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In the Third World, a fight broke out eventually.

It was the day after Victoria first came home. Suddenly, a brawl erupted.

But it wasn’t some feud between rival factions.

They had actually set up a formal duel.

In fact, it’s pretty common in noble society to resolve conflicts through duels. Nobles originally existed to protect people from monsters.

In a world where magic exists, superhumans come into play.

That’s how the foundation of nobility formed around these superhumans. And that hasn’t changed over the years.

Nobles in a territory are basically synonymous with powerful weapons meant to deal with monsters that armies struggle to handle.

Surprisingly, this was true for both the First and Fourth Worlds. While the faded memory of the Second World didn’t reflect this, now it seems there are more worlds where this holds true.

And that hasn’t changed either.

Why, you ask?

Well, if a powerful monster suddenly attacks and the nobility fails to protect, everything goes downhill. No matter how many railroads and roads exist, if the city is wiped out before the troops arrive, it’s game over.

Even if they somehow defend, if the nobles determine it’s too tough to fight back, people will leave.

Because there’s no future.

Of course, the overall quality of the military has improved, so the expectations of nobles have lowered a lot. As a result, the overall competence of nobles has dropped too.

Still, they’re hanging onto the remnants of superhuman capabilities, and the children of nobles who are supposed to grow into those roles are pretty strong too.

For instance, if Rabo, who’s strung along with my bag, had just done his transportation duties like the harvesting machines from Brightshin instead of launching an assault, he could have earned enough to get by.

But he let vengeance and lust cloud his judgment and messed up.

So now he’s fully committed. Is it a mistake or a success?

Anyway.

A certain strong guy has gotten the factions behind him to fight.

Before my Rabo could spread happiness, all agreements were already set in stone.

You know what’s the funniest part?

The first crack emerged between locals and foreigners. It started when a high-status foreigner suddenly flooded in, prompting the relatively oppressed lower-class locals to push back.

But now, it’s two local guys fighting each other.

One side is all about figuring out who’s right and punishing the wrongdoer, while the other side believes it’s better to just separate and go their own ways.

The neutral faction, or the others, are utterly silent, while the fighters don’t consider either side as humans.

So, each side picks someone to fight from their faction.

What’s more amusing is that to select that one person, each faction fought amongst themselves to determine who was the strongest.

Honestly.

I feel like these guys are acting out because they’re bored.

They’re suffocating under the weight of adult society and can’t take it anymore, needing an outlet for their anger.

The unfortunate part is that.

They all fought.

But after preparing quite a bit, many of them quit when they felt they were about to lose.

Between the same factions, it seems like losing hurt their pride a little, but since it wasn’t directly tied to honor, they just tried a few rounds to see who was stronger.

Sure, there were times when it developed into fierce combat, but even that was against mages who could quickly recover, leaving me with no chance to step in.

With things like this, should I really go up to the side that lost in what’s basically the final showdown between the confirmers and the separatists and ask them for strength?

Nothing flows as planned.

If only they’d fought fiercely from the start, I would’ve jumped in to tell them to stop fighting. I’d have wanted my Rabo to shine too.

But instead of a deadly, kill-or-be-killed vibe, it felt more like they were just sweating it out until they decided to stop.

No, come on, you’re nobles.

What’s going on? Even if it’s just a practice match, isn’t there supposed to be some pride at stake? Shouldn’t you be ripping each other apart for this honor?

You should be furious about losing to someone like that, resorting to inhumane methods like assassination and poisoning, right?

It’s like a World Cup or something; over here they’re dueling, over there they’re betting and having a blast.

And then, the day before the weekend next week.

The strongest members selected by each faction were set to face each other in combat.

Rather, taking advantage of this, a gambling scene erupted—it’s like people just can’t stray far from gambling.

By the way, right now, it’s lunchtime and I’m blankly staring at the approaching weekend.

Polaris, who was busy managing the factions before the fight, now has a relaxed expression as he stays to eat with us since the day is set.

“Looks like you won’t get a chance to fight, Polaris?”

At that, Victoria poked Polaris playfully.

“Aren’t you the one who could win 90% of the time if you went out?”

Polaris shrugged, glancing at Victoria and gesturing with an open palm that went up and then down. It was a gesture depicting water falling from the sky.

“Nope, there’s a magic that completely repels all water. What was it again? It’s not about blocking with a barrier; it hinders activation within a certain area. That one also blocked my abilities.”

But Victoria just shook her head with a nonchalant expression.

Huh?

That’s strange.

“Has Victoria fought against such a magician before?”

I can say with certainty. Victoria has never fought such a magician.

Ever since Victoria became a harvesting machine, I’ve been feeling all her senses. Even now. But I have no memory of such an event.

