Take Off Your Glasses
"Ugh..."
The graduate student crumpled to the floor, clutching his abdomen with both hands.
"Rage!"
The other graduate students nearby began gathering around him in concern.
Since mages rarely took physical damage, he was a mess—tears and snot streaming down his face as he writhed in agony. I felt like the bully in a school violence incident.
"Are you all right?"
I approached cautiously and asked, but... he clearly wasn't.
Only after one of his colleagues cast a recovery spell did he finally manage to speak.
"You... you bastard..."
Rage glared at me like I had murdered his parents.
"...Didn't you tell me to hit you?"
You told me to hit you.
Now that I thought about it, this was a little unfair. If he'd said to go easy, I would have. But he ordered the hit and then got mad at me for it. The perfect example of the guy who farts getting angry first.
"How can you even say that...!"
"Did I say anything wrong?"
At this point, I decided to be completely shameless.
"Ugh....."
Rage clutched the back of his neck, unable to find a comeback.
"If there's nothing else, I'll return to my seat."
I went back to where I'd been standing. Beside me, Isabel was desperately trying to hold in her laughter, her shoulders shaking.
"Pfft... pffft... You're the best... seriously... pffft..."
"Everyone's staring. Stop laughing."
"They're all staring at you... heup..."
Rage tried to resume the lecture as if nothing had happened. But once an atmosphere shatters, it's impossible to put back together. As the class dragged on, the distraction only grew worse.
Teaching magic to the knight department in the first place...
It might have seemed fascinating at the beginning because they had little exposure to it, but the novelty inevitably wore off. In the end, the broken mood never recovered, and the class fizzled out in a haze of awkwardness.
"All right. That concludes the theory lesson and magic observation. Everyone, please give a round of applause for our friends from the magic department who handled today's class!"
Clap, clap, clap.
"Those who wish to spar, raise your hands. I plan to give everyone at least one chance to fight a mage before the ranking matches begin, so don't hesitate."
Hands went up one by one. Meanwhile, I noticed Rage—the same graduate student whose stomach I'd punched—whispering something to the professor.
"...Hm? Let's ask Logue first. Logue!"
The bald professor called my name.
"Rage here says he'd like to spar with you. Any interest in accepting? No pressure, of course."
Rage was staring at me with icy eyes, the grudge still very much alive.
Hmm...
There wasn't really any reason to accept.
"Is there a reason I should?"
I was about to refuse out of sheer annoyance when Rage made an offer that caught my attention.
"If you defeat me in the spar, I'll give you this."
Huh? That thing?
What Rage showed me was a bracelet. It gave off a subtle silver glow, adorned with delicate carvings. At its center was a small crescent moon, encircled by tiny crystals that seemed to contain captured starlight.
Why does a graduate student like Rage have that...?
It was the item known as Lunaris's Grace. It occasionally appeared at auction in the black market we had raided to obtain Maria's Holy Relic. Its spawn timing was locked to after the second year, making it troublesome to acquire, and its effect was somewhat situational, so almost no one used it.
Still, it'd be useful to have.
The function of Lunaris's Grace was straightforward.
─Under moonlight, the wearer's strength, agility, and mana increased by twenty percent. A simple, intuitive effect.
The moonlight restriction was annoying, but at this stage, it was undeniably a good item.
"...Spar. I accept."
"Oh? All right then. Rage! Don't be too rough on him!"
The bald professor clearly believed Rage would win without question. Calling him "professor" was too much effort, so I decided to just call him Baldy from now on.
Baldy saw me as a failing student whose grades were on the edge and attendance barely passing. That was why he was telling Rage to hold back.
Trait: Mana Affinity (Rank: B)
Slightly increases the owner's mana affinity. Also slightly reduces the amount of mana consumed when casting spells.
His mana was certainly high, but it looked shabby next to that insane mage from Class A. Still, the stats were respectable. Aside from Linne in Class B—who gathered all the talented students—there probably wasn't anyone who could surpass those mana numbers.
