Chapter 57 Did You Say Spar?

Feeling the awkward tension in the room, Wilfried decided to change the topic.

"You'll be happy to know that the slave traders are going to be publicly executed for their crimes after we finish interrogating them."

Zen nodded his head.

"For what those bastards did, they got what they deserved. However, what are we going to do about the freed captives?"

"We plan to send those with families back home while giving financial and medical support to those that require it. Due to the traumatic experience, they went through, some of them will most likely need therapy to get back on their feet." Wilfried responded, "We plan to offer them everything they need in order to fully integrate back into society."

"That's for the better."

After talking for a bit longer, Lienna and Wilfried excused themselves to go check up on the captured slave traders, leaving behind only the children and August in the drawing-room.

Arvell decided to use this as his chance to escape.

He stood up out of his seat, alerting the 3 to his surroundings.

"Since I'm going to be participating in the entrance exam, I want to spend some time training to hone my skills."

Seeing Arvell walk towards the door Angela stood up as well.

"Since you're going to be training, why not have a sparring partner? If you want I could train with you."

Arvell immediately paused mid-step.

He slowly turned his head and looked at Angela.

"You want to spar with me?"

Arvell's smile grew distorted, morphing into a maniacal grin.

Angela gulped in nervousness.

She felt like Arvell was eyeing her like how a starved wolf would eye a slab of fresh meat.

But…

She was the young lady of the Silvercolt family!

There was no way she would go back on her word!

Plus… This side of Arvell had its fatal attraction as well…

'No! I'm engaged! I can't!'

Sensing a disturbance in his sister's mental state, Zen angrily looked at Arvell.

'First, it's my fiance and now it's my sister? Who's next? My mother? Both of them are engaged for crying out loud! Lay your hands on someone else!'

However, unlike last time, Arvell didn't pay attention to Zen.

He was far too excited at the prospect of being able to fight someone!

Even if Angela was a third-year student, and had a 2-year advantage on him.

This was just a friendly spar.

It would serve as training for him on how to properly fight stronger opponents.

Normally he wouldn't get this kind of opportunity, since…

Those stronger opponents would be after his life.

He couldn't properly train against stronger enemies when they were trying to kill him.

No.

Arvell would run away instead.

Why fight an enemy you can't win against if you would just die for no reason? Especially when the option to run away still exists?

This wasn't the case now, however.

Since Angela offered to train Arvell, she wasn't going to kill him.

While Arvell would have preferred to fight someone whom he wouldn't mind showing his various powers to, this would have to suffice.

Since he had resolved to hide his powers, learning to fight without them was crucial.

After resolving herself, Angela led the group to the knight's barracks.

Since the knights regularly trained there, there were arena-like fighting areas where even the 4th circle mages could have all-out fights.

Through the use of barrier magic, they didn't need to worry about causing collateral damage to their surroundings.

If the barrier could tolerate full-on beatings from peak fourth circle mages, it would normally be overkill to have people like Arvell and Angela fighting here.

But…

Being the daughter of the duke, she naturally had the right to train here.

A right which she used quite often.

After countless hours of training here, it had become like a second home to her.

After asking the knights if they could use one of the duel arenas, the knights currently using it quickly finished up their fight and made space for Angela and Arvell to enter.

The nearby knights all stopped what they were doing to witness the fight.

They had all heard about Arvell's exploits and were curious about his strength.

After all…

No one had actually seen him fight.

When they found Arvell he was already overpowered by the rank 4 beast.

The only measure they had to go off of for Arvell's power was Zenos's word.

While they didn't want to accuse their young lord of lying, many still felt that his impression of Arvell was biased.

Arvell did save Zenos's life after all.

Perhaps Zen deified Arvell in his mind?

After all… Finding children as strong as how Zenos described Arvell…

Frankly, there were only a handful of children like that in the country, and almost all of them belonged to influential families who spent countless resources and treasures on them.

Hearing that an orphaned boy had that level of strength seemed like it was quite the tall tale for these knights.

While Arvell was walking onto the stage, he noticed all the knights staring at him with scrutinizing looks.

Only Zen looked at him with zeal.

Angela and Reyna also had expectations for Arvell, but they weren't that high.

However, instead of feeling intimidated by those scrutinizing gazes, Arvell was too busy having a moral dilemma.

'Do I make myself look strong or weak? I plan to make myself look as weak as possible to not draw attention while attending the academy… But if I reveal any talent here it would ruin my future plans. However, I also need to show the Silvercolts that I am someone worth nurturing…'

Arvell pondered for a moment.

'I guess I'll just show them what I showed Zen. It might seem somewhat advanced for my age, but it's not that special.'

Arvell and Angela faced each other with wooden swords they received from the barracks.

Since neither of them were considered Arcane mages, both of them had opted to choose swords as their weapons.

Meaning that the fight was going to be almost completely within close quarters.

Something Angela with her higher-ranked magic circle would normally have an advantage with.

However… Arvell wasn't your normal mage.