Chapter 47
Chapter 47
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 47
Chapter Title: The Vice-Captain's Surrender
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The mechanical spear thrummed with resonance, bucking wildly.
Just a slight lapse in control, and it would burst out on its own, causing all sorts of unintended chaos.
At first, it had been a real struggle to rein it in, like trying to tame a wild beast that was supposed to be helping.
But now, it was starting to show the rewards of that effort, responding to control like it should.
The spear surged explosively toward the deputy captain, whose movements were restricted by Giz's grip.
"Ha!"
Right before the spear could impale him, the deputy captain let out a sharp kiai.
At the same moment, he kicked off the ground hard, using the recoil to shake his body and forcibly break free from Giz's hold.
With his hands temporarily freed, the deputy captain brought his right hand blade down on the mechanical spear that had closed in right up to his face.
"With this much?!"
His instantaneous wit and power were impressive.
But still, he hadn't blocked it perfectly.
The spear tip ricocheted wildly, then tore a long gash through the deputy captain's uniform, leaving a shallow wound.
A single drop of blood splattered onto the floor.
The first sign of blood from the deputy captain since the lesson began.
But there was no time to admire it.
As payback for his perfectly timed strike being blocked, Lunshin had taken the shock instead, clutching his right arm—the one gripping the spear—with his left.
I threw myself in front of the deputy captain as he lunged at Lunshin and shouted.
"Back off! This wasn't the deal!"
"Eek...!"
It had been the perfect opening.
If our levels were evenly matched, that is.
But the deputy captain's power was definitely a cut above ours.
I'd told Giz to grab him to restrict his space even further, forcing a brutal close-quarters brawl to wear him down without letting him unleash his full strength.
Sure, we'd landed a wound, but it wasn't fatal—and now Lunshin needed a moment to recover—so it was still a failed attack overall.
'No helping it.'
Right now, the deputy captain was like a wounded beast.
Ignoring Giz's massive frame clinging and dragging at him through sheer brute force, he pressed his assault toward Lunshin.
The support cadets, sensing the urgency, were pouring their abilities into the fray, but it wasn't enough.
In the end, I had to handle this.
I charged in from the deputy captain's blind spot, sticking close enough that our breaths mingled.
All I could rely on right now was my defense.
Even that wasn't infinite, so I had to cling and endure for all I was worth.
"Urk...!"
But the skill gap was real.
Even in this 10-on-1 fight, every moment hammered home how outmatched we were.
And yet, the one reason I could hold on was this.
The transplanted horn of the Blue Devil.
'I never planned on using it like this...!'
The horn on my head right now held a potent primordial energy core extracted from an energy vessel.
It was the same type of energy aliens used.
Originally, I'd intended to use it just like the Blue Devil had—firing it off as a projectile.
With attack power stronger than most abilities, it surely would've worked on the deputy captain.
But that was a hasty judgment, thinking of one thing and forgetting the other.
A horn is just a horn.
Meaning, the horn itself only functioned as an "energy accumulation organ"—nothing more.
Even the Blue Devil had used its horn merely as a reservoir for energy; its offensive capabilities came from other body parts or formal abilities.
In short, I had no active means to wield it right now.
Only passive ones.
All I could do was react to external attacks, manifesting an energy barrier over my skin to block impacts.
'How much longer can I last?'
The deputy captain's focus had shifted from Lunshin to me.
Normally, no martial artist could exhibit this level of defense.
If they could, it'd only be thanks to a core weapon.
But if he'd acquired a core weapon, his physical abilities would've skyrocketed too—so my current display was more than enough to confuse him.
"What kind of trick is this?"
I wanted to buy time with words, but he had no intention of listening, his attacks unrelenting.
"I've never heard of an ability like this. It reeks of alien."
He'd already figured it out?
He didn't seem certain, but decades on the battlefield against aliens had honed his instincts to pinpoint the cause.
"Then it'll break if I hit it enough."
"Urk...!"
The deputy captain's movements sped up even further.
His offense grew more aggressive.
The barrier's defenses weren't perfect.
Especially against this kind of physical assault.
The impacts were mitigated, but still seeping through to etch into my bones.
If not for the healing tonic I'd downed beforehand and Lunshin's return after shaking off the shock, I might've already been down, barrier or no.
'Time?'
The fierce exchange had thrown off my sense of time.
It felt like ages since I'd latched onto the deputy captain, but no word yet.
'He's stronger than I thought.'
I'd underestimated the deputy captain's full power.
He wasn't someone our ten could hold for long from the start.
If he'd been at the level I'd anticipated, we'd have been breached long ago.
But because of this unexpected variable, he was the one pushing too hard now.
"I'm holding! We got this!"
Giz's voice rang out.
Blood streaming from his entire body, yet he clung to the deputy captain.
His splattered blood soaked us all, turning everyone into a bloody mess.
"Annoying bastard!"
Even as the deputy captain snarled in frustration, he couldn't shake Giz off—his performance was dazzling.
Wasn't that the true spirit of sacrificing oneself for righteousness?
