Not even a day had passed since the duel, yet Soren was already sick of the attention.
The clock at the front of the lecture hall ticked quietly, steady and indifferent, but the sound was swallowed whole by the weight of dozens of gazes pressing in on him from all sides.
It wasn't loud in here, not really, just the low murmur of students settling and the occasional lazy laugh, yet it still felt like the room had narrowed until there was only one thing inside it.
Him.
Soren sat at his usual spot near the middle, elbow resting on the table, cheek balanced against his palm in a posture that tried to look relaxed and mostly succeeded from a distance.
His other hand held the small seed he had obtained from the Verdant Hollow, faintly pulsing against his skin like a tiny heartbeat.
A thin stream of mana flowed from his fingertips into it as he idly infused it, more out of muscle memory than any actual intention.
He couldn't concentrate.
Every time his eyes lifted even a fraction, he met someone else's.
They didn't look away.
'Seriously…'
His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth, the sound contained, the irritation not.
He forced his gaze back down to the seed as if staring hard enough at it could make the rest of the room stop existing.
It didn't help.
The weight of the classroom didn't disappear just because he refused to acknowledge it, and the worst part was how unified it felt.
Not scattered curiosity, not the usual shifting social noise, but a consistent pressure, the same kind of stare repeated over and over until it became its own atmosphere.
Ever since he had beaten Alex, everyone had been acting strange.
His friends.
The professors.
The other students.
Some reactions had been subtle, the way a conversation hesitated for half a beat before continuing, the way someone's eyes lingered too long on his hands, the way Felix's gaze had sharpened after the duel as if he was looking for an explanation that didn't exist.
Others were less subtle, like the muttering in the hallways about how "that duel had to be scripted," or how "there's no way Soren wins unless something's rigged."
And Soren couldn't even bring himself to be properly angry about it.
Because he was confused too.
He still didn't know how he had won, not in the way they meant.
In theory, he understood it perfectly.
In practice, it felt wrong.
Alex's stats should be higher than his across the board right now, his skill proficiencies too.
On top of that, Alex had [Divinity], a cheat-like skill he could use up to twice in a fight, stopping time long enough to deliver decisive blows.
Against that, Soren should not have stood a chance, not without some ridiculous miracle that the story itself shoved into his hands.
Yet the reason he had had a chance was simple.
"The rules," he murmured under his breath, the words barely forming, more thought than sound.
Because relics were allowed.
Because of that one condition, the entire duel had tilted.
Soren had relics.
Plural.
Alex had none.
Labrys, Freya's axe, with its form-changing ability and near-infinite durability.
Bloodrop, with its one-time, absolute damage nullification.
The glove from the Goblin King's Nest, the one that could spike his strength for an instant if he timed it right.
Incidents, coincidences, and bad luck had piled up around him since he transmigrated, and those relics were the results.
Nothing glamorous, nothing noble, just rewards snatched out of situations he had barely survived.
The duel's outcome wasn't a mystery.
It was preparation.
He hadn't cheated.
He hadn't pulled something impossible out of nowhere.
It had still been unfair, though, just not in the way everyone assumed.
Soren let out a quiet breath and finally lifted his head to scan the room again, as if forcing himself to look would make it easier the next time.
It didn't.
He regretted it immediately.
The expressions that filled his vision were ugly.
Disgust.
Envy.
Resentment.
The emotions in their eyes were so thick and concentrated that for a moment it felt as if the air itself had grown heavier, as if something unseen had settled onto his shoulders and decided it liked it there.
His fingers tightened slightly around the seed.
These looks… they were worse than even the ones he had received during the first semester.
Back then, when he had still been the "Class F failure," the boy who kept everyone at a distance because of his sister's death, he had been used to strange glances.
There had been whispers, sure, and discomfort, but there had also been curiosity, the occasional pity, the occasional cautious respect from people who didn't know what to make of him.
This was different.
There was no curiosity now.
Just pure negativity, clean and sharp.
'It's even worse than when I almost drowned Yuli…'
The thought came so naturally he didn't even realise he had compared it until the memory brushed the surface, vivid and unwanted.
Back then, people had been afraid, angry, disgusted, a messy mix that varied depending on who was looking and why.
Now, what he saw in their faces felt unified, coherent, as if everyone had decided to look at him through the same lens, the same colour of emotion, and refused to consider any other shade.
He tapped his fingers against the desk, once, twice, a small rhythm to ground himself.
The mana flowing into the seed faltered.
Then stopped.
Soren stood.
A few people flinched, reflexively, but no one looked away.
If anything, the attention sharpened, as if his movement confirmed whatever story they had built in their heads.
