The morning sun blazed high above the Imperial Capital, casting a brilliant, golden wash of light over the sprawling, monumental architecture of the Grand Coliseum. It was a massive, open-air amphitheater constructed from enchanted white marble and reinforced tungsten, capable of seating over fifty thousand spectators. Today, it was filled to absolute capacity.
The air vibrated with a deafening, electric hum of anticipation. Banners representing the hundreds of noble houses of the Rosania Empire snapped sharply in the morning breeze, a kaleidoscope of crests, colors, and ancient heraldry. The scent of roasted meats, sweet pastries from the vendor stalls, and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone from the defensive magical barriers blended into a uniquely intoxicating perfume.
This was not a mere classroom exercise. The First-Year Practical Combat Tournament was a major social and political event. It was a public proving ground where the future generals, archmages, and political leaders of the Empire showcased their raw talent, or publicly, humiliatingly failed.
Rudeus sat alone on one of the cold, hard stone benches situated in the lower staging area designated for the first-year combatants.
Unlike the other students around him who were pacing frantically, hyperventilating, or desperately reciting magical incantations to themselves, Rudeus was a picture of absolute, unbothered tranquility.
He leaned back against the stone wall, his broad shoulders relaxed, casually twirling the heavy, pitch-black iron handle of his Six-Flanged War Mace with his left hand.
A dark, incredibly genuine, predatory smile stretched across his face.
Yesterday afternoon, the official tournament brackets had been posted on the massive enchanted notice boards in the Central Atrium. Rudeus had walked up to the board, scanned the parchment, and immediately felt a massive, euphoric rush of adrenaline.
He had hit the absolute, undisputed jackpot.
"Jackpot... woohooo!" Rudeus whispered to himself, a low, rumbling chuckle escaping his lips as he recalled the bracket placement.
Because of the randomized lottery system designed to prevent noble houses from rigging the early matches, fate—or perhaps some deeply ironic, amused deity—had intervened perfectly on his behalf.
He was slated to fight in the fourth bracket of the very first round.
And his opponent was none other than his legitimate half-brother, Aemond Blackfyre.
Rudeus casually shifted his crimson eyes across the vast expanse of the staging area, peering through the throngs of nervous students.
On the exact opposite side of the arena, surrounded by a small cluster of his usual sycophantic lackeys, stood Aemond.
The white-haired teenager did not look like the arrogant, untouchable young master he usually projected. He looked entirely, visibly terrified. Aemond was furiously biting his fingernails, his leg bouncing in a rapid, uncontrollable nervous tick. His icy grey eyes kept darting nervously across the arena, actively searching for Rudeus, only to flinch and look away the second their eyes met.
'Ohh, you are so unbelievably fucked, you spoiled little brat,' Rudeus said inwardly, resting his cheek against the knuckles of his right hand, his smile widening into something truly sinister. 'I am going to literally, methodically smash your arrogant head into the dirt using this goddamn mace. I am going to make you beg for mercy in front of the entire Empire. And I am going to enjoy every single, agonizing second of it.'
Though, since they were placed in the fourth bracket, their match was still at least an hour away. That brutal catharsis could wait a little longer.
Rudeus shifted his gaze away from his pathetic brother, tilting his head back to survey the massive, heavily fortified VIP section overlooking the arena.
The Royal Box was a marvel of architectural vanity, draped in massive swaths of oceanic blue and silver velvet. It was shielded by a shimmering, translucent wall of golden light—a high-tier barrier designed to protect the Imperial Family from stray spells and potential assassinations.
Through the golden shimmer, Rudeus could clearly see the most powerful figures on the continent.
Sitting in the center, looking unimaginably bored and hollow, was His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Gherman Isodel Van Rosania. He possessed brilliant, sun-kissed blond hair and dark, piercing blue eyes. Despite his majestic aura and the terrifying power he supposedly wielded, to Rudeus, he just looked like an exhausted, guilty old man pretending to hold the world together.
Sitting to his right was the First Empress. She had perfectly coiffed, tightly bound brown-blonde hair and eyes the color of dark, poisonous emeralds. Even from this distance, Rudeus could feel the absolute, venomous aura of calculating malice radiating from her posture. She looked like a spider patiently waiting in the center of a web.
