When the pair entered the building, they split up. Lydia gave him a hug, pressing her small breasts tight against him. She let go and headed for the audience section while Chance went and registered as a tester at the front desk. Lydia’s birthday was the following month meaning that she would get to experience the same nerve-racking experience.

Chance walked up to one of the women at the reception desk after he watched Lydia leave. “How can I help you?” She asked politely.

“I would like to register for testing.”

“Very well.” She pulled out a sheet of paper and began writing, sending shock through Chance. Paper was extremely expensive after all, and here the testers were using at least a few hundred sheets for it. “What is your name?”

“Chance.”

“Date of birth?”

“April Thirteenth.”

“Sex?”

“Male.”

“Name of parents?”

“I’m an orphan.” Well that’s never awkward to say. He thought.

“Oh, my apologies. Name of guardian then?”

“Karina Nalinor.”

“Residence?”

“Arc Street Orphanage.”

The receptionist continued to run through some basic questions with Chance until she finally got to the bottom of the paper. “Very well. Please head down the hallway to my right and take a seat in the waiting room.” Using some sort of spell or Skill, the receptionist seemed to hand the paper containing all of Chance’s answers through some kind of portal. It was rather impressive for him to watch.

However, now was the time to focus on himself, not someone else’s magic. So, instead of asking her what it was like he wanted, Chance merely bowed once and said thank you before heading in the direction that the woman had indicated. As he walked down the corridor, he looked at the various paintings that were spaced out on its walls, all of which had images depicting the war with the demon lord.

Glorious battles, horrific atrocities, the power of the Seven Sins, and of course paintings depicting the gods and their chosen heroes, all of which were creating a startlingly lifelike image of what the war had been like. Yet, when he looked at the paintings Chance couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of discomfort, as if his instincts were telling him something was off. He internally debated on whether to take a closer look at the paintings but decided that would be wiser for him to just go ahead into the waiting room. Still, as he entered, he filed away the experience in the back of his mind, promising that he’d take a look into it if he ever had the chance.

Taking a look around, Chance opted to go for a seat in the far corner of the room, one that didn’t have any people around and gave a perfect view for the door leading into the room. He walked towards the seat, ignoring the conversations going on around him and responding only when someone called out to him. When he reached the chair, he plopped himself down in it and began to take part in his usual pastime as people streamed in. People watching. He had long since learned that the best way to pick out how a person’s character was simply to see how they interacted with others. For example, Nick Odryna, the arrogant son of a Marquis, was the most ostentatiously dressed person in the room and yet only those who seemed to share his noble arrogance even spared him a glance. After all, everyone in this room knew that rank didn’t matter anymore. All anyone would care about after this was the re-sults that were displayed in the testing.

Chance knew that if there had been another person, who partook in observation like he did, then they would probably believe that he was a major threat, especially if they had any secrets. He would think the same of them. Soon the only chair left in the room was the one next to Chance, who despite having a reasonable number of friends was the only one born in April. Utterly unconcerned and slightly enjoying his quiet isolation, Chance watched as the final person taking the test entered the room. The person wore a cloak that hid her features and approached him as she made her way to the last open seat, multiple eyes following her as she made her way across the room. Chance could only tell that she was a girl because of her rather… um… generous curves. As she sat down, still not revealing her face, everyone’s attention slowly faded off her as if she had never existed. Chance himself felt a strange force trying to divert his attention away from the girl.

“You know,” he whispered, a small smirk appearing on his face, “you sure seem to cut a beautiful figure, Princess, but to be honest, you really don’t look like you be-long here.”

The girl practically spun in shock at having been found out so quickly after en-tering the room giving Chance the opportunity to see her perfect face framed by her long purple hair. However, the princess gave Chance a surprise of his own by pointing at the near invisible rapier she had hidden in her robe at his throat in the blink of an eye, “How come the Diversion Amulet didn’t work on you?”

“Ah. So that’s what made everyone lose interest in you. Well, in answer to your question, I guess you could say that I am very good at observing people, so good in fact that I can keep attention on someone even if there are distractions going on. Now I mean you no harm, so can you please take your blade away from my throat be-fore you accidentally kill me?” Despite the question, Chance’s calm, confident smirk had not faded from his face. Beneath the surface however, he was sweating buckets. How did it come to this?! He internally screamed. The princess, in one fluid motion, hid her rapier back in her robe. Chance gave an internal sigh of relief.

“How did you tell it was me?”

“Three things.” Chance held up three fingers. “One, a single look at you and anyone could tell you’re a high ranking noble. Two, there are very few teenagers who have the means to get some sort of detection warding device. And three, as I said, you cut a beautiful figure, one of the most famous in both Axorl and the whole world. Put all of it together and you have maybe ten people in the whole kingdom, narrow it down further with who’s testing this month and you maybe have two or three. I took the most likely guess and then your reaction gave me the rest.” Chance smiled at her.

She puffed out her cheeks in a pout, “Of all the people I had to sit next to, why’d it have to be some peeping tom who could tell who I am?”

Chance winced slightly at her essentially calling him a voyeur but otherwise ignored her statement (especially since he saw her blush when he called her beautiful) and asked the question that had occurred to him, “What’s a princess doing at a public testing ceremony anyway? I thought noble families ranked marquis or higher had a private one. Odryna’s only here because he’s an idiot that likes to show off.”

“I don’t want that! For once in my life I wanted to be able to do things the way I wanted.”

Chance chuckled at the princess’ selfishness and introduced himself. “You are a very interesting person, Princess Cecilia. For what it’s worth, I hope that you take full advantage of this chance.” Cecilia was about to ask him what he meant when the door on the adjacent wall to the one they entered was opened, revealing a passage to the Colosseum floor. Chance turned to Cecilia one last time. “Good luck, your Highness.” She knew that he meant it despite the exaggerated bow he gave when he let her exit the room before him.

She smacked him on the back of the head as she passed and said, “You too.” Then she entered the giant door leading to the Colosseum. Chance took a deep breath and followed after her, ready to meet his future head on.