The training courtyard fell into tense silence as both sides prepared for battle. Princess Roxene stood with calm composure, her hands resting lightly on the water-enchanted staff her maid Elena had just handed her. Valkyrie crouched low beside her, earth magic already stirring beneath her feet. Elena lingered nervously at the edge of the field, her expression tight with unease after relinquishing the staff to her mistress.
Across from them, Astra slowly rolled up his sleeves, revealing forearms wrapped in thick white bandages. The fabric bulged oddly, as though something alive stirred beneath.
"I'm ready," Astra declared, his voice calm and steady.
Without waiting for an answer, he raised his practice sword. The three women immediately tensed, magic crackling in the air around them. But then something unexpected happened—the wooden blade turned white, covered in frost-like crystals, before crumbling to powder that drifted down like snow.
"Princess, get back!" Valkyrie barked, her hands glowing with earthen power. "I'm attacking now!"
"Valkyrie, stay in place," Princess Roxene commanded firmly, her voice slicing through the tension. "Both of you, remain calm."
"This is dangerous!" Valkyrie's jaw clenched. "We don't know what he's capable of!"
The princess's lips curved with quiet amusement. "Think clearly, Valkyrie. If Astra wanted to end this quickly, he would have hidden his power until the last moment. Instead, he's revealing it—warning us, giving us time. He's still teaching, even now."
Valkyrie faltered, torn between loyalty and instinct. The worry in her eyes eased only slightly, though her stance remained guarded.
"What was that white substance?" the princess asked with genuine curiosity, though her tone carried an analytical edge that hadn't been there before.
Astra flexed his fingers. The bandages twitched as though something moved beneath. "My hands are covered with fungus," he explained, matter-of-fact. "I control their growth and feeding patterns. They absorbed the wood's nutrients, breaking it down entirely."
He raised both hands. Slowly, massive white scythe blades emerged from his wrists. The fungal growth twisted and hardened into organic weapons, translucent and pulsing faintly with life. Spores drifted from their edges like deadly snow.
Elena's lips parted in shock. "Living weapons growing from his body... How is that even possible?"
But Roxene's eyes shone with fascination—not the wonder of a struggling student, but the keen interest of a researcher who had just discovered a perfect test subject. She shifted the staff in her hands, though her grip seemed more theatrical than necessary.
"Fascinating," she murmured, her voice carrying undertones that made Astra's instincts prickle. "Fungal manipulation as a secondary water effect. The applications for my research would be... incredible."
With those pale scythes emerging from his bandaged arms and spores drifting around him like death itself, he looks like the perfect specimen, she thought, excitement coursing through her veins. This is exactly what I needed.
Astra's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her grip the staff. Something felt off—why was a royal of her caliber relying so heavily on an artifact? Most nobles would have demonstrated their triple elemental mastery by now, but she seemed to be... performing. As if the staff were a prop rather than a necessity.
Strange, he mused. She's holding back. But why?
Encouraged by her apparent fascination, Valkyrie gave a signal, and both she and the princess shifted into combat stance.
Astra advanced with steady grace. Valkyrie's earth magic surged, hurling stone spheres like cannonballs. Astra dodged, slicing one in two with his scythe; the halves slammed into the courtyard walls with thunderous cracks. Fire flared from Valkyrie's gauntlet, but Astra intercepted each blaze, his fungal blades steaming as they drank the heat away.
Then Roxene raised her staff, and Astra finally understood why something had felt wrong.
She wasn't struggling—she was experimenting.
The crystal at its tip flickered with controlled precision as she deliberately corrupted the elements within. Wind currents became tainted with unnatural darkness. Water drawn from the air turned brackish and heavy. The fire that emerged wasn't weak—it was deliberately suppressed, poisoned at its source.
She's not fighting to win, Astra realized with growing alarm. She's studying me. Testing her power's interaction with mine.
