When the match ended, Ferir was taken back to the chamber to the left of the entrance tunnel, where his wounds were carefully treated.

  As the exhilaration of victory gradually faded, the pain finally caught up to him. None of the injuries were deep, but there were close to a dozen cuts of varying sizes scattered across his body.

  Ferir clenched his teeth as the last wound on his left shoulder was disinfected. The medical staff told him to rest until he felt steady again, then head to the registration desk to complete the remaining procedures.

  The woman at the desk looked at him with clear satisfaction. He was the first candidate to pass that day. She asked him to hand over his number tag once more. After jotting something down, she spread a sheet of parchment across the table. On it was a circular pattern etched with intricate markings, resembling a magic circle.

  When she placed Ferir’s number tag at the center, the patterns immediately began to glow with a faint light. A moment later, the glow faded, and she returned the tag to him.

  “Don’t let anyone else touch it.” She said.

  Unable to suppress his curiosity, Ferir asked,

  “What kind of magic was that just now?”

  The woman looked up at him and smiled.

  “If you manage to go further, you’ll find out one day.

  Before Ferir could ask anything else, the woman at the registration desk bowed slightly and gestured, making it clear that the conversation was over.

  Any lingering curiosity about the strange diagram lasted no more than three seconds. The moment he stepped out of the underground chamber, he saw his mother standing there, waiting together with Arvil.

  Ferir’s heart plunged straight from his chest into his stomach. He stammered:

  “M-Mom…? Why are you here? I…”

  Hanarn glanced at her son, wrapped in bandages from head to toe. The pain in her eyes was impossible to hide.

  “We’ll talk when we get home.”

  Ferir swallowed the rest of his words. He could only cast Arvil a grateful look before following his mother back.

  Inside their small, worn-down house in the poor district, mother and son sat across from each other at the dining table, trapped in a long, heavy silence. At last, Hanarn spoke first.

  “Why did you suddenly decide to take part in the selection?”

  Ferir hesitated. Memories of the trouble in the palace, the letter of recommendation, and the money Arvil had already spent flickered through his mind. For a fleeting moment, it felt tempting to push the blame onto someone else.

  But that was not the truth.

  This path was one he had chosen himself.

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  Lowering his voice, Ferir said quietly,

  “I’m sorry.”

  In truth, Hanarn had known about Ferir sneaking into the Selection for several days already, ever since the list of candidates who passed the first round had been posted.

  Perhaps it was a mother’s intuition.

  She had not stood in front of the notice board for long before she found the name Ferir Hakken. She could not read many words, but she knew exactly how her son’s name was written. And it was not difficult to confirm her suspicion, not when her obedient boy had been acting strangely for days on end.

  She had struggled with herself again and again, just to keep from stopping him from advancing to the next round. She was afraid. Afraid of learning how she herself would react once she knew the outcome.

  If Ferir truly won, would she feel joy… or anger?

  In the end, she still came to watch the match.

  That was the first time Hanarn realized just how strong her son could be.

  And she also discovered that, when she saw the look of victory on his face, she could not bring herself to be angry at all.

  The fledgling she had tried to protect with everything she had was now trying to leave her side, to do what he wanted to do, what he had to do, and what he was capable of doing.

  …She knew then that it was time to let him go.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’ve always been so wary of you associating with nobility, aren’t you?”

  Hanarn hesitated for a moment, but she knew it was time for her son to hear about his own secret. From now on, he would have to face it himself.

  She glanced toward the window, making sure no one was listening in, then lowered her voice and began to speak of the secret tied to a bright moonlit night seventeen years ago.

  The joy of victory drained completely from Ferir’s heart as he listened. Confusion took its place the moment Hanarn finished telling him about the mysterious circumstances surrounding his birth.

  For her, it was one of the most terrifying experiences she had ever lived through. But for Ferir, who held no memories of it at all, it felt as though he were listening to a story about someone else entirely.

  “You mean… there was some noble who wanted to kill me? Right when I was born?”

  “Yes.”

  Thousand possibilities immediately popped into Ferir's head. The most prominent of which was that his father wasn't actually a soldier who died in battle as his mother had always told him.

  Perhaps he had been someone far more mysterious. Someone who stood against cruel nobles to protect common folk, just like the heroes in the adventure stories Ferir had devoured as a child.

  His mother glanced at his son's bewildered face, as if reading his thoughts, and said:

  "Don't think about your father. He's just an ordinary soldier."

  “Then why?”

  “If I knew, it wouldn’t still be a mystery.”

  Ferir briefly thought of the strange memories he had always believed belonged to a previous life, but he dismissed the idea at once.

  It was something he had never told anyone, not even his mother. There was no way someone else could have known about it before he was even born.

  He looked at Hanarn again. She appeared unexpectedly calm as she recounted all this, utterly different from her usual, overly anxious self.

  “Why are you telling me now?” Ferir asked. “You said before that you never planned to…”

  “Because my stubborn son has decided he won’t listen to his mother anymore, so I’ve decided to let him handle his own affairs.”

  For a brief moment, Ferir thought she was angry. But then he realized it was only a sigh, heavy with worry. No matter how composed she tried to appear, this was not something she could truly take lightly.

  Ferir didn’t want his mother to sink any deeper into worry. He patted his chest confidencely:

  “What are you worried about? Didn’t you see how I fought today? I can take care of myself.”

  “All I saw was you slipping and falling off the arena.”

  In the end, the two of them came to the same quiet conclusion. There was no point in letting anxiety consume them any longer. Whatever had happened was a story from many years ago. That noble might have already forgotten it, or might even be dead by now.

  Ferir couldn’t afford to abandon every opportunity ahead of him over a vague, lingering fear.