And standing directly behind her, leaning casually against the railing of the VIP box with a smug, incredibly punchable smirk on his face, was the Crown Prince.
The Crown Prince was exactly three years older than Princess Veronica. He had inherited his father's bright blond hair and his mother's dark, treacherous green eyes.
'Tsk. Just seeing his face really puts my mood into a sour, violent downward spiral,' Rudeus spat inwardly, loudly clicking his tongue against his teeth, his grip tightening instinctively on the hilt of his mace.
The Crown Prince wasn't just a generic antagonist. In the lore of the game, he was an absolutely irredeemable, depraved sociopath. More importantly, he was the specific individual directly responsible for the horrific, gruesome murder of Professor Avalon Pendletree in the future Arc 3 timeline.
Rudeus remembered the lore detailing Avalon's death. It wasn't a fair duel. The Crown Prince had cheated. He had utilized highly illegal, agonizingly painful abyssal artifacts to slowly, sadistically torture Avalon to death in front of a cheering crowd, laughing the entire time while the noble instructor bled out, defending the honor of a commoner girl he barely knew.
'I will kill you too, one day,' Rudeus promised the distant figure of the Prince. 'If the Protagonist doesn't get to you first, I will gladly cave your skull in and feed you to the stray dogs.'
Rudeus's eyes then shifted slightly to the left, scanning the adjacent, slightly less opulent VIP benches reserved for the Grand Dukes and the highest echelon of the military nobility.
He was looking for the banner of the Blackfyre Duchy. He found the stark black flag bearing the silver, roaring dragon crest.
'It seems Grand Duke Raemond didn't bother showing up to watch his 'defect' of a son potentially die in the arena,' Rudeus thought, feeling a complete, absolute lack of surprise. 'But it looks like he sent his senior retainers and... wait!'
Rudeus's crimson eyes narrowed sharply.
Sitting in the very back row of the Blackfyre section, slouched heavily against the stone wall, was a tall, broad-shouldered man. He possessed the signature ashen-white hair of the family, though it was currently unkempt and hanging in his face. He was wearing a highly expensive, deeply wrinkled uniform.
But what stood out the most was the massive, dark green glass bottle he was currently holding, taking a long, desperate swig of strong, fermented ale at eight in the morning.
'Goddamnit. Why the hell is he here?!' Rudeus cursed internally, feeling a sudden, complicated knot of emotions tightening in his chest.
The man holding the bottle was none other than Ryekard Blackfyre. The Eldest Son of the Grand Duke. The true heir to the Northern Marches.
And Rudeus's oldest half-brother.
Rudeus let out a long, heavy sigh, forcefully dragging his gaze away from the VIP box. He didn't want to look at him.
'Let's completely stop looking up there, before one of those high-tier mages senses my hostility and they find out I'm actively glaring daggers at the royal family and my drunkard of a brother.'
His feelings regarding Ryekard were incredibly, frustratingly complicated. On one hand, from the perspective of the game's lore, Ryekard was fundamentally a good person. He was a tragic hero burdened by impossible expectations, who secretly aided the protagonist in the shadows.
But from the perspective of the young boy whose body Damien now inhabited? Ryekard was a massive, unforgivable coward.
Ryekard was ten years older than Rudeus. He was strong. He was the heir. He had the absolute, unquestionable authority to walk into the courtyard, slap Aemond across the face, and demand that the abuse against his youngest brother stop immediately. He could have protected Rudeus from the ice water. He could have protected him from the isolation.
But he didn't. Ryekard had chosen the bottom of a bottle over his duty as an older brother. He chose to look away and drown his own demons, allowing a child to be systematically tortured in his own home.
In Damien's harsh, uncompromising, military-forged moral code, standing by and doing absolutely nothing while an innocent person was abused made you just as guilty as the abuser. Negligence was complicity.
'I don't need his pity, and I don't need his drunken observation,' Rudeus thought, shaking his head to clear the lingering resentment. 'Focus on the mission. Focus on survival.'
He forcibly shifted his absolute attention back down to the center of the massive, sand-filled arena.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE GLORIOUS ROSANIA EMPIRE!"
