Date: Second Day of the Combat Festival
Location: Academy East Arena – Obsidian Platform
---
We won again.
But I didn't lift a blade.
Not because I couldn't.
Because I didn't need to.
---
Our second opponents were veterans.
Second years.
They called themselves Iron Chain — eight tightly bound students who fought like cogs in a perfect engine.
They'd trained for months together.
Coordinated spells. Shield walls. Perfect timing.
And yet… they lost in under five minutes.
I saw it the moment they stepped into the field.
Too rigid. Too rehearsed.
> "Machines don't adapt," I wrote in the margin of my map.
"People do."
---
I told the team: Delta-C Shift.
We've never used it outside theory.
But they trusted me.
They always do.
Riya asked me once if I was nervous when making up a formation mid-match.
I told her: "Always."
She smiled like that made her feel better.
---
Alice slipped past their front like smoke.
Leander took point with his usual grin, deflecting attention.
Anna spread illusion sigils so thick the enemy couldn't see their own hands.
Gideon held the center — my mountain.
Elric buffered the team from behind with calm hands and subtle spellwork.
Riya's wind cut across their support ranks like a whip.
And I?
I only gave the order.
> "Now."
Everything collapsed.
Perfect coordination… crumbled in seconds.
---
I'm not proud of how we humiliated them.
But it was necessary.
They called us "first-years with a fluke win."
They said we were David's pets.
They said Lily only stayed with us because she pitied us.
They said too much.
Now, they say nothing.
---
After the match, the crowd didn't cheer.
They whispered.
> "That's the Silent Tactician."
"They didn't even try."
"No one even got hit…"
Leander reenacted the match with a spoon and two mugs over dinner.
Anna said she made one of the second-years hallucinate a waterfall.
Alice drank tea and muttered something about "amateurs."
Lily sat quietly beside me. Her hand brushed mine.
She didn't look away.
I almost forgot I was wearing gloves.
---
I feel it again.
Mana.
Flowing faintly.
Yukari's crystal is working better than I hoped.
Still… I can't risk using magic in battle.
Not yet.
I'm the only one here who has to win without it.
---
> "In war, the experienced die first.
Because they've seen so much…
They think they've seen everything."
They hadn't seen us.
---
End of Entry.