Chapter 310: How

The roars and cheers of the crowds had long since died in the Royal Knight’s Arena.

With the second day’s matches officially drawn to a close, the sea of spectators began to pour out of the academy gates, with a thinning number staying around to chat. The various stalls along the cobblestone roads were beginning to pack up their wares and tools, with only a few still catering to the remaining, thinning number of guests.

The sun was beginning to set, and the soft green hue of the Luminite lanterns still hanging by some stalls began to coat the road leading to the academy gate. It was shaping up to be a quiet evening after a day full of tremors and shouts.

Then, the heavy clatter of steel against the cobblestone road tore through the chatter and quiet ambience.

Four fully armored Royal Knights marched in a tight formation, their polished armor reflecting the lantern light, as their swords were worn proudly while resting firmly in their sheaths by their waists.

Surrounded by the four of them, walking sluggishly with a frozen face, was Nicholas Nineid. His hands were held together with ropes made to be cuffs, and his uniform disheveled, the damp, dark stain of spilled tea still clinging to his trousers.

The crowd parted for the knights as they took up space on the road, marching wordlessly to the academy gates.

Guests from outside the academy turned their heads in curiosity, mumbling to themselves about what had happened and who was being dragged out. But among the crowd, to the few students still lingering near the stalls, some of them seemed to recognize Nicholas’s face, as they were either shocked or looked away.

As the knights and Nicholas continued to march, the academy gate began to appear before their eyes. Beyond it, a single, reinforced carriage with iron bars as a window waited.

It was a long, drawn-out walk. Nicholas felt as if he was being paraded before his execution, and the carriage before him, his guillotine.

But that thought remained only for a second, as his mind began to be occupied by the thought of one singular name.

A rough shove to Nicholas’s back sent him stumbling into the carriage. He nearly tripped, but his sluggish steps managed to find their balance, and he sat down on one of the hard, solid, uncushioned seats of the carriage.

Two of the knights climbed in with him, one taking the seat before him, another beside him. The carriage shuddered with their weight before it finally settled. The remaining two knights remained outside.

The knight beside him reached forward and slammed the carriage door shut. Then, the one before him knocked on the wall behind her and called out to the coachman in a stern voice.

“We’re ready.”

The carriage rattled to life as it began to roll forward.

Despite how uncomfortable the seat was and how unstable it felt compared to his usual carriages, Nicholas couldn’t find it in himself to complain. Instead, he remained silent and began to lean back, turning his eyes to the slight glimpse of the evening sky through the iron bars by the door.

It was over.

His entire life was over.

That was a fact Nicholas had already accepted.

There was no way to turn this around. No person to bribe. No scapegoat to blame. His life as an academy student meant for the Honors class had ceased to exist the moment those guards dragged him to Director Aella’s office.

The Nineid family was bound to come under investigation. Their ties to the underground market would inevitably be exposed, and the consequences would extend far beyond Nicholas himself. As for his mother, though a part of him still hoped she might come to his aid, common sense told him that she would have little choice but to disown him.

And now, with the carriage bound for the Royal Prison garrison, he had been informed that the Duke and Duchess of Sareid were headed there as well, intending to interrogate him personally.

Yet none of that was what truly weighed on him.

His dread, his hopelessness—none of it stemmed from the future that awaited him.

It all lay in what had unfolded only hours ago, more specifically, in one person, and one person only.

Carine Sareid.

How did she do it?

That question had been repeating inside his mind countless times since he left the director’s office.

During that brief, humiliating interrogation, Director Aella didn’t hold back any detail. She told him everything about how Carine dismantled his plan. Every step she took, every discovery she made, and each and every single one was more absurd than the last.

At first, Nicholas had laughed it off, then it turned to shouting, demanding the director explain herself, asking her to repeat what she had just said. Until his voice finally gave out, when he realized the director wasn’t making fun of him.

Before the knights dragged him away, the director offered him one final remark.

“You really chose the wrong person to play with. She outsmarted you every turn, you know?”