The voice boomed with the force of a localized earthquake, magically amplified to reach the very highest, cheapest seats in the back rows of the Coliseum.
With a blinding flash of violet light, the Head Referee—a highly decorated, retired Knight Commander wearing reinforced silver armor and carrying a massive, enchanted war horn—literally teleported directly into the dead center of the arena.
The crowd went absolutely wild.
Tens of thousands of nobles, wealthy merchants, and fortunate commoners who had managed to secure tickets roared their approval. The noise was a physical wave, shaking the dust from the stone pillars. The students in the staging areas cheered, stomped their feet, and beat their weapons against their shields, fueled by adrenaline and youthful bloodlust.
"I, THE CHIEF ARBITER OF THIS GRAND TOURNAMENT, PROUDLY WELCOME YOU TO THE FIRST DAY OF THE PRACTICAL EXAMINATIONS!" The Referee bellowed into his magical amplification crystal, pacing around the center ring, hyping the crowd into a frenzy.
"WE SHALL WASTE NO TIME! WE SHALL COMMENCE WITH AN EXHIBITION MATCH TO WARM THE BLOOD IN YOUR VEINS! I NOW INTRODUCE TO YOU—"
The referee pointed dramatically toward the massive, grated iron portcullis on the western end of the arena.
"ON THE LEFT CORNER! A HIGHLY ESTEEMED SENIOR NOBLE FROM THE 3RD-YEAR ADVANCED COMBAT TRACK, AND THE FIRSTBORN SON AND HEIR OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS JERMANION MARQUIS FAMILY..."
The heavy iron gates slowly ground upward, revealing a massive, heavily armored figure stepping out into the sunlight.
"I INTRODUCE TO YOUUUUUUUUUUUU..."
"DAVID JERMANION!!!!"
The entire western half of the student seating section erupted into a deafening, coordinated chant.
"David!"
"David!"
"David!"
"David!"
"David!"
"David!"
David's classmates in the 3rd year were cheering for him with absolute, fanatical devotion.
David Jermanion was a mountain of a young man. He was clad in incredibly thick, heavy-plate steel armor that gleamed brightly in the sun. He carried a massive, two-handed tower shield that looked like it had been ripped from the hull of a battleship, and a heavy broadsword rested easily on his broad shoulder. He looked like an impenetrable, walking fortress.
The Referee spun around on his heel, pointing his horn toward the eastern portcullis.
"AND NOW, STANDING IN THE RIGHT CORNER! A RISING STAR NOBLE STUDENT FROM THE 2ND-YEAR VANGUARD TRACK! I INTRODUCE TO YOUUUUUUU..."
The eastern gates slammed open. A much leaner, incredibly fast-looking young man sprinted out into the arena, executing a flawless, highly unnecessary acrobatic front-flip before landing gracefully on his feet.
"THE HEIR OF COUNT DARKOVA! THE WIND-RIDER HIMSELF..."
"JAMES DARKOVA!!!!!"
The second-year section of the stands exploded into a chaotic, raucous cacophony of cheers and wolf-whistles.
"James!"
"Beat his heavy ass, James!"
"James!"
"Show that slow bastard some speed!"
"James!"
"James!"
"James!"
James's friends and his classmates were screaming incredibly loudly. There was a fierce, bitter, ongoing, multi-generational rivalry between the second-year and third-year combat tracks, and it seemed this exhibition match was acting as a proxy war for their collective academic pride. That was exactly why the third-years were cheering so aggressively for David to crush the upstart.
'Goddamnit, they're so incredibly loud!' Rudeus groaned, wincing as he physically brought his hands up to cover his ears. The crossfire of the competing, magically amplified chants was giving him a severe migraine.
He lowered his hands and critically observed the two combatants facing off in the center of the sand.
'Hmm. It seems the Academy professors really love a good narrative. They purposefully arranged the brackets to pit these two specific individuals against each other, purely for the drama of the crowd. The exact same way they deliberately rigged the bracket to pit me against Aemond to see if the Blackfyre family would embarrass themselves.'
"Hah. Interesting," Rudeus murmured, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, suddenly invested in the spectacle.
Meanwhile, down in the center of the arena, the two challengers were glaring at each other with an intensity that could melt lead. They weren't just gripping their swords; their knuckles were white, and their respective auras were already violently flaring to life.
