"What did you say to me?" Miranda sharpened her purple eyes as she glared at Kyrell with a dark gaze. "Did you just imply that I'm unfit to be competing for leadership?"

In an obscure location in the training facility, the air grew tense as the five students in Miranda's team remained silent. The light of the morning Sun beamed through the windows of the facility while the chill of winter lingered in the air.

STEP

Kyrell stepped forward with an expression of anger.

His mouth was crooked, teeth gritted, with suppressed rage, while his messy black hair fell down before his eyes.

He clenched his fists, breathing deeply.

"You are incompetent," he declared. "You haven't even finalized a plan, and the plan that you have in mind is the most basic and thoughtless plan gotten from Mr. Sorwell's strategy. You don't think Cæ will have anticipated what your strategy is? You don't think he will have planned some counters?"

She folded her arms. "I'm not stupid, I know that he can anticipate this strategy, but guess what? It is still the best use of our resources. That is why Coach Sorwell came up with it. This is the best way to utilize our team. How else do you want to use a team with so many attackers on the team aside from putting them on the attack?"

Kyrell shook his head. "You're too simple-minded. Cæ was right, you are not fit to be our leader. I should have taken his side from the start…"

Kyrell sharpened his dark eyes. 'I let my resentment toward him over his victory in the combat selection process in the tournament get to me. I should have seen that he was a fit leader, rather than try to support this arrogant woman.'

Unfortunately, he couldn't switch sides since they had already agreed to the match-up. Besides, it wouldn't be bad to test how Cæ was as a leader by doing his best to win despite Miranda's arrogance.

"I am the leader of this group," Miranda's tone was unyielding. "I expect you to obey my commands and follow my orders. Is that understood?"

Her words only made the atmosphere more tense than it had been.

The four of them stared at her with varying degrees of skepticism and displeasure. Nobody liked being lorded over by someone so arrogant and full of herself.

"Miranda…" Seol tried to placate her, trying for a softer approach. "I think you should be try to be more inclusive in your leadership. You are still a member of the team, not some queen who sits above us all with the right to obey us no matter what—"

"I don't care for your empty platitudes, commoner boy."

Her harsh tone cut through his suggestion.

"I have heard your suggestions, but nothing gives me confidence that I ought to listen to you over the suggestions made by a former veteran in the sport." She huffed.

"…Shouldn't you try to understand what their strategy will be?" Lyarna raised an eyebrow, gazing at Miranda with a dubious expression. "They might try out something other than what you expect. I mean, I'm sure Cæ is intelligent enough to realize that we can predict their strategy to be defensive."

"I have already done that with you, have I not?" Miranda gestured towards her with a composed expression. "I told you to spy on Serulia and to try and understand what it is that she might be up to. Regardless of what it is, I'm sure you, too, will realize that they, too, will likely not go against the wisdom of the trainer. In the first place, it is going to come down to the wire since it is an offensive team versus a defensive team. There is a limit to how much strategy can make a difference."

"In that case, even if we win, it won't mean you're the better leader," Dranst remarked, adjusting his thick spectacles, never once taking his eyes off his grimoire. "So far…"

His light pink eyes shifted to her.

"…You have not impressed me with your leadership skills. You act more like a tyrant than a leader. You try to coerce rather than compel. You don't care for the opinions of the people you lead, and you think that you are the smartest. You're also prejudiced and unable to treat people proportionally to their merit rather than their background."

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

His accusations stood in the air as the four of them simply gazed at her in distrustful silence.

The air grew more and more uncomfortable to all of them as they realized that the friction that they had was impractical. Some of them even had the thought of simply calling off the match and just electing Cæ as the leader collectively, but they weren't sure if he would be any better.

Cæ didn't strike any of them as the friendliest person there; it was possible that he was even worse than Miranda, as far as some of them were concerned.

"Even if we win, I'm not confident that you are more fit to be team leader than Cæ," Seol remarked with a wary tone. "I think we should hold a little election after the match and have people choose who our team leader should be, regardless of the outcome. If people in this team find your leadership lacking in comparison to what we see in Cæ's leadership, then I will do everything in my power to make sure that you are not our leader."

Seol stood up, heaving a deep breath as he glared at her.

"I will go with your strategy, even if I think it is too predictable and simplistic. You'd better hope for your sake that you are correct."