Her dark magic wasn't fighting against her control—it was responding to her will with frightening obedience. Each "failed" spell was actually a carefully calibrated probe, exploring how his fungal defenses reacted to corrupted elements.
Astra pressed forward, recognizing the trap but unable to retreat without breaking the terms of their demonstration. Where he expected overwhelming elemental assault, he found calculated interference—attacks designed not to defeat him, but to force specific defensive responses.
At last, he was within reach. He lunged—not to wound, but to grasp Roxene's arm in a symbolic victory. Yet she slipped aside with fluid grace, her movements too precise, too practiced. This wasn't desperation—this was choreography.
She countered by locking his wrists with surprising strength, the staff clattering to the ground in what he now realized was a deliberate maneuver.
"Well done," Astra murmured, though unease crept into his voice. "But now..."
The fungus beneath his bandages writhed, spreading up his arms toward her grasp. White tendrils crept toward her skin, seeking to bind her wrists and end the match.
That's when Princess Roxene's careful performance shifted into something far more genuine—and infinitely more dangerous.
Instead of recoiling from his fungal touch, she smiled.
Dark magic poured from her skin like oil spreading across water, but there was nothing panicked or uncontrolled about it. The shadows moved with deliberate purpose, flowing toward his fungal tendrils with predatory hunger.
The moment her darkness touched his fungus, everything changed.
The white tendrils began to darken, shifting from pristine white to gray to pitch black, as though shadows themselves were feeding on them. But this wasn't random corruption—it was systematic conversion. His carefully cultivated organisms were being rewritten at the cellular level, transformed into something that served her will rather than his.
Astra's eyes widened as he felt his connection to the fungus... shift. They were still his, but now they answered to her as well. The symbiotic bond he'd spent years developing had been infiltrated, compromised.
"Fascinating," Roxene murmured, her voice filled with scientific delight as she watched his fungal scythes dissolve and reform under her influence. "The integration is even smoother than I theorized. You can still feel them, can't you? But now they respond to both of us."
Across the courtyard, Elena clutched her hands together, realization dawning in her eyes. The staff hadn't been protection—it had been misdirection. Her mistress had been planning this demonstration from the moment she'd offered the contract.
Valkyrie's magic faltered entirely, her face twisting not with horror, but with the betrayal of understanding. "You... you planned this. All of it."
Princess Roxene straightened gracefully, shadows coiling around her feet like obedient serpents. Her composure hadn't cracked—it had simply shifted from one mask to another, revealing something far more calculating beneath.
"Of course I planned it," she said, her voice carrying a note of satisfaction. "How else was I supposed to test my theories about symbiotic magical integration? Laboratory conditions only tell you so much. Real-world application requires... willing participants."
She examined her pale hands as darkness danced between her fingers with practiced ease. "Though I must admit, the results exceeded my expectations. The fungal conversion rate was remarkable."
Astra stared at his transformed arms, then at the princess who had just casually rewritten part of his magical essence. Everything clicked into place—her interest in his stones, the generous payment, the convenient job offer appearing just when he was most desperate.
"The mercenary company failures," he said quietly. "You arranged those, didn't you?"
"Arranged is such a crude word," Roxene replied with elegant dismissal. "I simply... guided market forces to ensure you'd be available when I needed you. Much more efficient than trying to recruit you while you had other options."
The admission hung in the air like a declaration of war.
Valkyrie's hand moved toward her sword, though uncertainty clouded her movements. "Your Highness... what have you done?"
"I've advanced magical science by months, possibly years," Roxene said matter-of-factly. "And acquired a test subject whose capabilities complement my research perfectly. Really, Valkyrie, you should be congratulating me on such efficient resource management."
Elena backed against the wall, her face pale not with shock, but with the recognition that she'd been complicit in whatever her mistress had been planning all along.
The duel was finished, but Astra was beginning to understand that it had never really been a test of his worthiness to serve as her bodyguard.
It had been an experiment to determine his worthiness as her research subject.
And apparently, he had passed with flying colors.