The Lustful Villain: Every Milfs and Gilfs are Mine!-Chapter 298. Someone’s Frustrated About Losing (Well, Serves A Big Mouth Guy Like Him)
The training ground was quiet, similar to how it becomes after an event that no one has fully processed yet. There was a sense of tension in the air, as if the echoes of past conversations were still talking to each other in the empty stands.
Rex was already stepping out of the divot when the first voice came.
"That doesn’t count."
Rex stopped his steps.
He didn’t turn around immediately. He took one more step, planted it, and then turned with the unhurried movement of someone who had heard the words clearly and was deciding what to do with them.
Alexander was still on the ground, but he was propped up on one elbow now, and his expression had settled into something that was not embarrassment and not anger exactly but was the specific look of someone who had decided the result of the last few minutes required reclassification.
"What doesn’t count exactly?" Rex asked. "Is it because you lost too fast?"
"What you just did," Alexander said. "By going underground..."
"That’s not sparring... it’s what I called a mere stunt."
"Well, didn’t you hear what Miss Elizabeth said about the rules?" Rex said. "The first person unable to continue loses."
"I didn’t use any lethal workings, and my magic didn’t target the audience." He looked at Alexander. "I followed all three fair and square, so yeah, it’s my win here."
"You used the terrain," Alexander said.
"So what if I used the terrain, huh?" Rex said. "That’s called ’field awareness’, and it’s one of my simplest strategies that can be called a ’trick’ for amateurs."
"In a controlled sparring environment—"
"There is no controlled environment in the field," Rex said. "You said you wanted to check out the people you’d be working with before you trusted them."
"What you have just discovered is that I utilize all available resources."
"That should make you more confident about tomorrow, not less."
Alexander’s jaw tightened.
"You hit me from underground," he said. "I couldn’t see it coming."
"No," Rex agreed. "You couldn’t, and what if you faced an enemy that can do something more terrible than that?"
"That’s a blind spot exploit! Any competent fighter with earth sensing could have done the same thing."
’What the fuck...?’
’Is this another fraud that I see?’ Rex furrowed his eyebrows. ’How the hell did this fraud pull a perfect MILF just like Elizabeth with all of this bullshit?’
Rex looked at him for a moment. "Then why didn’t you?"
"You’re top ten, right? There’s no way you could fall for something as simple as that."
The question landed in the space between them and stayed there.
"You had earth working in your opening combination," Rex said. "That means you have access to Earth sensing."
"You had three seconds while I was going down to run a subsurface check, and turns out... you didn’t." He tilted his head slightly. "That’s not my trick, but it’s what you call your own gap."
Alexander got to one knee.
The motion had the quality of someone whose body was running on experience while the rest of him was still having a separate conversation with the outcome.
"I want another round," he said. "Just to prove that I can beat you without getting distracted with your tricks!"
"Alex." Elizabeth’s voice came from the edge of the field, carrying the specific tone of someone who had watched this pattern before.
"One more round," Alexander said, not looking at her.
"You’re playing with fire," Elizabeth warned, crossing her arms. "You need to accept that you can’t always win this one, honey."
"No... I didn’t let it all out yet!" His eyes remained fixed on Rex, displaying the focused expression of someone who had reclassified the situation from settled to ongoing. "I want a rematch with the same rules, and I had to admit that you won that one, so it’s fine, yeah."
"We just need one more or maybe two more to make it best of three."
"Nah, I’m done," Rex said. "That’s just one way to say you’re going to waste my time."
"You’re done, like that?" Alexander repeated, and the way he said it meant he had heard something different than what Rex said. "Then who knows that you win the first round because of pure luck again, huh?"
"Reincarnator’s luck!"
"I came out here because you asked," Rex said. "I showed you what you asked to see."
"The round is complete and the result is clear, so there’s nothing a second round adds except your preference for a different result."
Alexander stood up fully.
He rolled his neck once, the slow, deliberate roll of someone who was resetting their physical state while their decision-making was still running hot.
"I see how it is..." he said. "You’re scared of a rematch because now... your luck probably ran out."
The crowd at the edge of the field had gone very still.
’This fucking asshole...’ Rex looked at him. ’I fucking hate following a fool’s wish.’
"I’m going to say this once," Rex said, and his voice had none of the edge that the sentence usually carried when other people said it, just the flat accuracy of someone stating a fact, "because I think you actually want to hear it with those ears of denials."
Alexander held his ground.
"You’re not half bad at all," Rex said. "In fact, your opening combination is clean."
"Your adjustment speed is impressive, and your potential is substantial. Everything you demonstrated today confirms that you have earned the experience you possess."
He paused.
"And you lost," Rex said. "Not because you’re not capable."
"You lost because you made a specific read error at a crucial moment, which I was able to exploit. That’s all it was, and it’s important for our expedition."
Alexander said nothing.
"A second round doesn’t change the first one," Rex said. "It just gives you somewhere to put the feeling. And I’m not interested in being where you put it."
The training ground was completely quiet.
Alexander stared at Rex with the look of someone who had several responses available and was cycling through them looking for the one that fit, and none of them fit exactly, and that was its own kind of answer.
"You think you know what I’m feeling," he said.
"Well, I think you’ve never lost a sparring match to a student before," Rex said. "And I think the crowd being here makes it worse."
"I also think you’ve already decided this doesn’t count, and you’re going to keep deciding that until you find a framing that lets you put it somewhere comfortable."
He uncrossed his arms.
"Take that loss for today," Rex said. "Come back to it tomorrow with a clearer head."
"The gap I found today is fixable. Next time you’ll have to run subsurface checks when an opponent goes down in front of you, and try to make sure to make this process automatic; it will be implemented in two weeks."
He turned to leave.
"Rexilion."
Rex stopped.
"This isn’t over," Alexander said, and he said it without heat, which somehow made it more serious than if he had said it with heat.
Rex glanced back over his shoulder.
"I know," he said, and the way he said it made it sound less like a threat had been received and more like a fact had been acknowledged.
He walked off the field, but then again, Alexander did not stay down.
This was the one who had already run twelve campaigns, and three Apostle-level engagements had been on the ground before. The part of Alexander that knew how to get up had been practiced enough to function somewhat independently from the part that was still processing what had just happened.
He stood up with the look of someone whose physical training had taken over while the rest of them were still catching up. His face did not look like someone who had lost.
It was the look on his face that indicated he had made up his mind that what had just happened didn’t matter. He took a deep breath, grounding himself in the moment as he surveyed the surroundings.
Alexander said, "We’re not done here, Rex Rexilion...!!!"
But still...
Rex was already walking too far away from him.
"Stop."
And then Rex came to a stop. He didn’t stop because someone told him to; he stopped because he thought it would be more useful than continuing, especially considering the uncertainty of what lay ahead.
He turned around slowly, as if he hadn’t made up his mind to leave and was now thinking about it again. He hesitated for a moment, weighing his options, before finally meeting his gaze.
"Oh...?"
Rex saw that Alexander’s aura was different.
The baseline magical signature that Rex had read during the engagement was crucial. What Rex observed now was the version of that signature that occurs when a person stops controlling their magical output and simply allows it to flow.
The air above the training ground became the same density that came before a large-scale magical deployment, and the Elemental Mastery showed that Alexander’s comfortable operating level was much higher than what he had used in the first exchange.
He had been responsible for how much he was putting out during the sparring.
’Maybe I have to humble him again for the second time when he show some of his real power...’
