Taming the Wild Beast of Alamina-Chapter 179: Exam

"Arion would come too."

Dean stared at Nero as if he had just personally insulted several branches of government.

"That," Dean said at last, "is not persuasive. That is blackmail with family comparison."

"Yes."

Sylvia, who had now become fully invested in this on the grounds that any situation described by a prince with that level of calm deserved witnessing, looked between them. "I would like the record to show that I support whatever gets us to the exam hall fastest."

Dean turned to her in betrayal. "Of course you do."

"You told me three days ago that university would either educate us or humiliate us. I’ve decided to be present for both."

"That was not an invitation."

Nero, having correctly judged that Dean’s resistance had reached the stage where motion would work better than argument, simply turned and started walking. Which, infuriatingly, worked. Dean followed because refusing to follow after that would have looked like retreat, and Dean had standards.

He hated that Nero knew this.

The west wing was quieter than the main academic halls and far less interested in pretending education was a public good rather than a controlled weapon. The architecture changed the deeper they went. There were fewer bright lecture corridors, more reinforced doors, more observation glass, and more safety systems that were clearly very expensive and built into walls that had seen generations of very dangerous students decide they were great ideas.

Sylvia, walking between them for precisely half a minute before deciding the energy was better from behind, took one long look at the next security door and said, "This no longer feels like a university."

"It is," Nero said.

"It feels like the university lost faith in youth and installed countermeasures."

"That too," Dean muttered.

Nero reached the next checkpoint, placed his hand against the side scanner, and waited for the locks to cycle. "It’s evaluated as a controlled combat scenario."

Dean stopped. "Combat."

"Yes."

Dean looked at Sylvia. "You see what monarchy has done to higher education."

"I’m beginning to admire it," she said.

"That is deeply concerning."

The door unlocked with a low mechanical release, and beyond it the corridor widened into a training sector that looked less like a department and more like a private military program forced into academic clothing. Observation rooms lined one wall behind thick glass. The other side held sealed doors with warning strips, medical panels, emergency override access, and signage so dryly professional it became threatening.

Sylvia slowed, coffee forgotten in her hand. "Oh," she said softly. "You weren’t exaggerating."

Dean looked at her. "I almost never exaggerate. I refine."

Nero led them into the nearest observation room, and only then did the full shape of it become visible.

Sylvia stopped dead.

Dean, despite himself, did too.

Because ’exam hall’ had not prepared him properly for the fact that the room beyond the glass looked exactly like what Sylvia would, with complete civilian sincerity, call a ring.

It was not circular, but the instinct held. Sunken floor, high walls layered with dull shock-absorption panels. Hidden ventilation. Floor markings that suggested measured distance, strategic movement, and impacts the university preferred to survive. Overhead lighting fell clean and merciless over every inch of it.

And seated in front of the observation glass, arranged behind long desks with screens, notes, and the expression of people professionally immune to spectacle, were five professors.

Not one of them looked impressed by royalty.

That, more than anything else, made Dean suspicious.

"They taught Arion," Nero said, as if reading his mind.

Sylvia blinked. "All of them?"

"At different points."

One of the professors, an older woman with silver hair and the posture of someone who had once broken much larger people for educational purposes, glanced back at them and said, "If you’re here to whisper, leave now."

Sylvia straightened immediately. "I like her."

Dean looked at Nero. "You brought us to be judged by people who survived Arion’s youth."

"Yes."

"That is monstrous."

"Efficient."

Nero moved down toward the lower access door without another word, leaving Dean and Sylvia to the viewing area and to the five faculty members, who seemed entirely uninterested in the social values of their guests.

The older woman at the center made one note on her pad, then said, without looking away from the arena below, "Observers remain silent during active assessment unless called upon."

Sylvia sat down at once.

Dean remained standing for one second longer out of principle, then sat too, mostly because everyone else in the room looked like they would consider defiance a symptom instead of a choice.

Down below, Nero stepped onto the marked floor and shrugged out of his outer coat, handing it to an assistant without ceremony. Across from him, the other participant entered from the opposite side.

Sylvia leaned in slightly. "That is not another student."

"No," Dean said, watching.

The man was older by at least fifteen years and broad across the shoulders, his posture relaxed in the very dangerous way of people whose bodies had learned exactly what not to waste. Trainer, then. Or examiner. Dark practice uniform. Scar at the jaw. The look of someone who had survived enough dominants to no longer find youth persuasive.

Nero did not look impressed.

If anything, he looked bored already.

One of the professors on the far left said, "Assessment pairing confirmed. Candidate versus senior trainer. Full precision engagement. Restricted physical contact. Dominance active. Command threshold permitted."

Sylvia turned very slowly toward Dean. "Restricted what now?"

"Don’t ask me," Dean said. "I came here under protest."

Below them, the signal tone sounded once.

The fight began immediately.

At first, Sylvia saw it as posture. Nero’s body was settling, and the trainer across from him moved half a step wider, but both of them were still enough to look like they were doing nothing if you were an idiot. Then the air changed.

Even through the glass, Dean could feel the edges of it.

The trainer moved first, a blur of controlled aggression meant to test Nero’s reflexes. It was a strong, professional opening, with a lunge followed by a series of strikes aimed at Nero’s center mass. Each blow was precise, designed to incapacitate or create an opening.

Nero didn’t block a single one. He moved in a languid, almost insulting sidestep, a slight tilt of his torso that let the trainer’s knuckles slice through the air an inch from his chest. He moved around the attacks with an economy of motion that made it look like he was dancing to a beat that only he could hear.

The trainer got mad because his attacks weren’t working, so he stepped them up. He drove forward, his movements becoming a storm of calculated violence.

He was one of the best dominants, and he had trained for years against the most dangerous dominants in the empire. Yet every punch, every kick, every elbow strike met only empty air. Nero was always a fraction of a second ahead, his movements so subtle they were almost imperceptible. He wasn’t just avoiding the fight; he was making it pointless.

Sylvia leaned forward, her knuckles white where she gripped the edge of the desk. "He’s not even trying," she whispered, her voice filled with a mixture of awe and disbelief.