“Applicant number 1994! Applicant number 0114! Both applicants, step up to the arena!”

It was Roa’s turn. He stepped up and faced his partner with a wry greeting, but was met back with a harsh glare. “Nice to see you again, Ariene!”

Ariene Diadora, the Seed of Fire, and the future 1st, seat of Sirius. His opponent was the young lady he so brazenly embraced in the corridor.

If he wasn’t careful, he might end up being crippled way worse than his late past. However, in order to make the most of his return, his efforts needed to go past just merely surviving—especially since this battle was a turning point, both in his life and Ariene’s.

When the faculty refereeing the match saw the two who had arrived at the sparring area, the man was lost for words. He was the guy that bumped into Roa in the hallway, he knew that there was conflict between the two applicants.

‘Folly! This boy was born under a malignant star!’ he grimaced while raising his hand, albeit hesitant to commence the spar. Eventually, his hand needed to fall down—he could only blame Roa for attracting himself such misfortune.

When the spar commenced, Roa rushed forward with this thought, ‘I have to take the initiative!’ 

He had become a decade younger, meaning, his body was untrained; he stood no chance in a real fight, especially against Ariene, even when taking into account his experience as the One-Armed King.

In a mere spar, however…

“Foul beast—How dare you take advantage of my body!” Ariene swept up her dummy sword and held it at the ready. “Get ready to die!”

“Don’t say something that could be easily misinterpreted!” In response to Ariene’s threat, Roa wielded his short blade with one hand while his other was tucked behind his back—a curious sight.

During a battle, an unoccupied hand was a waste. Usually, a blade would be paired with another weapon or shield, as would the typical choice for a dual wielder be. Ariene paid no heed to the unusual stance. She stepped forward and slashed, aiming to spill blood. 

A clang reverberated through the air from the collision of the blunt steel.

Ariene frowned. ‘Too light!’ she thought, and swung again. However, she only garnered the same result.

The instance of her sword meeting little to no resistance twice was… odd. She swung once more, and once more. Three times…? Bizarre.

Past her fourth attack, Ariene’s furrowed brow dug deeper. This was no different to swinging a stick around the air!

“Stop being so detestable!” Ariene narrowed her eyes. “Stay still and receive retribution!” As she shouted, she felt a prickle on her skin. Instinctively, she shifted her sword to the right, narrowly blocking a swipe to her cheek. 

This was a spar. Who would aim a weapon at a young girl’s face?

“Unsavory beast!” Ariene growled. ‘A slippery dog. He’s a slippery dog!’ she raged in her thoughts. Roa’s dodging was hard to catch, and he would always go in for a sharp nip afterwards.

“Let’s see if you can run away forever!” She continued to swing her sword, her fervor for battle building. It was only a matter of time. 

Ariene began to feel weight between her blows. Even Roa’s figure as he would swing his blade was becoming more predictable. Unwittingly, she smiled, and at the same time, an ethereal force began manifesting around her.

This was the moment that Roa was waiting for.

When a budding swordsman’s excitement reaches its peak, her talent would blossom into a force similar to mana, a force widely known as aura. And however unintentional it may be, the next slash that Ariene would release would be the attack that would lead Roa down through a broken path.

It was the fateful slash that would sever his left arm.

‘Hah! Timid old me focused only on dodging. I guess that added to her frustration!’ 

This was where Roa and Ariene would deviate from their old selves.

The Seed of Fire was an unmanageable outcast from the Forest Riviera. —A danger to her own home, she was sent to Luveris Academy as an excuse to keep her away from the forest. At least, that was what Ariene had told him.

After severing Roa’s arm, she had been heavily sanctioned by the academy and placed in isolation, where she spent some time reflecting on her actions. When she got out, she didn’t think much of the boy whom she crippled that day. —That is, until she’d seen what became of him after being admitted.

Forest Riviera had heard of Ariene’s violent infraction and sent a recommendation for Roa. It was a way of making amends and avoiding political conflict—leaving no room for the boy from the slums to object.

