The classes resumed as usual, and inside Class D, the teacher was taking attendance.
The list stopped at Lian.
"Lian."
No response.
"Lian."
Still nothing.
Just as the teacher was about to move on, the classroom door slid open.
"Present," Lian said as he walked in.
The teacher looked at him over her glasses and sighed.
"Wow. A rare sighting. I was starting to think you dropped out of the academy entirely without telling us."
A few students chuckled quietly as Lian took his seat like nothing happened.
"I'd never do something like that," Lian replied as he took his seat. "I'm a very diligent student."
Even the teacher, who usually kept a straight face through everything, let out a small laugh before continuing the attendance.
"Bella."
"Present," the girl sitting in front of his desk answered.
So her name's Bella.
Lian leaned back slightly.
Maybe I should stop referring to her as bear food… not gonna lie, the nickname low key sounds cool.
He rarely bothered remembering the names of people he didn't interact with. It was easier to give them nicknames instead, usually based on their personality or whatever use they had to him.
The rest of the classes passed by like usual until the lunch bell rang.
Some students immediately rushed out of the classroom while others stayed behind, chatting as they slowly packed their bags.
Lian got up from his seat and looked at the girl in front of his desk.
He walked over casually. "I'm heading to the cafeteria. Want to come with me?"
She paused for a few seconds like she was thinking something over.
"Well, I actually had pla..." She stopped midway and shook her head lightly. "Never mind. Let's go."
They headed to the cafeteria together.
Bella led him up to the first floor. "I know a good spot."
She took him to a corner near the large glass wall overlooking the campus. The view outside was surprisingly clear from up there, far from the noisy crowd below.
Lian sat down and glanced outside. "The view from here's actually great. Didn't even know this place existed."
"Yeah." Bella rested her chin on her hand. "I come here sometimes with my friends. Though getting an empty seat here is basically a miracle."
After a short pause, she looked at him again.
"Even this morning, I thought you were going to skip classes."
"You've built quite a reputation for yourself, you know."
Lian frowned. "Wait, really?" he said. "I never noticed."
"Though... I guess people were staring at me longer than usual today when I walked in late. I even caught a bunch of them whispering about something."
She shook her head. "No, that's a different thing entirely. People were talking because you ranked first in the class wise rankings in the recent camping trip."
Lian blinked. "Wait, really? I didn't even see the results."
Then he looked at her. "What rank did you get?"
Bella immediately looked away. "I don't really want to talk about it. You'd probably make fun of me."
Lian stayed quiet, waiting.
After hesitating for a moment, she finally spoke.
"I'm not as strong as you. My contribution was pretty low, so I ended up somewhere near the bottom of the class rankings."
"Oh." Lian leaned back in his seat. "It's not really that I'm stronger than you."
He looked outside through the glass for a second before continuing.
"I just have more willpower than you do."
"I know," Bella said quietly. "You're still only in the middle stage, but you still managed to take down a fox. Meanwhile, I'm at the peak stage and still struggled against a bear."
Lian burst out laughing.
"I wouldn't call that struggling," he said. "It looked more like you were just desperately trying to run away without fighting back."
Bella instantly froze.
Then she stepped on his foot under the table.
"So you saw that?" she said, clearly flustered. "That's seriously embarrassing. Just forget it ever happened."
Lian smirked. "No chance. I'm definitely remembering that one."
Bella narrowed her eyes and pinched his hand hard.
"OW, okay, okay," Lian hissed, pulling his hand back. "I won't bring it up again."
She let go of him and asked if he could train with her later during the physical education period.
Lian replied that maybe they could do it some other time since he was planning to skip classes after noon.
She smiled faintly. "You never change, do you?"
After finishing their meal, the two began heading out of the cafeteria.
Just then, a guy suddenly stopped in front of them. He looked at Bella first.
"Why didn't you wait for me?" he asked before glancing at Lian. "And who's this?"
Bella replied casually, "He's just a friend."
The guy frowned slightly. "Then how could you just ignore me like that?"
Bella shook her head. "No, it's not like that…"
The guy then placed a hand on Lian's shoulder and asked, "Is this guy bothering you?"
Lian stared at him for a second, his expression turning strange.
Damn… this is the most cliché setup ever.
This is the part where the main character says something like, "To anyone watching, it looks like you're the one bothering us." Then the other guy gets angry, challenges him to a duel and gets knocked out in one hit, and then the new girl gets added to the protagonist's harem collection.
…Or I could just act like a normal mature person and clear up the misunderstanding.
Lian looked at the guy again, trying to remember who he was.
A moment later, he sighed internally.
Nah. Guess I'll take the cliché route.
Lian glanced at Bella and noticed the uncomfortable look on her face.
A second later, he grabbed the guy's wrist and twisted it away from his shoulder.
"Can't you see you're the one bothering us?" Lian said flatly.
The guy clicked his tongue and pulled his hand back. "You're really damn annoying, you know that?"
Instead of replying, Lian looked at Bella. "Is he bothering you?"
Bella hesitated for a moment before quietly answering, "...Yeah. A little."
Lian thought inwardly. What do you mean "a little"? You really want this to turn into a fight, huh? She could've ended this instantly… but nope. Guess she wants to watch the drama unfold. Real sneaky, aren't you?
The guy's expression darkened immediately. "You wanna fight or something?"
Lian gave a small shrug, clearly not taking him seriously. "Then let's duel during PE this afternoon."
That only made the guy even more irritated.
"Yeah sure, if you're that eager to get your ass whooped," he said coldly.
Bella's eyes widened slightly. She quickly turned to Lian. "Just let it go. He's a Sequence-2, and his clan has a lot of influence."
Lian paused for a second.
Yeah, no shit. That's literally the reason I decided to fight him.
But on the outside, he simply looked at her and said with a reassuring smile,
"You think that's enough to scare me?"
They headed to the training arena that afternoon and registered for a duel.
The place was mostly empty that day, so they got access to the main combat ring, the proper arena setup instead of the usual practice zones.
They were both given the same bracelets.
The instructor explained the basic rules, how the bracelets would shatter once they absorbed a certain amount of damage, and warned them not to try to seriously harm each other. And some extra motivational shit like using failure as improvement instead of taking it as an insult.
Before they went to register for the duel, the guy walked up to Lian and stopped him.
"How about we make this more interesting?" he said. "The loser has to do one thing the winner asks."
Lian didn't even pause. "I was about to say the same thing."
He then added, "If you win, I won't talk to your crush ever again. And if I win, can you arrange me a meeting with one of your clan heads?"
The guy stared at Lian for a moment, clearly not expecting that condition at all.
Then he scoffed. "We'll see about that after you actually win. There's no way a Sequence 1 like you beats me. I'm already Sequence 2."
Lian didn't react much. He just gave a small nod.
"Alright. Bet."
--
And now, the duel had already started.
A small crowd gathered around the arena's edge, drawn in by the sudden match. Nothing too loud, but enough crowd to make it feel like something worth watching.
Bella stood among them too, eyes fixed on Lian as he stepped into the arena.
The crowd murmured among themselves, discussing the duel. Most agreed that a Sequence 1 had very little chance against a Sequence 2.
They were also curious about Lian, since he was ranked fairly high in the recent camp rankings. Many wanted to see how he planned to win.
To them, it looked like just another routine duel that happened often in the training grounds, since they didn't know about the clash between Lian and the other guy.
Lian stood still, eyes calm as always.
Across from him, his opponent couldn't hide his excitement, like he was already edging to teach Lian a lesson.
The air between them tightened as the crowd went quiet, waiting for the first move.