"I cannot accept this!" Iommo looked furious, forgetting for a moment the identity of the person in front of him, and fiercely waved the long sword in his hand. "I want to challenge His Highness! Don't you think it's disrespectful to the name of the Silver White War Princess to randomly find someone to deal with me?"

If possible, Tiran really didn't want that kind of "chuunibyou" (middle school syndrome) explosion. He wanted to say it out loud, but usually it didn't matter if he acted childish at home. In front of outsiders, he had to maintain the demeanor of the royal family.

"Well, actually I'm a bit off today, so I asked Aya to spar with you," Tiran casually made up an excuse. He regretted agreeing to the fight now. Looking back, he realized that this guy challenging him might have been instigated by the old man. His goal was probably to hold him back so he could escape.

"I'm off today?" Iommo's anger subsided slightly, and he frowned slightly. "If that's the case, Your Highness could have told me. I don't mind rescheduling. Why send a maid to deal with me?"

"What's wrong with a maid? Looking down on maids, huh..." Aya inserted a discontented remark. At least Mimi's combat ability was definitely not worse than this guy's.

"Battle is a man's job. Women just need to be protected," Iommo hesitated for a moment, and answered instinctively.

...Tsk, this guy is a typical "straight male cancer," isn't he? Definitely!

In an instant, Aya and Tiran's eyes turned unfriendly.

"Lord Iommo," Tiran grinned, baring his teeth. "I've changed my mind. If you fight my maid and win, I'll immediately duel with you. Aya, beat him."

"Understood." Aya also clenched her fist and stepped into the arena with her sword.

Wait, something seems off. That guy was just saying women should not get angry, so why am I angry? Aya suddenly realized something wasn't right. Could it be that I'm a deeply hidden pervert in my subconscious? No, that's not possible. It must be an illusion, just because I've been mentally disturbed while working as a maid!

Because it wasn't a public duel, Aya didn't even have the title of a knight. Therefore, the fight between the two bypassed all those lengthy declarations and could start with just one command.

"Let's make this clear. I won't go easy on you just because you're a woman. If you don't want to get hurt, surrender obediently," Iommo said seriously to Aya before the fight started. In his opinion, this maid was completely ignorant and had no awareness of her own abilities. The title of a Great Knight was synonymous with strength, and even in the records of the Continental Knights Association, there were not more than four figures holding that title.

"That's unnecessary. Let's just start fighting," Aya shrugged, casually picking up her long sword.

"In that case, I hope you won't regret it," Iommo's gaze hardened as he gripped his sword tightly and assumed a stance.

"Cough," Tiran cleared his throat. "Prepare yourselves. The countdown will begin after three seconds."

"Three, two, one!"

At the moment the last syllable was spoken, Aya suddenly pushed off the ground with great force, using Dragon's powerful body to rapidly accelerate. In the eyes of ordinary people, she was a mere blur, and she didn't even need to gather strength. It was an unexpected strike.

But it was still visible to the Great Knight.

As Iommo stepped back and raised his sword to block Aya's assault, their swords clashed, creating sparks and an ear-piercing scrape as they parted.

After just a short exchange, both sides had a rough understanding of each other's abilities.

The strength of the Great Knight was unquestionable, and Aya had already expected that. If she could defeat the Great Knight with just one sword strike, it would be too easy.

But what surprised Iommo was the fact that he had to use about 70% of his strength to parry Aya's attack just now. If he hadn't exerted more force afterward, he might have suffered a small setback.

Putting aside his underestimation, Iommo reevaluated his opponent, and the edge of his sword began to shine.

...

"Your Highness! You actually agreed to the duel?"

A voice filled with dissatisfaction and disbelief came from the entrance to the arena behind Tiran, and in the next moment, the door was pushed open and a man with dazzling golden short hair strode in, just in time to see Tiran turning to look at him while leaning on the railing.

"Oh, Golfitte is here."

"Your Highness?" Golfitte was momentarily stunned. Tiran didn't go to fight? Then who was battling in the arena?

"Oh, um, the protagonist always enters last, right? I definitely can't go first. So I sent Aya to test this guy's strength.""That's...," Gauvain just sighed with relief, but his ears caught onto a sensitive word, "Wait? Your Highness, are you saying the person in the battle is...?"

"Aya, huh."

"What a joke!" Gauvain's shocked expression was revealed as he hurriedly ran a few steps to the front of the audience and looked down, complaining as he ran, "How can Your Highness do this? You know the caliber of a Grand Knight, and besides, that guy Iomorn is so rigid, he absolutely won't go easy during a battle just because his opponent is weaker. Miss Aya will get hurt!"

"Weaker? Are you sure?"

Gauvain knew Aya was more than just an ordinary maid, he gained this experience from the head maid Mimi. And he also knew that Aya fought during the attack on the Hesse Manor. But in his view, these were not enough to defeat a true Grand Knight.

