Noble Lady Reformation Guide - Chapter 14: Imam (4)

Leigh felt a strange sense of dissonance as he looked at Diella, who stood in her place on the platform.

What kind of person was this girl named Diella?

Selfish, immature, reckless—a true spoiled brat.

She was a troublemaker whose expulsion from House Duplain would not have been a loss. The memories of her hurling insults and hurting the servants Leigh cherished still flickered before his eyes.

But now, standing tall on the platform, looking at Leigh, there was no trace of that reckless behavior. Beneath the cloak she wore, her gaze toward Leigh appeared calm, tinged with caution and a hint of tension.

‘Did she really come to win?’

Leigh adjusted his arm and looked up toward the terrace where the Grand Duke Duplain was observing from the mansion with that woman, eyes unblinking.

‘Either way, I need to end this quickly.’

The servant in charge of officiating stood firmly on the platform.

Leigh stepped onto the platform and silently looked at Diella, then commented:

“I thought you’d be plotting your escape, terrifying the servants with fear all over your face. But you keep surprising me.”

Leigh’s noble clothing was more functional than Valerian’s. As he rolled up his sleeves and dusted off his hands, the veins in his arms were clearly visible. Before becoming a mage, he was a strong young man.

It was hard to imagine Diella, with neither magical nor physical strength, defeating Leigh. His mind was focused on a quick and decisive victory.

“Please finalize the duel preparations. We’ll be using the advanced mage duel rules of the Kelbrem Hall in Ebelstein, where the match ends when the first protection circle is activated,” Leigh said.

The head butler, Delron, read the basic terms from the platform. The Kelbrem Hall rules were already the most common among noble magical duels. There was no need to recite them fully—both participants knew them well.

With that, Delron closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and declared:

“Begin.”

As soon as the match began, Leigh swiftly raised his hand. A taut string seemed to snap, and a fierce fighting spirit briefly burned in his eyes.

Each duelist began with a charm engraved with a magical protection circle by a senior mage.

“Protection Engraving,” a protection circle of at least three-star level, would activate automatically just before the wearer suffered a serious injury, neutralizing the opponent’s magic and then disappearing. Essentially, its activation meant the wearer had received a significant blow, thereby confirming their defeat.

The protection circle lasted about ten minutes from its placement. If the duel didn’t end within that time, the result would be a draw.

Of course, Leigh had no intention of allowing a draw, so he focused his mind. Against someone as slow as Diella, a well-placed one-star spell would be enough to activate her protection circle.

Leigh gathered magic in his hands and began his incantation.

“Oh wind that sweeps the meadows and splits the earth…”

Even though Leigh had started his incantation with his hand raised, Diella remained still, staring directly at him.

A key aspect of magical duels was incantation speed. When starting at a distance, the one who finished their chant first would have the advantage.

To counter with magic, starting the incantation quickly was crucial, yet Diella stood still, her cloak billowing as she stared at Leigh.

‘Is she frozen in fear?’

Leigh smirked confidently, ready to unleash the one-star spell “Wind Blade” from his fingertips. The idea that the duel would end so easily brought a bit of disappointment. Leigh wasn’t the type to go easy on Diella.

The wind-formed blade shot toward Diella. He was already thinking about her protection circle activating instantly and having her locked back in the annex.

Swish!

At that moment, Diella ducked and dove to the side. Her cloak flared, and a flash of her golden hair showed through the fabric. It was an agile movement rarely seen from Diella.

However, she was still a girl who had been shut inside an annex. No matter how nimble, her movements had limits.

“Stop right there!”

With clenched teeth, Leigh released his spell, redirecting the Wind Blade.

The redirected blade arced toward Diella but did not strike directly.

Swish!

Crack! Crash!

A pillar of ice rose from the ground, blocking the Wind Blade’s path.

Normally, a basic ice wall like that, only imbued with elemental magic, wouldn’t withstand the force of a one-star spell.

However, by constantly changing direction, she forced her opponent to alter their attack’s trajectory. Magic with a warped and redirected flow would surely lose half its power compared to a direct cast.

