Chapter: 202
After Lucy suddenly left the dining table, Arthur tried to follow her, but Joy stopped him.
“You know, every time Lady Alrn acts weird, there’s usually a reason behind it.”
Arthur was about to refute Joy’s explanation with awkward laughter, but upon thinking it over, she was right.
Since coming to the Academy, Arthur had often encountered Lucy.
He had questioned her various actions but realized that most of the time there was a reason for everything she did once he looked back on it.
Right now, her calling him the ‘pitiful prince’ seemed to hint at something deeper, didn’t it?
His desire to beat Lucy was also to answer this curiosity she stirred in him.
“I used to think, ‘There she goes again, putting on another weird show.’ But these days, I don’t. The Lady from back then and the Lady now are completely different people.”
Arthur agreed with Joy’s sentiment.
When he first met Lucy Alrn, he thought she was just a foolish girl who didn’t understand etiquette, but that was no longer the case.
How could one even consider the word ‘foolish’ in front of a genius who was rewriting the history of the Soul Academy?
She understood manners and formalities perfectly—at least, that’s how Arthur perceived it.
There had to be a reason she suddenly left without any explanation.
Convinced by Joy’s words, Arthur sat back down instead of getting up, crossing his legs.
“Joy, in that sense, there’s one thing I want to ask.”
“What is it, Prince Arthur?”
“Is there a reason she referred to my brother as the gloomy loner prince?”
“Um…”
“What about her openly saying something disgusting and unpleasant in front of everyone—could there really be a reason behind that?”
“…Well, I don’t know.”
Joy usually liked to interpret Lucy’s actions positively, but she couldn’t find words for this question.
It was simply too serious a thing she had done.
If the First Prince hadn’t let it slide or if Lucy weren’t Lady Alrn, wouldn’t she be in jail for her impiety by now?
As Joy struggled to defend Lucy, Arthur casually continued.
“You see, Joy, sometimes there are reasons behind her bizarre actions, but there are definitely times when there are none at all.”
The Lucy from the past hadn’t vanished.
She had merely weakened, but still existed.
After hearing this, Joy nodded absently.
Lucy calling her brother a lecherous prince, giving her parents strange nicknames, and even referring to herself as a ‘foolish lady’—none of it seemed forced, and yet Lucy boldly pushed through. Certainly, there must be some motivation for her antics.
“In a way, she might be worse now. Knowing what manners are, yet crossing the line simply because she wants to.”
“But… but Lady Alrn is a good person.”
“It seems you have no arguments left, foolish lady.”
With that quippy jab, Arthur raised his spoon with a victorious grin, which made Joy internally resolve one thing.
After finishing their meal, she would ask him how he felt losing to the foolish lady while wandering around the festival.
However, her determination could not come to fruition.
Yes, Arthur had beaten her at several stalls, but more than that, Arthur was simply overshadowed by the records made by the First Prince and Lucy everywhere they went—making it utterly impossible to touch on that subject.
BAM!
With all his might, Arthur smashed the hammer down, but all it did was crack the board beneath, leaving its shape intact.
“Unfortunately, that’s a fail, Prince Third.”
“Something went wrong. Look! It’s almost about to break!”
Arthur and Joy had stopped by a stall that tested how much power one could generate with a hammer.
While there, they could hear conversations among other people about Lucy and the First Prince.
“Did you see that? The First Prince put in some effort and completely smashed that wooden board.”
“Impressive, right? He’s definitely someone carrying the royal blood.”
“Honestly, it wasn’t surprising. I mean, of course, he’d succeed.”
“That’s true.”
“More than that, Lady Alrn was amazing.”
“Yeah, how can such power come from that tiny frame?”
“The bloodline of the Alrns is really something. I wonder if she’ll rule the continent someday.”
Arthur and Joy had to hear these kinds of talks every time they visited a stall.
There wasn’t much they could do about it.
The moment Arthur showed up, they naturally began talking about the First Prince, and thanks to Lucy’s impressive performance at various stalls, they started comparing him to her, despite being the same age.
Typically, people would just express admiration and move on. Joy too would normally think, “Wow, both of them are really amazing.”
However, Arthur’s situation was different.
He considered the two of them as rivals he needed to surpass.
The First Prince was both an object of admiration and someone he had to compete with, as well as the person he had been compared to throughout his life.
No matter what he achieved, he would always be overshadowed by the First Prince’s accomplishments.
The reason Arthur couldn’t take pride in his genius was precisely because of the First Prince.
The other person, Lucy, had become a new rival since entering the Academy.
To the usually brilliant Arthur, who had no equals, she was the first to hand him a score of second place.
When they first met, he had classified Lucy as an enemy due to her rudeness. But that was no longer the case.
To him now, Lucy was a goal he had to surpass and almost an adversary.
