Reincarnated as the Only Male in an All-Girls Magic Academy!
Chapter 52: Main Event!

Chapter 52: Main Event!

Ren leaned back on the padded bench in the corner of the academy’s training hall, head tilted toward the ceiling, chest rising and falling like he’d just wrestled a dragon in a sauna.

Which, honestly, wasn’t too far off from what he just went through. A training dummy, now shredded into several very unrecognizable chunks, still sparked and twitched somewhere behind him.

A thin shimmer of lingering energy danced over the marks on the floor, and somewhere nearby, the wall had a new hole that looked suspiciously shaped like a kusarigama.

Ren ignored it. The room smelled like sweat, burnt magic, and the faint scent of something metallic, probably from all the sparks his last strike caused.

His black undershirt clung to his body like a second skin, soaked in sweat, and yet, despite the exhaustion, his face was glowing with a stupid, satisfied grin as he unscrewed the cap of his water bottle and took a long, glorious gulp.

He had done it.

After two days of endless struggle, dozens of trial runs, a few minor bruises, a couple of Loom feedback shocks, and more grumbling than an old warlock with arthritis, he had finally mastered the first weave of his new affinity.

The feeling was impossible to describe.

He was now fifty percent sure he wouldn’t get absolutely destroyed by Mirabella today.

Fifty. Percent.

That was about as close to a guarantee as you could get when fighting someone as terrifyingly unpredictable and... well... perfect as Mirabella.

Ren rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, finishing off the last of his water with one final chug.

His confidence was growing, sure, but he wasn’t stupid. Mirabella was still Mirabella. The ice empress of their block.

She was the kind of girl who walked into a room and people cleared the path.

She didn’t just have talent, she had technique, she had control, she had experience, and worst of all, she had background.

Her family was so well-connected that Ren was sure she had personal tutors at her beck and call back at her home.

That kind of backing usually meant secret manuals, rare artifacts, and probably a few ’oops-didn’t-mean-to-vaporize-you’ type trump cards.

So yeah. Fifty percent.

Not bad.

"Well, time to wash off all this sweat and look dramatic for the arena," he muttered, stretching his arms with a satisfying crack.

His shirt clung to him in all the wrong places, and he was pretty sure his hair had congealed into some kind of unholy helmet.

If he was going to fight Mirabella, and probably get blasted with an iceberg, he’d at least go in smelling slightly less like a dungeon rat.

He slung his towel over his shoulder and turned toward the exit.

And then—

"REN!!"

The training hall doors slammed open so hard one of them actually rebounded back off the wall.

A blur of black hair and panic flew in.

Lia.

Breathless. Eyes wide. Ponytail frazzled like she’d just run through a storm and forgot her umbrella.

"Do you—do you know!?" she gasped, hands flailing slightly like she couldn’t decide whether to shake him or shake the air for answers.

Ren blinked.

"Know what?"

"Do you KNOW that Mirabella wants to fight you TODAY!?"

He stared at her for half a second, then casually picked up his bag and wiped his face with his towel like she’d just told him lunch was early.

"Yeah. Of course."

Lia froze.

"You—you knew!?"

Ren smiled like a guilty cat. "Well, yeah. We kinda... planned it."

Her eyebrows shot so far up they almost vanished into her hairline.

"You PLANNED IT!? What do you mean you planned it!? Mirabella doesn’t just go around challenging people to duels out of nowhere! That’s like a rare eclipse! Or a yeti sighting! What in the world did you do!?"

He shrugged with exaggerated innocence. "We made a little bet, that’s all."

"A bet?" Lia asked, in that tone that actually meant explain before I drag you to a priest.

"If I lose, I join her guild," Ren said simply, strapping his bag across his chest.

Lia opened her mouth.

Then paused.

"And if you win?"

"She has to do whatever I say."

Now Lia really did look like she needed to sit down.

"Ren," she whispered. "Are you insane? Do you even remember what she did during the curse siege? She froze the entire auditorium! The whole thing! One second it was a floor, the next it was an ice world of doom!"

Ren just gave a cocky grin and slung his towel over his neck like a scarf.

"Yup. I remember."

"And you still made a bet with her?"

He nodded even though he had made the bet before he saw this.

"You can’t be serious!"

He nodded again.

"Do you have a death wish!?"

He paused.

Then gave her a wink.

"Only one way to find out."

Lia stared at him like she was about to burst into flame from pure stress.

Ren reached over, patted her head once—just enough to make her blink in confusion—and offered a casual, comforting grin.

"Don’t worry, Lia. Win or lose, I’m not the type to go down without a show. Worst case? I make her waste all her weaves and leave her with nothing but regret. Best case?"

He leaned in slightly, voice dropping to a whisper. "She ends up owing me a favor. And I’ve got plans."

"You’re sure about this?," Lia asked.

