All of Yui’s resistance was ultimately in vain. Berg brought her to where the other students were gathered.
“Listen up, all of you. Watch over Curtis. You’d better not let her get away!” Berg said to her friends. Then he left.
Even that wasn’t enough to discourage Yui. As soon as Berg disappeared from view, she tried to slip away. However, Ivo faithfully heeded Berg’s words, and he captured her before she could escape.
“Ivo, let go of me,” Yui said.
“If I do, you’ll just go off somewhere!”
“Of course.” She looked at him as if to say, “What’s so bad about that?”
“I wish I could let you go, but not today,” Lyle said. “We have the group matches, and it’ll be a real pain if you skip out on us, you know?” He was usually lenient on Yui, but this time was different. That was no wonder—today was the day of the mock battles. If someone was gone, their team would be at a numerical disadvantage, and all the more so if it was Yui, who was the strongest one in their group.
“You have Ivo, don’t you?” Yui said. “You’ll be okay if I’m gone.”
“We would wipe the floor with anyone from our year, but there’s also a match against upperclassmen today. Even with Ivo in our group, there’ll be more of them, and we can’t afford to underestimate their strength. I want this to be as sure a thing as possible, okay?”
“Give up and participate,” Ivo chimed in.
Despite her friends’ efforts, Yui had absolutely no desire to take part in the matches. She was still biding her time and waiting for her chance to escape.
With Yui liable to run away at a moment’s notice, Finney saw that it was his time to act. “How about this: if you participate while the observers are here, I’ll give you something nice.”
“Something nice? Like what?” Yui asked, intrigued.
Finney showed her a pouch, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Inside were several wrapped bite-size pieces of candy. “These are limited-edition chocolates from a chocolatier that’s a purveyor to the royal household. They only sell ten a week. Do you want them?”
“I do!” As soon as Yui heard what they were, her eyes lit up. Finney was referring to a famous specialty chocolate shop in the royal capital. The legendary chocolate he held in his hand used rare ingredients, so only ten pieces were sold each week. Yui had once tried lining up to buy the chocolate, but she had given up when she’d learned that the people in line had been there since the moment the previous week’s chocolate had sold out. She did wonder if Finney had lined up for an entire week, but that wasn’t important right now.
“So you’ll participate while the observers are here?” Finney said.
“Yeah, I will!” Yui instantly replied.
Lyle and Ivo both sighed, irritated by all the time they had just wasted arguing.
Meanwhile, Clois had his eyes locked squarely on Yui’s reward, and he muttered, “Maybe I should throw a tantrum about participating too...”
“You aren’t cute when you whine, Clo,” Lyle said.
“Yui, give one to Clois. If you don’t, he might try to run away too,” Ivo said wearily. Clois’s eyes sparkled in the exact same way Yui’s had just moments earlier.