Chapter 99
Chapter 99
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 99
Chapter Title: Skip
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A spectator's box, placed closest to the training grounds.
On the chairs of this box, made for just the two of them, sat the headmasters of each academy.
"It seems it's finally starting."
"Indeed."
Bernice Somerset couldn't hide her anticipation.
Ever since being granted the position of academy headmaster—one of only two in the world—by the emperor, she had constantly been thinking.
That her academy might finally shed its perennial second-place status and take the top spot.
She was gripped by a sense of inferiority, but it wasn't as if she hadn't made any effort. In fact, she could proudly say she worked as hard as her inferiority complex drove her.
But she could never catch up. This was partly due to the difference between the students, but the gap in skill between the headmasters was also significant.
The students worked hard, but it was no use. Because of the perceived difference between first and second place, talented students always headed to Jeomineol Academy first.
Every year, whenever she lost in the exhibition matches—held with the intention of fostering improvement and taking a break—Bernice's mood would sour.
But then.
'Finally, an opportunity has arrived...'
By some coincidence, a major incident involving the appearance of demons had occurred at Jeomineol Academy right before the exhibition matches.
Not just one, but a total of three such rumors this year alone. It felt as if the world was on her side.
Thanks to this, despite the human disaster named Lucia Merigold being firmly established at the academy, rumors were now spreading that the academy wasn't safe.
Seizing the opportunity, she had visited Jeomineol Academy under the formal pretext of the exhibition matches to assess the damage.
What she saw upon arriving at Jeomineol Academy were students who had suffered considerable harm.
Even in the brief time it took to walk to the headmaster's office, it was rare to see an uninjured student. She used the word "rare" because she couldn't see every student, but in reality, she believed there were none.
Furthermore, even the professors who were supposed to protect the students were not unscathed.
But her biggest shock came right after she entered the headmaster's office.
Lucia seemed to be trying to hide it, but she could still tell. Even Lucia herself had been injured.
What on earth had happened? She was curious, but she tucked that curiosity away in a corner of her mind.
Thinking this was her chance, she brought up the exhibition matches, and as expected, Lucia refused the offer.
So, to ensure the matches would happen, she used subtle provocations and threw out all sorts of conditions the other side would find agreeable.
Someone might ask Bernice if her methods weren't too dirty.
But she didn't care.
Isn't there a saying that opportunity comes to those who are prepared?
The one who seizes that opportunity is the one who can be called successful.
And so, having seized her chance, she had gotten Lucia's agreement, leading to the present moment.
In the training grounds, the announcer declared the start of the exhibition matches and explained the rules.
Afterward, a black-haired man walked onto the training grounds as his name was called.
'Luke... was it?'
The man she first saw in the meeting room was not one of the Jeomineol Academy professors she knew.
Lucia had told her he was a temporary professor, and despite being late, he had acted brazenly, as if he'd done nothing wrong.
How could someone with the title of professor, even a temporary one, behave so crudely?
He had even touched a nerve.
What kind of professor would openly call a headmaster a wimp or a brat?
Exhibition matches or not, it wouldn't have been surprising if a fight had broken out right then and there. But since she would be the one to lose out if the matches didn't happen, she somehow endured it.
Luke's opponent was Professor Wieber. While not as young as Luke, he was skilled enough to have earned the title of professor at a fairly young age.
For these matches, the order she had chosen for Zwey Academy's participants was based on strength. Deciding which competitor to send out first was also a strategy.
She chose the method of sending out the weaker professors first and saving the strongest for last.
Still, she predicted Wieber's victory. Lucia had called Luke their ace, but he was just too young.
They must have been short on professors to send, so they put him in to fill a spot and called him an ace to cover it up.
That's how she had interpreted it—a psychological check.
However, what unfolded next far, far surpassed her expectations.
A body impervious to magic, and the raw strength to bring an opponent to their knees in a single blow.
It wasn't a bluff at all.
So far, he hadn't shown any magic besides storage magic. Come to think of it, she hadn't felt any mana from him since their first meeting, so she had assumed he couldn't use magic, but that wasn't it either.
She briefly suspected he might be hiding it so well that she couldn't detect it, but she immediately dismissed the thought. While she might be weaker than Lucia, she was still on par with a high-ranking A-class adventurer.
If he could deceive her, he'd have to be someone close to S-class, and that didn't seem right.
Then how on earth did he possess such monstrous strength at that age? It was enough to make her suspect black magic.
But...
"What kind of bizarre fighting style is that?!"
Hitting someone with a wooden club, suddenly attaching caltrops to his own body and setting them on fire, then hugging his opponent with them.
It was impossible to see this as a match of martial prowess.
"Huhu, that's just his unique style. Surely, Headmaster Bernice, you don't pursue beauty in combat, do you?"
Lucia sneered openly.
As she said, beauty was unnecessary in the act of combat. There was nothing more shameful than dying in a real battle while pursuing elegance.
