Getting Chloe Zelin out of her room was a truly annoying task for every user who played this game.
You had to visit her every day.
You had to find desserts she liked.
You had to praise her.
You had to get her splendid armor and a sword.
So one post a certain user uploaded recorded an explosive number of views and recommendations.
Can’t you just challenge Chloe to a duel and drag her out?
“I challenge you to a duel, Chloe Zelin.”
The corridor, which had been steeped in silence, was instantly filled with Lowell’s shout.
That cry slipped through the gap of the tightly shut door and lodged itself in Chloe’s eardrums, and it even froze the steps of the knight department trainees passing near the dormitory.
The murmuring spread like a wave in an instant.
“Isn’t that guy him? Lowell from the main campus?”
“That tin can without even mana just challenged Chloe Zelin to a duel? Is he insane?”
The trainees who had been near the training grounds gathered in the corridor one by one, pouring out gazes mixed with shock.
To them, Lowell was nothing more than a flunking student with a big mouth, despite not even being able to use magic.
And someone like that had thrown down a challenge to Chloe, the pride of the knight department and the second-ranked student in the entire year.
This wasn’t courage. It was quite literally the bravado of a madman.
“Hey, you fucking pig, who do you think you are barging in here and making a scene!”
“Chloe really has hit rock bottom if she’s getting challenged to a duel by someone like this.”
The jeers and laughter around him grew harsher, but Lowell simply stood waiting in front of the door.
How much time had passed?
Just as the noise filling the corridor reached its peak, a low, cracked voice seeped out from beyond the firmly shut door.
“...Come in.”
It was only a brief sentence, but within it lay suppressed rage and a chilling air.
With a click, the lock was released.
Leaving the sharp criticism aimed at him behind, Lowell grasped the doorknob.
The moment he opened the door and stepped inside, what stabbed at his nose was the damp air that had settled from being unventilated for a long time, and a deep darkness.
Inside the room where the curtains were drawn tight, in the center of that dim space that rejected even the light of midday, she was there.
A girl curled up on the bed, her disheveled blond hair spilling over her shoulders.
On skin that had not seen the sun for so long it looked not merely pale but almost transparent, blue eyes shaking mercilessly with bewilderment and shame glared at Lowell as if to pierce through him.
She was hugging her knees with her hands, as if unable to bear the fact that someone had seen her wretched state, a sight she had not wanted to show anyone.
“You do know what you’ve just done, don’t you?”
Her voice was cracked, but within it, the last pride she had guarded as the top student of the knight department and the second-ranked student of the entire year bristled like sharp thorns.
The reason Chloe had braved the jeers and insults outside to let Lowell into her room was clear.
Because that rude provocation had touched upon a knight’s honor and dueling, the things she could not help but react to most sensitively.
To Chloe Zelin, Magica Academy’s knight department meant more than a mere major.
In the past, the knight department had stood shoulder to shoulder with the magic department, reigning as one of the academy’s two great pillars.
The sight of senior knights clad in radiant golden armor striding proudly down the central avenue of the main campus had been an object of admiration for every martial artist on the continent.
But times had changed.
Instead of honor and pride, later trainees began to chase efficiency and monetary value, abandoning chivalry and focusing on mercenary work and wages.
The corrupted knight department was ultimately driven out of the main campus and forced to suffer the humiliation of being pushed into this remote corner of Saint Harbor.
Chloe wanted to restore that lost glory of the knight department.
She believed that if she claimed the top seat and proved the standing of knights, they could return once more to the center of the main campus and rebuild their former pride.
However, that grand plan had been mercilessly shattered before the wall called Celestia.
Not first, but second.
A knight defeated by magic.
That result drove an irreparable crack into her plan, and even the dream of the knight department’s return to the main campus scattered like a mirage.
Her seclusion was a prison created by that sense of defeat and frustration.
To such a Chloe, Lowell’s shout was not mere noise.
To declare a duel in front of the entire academy was an act that struck directly at a knight’s instincts and etiquette.
