The Outcome of the Spar (1)
Hint asked the first question.
“First of all, how long was I unconscious?”
Both arms fractured. The final blow was a little hazy in his memory, but he was certain it had struck his head. In a normal game, it would have been an injury that kept him bedridden for at least a week.
From Hint’s perspective—one where he needed to return Stelle to S-class as quickly as possible to steer the story back to its original flow—a week of unconsciousness was anything but good news.
If he really had been out for more than a week, he would have to pull in other hidden pieces to make up for lost time. As Hint mentally organized a list of hidden pieces he could obtain quickly at this stage, Felicia let out a sigh.
“You were only unconscious for a single day, so stop worrying so much. You look like someone’s chasing you.”
That confirmed his guess. Healing injuries of that severity and waking him up in just one day was only possible for someone like Felicia, the academy’s greatest healer.
Of course, he was curious why she had personally healed an F-class student like him, but Hint kept that thought to himself for now.
And “someone’s chasing you,” huh…
‘The end of the world really is chasing me, though.’
Obviously, saying that out loud right now would only get him treated like a lunatic. The academy was currently enjoying a golden age led by its strongest student council president, during which demonic invasions had been extremely rare for nearly two years. If he suddenly started claiming the academy would be destroyed in two years, he’d be dismissed as crazy.
“Then, next… what happened in the spar?”
“Your head did deflect Hina’s strike. As for the result… I’m not entirely sure. You endured the final ten exchanges, but Hina also went easy on you. That’s something you two should settle between yourselves.”
It seemed he would need to have a separate conversation with Senior Hina later.
Hint set aside the question that wouldn’t yield an answer no matter how much he pondered it and moved on to his final one.
“And what about Stelle? How is she?”
“Ah, that F-class girl? The moment you passed out, she started crying and begging for your life.”
“…No, not that. I meant the exchange match.”
It was nice to know she had cried for him, but what came after was far more important. If Stelle, who had received Fenrir’s blessing, had shown an impressive performance in the exchange match, it would help elevate her to S-class.
“Oh, right. I actually have something to say about that.”
Professor Felicia seemed uncomfortable in her position, so she used telekinesis to pull a teddy bear into her arms.
It was quite surprising to see the cynical professor hugging a teddy bear, but Felicia acted as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Ah, sorry. Because of these heavy lumps, my back hurts if I sit without it. Don’t mind me.”
Just as she said, her chest—large enough to rival her own head—mercilessly crushed the adorable teddy bear.
The rather violent sight made Hint break into a cold sweat internally. He was grateful that this body instinctively maintained a poker face in moments like these.
“First, let me say one thing. I don’t heal just anyone.”
That was true. It wasn’t that Felicia held elitist views; the academy’s top healer simply couldn’t step forward for every little thing. She needed to be ready to respond immediately when a truly urgent patient arrived, and if she personally tended to every patient no matter how minor, it would hinder the growth of junior healers.
Of course, F-class students rarely received healing services either.
The only patients she treated directly were those on the brink of death… or those who absolutely could not be allowed to die.
“Patients on the verge of death, or patients who must never be allowed to die. Those are the ones I treat.”
Exactly. As Professor Felicia said, patients who must never be allowed to die. The prime example being S-class students.
For now, he would pretend to be a little clueless.
“Oh no. Was I really in that bad a condition? Thank you for saving me.”
“How sly. A patient who returned from the brink of death would know full well how close they came to dying.”
Felicia crossed her legs. In the process, an unfortunate event occurred where her enormous chest jiggled, but she continued speaking as if it were irrelevant.
“You may not know this, but the academy is in an uproar right now.”
“Because of me?”
“To be precise, because of both of you.”
“In a bad way?”
“Discovering new possibilities can hardly be called a bad thing.”
Professor Felicia spoke calmly. Hint at least felt that a faint gleam of joy and anticipation flickered in her eyes. Of course, he could be wrong.
“The abilities you two displayed during the senior-junior exchange match clearly surpassed anything expected of F-class students. From your base stats to your combat ability and potential.”
Felicia recalled what had happened yesterday.
Other students might have thought Hint’s fight relied on spamming high-performance items rather than true skill, but the academy faculty saw things differently.
The mountains the students would have to overcome in the future were so massive that facing them alone was impossible, and so high they seemed insurmountable. Gathering information on such threats first, devising countermeasures, and mobilizing every available means to confront them was a merit, never a demerit.
On top of that, there was the unidentified blessing. Judging by the wolf’s howl and the ice-based abilities, it was believed to be the blessing of Fenrir—the first guardian divine beast of the Frostwolf family and the now-reclusive guardian of the West Forest. That too had made the professors’ eyes sparkle.
But what surprised them most was that mysterious Parry.
The students and faculty alike knew the skill called Parry existed, yet no one could claim they could activate it at the perfect moment—especially against an overwhelmingly stronger opponent.
The Sword Saint sitting beside her had even screamed. In the nearly eighteen years Felicia had known her, she had never seen that madwoman’s eyes shine so brightly.
‘You’re going to have a hard time.’
She offered a silent prayer for the boy who was still blinking innocently, unaware of what awaited him.