Then he saw Aya engaged in a back-and-forth fight with Iomorn.

"..."

"Don't worry, don't worry, I care quite a bit about my own maids. Aya's current strength, well, it's a bit difficult to truly defeat Iomorn, but she won't be completely overwhelmed. The girl you like won't get hurt." Tiran scrutinized Iomorn's worried expression, with a mischievous look.

"Like... Like... a girl, well, actually... that, I also..." Iomorn clearly failed to grasp the point. The esteemed Grand Knight was caught off guard by a single sentence and his face turned red.

...

Iomorn became truly serious, a silver flame surged and burned on his knight sword, extending an exaggerated sword aura, stretching the originally one-meter-long blade edge into a three-meter-long giant blade.

With "Chi" attached to the weapon, most advanced knights can use this technique, which not only strengthens the sharpness of the blade but also adds a bit of "Chi" attribute to the attack. Although it looks a bit extravagant, the effect is really outstanding.

Especially in the current situation, Aya was quite depressed.

Ordinary knights can only extend the sword aura a few centimeters when strengthening the blade, but this guy directly extended it twice as much, and looking at her own simple iron sword... how can she still have any fun!

This fighting style not only caused her attack range to be a whole circle smaller, but also disadvantaged her every time their weapons clashed. After Iomorn used the enhanced blade, their weapons had clashed six times, and then Aya's blade had six gashes.

After hitting the seventh dent on the blade, Aya's figure suddenly retreated, creating distance and looking a bit disheveled.

A bit annoyed, at this rate, she might lose.

"You're giving up? Then hurry up and admit defeat, let this lady teach him a lesson in manners." Tiran's voice resounded in Aya's head through the contract, with a thick sense of mockery in her tone.

"Go away! If my magic and Chi weren't sealed by you, I would've finished this guy off in minutes!" Aya said unhappily.

"Oh... go away? I was actually thinking of kindly reminding you of this guy's weakness when you defeat him." Tiran replied indifferently.

"Wait, what's his weaknes...shit!" Aya was about to ask further but Iomorn had already swung his enhanced lightsword, sending two light blades shooting towards her, frightening Aya into quickly performing a difficult somersault to evade.

"Well, about that, I'll go ask, just wait a moment." Suddenly, Tiran's end of the contract communication was cut off, and there was no sound.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?!" Seeing Iomorn charge towards her once again, Aya cursed in frustration and began to flee around the arena.

...

Tiran jogged up to Gauvain who was standing by the railing, tapped his shoulder, but he still remained completely absorbed in watching the battle in the arena below.

"Hey hey, are you stunned? My maid is indeed beautiful, but is she really that mesmerizing for a grand knight like you?" Tiran's expression showed a bit of disdain, wondering why she hadn't noticed before that this person was so dull.

Upon hearing Tiran's words, Gauvain finally turned back, a slightly embarrassed expression on his face as he stuttered his defense, "No, no, it's not because of that. I just didn't expect Miss Aya's martial arts skills to be this impressive, it was a bit mesmerizing..."

"Oh... so you're still just fixated on watching my maid." Tiran still looked disdainful as she stared at Gauvain. "Forget it, let's not talk about that. That guy Iomorn... is that his correct name? Does he have any weaknesses?"

"Weakness? Why ask about that? With Your Highness's strength, it shouldn't be hard to defeat him." Gauvain hesitated for a moment, not expecting Tiran to ask this question.Although he had some dissatisfaction with Eomel's reckless challenge, they were colleagues in the Crusaders after all, and comrades who could rely on each other on the battlefield. Even in front of the princess, he didn't really want to casually mention such things.

"Well... mainly because I want to see if Aya has a chance to win this round." Tiren tousled the strand of hair falling on his forehead, thinking to himself, should I tell you that it's for the sake of helping that idiotic dragon cheat?

Why did he even help that idiotic dragon in the first place? If he won, wouldn't he lose a cute maid for himself?

Hmm, maybe it's because he didn't want his own maid to lose face in front of outsiders. Tiren explained it to himself like this.

"Is that so?" Hearing this reason, Galphide instead held his chin and started to think seriously: "Well... if it's Miss Aya..."

The knight captain suddenly brightened his eyes, looked up eagerly at Tiren and said, "Your Highness, if you can guarantee not to mention it to anyone, I can tell you Eomel's weakness, which is..."

Rubbing his hands with a slightly embarrassed expression, Galphide blushed and said, "Could you please help me arrange... arrange a meeting with Miss Aya when you have time?"

Tiren: "..."

If Eomel heard this, Galphide's glorious image as the knight captain would immediately crumble into that of an unfaithful jerk. Hey hey, what happened to being comrades who could rely on each other?