Chapter: 202
After Lucy suddenly left the dining table, Arthur tried to follow her, but Joy stopped him.
“Usually, when Lady Allen acts strangely, there’s a reason behind it.”
Arthur wanted to rebut Joy’s explanation, which was delivered with an awkward smile, but upon reflection, she was likely right.
Since coming to the academy, Arthur had seen Lucy frequently.
He had wondered about her various actions, but looking back with time, most of her behaviors had a reason behind them.
For instance, it’s no coincidence that she dubbed him the “Pitiful Prince.”
His desire to defeat Lucy was partly to solve this mystery through her own words.
“I used to think when Lady Allen pulled such antics, ‘There she goes again.’ But nowadays, it’s different. The past Lady and the current Lady are completely different people.”
Arthur agreed with Joy’s perspective.
When he first met Lucy Allen, he thought she was just a dumb kid who didn’t understand manners, but that was no longer the case.
Was “dumb” even an appropriate word in front of a genius who was rewriting the history of Soul Academy?
She perfectly understood etiquette and ceremonies, or at least that’s how it seemed to Arthur.
Her leaving without much explanation surely had a reason.
Convinced by Joy’s words, Arthur attempted to stand but instead sat back down, crossing his legs.
“Joy. In that sense, there’s something I want to ask.”
“What is it, Your Highness the Third Prince?”
“Is there a reason she called my brother a gloomy, lonely prince?”
“Um.”
“Is there a reason she said such disgusting and unpleasant things about him in front of everyone?”
“…Well, I don’t know.”
Joy usually tried to interpret Lucy’s actions positively, but she couldn’t answer this question.
Because the severity of what she had done was too significant.
If the First Prince hadn’t overlooked it or if Lucy weren’t a lady of the Allen Family, she would probably be imprisoned for blasphemy by now.
Seeing Joy hesitating to defend her, Arthur continued leisurely, “Do you understand, Joy? Sometimes, there are reasons behind her antics, but there are surely times when there’s no reason at all.”
The past Lucy wasn’t gone.
She had just weakened, but still existed in that place.
Listening to those words, Joy absentmindedly nodded.
Her calling Arthur a lecherous prince, her giving weird nicknames to her parents, and her calling herself a foolish young lady—all were unreasonable.
But Lucy pushed forward without breaking a sweat, so it must’ve been an intentional act.
“In a way, she’s worse now. She knows what etiquette is but crosses the line just because she feels like it.”
“Y-yeah, but Lady Allen is a good person.”
“Looks like you ran out of words, foolish young lady.”
With that victorious remark, Arthur raised his spoon and Joy made a silent decision.
After the meal, she’d ask him, “How do you feel for losing to the foolish young lady while wandering around the festival?”
However, her resolution didn’t come to fruition.
The fact that she lost to Arthur at several stalls was one reason, but more than that was the reality that wherever they went, Arthur was frustrated, overshadowed by the records made by the First Prince and Lucy.
BAM!
Arthur slammed his hammer down with all his might, but the board below only cracked while maintaining its shape.
“Too bad, but that’s a failure, Your Highness the Third Prince.”
“Something’s off. Look! It’s almost about to break!”
The stall was a competition to see how much power one could generate using a hammer.
At that spot, Arthur and Joy overheard stories about Lucy and the First Prince from others.
“Did you see that? When the First Prince put in some effort, the wooden board shattered easily.”
“Impressive, right? He’s truly someone of royal blood.”
“But honestly, the First Prince wasn’t surprising. It’s expected he would succeed.”
“That’s true.”
“What’s more interesting is Lady Allen.”
“Indeed. How can such power come from that small body?”
“The bloodline of the Allen Family is formidable. Will she reign over the continent in the future?”
Arthur and Joy had to hear such talk every time they visited a stall.
It was unavoidable.
As soon as Arthur showed up, stories about the First Prince naturally followed, and Lucy’s impressive displays at various stalls made him be compared with her, even though they looked like contemporaries.
Typically, one would just be in awe and leave it at that. Joy had also thought, “Both of them are amazing.”
However, in Arthur’s case, it was different.
He considered both as rivals he had to surpass.
The First Prince was an object of admiration he wanted to catch up to but also someone he was continuously being compared against throughout his life.
No matter what he achieved, he was bound to be overshadowed by the image that the First Prince had already created.
The very reason Arthur couldn’t take pride in his genius was because of the First Prince.
On the other side, Lucy was a newly formed rival after entering the academy.
To Arthur, who had no one to compete with at his age, she was the first who handed him the second-place results.
When they first met, he had deemed her an enemy due to her rudeness, but that was no longer the case.
At present, Lucy was a goal to be surpassed and almost a nemesis.
