Chapter 356: Fighting Competition

"WHAT?!"

Both of them turned to Katarina in an instant with shocked faces.

Auric just let out a long sigh. "You shouldn’t tease them."

"No, no. You should have some fun instead." Katarina grinned.

Auric paused for a moment before holding Katarina’s hand. "My dear. That was supposed to be a secret. How could you reveal it? What would happen if your family couldn’t accept me? I don’t want to lose you!"

"Honey! We can always elope!" Katarina nodded firmly.

Both of them stared at each other as though they were in a cheap soap opera.

Vera was eating her ice cream as if she was interested in this acting, while Selena and Ellia took a deep breath before sighing.

"For some reason, I’m not in the mood to tease you anymore." Selena looked away.

"Same. I’m not in the mood to argue anymore." Ellia rubbed her forehead.

Auric pointed at Katarina. "You probably need better acting."

"Hey, I just want to pick up cosplay as a hobby, not acting. I don’t plan to be an actress." Katarina shrugged.

Auric chuckled. Since both Selena and Ellia had stopped, Auric asked Selena again, "So, can you tell me the reason you approached us?"

Selena pondered whether she should tell him or not. In the end, she replied, "Don’t you know about it already? They’re going to change the schedule. The survival training will be conducted in the last week. In other words, we’re going to have a fighting competition starting Thursday."

Auric narrowed his eyes. "Hoh? Why would you inform us about it?"

Selena raised one finger. "I feel like you’re going to challenge me in the competition. I am just a weak woman. To avoid getting bullied, I have to resort to something else."

Auric didn’t believe this reason at all. Nevertheless, he realized that the situation had changed because of her.

What he didn’t realize was that the situation had gone differently than what everyone had expected.

Originally, Ultias wanted to change the schedule so that he could interfere directly. However, the mysterious man beat him and forced him to seclude himself so that he could no longer intervene with the situation.

Ultias might have lost the battle, but he didn’t intend to lose the war. Knowing that the mysterious man didn’t intend to kill Head Instructor Ryan, he chose to seclude himself right away without saying anything to his cousin.

In other words, his cousin, having no other instructions from Ultias, decided to follow the original plan.

This way, even if Ultias didn’t intervene directly, his cousin’s hatred was more than enough to kill Auric.

However, the result remained the same. Auric had to face the current problem.

Auric crossed his arms. "Well, thank you for the information."

"Since you want to thank me, how about we go on a date today?" Selena smiled sweetly.

"You should go. We already know this information." Ellia snorted.

"Really?" Selena narrowed her eyes.

"Yeah. Whether you tell us or not, there won’t be any change." Ellia nodded. "That’s why you should leave."

Auric had to adjust his plan. It looked like the bait he had thrown was successful in luring out the organization.

Because he kept provoking Dermania, the organization would think that Dermania would become a knife they could borrow to kill him.

This way, they would reach out to Dermania first and try to execute their plan.

It looked like they had begun their plan. By changing the schedule, they would make it much easier to cause an accident.

After all, they would have no choice but to conserve their strength if the survival test was in the third week. They wanted to go all out during the fighting competition after all.

Now that those two had been reversed, they would still go all out during the survival test. Then, the students would be injured. Some should be able to recover because of healing abilities, but there was no telling how much energy they could recover. Some would probably sustain severe injuries, and even a healing ability would still take time for them to recover.

While they were weakened, the organization would attack them and crush them.

Looking at the situation, this seemed to be their plan. After getting chased by them, he could feel them closing in.

While Selena and Ellia started facing off against each other again, Auric just ordered another drink before whispering to Katarina, "Contact Supervisor Jacob. Have him handle it in a way that allows us to minimize our injuries during the third week.

"Make it subtle so that no one will notice it. I’m not exactly sure, but there might be some students who are also their spies. The instructors aren’t the only ones we have to worry about.

"Besides, after the poison incident, it’s clear that some of the staff here are also part of the organization.

"I will contact Chief Arnie separately, so I need Supervisor Jacob to be prepared for it."