The louder the sound of the trainees laughing and jeering outside grew, the more Chloe had to choose.
Would she remain a coward who hid away even after being provoked by a flunking student, or would she personally shut that arrogant mouth?
In the blue eyes of Chloe, curled up on the bed and glaring at him, complicated emotions swirled.
“A duel, you say... Did you come to mock my current state? Or do you truly not value your own life?”
As she tightened her grip around her knees, her deathly pale knuckles trembled.
Though she had been crushed by defeat and had hidden herself in her room, even that had not completely killed her pride.
Lowell had precisely touched that last remaining flame of hers.
Looking at her eyes shining vividly even in the darkness, Lowell was certain.
“I don’t really care what you do, but...”
Lowell took a sheet of paper from his breast pocket and slowly unfolded it.
Though the room was dark, the clear seal stamped at the bottom of the paper and the sharp handwriting upon it exuded an undeniable presence.
It was an official duel authorization form bearing the handwritten signature of Glayton, a full professor of the elemental department.
Chloe’s eyes went beyond caution and became dyed with astonishment.
Because she was well-versed in the history of the knight department, she knew better than anyone what that paper meant.
Long ago, in the days when the knight department had displayed its splendid prestige on the main campus, there had existed a system called dueling.
Under the observation and permission of a full professor of the academy, two students would carry their beliefs and learning on the tips of their swords and see them through.
It was not a mere fight, but the noblest rite for proving one’s worth as a knight.
But as the knight department fell into corruption and was driven to Saint Harbor, amid a climate that valued practicality over honor, this antiquated tradition had been buried for over a hundred years.
The revival of the past glory and chivalry that Chloe had so desperately longed for was contained in that single sheet of paper.
“This is... Professor Glayton’s seal? Don’t tell me you’ve revived that duel from a hundred years ago?”
Chloe’s voice trembled faintly.
Her heart began to beat rapidly.
The sacred stage where she could officially prove her convictions as a knight—the very moment of the ideal she had longed for so much—had come to her on its own.
But that joy lasted only an instant.
The moment her gaze moved from the paper to Lowell’s face, her delight quickly transformed into uncontrollable humiliation and rage.
To think that the opponent in the sacred rite she had admired her entire life would be this man, of all people, standing before her.
Unkempt, bushy hair, a dull body that looked far removed from exercise, and the label of the academy’s worst flunking student: Lowell von Adrian.
He was the person furthest removed from the dignified rival Chloe had imagined.
The fact that the opponent in the first duel announcing the revival of the knight department was such a shabby man was, to her, an even more terrible humiliation than losing to Celestia.
“Hah? Someone like you dares to speak of this sacred right?”
Chloe clenched the bed sheet.
Veins stood out on the back of her pale hand.
“This is an insult to knighthood. I already knew the rumors about you, but seeing that body of yours confirms it! What convictions could you possibly have? What could you possibly intend to see through, that you deceived the professor into giving you something like this?”
In her blue eyes, flames close to hatred now flickered in place of sorrow.
Lowell let out a quiet sigh as he watched Chloe pour her hatred upon him.
Wow, that glare is seriously vicious.
In truth, Lowell had not the slightest intention of comforting Chloe or tending to her wounds right now.
To begin with, Celestia’s request had been to get her out of her room, not to become her life counselor.
Above all, for the current Lowell, who had neither talent, skill, nor respectable appearance, a gentle approach was an impossible realm.
There was only one reason Chloe had collapsed so miserably like this.
Because her grand dream of returning the knight department to the main campus had collided with the enormous wall called Celestia and shattered to pieces.
Goals that depended on someone else’s decision were naturally easy to frustrate, but the spark in one’s heart being extinguished after facing a genius who overwhelmed them was more fatal than anything.
In that case, there was only one method.
To throw in the fuel of a vicious provocation, even by force, to reignite the extinguished spark.
Lowell took one step closer toward Chloe, who was trembling as she clutched the bed sheet.
Then, meeting head-on her gaze mixed with disgust and rage, he opened his mouth.
