Chapter 12

  The entirety of the gold class first years ended up following us as we moved outside to the training field. My taunting had worked a little too well, it seemed.

  I planned to placate the rowdier members of chamite class while also shutting down any notions that we were a class of useless outcasts. The easiest way to accomplish this would be to prove our worth against a strong opponent.

  Leon Goldklinge was the highest-ranked opponent outside of diamond class, making him a perfect target for my purposes.

  This was my plan to the point that I had explained it to my classmates. I conveniently omitted the part about wanting to analyse their own skills as well.

  Currently, I couldn’t claim to know much about anyone’s strength besides what was reflected in their exam scores. Axel, the only person I had experience sparring with, also never had to put his full effort into fighting in front of me.

  “5v5 huh? Obviously, I’m not backing down from this, so who are the other four?”

  Axel looked to me for guidance.

  “I don’t think we need to worry about teamwork this time around, just look at our competition.”

  I nod to the gold class to prove my point.

  Leon had a thin katana-like sword, his lackey used a spear, and the other three all had shields with either a shortsword, handaxe, or club.

  “That doesn’t look particularly well balanced to me.”

  “Hmm, you’re right. How about I just wipe them all out alone?”

  Axel grinned wolfishly at his prey.

  “No. That would only prove what everyone already knows, it doesn’t help chamite class as a whole. If anything, I’d like it if you could just focus on one person and drag the fight out to humiliate them.”

  “Eh, not ideal, but it could be fun, I guess.”

  “As Axel said, he’s taking the first spot. Does anyone else want to volunteer?”

  Immediately, Paris and Lily stepped up to stand beside Axel. Neither of them allowed the chance for others to take their spots.

  “I’ll back you all up.”

  Lily, similar to Axel and me, had no practice weapon since she relied on magic.

  “I want the prick with the broccoli hair.”

  Paris glared at one of the shield trio; he had curly hair and an undercut. Thus, we dubbed him broccoli-boy. She had two daggers for weapons.

  “I’ll tag along too.”

  Guy stepped up next; his weapon of choice was a quarterstaff.

  “We still need one more…”

  I looked at the rest, but they just looked back at me in confusion.

  “This was your idea; shouldn’t you take the lead?”

  “Idiot.”

  “U-uh, you are ranked fourth in our class… it makes sense you would be included.”

  Everybody except Meztili had their own way of telling me to go fight.

  For my part, I was already broken beyond belief thanks to Klaus, Felicia, and Axel all brutalising me within the past three hours.

  “...Guess I’ve got no choice then…”

  It shouldn’t matter even if I lose, so long as the others picked up my slack.

  “What’s the plan, boss?”

  Lily sidled up to my side.

  “How would I know? Besides Axel, I’ve got no idea what your specialties are.”

  “I can take any of them head-on.”

  Guy declared with confidence.

  “Your magical theory score was pretty high, wasn’t it, boss? You should know what my magic can do.”

  Lily shrugged and continued to look at me with an annoying smirk. Her tone told me she wanted to mess with me just as much as the other team.

  “I’ll handle myself.”

  Paris had no interest in following directions.

  “I’ll do as you suggested, but if that Goldklinge kid turns out to be a bore, I’m going wild.”

  Axel was at least mostly cooperative.

  Reviewing my options here, I realized there wasn’t much I could do besides trust the team and do what I could.

  “Alright… here’s my proposal… Don’t worry, it’s pretty simple…”

  ***

  Leon had already organised the others. He would have preferred to have some ranged support, but this was serviceable.

  Donald and the other two, who Leon now knew were named Chris and Frederick, would act as a single unit and focus entirely on defense. Arnold would attack from behind their wall, and Leon would be their offense.

  Satisfied this was the best they could prepare at the moment, Leon looked over to see if the chamite class were prepared yet.

  Their team leader, Rex, approached casually, signalling for Leon to come meet in the middle.

  It was irksome, but Leon maintained his dignity as a noble and followed the beckoning of the red-haired bastard.

  “Hey there, want to surrender?”

  Immediately, Rex met him with open mockery.

  “Keep your jokes to yourself. Name your terms and prepare to be humbled.”

  Leon lost his calm and snapped at him. Rex’s refusal to stop smiling with mock friendliness only continued to rub Leon even further in the wrong direction.

  “Haha, it was worth a try. Okay, here’s my suggestion: Team fight, training weapons and non-lethal skills only, and no out-of-bounds rules or time limit. Any combatant who surrenders or is rendered unable to fight is eliminated. Attacking someone who has already been eliminated will result in disqualification of the offending individual.”

  Leon nodded.

  “I accept those terms.”

