The day of the swordsmanship tournament. Everyone in the academy seemed to be in high spirits. There will be no classes for 3 days from today, of which 2 days that is today and tomorrow are days of the tournament and the 3rd day is given as a rest day so that all the participants can rest after the tournament.

The mood of all the students was like today was a festival. And it was only natural, the tournament was a platform of pride for the winner, the person wining it at least once in their 3 years can bring glory to their  family. And it's also in a medieval world like this, there weren't many sources of entertainment, so was one of the rare occurrences where people could relax and just enjoy watching a source of entertainment in their mundane lives.

The tournament was to held in the school stadium, Adrian had not been there before since the school was quite huge and realistically being everywhere was impossible. So today he was going to see the stadium for the first time and he made his way towards it.

On the way there were a lot of people. They were talking with each other cheerfully ,making way to the stadium and discussing who they think will win this time.

A lot of people wished Adrian luck, it was surprising that many people knew he would be competing, looks like he was more famous than he thought he is, some even said they believed that he would win (needless to say they were all girls). Also surprisingly his fan club didn't bother him today but just wished him luck, maybe they were aware he needed concentration and were understanding?

Anyway, as Adrian approached the stadium he was most mesmerized and shocked to it. It looked exactly like a Roman colosseum, circular in structure with the battle ground in the center and spectator seats were all around in 3 stages. 

There were also the flag of the coat of arms of the school, the empire hung along the walls of colosseum. The colosseum was already filled with a lot of people who were eager to find good seats hence came early.

It wasn't a worry for Adrian though as participants have their own seats reserved so they come, participate and rest fights without any worry. And also even if he wasn't a participant, students of a Duke's rank or higher have their specially reserved VIP seats.

Adrian went to the guard on duty and showed his participant ticked the guard saw it and bowed hurried and said, "AH yes Lord Adrian, welcome to the stadium, you seat is at the royal box".

"Royal box? Shouldn't it be at the ducal box?", asked Adrian confused. The looked a little uncomfortable and said while still being bowed with seat ticking his face," Ah yes, that was supposed to the case but her royal highness princess Rosalia insisted that you will given a seat in the royal box instead, Lady Allena happened to hear that and came to oppose and said it should be in the ducal box with her, there was a lot of argument regarding this but her highness won in the end due to her status".

Hearing that made Adrian sigh and he dreaded the future, they are already starting a catfight now over something as trivial as this, what will they do in the future? What will happen when Alice finds out? Will princess Emily start to do same things in the future? And why was princess Rosalia getting so expressive so quickly?

His head hurt thinking about it so he gave up thinking as it would have a negative impact on his tournament performance, he has to win no matter what and so he has stay focused.

He grudgingly made his way to the royal box. There princess Rosalia and entourage were already there, her entourage mostly  contained individuals from Marquis and count ranks , they were close with her preferential treatment, Ducal houses were almost  treated equal to royalty so they didn't need to do it.

As soon as princess Rosalia saw me, she immediately gout up from her seat and pulled my hand and made me seat next to her while saying, "Ah Adrian you are finally here, come sit beside me". Adrian tired to protest by saying," Your...your highness I can't possible sit beside you, it's not  appropriate ". But Rosalia was having none of it she strictly said," No you will sit next to me and you WILL call me by my name it's an order". 

Adrian tried to get out of the second one at least," But....but your highness calling you by your name is...". Before he could even finished Rosalia said resolutely, "It's an order".

Adrian could only nod and say, "Yes your highness". Rosalia gave him a glare, "I..I mean Rosalia".

Rosalia smiled at this, she seemed in a good mood, Adrian suddenly felt a killing intent aimed at Rosalia from the next box which was the ducal one. He turned to see it was Allena, she didn't even try to hide her expression but she smiled and waved at Adrian who  waved back with a shaky smile.

Rosalia saw that and pulled Adrian's arm and clung close to it, causing Allena's glares to intensify but Rosalia didn't care and looked at the stadium.

Adrian was feeling very flustered he looked at the entourage of Rosalia,  everyone had a poker face and seemed not to care about the situation or they were very adept at hiding their expression, Adrian bet on the latter. But why was Rosalia suddenly so close? She was friendly with him and was casual with him but she never ordered him to call her by name and not only that why was she clinging to him? It was unbecoming of royalty but she didn't seem to care. Was it cause of the fight with Allena that she realized that she had a rival and wanted to assert her position? Well looks like that's the case.

Adrian felt very uncomfortable with the clinging and tried to prevent that by saying," Your...your highness you are too close". But she ignored him, he tried another way, "Rosalia you are too close", this time she responded by saying, "No I am where i am supposed to be", her expression looked like she won't budge so Adrian gave up and prayed that the tournament starts soon.

And as if answering his prayers the tournament stated by the announcer who was a girl from the student council (by the Adrian was offered a position in the student council but he refused as it would get in the way of his training and studying various books for knowledge, both princess Rosalia and Allena weren't in the student council either, in fact even Victor and Bryan and his cronies weren't in it so Adrian had nothing to worry from the student council) comin up to the stage, both Rosalia and Allena then turned their attention to the stage, this relieved Adrian , who secretly thanked god.