Meanwhile, Hint wondered why even Stelle had caught the other professors’ attention. It was true her stats were no longer at F-class level and she possessed the same blessing he did, but that alone shouldn’t have caused such a stir at the academy.
She must have done something he couldn’t even imagine.
“Excuse me, but could you tell me what happened after I was carried away? What did Stelle do?”
“Ah. The moment you were taken away, she glared at Hina with terrifying eyes and demanded an exchange match.”
So that was what happened. Since Stelle considered him a comrade, the protagonist had flown into a rage when her comrade was brutally beaten and knocked unconscious, then challenged Hina.
But with Stelle’s current stats and skill level, she shouldn’t have been able to show anything meaningful against Senior Hina.
Felicia answered the question in his eyes.
“Did you know? That girl was handling two divine beasts.”
Crack.
Something inside his head snapped, and Hint’s brain came to a complete stop.
Handling divine beasts? Since when…?
‘Now that I think about it, Stelle has been saying she had things to do in the West Forest lately and kept disappearing.’
To be honest, he had been so busy himself over the past week that he hadn’t paid much attention. When she said she had work to do and left, he simply let it slide. At most, he had asked Fenrir about her whereabouts.
Then something flashed through his mind. It was from the time he had visited Fenrir to obtain her fur and breath in preparation for the spar with Hina.
‘Hehe, thank you. By the way, Stelle seems quite busy these days. Do you happen to know what she’s up to?’
『Hehe. She’s playing with my children, so don’t worry too much. It won’t be a loss for her either.』
She had definitely said she was playing with her children. At the time, he had simply thought, Oh, she’s playing with the spirits in the forest~ and let it pass. Only now did he realize it wasn’t a figure of speech—she had literally been playing with Fenrir’s own offspring.
In the original work, Sword Demon, Fenrir’s two children also appeared.
Two young divine beasts inspired by Norse mythology.
Skoll and Hati.
However, in a normal playthrough they were impossible to obtain. It was an end-content class that could only be selected in the next round after defeating the area boss Fenrir in the previous round.
Summon Knight.
It seemed that through some incredible stroke of fortune, Stelle had changed her class to Summon Knight.
“The current guardian divine beast of the North is said to be a phoenix, but in the past, a giant wolf protected the North. We believe the two divine beasts Stelle commands are descendants of Fenrir. And that… is an truly tremendous talent and aptitude. Enough to make the academy professors drool.”
The boy named Hint, who had shown exceptional adaptability and consecutively used Parry against the student council president.
And Stelle, who, despite still being awkward with swordsmanship, could command two divine beasts.
What academy in the world would evaluate them as the lowest tier of talent?
“This is an extremely unusual case even for the academy. For a thousand years, Arpia Academy has encountered countless talents and established standards to classify them. Of course, children’s potential is infinite and they always surpass our expectations… but this crossed the line.”
The academy’s standards and evaluation methods were not always correct.
Every generation, a few students pleasantly shattered the professors’ expectations and revealed their true talent and ability.
And the academy always paid the highest respect to such children.
If those children happened to be F-class students, there was nothing more to say.
Felicia took a brooch from her pocket.
It was a token decorated with gold and jewels, given to those the academy recognized as standing at the forefront of their era.
22 out of 28 full professors of Arpia Academy have agreed.
The remaining 6 abstained from voting.
As a result, both of you have been promoted to S-class.
Hint stared blankly at the golden brooch.
Felicia mistook his gaze for one of emotion and deep gratitude, smiling warmly, but his inner thoughts were completely different.
‘Wait a minute. I’m not supposed to go to S-class yet?’
This was a disaster. Hint screamed internally. Regardless, Professor Felicia stood up and lightly tapped his forehead with her finger.
“The details will be delivered by the academy in three days. They wanted to come immediately, but you’re still a patient. Rest well for the next three days. It looks like quite a few people want to visit you as well.”
Quite a few? He thought it would be at most the student council president and Stelle, but judging from Professor Felicia’s expression, it seemed there were more.
Just who could possibly want to visit him—
His head began to spin, and his eyes grew heavy. He felt like he could fall asleep at any moment.
It was clearly an abnormal state for a patient, yet Felicia turned away as if there was nothing wrong.
“A patient shouldn’t think too much. Just rest for today.”
Ah, so touching his head earlier had been a spell.
With that thought, Hint fell asleep.
The next day, the first person to visit Hint was exactly who one would expect.
“Hint. Are you okay…?”
“You look like you’re in more pain than I am.”
Stelle had dark circles under her eyes and unmistakable exhaustion on her face, as if she hadn’t slept properly. On her chest was not the old F-class brooch, but the S-rank one.
Stelle sat down beside his bed.
“I’ve been hearing all sorts of stories.”
“Ahaha… I figured you were already busy running around, so I didn’t want to bother you.”
Stelle scratched her head apologetically. Well, she must have had her own reasons, so Hint didn’t think much of it.
“Then, could I hear the story? I’m honestly curious too.”
“Yeah. You have the right to hear it, Hint. So… where should I start…”
The things Stelle had experienced during the past week while he had been busy. She began to tell him everything.