A short while earlier, the atmosphere in the classroom had been completely different.

Aria was sitting in the front row next to Cassian...

And in the very back row sat Lucian... with sera and elira sitting his left and right.

Despite being completely burned out from their grueling morning training... Sera was utterly irritated by her crushing defeat.

"Ughhh, I am so damn frustrated..." she groaned, planting her forehead flat against the cold wooden desk.

"Why is Miss Myra so impossibly strong...? Tch, tch, tch..."

She grumbled into the wood.

I couldn’t even land a single scratch on her... What kind of woman is she, geez? Shouldn’t she just be good at healing? Why is she so freaking good at dodging...?"

Lucian conceded, giving a low hum of agreement.

"Yeah, she really is that good. I even used a lot of my skills all at once... and still..."

He annoyedly clenched his fist under the desk....

"We couldn’t even force that pervy master to move from a single spot..." He let out a tired sigh.

"Well... we will just have to try even harder next time, I guess..."

"Lucian..." Sera mumbled as her squished face pressed against the table.

His eyes shifted down.

"Why do you call Miss Myra your ’Master’...? I mean, you know she barely even looks like she’s in her late twenties..."

He flashed a bright, flowery smile.

"Aww, how do I even explain this to this mumbo jumbo...? That If I act even the slightest bit informally with Myra, it means an immediate, direct attack on my chastity..."

Sera stared at his flowery smile with wide eyes, choosing not to think too deeply about it. Then, her gaze shifted toward Elira, who was sitting quietly by the window. In fact, she had been unusually quiet ever since the training ended.

"What happened to her...?"

Lucian also turned his head to look. What he saw was the slight, tell-tale reddening of Elira’s ears.

"Is she really embarrassed just from losing to Myra?" he wondered.

Elira, the girl who had never once gotten flustered over any genuinely shy or awkward situations, was actually embarrassed right now?

It took a few seconds, but Sera quickly figured it out. She lifted her head from the desk and, flashing a highly irritating, toothy smirk while speaking up just a little too loudly.

"Hmph... for a so-called genius, getting embarrassed over such a small defeat... How lame."

Elira’s head slowly turned toward her with Half of her face casting in a menacing murderous shadow.

"Eep...!" She instantly let out a pathetic squeak, grimacing as she whipped her head in the opposite direction.

She already knew damn well that she couldn’t easily handle Elira’s monstrous brute strength in a fight. If she valued her life and didn’t want to end up with broken bones today, it was best to keep her mouth tightly shut.

At that time, the heavy footsteps of the two knights echoed through the door, followed immediately by the overwhelming presence of Knight Commander Gideon. The heavy aura instantly snapped the trio’s attention to the front of the classroom.

Gideon’s deep booming voice echoed once more.

"I asked, whose shoulder cape is this?!"

Standing behind him, Professor Throne shakily pulled out his pocket watch, his hands shook fiercely.

"Umm... ah... I think that’s quite enough for today! W-We will stop here for today... you may—"

Gideon simply cast a slight cold glance over his shoulder at Throne.

Under that predatory gaze, the fatty professor practically abandoned his entire class to the wolf-like commander. Sweating bullets, he scrambled toward the door.

"Y-You may all leave!" he squeaked before vanishing down the hallway.

"Pfft—" One of the knights standing in the back had to bite his lip to suppress his laughter.

As Gideon’s piercing, beast-like gaze swept across the terrified students once again, anxious murmurs immediately broke out across the room.

"H-Hey, I think I know who he is..." a boy whispered, his voice shaking.

"He’s the strongest man in the kingdom! One of the Top Crowns in the Empire!"

"Yeah, man... but why the hell is he in our class right now? Someone’s definitely going to die today..."

another boy gulped.

A few desks away, two girls were frantically whispering to each other, practically hugging themselves in fear.

"Oh my goddess, he looks so scary..." the first girl squeaked, shivering.

"I-I can’t even breathe properly under this pressure..."

"Wait, did he just say fifteen hundred slaughtered goblins?!" the second girl whispered back, her eyes wide with sheer disbelief.

"Who in our class could even do something so insane?!"

Meanwhile, an entirely different storm was raging inside Lucian’s mind.

’Crap... I knew this girl’s irresponsibility and reckless antics would cause a massive problem someday...’

Lucian stared at the Knight Commander who was holding the cape. Multiple twitches formed across his face as his expression darkened in clear irritation, looking like he was barely holding himself back. Slowly, rigidly, he turned his head to glare directly at Elira.

Whip!

Elira instantly turned her face toward the window, completely refusing to make eye contact. It was crystal clear she knew exactly what this was about, and she absolutely did not want to get scolded by him right now.

As the anxious murmurs continued to spread through the classroom, the suffocating tension only grew heavier... Even the ’golden hero’ sitting in the front row was completely on guard.

And now that their cowardly professor had abandoned them and fled, someone had to step up and answer to this monstrous presence...

Aria nervously nudged Cassian.

"C-Cassian, stand up. Everyone is looking at you... you need to answer him..."

Cassian awkwardly hesitated for a moment, just staring back into Gideon’s beast-like eyes.

’Damn it... fuck this...’

Pushing his chair back, he stood up... and layering on his absolute best ’heroic charm’, he spoke up with confidence.

"Oh, Knight Commander... I am Cassian Brightmore, the representative of this class. I would like to inform you that perhaps you have the wrong—"

He abruptly shut his mouth mid-sentence. The moment Gideon’s suffocating gaze locked onto him, Cassian felt his throat go completely dry.

The entire class instantly fell dead silent once again... every single pair of terrified eyes darting rapidly between Cassian and Gideon.

Watching from the back, Sera squinted at the front of the room and murmured in a low voice.

"Hey guys, that cape... I think I’ve seen it somewhere before... Yeah, actually, I’m pretty sure that cape belongs to—"

Pinch!

Before she could open her big mouth any further, Lucian suddenly reached under the desk and fiercely pinched her bare thigh.

"OWW!" She squeaked and flinched. "Hey, what was that for...?!"

Her eyes watered slightly from the sting, rubbing the red mark left behind on her skin.

She glared at him.

"Lucian...!"