The Winner

"The winner of the race is!"

The race announcer began to declare, standing at the finish line next to Julius. "Silvus Yaltan!"

"... Hahaha! I knew it! There was no way that peasant could have won!" A kid who had recently finished the race laughed.

Many other kids had relived reactions, the announcer assuring them that royalty could never truly lose.

This not only affirmed their faith in Silvus but also in their own blood--to think that they were better than peasants with no noble bloodline.

Silvus panted heavy breaths with his hands on his knees on the other side of the finish line. 'I... won?' He questioned to himself.

He could almost swear to himself that he saw that boy go past him. It was like that moment played again and again in his head.

Just as he reached the finish line, that peasant's face appeared next to his, looking at him with a smile before blitzing past him.

Still, the results were in. 'I won!' He inwardly rejoiced.

'Ahh shit... I guess I should have gone all in. But that's fine, It doesn't matter if I don't get a prize, that won't stop me from passing the exam.' Lyrian thought to himself, not very tired, but slightly disappointed.

Julius on the other hand was silent. 'Lyrian clearly won that race...' He looked at the announcer, his eyes slightly closed in confusion.

That was when he noticed that on the announcer's robe was the emblem of the Yaltan family; the symbol of a soaring phoenix. From this, he knew something was off.

His eyebrows furrowed with a stern demeanor as he thought to himself, 'It seems I'll have to talk to the chancellor..."

After a few minutes, when every last kid finally made it through the finish line, Julius presented himself in front of everyone with a bright smile on his face.

"Congratulations to the winner; Silvus, for coming in first place! Your prize for winning this race is very simple yet also very valuable. Unlike everyone else here," He said to Silvus who was in the front row of the crowd, gesturing to everyone else.

"You get to decide who your opponent will be!"

Many in the crowd gasped as they heard this. Although it didn't sound like a very grand prize, for most of the kids it meant a direct pass in the preliminaries, since you could always just choose someone weaker than you.

"The choice is yours young man, go ahead, choose," Julius said as Silvus walked out of the crowd and stood beside him, overlooking the mass of kids.

There were many weak ones, strong ones, ones proficient in magic, and others greater at physical activities, the choices seemed endless.

For most kids in the crowd, standing before Silvus like this and potentially being chosen by him was scary enough. Their hearts pounded out of their chest in fear that they would choose him.

Since he won the race, if he picked them, they knew that they would just have to act like a sacrificial lamb and lose the fight.

It wasn't like they would win anyways, even if they tried to fight back, but no one was actually going to try to cause any harm to his majesty. That would only get their family targeted by the royal magistrate.

On the other hand, some actually wanted to challenge Silvus. Those only who had a strong connection to the Silvus family via kin and other relation of course.

Silandra was no doubt one of these figures, as she readied herself to be picked by Silvus. She saw him as her rival, but Silvus wasn't exactly of the same opinion.

"To be my opponent for the preliminaries, I choose," His eyes darted across the crowd, causing shivers to go down the backs of all the eyes he glanced at.

"Him." He finally said, pointing directly at a peasant-looking boy to the side who was nonchalantly picking his nose, looking to not have a care in the world.

Lyrian looked up from his business to something he was completely ignoring, only to see Silvus' finger pointing directly at him.

"What?" He said out loud in surprise.

Silandra immediately furrowed her brows in anger, "What in the world! Him!?" she exclaimed loudly.

Others were also shocked at the fact that Silvus picked Lyrian. They didn't exactly know what to think, seeing how much of a peculiar figure Lyrian was, but it sure as hell was enough to instill shock into each and every one of them.

If Silvus were to pick just any other peasant, many would understand his decision, as it was a logical and smart thing to do with his prize. But Lyrian was a different story.

From what they had seen of him, he didn't look like some easy fight to pick to easily pass the preliminaries.

Silvus stared at Lyrian's face, which was now quite obnoxious to him, as he spoke, "I'm going to showcase to everyone that you are nothing special. You might be a black sheep in the herd of peasants, but you're still a sheep at the end of the day. No matter what, you cannot compete with the apex predators of the world, us royals!'