Chapter 64: Impressing Emma
"I yield!"
A silver-haired young guy shouted as he fell back onto the dirt of the training field. His combat uniform was heavily stained with dust, and his wooden sword flew several feet away.
Standing triumphantly over him was Emma.
She casually extended a hand toward the fallen youth, dragging him back up to his feet.
"Your initial stance was decent, Prince Theo," she said curtly, her voice dripping with the unyielding authority of a proud captain. "However, your balance relies far too heavily on standard ceremonial footwork. In a true battle, a seasoned warrior would have severed your ankles before you even finished your first flourish."
Well, he’s the Crown Prince, the first male lead of the game. He merely scratched the back of his neck and smiled bright and wide like a golden retriever, taking the harsh lecture with complete, unbothered humility.
Eren stared at them as he sat on the grass at the edge of the training grounds, resting his elbows on his knees. The surrounding crowd of students was practically whispering in collective awe and panic.
"By the gods, she has dismantled nearly every top student in the academy in under a minute..."
"Does that woman possess zero concept of human mercy?! Even the Crown Prince is getting berated like a fresh recruit!"
"The Volsver house truly raised an absolute monster of a swordmaster. Her standards are completely unhinged."
Eren let out a low chuckle, shaking his head. They are witnessing her soft, educational side right now. They don’t know she used to throw full-grown knights into the mud during morning drills. This is practically a gentle nursery session.
However, Eren’s issue was not with the training but with her.
He was here because for the past three days, Emma had been actively avoiding him. Every single time he tried to approach her to apologize, Emma would instantly vanish, get a sudden task across campus, or pretend she had urgently been called away. The silent treatment was genuinely getting on his nerves.
So, he just joined her combined practical martial arts class where she couldn’t run away from him.
Theo bowed politely to Emma and walked back toward the crowd of students.
"Is there anyone else left in this roster?" Emma called out, voice echoing across the grounds with confidence. "I was genuinely hoping someone here could impress me today. But it seems the elite students of the royal academy were lacking backbone."
A few students in the front row flinched, whispering among themselves.
"I would love to impress a hot woman like her, honestly... but not by having my ribs shattered on first or second."
"She doesn’t see us as students. She sees us as target practice."
But Emma’s confident smile instantly flattened into a flat line the moment she spotted a student rising.
A wave of astonished gasps rippled through the surrounding crowd as Eren casually stepped forward, holding his wooden practice sword between his teeth while hands sehile sweeping his grown hair to tie it into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck.
The student body immediately started chattering.
"Is he out of his mind?! He’s the weakest of all for the past two years!"
"He harbored a death wish today?!"
"Wait, he did manage to put Angulus into a coma during their previous conflict... maybe he actually believes he can handle her?"
"Or he’s just foolishly confident because he’s her young master. He probably thinks she’ll hold back to save his delicate dignity."
Eren stepped onto the central arena, pulling the wooden sword from his teeth and holding it low at his side with unbothered audacity. "Well, Captain," he called out, his blue eyes flashing a playful spark. "Can I try and impress you today?"
Emma’s grey eyes narrowed into sharp slits. A minute of hesitation twitched across her tanned face before she forced her voice into a cold, stern register. "...Sure."
The exact second the duel started, Emma completely abandoned the concept of holding back.
She closed the distance between them in a blur as she launched a heavy, vicious downward strike straight at his shoulder. Eren reacted instantly, bringing his sword up in a tight, two-handed diagonal block.
Crack!
The force of her blow sent his boots skidding back several feet through the dirt, the vibrations rattling right through the bones in his forearms.
She wasn’t holding back at all.
Giving him zero room to reset his posture, Emma unleashed a flurry of strikes.
Left, right, overhead, thrust—her wooden blade became a continuous blur of force.
Eren dodged, parried, and desperately blocked every incoming blow, his feet tracing frantic patterns in the dust as he retreated step by step.
The watching students stared with wide, horrified eyes.
Yet, despite being pushed to his limits, the cocky smile on Eren’s face never once faltered. And that irritated the hot-tempered knight more.
Spotting a small gap in her defence as she tried for a heavy horizontal sweep, Eren suddenly adjusted his stance. Instead of blocking flat, he angled his blade upward, sliding his wood along hers with a sharp clack! He forcibly redirected her momentum upward, completely breaking her defensive guard and leaving her wide open.
Without missing the chance, Eren thrusted the tip of his practice sword straight for her chest.
’Got you,’ he smirked.
But Emma was a certified battle maniac for a reason.
With terrifying footwork, she twisted her torso at an impossible angle, letting his wooden tip graze harmlessly past her. In the same motion, she swept her back leg inward, catching him squarely behind the knee.
Eren lost his balance instantly, crashing onto the ground as his wooden sword slipped from his grip, rattling away across a few feet.
Eren didn’t panic. The millisecond his back hit the dirt, he raised both hands, clapping his palms tightly around the descending wooden blade, halting its deadly momentum a mere two inches from him.
Emma stood leaning over him with a victorious smirk spread across her pretty face. "You’ll have to do a lot better than that to impress me, young master," she purred, her grey eyes burning with intensity.
Eren returned her look with an equally unabashed grin. He held his breath, his blue eyes locking onto hers. "I know."
Eren violently twisted his upper body, redirecting her trapped blade forcefully to the side and plunging it into the ground.
Emma tried to wrench her weapon free, but before she could do it, Eren balled his fist and delivered a swift, clean punch straight across her pretty cheek.
Thwack!
The sudden strike stunned the hot knight for a fraction of a second, and Eren took the chance by scrambling backward across the dust. He grabbed his fallen weapon as he stood back on his feet, wiping his chin.
Eren adjusted his stance, looking at his stunned girlfriend.
"It is a gentleman’s duty to honor his word," Eren declared, his voice carrying clearly across the silent grounds.
Suddenly, the air around him began to hum rapidly. A strange, vibrating buzz of energy began gathering around his physical frame in visible waves, making the dirt beneath his boots ripple.