Chapter 299: A Clean Fight

I stood in the arena sands once more as Feyt. And though I tried my best to appear as calm as possible, my heart was… speaking otherwise.

To put it simply, paranoia became my middle name.

Even though I managed to avoid drinking the water that volunteer gave me, who was to say that there wasn’t anything more to come?

I analyzed every single thing around both of my bodies as soon as the gate rose.

I weighed the sword I was given as Feyt, worried it might be tampered with. But it was neither too light nor too heavy; it felt normal. My gear didn’t seem to have signs of tampering as well.

I was also checking my surroundings as Carine, sandwiched between Lionne and Eve, for any signs of suspicious people.

However, so far, I had found nothing to be wary of. But there was still one more facet of the match that could be tampered with: my opponent.

Before me stood my opponent, and though I didn’t know him personally, I certainly knew him well enough. He was a fellow Sareid practitioner, one of the few students who joined our joint-training session the other day.

Surely he wasn’t an accomplice to whatever that volunteer student was involved in, right? I mean, he was a fellow practitioner of my house’s style.

Thankfully, when he took his spot on the sands, all he did was look at me with a warm smile and offer a friendly greeting.

“Let us do our best, Sir Feyt!”

I analyzed his tone and heartbeat with Feyt’s ears, and his body language with Carine’s eyes. All of them were, seemingly, normal. They were neither calm nor terrified, perhaps a little nervous, but that was only natural considering where he was standing.

His heart was certainly calmer than whatever rhythm that volunteer student had been making.

Hmm…

I’m not being too paranoid again, am I?

I shook my head and decided to just focus on the match for now. This time, I kept Carine’s eyes open, just in case.

“Three… Two… One… Begin!”

The match started, and we both charged forward.

Our swords met with a sharp strike, and from there, the fight’s rhythm slowly became familiar.

It reminded me of the countless sparring sessions I had back at the estate, where, thanks to Mother using me as a “showcase piece” for the students there, exchanges like these had become almost routine.

Strike, block, redirect, counter. There was nothing particularly unusual about it, except for the fact that it was happening on arena sands instead of a training mat.

My opponent was certainly better than most of the people I had sparred with back then, though. His movements were cleaner, and he rarely gave me the sort of openings that came from simple mistakes by rookies. Basically, I could tell why he made it past the first day.

But thanks to what I learned from Marina yesterday—not her arm-snapping plan—I managed to steer the fight in my favor faster than usual. And on top of that, I could see things from a near top-down angle as Carine, which led me to easily see what he was trying to do.

But I refrained from ending the match too quickly, just to analyze him some more.

I continued watching him carefully, but the longer we fought, the harder it became to justify my suspicion. His breathing was normal, his movements were clean, and his heartbeat sounded like nothing that suggested he was hiding something.

Eventually, I stopped looking for anything suspicious for a moment and just focused on the match itself.

We exchanged several more blows before I heard his muscles charging up for a strong attack meant to rattle me. But I knew that kind of attack would take time, so I managed to jump forward, followed a line I drew with Carine’s eyes for the perfect path, and caught him off guard, knocking his sword to the side.

The first round was mine.

“And that’s a disarmament! Beautiful showing by Feyt of Class A!”

The crowd responded with a wave of cheers and boos, the latter probably coming from bettors betting on my opponent.

I didn’t see or hear anything suspicious so far…

Is he truly clean then?

As I wondered what to think of my opponent, he suddenly took a step back and let out a chuckle.

“Wow, you’re even better than when I last sparred with you, Sir Feyt!” he said with a wide smile. He picked up his sword and returned to his spot. He turned to me with a confident glare. “But I improved quite a bit too! So don’t expect me to go down without fighting!”

For a moment, I simply stared at him.

Then I realized.

Yeah, maybe I really am worrying too much.

I had entered this tournament for several reasons, and one of them was to have fun improving myself. My fight with Marina proved to me that it was possible to find that in this arena. And I had plenty of interesting opponents waiting for me in my next few matches.

