As soon as I stepped into the "Ring" I saw my opponent who was waiting for me on the other side while holding a wooden sword in his hand, looking at my opponent I realized that it was one of the boys who was with Prince Edward earlier.
(This is surely not a coincidence)
I thought as I looked at him, with a smile on his face, he positioned himself while pointing his sword at me, being honest that position is rather odd, sighing I positioned myself as I increased my focus to him, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath everything around me is silent, as soon as I open my eyes a single target was in front of me, I only had one goal, to defeat him, as soon as a whistle was blown, he started running towards me, reading his movements I wait for the moment of impact and intercept his sword using mine, sliding my sword to the side he runs past me falling to the ground.
"Damn"
With an even more annoyed face he advances towards me again, focusing my vision on his hand I realize that he had tried to pierce me, intercepting his sword, I slide again and with a sharp blow to his hand I make his sword fall, before he could try to run to his sword, I put my sword into his neck.
"I win"
I said, hearing my words, he looked at me with wide eyes.
"I can't believe it...I really lost to a commoner?"
Although he was mumbling something I ignored it and left the ring, approaching Eric who had also finished his fight.
"Man, you are really strong, did you do any training before you came here?"
Eric asked, i let out a wry smile at Eric's question.
"Well... I guess you could say that"
I said sitting down on one of the benches, eric also sat next to me while drinking a bottle of water.
"Speaking of which...you like the princess don't you?"
Eric asked out of nowhere causing me to spit out all the water I had drunk.
"W-Who told you that?"
I asked panicking.
"Flora told me, she said it's pretty obvious"
Eric said with a wry smile.
"A princess hein.... It's going to be hard, but I'm sure you'll make it... I'll be rooting for you"
Eric said with a smile, this honestly surprised me, I thought he would laugh at me since being honest it was quite illogical for a commoner to think he could marry a princess, after our little exchange of conversation both mine and Eric's second match would begin, we both said goodbye and headed towards the "Ring" this time, incredibly my opponent was not one of the boys who was with Prince Edward.
(Was this really a coincidence?)
My thoughts were abruptly stopped when a whistle blew on the spot causing my opponent to run towards me, his fencing seemed even simpler than that of my first opponent which made his trajectory simple, deflecting to the side I elbow him in the temple causing him to fall to the ground unconscious, as he fell, I started walking out of the ring back to the benches, i sat on the bench and stared at the other matches for a few minutes before Eric appeared.
"Hey man, I saw your match, how did you manage to make him pass out with one blow?"
Eric asked excitedly.
"It was no big deal, I just hit that part of his head with my elbow"
I said as I showed where I had hit my opponent.
"Why did that make him pass out?"
Eric asked confused, hearing his question came to me the thought that maybe the people of this world don't know that almost all of our movements and senses come from the brain.
"You do know that our brain is in our head, right?"
I asked.
"Yes, I know, what about it?"
"A hard hit in that area I showed you shocks the brain into hitting the skull, it leads to fainting"
I said, hearing my answer Eric was surprised and excited at the same time.
"I had never heard of this... this is a very interesting technique to empower the opponent without killing him... but how do you know that?"
he asked, at this point I really didn't know how to answer, I mean, I learned it from reading books in my old world but I really don't want to tell him that.
"I put together several books about martial arts and the brain and after reading all of them I came to this conclusion"
I said.
"Geniuses really think differently"
Eric said, after that we sat on the bench for a while waiting for our next matches to start, this would also be my fight against Prince Edward, while we were waiting, I looked again at the audience and my eyes stopped on Flora and Emi who were standing next to each other, i stared for a few seconds before my eyes met with Emi's eyes who was now looking in my direction.
"Hey, Ren"
Our exchange was stopped by Eric who was calling out to me from beside me.
"What, what happened?"
I asked confused.
"We need to go to the Ring"
He said getting up, after that Eric and I went to our "Ring" to start our respective fights, as soon as I got to the "Ring" Prince Edward was already waiting for me, we both stood scarfing each other down for a few seconds before he turned to the audience.
"I will show Emi that I am the only man worthy of her, both in status and strength"
He said turning to me shortly thereafter.
"I'll be nice to you and give you the chance to give up commoner, and impossible you can beat me, I was trained since childhood with the imperial fencing of the Storne kingdom, not even Solaris can match, if you don't want to embarrass yourself and better you leave"
He said with a smile on his face as if he had already won, as I looked at him only one thought crossed my mind.
(I really can't let this guy win, does he really think he has the right to dictate who Emi will marry?)