What mattered in battle was victory. As long as you won, it didn't matter what despicable or dirty methods you used.
Still, unable to just watch Wieber crying out in agony, she had no choice but to raise the white flag first.
"S-Stop! Our side is now incapacitated!"
"Oh my, he doesn't look incapacitated to me."
What? His hair is completely burned off, and his entire body has third-degree burns, turning him into a mummy. How can she look at that and say he's not incapacitated?
In that moment, Bernice realized her mistake.
She had accepted these rules anticipating the opposite situation, but now she saw that she was the one who had fallen into a trap.
There were about 25 minutes left.
Lucia seemed to have no intention of declaring him incapacitated for the remaining time.
***
Thirty minutes after the match began, the professor was carried out of the training grounds on a stretcher.
The rule was that a loss required an incapacitation judgment from both headmasters, but for thirty minutes, all that was heard were the shrieks of the female students, not the announcer's verdict.
As expected, Lucia, who had come with a score to settle, had gritted her teeth and refused to declare incapacitation until the very end.
The professor currently being carried out on a stretcher looked like dried beef jerky.
He must have been hugged too tightly, as his arms were bent into the shape of inequality signs, and his entire body was burned like a mummy.
His once brilliantly shining hair was gone, leaving him looking something like a bald man.
But hey, they said the training grounds had devices and there'd be no responsibility, so I did whatever I wanted.
"He should have learned his lesson by now."
I doubt we'll meet again, but if we do, I hope that punk I saw earlier has been rehabilitated enough to give a passing professor a 90-degree bow. He could use some character education.
The professor who had just been on the stretcher returned to his original state as soon as he was outside the training grounds.
Though he was still unconscious.
Seeing that makes you mistakenly think you'd be safe inside the training grounds even if demons or demonic humans invaded.
When in reality, they could just destroy the training grounds.
Anyway, the announcer, who had been dazed until a moment ago, declared my victory.
"The winner of the first round is Luke!"
-Booo!!
-What kind of match is this?!
-Apologize to our professor!!
Jeers rained down.
These were the same bastards who would have cheered if their professor had won. The moment I won, they started booing as if on cue. It pissed me off, so I took a cannonball out of my inventory and tossed it at them.
It got quiet in an instant.
This was like a shot-putter throwing the shot into the stands, but hadn't Lucia said it?
Whatever happens during the exhibition matches, no one will be held responsible after they're over.
This didn't just apply to things that happened inside the training grounds.
It covered everything in the location where the exhibition matches were taking place.
To put it bluntly, even if someone had died from the cannonball I just threw, I wouldn't be held responsible.
It sounds like a play on words, but it's a fact you can't argue with.
The announcer then called the next competitor, and this time, a muscle-bound, gym-rat-style male professor came up.
"Now for the second round! The time limit is also 30 minutes! Let the match begin!"
The next match started immediately, without a break. That's how these kinds of team battles usually go.
But this professor from the other side, who looked like a gym rat, also seemed to be the talkative type.
"Haha! You'll be in for a big surprise if you think I'm the same as Wieber! The professor you just defeated was the weakest among us!"
What is this? I feel like I'm watching Team Rocket.
Did this professor's brain turn to muscle too?
I never thought I'd meet someone who actually says lines like that. This other world really is something else.
But now, I'm just tired of it all.
The musclehead was about to do something, so I stopped him.
"Stop!"
"......?"
The musclehead looked at me as if to ask what was wrong.
"Well, there are still three more of you left. It's a pain to watch every technique and deal with all this."
I mean, honestly. The first guy was interesting because he shot a railgun, but what kind of amazing thing could this guy, who looks like his brain is also made of muscle, possibly do?
In a word, I'm skipping it.
From now on, I'm not going to bother watching any techniques. I'll just crush them and be done with it.
It's a waste of time.
I quickly moved right in front of the professor and gifted the musclehead's face with my fist.
"Kuh...!"
"Oh... you took that?"
I'd planned to knock him out in one hit, but I guess he's tougher than the other professors, because he managed to withstand it.
"Your punches are sharper than they look!"
With that, he happily threw a punch at my face with a rock gauntlet.
"Stand power, activate!"
"......!"
I summoned my shadow to block it.
The musclehead's punch was blocked by the shadow's hand. Seeing the shadow, which looked something like black magic, the musclehead's expression showed he was quite flustered.
"Hehehe... where are you looking? That's my shadow."
Normally, if I used 'Real Man', I wouldn't need to block like this, but doing so would defeat the purpose of the exhibition match. Plus, Lucia told me not to use it because it looks too much like real black magic, so I decided against it.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
"Excuse me, but for the sake of recreating the original, may I suck a little?"
"What...?"
I took a straw out of my inventory.
The straw I took out wasn't an ordinary plastic one like you'd see in my past life, but more like an enlarged version of a steel hypodermic needle.
"Time to eat~"