When Kinai persuades Lord Sol by informing him that the cooks are preparing herb potato wedges for snacks, he obediently returns to his work.
Before leaving, Lord Sol says, "Roy, the Elder Spirit is asking if you could assist Iris in practising light magic. We haven't been able to tell how effective her magic will be without a proper assessment."
Luda cuts in. "My lord, you don't mean..."
Lord Sol confirms his suspicion.
"That's too risky." Roy immediately objects.
Lord Sol expresses his thoughts to them. "I agree. Regardless of my concern, this matter is unavoidable."
Lord Sol take his leaves after finishing what he has to say.
"Is there still a lot of them in the sanctuary?"
Roy direct to question to Luna.
Luna responds while casting down. "Many of them couldn't be saved after all. Only a handful still has the will to suppress it from devouring their core, however, they have grown weaker by the day."
"Don't feel sad, sister. You've been healing and lessening their pain all this time."
Luda consoles his sister.
"That is because no one else can do it but me."
"You shouldn't burden yourself to the point of exhausting your strength."
Roy supports Luda's concern by saying, "That's right. It would be pathetic if you were to die sooner than me."
Luda reprimand Roy for saying those words and they begin to bicker like children. Luna laughs at the scene unfolding before her.
"You two haven't changed at all."
Luda refutes, "He still has no respect for his elders."
"How can I when you don't behave like one?" Roy replies, not backing down.
"You are your father's son, cheeky as ever."
"Father? Thank you," Roy says while showing a cheeky grin.
"I'm not praising you."
"I think he's adorable though," Luna says whilst eating her parfait with a smile.
Roy stares at Luna in surprise and with a slightly raised voice, "What part of me is adorable?! I'm a grown adult, you know. I'm no longer the same small boy when we first met."
Luna watches Roy whines with a motherly smile while Luda shakes his head in irritation.
I was at the archery target practice, teaching Erissa how to use the mana arrow. Of course, Lord Sol and Lorelai requested for me to teach it to one of the archers first to familiarise with the technique before officially applying it into their training course. I choose Erissa.
"By compressing the mana into the desired shape of an arrow, the impact when the arrow hit increases rather than just blindly throwing an attack spell at your target," I explain.
"What about the incantation?" Erissa asks.
"I don't have any. I just call them 'wind arrow', 'water arrow', in my mind."
Roy appears in the middle of our practice, grab my hand without a word and bring me to the rangers' sparring ground. Many people gather at this sudden turn of events.
"Why am I being dragged into this?" I ask aloud.
"Don't go easy on them, Iris. A lot at stake at here," says Roy instead of giving me a decent answer.
I face my opponent who is said to be the best of the junior rangers. Junior rangers are those who passed the rangers' training regime and are the youngest batch of the whole rangers ranking order. Why am I duelling with him when I'm technically still in training? He's got more experience than me. I'll lose for sure.It all started when Lorelai made Roy participate in the duelling match with the junior rangers and every single one of them drop to the ground in utter defeat. Head trainer lectured Roy to at least hold back on his strength so that the junior rangers could assess their next moves accordingly and learn their mistakes. In the end, head trainer incites Roy's competitiveness by comparing their teaching methods.
"I doubt she progressed that much after you took over her training." Head trainer provokes.
Roy frowns.
"I wonder if there is anything to learn from you at all."
It doesn't take much effort for Roy to be deceived by the head trainer's provocation.
"Fine. A duel. Iris and whoever is at the top of the junior ranking."
Roy set the match and the head trainer smirks in victory.
"Return the humiliating defeat we continuously received from that monstrous man."
"Show him the pride of a ranger."
The audience is shouting those words towards my opponent while giving me the cold stare. So, they admitted that it was humiliating to lose to Roy and they call him monstrous. They must've resent him a lot for that. Seriously, why am I involved in this?
Lorelai is refereeing the match.
"Lorelai, can't you stop this?" I plead her.
"It can't be helped. Roy has never shown mercy to the rangers and the head trainer couldn't take it anymore, seeing the students he trained to be defeated every time."
"Not a single of them has ever won against Roy?"
"Swordsmanship alone, Roy is unrivalled. Now that both their pride as instructors are hurt, just play along with it."
I look back at Roy sending glares at the head trainer. Now that Lorelai tells me those things about Roy, how can I fail his expectation of me as his student? I sigh.
"Okay. Let's do this." I say, unmotivated.
"Your weapon of choice?"
"Magic counts, right?"
Lorelai consent to it and my opponent is using his sword. Lorelai signals the start of the match. I cover my right hand with water as a shield as soon as the match started while my opponent draws his sword and charges at me. I wait for an opening while blocking off the incoming attacks. This time he's aiming at my left side where it looks completely defenceless. A loud clang resounds when I block his sword with my left palm coated with a thin yet strengthened earth block and trap his sword with the earth block in my hand. Taking this momentum, my right hand reach my opponent's face. The water I used as a shield quickly spread from my arm to his mouth and cover his entire face. He struggles to dissolve the water by poking his fingers into it but failed. Before he runs out of oxygen, the water disperses and he falls to the ground, coughing.
Lorelai judged the match is over and declare the winner to be me. A healer immediately tends to my opponent. I didn't want to do it this way, but it's the fastest way to end the match. I'm still irritated that I'm being dragged into their quarrel, therefore I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of a long match to indulge them.
"What did you do?"
Head trainer demands an explanation from Roy.
"I didn't. It was all her own doing."
"Even so, as her trainer, you help nurture that style of movement, did you not?"
"Well..." Roy looks away in guilt.
Later, Lord Sol hears about the match from Kinai.
"She did what?"
Kinai repeats his report.
"She immobilised her opponent by trapping his sword with her left hand and almost drowned him with her right hand. It ended quickly much to everyone's expectation of her loss."
Lord Sol laugh dryly.
"It's mostly that her loss would be the same as to Roy losing and unfortunately the ranger assigned as her opponent could not meet their anticipation."
"She has progressed that much."
Lord Sol deep in thoughts.
"Convey to Luna that I'll be bringing Iris to the sanctuary tomorrow and notify Roy to meet us there."
"Yes, my lord." Kinai bows then leave his office.