Chapter 42: Team Tournament

Chapter 42: Chapter 42: Team Tournament

The brief holiday passed, returning the boiling atmosphere to St. Aetherwing Academy as the team tournament between the five major faculties officially opened.

Compared to the spontaneous individual combat matches, the scale and intensity level of the team tournament were pushed to a completely different height, forcing the academy council to dedicate their full effort to supervision.

Eighty elite teams gathered from the five great faculties would step into a meat grinder named "knockout." The losers would immediately pack their bags, with no chance to do it over.

This time, the entire arena was standardized to a single coordinate: Starfield Arena. The competition schedule was clearly separated into the first half and the second half, completely eliminating the situation of simultaneous battles causing visual interference.

The matrix system would randomly draw twenty teams each day, dividing them into ten 1-on-1 deathmatch pairs. Five matches in the morning half, five matches in the afternoon half. With this ruthless slaughtering pace, the eighty arrogant teams would only take a mere four days to have their numbers slashed in half.

Jeremy’s team arrived at the grandstand area very early. However, the wheel of fate tossed their drawn lot to the first half of the second competition day. Originally, the whole group had intended to turn on their heels and go back to catch some sleep, but that jellyfish-headed instructor Griffin suddenly appeared, using his coercive authority to force the entire team to stay rooted to the spot to "study the opponents." With no way to resist, the five youths had to squeeze through the noisy sea of people, choosing the most secluded and shaded corner of the grandstand to drop themselves into the seats.

The countdown clock on the crystal screen only had a few minutes left. Jeremy leaned back in his chair, crossing his long, perfectly straight legs, his phoenix eyes nonchalantly sweeping over the crowd. He completely ignored the bustling surroundings, until a streak of black mixed with pastel pink cut across his line of sight, blocking right in front of him.

"Jeremy Valmont. Rumor has it you beat that guy Amber to the point of being half-dead and crippled, huh?" A clear voice, carrying undisguised curiosity, rang out.

Jeremy slightly lifted his eyelids. Standing dwarfed in front of his one-meter-seventy-five physique was a short-statured girl; the top of her head ultimately only managed to reach his chest, roughly around one meter fifty-five. She was draped in a finely tailored uniform featuring the pitch-black and pastel pink two-tone signature of the Linnea faculty. Her brilliant pink hair was tied into two bouncy pigtails, the curled ends cascading loosely all the way down to her thighs.

The girl’s facial features were as exquisite as an expensive porcelain doll, her lips carrying a soft peach blossom hue, looking petulant. The most attractive feature was her heterochromatic pupils - one side pink-blue, the other deep purple - sparkling and sharp exactly like two gemstones soaked in water.

Right on the top of her head, a silly ahoge in the shape of a half-heart perked up, inadvertently neutralizing the sharpness and adding a few degrees of adorableness.

Jeremy’s mechanical brain immediately extracted identity data. This girl was absolutely not an ordinary sort. Lomita Bellagren — the sole precious pearl of the Bellagren Duke family, the supreme military power guarding the empire’s entire southern boundary.

Rummaging back through the original owner’s barren memories, Jeremy affirmed that between him and this eldest young miss, they were completely two parallel lines. From the age of six until adulthood, they had never wasted half a drop of saliva to communicate. During royal banquets or the years wearing out their trousers at the Imperial Primary Academy, Lomita always walked past the original owner as if looking at a gust of air. As for the original owner, someone living a closed-off and gloomy life, he naturally didn’t have the spare energy to care about a snobbish young miss beyond remembering her name.

Furthermore, within the content of the trashy novel he had read in his previous life, the name Lomita was so faint that it had never appeared. However, utilizing the logical thinking of an experienced person, Jeremy understood full well: Characters who suddenly proactively approached someone bearing the reputation of a wicked young master like him, nine times out of ten came to cause trouble.

Jeremy maintained his leisurely posture, resting his elbow on the chair’s armrest, his long, slender fingers with sharp joints supporting one corner of his jaw. He tilted his head slightly, his phoenix eyes looking down nonchalantly, his deep, cold voice ringing out unhurriedly: "That is correct. I went a bit light, almost directly sending him back to meet the Deities."

Having spoken, his sharp gaze swept over every micro-reaction of Lomita. He saw the girl in front of him suddenly bow her head, her small hands hidden in her sleeves clenching into fists to the point of trembling.

The tail of Jeremy’s eyebrow twitched upward slightly. Could it be... this young miss bearing an exquisite appearance was blind, accidentally infatuated with that stupid Crown Prince Amber? And now she ran here intending to exact a blood debt on behalf of her lover?

"What?" The corner of Jeremy’s lips curled into a smile full of sarcasm, a faint murderous intent radiating: "Are you planning to draw your weapon to help him get revenge?"

That cold question was no different from a torch thrown straight into a powder keg. Lomita snapped her head up in astonishment. The excitement and schadenfreude she was exerting all her strength to suppress at the bottom of her eyes instantly vanished cleanly, replaced by an extreme disgust, exactly as if she had just heard the most absurd thing in the world.

"Is your brain waterlogged?!" She raised her voice, her heterochromatic eyes flashing a streak of disdain: "What the hell does that piece of trash count for? On what basis should this young miss go seek revenge for a brainless guy like him?!"

On Lomita’s exquisite, doll-like face, there absolutely existed not half a hint of pity, but only overflowed with genuine repulsion and disgust when the name Amber was associated with her.

Jeremy’s brain churned. Since she didn’t come here to seek justice for Amber, and had absolutely no foundation of friendship with him either, then for what reason did this noble young miss take the trouble to wade through the sea of people to head straight for this secluded corner?

