Apparently, none of the students had even noticed I had cast a spell at the beginning of the match. Even Tida looked totally baffled, despite the fact that he was standing right next to me.
“You might wanna pay more attention to your surroundings during a fight,” I said.
As soon as I deactivated my spell, we could hear the cheers coming from the crowd. I’d used a Wind magic spell to block out the crowd so they couldn’t warn the students that I had been sneaking up behind them. I’d also used Wind spells to deflect theirs and kick up even more dust during the battle.
Once the students realized what had happened beyond what Jean had explained, their hostile stares suddenly became looks of respect.
“Oh, and just so we’re clear, the one who screwed up the most today was you, Tida,” I said in a tone only loud enough for him to hear.
The poor kid looked like he was about to cry. However, Tida should’ve made a battle plan ahead of time and gotten his team on the same page. Or he should have stepped in to calm them down when they started falling for my taunts, at the very least. At the end of the day, he was the team leader, and when a team goes down this hard, the blame falls squarely on the captain.
“There’s a good chance you’ll be leading knights into battle someday, Tida. It might be a good idea to talk to the king, Prince Caesar, and Prince Lyle about what happened here and get some advice from them,” I suggested.
The king and Prince Caesar had probably spent a lot of time thinking about battlefield strategy and command back in their academy days. Lyle might’ve actually led some troops himself too. I figured that Tida could learn something useful from them.
As I let go of him, I tousled his hair roughly. He quickly swatted my hand away, flushing with embarrassment.
“Tida! Tenma! Come over here so we can wrap this up!”
It seemed that Jean had finished his lecture—now, we were the only ones holding things up.
We hurried over, and I was once again formally declared the winner. I shook the students’ hands and headed back to the private room that had been set aside for me. Queen Maria and Prince Caesar were waiting out front, and both of them looked pretty pleased. It seemed like they were happy I’d managed to win without injuring anyone. And they even thanked me for something else entirely.
“The party’s been postponed for a bit. I’m sure you’re not tired, but just stay here and relax for now. You’ll probably get swarmed by students and staff if you head out immediately,” Prince Caesar said.
“That’s right. The relatives who were already in the room are one thing, but now, students and guests from other areas are probably heading your way to try to talk to you. As for Master Merlin, the king is entertaining him now. There’s no need to worry about him,” Queen Maria said.
I had wondered where the king was, so that answered that question. I knew that Gramps wanted to come be by me, but if he left where he was, a bunch of people would follow, so he was reluctantly staying put. The reason the king was with him was that Gramps tended to be a bit formal around the queen and Prince Caesar. He’d feel more relaxed with the king since he had been his tutor back in the day. Strangely enough, even the queen and the prince admitted they still got a bit nervous talking to Gramps...
Anyway, the king had been left behind as a decoy to keep the rubberneckers away, leaving the queen and Prince Caesar free to come check on me. They would be heading to see Tida and the others after this. But first, since they were the ones who’d basically strong-armed me into doing the match, they’d come to thank me and to apologize on behalf of the royal family.
Although the match might’ve been actually proposed by the nobles who belonged to the reformist faction, Prince Caesar had been the one who’d made the request of me. That meant, politically speaking, that the reformists had handed him a favor—or that was how the royalist and neutral factions would see it, anyway. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if some of the reformists saw it that way in the end too.
“Well, we can’t just sit back after getting played like that,” he said.
“It isn’t enough to just get a little payback. We’ll just have to use this as our chance to chip away at the reformists’ influence just a little more, won’t we?” the queen suggested.
Prince Caesar and Queen Maria were wearing identical wicked grins. There was no doubt about it—Prince Caesar definitely took after her and not the king.
“Well, anyway, just let us handle that, Tenma. Don’t worry about any of it and just take it easy for now. We’ll send a guard to come get you once it’s time for the party.”
And with that, the two of them headed back to their room.
“Take it easy, huh? It’s not like I have anything else to do...”
But I guessed it was better to be bored than get swarmed by a bunch of students and their families. Still, I was starting to regret not bringing something to pass the time.
Rocket and the others were holding down the fort back at the house. Thunderbolt hated being stuck inside the dimension bag, so he’d gone to sleep the second we had arrived at the academy. The only other thing I had inside my bag was the carriage, and there wasn’t enough room in here to take that out.
I also had a magic bag that I had received from the gods. It was strapped to my arm like a bracelet. It was invisible, but it was still there. However, that one just contained weapons and emergency rations. There was nothing inside that I could use to entertain myself.
“If someone realizes I’m carrying weapons, it could cause trouble for Prince Caesar and the others...”
But thanks to Detection, it wasn’t likely anyone could come and spy on me unnoticed. Still, taking fewer risks was always better than taking more.
Since I figured I wouldn’t be doing anything too exciting here, I thought I might as well just kill some time enjoying some snacks. But just as I started setting them out, I sensed someone approaching. At first, I thought it was the guard coming to get me, but the way they were attempting to conceal their presence made me suspicious. One quick use of Identify confirmed who it was, however, and I decided to wait by the door to ambush them since I figured it might be a fun distraction.
“This should be the room, I think...” Luna slipped into the room quietly and looked around. “Huh?”
“Boo!” I suddenly jumped towards her from behind.
“Aaaaah!” She shrieked louder than I’d expected. “H-Ha ha... Seriously, don’t scare me like that!” she protested.
She then spotted the snacks I’d been setting up and took a seat.
“Are you sure you should be in here?” I asked.
“It’s fine. Before your match, I had to stay with Mother at work all morning!”