David, the massive tank, was radiating a heavy, oppressive, earth-brown aura that settled over the sand like thick gravity.
James, the agile fencer, was surrounded by a swirling, chaotic cyclone of sharp, pale-green wind magic that whipped his hair around his face.
But what made the entire arena fall completely, utterly silent wasn't their magical auras. It was the fact that their pre-match trash talk was currently being picked up and broadcasted across the entire Coliseum by the highly sensitive, ambient amplification crystals embedded in the arena floor.
"She is mine, David! Do you hear me?!" James Darkova screamed at the top of his lungs, pointing his slender rapier directly at the massive tank's face. "She loves me! She will absolutely never belong to the cloistered, suffocating prison of your family! I will set her free!"
David Jermanion slammed the bottom of his massive tower shield into the sand, cracking the earth. His face twisted into a mask of pure, overprotective rage.
"Hah? Really? You deluded, arrogant little punk..." David growled, his deep voice rumbling through the speakers. "You know full well she is three years older than you! She is a mature woman, and you are a child playing with wind! And I swear to the Goddess, I will absolutely not let a pathetic, womanizing second-year like you date my goddamn twin sister!"
The entire crowd gasped collectively. A massive wave of highly amused, scandalized whispers swept through the fifty thousand spectators.
"So what if she is older than me? Age is but a number in the face of true passion!" James shouted back, striking a highly dramatic, romantic pose that looked straight out of a cheap theater production. "I love her more than this entire world! More than life itself!"
James didn't wait for the referee to blow the starting horn. He lunged forward, moving with the blinding speed of a gale-force wind, thrusting his rapier aimed directly for the narrow eye-slit of David's heavy helm.
-CLANG!
A massive, ringing shower of sparks erupted.
David hadn't even flinched. He simply brought his colossal tower shield up an inch, catching the lightning-fast thrust of the rapier effortlessly against the enchanted steel.
"Fine! If you want to die so badly in the name of your pathetic, childish delusion, then so be it!" David screamed, his earth aura exploding outward, sending a shockwave across the sand. "Prove to me right here and now that you are actually a man! Prove to me that you have the strength to be worthy of standing beside my twin sister!!!"
Rudeus, sitting on his stone bench, let out a long, incredibly tired sigh, dragging a hand down his face in pure exasperation.
"Really?" Rudeus muttered to himself, shaking his head. "We have high-tier magical combatants facing off in a prestigious Imperial tournament, and all of this monumental, earth-shattering drama is happening simply because a goddamn, highly unhinged siscon of an older brother absolutely cannot accept the fact that a second-year student wants to date his sister?"
Rudeus threw his head back and laughed quietly inwardly.
'This place is really just a goddamn, highly funded aristocratic circus, huh? I'm stuck in a bad teen drama with lethal weapons.'
As Rudeus was busy analyzing the sloppy, highly emotional footwork of the two combatants—noting how James was overextending his lunges and how David was leaving his lower guard open—he felt a sudden, distinct shift in the ambient temperature next to him.
The scent of stale sweat and iron in his immediate vicinity was suddenly, overwhelmingly overpowered by the incredibly expensive, unmistakable scent of crushed Glacial Lilies and morning dew.
Someone had just elegantly, silently taken a seat on the cold stone bench directly beside him.
Rudeus didn't even need to look. He knew that perfume.
It was none other than Princess Veronica Adnelia Van Rosania.
She was wearing a highly functional, yet incredibly tailored and form-fitting, silver-and-blue combat uniform designed specifically for the simulation exams. It offered excellent mobility while subtly highlighting her aristocratic curves. Her silver-blue hair was tied back tightly into a complex, practical braid to keep it out of her face during combat.
Rudeus slowly turned his head. He raised his right eyebrow, fixing her with a look of profound, unadulterated suspicion.
"So...." Rudeus drawled, his voice carrying a heavy, cynical edge. "Why exactly are you here? Sitting in the dirty staging area with the 'Defect', rather than up there in the Royal Box with your father sipping imported wine?"
Veronica didn't look at him. She kept her oceanic blue eyes locked strictly forward, staring intently at the flashing blades of the duel in the arena below. She sat with perfect posture, her hands folded primly in her lap, though he could see her knuckles were slightly white from tension.