A rare curiosity arose. Jeremy adjusted his posture, his long legs relaxing, his gaze assessing the other party once more: "If that’s the case... what did you take the trouble to come all the way here to find me for?"

"Hmph." Lomita tossed her pigtails, decisively pulling the empty chair right on Jeremy’s right side close and plopping down. She crossed her arms over her chest, raising her chin arrogantly: "Stop being so narcissistic, young master Valmont. I completely have no elegant interest in coming here to find you. It’s just... the arena observation spot that I fancy happens to be right here."

"Is that so? Coincidental to the point of being touching." Jeremy dragged out his ending syllable, his eyes full of implication sweeping past Lomita’s shoulder, shooting straight toward a hidden corner far away. Over there, a young girl was shrinking behind a stone pillar, stealthily poking her head out to peek in this direction with an extremely tense expression.

In the empire’s closed upper-class world, those standing at the peak of the power pyramid like Dukes or Marquises often had their own cultivation rules. They would select peers originating from lower families to serve as companions, growing up together with their heirs. Whether going to school or participating in social activities, these friends always stood side by side.

Looking at the insignia on the shirt of the girl timidly hiding in the corner over there, Jeremy easily recognized that it was precisely Miss Lomita’s exclusive lady-in-waiting.

A glaring truth: If the eldest young miss here was merely coincidentally passing by to pick a seat, then why the hell would she throw her lady-in-waiting way out far to stand spying, sneaking around like a thief?

Feeling the four sharp, cold gazes of his male teammates sitting around pinning onto his body, Jeremy only gave a slight, utterly innocent shrug. He smirked, pretending that he himself was completely clueless regarding this girl’s incomprehensible script.

Having settled in for less than two minutes, Lomita began to squirm restlessly. She muttered in her mouth with a volume just loud enough for the person beside her to hear: "I truly don’t understand what good points that empty barrel making loud noise Amber has, that made you endure and entangle with him for so long."

The pink pigtails quivered slightly. Lomita twisted her body slightly, carrying a bit of embarrassment along with extreme curiosity, the corner of her eyes sneaking a glance at Jeremy’s angular, masculine side profile: "Hey... Are the rumors out there true? Did you really bluntly discard the trashy marriage pact with him?"

Jeremy completely failed to grasp this girl’s train of thought, and even less did he understand what her true purpose was in digging up that stale topic. But amidst this boring grandstand space waiting for the tournament to open, someone delivering themselves up to kill time was not a bad idea.

He tilted his head slightly, his profound phoenix eyes looking straight into the other’s heterochromatic pupils, his voice carrying a faint teasing tone: "100% true. Or perhaps... do you want me to stand up on the high podium, using magic power amplification to announce again that I dumped him one more time for the whole grandstand to hear together?"

Lomita stealthily scoured the red-haired youth’s sharp, cold facial expression. When confirming the other party completely lacked half a point of regret or joking, the proud corner of her lips immediately curled into a radiant smile.

"Hmph, consider it that you still managed to salvage a few neurons. Waking up at this point in time... is also not considered too late to save your life."

She was indeed born into luxury, possessing a crisp, sweet voice exactly like a silver bell, but every single word released from her mouth was sharp, snobbish, and not pleasing to the ear at all. Jeremy did not get angry at all; on the contrary, he interestedly turned his body completely toward her, using a direct masculine gaze to carefully evaluate every feature of the other party.

Being stared at so intently by a boy possessing an oppressive, wicked aura with such a sharp and burning gaze, Lomita couldn’t control her skyrocketing heartbeat even if she wanted to pretend to ignore it. Flustered, she pulled her shoulders back and snapped: "The match is about to start, what the hell are you staring at me for?!"

"Ah, about this..." Jeremy unhurriedly changed his posture. He crossed his long legs, one hand resting loosely on the back of the chair, his body leaning slightly forward, narrowing the distance between the two. His amber gaze locked tightly onto the panicked heterochromatic pupils, the corner of his lips drawing a highly flirtatious half-smile, his deep, warm voice carrying an extremely masculine teasing tone: "Perhaps... it’s because Miss Lomita looks too exquisitely beautiful. So beautiful that a mere mortal like me was momentarily captivated, unable to move my eyes elsewhere."

"You..." Lomita’s entire body was exactly like a small cat whose tail had been stepped on, instantly bristling her fur. The girl’s two fair cheeks immediately flushed as red as a ripe gac fruit, the spreading speed clearly visible to the naked eye. Being bluntly flirted with by a boy famous for being ruthless, the Bellagren family’s eldest young miss stammered for half a day, finally only managing to bite her lip and squeeze out a weak scolding sentence: "...You truly are a shameless lunatic."

Jeremy only gave a soft chuckle in his throat, completely not bothering to retort. Although this girl opened her mouth to spout unpleasant sarcastic words, relying on his ability to read people, he easily recognized that the other party completely lacked any malicious intent or scheming to harm. Toward this straightforward, impulsive type of person, there was fundamentally no need to wear a cold face or draw swords against each other.

The gaze from that hidden corner still continuously shot over with increasingly dense and panicked frequency. Jeremy extended his long, slender finger, casually pointing straight toward the marble stone pillar: "Do you plan to call your friend over here to sit together as well? Peeking around all this time, she looks as if she’s extremely worried I will eat you alive."

In this world, the concept of a "lady-in-waiting" was completely different from the lowly submission of a "maid." Whether in the royal system or the highest tier of the aristocracy, becoming a lady-in-waiting carried the nature of an honorary privilege. They were like a comrade-in-arms, an effective partner also taking on the role of an assistant standing side by side with the heir.

Lomita glanced following the direction of his hand, her eyelashes fluttering slightly, momentarily speechless not knowing how to explain her sneaking around: "..."