“Nope. I stumbled upon it. Did you hear two seniors were fighting this morning?”

And Victoria answered my question with a denial. Wait, two seniors fought?

Oh. Just this morning, when Victoria woke up, there was a fight happening outside the window.

“There were fighters this morning? I didn’t hear about that at all.”

Polaris shook his head side to side. Polaris is like some mid-level manager who’s gathering such info out there.

“They were having a full-blown fight this morning. Or were those two fighting for different reasons?”

I started confirming the memory that had slipped from my mind.

It was two rather good-looking men duking it out. But since they were outside, I couldn’t hear them well.

The room was quite soundproof, and Victoria’s hearing was just average.

Victoria folded her arms and frowned. She seemed to be trying to recall, but upon running through memories again, all I could see was that they were fighting.

“Oh, right. One was challenging the other for a girl.”

“What? What’s that about?”

Polaris approached Victoria with a curious expression. Did I miss the sound of that fight?

Are they just imagining things?

“I heard it half-asleep, so I’m not sure. But I heard someone yell about why they were coming out of my girlfriend’s room.”

No, I didn’t hear that! The shouting did carry, but it wasn’t comprehensible enough for me to decipher the words.

It might as well have been the same volume as some dog barking.

“My girlfriend’s room? Wow, how scandalous.”

Polaris’s face flushed red as he seemed to think of something.

Oh, right, Polaris has probably never come across such information.

After becoming capable of bearing children, Polaris heard all sorts of various stories from his mother, but they were all very formal tales.

Not just stiff stories but very vivid ones too.

She told him about how, after getting pregnant, her belly would expand making it uncomfortable to move and how, with all the bloating and difficulties, she struggled to deal with bodily functions.

And how painful the childbirth process was, and that even after giving birth, the recovery wasn’t instant, and she had to deal with lasting discomfort for quite a while.

The message was to think about whether that suffering was worth it before casually engaging in pleasurable activities.

Well, I guess those stories do become part of life.

Victoria? She just heard from Beatrice that if she ever falls in love, things will go smoothly, or she picked up bits and pieces from couples at the Mechanical Knight School.

From simple feelings of happiness to the rumor that a relative threw a baby born from a horrible person into the sewer.

In this regard, it really does feel like people live their lives similarly everywhere.

“Is that so? If you hear such sounds from the upper rooms, it’s bound to be unsettling.”

No, no, I’m telling you I’ve never heard that kind of sound.

What is this?

There’s a thing called a disease where individuals habitually lie. They experience behavioral disorders to the extent that they can’t help it—could it be something like that?

“Who are you talking about?”

“I’m not sure. During a fight, one side cast a water spell while the other used a spell to hinder water, so after that, I couldn’t hear anything.”

Victoria spread her hands, waving them as if to say she didn’t know more than that.

Hold on a second.

“Victoria, can you hear anything from the moisture in the air?”

“I can if I concentrate on it.”

Wow, without a care in the world, Victoria casually answered my question.

Wait, so you knew you could do that all along?

“When did that start?”

“When I went to Bern City. You might not know, but I met some bad people in the center of Bern City, right? They kept bothering me, so at some point, I started to notice things.”

Can abilities evolve like that?

This is odd. As far as I recall, there hasn’t been an increase in intensity. Wide, who used to handle fire, didn’t notably change the intensity of the flames he could summon from the time he got his powers to just before his death—he only improved in differentiating the fire or controlling its temperature.

Maybe I just don’t know enough about it, or this is somewhat within the original range of abilities that Victoria was meant to have.

“No way, is Tori just spying on people then?”

However, Polaris seemed to interpret it differently, covering herself while subtly backing away. But judging by her expression, it was clearly a joke.

“Not spying! It’s just that if I don’t focus, I can only clearly hear sounds in humid places. So, unless it’s something like, ‘Gather a lot of water and if I lose control, you’ll all die!’ it’s not exactly all-powerful or anything.”

Victoria gathered droplets of water at her fingertips and then scattered them.

Then Polaris said this.

“Isn’t it a bit much to immediately turn it into a suicide tactic? Oof!”

The droplet burst onto Polaris’s face.

“Hey! My makeup’s getting ruined!”

“I’ll clean it up for you.”

As Polaris shouted while wiping her face, Victoria giggled and moved the droplets across her face to make Polaris’s cheeks sparkle.

So, her skin appeared even whiter.

Oh, I see the light makeup she had on got washed off, making her look even paler.

“Skin trouble is totally gone, but now you look way too much like a statue.”

Polaris grumbled while Victoria nodded, as if she understood. Both are harvesting machines. But it seems that having a face that’s super pale isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Spending time like this, we headed to the dining hall for lunch.