Alaric Montclair

Alaric Montclair is the second prince of the kingdom. He is handsome and charming, and excels in almost everything. His only flaw is that he has none. He's some girl's wish-fulfillmentfantasy, a true golden boy. He's so perfect it's boring.

It's no wonder the girls at school all fawn over him, including Seraphine. But the one he has eyes on is Lily. He's at the source of many conflicts between Seraphine and Lily, so I would love to take him down a peg. However...

With how big Alaric's role had been in the game, messing with him would certainly deviate the plot. Lily had strayed off script just once, and it ruined my plan. For the sake of my future plans, I wanted to limit altering the game's plot as much as I can.

The battles started, and it wasn't long before I was up against my first opponent. He was some commoner who got into the academy thanks to his great magic potential, so I expected he would put up a good fight. But even holding back most of the demon lord's power and trying to limit myself to a human's strength, he still surrendered after a single fireball.

At first, I was worried I might have overdone it, but as I watched more and more fights, I saw plenty of one-sided battles like that.

Most of the nobles were clearly relying on their family name to get ahead. They didn't bother to put in the work to make up for their lack of talent and were quickly beaten by commoners who did.

And just like Seraphine had pointed out, most commoners assumed all nobles were like that, so anytime a noble did show some strength, it caught their opponent completely off guard and earned them a quick win.

It went like that for Alaric and Seraphine too, as their first fight didn't last much longer than mine. Lily also managed to earn herself a victory, but struggled to do so. Not because of a lack of skill, but because she didn't want to hurt her opponent. If it wasn't for the fact that she was destined to kill the demon lord, which would be me, I would have almost called her attempts at attacks cute.

After the first round of fights, it was time for a break before round 2. Most of the students used it to talk about their results, but I wanted to see how Seraphine is doing after her first battle.

I found her standing by a group of noble girls. Her eyes met mine for a moment, and I could feel her probing gaze before she turned away again.

She seems interested in me. Hopefully not in a bad way. I wonder what she's thinking about...

I wanted to join the group and find a chance to speak with her, but someone else called to me. I turned to see who was calling me and saw Alaric approaching. He had his usual friendly smile as he spoke.

"Lucien. I hope I can call you Lucien?"

"Please, your highness." I said, giving him a polite bow. Considering I was dealing with a prince, I didn't want to take too many risks. Not that I had anything to fear from Alaric, but I shouldn't risk my cover on something so trivial.

"Let's drop the formalities, we're opponents in battle soon after all." He joked, then continued in a more serious tone. "I'm curious to see what you're made of. After all, as a Draivelle, you're our nation's future shield against those foul demons." Even though Rieva was scouting out the other students and not by my side, I could swear I heard her hiss at that remark.

"Ah, but I don't want to put any undue pressure on you. Just try to have some fun. A Montclair and a Draivelle on the battlefield, it will be the highlight of today." Alaric's smile returned as he talked about the battle.

"Indeed it would. I'm looking forward to our battle." I said with a smile, though I was feeling something else.

There was something about Alaric. It's hard to pin exactly what it is, but there's something about his demeanor that resonates with me in the worst possible way. He's a man who's only known success. It was subtle, but I could feel his conviction that the world belongs to him.

And as the demon lord, I can not allow that kind of person to live.

Until now, the mental influence from my host's personality had been a benefit. It helped me stay calm and in control. It gave me confidence to do what I need to do, and the determination to follow through. But now I could feel a different emotion from him.

The desire to tear apart every one of my enemies.

The more time I spent around Alaric, the stronger it became. The desire to rip him to shreds. To humiliate him. To show him he's nothing, just an insect that exists to be crushed.

But that wouldn't help my plans at all. I needed to calm myself, or else I might expose my identity as the demon lord.

So I excused myself, leaving the conversation with the prince as soon as I could without raising suspicion.

The next round of battles began. Seraphine's fight ended similarly quickly, even though her opponent entered the fight bragging about how she had a foolproof strategy for Seraphine. Lily lost this round due to bad luck, which was no surprise to me, as her loss in the second round is scripted regardless of the player's choices.

Finally, it was time for the battle between Alaric and me.

The power inside me flared up as I stepped into the arena, as if the demon lord was urging me to unleash its power on Alaric.

I took a deep breath to calm myself.

I'll keep this fight simple. I'll match his strength as closely as possible and then lose in a spectacular fashion to satisfy the audience.

Alaric stood on the opposite end of the arena. He gave me a friendly wave. Then he raised his hand above his head, clenched it in a fist, and the ground under us began to rumble and crack.

The floor beneath us was made from hard stone, yet it broke so easily when Alaric cast his spell. Instinctively, I leaped backwards as the ground where I just stood broke open and tried to swallow me whole.

I shot a blast of wind at Alaric to counter his spell and knock him over, but he slapped it aside as if he was swatting away an insect.

"Lucien. You need to do better than that if you want to win." Alaric said. His words weren't arrogant, just the honest assessment of someone who thinks he has nothing to fear.

He took a step forward and raised his hand again. A giant spike of earth shot up from the ground. I tried to dodge out of the way, but another spike followed, and another, and another. They shot up from every direction and left me no room to evade other than upwards.

I jumped high into the air, avoiding all of the earth spikes. "Big mistake." I heard Alaric say and I saw his hand now pointed towards me. He planned for this, counting on that I wouldn't be able to dodge his attack in midair. But I was quick, and using the same wind magic as earlier on myself, I redirected my momentum to just barely dodge the beam shooting from the palm of his hand.

It made for a rather rough landing on the ground, but I managed to keep myself on my feet and regain my composure.

"That wasn't half bad." Alaric remarked. He looked at the ground I landed on. "However..."

I followed his gaze and saw the line marking the edge of the arena just barely behind my feet. I was with the back against the wall now.

All the while, Alaric kept stepping forward. To dodge his next attack I would have to leave the arena and it would be over. My eyes wandered to the crowd to see if I had delivered a satisfying performance yet. That's when my gaze met hers.

Come on, if you look at me like that...

There in the crowd of people cheering for Alaric was Seraphine, her gaze fixated on me. She didn't even seem to care for Alaric, and for that moment I stopped caring either. There was just me and Seraphine.

Seraphine's gaze issued me a challenge without words. And I accepted.

You've gotten your way, Demon Lord.

Alaric was close, his arm was outstretched, ready to finish me. A fireball appeared in his palm, but the moment it flew towards me it was met with a fireball of my own. Alaric had to shield his eyes from the resulting flares as the fireballs destroyed each other, and when he opened them again I was already behind him.

A single burst of wind into his back was all it took at this point to send him tumbling forward, across the boundary of the arena. It was over. I had won.

For a moment there was silence, then the audience erupted into cheers. The crowd loved an underdog, and Alaric had just lost his invincible image to me. But all I cared about was Seraphine. I scanned the crowd looking for her approval, but I saw her talking to the judges of our assessment. After some deliberation amongst them and waiting for the cheers to die down, the headmaster himself stepped forward and got the attention of everyone.

"Ahem, on request of House Mireydyne and my personal authority, the lineup for the third round has been altered. Lucien Draivelle and Seraphine Mireydyne will face each other for their final battle."