Ren gave her a two-fingered salute and turned for the exit, his steps calm and unhurried. The door opened before him, bright light pouring in from the hallway that led toward the arena.

His heart pounded behind his ribs, but his face was all confidence and cool resolve.

Three days of evolution. A new weave. A new weapon. A carved rune.

Everything was finally in place.

Time to see what fifty percent really looked like.

.....

A few minutes later...

The moment Ren stepped into the arena, he froze.

And not because it was cold, though knowing who he was about to fight, that wasn’t out of the question, but because he was immediately hit by a wall of noise.

Shouting. Screaming. Cheering. Hundreds, no, several hundreds of girls filled the stands, their excited voices echoing around the vast silver-domed coliseum like a school of magical banshees.

Some were holding signs. Actual signs. One said "Team Ice Queen Forever", another read "Ren, Marry Me You Idiot!", and a third simply showed a poorly drawn sketch of him being frozen in a block of ice, complete with a sad face emoji and the words "RIP" in bold letters underneath.

Ren stared at the crowd, mouth slightly open, trying to process what in the world was happening.

Was this... was this what gladiators felt like? Or maybe confused circus animals? He had mentally prepared for a quiet, tactical battle.

A few students. Maybe a teacher or two. Some popcorn in the front row. Not this K-Pop concert from hell.

"...Why are there so many people here?" he muttered, eyes darting around the stadium like he expected someone to come out and tell him he was on a prank show.

All the girls were gathered. Some sat with notebooks, ready to jot down techniques. Others just looked like they were there to watch someone get absolutely wrecked.

One group was wearing matching shirts that said "Frost Over Flame", whatever that meant. Ren took a slow breath and dragged his palm down his face.

"This was supposed to be private."

Of course, the moment he thought that, the crowd erupted into fresh screams and cheers as a figure stepped into the arena from the opposite gate.

A breeze swept through the coliseum; not natural wind, but something colder, sharper, like the air itself was bowing out of cold, and Ren’s gaze shifted to the source.

There she was.

Mirabella.

She stepped forward with the kind of calm that made everyone around her look like chaos.

Her silver hair shimmered under the magical lights above the arena, cascading down her back in perfectly sculpted waves, like it had been brushed by angels using glacier combs.

Her violet eyes locked on Ren from across the floor, unblinking and clear, not cold, but definitely not warm either. Like she saw everything and judged nothing.

Ren blinked twice.

She really didn’t do casual entrances, huh?

He approached her in the center of the arena, easily ignoring the thousands of girls buzzing above. His heart beat steadily and he gave a smile and nodded his head in greeting.

"Looking elegant as always," he said, tone calm but light.

Mirabella offered a small nod. "And you look... well-hydrated."

Was... was that a joke?

Ren snorted. "I’ll take that as a compliment."

They stood facing each other, a few meters apart. The crowd around them began to quiet slightly, sensing that things were getting serious.

That, or they just wanted to hear every word. Ren shifted his weight slightly, eyes narrowing in thought.

"So," he said. "Did you tell everyone about our battle?"

Mirabella’s expression didn’t change. "Did I?"

Ren tilted his head. "Well, either you did... or someone went full spy mode and broke the achievement column scheduling system."

She blinked once. "That sounds plausible."

"Which one?"

She offered a slight smile. The kind of smile that said I will never answer that question and you will never prove anything in court.

Ren’s expression flattened. "Right."

The moment stretched between them. No more jokes. No more smiles. Just the quiet tension that only came before a storm.

Ren exhaled, shaking off his nerves. This was it. After several days of brutal training, mastering that new weave, carving his second rune, and evolving his weapon, the moment had finally come.

Fifty percent chance. Either he’d be carried out of this arena victorious...

Or in a Ren-shaped popsicle.

Across from him, Mirabella raised one hand, her fingers glowing with the gentle light of condensed threads.

Snowflakes spun into existence around her wrist, twinkling in the light like falling stars. Her posture was perfect, balanced, and deadly.

Like she was born to do this. Her breathing was calm, her aura cool and clear like a moonlit lake.

Ren’s pulse pounded in his ears as he slowly reached behind him.

And gripped the handle of his weapon.

The newly evolved Bloodsucker kusarigama didn’t so much hum as it growled in his palm, the chain at his hip twitching slightly like a living thing, hungry and coiled.

The jagged black blade glinted with deep red streaks like blood trapped in obsidian, and the heavier spiked club at the other end thudded against the ground with a solid, intimidating thunk.

It was like holding a wild beast on a leash—a beast that wanted nothing more than to tear into something cold and proud and smug.

’You got this,’ Ren told himself. ’You’ve trained. You’ve planned. She may be strong... but so are you.’

A loud, magically amplified voice echoed across the arena.

"Begin."

And just like that, the battle started.