In the Altoria Kingdom, a duel was a sacred rite.
Anyone who fled without accepting a duel would be stripped of their noble status.
Furthermore, matters decided through a duel took precedence over all other national laws.
In other words, a duel was both a privilege and an obligation directly tied to a noble's honor.
"But I'm not a noble. Is this even okay...?"
Trine stood in the middle of the dim training field.
On this side were Jize, Prince Sirean, and Trine.
Their opponents were second-year seniors from the magic department.
Among them, the senior who had cursed Trine shouted,
"If we win, you guys run a lap around the Academy naked, quack!"
At that, Prince Sirean replied,
"If we win, every time you run into us, all of you will plant your heads on the ground and greet us."
...This crap was a sacred duel?
While Trine grumbled, Jize stepped forward first and shouted,
"I'll take the vanguard! Who's my opponent?"
At that, one of the magic department students stepped forward.
Jize took out a weapon with an axe blade attached to the end of a spear, a halberd, and shouted,
"I'll finish this in one blow!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, Jize charged at his opponent.
But when his opponent pulled a small iron cross from inside his clothes, Jize suddenly collapsed to the ground.
"Y-You bastard. To think you'd have a holy relic of the Yumano Church..."
"Hmph. This is why demonkin are hopeless."
And so, the first round ended in an absurd victory for the magic department.
Prince Sirean stepped forward after kicking Jize away.
"I will take the next one."
At that, another student from the magic department stepped forward.
When the male student struck his staff against the ground once, a spherical transparent barrier spread around his body.
"Your weapon is a mana gun, right? Do you think you can break this barrier with that thing?"
At that, Prince Sirean shrugged and took out his own gun.
"Anyway, you can't use other magic while maintaining a barrier, can you?"
"Is that so?!"
The male student, covered by the barrier, began firing small fireballs.
Using two spells at the same time was an impressive skill Trine could not even imitate, but...
"Useless."
Prince Sirean fired his gun at the fireballs.
In midair, the fireballs and electric bullets collided and exploded.
"You bastard!"
Countless fireballs poured down in a dazzling barrage, but Prince Sirean shot every single one without missing even once.
Remarkable dynamic vision and shooting skill.
On top of that, the boldness not to flinch before a storm of fireballs.
Even Trine was impressed by his ability.
In the end, the male student must have grown tired, because he released the barrier.
Sirean did not miss that opening and shot a bullet into his opponent's forehead.
The opponent's body jerked violently once, and then he fainted.
"That such a pathetic weakling is an Academy student makes me embarrassed too."
Prince Sirean returned, smiled mischievously, and tapped Trine on the shoulder.
"Your turn."
In the end, Trine stepped forward as if switching places with Prince Sirean and murmured,
"I really don't want to fight."
To be honest, whether he won or lost, nothing good would come of it for Trine.
Of course, he did not want to run around the Academy naked.
But even if he won here, those seniors would only find Trine even more unpleasant.
Especially after the newspaper incident, he wanted to avoid attracting attention whenever possible.
"...What are you doing?"
When Trine glanced at Prince Sirean and spoke, Sirean held out the camcorder that was now in his hand and answered calmly,
"Do not mind me."
"Would you be able to not mind this if you were me?"
"There is just someone I want to show this to, so try to look good."
Trine's lips twitched, unable to figure out how to respond, when someone shouted from far away.
"Trine! You can do it!"
For some reason, the female seniors who had joined them at the tea party earlier had come out.
On top of that, dozens of other spectators had gathered before he knew it.
At that sight, Trine let out a huge sigh and murmured,
"Wow... now I suddenly don't want to fight."
At that, his opponent picked a fight with him.
"Must be nice being so popular for a commoner, quack?"
"What? No, it's not like I wanted this..."
"Don't be ridiculous. You're the one who flirted with my Servia first, quack."
"Were you perhaps dating Senior Servia or engaged to her?"
At that, his opponent flinched for a moment, then grew angry.
"N-Not yet, but we're going to get married someday, quack!"
When several members of the audience snorted at those words, the senior's face turned bright red.
By the time Trine somehow began to feel sorry for him, he proposed quietly,
"I'll apologize, so could we just end this in a draw?"
"Don't be ridiculous, quack! Did you think I would let a commoner bastard humiliate me like this and just move on, quack?!"
"To begin with, I don't have any interest in Senior Servia-"
"You think I don't know you came to the Academy as a commoner to marry a noble and raise your status, quack?!"
When Trine's expression stiffened slightly, the senior grew even more excited and shouted,
"What's wrong, quack? Did I hit the mark, quack?"
"That is not it."
"You spouted all that nonsense in the newspaper just to become popular too, didn't you, quack?"
"Of course not."
"If I win, I'll have a newspaper article published saying you're a playboy who goes around seducing other men's women, quack!"
His opponent had finally touched Trine's reverse scale.
Thanks to that, Trine now had a reason he could not afford to lose.
"...Though the flesh may decay, chivalry shall be eternal."
