Jade looked up, seemingly startled.

“You can walk right back out the way you came in. You can forfeit. No one will blame number 12.”

The emcee soothed the frightened Jade with a serious expression, no trace of a smile on his face.

Jade’s eyes grew wet, on the verge of spilling tears at any moment.

He had said no one would blame Jade, but Jade could not agree. His father, Lady Arinne, and even the spectators who were simply watching. Even if none of them blamed him, Jade would not be fine.

Jade wanted to be someone he could be proud of.

He had only just learned that loving himself had to come first, and if he gave up like this, he would remain a worthless child undeserving of even his own love.

So even though he felt scared and anxious, he did not want to give up on the tournament.

If his father had not come, then he would just have to bring back an even better result. It was alright not to do well. Trying hard was enough, he had been told. So he would not quit without even trying.

‘I’m going to try. I can do this.’

Jade bit down hard on his lower lip, then released it, and spoke to the emcee the way he would speak to himself.

“I can do it.”

“Yes, good! Well done.”

The emcee responded to Jade’s courage with a smile. He carefully checked Jade’s attire and posture, then looked over number 11′s attire and posture across from him.

The emcee switched his transmitter back on, stepped to the center between the two, and called out loudly.

“Youth Division First Bracket, sixth match!! Starting now!!”

A whistle blew at his signal. The cheers that followed filled every corner of the arena.

“What are they talking about?”

Meanwhile, Arinne squinted and tried to guess what Jade and the emcee were saying to each other. She could see the two exchanging words, but could not hear them, and it frustrated her.

“He’s not threatening him or anything, is he? What did he say to make the kid look like he’s about to cry??”

Arinne had been watching Jade’s condition closely, and she looked at the emcee with displeasure as he carried on cheerfully while Jade looked on the verge of tears.

She made sure to study his build and face carefully too, since remembering his features well would make it easier to pay him back later without forgetting.

She had yet to truly feel in her bones that while the world overflowed with bad people, there were just as many good ones, and that people were often moved more deeply by small acts of warmth.

Jade’s match began without Lawrence and Ray returning.

“Now, number 11! A fierce attack right from the start!!”

Arinne shot another glare at the emcee. The emcee seemed to feel her sharp gaze and gave a slight shudder.

‘This is maddening.’

Even while watching Jade’s match, she kept checking between glances whether Lawrence and Ray had returned. She worried about what would happen if Jade’s match ended in vain without Lawrence there.

Lawrence Carentium, had this man gone to the bathroom for himself instead of taking the child? How far had he gone?? Just how far did he walk that he still was not back? At this rate, he might as well set up a home in the bathroom.

‘Ah, no! What if he gets hurt out there?’

Before she knew it, Arinne was watching Jade’s match with both fists clenched tight, her nerves on edge.

Right up until the previous match, she had found more enjoyment in poking Ray’s sleeping cheeks and sneaking glances at Lawrence’s face than in watching the matches.

The thought that it was just a children’s match had dominated her mind, and there was no reason a grown woman like her would find children squabbling with each other entertaining.

But right now, nine-year-old Jade stood in the center of an arena packed with people, holding his sword with quiet resolve. Her feelings as she watched the match had changed.

‘Is this really a children’s match?’

She had no room for other thoughts, her eyes moving busily to follow Jade’s every movement.

“Ah, Jade……!”

Every time Jade staggered under the force of his opponent’s attack, Arinne glared at number 11, even knowing there was nothing she could do.

‘What has he been eating to grow that tall?’

Looking at number 11′s build alone, he could easily pass for fourteen. He was tall and powerfully built enough to compete in the Youth Division Second Bracket without looking out of place, and he was two years older than Jade on top of that.

Arinne found herself disliking that number 11 child for no particular reason.

Jade was holding his own against number 11 remarkably well, but it felt, at the end of the day, like he was just barely hanging on.

The longer the match dragged on and the more visibly Jade tired, the sharper her nerves grew.

If Jade won this match and advanced to the quarterfinals, that would be a relief, but if he lost, Jade would have to wait until next year, and Lawrence would have gone out of his way to come only to miss his own son’s match entirely.