"I am here because that is my designated job as your officially mandated, contractual fiancée," Veronica replied smoothly, her voice a perfect, robotic mimicry of aristocratic protocol. "It is expected that partners in the simulation exam present a united front to the public before they enter the deployment gates."
Rudeus let out a short, harsh bark of laughter.
"Ohh, really. Is that so? A united front," Rudeus said, leaning closer, his tone dripping with heavy sarcasm. "Seriously, Princess, you don't need to put on this elaborate, dutiful act for my sake. Don't worry about our little conversation in the garden yesterday. As I explicitly said before, I never go back on my word, alright? I will be your meat-shield partner in the simulation tomorrow, and you will secure the annulment next day after tomorrow. You don't need to pretend to like me to ensure I keep my end of the bargain."
Veronica sighed. It wasn't an angry sigh, but a heavy, incredibly weary exhalation that caused her perfect posture to slump slightly.
"That's absolutely not what I am worried about, you idiot," Veronica snapped back, her voice losing the robotic protocol, cracking with a sudden, genuine edge of frustration.
A massive, highly visible question mark practically appeared hovering above Rudeus's green hair. He blinked, genuinely taken aback.
"Then what exactly are you worried about?" Rudeus asked, his tone shifting from sarcastic to completely confused.
Veronica finally turned her head to look at him. Her oceanic eyes weren't filled with the usual disdain or aristocratic superiority. They were filled with a complex, swirling mixture of profound anxiety, guilt, and a strange, reluctant empathy.
"Sigh... are you really this incredibly dense?" Veronica whispered fiercely, leaning in closer so the surrounding students couldn't hear them over the roar of the crowd.
"I am literally, genuinely worried about you!" she confessed, the words rushing out of her mouth as if she were tearing off a bandage. "I saw the official tournament brackets this morning. I know exactly who you are slated to face in the fourth round."
She gestured subtly toward the far side of the arena, where Aemond was still visibly trembling.
"You are about to step into a sanctioned, lethal combat arena and physically face your goddamn brother. The man who is literally one of the primary people who relentlessly tortured, abused, and starved you when you were still a defenseless kid! I know what he did to you, Rudeus! Amanda told me everything!"
Rudeus stopped breathing for a fraction of a second.
He stared at her, utterly, profoundly shocked.
He had expected many things from Princess Veronica today. He expected more threats, more haughty demands, or perhaps a lecture on not embarrassing her during the simulation.
He really, genuinely didn't expect for Veronica to be expressing actual, unfeigned, human worry for his physical and mental well-being regarding his abuser.
But, his tactical mind quickly processed the information, instantly assigning a cynical, highly logical reason to her sudden burst of empathy.
'Ah. I know exactly why she is acting like she's worried,' Rudeus concluded inwardly, his heart hardening again. 'Because we are officially registered as partners for the simulation later today. If I go out there in the first round, suffer a massive, triggering psychological breakdown in front of my abuser, get my ass completely handed to me, and get publicly humiliated... she would be tangentially humiliated by association. She needs me intact for the second phase.'
Rudeus let out a long, dismissive sigh, leaning back against the cold stone wall, returning his gaze to the ongoing duel.
"Sigh. Princess, you really should not worry your pretty little head about that specific matchup," Rudeus said, his voice entirely calm, projecting absolute, unshakable confidence. "I know exactly how to handle Aemond. I know exactly how to beat him into a bloody pulp without breaking a sweat."
He turned his head slightly, offering her a sharp, predatory grin.
"After all... your beloved Head Maid's exceptionally brutal, near-lethal training 'lessons' over the last few months were not entirely for nought. She taught me exactly where to stab to cause maximum pain."
"Really?" Veronica questioned him, her oceanic eyes narrowing in deep skepticism. She looked at his heavily muscled arms, acknowledging his physical growth, but muscle didn't cure deep-seated psychological trauma. "You aren't just putting on a brave face to hide your terror?"
"Yeah, really," Rudeus confirmed flatly, his attention fully focused on the battle in the arena, where David had just successfully shattered James's wind barrier with a massive, earth-shattering shield bash.
