Sensory Blocking Magic (4)
A whistling rush of air. Then a sickening crunch.
"Eek!"
The mana orb came screaming in the instant Scarlet said, "Shall we begin?" I instinctively wrung a shield of mana into existence right in front of my face. The orb smashed into it with a bone-chilling crack of rupturing energy.
"Hmm. You blocked it."
Through the shattered remnants of my shield, Annelisa was smiling a nasty little smile.
"Hey!!!"
"She said it was the start, didn't she?"
"It was Shall we begin?! You, you bi— kyaaah!!"
True to a girl raised in the merciless cold of Russia, Annelisa launched her assault without a shred of mercy. Not even a three-second courtesy, the classless bitch!
"Not bad at blocking, are you?"
Ice orbs of condensed mana came pecking at me one after another, as if she were testing the waters. They were so cold that the frigid burst from each shattered sphere already had me shivering.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
"Hiek? Ugh! Kyaah!"
And Annelisa's skill was nothing to sneeze at. She'd already stolen the first move, and she pressed me without giving me a single opening to counter. I'd never really been in a fight even in my previous life, so I had no idea how to turn this around.
Ugh... what if I just take a hit, trusting the Sensory Block?
If I kept getting pushed back like this, Scarlet would call it my loss without a second thought. This wasn't even a duel—it was a spar. There was no reason to drag it out. And that was the one thing I refused to accept. I wanted to land at least one good shot on all the people who kept looking down on me.
"You accepted so confidently, but is this really all you've got?"
I glanced at Annelisa. Dozens of ice orbs already hovered around her. Every time I blocked one, another came flying in to replace it. They burst with such exquisite timing that I was out of options.
Screw it. I'll take one!!
Trusting in the Sensory Block, I dropped my guard for a split second.
"Oh?"
Annelisa looked at me as if I were a joke. Her pale fingers twitched, and the ice orbs surged toward me. Intercepting the one coming from my left with my pathetic scrap of physical strength was out of the question. Instead I threw both arms up in a guard, the way I'd seen people do somewhere.
"Sloppy."
But even as her mocking voice reached me, the orb curved like a breaking ball and changed direction. The icy-blue sphere slammed into my abdomen.
Thud!!
"Aaaagh...?"
"Take that and stay down... huh?"
The complete lack of pain left both of us briefly stunned. My body had only folded a little. I felt perfectly fine. And this time, I was faster on the uptake.
"Time for a counterattack, you freeze-tag bitch!!"
"What!?"
I copied Annelisa's trick. Dozens of round, platinum-radiant mana orbs lifted into the air as easily as breathing, then rained down in a bombardment. A startled Annelisa fired back with the orbs she'd already prepared.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!!
"Whoa..."
"Holy shit... so this is a gifted student?"
"It's just mana orbs, what's the big..."
I didn't even have time to enjoy the class's astonishment. She and I were like missiles intercepting missiles—neither of us giving an inch. Dozens of mana orbs detonated in the space between us.
"Nngh...!!"
Controlling mana was as easy for me as breathing. I could see Annelisa being pushed back, bit by bit. Riding the high, I pressed her even harder.
"Is this really all you've got?"
"How dare you, how dare you!!!"
She must have felt it too. Her hair whipped in a storm of furious mana as she screamed.
"Stop showing off and go down already, you slut!!"
A blizzard of ice orbs came howling in on a wave of killing cold. Whether it was the heat of the fight or my ridiculous sensitivity, I finally exploded with all the injustice I'd been swallowing.
"What the hell did I even do to be a slut?! You vodka-accident of a bitch!!"
"...What?"
For a single instant, the battlefield between us fell silent. The ice orbs froze in midair as if a time-stop spell had been cast. I halted my own mana orbs with the same fine control.
"What did you just..."
"Ah... um..."
She'd called me a slut so many times that the game lore had just... slipped out. The truth was, Annelisa Moritz was Mikhail Moritz's illegitimate daughter. She really had been born from a vodka-soaked accident with a prostitute. I'd learned that while playing as Arthas. Of course, once Mikhail saw her talent, he'd raised her like a real daughter.
...No, wait. She was his real daughter. So, like a real daughter. Anyway.
Annelisa, however, looked genuinely rattled.
"I-I'm my father's mistake?"
No, why are you taking that so seriously.
I hid my panic and moved to salvage the situation—by smacking Annelisa with a platinum mana orb.
"Agh!!"
"You idiot! You freeze up over a little trash talk in the middle of a fight? Your father back in Russia is going to cry into his vodka!!"
"What... what kind of bullshit are you... aaagh!!"
"Get your head in the game!!"
One more orb sent Annelisa tumbling across the floor. She sprang back to her feet, the shock that had filled her face a moment ago completely gone.
That's more like it!
Getting caught dropping family insults would only come back to bite me. And then Annelisa was slandering me all over again.
"You... you... you damn slut!!"
"Hey!! I am not a slut!!"
Mana be damned—I just charged her. Annelisa came striding right at me too. And then... the two of us grabbed each other by the hair.
"You... you wicked bitch!!"
"Aaagh!! My hair!! You orphan bitch, how dare you!!"
"I am an orphan! Except I'm not!!"
"What the hell are you even saying!!"
It was true... I really did have a mom back on Earth. But she wasn't here, was she? In other words... I was Schrödinger's orphan. Faced with that unacceptable fact, I unleashed every ounce of rage I'd been stacking up for days.
"Stop bullying meeeee!!!!"
"Aaaaaaagh!!"
I had no idea where the strength came from. Mana, probably? I seized Annelisa's hair and ripped with everything I had.
Riiiiip!!!
"Kyaaaaaaah!!!!!"
"Th-that's enough!!!"