“The pride of the academy, an insult to knighthood... You sure make it sound nice.”
Lowell’s voice was calm to the point of coldness.
“But you know... no matter how much I think about it, I can’t understand. Where did that amazing chivalry go? Someone praised as the second-ranked student in the entire school, called impressive and a hope, reduced to this pathetic state. Weaklings are always like that. Honor, glory—nothing but empty words.”
“Wh... what did you say?”
“Oops, my mistake. They say honesty is a virtue, so I just gave my honest impression. Was it a little hard to hear? Anyway, that authorization form is real, but you don’t have to accept. You must be scared.”
Lowell waved the authorization form before Chloe’s eyes and, as if driving in the wedge, threw out the most arrogant proposal.
“But if you really do accept... I’ll attach one condition.”
“......”
“If you lose the duel, you will serve me as your lord. For the rest of your life.”
For a moment, the air in the room froze. Chloe’s blue eyes became so filled with shock that they began to quiver.
The condition that the academy’s greatest genius knight would have to become the vassal of its shabbiest flunking student.
To Chloe, it was a disgrace worse than death, and the perfect provocation, pouring oil onto her dying pride.
At Lowell’s absurd condition, Chloe’s face flushed red and began to tremble.
If one thought about it calmly, this duel was an unreasonable demand that could not be established.
A flunking student bringing up a musty rule buried over a hundred years ago to challenge the second-ranked knight.
Given Chloe’s position, even if she had shouted that he was being rude and thrown him out of the room, no one in the academy would have objected.
But Lowell had precisely kicked at the deepest part of her—the remnants of her trampled pride.
“What... did you just say?”
Chloe’s voice sank low.
It was not sorrow, but the cold steam exhaled by a volcano just before eruption.
“You want me... to take you as my lord? A flunking student like you dares to speak of the pride of a knightly family...”
“I told you. If all that stuff about chivalry isn’t just nonsense, prove it. Ah, or do you lack confidence? Are you afraid of losing to a flunking student, even though you’re the second-ranked?”
“Lowell von Adrian!”
Chloe finally kicked off the bed sheet and rose.
The blue eyes flashing between her disheveled blond hair had already half lost their reason.
The vicious provocation Lowell had thrown had, in the end, ignited a fire called rage in her dying heart.
“Fine. I accept that duel. But I have a condition too.”
Chloe now glared at Lowell with even killing intent in her eyes.
“If you lose your life during the duel, don’t you dare feel wronged. I’ll make you pay with that arrogant life of yours for the weight of the knighthood you insulted!”
Success.
Lowell cheered inwardly.
At last, a massive crack had formed in the wall of melancholy surrounding her.
Even if what poured out through that crack was killing intent directed at him, at the very least, she was no longer the girl hiding under her blanket and crying.
“Yeees, yeees, I’m sure you will~ If the second-ranked says so, I’m so scared I’m trembling to death.”
As if he had not heard a word of Chloe’s murderous warning, Lowell casually waved a hand and turned around.
Then he leisurely walked toward the light pouring in beyond the open door.
“Well then, I’ll come on the day of the duel, so practice hard~ If you’re going to become my knight and attend me for the rest of your life, that flimsy body you have right now won’t be enough.”
“Get out right now! Right now!!”
Bang!
At the same time Lowell shut the door behind him and stepped out, there came a loud sound of something striking the door and shattering.
Then, a desperate, rage-filled scream erupted, enough to shake the entire corridor.
“Lowell von Adrian!! I’ll kill you no matter what!!”
The trainees gathered in the corridor shrank back in fear at Chloe’s razor-sharp voice coming from beyond the door.
With the murderous scream piercing the back of his head as background music, Lowell leisurely crossed the dormitory corridor.
He no longer paid any attention to the gazes of the trainees glaring at him as if they wanted to devour him.
Only after he had completely left the dormitory building and the salty sea breeze brushed the tip of his nose did Lowell release the tension he had been keeping taut and mutter softly.
“Whoa—this actually worked.”