It's just that Linne and Aria are ridiculously overpowered to begin with...
Anyway, my chances of winning were more than enough.
"Here, take the bracelet for now."
Thud.
Baldy tossed each of us a bracelet.
They were protective devices. If either of us suffered an injury beyond a certain threshold, the magic would activate automatically.
After we put them on, we faced each other in the center of the outdoor training ground.
"Your name was Logue, right? Please take care of me."
"...Likewise."
Despite his polite tone, Rage's eyes burned with murderous intent. He clearly planned to beat me into a pulp.
"Ready? When I give the signal, we begin immediately."
The starting signal rang out.
.
.
.
In a one-on-one fight between a mage and a warrior, the outcome usually depended on how much preparation the mage had. But generally, the warrior held the advantage. Unless the mage specialized in anti-personnel combat, they weren't used to one-on-one situations. A warrior could unleash their entire arsenal more easily.
Rage should have known that...
Did he underestimate me that badly?
The moment the signal sounded, a translucent barrier formed around Rage. It looked far sturdier than the one I'd broken earlier. He must have poured a lot of mana into it.
He then used teleportation to quickly widen the distance.
I tried to interrupt him before he could cast, but he had already finished the chant and preparation. I missed by a hair's breadth.
He was fully prepared to fight from the start, huh?
"[Fireball]"
A massive flaming orb shot toward me from the magic circle that formed at Rage's fingertips, tearing through the air.
The fireball hurtled forward, heating the surrounding air until it scorched.
"This is how mages fight!"
Rage shouted while annoyingly pushing his glasses up. The urge to lock those glasses with a padlock was rising fast.
It seemed he planned to toy with me from a distance the entire time.
Boom!
I raised my shield to block, but the heat still got through. My skin stung from the intense temperature.
The air had grown so hot it was hard to breathe, and irritation flared up inside me.
Rage continued bombarding me with spells from afar.
"Hahahahaha!"
His laughter rang out, already convinced of his victory.
The distance between us was roughly fifty meters.
I took a deep breath and stared straight at him.
Then I kicked off the ground and charged toward Rage.
"Haha! You're coming this way?! You'll be roasted before you get here! [Fire Tornado]!"
Rage shouted a technique name straight out of an old soccer manga. A small flame ignited at his fingertips, then rapidly swelled into an uncontrollable blaze that formed a swirling vortex of fire hurtling toward me.
But I endured it.
My stamina stat, which exceeded ninety, didn't just boost defense—it also raised my magic resistance significantly.
"What?!"
Fuck, that hurts like hell...
Even after reinforcing my body with mana, my skin was covered in soot. Every nerve screamed from the burns.
...Honestly, the pain was so bad I nearly cried, but I clenched my teeth and held it in.
When I finally broke through the suffocating whirlwind of flames, I saw Rage's face twisted in shock.
The distance between us had shrunk dramatically.
"H-how about this?! [Fire Wall]!"
Rage slammed his hand on the ground, and a massive wall of fire erupted, blocking my view of him.
...This should be enough.
If I came out completely unscathed after taking those spells, people would get suspicious. I needed to look somewhat damaged.
So I immediately activated Invincibility.
Invincibility
Grants absolute invulnerability for exactly 3 minutes. 24-hour cooldown.
I charged straight through the raging wall of flames. Rage's face filled with shock as I reached him.
...And then a faint, bitter smile.
Even so, as a fairly skilled mage, he had already begun chanting in preparation for this exact moment.
"[Fire Explosion]!!!!"
He thrust his hand toward me and drew a massive magic circle.
The brilliant array spun rapidly from his fingertips. A faint spark at its center grew larger and larger until it became a colossal inferno that swallowed me whole—
"H-how is this possible...!"
—yet I stood there completely unharmed, as solid as a mountain.
"Now it's my turn."