Katarina nodded and took out her phone, while Selena noticed Auric’s movement. She asked with a smile, "What were you guys talking about?"

Auric smiled back. "Nothing. I’m just wondering if you dislike chocolate or not."

"I don’t dislike it." Selena tilted her head in confusion. "Why?"

"In that case, I’m glad." Auric nodded calmly. The waitress suddenly came at perfect timing, bringing a parfait. "I don’t know what you like, but I hope you will like this one."

"Oh, my!" Selena widened her eyes in surprise. She came here to startle Auric and probe him, but she didn’t expect Auric was actually so attentive. "Thank you."

"I just can’t say no to such a beautiful lady when she boldly asked me for a date."

Selena gasped, while Vera couldn’t help but break her silence. "You don’t feel embarrassed saying that cheeky line?"

"Why should I feel embarrassed when I simply tell the truth?" Auric’s expression didn’t change as if he were sincere about his words.

"..." Vera covered her mouth in shock, while Ellia had her eyebrows twitching.

But as soon as she started scooping the ice cream, Auric suddenly stood up. "Unfortunately, our date is over. It’s sad, but we will have to say goodbye."

"W-What?!" Selena was dumbfounded. Auric casually stood up and walked away. Katarina followed right after as if it were the normal thing to do. Ellia instantly figured out what was happening and immediately dragged Vera away.

Selena stood up, trying to catch up. However, the waitress suddenly stopped her. "Excuse me, Ma’am. You need to pay first."

"What?" Selena was bewildered. She had been tricked. When she turned around, she realized that everyone had actually finished their own drink or dessert.

...

"Serves her right! She’s trying to be a smartass." Ellia rolled her eyes.

"I understand what you’re doing, but that’s quite low, even for you, Auric. I mean, she has gone all the way to tell us that information. And now, you’re making her pay for us." Vera frowned. "I am not siding with the enemy. I’m just siding with the poor woman."

Auric looked confused. "What are you talking about? I’ve paid for everything."

"Huh?" Vera pointed to the back. "It looks like she’s still trying to pay the bill."

"No. When I ordered her parfait, I had already paid the bill and left a small note. I gave a little ’tip’ to the waitress. I told her that Selena’s birthday is today, so we want to prank her a bit. I want to make it look like we’re fleeing and we haven’t paid, but when she tries to pay, the waitress will tell her it’s a prank.

"I mean, I’m being extra careful right now because of the situation, but it doesn’t mean I have to be a jerk about it. I mean, I can do a little bad thing, but I’m not a monster."

"..." Vera blinked her eyes in disbelief.

As Auric said, Selena found out that it was a prank. However, the staff had actually sung a ’Happy Birthday’ for her, which wasted her time even more.

When she found out it was a prank, Auric and the others had already left.

Selena was astounded. Auric had truly played her this time. "Next time, I’m really going to kidnap him, no questions asked."

...

After receiving the message from Auric, Supervisor Jacob immediately asked all the allies he was sure were on the same side to prepare for the change of schedule. It turned out they had been informed about it the next day.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t do anything to change it back, even though they were aware that Dermania was trying to do something with this change.

For the next three days, the event continued with Granda, the UK, and Lech-Aistia giving their respective challenges.

Auric didn’t always take first place, but he made sure to finish each challenge in style and didn’t forget to stop Dermania from claiming the first spot.

Since there was already tension between them, Auric simply played around without making it too obvious.

Of course, Selena was glaring at Auric all the time. He just acted as if they had never met before.

Finally, Thursday came.

For the next three days, they had to hold the fighting competition. It would all start with students of the same rank competing against each other. Because of the number of participants, the first day would only take care of the Rank 1 students.

Rank 2, Rank 3, and Rank 4 students competed on the next day.

Auric had been waiting for this part. After all, he had a lot of students to challenge.

As one would expect, the first person he would challenge wasn’t another fighter. Instead, it was a fellow evolution master, the so-called youngest gold-grade evolution master, Nicholas.