Chapter 296: He’s Got Some Strong Friends

“So this is the famous Julius?” Irene asked with a teasing tone toward Lily.

Julius did his best to stifle the smile when he felt Lily send him an apologetic signal with her aura.

“Yes, this is him,” she said to them before turning to him. “Julius, this is Irene and her friends. I have known them since our first year at Goldencrest.”

Irene extended out the back of her hand to Julius. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Julius. I have heard so much about you.”

“Hopefully, not too much,” he said with a quick glance over at Lily.

He took the hand with his right and gave it a soft shake, well aware that this was not what he was supposed to do with a young noblewoman’s hand. Although he wasn’t in the mood to act like a ‘proper’ noble, plus he was supposed to be a commoner, so him not knowing what to do was quite in line.

He hid a smile when he noticed that this didn’t seem to pass by anyone else’s attention either, because he saw one girl scowl at his actions while two others giggled at him.

Irene, to her credit, took it all in stride.

“Are you enjoying the tournament so far?”

He nodded at her. “I have. It has been much more lively than I expected when I first heard about it when I enrolled here.”

Irene gave him a dazzling smile. “I remember the first time I saw the tournament. I was amazed at how strong some of the students were and couldn’t ever imagine myself standing at the level of those students,” she said with a self-deprecating chuckle.

Lily laughed lightly. “Yeah, and now look at you. One of the strongest people within our class,” she said to everyone, but he believed that she said this more for his benefit than anything else.

Irene blushed. “Oh, stop it, everyone knows that you are right beside the rest of us. We are all aware that your skills can’t be displayed in a setting like this. It’s too bad, because Duncan always tells me how scary you are.”

“Duncan likes to exaggerate,” Lily chuckled.

“Yeah, but I don’t think he is,” Irene said with a much more serious look before shaking her head. “It’s a shame you didn’t choose to participate this year, I would have loved to have a chance to fight you.”

He agreed with Irene on this. He would have loved to see fight Lily, but he also knew that the girl didn’t enjoy combat the same way Aubrey or Edgar did.

Irene looked over at the large clock placed at the top of the arena. “Well, I’d better be going. My fight is in a little bit, and I don’t want to be late.”

“Good luck,” Lily said to her with a cheery smile.

“Thanks, I am going to need it. For some reason, I always get so nervous before my first fight,” Irene admitted with a grimace and turned to Julius.

“Well, it was wonderful to finally meet you. I am glad that you were able to come back safe and sound,” the girl said to him with another stunning smile.

“It was good to meet you, too. I hope you win your match,” he replied to her.

“Thank you! It is also never a bad idea to take the time to analyse some of these fights. Trust me, if you do, it is going to help you a lot when you fight in the underclassmen tournament,” she said to him.

“Oh no, he’s actually signed up for the Tier 3 tournament,” Lily interjected.

This appeared to baffle Irene and her friends, all of them whipped their heads to look at Julius for confirmation.

He merely nodded his head and looked over to Lily with a questioning look. He wondered why she felt the need to tell them that. It wasn’t as if it was important for him to let these girls he had just met know.

A brief silence washed over them.

Finally, one of the other girls spoke up. “But he’s only a first year…”

“Yeah, isn’t that a little bit… hasty?” another added.

Irene poked her friends in the ribs. “Don’t be rude. He must have his reasons,” she said while looking at him a little bit differently than she had just moments ago. The smile was still there, but there was this pensiveness to it now.

Previously, it almost felt like she looked at him like he was some adorable pet or kid. But now she was looking at him as if he were a potential opponent.

He didn’t know if he liked this change. She had looked a little more friendly before, and her pretty smile had made him feel good.

Irene looked him up and down for a few moments. “I guess that whole incident must have been quite the adventure, huh?” She eventually said with a knowing smirk on her face.

“A little bit,” he admitted.

She nodded her head and gave him one last look. “Well, if we come across each other in the arena, I wish you the best of luck,” she said to him before walking away, her friends following right behind.

After they were gone, he looked over at Lily with a frown. “Did you really need to tell them that?”

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Lily grinned at him and slung an arm over his shoulder. “She would have found out about it eventually. This way, she won’t dismiss you so easily.”

“That would have been fine with me.”

Lily shook her head. “No, while Irene is a bit too cunning and manipulative for my tastes, at the core, she is a loyal girl with a trustworthy House behind her. It is better for you to get on her good side, and I didn’t like how she was already looking at you like you are our group’s charity pet project.”

“Like I said, I don’t mind that,” he said with a shrug.

“Well, I do. I don’t like it when my friends aren’t being treated with the respect they deserve. And you certainly don’t deserve people looking at you like some stray puppy we picked off the street,” she said with a loving squeeze.

“Isn’t that exactly what you did, though?” He reminded her, recalling how they met. He wasn’t exactly a stray puppy, but he was pretty darn close.

She smiled as she probably remembered the same memory. “Yeah, but people don’t need to know that. Also, didn’t you say you didn’t wish to hide as much anymore? What about that?”

She had a point. He had mentioned that he was trying to stop hiding every single piece of himself from anyone.