Aravel

Chapter 27

It took a while, but the selection process was finally over.

After Kaze had put on quite the show for the others, most of them were either agitated or looking to show off their best. In fact, some people opted to duel with the dummy instead. It seemed like they wanted to test for themselves the capabilities of fighting against the dummy to either further convince themselves of Kaze's prowess or they figured they simply preferred fighting the dummy.

With the students moving along one by one, Frey took her time to talk with Kaze. She must have gotten interested in his abilities due to his performance against the dummy.

"I can see why Lunaria-hime recommended you now," Frey commented with a gleeful smile. "I can't wait for the day of the festival itself to see who I get paired up with. I hope to fight you~"

"... As much as this conversation is making me uncomfortable... I won't deny that I also am interested in fighting against you..." Kaze sweatdropped, wondering if the other top 10s were also like that. "I wonder how many people will be chosen the first time round or we would have to choose again."

"Probably not much, but I can tell he shows promise," Frey shrugged and gestured to the person fighting against her dummy right now.

"Ah, Albert is a good person," Lunaria agreed. "Frey-san, isn't it hard for you to maintain all the barriers by yourself while controlling the dummy? The Student Council members or I can be of help."

"Ooh~ alright then, I will take your word for it," Frey giggled. "I was thinking that I should do all the physical work since I felt bad for letting you do the rest on your own, but since you insisted~"

Disabling some of the barriers from her control, Frey passed the job over to Lunaria. With a confident smile, Lunaria waved her fingers and the barriers that disappeared reappeared on an even more advanced scale. As expected from Lunaria, who demonstrated her expert level of controlling once more, made it such that her appearance did not reflect her mental age. After all, she was a genius who managed to reach mastery level of magic when she was only 30. In human age terms, that would be 3 years old.

Of course, one can't make a direct conversion since that wasn't how aging worked. Lunaria had lived well over what an average human would and as a result had more time to learn her magic and sword skills. It was just a different mentality and perspective that long-life races lived by, seeing that Lunaria was already abnormal from what she had told Kaze.

Still, Lunaria was someone who was even more of an expert than most dragonkins. If she was the top of the top among a race that was known for their superb strength, then Lunaria surely must have done something for her to solidify her place as such within the dragonkin community. While the humans might not be aware of this, they still regarded her as one of the strongest based on her ranking. Lunaria did not mind showing off her strength especially after experiencing the drawbacks of constantly hiding it.

Some of the students gasped at the change in difficulty of the barrier, considering it became even more refined and denser than the previous ones made by Frey. Making a low whistle of admiration, Frey smirked at the dragonkin princess because this was made as though it was a display of talent. No one in their right minds would want to take on Lunaria unless they were at least one of the top 10s of the school. Lunaria would have made it to the top 10 if they were ranked by their strengths alone instead of the rank points.

As for Kaze, who was already aware of Lunaria's strengths, he simply smiled when he saw her displaying her terrifying control over magic. He was genuinely happy for her after comparing her current state with her past, something that she was working hard to overcome. It mattered not how strong she was, because Kaze already knew that she trusted him and was also why she picked him herself.