He walked away briskly, earning a frown from Miranda. "Where do you think you're going? I didn't say that this meeting was complete."

Seol paused, turning around as he glared at her. "Does it matter? You don't listen to any suggestion I make. I might as well not be here. You can make all the decisions yourself. We shall see if you're even half as correct as you think you are."

He turned back, walking away from her with a brisk gait.

"I have to say, I find his logic compelling," Dranst remarked, closing his book before throwing one glance at her. "You would be impossible to get through, even if not for your prejudice. I can think of better utility of my time than this little farce. So pardon me, but I will have to take my leave as well, Your Majesty."

He emphasized the exaggerated honorific, making his stance on her conduct quite clear.

Miranda gritted her teeth as she watched two of her members leave, which left her with Kyrell and Lyarna.

She heaved a deep breath before turning to Lyarna.

"I believe you are in many of the same classes as Serulia. I want you to keep track of her and see if you can find any hint of what their strategy might be. Serulia will likely be very central to Cæ's strategy given that he picked her first."

"That might be the first truly sensible thing you have said," Kyrell snorted. "I agree that Serulia will likely be the linchpin of his plan. However, I highly doubt that he would deviate from the plan with her away from what Coach Sorwell proposed. He will likely utilize her in the exact same way."

"I thought you thought that they would not necessarily stay in line with the coach's plan?" Miranda raised an eyebrow, folding her arms.

"I was referring to the other members." Kyrell shook his head. "I'm saying you're being too presumptuous that Cæ will go for a perfect defensive plan. He might switch things up a bit. It would be foolish to go with everything the coach says, but he will likely keep some elements exactly as they are. Serulia is much more useful in defense than she is in offense, and she is the only one in their team who can hide the flag with her illusion magic."

Miranda heaved a deep breath, nodding slowly. "Regardless, we play with the cards that we are dealt, and I don't intend to change my mind on going with an orthodox offensive strategy. It might be predictable, but there is a reason that it is a mainstay strategy despite being simple, and that fact is that it makes the best of the resources at hand."

Kyrell was not satisfied with her answer, but he didn't care to push the matter any further.

"…I don't think there's any point in you being a leader if all you're going to do is simply mindlessly follow what the coach said," Lyarna, on the other hand, voiced her doubts. "I think there is more to being a leader than just that."

"I don't need you to tell me what leadership is," Miranda snorted with a hint of scorn. "Just do your job well and spy on Serulia. We might get something if she slips up even in the slightest. For now, this meeting is over."

She walked away, leaving Kyrell and Lyarna standing where they were.

"What do you think?" Lyarna asked with a hesitating tone as she swept a tuft of her yellow hair behind her ear. "Do you think that she's right? About what strategy should we go with?"

"She might be, but it wouldn't hurt her to explore the suggestions and ideas that we offer," Kyrell growled with a hint of frustration. "I didn't realize that she was so unreasonable and so arrogant in her own self-evaluation. Would it kill her to just listen to what the others have to offer?"

Lyarna nodded. "I wonder how well the other group is doing. I wonder if Cæ is good as a leader."

Kyrell huffed. "We'll find it out tomorrow. I imagine he can't be terrible, given that he has acted as a leader multiple times before in a serious capacity. However, it might also work against him and make him just as arrogant as Miranda, maybe even more. Goddamn it, I hope Virlyd actually loses to him so that we can have Virlyd as leader."

Virlyd had earned the acceptance of every single one of them as a leader from the very start. Kyrell truly enjoyed working under someone who commanded so much respect and admiration, but didn't use it to act tyrannically.

Of course, he didn't think Virlyd would lose to Cæ in the final battle at the end of the year. In the first place, the battle was only held because of Virlyd's excessive humility and his position as the vice president. When Cæ won the final battle, Virlyd doubled down on his humility and insisted that Cæ be the chosen representative even when everybody knew he was the strongest under normal circumstances.

"I hope this duel is decisive so that we can finalize the leadership matter quickly," Lyarna remarked, heaving a sigh. "I will begin my espionage on Serulia and see if I can catch any clues on what her role in the team is going to be. We should be able to estimate their strategy quite well once we figure out what her part in the whole matter is."

"You do that, in the meantime, I will try to get her to see reason," Kyrell huffed, shaking his head. "Informal or not, I really hate losing."

The day of the duel approached soon as both teams made their final preparations for their strategy against the other.

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