As I walked in, I immediately noticed a huge crowd, which was strange considering that our fight wasn’t supposed to be anything grand.

I now perfectly understood the reason why the princess had asked to spar against me the following day. It seemed she wanted to have a lot of eyes on this fight, which was surprising if she were a demon since she could reveal her true self at any given moment.

That’s why it made me think that she wasn’t one. However, I still had my guard up. Even when she touched me back when I visited her. I had already tried to tell if she was a demon, but my skill kept failing on me. Making it impossible for me to tell her race.

In fact, that skill had started failing ever since I had used it on Zero. It seemed that there had been a strange reaction when I used it on him… making the skill malfunction.

It was annoying, but it wasn’t like I could do anything about it for the moment.

“Uh… why is it that there are that many people?” I asked Laura, who looked over in my direction with an innocent smile.

“Ah. That. I just wanted to make sure that there would be as many people as possible to witness your greatness. Do you mind it?”

‘I do,’ I thought in the back of my mind as I kept a straight face.

“No, not at all. The more the merrier, am I right?”

“Exactly! I knew you would understand!”

Anyway, I didn’t think that it would become such a big thing as I could even see the king was present to witness our fight. Aelua accompanied me here, and she was also here.

“Well, I don’t have all day. So, how about we start this spar?” I asked with the same smile as earlier.

Since there were a lot of people, I wasn’t planning on going all out whatsoever. It was a spar, and truthfully, I couldn’t care less if I lost against Laura. After all, she was supposed to be a one of a kind talent. If I put up a good fight against her, I would already be deemed to have done well.

“Sure, but if you don’t mind. Could we go over a few rules for our spar?”

I shrugged, telling her that I didn’t care.

“Alright, so I thought of a few rules. The first one is that we can’t use any killing moves toward our opponent. The second is that we can’t use our race’s special power, whether it be Mana or Mother Nature. That’s about it; I only want the two of us to fight using our techniques since I would have no way to win against you if you did.”

As she said those words, everyone within the crowd gasped, shocked.

“Did the princess just admit that she was weaker than him?”

“But how? No one ever heard of him until a few days ago!”

“Will the princess really lose against him? She’s never lost a fight against anyone! That would be crazy!”

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I heard a few murmurs from the crowd that proved my opponent’s talent. Actually, I liked her rules. It made things easier for me. I didn’t believe that she could defeat me with techniques alone, and it also made it easier for me not to use my powers.

I would have to let my sword do the talking.

“Are those rules fine with you?” Laura uttered, ignoring the comments from the crowd.

“Yeah, they seem good enough.”

To be honest, I was only doing this as a favor since I had gone to see her yesterday and asked her a bunch of questions, which could be considered disrespectful. I thought it was only fair that I was here.

“So, can we start this fight?” I asked, now bored.

She nodded as she got in a fighting position, her knees slightly bending as she pulled out a dagger.

“Oh, are you an assassin?”

I was surprised. I hadn’t expected such a thing. To be honest, assassins are always at a disadvantage in a one-on-one fight, so she was already in a bad position to win, and it hadn’t even started.

I stayed in a neutral position as I pulled out my sword from my spacial pouch that was wrapped around my waist.

“I’ll give you the first move.”

She smirked. “How nice of you!”

Without wasting a single moment, she disappeared from my sight, reappearing at close range.

Her physical abilities were definitely decent since she had managed to move at such a speed without the help of mana. It was unfortunate for her, but it was nowhere close to being enough. I could see all of her movements perfectly. In fact, from my point of view, she was moving in slow motion.

Her dagger was aimed at my waist.

It was a smart move. Most would have aimed for my neck. It seemed she had a lot of experience when it came to fighting. It seemed what Aelua told me was true, she hadn’t become a princess by a stroke of luck. She had worked for it.

Still, I deflected her strike without much difficulty. I also didn’t try to counter attack. I was feeling nice today. I might have taught her a thing or two during this fight.

“Good idea. But you’ll need more than that to beat me.” I smiled. “Let’s add a new rule to this fight. If you can land a single strike on me, you win. And if I last for more than… five minutes. I win. What do you say?”

I could see Laura clenching her jaw as she realized that I was much stronger than her when it came to pure fighting techniques and physical abilities.

“Fine.”

The crowd was even more shocked this time as they heard Laura agree to such a humiliating rule.

“Just how strong is this unknown man that Laura would accept such a ridiculous proposition?!”

Even the king was flabbergasted… unsure how to react to such a rule. He couldn’t believe that I was that much stronger than Laura.

“Actually, I’m feeling nice today. Make sure to look at me as I block your strikes. You might learn a thing or two.”

I could feel that Laura was slowly burning up from the inside. She was clearly very angry, however, as I looked at her face. There was not a single sign that she might be a demon. Her eyes didn’t change color like what had happened with Derek. The chances of her being a demon dropped even more.

Laura once more dashed in my direction; this time, she tried something different as she threw a throwing knife in my direction, which was perfect with her strike.

Still, it was still far from enough as I simply moved slightly to the right, dodging both her strikes with a single footstep.

“HOW?!”

“How did he dodge that so easily?!”

The fight continued, and the more I dodged her strikes or deflected them, the more I deflected them. The more the people within the crowd started to wonder about my identity.

After all, someone they had heard of for the very first time a few days ago was currently beating one of their most talented fighters without the slightest difficulty. In fact, I was even going as far as teaching her some moves while we fought.

Giving her some tips as the fight progressed.

“You shouldn’t have attacked that way.”

“You should tried a feint there.”

“You should have blocked my sight before attacking.”

With every strike she attempted, I kept giving her a tip.

I could only imagine how infuriating that would be in the long run. In fact, I could hear her mutter some curse words through her ragged breath. She was getting tired of attacking me, and I could even see it in her sluggish movements.

No matter what she tried, she couldn’t touch me.

“One minute left!” Someone in the crowd exclaimed.

“Meh, let’s break one of the rules you said earlier. I’ll allow you to use whatever power you want against me. It might make things slightly challenging for me.”

After all, this fight was getting boring to watch.

Laura gritted her teeth. “Do you like watching me humiliate myself that much?!” She shouted, her rage seeping into her voice.

A strong energy suddenly covered her body. It was of a bright green color, which was clearly a power that belonged to the elves.

‘Hm… it’s pretty much confirmed that she is an elf now.’

The reason I had pushed her to her limits was simple. I wanted definitive proof that she wasn’t a demon. After all, that ominous energy that I had felt back in the throne room was definitely suspicious, followed by her appearance at Aelua’s private room. There were a lot of weird things surrounding this girl.

But it seemed that I had been wrong about her.

“Come at me with everything you got,” I smirked.

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