How could Arthur not feel frustrated when onlookers praised the very opponent he had to defeat?
However, his struggles only seemed to squirm in vain.
He experienced losing at multiple stalls, and even in the places he did win, he could barely match the records set by the First Prince or Lucy.
As this repeated over and over, Arthur’s nerves became considerably frayed.
Even Joy, who had determined to tease him, found it was too much to touch on.
“One more time! If I try just one more time, I’m sure!”
“Um, about that…”
Just when Arthur was about to be stopped by a flustered stall owner, he spotted Jeff running over from afar.
Unlike Joy, who often appeared flustered and rushed, Jeff always seemed relaxed.
But this time, his expression was anything but good. What’s going on with my brother? Did something happen again?
“Haah. Huff. Joy. Where’s Prince Third?”
“Over there.”
How desperately had he been running? Jeff was panting heavily, catching his breath before he rushed towards Arthur.
“Prince Third!”
“Hmm? Isn’t that Sir Jeff? What brings you here?”
“This is urgent. The First Prince is going to have a duel with Lady Alrn.”
“…Huh?!”
Arthur immediately thought it must be a joke when he heard something so out of the ordinary, but the man before him wasn’t someone who would joke about such things.
Hadn’t it been only a few hours since he had a showdown with his brother, and they were already getting into a fuss again?!
“Where is it?”
“I’ll guide you.”
He swiftly put down the hammer he had been gripping and hurriedly followed Jeff.
Damn it, Lucy Alrn, do you have a grudge against the royal family or something?
How many crazy incidents can you cause in a single day?!
At this rate, Sir Benedict’s disguise is going to have so many holes it’ll turn to Swiss cheese!
As Arthur dashed in a panic to manage the situation, he arrived only to find it was already unfolding.
At a table centered around a stall, the First Prince was seated, while across from him, Lucy was writing something down on a piece of paper.
“…Am I too late?”
Seeing this, Arthur let out a long sigh of resignation.
Once the duel had commenced, there was no going back.
How could Arthur possibly interject in a duel that the First Prince suggested and was participating in?
Even though they shared the title of prince, there existed an unbridgeable gap in authority between Arthur and Rene.
At this moment, all Arthur could do was watch from the side.
“It has already begun.”
As he lightly bit his lip, he heard a voice coming from behind him.
Joy was standing behind him. He thought with all the speed she had, she would be lagging behind, but she had easily kept up.
“Is the event a mock dungeon raid?”
A mock dungeon raid.
Instead of entering the dungeon, participants were given conditions and had to devise the optimal strategy.
It often appeared in the Academy’s written exams, so both Arthur and Joy were quite familiar with it.
“Well, it worked out in a way. This is a category where Lady Alrn has a chance to win.”
“Winning is a problem, and losing is a problem.”
“But winning is better, right?”
“That’s true, but…”
Lucy Alrn had been a nightmare for the Dungeon Studies professor at the Soul Academy.
No matter what questions the professor devised, he couldn’t possibly win against her outrageous strategies.
Arthur had seen many times the professor’s head being pulled out upon witnessing his own dungeons being wrecked.
“I wonder if she can win?”
Arthur was aware of Lucy’s abilities, but he also knew very well of the genius that was Rene Soladin.
Rene was a perfect and supreme talent that even Arthur had to look up to.
“It’s over.”
The first one to put down the pen was the First Prince.
He confidently handed his paper to the stall owner without even reviewing it first, as if certain he wouldn’t make a mistake.
The stall owner received it politely with both hands and then placed it on a magic circle in the center of the stall.
Immediately, the magic circle shone with a blue light, and a translucent image emerged.
One front line, one rear line, along with a standard party composed of a thief and a priest.
This illusion would follow the strategy the First Prince had just devised to raid the dungeon.
“That’s amazing.”
“How can he just pick the right answer like that?”
“It feels like he’s come back from the future.”
“This is on the level of showing the answer sheet directly.”
The First Prince’s strategy was the very definition of orthodox.
Considering every variable and picking only the best course of action, it felt as if he had gotten the answers straight from the stall owner.
The onlookers all looked towards the First Prince, certain of his victory.
No one could conceive there could be a better strategy than his.
However, among the onlookers, there were those who knew of the many bizarre antics Lucy Alrn had previously displayed at the Soul Academy.
“If that’s the case, Lady Alrn has won.”
“I guess I misjudged. I need to plan with the assumption that Lucy Alrn will win.”
When Arthur and Joy seemed to have given up and were already proclaiming Lucy’s victory, Jeff standing behind them felt puzzled.
Then, Lucy spoke up.
“What a pathetic, shabby, and poorly constructed dungeon. It was so easy, I almost got bored.”
With her mischievous grin, she radiated confidence in her victory, leaving nothing else to be felt.
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