  He wasted no time returning to his team and putting them in position.

  Conversely, Rex remained where he was and let his team fall into place wherever they decided for themselves.

  Unsurprisingly, Axel swaggered to the front and looked down at Leon, singling him out.

  Leon knew Axel’s ability well, but with the current ruleset, even the Slaughterer of Soleo could not hope to match Leon’s blade.

  “I’ll keep that monster in check, the rest of you just need to clean up the stragglers.”

  Leon lowered his voice and ducked down behind the trio of shields in front of him, making doubly sure the chamite team wouldn’t hear him or read his lips.

  “Are both sides ready?”

  One of the third-year students from the silver class was acting as a referee.

  “Yes.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Both sides acknowledged. Even this simple, lazy affirmation from Rex made Leon’s blood boil.

  “Alright… Begin!”

  Leon was met with a fist to the face almost immediately after the fight began.

  He bent back and propelled himself under Axel’s meaty arm with a quick burst of mana. He countered perfectly, but Axel swayed out of the way with speed unbefitting his size.

  Axel was already way out of formation. Normally, he would be immediately dog-piled by the gold class. But Leon had already directed them not to treat Axel as a normal opponent and to instead leave him entirely to Leon.

  Leon took the offensive, not wanting to let Axel dictate the flow of their fight.

  A flurry of slashes followed, only a small amount of mana was being imbued into the practice sword, but the heat it now emitted was enough to show that this blunt blade could still burn through flesh.

  Axel continued to dodge with confidence, and whenever an attack came too close, Leon would find his sword arm being forcefully redirected with a lightning-fast slap.

  Besides these defensive movements, however, Axel had not followed up with a single attack after his opening blow.

  “Hey. Golden boy.”

  That rough, menacing voice called out calmly even while the owner was dodging strikes.

  “You better put your all into this. If you bore me, your friends will pay the price.”

  With a swift kick, Leon’s sword was sent flying from his hand, and he stood in stunned silence.

  An unarmed attack with no mana or aura behind it just overpowered the Goldklinge’s signature Cutting Flame. Even if it was only a weakened version on a training sword, such a thing was unheard of.

  “Pick it up.”

  Axel put his hands in his pockets and cracked his neck side to side.

  Leon slowly regained his senses and retrieved his weapon.

  “I’ll give you what you asked for… Just don’t think you’ll disarm me again.”

  Leon’s pride had been bruised, and the offender didn’t consider him worthy of their time.

  He poured more mana into the blade this time, adding an enchantment to reinforce the sword itself.

  “You worried about the non-lethal rule? C’mon, golden boy, I know what the real Cutting Flame looks like.”

  Axel licked his lips and widened his eyes in anticipation.

  Leon paused at the provocation, but ultimately went along with it.

  And he began reinforcing his own body with aura.

  ***

  Axel had separated Leon from the group in record time. Now I just had three defenders and a spearman to deal with.

  This was where Guy was meant to step up with me and break their formation.

  “Heh, don’t you worry, leader. I can handle this lot myself, check this out.”

  Guy began flipping and spinning around while doing all sorts of fancy-looking moves with his quarterstaff. None of them served any purpose.

  He continued this while flipping forward towards the enemy formation on his own.

  I had to assume he didn’t expect me to approach as well since he said he would do this himself.

  As he got within 10m of the shield trio, he tripped over his own weapon and fell to their feet. They didn’t hesitate to pin him with their shields and club him into submission.

  “...He’s out.”

  They stopped their onslaught and pointed to him while smirking at us.

  We all ignored Guy’s motionless body and side-stepped a few times so he wouldn’t be in our way.

  “What an idiot! Hahaha! What kind of Vampire dies like that?”

  “He’s not dead, Lily…”

  “Hey, hey! Don’t you know all duels should be treated as real-life combat? If this were real, he’d be dead as hell! Pfft—Haha!”

  Lily was bent over, holding her stomach from laughing so hard.

  “...Heh.”

  Even Paris’ usual stoic self couldn’t contain a snicker.

  “What the hell is this, chamite class? You think we’re a joke? Or are you just going to hide behind Axel?”

  The spearman was yelling at us, apparently unamused by our lax nature.

  “Alright, guys, change of plans, I’ll take point. Lily, support me.”

  “Hahahaha—Oh, we’re still going? Okie doke, leave it to me, boss.”

  I looked at Paris, but she still showed no signs of coordinating with me.

  “...I’ll kill the broccoli boy.”

  That was all she would say.

  I interpreted this to mean she wouldn’t help against the other three.

  A 3v1 in my condition was unreasonable at best, but one option was open to me. I reached into my pocket to ensure Soot’s tusk fragments were still on me and smirked.

