“Since you call me an arsonist…” Lance cocked an eyebrow, words sparking, insolent as a blade as he slid Sirius Sword free. “Then can I call you an attempted murderer?”

The air moved like a hostile current, cold edges scraping skin.

Seeing no fear in Lance, the Frost Knight spat, his voice like cracking ice. “You bastard. Why do you love flapping your mouth in places like this? Don’t you know opposing the Silkworm Clan is pure folly?”

“This is my code of chivalry, and…” Lance cut a hawk’s glance toward unconscious Yuna, breath steady as a winter stream. “Frost Knight, you’re bold to lay hands on my companion—”

“Aren’t you afraid I might cut you down?” His voice struck like winter lightning.

The bitter wind turned scorching, as if snowfields caught fire.

Several of the Frost Knight’s allies scattered like leaves before a storm, their steps clattering like loose stones.

Sweat beaded on the Frost Knight’s brow like thaw dripping, yet he didn’t give ground. He bit down, words grinding like gravel. “Your companion? What companion?!”

“She is mine. She is my possession. She is my property. She bears my honor as the Frost Knight!” His rant rolled like a squall, chains clanking in each word.

After that stormy hysteria, he went oddly calm, like clouds parting over a frozen lake.

A pleased curl touched his lips, a predator’s smile under frost. “Fine. The Noble Tribunal has already branded you a great criminal.”

He drew his knight’s sword, steel singing like night wind. “I just need to finish you here.”

Onlookers watched, hearts quaking like a bell in fog, but a voice cut through. “Hold! I order you to stop.”

Head of the Teaching Group, Bordeaux, arrived with a cresting wave of battle mages, cloaks billowing like stormfront.

Fulin, wearing Lance’s skin, wordlessly sheathed the blade, like dropping a lid over a boiling pot.

Doused as if with a pail of cold water, the Frost Knight hissed and slid his sword home, steam of rage thinning in the air.

Back at the lakeside cottage, water glass-still under a pale sky. “Lance, he went too far!”

Led by Jasmine, Combat Magic Class One buzzed with complaints like bees under the eaves, stings ready.

Yuna had fainted only because a sleep spell wrapped her, soft as a fogged veil.

After treatment, she woke quickly, and seeing her master’s face, she smiled, like snow thawing in the first sun.

But bruises mottled her like storm clouds across pale skin. Lance’s voice dropped like iron. “Yuna, what did he do to you?”

Jasmine lowered her head, round frames slipping like dew along a petal, her neat, pretty face tight with worry.

She spoke, soft as spring rain. “Lance, can we ask later?”

“I want to know now.” His words rang like a struck bell.

Yuna spoke gently, voice a breeze through reeds. “I’m sorry, Master. It’s my fault for not protecting myself.”

After she returned the books, the Frost Knight blocked her like wolves at a ford, his men closing like a fence.

“They threatened me,” she said, a knife’s chill at her throat. “He wanted me to leave you.”

“Impossible. I belong only to my master.” She swore it to the Frost Knight’s face, and his rage cracked like thunder, hands landing like iron on Yuna.

If not for Fulin’s “Partner” stepping in like a midnight boulder, Yuna might’ve been beaten dead on the spot.

After the account, anger glowed on every face like coals under ash.

But a question rose in Fulin’s heart, mist curling in a hidden valley.

“Why was it hurt too?” Lance said, voice flat as a blade. By rights, a Class-B threat, a large feline phantom beast on four paws shouldn’t be marked by apprentice spells. Fulin felt tracks in the snow turning strange.

Yuna’s words matched Fulin’s guess. “It was hurt before it came. I’m very sorry…” Her apology fell like a feather.

“It’s not your fault.” Lance clenched his fist, a stone grinding in his palm, anger tangled with helpless helplessness like a tightening net. “So they aim at those beside me…”

With the right prep, a mage can handle a phantom beast, snares set neat as lines in tall grass.

It’s easy to picture their plan: drive off the big cat Partner, then grab or wound Yuna, pieces pushed like a cold chess move.

But the board flipped—this big cat wasn’t easy prey, a spring trapped under snow leaping wide.

Now, after the fierce fight, the exhausted big cat gulped a few bites of feed like a river swallowing pebbles, then slid under the bed like a shadow under roots, soon snoring with bubbling grunts.

Why do you follow me at all? Fulin still hadn’t found the answer, a lantern swinging in fog.

She shook her head, and her mind flowed back into Lance’s body like a stream returning to its lake.

Now, everyone stood angry and lost, a crew in a storm without a compass.

“Lance, what do we do next?” Eyes searched him like torches hunting a path.

Clearly, the Frost Knight had the great families at his back, a stand of tall pines breaking the wind.

Even with royal protection, Lance was ignored and condemned by the Maple City Tribunal, a decree stamped like cold iron on wet clay.

In the past, pressure would have forced them to revoke it. But it’s the eve of the king’s selection, and Lance set Tulip Manor ablaze, the city roaring like a weather-wide storm.

We can be sure they’ll act again the moment they smell an opening, wolves circling for a gap in the fence.

Even with the Second Prince’s guarantee, they’ll test a royal’s patience, and Lance’s position is passive, a raft shoved by a rising tide.

Fulin could flip it with her power, a sheathed blade waiting in the dark, but—

He hasn’t been driven to the cliff’s edge yet, toes not over the void.

Fulin’s Lance still held odds to win, embers glowing under grey ash.

Jaw tight and fists clenched before, Lance suddenly relaxed, frost easing in a patch of sun.

Facing their confusion, he was calm and sure, a compass set on the North Star. “We just need to win.”