"If you are going to worry about anything today, you should actively worry about me being the one who gets publicly humiliated by the ethics committee for using excessive, unnecessary force against a fellow student," Rudeus stated coldly.
Veronica fell silent. She sat beside him, watching the sand fly in the arena.
"That's... that's not what I was worried about, though..." Veronica murmured softly, her voice barely audible over the roaring crowd, looking down at her perfectly manicured hands resting in her lap.
Rudeus didn't quite catch the nuance of her whisper over the noise.
"What?" Rudeus asked, leaning closer, asking her to repeat what she had just said.
Veronica flinched slightly, her cheeks flushing a sudden, bright pink. She quickly shook her head, instantly throwing her aristocratic, defensive walls back up.
"Nothing! I said absolutely nothing! Hmph!" Veronica snapped defensively, quickly shifting her gaze entirely away from him and focusing fiercely on the two combatants currently bickering and throwing spells at each other in the center ring.
They sat in an awkward, heavy silence for a few minutes, listening to James Darkova loudly proclaim his undying love while desperately dodging heavy broadsword swings.
Then, Veronica spoke again. Her voice had lost all of its defensive sharpness. It was quiet, incredibly melancholic, and entirely sincere.
"You know... it's really, incredibly ironic to sit here and watch this," Veronica mused, her eyes tracking the massive David Jermanion as he aggressively shielded his imaginary sister's honor. "Watching two men brutally fight each other to the death... simply because one desperately wants to date the woman he supposedly loves, while the other is so fiercely, unconditionally overprotective toward his sibling that he is willing to commit murder to keep her safe."
Rudeus slowly turned his head to look at her.
He saw the profile of her face. The haughty arrogance was completely stripped away. It seemed she was incredibly, profoundly sad. She was looking at the overprotective brother in the arena with an expression of deep, tragic longing.
"You know, Princess..." Rudeus started, his voice uncharacteristically soft, dropping the heavy layers of sarcasm and cynicism that usually defined their interactions.
"What?" Veronica asked, not turning her head, afraid to show him the vulnerability in her eyes.
Rudeus looked away from her, staring down at his hands, the hands of the boy whose diary he had wept over.
"I really... I truly, desperately wished to have a normal sibling, y'know?" Rudeus confessed, his voice thick with a genuine, heavy sorrow that wasn't entirely his own.
"Or at the very least... I wished I had a sibling that really, genuinely cared for me. An older brother who loved me unconditionally and would actually step in to protect me when the world turned cruel. Like that massive idiot down there in the sand."
Rudeus wasn't speaking about his own past life on Earth. As Damien, he had been an only child.
He was speaking entirely, internally, on behalf of the original Rudeus. The boy he had affectionately, tragically dubbed his "little brother." He was giving voice to the desperate, unfulfilled dream the original boy had harbored while enduring a decade of isolation and abuse while Ryekard drank himself to sleep.
"But..." Rudeus sighed, a bitter, hollow sound. "It seems the universe was simply too cruel, and too apathetic, to ever allow me to have something that beautiful."
Veronica listened to his confession. The raw, unfiltered pain in his voice resonated perfectly, harmoniously with the deepest, darkest, most closely guarded wound in her own heart.
She let out a long, shaky sigh.
"Me too," Veronica replied, her voice cracking slightly, finally turning her head to look directly into his crimson eyes. "I wanted that more than anything. I want to have a sibling who really loves me. A brother or a sister who cares for me unconditionally, for who I am, not for the political power my title represents."
She looked down at her hands again.
"If I was not born into this cursed, gilded cage of a royal family... if I had just been born to a minor, insignificant noble family from the distant countryside, far away from the Imperial Court and the poison of the First Empress... I bet I would literally have the warm, loving, normal family I have always really wanted."
Rudeus looked at her. For the very first time since he had arrived in this universe, he didn't see the insufferable, entitled Princess, or the annoying Hidden Heroine of a trashy visual novel.
He saw a traumatized, incredibly lonely teenage girl sitting beside a traumatized, incredibly lonely teenage boy.
"Yeah..." Rudeus replied softly, nodding his head in profound, absolute understanding.
He offered her a small, highly cynical, but genuinely commiserating half-smile.