  Tiara was tapped out of mana for the day after Axel’s sparring session, so I would have to draw from a different source.

  I walked forward leisurely. This entire time, the opposing team refused to move out of their defensive formation, and they had no way to strike at this distance.

  This will do.

  I had made my way to Guy’s corpse—Rest in peace.

  —And took his quarterstaff before breaking it over my knee. I drew out all the mana stored in Soot’s tusk like I would do with Tiara, then I flung one half of the quarterstaff far to the left of my target and started running.

  “Haha, nice throw id—Ack!”

  While the central shieldbearer was talking, I had already closed the distance with blistering speed and drove my heel down into his shoulder.

  A shield matters little against attacks that go over or around it.

  This one attack already left my foes in shambles. The spearman reacted well and tried to cover his wounded ally, but the others weren’t paying attention to him and instead tried to close the gap.

  “Idiots! Move!”

  His spear had ironically been stopped by his own allies.

  “Uwaah! Wh-what the hell is this!?”

  They probably didn’t notice Lily’s attack until now, but she had already imbued her magic into my shadow. Her spell activated the moment I broke their formation and my shadow crossed behind their shieldwall.

  Three massive tendrils of darkness burst out and pushed them in different directions. The one to my right was immediately met by a barrage of slashes and kicks from Paris.

  Rest in peace, Broccoli boy.

  The one who went flying to my left was slowly recovering, and the spearman had gone straight backwards but landed on his feet and was already running back towards me.

  The only one who didn’t move anywhere was the one with the broken shoulder.

  “A-ah! No! W-w-wait!’

  He begged, but I didn’t hear anything about surrendering.

  So I kicked him in the face.

  “I give up!”

  “Oh? I thought that would knock you out, but I must be weaker than I thought. I guess I’m still good enough for the four of you, though.”

  I started to feel like quite the asshole with my constant taunting. It was necessary to shake up an enemy stronger than yourself however.

  “Asshole! I’ll run you throu—Ow!”

  The spearman lost focus thanks to his anger and didn’t notice the piece of wood hurtling in from the side until it collided with his head. That wide throw of mine had curved around perfectly.

  “Goddamnit! What is this stuff?”

  The last of the shield trio was wrapped in living, shadowy tendrils that prevented him from moving.

  “Get him, boss!”

  Lily hadn’t moved from her starting position, but I could see her fingers rapidly moving at her sides as she weaved her mana to continue constricting her target.

  The spearman was still on his feet, but it looked like he considered Paris a more dangerous target than me, as he had redirected his attack her way after seeing what she had done to the broccoli.

  That made it easy for me to attack the one stuck under Lily’s thumb.

  “Ah! Get this crap off me and fight fair!”

  I still had the other half of the quarterstaff in my hand.

  “Squad-based combat is most effective with a well-balanced team. The presence of a support caster is often the deciding factor in such fights.”

  I offered a little advice. Then presented my weapon as a non-verbal suggestion to give up now.

  “...”

  He stopped struggling with the shadows and looked over at the sorry state of his shield brothers.

  “Uh… yeah, thanks… I give up.”

  The shadows retracted, and he awkwardly shuffled away.

  I walked up to the last man standing, the spearman, who was keeping up with Paris on even footing.

  “...”

  It was interesting watching them go at it. Paris lacked range but had flexibility and speed, allowing her to coil around the spear and deliver constant counterhits. On the other hand, the spearman was incorporating minor ice magic to upset her footing and create openings to regain distance and resume his spear attacks.

  “Should we help?”

  Lily, with nothing left to do, came up to join me.

  “Mmm… I feel like she’s still holding back. Just let them go for a second.”

  “I knew it!”

  She beamed at me with a knowing grin.

  “You’re trying to feel us out, right?”

  “...You should go help her.”

  I grinned back at her.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of showing you up, boss. By all means, you go take the spotlight.”

  Seeing she wasn’t going to bite my bait anymore, I put all of Soot’s mana into my arm and flung my weapon into the spearman’s back.

  The force knocked him over right as he had swept Paris’ feet out, and he tumbled on top of her.

  I have no idea what words left Paris’ mouth at that moment, but it simultaneously sounded like a hiss and a curse.

  If that wasn’t enough to convey her feelings, the way she drove the hilt of her dagger into the spearman’s temple and knocked him out certainly did.

  “Gah! You were meant to handle him!”

  She pushed him off and pointed at me in anger.

  “You had it handled. Anyway, should we watch the main event?”

  I pointed towards the clashing magic power that all the onlookers were fixated on.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying it, but Axel looks like he needs a hand.”