Leigh scowled.

Diella knew that the more complex and varied the spell’s trajectory, the harder it was to control its power, and the weaker it would become.

It was a kind of instinctive knowledge that could only be understood through hands-on magic manipulation. After practicing magical manifestation with Dereck to the point of exhaustion, Diella had now honed her sense of magical flow to rival Leigh’s.

‘So that training wasn’t in vain.’

Standing tall, Leigh began another incantation, this time planning to cast three Wind Blades in succession—his specialty.

If she intended to keep darting side to side and disrupting his magical control, then stopping her backstep movement would be enough.

As the next incantation neared, Diella ran to the side, gritting her teeth.

“Listen closely, Lady Diella. A mercenary’s combat skills differ from a noble’s. We don’t hold fair play as a virtue; our focus is only on victory.”

“The honorable victory you imagine in a typical magical duel is far from what you’ll face here. You may win, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be recognized.”

Before stepping onto the platform, Dereck had spoken while looking at Diella with burning red eyes.

“Even so, you can still achieve a victorious result. Your opponent may be a one-star mage, but he has no real experience in extreme combat.”

Mercenary duel techniques, where a small mistake could mean death, were vastly different from the life Diella had lived.

Even if Dereck tried to convey his knowledge, it was unlikely Diella—who had grown up as a noble lady—could absorb it instantly.

Thus, Dereck had only passed on the basic principles. It was oral instruction only. True learning could hardly be expected from just a few verbal exchanges with someone who had stood on the razor’s edge of life and death on the battlefield.

However, Dereck’s advice always had a way of exploiting weaknesses. It included elements of real combat not even considered in noble, dignified magical duels.

Controlling the battlefield and leveraging the environment. Starting with basic protective tactics using terrain and surroundings, eliminating the opponent’s composure, conserving one’s magic while wasting the enemy’s, and skillfully deflecting powerful spells.

Even if the oral knowledge had limited application, if the opponent clung to noble fair-play ethics, Diella had many tools at her disposal.

Bang!

Swish!

With a wave of magic, Diella summoned several more ice pillars.

Still a beginner, Diella felt her head throb from the effort, but soon she dove between the pillars, using them for cover.

Dereck had told Diella:

“Controlling the battlefield is the most basic element of victory in a duel. Fighting in an open field, a dark forest, or a complex urban landscape—none of them are the same.”

Diella intended to make the battlefield as complex as possible, to introduce every possible variable.

In a duel where triggering the opponent’s protection circle once meant victory, breaching their defense just once could bring triumph.

Diella was a wild-school mage by nature.

Even when she couldn’t use magic—even when she was in that dark forest, fleeing from Dereck—she had tried to strike from behind, using the terrain to her advantage.

The forest’s darkness, the cover of bushes, gripping a stone with trembling hands, somehow trying to take Dereck down—that memory was still vivid in her mind.

Bang! Bang!

While dodging Leigh’s spell again and circling the edge of the platform, part of the platform’s edge collapsed, and smoke swirled.

Diella jumped toward the collapsed side of the platform and slipped into the empty space below.

‘According to Kelbrem Hall rules, leaving the platform boundary means defeat…!’

Leigh clenched his teeth and dispersed the smoke as he thought.

‘So that’s it…! The empty space beneath the platform isn’t outside the walls…!’

Leigh nearly lost his temper at the literal interpretation of the rules, but he couldn’t deny it. The advanced mage duel rules of Kelbrem Hall didn’t account for the possibility of a cowardly opponent hiding in the dusty space beneath the platform to avoid the opponent’s spells.

There had never been a precedent of such a brazen individual crawling under the podium to avoid attacks during a noble magic duel, steeped in tradition and authority.

Crack!

At that moment, several ice pillars rose next to Leigh. Diella, who had jumped below the platform, had materialized her magic in the area where Leigh was likely standing.

Crack! Crack!

The ice pillars erupting from beneath the wooden platform were clearly aimed at Leigh.

