had carried weight, speed, and control that didn't match what a lower-ranked first-year should be throwing around.
'What the hell is that proficiency?'
People in this world didn't have status windows.
They didn't get neat numerical confirmation of growth, but Soren did.
[Library of Memories] also meant he carried the game's information like a reference book in his skull.
He had memorised the strength of each skill at each individual rank.
And that spell…
'That was at least C+.'
He kept his face neutral, because showing surprise would only invite pressure, but inside he adjusted his expectations quickly, the way you did when you realised an enemy had teeth.
Eugene didn't overextend after the first cast.
He held position, eyes tracking Soren, then began forming another magic circle, steady and bright, no trembling, no wasted motion.
Soren watched the circle, watched Eugene's fingers, watched the angle of his wrist.
The cast time was a fraction longer than the first, which meant Eugene was either charging more power or preparing something that demanded more structure.
Soren stayed mobile, shifting his weight, not committing to a direct approach yet, because rushing into unknown timing was how you got punished.
The second bolt came, and Soren avoided it again, but this time the lightning grazed close enough that heat licked his sleeve, a warning kiss that made his pulse spike.
He felt sweat gather between his shoulder blades.
If Eugene landed a clean hit, it would not be a gentle lesson.
'I need to get this over with.'
Passive observation had served him against Doron, but against Eugene it would turn into a slow loss, one bolt at a time, until his body slipped or his stamina gave out.
Eugene noticed the shift in Soren's posture.
He didn't fire immediately.
He held his spell, waiting, eyes narrowing slightly, and that told Soren everything he needed to know about how seriously Eugene was taking this too.
Soren took one step forward, then another, controlled, deliberate, testing the response.
Eugene's gaze sharpened, lightning still ready.
Soren didn't stop.
He broke into a sprint.
It wasn't reckless.
It was a calculated gamble, chosen because distance was Eugene's advantage, and because Soren knew, from experience he didn't want to think about too long, that the safest place from a spell was often inside the caster's rhythm, too close for comfort, too close for clean casting.
Eugene's eyes widened, not in cartoonish panic, but in genuine surprise at the sight of a mage charging him with bare physical commitment, and that half-beat of hesitation was all Soren needed.
As he ran, Soren formed a magic circle in his hand.
The lines weren't as clean as Eugene's, and he knew it, his proficiency wasn't impressive, but his circle held, perfectly stable, and he kept it like that through motion, through pounding footsteps, and through the way his expanded and contracted.
It was all because of [Concentration].
Eugene reacted quickly after the initial surprise.
He released the lightning.
Soren twisted his torso as he ran, letting the bolt cut past him rather than through him, and felt the heat in the air as it missed by inches.
Then Eugene spoke again, and this time the spell name made Soren's attention narrow.
"「Shield」"
A transparent grey barrier snapped into place around Eugene, a simple defensive spell.
Soren saw the structure, the thickness, the way it shimmered.
It looked thin.
Eugene immediately started casting again behind it, trying to buy time, trying to rebuild distance through offence.
Soren didn't allow it.
He reached the barrier with his arm pulled back, fist clenched, ready to smash into the veil and follow through with sheer momentum.
At the last second, he spoke, voice low, and the circle in his hand flared.
"「Ignition」"
Flame surged forward.
Not a grand inferno, not anything elegant, but a harsh, fast burst that slammed into the shield with sudden pressure, heat blooming outward, air warping for a fraction of a second.
The barrier gave way far too easily.
It didn't shatter dramatically; it simply collapsed, the structure failing under stress, and Soren felt a brief, cold certainty about why.
Eugene's [Shield] proficiency was nowhere near his [Shock].
That imbalance mattered.
Soren's fist followed through the moment the barrier fell, connecting with Eugene's face, clean enough to snap his head back and stagger him.
Eugene stumbled, eyes wide now, not with fear exactly, but with the shock of being hit by something he hadn't believed possible.
"H-how did you do that?" Eugene blurted, breath uneven. "That doesn't even make sense."
Soren kept his expression steady.
He didn't sneer, and he didn't gloat, because Eugene hadn't disrespected him, and because Soren didn't want to invite the kind of attention that came with theatrics.
"Who knows?" he replied, and the faint smile he gave was more reflex than cruelty.
He raised his foot and brought it down into Eugene's stomach with controlled force, enough to end the duel without dragging it into something uglier.
Eugene gasped, folded, and the teaching assistant's voice came swiftly.
[Soren Arden wins.]
Soren stepped back, then turned to leave the arena, breathing hard but not ragged, adrenaline humming under his skin, mind already recalculating what Eugene's proficiency meant, what it implied about the academy, about hidden talent, about how many people could be stronger than their rank suggested.
He did not look up at the stands.
He did not notice the angle of someone's gaze, the slow, assessing attention that had settled on him with interest sharpened into something hungry.
Soren left the arena utterly unaware that he had already caught the eye of a predator…
————「❤︎」————