The brown-haired young woman, Arreta declared and the arena that Zoemi fixed mere moments earlier broke apart, and the debris flew straight to the brown-haired young woman to become armor for her arms.

This spell looked just like the one used by her grandmother, but Arreta’s stone arms looked a bit slimmer and more agile than the one lady Auequas tried to use.

”…huh…? Wait, what…?! Where is the…?! I was just…!”

The black-haired boy flinched and straightened his back, turning around with a wild look in his eyes.

”Announce the start of the duel!”

Arreta roared at the gold-haired judge – who seemed to be even more confused than Zoemi.

”Rethaq…? Rethaq?! Where are you?!”

The man gasped, touching his head with his left hand and clutching his right hand around his heart, looking as if he was heaving a panic attack.

”Tsk…!”

Seeing him being so uncooperative, despite being extravagantly paid off by her majesty the queen herself just to allow the Auequas family to deal with their own trash, Arreta had no choice.

She clicked her tongue flew past the disoriented black-haired boy and landed behind his back with an extremely annoyed expression.

It’s not like she had a second thought or suddenly received some divine revelation – if the duel wasn’t approved, the thing she has almost done would have been just a cowardly assault and nothing else.

Her honor and the honor of the entire Auequas family would have been completely destroyed, broken apart, and forever mixed with mud and manure.

The worst part was – that wasn’t even an over-exaggeration.

In the worst-case scenario, a fight that was not a duel could even be considered an attempted murder – and since the black-haired boy received the title of the high nobility because of the inheritance process finally finishing…

Let’s say that the brown-haired young woman, as lower nobility without a middle name, would be extremely lucky if she ended up sentenced to quick and painless death if she as much as grazed the currently defenseless boy.

And speaking of which…

Kid? Kid! Wake up! What the hell happened? Her logic is hard to follow for anyone sane, but there’s no reason for losing your mind like this!

A voice called out from inside Zoemi’s head – but instead of it being the voice of a plush bear it was the unique shadow of Ludier, the dead ice magician.

|Lu-Ludier…?! What?! Why are we here?! Why is that annoying girl still standing?! No, wait – I’m back in my own body…! Why aren’t you holding back Kiorterell?! My last attack should have killed Rethaq, but I have to make sure!|

Zoemi gasped, shaking his head like a dog who rushed out of the body of water after complete submersion and called out internally, activating his enchantments to the maximum possible output, causing an air quake with that basic spell alone.

”!!!!”

Seeing that Arreta gulped down her saliva and stepped back holding her arms up in a fighter’s defensive position.

What…? Who are you talking about? You most definitely didn’t kill anyone during this tournament. Did… did that whole Letro guy have a poisoned face and you are getting sick because of it? Or maybe you messed up your hand from punching him and are speaking crazy because of a bloodloss…?

”…!”

Ludier’s shadow asked in genuine concern, sounding so worried that Zoemi ended up flinching and stopping himself from unleashing the copy of Raseriat’s wings.

|But… but we fought them – Rethaq and Kiorterell… and I wanted to use the time attribute spell to make her suffer as much as my mother did – but then…|

Kid… I live inside your head – I would know if ** like that happened. You destroyed Letro Auequas’s face and his daughter rushed over to seek vengeance. That’s it.

The black-haired boy breathed out, and thought, making a worried, almost scared expression – to which Ludier’s shadow hurried with an explanation.

|Are… are you sure…?|

Yes!

The black-haired boy asked, gulping down his saliva and the unique shadow confirmed with full confidence.

”…”

Zoemi furrowed his brows and relaxed just a little bit – he did not deactivate his enchantments, but he certainly lowered the mana output so the air quake calmed down.

|Was that all some sort of…|

The black-haired boy breathed out again and rubbed his forehead looking extremely tired – but then he noticed the behavior of the gold-haired judge who seemed to act even more erratic than he was feeling at the moment.

”Rethaq…?! Rethaq! This is not funny! The family is just a facade, but the two of us always stick together! Where are you?!”

The man not only was looking around muttering to himself – he straight up started shouting and running around, causing other judges to stare at him in confusion.

”Ah…! Shadow connect.”

Zoemi gasped and froze – he activated one of his spells almost unintentionally, but still, the thin hair-like shadow shot out from under his foot and slithered across the ground until it reached the gold-haired judge.

The connection was strong and clear – the seemingly average light magician with a unique shadow of a six-legged stag turned out to be hiding a very special filling.

…a stake of concentrated silky-darkness was stabbing right through his heart – which was most definitely a wound that should have killed him on the spot, but alas, the man’s raised voice was clearly proving that to be not true.

Judging by the stake itself, it must have been Kiorterell’s darkness blade – and judging by the things he was saying, Rethaq was no longer there.

Even as confused as he was, Zoemi came to a realization that somehow the time attribute spell that he used had ended up working out and after showing him a certain even from the distant past, he was pulled back into his own world…

…but it really looked like the member of the Ghosts of Bellcephora who received an intense internal massage of razorblade-like feathers stayed dead – even though Zoemi tried to use the time spell specifically to extend the time until her death so she would suffer more…

It was both worrisome and somehow encouraging.

One of the two people who were most involved in killing Zoemi’s mother seemed to be already dead – and thanks to that the black-haired boy managed to stay calm and not just go and attack and kill a judge right in front of representatives of basically every single noble family in the kingdom.

”Sentinel.”

What he did instead was to encourage one of the sentinels lurking in his shadow to move alongside the shadow connect spell and attach itself to the Kiorterell’s spell.

…as it was said – one perpetrator was already dead – now it was the correct time to use the other one to track the whole rest of the filthy traitors…

”|Keep an eye on him, report everything.|”

”(Yes~!)”

Zoemi passed a message to the sentinel already digging its way into the shadow and the summoned spell responded cheerfully.

*thump*

The very next moment, the silky-black stake disappeared from the heart of the gold-haired judge and the man fell down, not even bending his knees but instead crashing onto the ground face-first to the great disturbance of his colleagues and everyone else watching.

Interestingly enough, as the stake disappeared, so did the third pair of the shadow stag’s legs.

Zoemi really did a good job going for the attaching the sentinel instead of attacking blindly!

”Oh for the…!”

Arreta also didn’t miss the gold-haired judge’s sudden collapse and groaned, chewing on the words that she wanted to describe the useless corrupted judge with…

”I challenge you to duel! If you are a man you will fight me right here and right now!”

…and while she regained some of the confidence seeing that the air quake caused by the black-haired boy had passed, and used that chance to walk in front of him and challenged him, right in his face.

”…”

Although it was annoying, it was also a good wake-up call to start acting more conspicuously for the good of his own image – so Zoemi straightened his back and looked at the young woman who should have been his cousin, but whom he saw for the first time in his life.

”No. Not out of order. You are already participating in the tournament anyway – to face me you just have to keep winning until we get to face each other.”

Zoemi scoffed and shook his head, rolling his eyes.

”You have no ho…!”

”You want to make the rules, how about you organize the tournament for your own hand and act then? Not that anyone would want to participate.”

Arreta was about to try and berate the black-haired boy, but his snappy response literally forced the words tight back into her throat, as she definitely did not expect a comeback like that…