"It's a massive, tragic waste that our actual siblings turned out to be nothing but raging psychopaths and cowardly assholes, huh?"
Veronica's eyes widened slightly in surprise at his blunt, highly treasonous assessment of the Imperial family. Then, the corners of her mouth twitched. A small, sad, but entirely genuine smile broke across her face.
She nodded firmly in agreement.
Both of them seamlessly shifted their focus back to the arena below. Rudeus went back to busy watching the two challengers loudly, embarrassingly bickering at each other while they traded lethal magical blows, but the heavy, hostile tension that had always existed between him and Veronica had completely, fundamentally changed.
It hadn't vanished. They weren't suddenly best friends. But a bridge of shared, incredibly specific trauma had been built over the chasm of their mutual hatred.
Veronica covertly shifted her gaze, looking back at his strong, handsome profile as he analyzed the fight.
Her oceanic blue eyes switched from aristocratic indifference to a look of profound, incredibly complex worry.
Even though her deeply ingrained trauma dictated that she fundamentally hated men, including the boy sitting next to her... she finally, truly understood that he had had it vastly worse than she ever did. Her mother had loved her. His mother had been murdered, and his father had watched him bleed.
And yet, despite knowing all of that logic, she still acted like an absolute, insufferable asshole toward him half the time. It was literally like her immense royal pride and her defensive trauma-responses were physically, forcefully holding her back from simply being honestly, genuinely kind toward him, and offering a heartfelt, uncomplicated apology for the years of emotional abuse she had piled on top of his existing trauma.
She looked down at the cold stone bench separating them.
Slowly, hesitantly, driven by a sudden, incredibly uncharacteristic urge to offer physical comfort, she unclasped her hands.
She tried to move her right hand across the stone, inching it slowly toward where his large, calloused hand was resting near the hilt of his mace. She wanted to touch his hand. She wanted to tell him, silently, that he wasn't entirely alone today.
Her fingertips were mere inches from his knuckles.
But then, the overwhelming fear of rejection, the fear of vulnerability, and the terror of her own confusing emotions spiked violently in her chest.
She panicked. She quickly retracted her hand, pulling it sharply back into her lap and clasping her fingers tightly together again, her heart hammering.
At that exact, precise moment, the air directly in front of her face shimmered.
A glowing, translucent blue system window popped up, completely invisible to Rudeus and everyone else in the Coliseum.
[System Notification:]
[ +5 Love Points awarded to Target: Rudeus Maximilian Blackfyre ]
[ Relationship Status Update: ]
[ Hostile/Disgusted ------------> Distrust ]
Veronica gasped softly, her eyes widening in absolute, unadulterated shock as she read the glowing white text hovering in the air.
'What?!' Veronica screamed inwardly, completely flabbergasted. 'I... I didn't even do anything! I didn't even touch him! I didn't apologize! Why did the points suddenly go up?!'
She stared at the screen, her mind racing. And then, the harsh reality of the second line of text settled over her.
Even though the System cheerfully notified her that her numerical relationship parameter with him had technically risen out of the negative digits... the actual, practical status designation was still incredibly bleak.
It hadn't changed to 'Friend'. It hadn't changed to 'Acquaintance'.
It had only upgraded to [ Distrust ].
Veronica looked sideways at Rudeus's profile again. The realization hit her like a cold splash of water. He still didn't trust her. Not even a little bit. And why should he? One quiet moment of shared trauma on a bench did not erase five years of her actively treating him like subhuman garbage. He still harbored a deep, entirely justified, lingering hatred toward her. Earning his trust, earning his true partnership to survive the nightmare she had foreseen, was going to require far, far more than a hesitant attempt to hold his hand.
She let out a long, heavy sigh, forcefully swiping her hand through the air to dismiss the glowing blue window from her vision.
She shifted her gaze firmly back to the center of the arena, where David Jermanion had just pinned James Darkova to the sand.
She clenched her hands in her lap.
'Focus on the fights, Veronica!' she scolded herself inwardly, forcing her aristocratic mask of cold indifference back into place.
'Focus on surviving tomorrow. Focus on the mission.'
"Focus," Veronica whispered aloud to the roaring stadium, her oceanic eyes hardening with a terrifying new resolve.