His skin felt too tight.
The back of his neck prickled.
His shoulders refused to relax no matter how he rolled them.
'It's uncomfortable…'
He couldn't stay here.
He was supposed to be waiting for the professor so the lecture could start, but he had reached his limit, and he knew from experience that if he tried to force himself through it, he would only end up snapping at someone who didn't deserve it.
Soren picked up his bag, slid the seed into his pocket, and walked out.
He could feel the stares follow him all the way until the door closed behind his back, and even then the pressure didn't vanish immediately, like the room had left a residue on his skin.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
The bathroom stall door clicked shut as Soren locked it and slumped down on the closed lid of the toilet with a deep sigh.
The noise outside was muffled here.
It wasn't truly quiet, not with the echo of footsteps in the hallway, the occasional running tap, distant voices bouncing off tile, but it still felt like a refuge anyway, like the world couldn't quite reach him through the thin metal and cheap lock.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face with both hands, palms dragging slowly down his cheeks.
Although he had been proud of himself for defeating Alex, everything that came after made it hard to hold onto that feeling.
It wasn't fear.
It wasn't the same anxiety as before, that prickling panic that made his chest constrict and his thoughts spiral.
It was just exhaustion.
Annoyance.
A dull, persistent irritation that sat behind his ribs and refused to move.
He had finally done something big that he chose for himself, without being dragged into it, without being cornered by the story and forced to react.
He had decided to fight, decided to win if he could, decided to step forward instead of constantly stepping around.
And now the world looked at him like this.
"The first time I move on my own, and this happens…" he muttered to the empty stall, voice flat, almost amused in the way someone got when they were too tired to be properly upset.
He let his hands drop and pulled the seed out of his pocket, rolling it between his fingers.
It was warm from his mana earlier, faintly alive, like it was listening even if it couldn't understand.
"Should I have just lost…?"
The thought tasted bitter the moment it left his mouth.
Because the duel itself had been fun.
It was the first time in a long while that he had been able to move freely, to fight without constantly calculating his next ten steps, the story, the flags, the consequences, the ways things could twist if he made the wrong choice.
He had just fought.
He had used what he had, pushed himself, and clung to that small, stubborn chance that maybe he could actually win.
And he had.
Yet here he was, hiding in a bathroom stall because he couldn't stand sitting in his own classroom.
"Ugh, it's all such a pain," Soren said quietly as he stood up.
He flushed the unused toilet out of habit, unlatched the stall, and stepped out as if leaving on his own terms would make it less pathetic.
He washed his hands, splashed a bit of water on his face, and dried off slowly, expression calm in the mirror.
On the inside, his chest still felt heavy, and it didn't lighten even when he forced his shoulders to square.
"Let's just hope things improve," he murmured, more to himself than anything, then headed back toward class.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
Things did not improve.
If anything, the more he moved around, the stranger things felt, as if the attention wasn't an isolated pocket in his lecture hall but something spreading through the academy like a stain.
By the time classes ended for the day, Soren's nerves were thin.
He sat alone at the dining table in the Sweetheart Society's clubroom, flipping through the attendance records that Lev had shoved at him earlier with the casual cruelty of someone who enjoyed paperwork only because it meant other people had to do it.
It was their second official week as an approved club, which meant forms, stamps, deadlines, and the kind of bureaucratic oversight that made Soren wonder how the academy ever managed to function.
He stacked the attendance sheets neatly, checked them twice, then slid them into a folder.
"Right, might as well get this over with."
He grabbed his cloak from the back of the chair, the long hoodie-like garment falling into his hands with familiar weight, then swung it on and adjusted it so it sat comfortably over his shoulders and draped down toward his knees.
The fabric was soft enough to feel like protection without actually being one, and for a moment he allowed himself to enjoy the small comfort of it before he stepped out.
He left the clubroom and started down the stairwell, and the long climb from the top floor of the club building gave him far too much time to think.
Yesterday, every student he had passed had either given him a normal glance or ignored him entirely.
Today, more than half of them paused.
Their gazes stuck to him just a little too long.
The intensity in their eyes didn't match their blank faces, and that mismatch was what made his skin crawl, because it felt deliberate, controlled, like they were trying to look neutral while still letting him know exactly what they thought.
He kept walking.
Outside, the autumn air was cool, crisp enough to make his lungs feel cleaner than usual.
The administrative building sat at the centre of campus like a quiet, dignified block of stone and glass, banners fluttering on its upper floors.
At a glance, everything looked normal, students drifting in and out, staff crossing between buildings with folders tucked under their arms.