A crippled red tier student with essentially no future, yet was still admitted by the academy without even taking the final assessment. You could only imagine how the other students thought of him, especially those who held high pedigree. 

To Ariene, manifesting fighting aura became secondary. When she’d seen the consequence of wanting to vent her frustration—Roa, who was living a life worse than she’d ever had in the woodlands—she felt a crushing amount of guilt.

…Of course, Roa wouldn’t want to go through all that again just for Ariene to start reforming herself.

A farther point in time, Ariene Diadora, the Seed of Fire; future 1st, seat of Sirius; the Undefeated Monarch. The first time she suffered defeat… was also the last.

‘This round, she would have to bear an early loss, but at least not at the cost of her life.’

From the start, Roa had been attacking while utilizing what he currently had—a pickpocket’s speed—leading Ariene’s movements to maintain a fixed pattern. He was also making use of her current inexperience to draw more strength from her blows than necessary in order to tire her out.

‘Regarding Ariene’s awakening of her sword aura… better now than who knows when?’

The incoming fateful slash on his left arm—as evident on Ariene’s face—was an attack full of confidence, confidence that Roa allowed her to build.

“This will wipe that annoying smile off your face!” Ariene bared her teeth as she grinned, believing victory was at hand. She swung down with both hands firm on the hilt of her sword; in her crazed state, she failed to see the searing petals of flame around her, coalescing from the unintentional birth of her sword aura.

The referee also failed to react. Ariene snapped out of her fervor only after she had fully swung the sword capable of slicing through hardened steel. —Butter against a hot knife—the academy’s training weapons would serve against it.

“Hmph! He brought this onto himself, who told him to be so infuriating!” Ariene told herself, but at the same time anxiously bit her lip. She worried about dealing a fatal blow.

However, contrary to the wails of pain she thought she’d hear, Roa was unharmed.

“I’m sorry, Ariene… I’m gonna have you take a nap!” Roa’s dumb smile appeared in Ariene’s head, and she’d gone into full alert.

She tried to reform her stance to receive another swing of Roa’s blade, but mis-stepped as the swing was strangely absent. 

At the corner of her eye, the tip of a worn-out shoe swiftly arced around her sword and hit her square in the jaw. It was too fast for her to react, and was heavy enough to deprive her of her consciousness.

Other than keeping his limbs intact, Roa’s goal was to make a lasting impression on this hot pepper. Knocking Ariene out with this, he could have considered it mission accomplished—or so he had hoped.

“Haa… Son of a—” Roa was out of breath. “I didn’t hold back at all! Was she this stubborn back then?!” His quick and abrupt movements were too much for his current body to endure. The kick to Ariene’s jaw was supposed to end the spar. 

Instead—sap that glowed a bright orange; leaves like thin flames; a hue that emitted the shade of a burning mountainside—Roa found himself in a situation worse than he intended, reflexively raising an arm to block a barrage of Ariene’s signature spell.

“Burn! —Seed of Fire!” A manifestation different from aura. It was a dangerous display of mana, born from Ariene’s explosive nature.

‘Haha… This is overkill. This level of attack from a younger Ariene I could handle if I had that accursed thing! This dummy blade won’t do anything to these darned plants.’

Roa was staring up at a worst-case scenario. He had no aura, no cursed blade, and a mediocre-tier spirit. Perhaps it was an absolute that he’d be losing something to Ariene. —In this case, it was once again his left arm.

‘Stumbling before I could begin. How embarrassing…’ He shut his eyes and envisioned standing in front of death’s door, reaching for the handle. He yearned for another moment where his life would flash through his eyes… But it did not occur.

‘Hah! So those irritating things relieve themselves and pass waste at the same time?’

Instead, a certain blurry scene reenacted in his head, wherein the words spoken by a self-proclaimed dragon, destroyed whatever serenity he was about to achieve.