The student standing before me was no exception to my goal as well. He had proven he could keep up, and he wasn’t a slacker or a fraud like Reikos; he could genuinely be someone worth having fun fighting with.

And my paranoia had blinded me to that.

I tightened my grip around my sword and returned his confident smile with one of my own.

“Then bring it on.”

“The second round will start in three… two… one… Begin!”

As soon as the second round began, I closed Carine’s eyes and resorted to using Feyt’s ears to pay close attention to my opponent.

This time, he immediately rushed forward with a more aggressive series of attacks, forcing me onto the defensive.

I could still hear and deduce what he was planning just from his muscles, but he was pretty relentless, and I had to give ground while blocking and deflecting, biding my time.

I kept my ears focused on him as he pressed his advantage. He wasn't simply swinging harder; he was deliberately changing the pace of the fight, trying to keep me from reading his movements as easily as before.

For a while, it kinda worked.

That was until, amidst his fast, light attacks, I heard him once again charging up. His muscles contracted, and it told me what he was planning to do. Right after, perhaps, another light attack, he was going to quickly move into a heavy thrust, meant to catch me off guard.

Not happening, bud!

As soon as he launched a fast swing aimed at my side, instead of blocking or jumping back, I jumped forward. His eyes widened in surprise, but he couldn’t react in time.

My wooden blade struck his chest; the force was enough to push him off balance and make him fall onto the sand. His wooden sword fell to his side.

And just like that, the match was over.

I took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh of relief.

I opened Carine’s eyes to find that the crowd around me was cheering.

“Wow! Feyt really is strong, isn’t he?” Lionne muttered excitedly while clapping with the crowd. “I mean, he didn’t even flinch once while being attacked like that!”

“Indeed,” Eve nodded. “Considering who trained him, though, I’m not surprised,” she said calmly while looking at Carine.

“U-Uhm, actually, he was mostly trained by my mother, not me…” I had to clarify.

“Mmhmm,” Eve hummed softly.

I had a feeling she wasn’t buying my story.

But that was for another time. I turned to my opponent sitting on the sand and extended my hand.

“That was a good match!” I said as Feyt with a warm smile.

He looked up at my hand for a moment before taking it. I pulled him back onto his feet, and he dusted himself off before giving me another grin.

“Yeah. You got me good there! I hope we can spar more after this, Sir Feyt!”

“Me too,” I said, shaking his hand firmly. “Let’s spar again when we have the chance.”

And then we just stood there, our hands still firmly locked, our smiles still plastered on our faces.

Uhm… isn’t something supposed to happen?

Slowly, even the crowd grew awkward as their cheers slowly turned into confused murmurs.

The reason for our awkward silence and confusion?

The announcer… was silent.

Normally, he would’ve said something like, ‘Feyt of Class A won! Wow, he’s amazing!’ Or something like that, but… nothing came.

I finally let go of my opponent’s hand and turned both of my heads toward the announcer’s stand.

He was there, alright. But he wasn’t announcing anything.

Instead, he was leaning slightly toward a faculty member who was whispering something into his ear. He was significantly far away, and I couldn’t catch anything concrete even with Feyt’s ears.

The announcer’s expression gradually changed as he listened; his excitement slowly turned into a solemn expression.

What’s going on?

Then, almost suddenly, the faculty member took a step back and left the stage, with the announcer returning his attention to the artifact.

The crowd had grown almost completely silent by then.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer began, his voice noticeably more serious than before. “I’m sorry to inform you, but the verdict of this match has been temporarily postponed.”

“Postponed?!” I blurted out as Carine.

“But why?!” I blurted out as Feyt.

I would soon regret asking that question, though, as the announcer immediately revealed it.

“One of the contestants in this current match,” the announcer continued, “is believed to be using a prohibited performance-enhancing substance.”

…You gotta be kidding me.

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