If a single attack could secure victory, then attacking from outside the opponent’s line of sight was the safest method Dereck had devised.

Nobles sought honorable victories. They cast their spells with dignity, showcased their skills, and revealed the results of their training to the public in the Kelbrem Hall duels—where the harsh and deadly reality of real combat wasn’t even considered.

In a real fight, where the goal was to kill the opponent, fairness was never a virtue.

A setting that allowed a one-sided strike against the enemy was the ideal battlefield for a mercenary.

“Damn it…!”

Leigh quickly ran toward the center of the platform. It was impossible to precisely locate Diella while she was moving beneath it. Magic couldn’t target someone whose position was unknown.

The battlefield had been tilted. Leigh had to keep dodging until Diella collapsed from exhaustion.

In truth, the solution was simple. Jump into the dusty space below the platform and resume the fight on equal ground.

If your opponent was causing chaos in the mud, you had to be prepared to dive into that mud too.

If Diella had cast aside the noble etiquette of magic duels in her obsession with victory, then Leigh had to adapt and respond accordingly.

Leigh steeled himself to jump into the dusty space below. If the opponent used such tactics, he had to be willing to get dirty too. That was when he headed toward the part of the platform recently destroyed by the Wind Blade.

Crack.

“…!”

The collapsed edge of the platform was encased in ice, conjured by magic.

She had quickly taken the advantageous position on the battlefield and blocked her opponent’s entrance.

“This… damn…!”

Leigh materialized magic in his hands once more. Creating a new entry into the space below was trivial. Breaking through the wooden platform was child’s play for him.

Crack!

However, as Leigh tried to force his way in, Diella’s attack floated up from beneath the platform. Unlike Leigh’s attack, Diella’s narrower strike didn’t create a large hole in the podium.

But a direct hit from incoming magic would trigger the protection circle. In the world of magic duels, that could decide the outcome.

Crack! Crash! Crash!

Every time Leigh attempted to break through the platform to pursue Diella, her attacks interrupted him again and again.

Diella, below, couldn’t pinpoint Leigh’s exact location, but she could roughly infer it using the magical flow or the sound of his footsteps.

This difference was significant.

She kept targeting the moment when Leigh channeled power to break the platform. At least when his position was certain, she could attack him unilaterally.

She had no intention of giving up her advantage in the tilted battlefield. Fairness in combat skills was a luxury for mercenaries.

Diella’s dusty figure flickered through the ice pillars piercing the podium.

Leigh’s eyes met Diella’s beneath the platform. There was no flash of emotion in those eyes.

Even in the midst of battle, that cold gaze remained calm—a look he recognized from somewhere.

It was the same look from that white-haired mercenary tutor, whose emotions remained unshaken even when Valerian grabbed him by the collar.

Cold, unfaltering eyes, always trying to make rational judgments, regardless of the situation.

Only then did Leigh realize. There was no way this small girl had come up with all this on her own.

It was undoubtedly the influence of that white-haired tutor.

“This brat…!”

Crack! Crack!

Leigh summoned his magic again, materializing arrows of magical energy.

He destroyed every ice pillar that dared approach.

Leigh clenched his teeth. If his opponent had thrown away all notions of dueling etiquette and was only acting for the sake of victory, he had no choice but to respond in kind.

*

“What… what is that…?! Covered in dust… Diella…!”

Miriela, who had been watching the duel from the terrace, was startled. This scene was far from a noble and courteous magic duel. Miriela quickly grabbed the edge of her skirt, ready to rush down from the terrace. She couldn’t sit by and watch—but the Duke of Duplain stopped her with a firm voice.

“Let the duel run its course.”

“You…!”

She walked over to the terrace railing, placed her hands on it, and silently watched the platform below. The servants also showed clear signs of distress at the dust-filled scene.

The noble followers seemed unable to adapt to the situation, but the Duke of Duplain, who had crossed many battlefields in his youth, showed no sign of surprise.

He simply rested his chin on his hand and calmly observed the duel unfold.

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