Only then did Scarlet pull us apart. Her mana forcibly shoved Annelisa and me away from each other. We both stood there panting like animals.
"M-my... my haaair... hic..."
"...The hell are you crying for!!"
Annelisa had started to cry. A clump of sky-blue hair was clenched tight in my right hand. And this wasn't even half of what I'd tried to pull out.
What the hell kind of hair is that tough.
While I was catching my breath, her lackeys came scurrying over to Annelisa.
"Are you okay?"
"That savage bitch, how dare she!!"
"We'll make her pay!!"
"Now, now, that's enough!!!!"
Scarlet shouted for us to stop one more time and restored order to the floor. Annelisa and I sat down on the ground a good distance apart.
"Student Oh Na-ho."
"...I'm sorry. But you didn't stop us either, teacher."
"...It was just, well, rather exciting. Anyway, I'll let it slide this time."
"...Yes."
Scarlet turned away, pointedly avoiding my eyes. Even if it killed her, none of this was her fault, apparently. Not that I was going to get an apology out of a teacher that proud anyway.
"Everyone, take a short break."
Scarlet turned her back on me and ordered the class to rest. I couldn't exactly just throw away the hair in my hand, so I stuffed it roughly into my clothes and caught my breath. For all that we'd gone at each other like animals, my body was perfectly fine.
Sensory Blocking Magic. Pretty decent, actually.
How else could I have gone that feral in a brawl? Annelisa had been pounding on me too, but the Sensory Blocking Magic had tanked all of it. More precisely, my body had flinched—but it hadn't hurt at all.
Still, it eats a bit of mana, huh?
It seemed to drain in proportion to the hits I took. Even so, it was incredibly useful.
I was sitting there trying to rest when I felt a small presence beside me.
"Hello."
A girl pushed her glasses up with a fingertip and settled neatly at my side. She was a head shorter than me, compact in a way that made her look almost dainty as she opened her mouth.
"I'm Anaru. It's nice to meet you."
"Ah... yeah. Oh Na-ho."
"I watched you fight just now. It was quite thrilling."
"Ahaha..."
Anaru wore her short bob tied off to either side. The faint warmth of her arm brushing mine was surprisingly pleasant.
"So, what's up?"
"I just wanted to talk with you, Naho-san. Those girls over there are busy talking among themselves. Ah—may I call you Naho-san?"
"Yeah, that's fine."
Where Anaru pointed, I could see the KGB clustered around Annelisa, comforting her. Four girls in total, including the ringleader. In a class of nine boys and seven girls, once that clique peeled off, Anaru and I were the only ones left.
"...If you hang around me, Annelisa might start targeting you too."
"Hmm... I don't think she'll be doing much of that anymore."
"..."
Honestly, I was hoping the same thing. Pull one truly unhinged stunt and people usually backed off a little, right? Whether our Crystal Princess, raised on the northern blizzards of Russia, had actually learned her lesson from the hair currently stuffed in my clothes... well. I could hope.
"Anyway, it was rather impressive, I suppose. I came over because I wanted to be friends."
"I'm always down for more friends. You know Yu-ra, right?"
"Of course. Lim Yu-ra-san. She's a bright person, isn't she."
"That's her."
A very bright friend, yes. I wanted more people on my side, so I kept talking with Anaru. There was a lively warmth in her soft voice that made the conversation surprisingly fun.
"By the way, Naho-san, do you know that person over there well? An Yeo-dae, I believe?"
"...No. Why?"
"I saw the two of you walking together in the hallway earlier."
"That bastard followed me like a stalker."
"Ah..."
Anaru nodded as if that explained everything. Then something seemed to occur to her, and she went on.
"Come to think of it, during physical training earlier."
"Yeah?"
"After you went in, he went in as well, saying he needed the bathroom."
"Ah... he did?"
My eyes found the chubby guy in the corner of the training hall, busily fiddling with his phone. The bathroom? In the middle of PE? And specifically after I'd gone in?
...If he'd followed me in on purpose, had he seen?
...The possibility's more than high enough.
I'd thought it was weird how easily that bastard the Holy God had handed me something. Of course he'd dug a pit for me. A creature that malicious, trying to drag me into the abyss with every tool he had—my guess was almost certainly right.
"Hah..."
"What's wrong, Naho-san?"
What was I supposed to do. If that bastard had really seen me masturbating. And worse... if he'd filmed it on his phone?
No wonder he looks at me like I'm a complete joke.
He'd have blackmail material in his hands. Even back in the modern world, phone cameras could pick out your pores. The technology here, with mana on top of that...
"...Anaru."
"Yes, Naho-san."
"Can I ask you a favor?"
"Of course. We're friends, after all. Though, would it be all right if I asked you for a favor later as well?"
Ah... so our Anaru was very much a quid-pro-quo kind of girl. I nodded without hesitation.
"Of course."
"How refreshingly bold. Then, what is the favor?"
"Simple. If that bastard is stalking me, I want you to follow him around."
"Oh... so you want to turn it around and catch him with evidence?"
I looked at Anaru, her dark eyes glittering behind her glasses.
"Yeah. While I was off changing clothes earlier, he might've secretly photographed me, right?"
"You didn't change in the locker room?"
"...I was in a hurry, so I just changed in the classroom."
"I see... Understood. The mission you've entrusted to me—I'll see it through."
Anaru clenched her fist and pumped it with a determined little cheer. Then she adjusted her glasses and asked, almost casually,
"Would it be all right if I dug a little deeper? If the opportunity presents itself."
"...You're motivated, Anaru."
"Of course. It's a friend's request, after all."
A friend's request. What a beautifully academy-appropriate ring that had to it. I patted her on the shoulder.
"Detective Anaru. I'm counting on you."
"Leave it to me."