Chapter 70
Chapter 70
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 70
Chapter Title: Reeducation (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“…….”
Kaiser stood there speechless.
“Won’t attack anymore?”
Seeing him like that, Jiron tilted his head.
Yeah.
The fight still wasn’t over.
Giving up was for the weak...
The family he’d trusted and protected his whole life, and his own beliefs, echoed through his mind.
But what actually came out of his mouth was something entirely different.
“…Jiron Airgia, just one question. Answer honestly.”
“?”
“That slash that cuts magic… When did you develop it? How much practice did you put in?”
It was simply a question born from wanting to confirm the most terrifying truth he didn’t want to face.
Kaiser desperately hoped his suspicions were wrong.
But cruelly—
“I just tried it for the first time earlier.”
Jiron’s response was the exact opposite.
From his calm expression and tone, there wasn’t even a hint of a lie.
“The first… time? Really, the very first time?”
Kaiser gritted his teeth.
“Yeah, if that’s the case… Try cutting this too!”
In a final desperate struggle, he launched a few more fireballs.
They looked like ordinary fireballs on the surface, but they were cunning attacks mixed with feints and subtle changes to the mana structure.
If that technique was truly improvised and used for the first time, its completion would still be lacking.
No matter how much of a monster he was, no one could perfect a brand-new technique on the first try.
Maybe he’d show even a slight flinch or imperfection.
Kaiser clung to that faint sliver of hope.
Shwick—!!
But those attacks too were perfectly and precisely destroyed without exception.
And Jiron still looked utterly unfazed.
As if he’d known it would turn out exactly like this.
‘Ha, haha… Perfect even on the first try? And… to him, that’s just a given?’
Kaiser let out a hollow laugh.
He didn’t despair simply because Jiron was strong.
If Jiron had achieved that strength through bone-grinding effort, Kaiser might have accepted defeat gracefully, feared him, and even respected him.
No.
Even without that level of effort, if he’d just shown any sign of trying at all…
But.
What? It just works? First time using it?
‘No way, this is just too much…!!’
He couldn’t accept it.
Kaiser had lived his life worshiping the strong and despising the weak.
The foundation of that belief was “Anyone can become strong with effort.”
The strong deserved respect for their efforts, and the weak deserved contempt for their laziness.
Of course, he acknowledged differences in talent.
But those who blamed only talent? He dismissed them as ignorant of the blood-and-sweat efforts behind that talent.
However…
The boy before him now possessed overwhelming strength without the slightest effort, sleeping and lounging all day.
An utterly unreasonable existence.
Like a massive wall.
No strategy Kaiser had prepared could ever scale that wall.
‘Ah… So that’s what it was.’
Then it hit Kaiser.
All the weaklings he’d trampled and scorned until now.
Had they felt like he did now, looking at him?
Like facing an insurmountable wall.
Was that why they despaired, gave up, and ran?
Back then, he’d just thought they were pathetic and disgusting, but now, facing a real wall himself, he was doing the exact same thing.
‘…….’
That realization sank in…
Kaiser weakly raised his hand.
The sign of surrender.
Let’s stop.
And.
No more blindly worshiping the strong, or despising the weak…
Just stop.
***
“Stop. It’s your victory, Jiron Airgia.”
Kaiser’s expression turned sullen, and he weakly raised his hand in surrender.
The spar ended anticlimactically.
‘…Huh?’
I was pretty surprised.
What, surrendering already…?
I’d just started building up to make him feel the “wall” for the quest condition.
‘…Is the Magic Severing Strike that shocking?’
Sure, slicing magic with a slash wasn’t normal.
The fact that it was his first try probably startled him too.
But those fireballs he’d launched earlier? Weren’t they just basic attacks, nothing special?
Slicing a few of those and he surrenders right away?
Unless I’d cut something like his ultimate [Crimson Flame Arrow].
Which can’t even be destroyed!
‘The Magic Severing Strike’s enhancement is OP zero-tier stuff, but it’s not some all-purpose magic destroyer.
Some spells work, some don’t—ultimates basically never.
That’d be way too broken.
Anyway.
[Sudden Quest Completed!]
[Sloth +500!]
‘…Sweet for me.’
Luckily, his voluntary surrender counted as “feeling the wall,” and the points came through properly.
Grateful he felt it on his own, but why’d he react like that?
I watched Kaiser trudge away, shoulders slumped, and thought.
‘No idea, but he looks so down… Kinda pitiful.’
Sigh, what can you do.
The guy’s a jerk who picks on the weak first, stacking up unlikeable traits even in the game.
Unless someone fixes that personality, he’ll never change.
Even after the protagonist beats sense into him, he just fears and respects the protag—still looks down on other weaklings.
Even as a veteran player, I have no clue how to redeem him.
Anyway, that’s that!
Landed a total victory, grabbed the quest reward—total success.
‘Now, time to sleep and farm more Sloth~’
I descended the arena with light, happy steps.
***
Jiron’s matches were always like this—extremely short, but the impact lingered.
The cadets buzzed excitedly about the match that had just ended.
“Was that just now a Dispel?”
“Nah, felt different from Dispel. Dispel erases it… but that felt like destruction?”
“Another new signature spell? Insane.”
“Wow, Jiron’s really something… Kaiser surrendering without even a real fight…”
Of course, some cadets questioned Kaiser’s early surrender.
“But shouldn’t he have fought to the end? He hadn’t even taken a direct hit yet.”
“Yeah, knowing Kaiser’s personality, I figured he’d charge in no matter what.”
But Artel fully understood Kaiser’s feelings.
‘…No wonder Kaiser surrendered.’
If it were her old self, she’d have just found it odd… But thanks to sparring with Jiron, her eyes for magic had grown sharply, so now she could see it.
‘As expected of Jiron…’
What he’d just done was on another level from Dispel.
Dispel countered enemy magic by emitting opposing mana to cancel it out.
Jiron’s technique attacked the most vulnerable point in the incoming spell’s structure, collapsing the magic itself with minimal force.
True to form, it was pure Jiron—maximizing efficiency, minimizing effort.
Of course, it wasn’t easy at all.
Instantly analyzing a fast-flying spell’s structure and pinpointing its weak spot for a precise strike? Near impossible.
It felt utterly implausible.
Kaiser must have realized that, felt the uncrossable gap, and surrendered.
But for Artel, it wasn’t even surprising anymore.
She’d seen so much by now.
It just deepened her respect for Jiron further.
‘…More than that.’
Jiron had always fought this way in every battle so far.
Overwhelming dominance.
Crushing the opponent’s will to fight entirely.
A merciless style that suited his indifferent demeanor perfectly.
But…
For some reason, with Artel, it was different.
In their after-school spars, he kindly matched her level, gently pushing her limits.
He felt like a completely different person.
Artel quietly gazed at Jiron beside her, who had already fallen asleep using his shadow like a blanket.
Utterly defenseless.
His mouth even slightly open.
‘…….’
Her eyes lingered briefly near his lips.
“…Artel?”
Then Yuria spoke up from the side.
“…Y-Yeah?”
Artel jolted like a thief caught red-handed, tearing her eyes away from Jiron.
“I’ve been calling you since earlier, didn’t you hear?”
“Oh… Sorry. Was lost in thought.”
“Ah, I see. Jiron was amazing earlier, right? That technique was new to me too… How much stronger does he plan to get?”
At Yuria’s innocent admiration, Artel replied with a strange twinge of guilt.
“Y-Yeah… Totally.”