After having their dinner and washing their bodies, Noel and Anna returned to their room. They had been quite tense this whole time due to the bet they had.
"Are you ready to lose?" Noel smirked as if he had prepared a plan to mess with her.
"I think you should be the one to prepare for it." Anna snorted. "There is no rule regarding sabotaging your opponent."
"What chivalry? If chivalry can be applied to every single person in the world, no one will be called cunning." Noel snorted.
"If you think you can pull ahead of me by training during the whole night, then you're wrong." Anna stepped forward, entering the room.
"No. You're the one who can't train tonight!" Noel wasn't afraid of her.
Once they stepped into the bedroom, they stopped for a moment, waiting for the signal to start their plan.
"We will use this." Noel took out a coin. "Once it drops to the ground, we will begin."
"Bring it on!" Anna slapped the back of his hand, causing the coin to fly into the air for three seconds before falling down.
The few seconds the coin took to fall down felt so long.
Cling!
But once they heard the clicking sound from the ground, they immediately jumped forth, heading straight to the cabinet that separated their beds.
"Huh?" Noel widened his eyes when grabbing the cabinets. Anna also had the same confusion.
They looked at each other and asked the same thing, "What are you doing?!"
They weren't the type who explained first and took action later. Instead, they moved the cabinets first, making each other realize their intention.
There wasn't a single word coming out of their mouth. After moving the cabinet away, both Noel and Anna ended up pushing their beds toward each other.
Clack!
The clashing sound of wooden frames made them realize that they had the same intention.
"You… What are you thinking? Are you trying to sleep on the same bed as me?!" Anna shouted while glaring at Noel.
"I should be the one asking you! Are you trying to ruin my reputation?!"
They ignored the fact that they were moving their beds toward each other and tried to blame the opposite party.
Unfortunately, it seemed that their plan was the same.
Anna did this for the sake of distracting Noel. If she somehow managed to stop Noel from practicing here and even force him to leave, it would be a huge win. But sleeping like this would definitely hit her reputation and even break some taboos among noble rules.
Her only excuse was, "I sleep on my bed; you sleep on your bed. If you dare to cross the line, then it means that you're the one who is lustful. Even if it joins together, it doesn't change the fact that we're sleeping on our own bed!"
On the other hand, Noel never cared about this in the first place. After all, he had lost his status after his parents were executed. Since there was nothing to be destroyed, then he didn't have to care about it.
He said, "How disgusting. A noble dares to use her status to sleep with a commoner!"
"You are openly admitting your commoner status right now just because you think it's right! Do you think anyone will care about that now?!" Anna snorted.
"Of course. If you dare to do it, I can tell it to your future husband, causing a scandal to ruin your reputation!"
"You dare? Your reputation will be hit as well!"
"Haha, you can blame society for that. There are a lot of nobles having multiple wives!"
"I don't care. You are not the type who will have more than one wife to me!" Anna snorted.
"You're just spouting a random excuse right now!" Noel harrumphed.
Noel and Anna glared at each other. Their words made less and less sense.
In the end, both of them stood on their beds, looking at each other.
"Hmph. If I can't marry someone else because you are trying to ruin my reputation, I can simply make you marry me!" Anna snorted.
"What? You can't. I'm going to rebuild the Ardagan Family. So, you won't be able to use your power to force that marriage!"
"I can do it right now!" Anna smiled evilly. "You are still a commoner right now. It's not weird for a noble to force a marriage to a commoner. You can say it's to elevate your status. You should be thankful to me."
"You dare? In the past, I might not have enough power to fight you. But right now, I can defeat you!"
"You are still weaker than me! If you lose, how about you call yourself Noel Stargaze?" Anna looked down at him to tease him.
Normally, the bride would be marrying into the groom's family. But that only happened when both parties had similar power or status. In the case of a commoner and a noble, the commoner was bound to marry into the noble family to elevate their status.
In that case, Noel had to change his name and follow her family name.
"In that case, we can fight right now and see whether you're strong enough to defeat me or not." Noel harrumphed.
"Sure. I have a True Spirit Body with me. Once I defeat you, you won't be able to do anything."
"You said I'm smarter than you. Once I marry into your family, I'm definitely ruining your family from the inside." Noel gritted his teeth, not wanting to lose.
Anna couldn't reply to that one because that was what she admitted a long time ago.
Both of them didn't seem to be backing down.
But once they calmed down for a moment, they realized that their bickering had gone to the way where the situation ended up with them marrying each other, whether she entered his family or the other way around.
"…" Noel and Anna fell silent. They never admitted it openly, but whenever they thought about it, they truly couldn't find someone who could be said to be equal to them other than the one in front of them.
"Say…" Noel opened his mouth with a tired expression.
"Yeah. Let's stop it." Anna sighed, feeling embarrassed that she got so worked up about this.