Of course, Jade was her biggest worry. The image of Jade’s face, disappointment spreading across it like ink bleeding through water, kept coming back to her. Even now, in the middle of the match, Jade wore an uncertain, tearful expression.

‘Why do I feel sorry about something that is not my fault. Tsk……’

Thinking back to Jade from earlier made her feel even more unsettled.

What if he competed believing his father had not come, lost the match on top of that, and ended up crushed by it. What if he ended up devastated……

What if Jade stopped trusting his father and grew into an adult shaped by resentment and bitterness?

Arinne’s imagination branched out to the worst possible outcome in an instant.

Perhaps she felt a deeper sense of kinship with him than she did with Lawrence.

The thought that Jade’s childhood might become unhappy, the way her own had been, pressed down on her chest, heavy and suffocating, like she had crammed nothing but bitter things inside.

‘That could never happen……’

Arinne gave a short, self-deprecating thought.

Jade’s future was far brighter and more hopeful than hers had been. He would grow into a child who understood love and affection and could trust people.

Because Jade had a father who was prepared to do anything for him.

‘I hope he doesn’t get hurt.’

The tender feeling she held toward Jade was also for her past self. It came from a wish that her distant younger self might find some form of salvation, even in this way.

So the last thing she wanted to see was that small child with hair as black as obsidian breaking down in tears.

Arinne clenched her fist tighter, then released it, seemingly having made up her mind. She scanned her surroundings, gauging who looked like the fastest runner nearby.

“Excuse me.”

Arinne pointed to one specific man nearby and called out to him.

“Yes, yes. Ahem!! What is it?”

A man whose features were so unruly his face had no sense of order tried to hide his excitement at her call and straightened up with a lifted chin.

“Could you help me with something?”

“How……”

The man swallowed hard at her gentle voice.

“Go to the bathroom right now and find one gray-haired man and one child. Bring both of them back before the match ends, and I’ll give you ten gold coins.”

“T, ten coins?!”

“Bring them back before I count to a hundred, and it’s twenty. Before I count to fifty, thirty.”

“I, I, I, I’ll go right now!!”

The man, eyes and mouth all gone wide, scrambled to his feet in a fluster.

“Wait. Don’t just go. The gold coins are cancelled,”

“That’s so cruel……”

The man, who had just finished imagining thirty gold coins filling his pockets, pulled his lips into a pout with an expression even more forlorn than Jade’s when he had entered the match without seeing Lawrence, and sat back down.

“Better to just do it myself than suffer through this.”

Arinne ignored the man, crossed her arms, and fixed a fierce stare on one particular spot.

“Arinne!!”

“Kyaaaa!! So fast!!”

Lawrence was rushing in with Ray tucked under his arm.

“Hah, hah. Has it already started?!!”

With no idea of the anxiety she had been suffering through, Lawrence caught his breath with a bright, unbothered expression.

The tension drained out of Arinne and her body went limp. Lawrence quickly used his free arm to support her.

“Why are you only back now?!”

For some reason, Arinne felt strangely close to tears.

She smacked Lawrence’s forearm repeatedly with Ray’s cheer flag, and when that was not enough, grabbed the pamphlet beside her and threw it at him too, then buried her face in both hands.

“I, well, I had never, taken Ray to the bathroom before.”

Lawrence thought she was actually crying and apologized in a flustered, helpless panic.

“Dad made big sister cry!!”

Ray, the very one responsible for the whole situation, shouted with complete innocence, as though it had nothing to do with him at all. Then, declaring it revenge for making her cry, he threw cotton-soft punches at his father’s side.

“It took time because I was fumbling around like an idiot…… Did you wait long?”

“You call that an excuse!”

“Arinne. I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying.”

Not wanting to show Lawrence her flushed face, Arinne kept her head down and grabbed his arm, pushing it forward.

Lawrence looked puzzled but turned around without much resistance.

“Are you really not crying?”

“I’m not, so hurry up and watch Jade. Look ahead.”

Lawrence’s gaze slowly turned toward the center stage of Steraci Hall. Only then did he register that the current match was Jade’s turn.

“Jade’s turn is……”