Nicholas could still hear her voice inside his head.

How casually she had said it. How easily she had reduced everything to a simple matter of intelligence, as though he had merely misjudged an opponent… as though he had lost a mere game of wit.

What a fool.

This wasn’t just a battle of wit. She didn’t just outsmart him. It was utterly impossible. The tales Director Aella told of Carine’s feats were strictly impossible.

How had Carine known that the letter was a sure forgery from the moment she held it?

And even if she had suspected something, why would she have been so sure it was a forgery? Why use the letter as evidence without first investigating it? Why not verify her suspicions, gather more information, make certain she understood what she was dealing with?

But that could be explained as a calculated gamble on her part.

But the next step she took… nothing could explain that.

According to Director Aella, Carine had sensed something amiss with Feyt and sent her maid to fetch a wooden container, one purchased specifically to smuggle the tampered water out of the prep room without alerting the volunteer student there.

…How?

He had not disclosed the sabotage method to anyone until the morning of the match. Even then, the volunteer had learned that water would be involved only moments before the match began.

There had been no opportunity for Carine to learn of it. No reasonable way for her to discover what he had planned, let alone anticipate the exact method it would be carried out in.

Even if Carine never left the arena, she was seated high up in the spectator stands. She would be completely cut off from the corridors beneath, a long way from the prep room.

Yet somehow, she knew the volunteer would use water and instructed her maid to bring a wooden container to help Feyt.

How?

HOW?!

Could she see through walls?

Could she hear voices from anywhere?

His breathing grew shallow.

There had to be a reason. Some way, some Talent, or some method Carine had that allowed her to predict such things with extreme precision…

But then, Feyt entered the scene.

According to Director Aella, Carine had been in the Northern Office, cornering the volunteer with her questions. Yet when the volunteer let slip that Nina was heading for Feyt's dormitory, Carine had revealed that Feyt was already on his way there to intercept her.

He wasn’t ever summoned to be informed of the task, nor was he ever informed of who to look for. Yet he managed to find her and bring her in, ready to spill it all.

How did that happen?

How did she know of Feyt’s actions?

How did Feyt know who to look for?

How did he even know they would be looking for her?

How and how and HOW?!

It was maddening to think about.

It was as if the law of cause and effect had ceased to exist. Carine had acted upon things that wouldn’t have been revealed to her yet. Investigations and revelations were done without any reason for them to even happen in the first place.

And every time Nicholas tried to make sense of it all, he began to lose his grip on reality instead.

He always thought he was one step ahead of others. Now, he couldn’t even determine how many steps Carine was ahead of him.

One step ahead?

A hundred?

A million?

It was impossible to think about, because every time he tried to imagine himself in her shoes and how he would react… the only reasonable explanation that came to his mind was that she knew of everything and anything all at once.

On top of that, and the most unbearable part… was the fact that she had not made a single mistake.

Every decision she had made, every road she took, all of them led her and her attendant to him, culminating in that moment when the guard knocked on his dorm room door.

He wanted to stop thinking about her. He truly wished he could. But no matter what, he couldn’t.

He wanted to believe there was a reasonable answer to all of this. Because if there wasn’t, as it was right now, then that would mean Carine Sareid could truly act as if knowledge itself held no meaning.

For the first time in his life, Nicholas found himself wishing he were stupid.

A stupid man could accept what had happened. A stupid man could call it bad luck, curse his misfortune, and move on. A stupid man could’ve even plotted his revenge from beyond the iron bars, were he arrogant enough.

But he knew too much. His mind had cursed him with the knowledge that he had met someone utterly incomprehensible.

“Haha…” A faint chuckle escaped his lips.

“Hahahaha…” Then another.

He couldn’t hold back a laugh. It was the only way his body could react to Carine. An anomaly, a joke against the world.

“Ahahahahahaha!!!”

The knight seated across from him stared in silence before slowly shaking her head.

“Madman…” she muttered.