With the audience praising the opponent he had to defeat, how could Arthur not lash out?
However, the squirming of a worm was just squirming.
He experienced defeats at many stalls and even at the places he won, he couldn’t catch up to either the First Prince or Lucy’s records.
As this repeated itself multiple times, Arthur’s nerves had worn thin.
Even Joy, who had intended to tease him, couldn’t bring it up.
“One more time! If I just get one more try, I’ll—!”
“Um, that’s…”
Just when Joy was thinking that she needed to stop the struggling stall owner, she noticed Jeff running from afar.
Unlike Joy, who often got frantic when she occasionally skipped meals, Jeff always appeared relaxed.
But now, his expression was far from pleasant. Why can’t brother manage his expression? What on earth happened now?
“Haaah… Hah… Joy, where’s His Highness the Third Prince?”
“Over there.”
How desperately had he rushed? Gasping for breath, Jeff took a deep breath and headed toward Arthur.
“Your Highness the Third Prince!”
“Hm? Isn’t that Jeff Partlan? What brings you here?”
“It’s urgent. The First Prince is said to be in a duel with Lady Allen.”
“…Huh?!”
Arthur doubted for a moment that he was hearing things, but the man before him wasn’t the type to joke about such matters.
Hadn’t it been just a few hours since he last quarrelled with his brother, and now another conflict arises?!
“Where is it?”
“I’ll lead you.”
He hastily dropped the hammer he had been holding and quickly followed Jeff.
Damn it. Lucy Allen, do you hold some grudge against the royal family or something?
Just how many incidents can you cause in a single day?!
At this rate, Lord Benedict’s disguise will have so many holes it’ll become cheese!
Desperately rushing to smooth out the situation, Arthur sadly arrived only to find the scene already playing out.
The First Prince was at the table surrounded by stall owners, and on the opposite side, Lucy was sitting and writing something on paper.
“…Did I arrive too late?”
Seeing that, Arthur let out a long sigh of relief.
Once the duel had begun, there was no turning back.
How could he say anything in a match proposed by the First Prince?
Between the Prince and Arthur, a gap of authority one couldn’t cross existed.
At this very moment, all Arthur could do was just watch them.
“It seems it’s already started.”
He bit his lip as he heard a voice from behind him.
Joy was standing right behind him. She must have thought he’d fall behind since he rushed, but she caught up easily.
“Is the event a mock dungeon strategy?”
A mock dungeon strategy.
Instead of entering a dungeon and conquering it directly, it’s more about looking at the conditions given and devising the optimal strategy.
Since it often appeared in the academy’s written exams, both Arthur and Joy were quite familiar with it.
“At least this is good. In that case, Lady Allen has a chance to win.”
“Winning is a problem, and losing is also a problem.”
“Still, winning is better, right?”
“That’s true, but…”
In Soul Academy, Lucy Allen was the nightmare of the Dungeon Studies Professor.
No matter what problems the professor devised, he could only feel powerless in front of her extraordinary strategies.
Arthur had seen many times the professor pulling his hair out over the scene where his dungeon was wrecked.
“Could she win?”
Arthur knew how skilled Lucy was, but he also knew all too well about Rene Soladin, the genius.
He was a universal talent and the best that even the likes of him could only look up at.
“It’s done.”
The one who put down the pen first was the First Prince.
Without a second thought, he handed his paper to the stall owner, confident he wouldn’t make a mistake.
The stall owner politely took the paper with both hands and placed it on the magic circle at the center of the stall.
Then the magic circle glowed blue, and a translucent image appeared above it.
One front-line fighter, one back-line fighter, and a standard party composed of a thief and a clergy.
These mirages would now navigate the dungeon according to what the First Prince had written.
“Impressive.”
“How can he only pick the correct answers?”
“It feels like he’s seen the future.”
“This is like he’s showing us the answer sheet.”
The First Prince’s strategy was the epitome of standard.
Considering all variables and selecting only the best moves would have surprised anyone, even if they heard the answers from the stall owner.
Those watching couldn’t help but assume the First Prince would win.
They believed there couldn’t possibly be a better strategy.
However, among the audience, some who were aware of the countless antics Lucy Allen had displayed at Soul Academy felt differently.
“With that, Lady Allen has won.”
“I miscalculated. I have to plan around the assumption of Lucy Allen winning.”
In the midst of Arthur and Joy discussing as if there was nothing more to see, Jeff, who was standing behind them, felt puzzled at that moment.
Lucy raised her voice.
“This is a sloppy and shoddy dungeon. It’s so easy, I almost fell asleep.”
With a smug smile, there was nothing left in her expression but confidence in her victory.
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