†††
“THIS is grueling.”
At night, I had training with Selena and Tiegel. And quite the merciless training it was. During the day, I had classes. I wasn’t getting nearly enough sleep, preventing me from fully restoring my physical and mental strength.
“Training at school, too?” I murmured.
“Today, we’ll be training through duels,” said the teacher.
The classes integrated a certain amount of sword training to ensure we could defend ourselves.
I was hoping to take a break to recover my strength before my training with Selena.
“Shall we begin, Prince Shaghad?”
“Of course, Ismail.”
Ismail always stepped up to be my sparring partner at times like these because he could tease and embarrass me.
A small amount of injury wouldn’t, and couldn’t, become an issue if inflicted during a spar. If it did become a problem, the injured person would be laughed at for causing a fuss over something so minor.
“Ready, begin!” called the teacher, and Ismail immediately stepped forward. His approach was swift. A normal student would be too slow to react and be flung backward.
“Heh, you blocked that?” he said.
If Selena hadn’t trained me, and I hadn’t spent every night fighting Tiegel, I wasn’t sure if I’d have been able to block that attack.
“You’re pretty uppity for a reject,” said Ismail.
Our upper body strength still wasn’t equal. If I kept blocking like this, I’d lose the contest of strength.
“Don’t block. Deflect. You won’t get anywhere using strength against an opponent stronger than you!”
Selana’s words echoed in my mind, and I did as they told me to, deflecting Ismail’s sword. He looked shocked when I did. He lost his balance and tipped forward when I deflected his attack, and I struck back, but despite his lack of balance, he flipped the trajectory of his blade and blocked my attack.
“Looks like you’ve gotten a bit better,” he said. “But you can’t win against me. I’m the one who will be king.”
“Ack.”
My blade bounced back, and Ismail’s next attack came.
I have to get my footing. Calm down, don’t panic.
“Agh!”
In the end, I lost that match when I was flung backward, though I wasn’t injured since I deflected rather than blocked Ismail’s attack.
The loss stung, but part of me was happy. It was visible proof that my work each night was bearing fruit.
“It seems my efforts are not in vain.”
Despite finishing the class’s training, Ismail hadn’t had his fill. I’d have preferred to preserve my strength for Selena’s training or even recover it if possible, but it wasn’t. Ismail and his gang captured me.
“Hey, reject.”
He obviously had a hard time swallowing our close fight earlier, but I realized by his next words that something else bothered him more:
“I thought I saw you getting friendly with Lady Selena earlier.”
Ismail had his eyes on Selena. She was a beauty, of course, but her pedigree was nothing to sniff at either. Her parents didn’t have much social weight since they weren’t actively engaged in the social sphere. Still, House Violette was engaged with a breadth of industries that gave them significant financial power, and the duke had strong connections outside Astra.
Selena was a necessary tool for improving his standing since Ismail had royal blood but wasn’t treated as royalty. She was a trophy to make himself look better.
Though, someone like Ismail couldn’t ever handle Selena, and I was sure her terrifying guard dog would never allow him near her, either. That attendant was on the lookout for any opportunity to close his jaws on my neck and kill me just because she was training me, after all.
“Lady Selena is a kind lady,” said Ismail. “She just feels sorry for a failure like you.”
“Exactly!” chimed one of his gang.
“We’re not even certain you have royal blood. You can’t handle a duke’s family,” said another.
Selena? Kind?
I couldn’t help but laugh since it was so off the mark.
“What’s so funny?” Ismail said, the furrow in his brow growing deeper.
“I was just thinking you’re acting like you know her so well even though she’s barely let you near her,” I said.
“Argh!” Ismail’s face went beet red when I hit that sore spot, and he raised his fist.
Oh look, he’s going to punch me, I thought as I watched his fist swing towards my cheek. It all seemed to move in slow motion, thanks to my nightly training.
The fist with all Ismail’s strength behind it must have made me cut something inside my mouth because a small amount of blood leaked out of my lips and nose. It hurt, but that was it. The attacks from Selena and Tiegel hurt far worse. They were seriously merciless.
I grabbed Ismail’s fist as he went to swing at me again. I decided I was only going to take one hit. Ismail was dumbfounded when I avoided his attack for the first time ever since I’d always just taken them.
“It’d be best if you didn’t treat royalty so lightly. Someone from a mere viscount’s family like you could lose their head for harming royalty like me,” I said.
“Pff. F-Father would never allow that.”
“That’s such an odd thing to say, Ismail. Are you claiming your father, who is not the king, has the authority to pardon someone from an execution?”
“He’s your father too.” He didn’t look very well. This was the first time ever he’d feared me.
“I couldn’t care less about a fool who went against the king and was removed from the line of succession,” I said.
“What?!”
And he probably didn’t think of me as his son, either. He abandoned me first. He tossed me aside because he didn’t need me, and now I’m simply returning the favor. There was no reason that logic wouldn’t hold.