Still, as he approached and went up the steps, conversations dipped.
Not completely.
Just enough that his name slipped through more clearly.
— …Arden…
— …hero duel…
— …how's that fair…
— …engaged to…
He pushed open the heavy double doors and stepped inside, letting the familiar coolness of the lobby wash over him.
The place always felt slightly colder than it should, as if the building itself was designed to keep emotions out along with heat.
He headed straight for the reception desk.
The clerk on duty today was a middle-aged woman with tidy hair and a pair of spectacles perched low on her nose.
Soren had seen her enough times to recognise her.
She had always been professional, if a bit distant, the kind of person who could reduce an entire student to a line on a form without flinching.
He set the folder down on the counter.
"Excuse me. I'm here to submit the attendance records for the Sweetheart Society."
Her pen stopped.
Her eyes flicked up, landing on his face.
For a brief moment, something flickered across them.
It wasn't dislike.
It wasn't fear.
It was… irritation.
Tight and sharp, like she had bitten something sour and had to swallow it.
"The… Sweetheart Society?" she repeated, as if the words offended her more than his presence did.
"Yes," Soren replied evenly. "The small club with a dessert focus. Supervised by Professor Lilliana Roseblood."
Her expression twitched at Lilliana's name, and the reaction wasn't what he expected.
If anything, he had anticipated immediate respect there, because Lilliana was a duke's daughter, a young professor, and powerful enough that most people kept their opinions to themselves.
Instead, what he saw in the clerk's eyes looked closer to jealousy.
"Attendance records," he reminded gently, keeping his voice polite even as his shoulders began to tighten.
"Right."
She took the folder from his hands with more force than necessary, flipping it open.
Her gaze trailed over the names, and Soren watched her lips press thinner and thinner as she read.
"I see," she said, voice strained in a way that made the words feel like they were scraping past her teeth.
"Is there a problem?" Soren asked.
His tone stayed calm, but his posture sharpened without his permission, the subtle tension of someone bracing for something he couldn't quite predict.
"…No," she said after a beat, closing the folder with a firm snap. "Your documents are in order. Future attendance records must be submitted by the end of each month. You're early."
"Better than being late," he replied with a small shrug, trying to keep it light.
She didn't return the half-joke.
Her eyes lingered on him a second longer, then she turned away to slot the folder into a stack behind her, movements efficient and pointed.
As she did, Soren caught the faintest hint of a mutter, low enough that it almost blended into the ambient noise of the lobby.
"Already getting special treatment with that roster…"
He wasn't sure he was supposed to hear it.
He pretended he hadn't.
"Thank you," he said instead, stepping back from the counter.
As he turned away, he felt it again.
That prickling sensation at the edge of his awareness, the instinctive warning that came from being watched too closely.
He glanced around.
Several students were seated along the wall benches, clutching papers and bags on their laps, waiting their turn.
Some turned their faces away the moment his eyes met theirs.
Others didn't bother.
They stared openly.
'Again…'
He could read their expressions easily now, because the pattern had repeated enough times that it stopped feeling like coincidence.
Annoyance.
Jealousy.
That same sharp, twisted look he had seen in his classroom, focused entirely on him like a target.
Bits of whispered conversation carried over, fractured but clear enough to stitch together the message they wanted him to hear.
— Must be nice having royalty in your club…
— Beating the Hero and acting like it's nothing…
— Of course the professors like him, he's collecting rich girls like trophies…
Soren inhaled slowly, then let out a quiet breath.
He forced his shoulders to relax and headed for the exit without reacting, because reacting would feed it, and he refused to give them that satisfaction.
'Ignore it,' he told himself. 'It's just noise.'
But the further he walked, the harder it was to brush off completely, because noise didn't normally feel this coordinated.
It didn't normally cling like fog, wrapping around him until it followed him outside.
By the time he stepped back into the open air and felt the breeze touch his face, he realised his jaw had locked.
He consciously loosened it.
'It's not like this is new. People talking behind my back, rumours, weird looks… That's been happening since the first week of transmigration. So why does it feel different now?'
Maybe it was just the timing.
Maybe he was more on edge because of Freya's diary, the duel, everything else sitting behind his eyes like an ache.
That would have been a reasonable explanation.
But for some reason, it didn't sit right.
The way people looked at him felt too similar.
Too aligned.
As if someone had taken all the vague discontent around him and twisted it in the same direction, then let it loose and watched it spread.
Soren shoved the thought aside, because if he let himself follow it, he would start spiralling into possibilities he couldn't prove, and he didn't have the energy for that today.
For the rest of the day, he tried not to think about it.
————「❤︎」————