When Trine summoned his magic sword, his opponent grinned and said,
"See? You learned that inefficient magic sword just for show so you could seduce women anyway, didn't you, quack?"
"........."
"I'll show you the trump card I prepared for someone like you! Quack!"
When his opponent held out his staff, black mist poured out.
That mist suddenly covered Trine, and his vision was soon dyed pitch-black.
"Whoa! What the hell is this?!"
"Fwahahaha! It's a curse that blocks your vision! A fake swordsman like you can't do anything if he can't see, quack!"
While Trine fumbled, his opponent fired a fireball.
"Take this and go down, quack!"
But Trine calmly twisted his body and dodged it.
"Tch, you lucky bastard, quack!"
His opponent fired fireballs in rapid succession.
But even without his sight, Trine dodged them with only the smallest necessary movements.
At that, his opponent grew even more anxious and kept firing spells.
"Damn it, do you have some kind of mind's eye or something, quack?!"
"It is nothing that grand."
Yuril's butler had forced Trine to learn how to fight using his five senses rather than relying on his eyes.
To begin with, Trine could not even follow the butler's sword strikes with his eyes.
And if Trine showed any sign of tracking them with his eyes, a faint would come flying in instead.
Thanks to that, dodging such flashy fireballs with only sound and heat was nothing special.
In the end, as useless fireballs poured down wildly, the people around them began to murmur.
"He's that good even when he can't see!"
"As expected of the knight department's class representative."
"Trine! Hit him with one!"
But the situation was not good for Trine either.
As long as he had no guarantee that his opponent would not use magic other than fireballs, closing the distance with his eyes shut was no different from suicide.
'Damn it. I should've asked Prince Sirean to teach me how to bounce curses back.'
Sure enough, his opponent soon shouted in a thoroughly irritated voice,
"Let's see if you can dodge this too, quack!"
At that shout, Trine sensed dozens of small fireballs being summoned at once.
"Fwahahahaha! If you don't want to burn to death, surrender right now, quack!"
Trine hesitated for a moment.
No matter what, dodging even that would be impossible.
'It isn't like this is a fight I absolutely have to win anyway. I should just give up and surrender...'
...Trine felt a sense of wrongness in his own thoughts.
Give up?
If he could not overcome a curse of this level, then he would never be able to break Yuril's curse no matter how long he lived.
"What are you hesitating for, quack?! I'll give you exactly three seconds to declare surrender, quack!"
Don't be ridiculous. Yuril's curse is far stronger than this worthless curse.
"Three, quack!"
To begin with, Yuril is hundreds of times stronger than small fry like this.
"Two, quack!"
If I lose in a place like this, I'll never be able to save Yuril.
"One, quack!"
I'll never give up.
-That was the moment.
For some reason, the grimoire inside Trine's clothes grew slightly warm.
He instinctively realized something and let out a small laugh.
"So this is what a grimoire is."
At Trine's murmur, his opponent shouted in anger,
"What are you laughing about?! Do you want to become a lump of charcoal that badly, quack?!"
Trine took the grimoire from inside his clothes and opened it.
Then a huge mass of mana shaped like red lips sprang out from the book.
"It's too late no matter what you do now, quack!"
His opponent finally poured the prepared fireballs down on Trine.
At almost the same time, Trine's curse lifted, and his sight returned.
A spell that dispelled weak curses.
That was the answer the grimoire 'The Frog Prince' had given Trine.
"...You're not my enemy."
Trine suddenly threw himself into the rain of fire.
Then he dodged all of it without touching the flames even once.
"W-What the hell-"
Then he rushed at his opponent and pressed his sword to his neck.
It was a reversal that took less than a single second.
In the end, his opponent fell backward in shock.
"H-How in the world..."
"Will you surrender?"
"Don't be ridiculous, quack!"
"Your name was Senior Meguryu, right?"
"S-So what-"
"To be honest, I understand you to some extent, Senior Meguryu. I'm in unrequited love myself."
But Trine stepped on the senior's chest and pressed the sword even closer to his neck.
"But right now, you're just a stalker making yourself a nuisance to Senior Servia, aren't you?"
At those words, Meguryu's pupils shook violently.
Then, as if resigning himself to it, he raised both hands and murmured,
"I surrender, quack."
Only then did Trine release the magic sword and put the grimoire back inside his clothes.
At the same time, the spectators began cheering.
"As expected, the knight department's class representative is different!"
"He was that calm even when he couldn't see!"
"I've never seen someone who knew how to use a grimoire before!"
Ignoring the cheers around him, Trine left one final word for Meguryu.
"To care for someone... means wishing for that person to be happy, doesn't it?"
Then he turned sharply, looking displeased, and left.
At that, Prince Sirean and Jize hurriedly chased after Trine.
In the place they left behind,
The spectators began chattering excitedly.
"That guy's seriously cool."
"This year's knight department class representative really is something else."
"What do I do? I think I might really fall for him."
In the end, Trine's popularity doubled without him even knowing.
Because of that, it only brought about the opposite effect of getting him written up in the newspaper once again.