No matter how well I did, I'd never outshine Giz in contributions.
"It's here!"
Someone shouted then.
Before I could process it, another ally jumped in, taking the deputy captain's attack in my place and getting flung back.
But the new reinforcements weren't just one.
"Leave the rest to us!"
It was one of the three squads handling the instructors.
Even as they said it, they didn't look unscathed.
The difference between instructors and the deputy captain was night and day; even blocking a single blow seemed grueling.
"Fuhuhu..."
But thanks to them, I got a moment to breathe.
"Moving already? Rest up a bit!"
"This isn't my blood. Look after Giz—he's pushing too hard."
"Huh? Oh..."
I brushed off the cadet trying to hold me back and charged the deputy captain again.
It wasn't true that I had zero blood on me, but over half was Giz's splatter.
Giz was at his limit.
In under ten minutes, he'd performed his role admirably against the deputy captain.
"Don't let your guard down till the end!"
I shouted as I met the deputy captain head-on once more.
Even if I hadn't gotten the ability I'd wanted, this wasn't bad.
The energy barrier had proven more efficient than expected.
'Still not perfect, though.'
The stored energy was depleting; the impacts were starting to hit harder.
It'd recharge over time, but right now, no way to fix it.
Still, until it ran out completely, it could hold the deputy captain at bay.
And now I had more friends joining the fray.
"Back off!"
Martial cadets who'd timed their approach perfectly unleashed powerful strikes and all pulled back.
In that opening, the striking ability users—who'd been charging their power for this exact moment—unleashed sequentially at the deputy captain.
'Without an armor suit, even the deputy captain can't tank this level of focused fire for long.'
A martial artist's body, shielded by potent outer energy, resisted abilities fiercely.
But resistance wasn't immunity; the aftereffects still landed.
Even with their honed techniques shaking off as much as possible, the damage was stacking up.
'If we buy time till the other teams join, we win.'
The deputy captain knew it too.
That's why he thrashed even harder.
The number of cadets retiring after failing to block even one hit spiked dramatically.
We tried to contain him; he tried to punch through the martial cadets toward the clustered ability users.
He broke through several times.
Without Giz, we couldn't pin him perfectly.
Still, the ability cadets dodged orderly as trained, using their powers to evade with minimal casualties.
"Heh heh. Well, I'll be. Never thought it'd come to this after just six lessons. I surrender."
Finally, the deputy captain raised both hands in surrender.
Less than ten minutes left in class time.
The three instructors fully subdued, everyone left piled onto the deputy captain.
"...End it like this? No way!"
But the ones rejecting the class's end came from the cadets.
Nearly half the squad, including Giz.
Those with personal grudges from casualties during the lesson.
After getting one-sidedly wrecked session after session, could they just nod and move on because he surrendered?
'No chance.'
They'd want payback.
Some were even showing blatant killing intent.
"Heh heh. So what do you want?"
The deputy captain met all their emotions head-on, unflinching.
Like he didn't care what happened.
I glanced at the instructors.
Their armor suits were all but dismantled, but they were alive with all limbs intact.
Two had woken, staring wide-eyed from their pinned positions.
The instructors' intrigued faces looked just like the deputy captain's, even facing potential death from enraged cadets.
'Well, a master of the lion's fearless heart showing fear? That'd be absurd.'
Deep martial arts training reshapes not just skill, but personality and temperament.
A perfected lion's fearless heart exudes the momentum of a lion, king of beasts.
Even cornered like this, if the cadets charged, he'd fight to the death without hesitation.
And if left as is, that's exactly what would happen.
I stepped forward before emotions boiled over further.
"Stop. We already talked about this, right?"
"...Feels like that's not enough for us, Captain."
All eyes turned to me.
Still calling me captain meant reason was intact.
"I know. That's why we decided to pay it back our way."
"If we stop here..."
"Just ask him. Right, Vice-Captain?"
Some had died; others suffered irrecoverable injuries.
Everyone had been brutally retired multiple times.
But this was class.
Under the name "Live Combat Martial Arts," we knew that.
If it'd been real combat, none of us would've survived this long.
That's why we'd discussed payback another way several times.
"Does class end today?"
"Heh heh. It was set for up to week 12 max."
"What about Class 1? Do passed squads keep going?"
"Yep. Continues till every squad passes. Unless the cadets give up."
Pay back what we suffered.
Passing on the sixth session meant we could win up to six more if played right.
"Man, geniuses progress fast day by day. If the other squads are like this, early termination's likely."
"You're not seriously thinking of ending it early, right?"
"Look at us. Running all classes with four people is harder than fighting aliens."
"So we're scarier than aliens?"
"Didn't think so at first... Now I'm starting to think you might be even scarier."
The deputy captain spoke candidly from the heart.
I turned to the cadets and said,
"Hear that? Not yet."
"Huh? You..."
The cadets' eyes gleamed.
That damn pride.
Their initial "just win once" mindset had shifted to seeing him as worse than an alien.
The deputy captain chuckled and looked at me.
Couldn't you call this reaping what you sowed?