Chapter 20
Ssshwiii-!
The sound of air being viciously torn apart.
A dozen or so arrows are rushing straight at me.
Blazing flames, with the air rippling and breaking apart around them.
That fire demon rampages as though it might devour me at any moment.
“Get away from me···!”
The girl glares at me as though she wants to kill me.
Regardless, I press the watch's button once more.
Click-.
My vision dulls, and the flow of everything in the world is delayed.
A colorful blade thrusts out through the gap.
The next moment.
“Hmm.”
Boom, ba-boom-!
The arrows that missed explode behind me.
A wave of heat rushes over me.
Even as the heat washes over me, my gaze doesn't waver.
All I do is move forward one step, then another.
My stride is neither hurried nor sluggish, but leisurely.
“I believe I told you, didn't I? It's pointless.”
I provoke her mildly.
I am saying that even her continued attacks have become nothing more than a nuisance.
Perhaps she is being swept along by my response.
Sharien's tempo is growing increasingly disordered.
As her breathing grows labored, the girl bites down on her lips.
“Shut up··· I told you to shut up!”
“Oh dear.”
Fwish-.
I parry the attack that comes flying in by surprise.
Its trajectory similarly changes, and the arrow plunges into the empty ground.
I lazily swish the balloon sword.
“You missed again.”
“How dare you, you Class E trash···!”
“I'm getting bored of this pattern. Is there anything else you can say?”
“I don't know what trick you're using, but I'll make you regret it!”
“I've heard that line already, too. Exactly eleven minutes and twenty-four seconds ago.”
“You···!”
She is different from before.
Her characteristically beautiful, deceptive smile is gone.
In its place, all that remains is a furrowed brow.
Click-.
Thick beads of sweat run down her snow-white cheeks.
Perhaps her stamina is running dry, because her movements are no longer quick and crisp.
‘Well··· she has been running wild like that.’
Since my first parry,
Sharien has unleashed a furious barrage.
Like someone denying reality, insisting that this can't be happening.
‘Come to think of it, that makes sense.’
Magic she has honed all her life.
Imagine thinking that the field to which she devoted her life was defeated by nothing more than a balloon sword.
Ridiculous.
Overwhelmed by that absurdity, she is suffering an even more ridiculous defeat.
-Are you starting to get worried? About what kind of humiliation you're going to suffer.
-Would you like to forfeit? If you crawl on all fours in front of the entire student body, I might let you off.
And that, too, at the hands of the very opponent she had looked down on until moments ago.
Few people could remain unshaken in a situation like this.
Especially when the opponent is a child.
Click-.
A time when she has yet to finish maturing mentally.
To slowly gnaw at her pride could be called an excellent strategy.
“Haa, haa···.”
“You seem to be breathing rather heavily.”
“Urgh, shut up···! I still have plenty of room to spare!”
The duel began.
Ten minutes have passed since then.
The flow is one-sided.
Click-.
The girl attacks, and I parry every single one.
If anyone is pressing the duel, it is clearly Sharien.
After all, I do nothing but repeat my defenses and launch no attacks whatsoever.
“Well.”
But.
“However many more times you repeat it, I believe the result will be the same.”
The momentum has already shifted to my side.
Pressing an opponent and taking control are two entirely different things.
Click-.
I reset the watch and knock away the attack she fires again.
The combination of the bug and parrying makes the arrows miss one after another.
The balloon sword hasn't received so much as a scratch.
‘We have good compatibility.’
I think as I dust off my hand.
Parrying is a technique that demands intense concentration.
Moreover, it can only be applied to one attack at a time.
It is especially difficult to use against projectiles.
‘Though I'm getting the maximum efficiency out of it with the watch bug···.’
Even so, I can't help but be somewhat disadvantaged in a battle that overwhelms me with sheer numbers.
In Sharien's case, parrying is easy because she takes care with every single attack.
Click-.
If she hadn't been wielding a bow,
If she had overwhelmed me with numbers rather than quality,
If she had deployed her magic like an ordinary fire mage···.
‘I would have lost. There are limits to defending with parrying.’
A technique honed to the extreme.
That was what had instead become a shackle around Sharien's ankle.
Click-.
“You really are good at bouncing them around!”
“Hehe, thank you.”
“You really are like a flying insect! If I just hit you once··· just once, you'd go down right there!”
“Why don't you try hitting me?”
“Urgh, iiiiik···!”
Fwish! Kwoooong-!
We continue our exchange, each attack chasing the other's tail.
As the trajectories above the arena grow more dazzling, the audience's murmurs reach my ears.
-What's going on? A mere top student of Class E is holding his own against Lady Sharien···?
-He's not merely holding his own, is he? It looks like he's completely overwhelming her.
-That thing in his hand··· Is it a balloon? He deflected magic with that?
-Fuck, I've never seen anything like that in my life.
Faint snippets of conversation.
Sharien's complexion worsens another shade.
Desperate breaths escape between her exhausted lips, impossible to swallow back.
“Guh···!”
The gazes around her begin to converge.
The increased focus bearing down on her tightens Sharien's labored breathing even further.
-Can't she pop a mere balloon? Wasn't she supposed to be a fairly high-level fire mage?
-Even if her opponent is unusual, is it really necessary to struggle this much? What a disappointment···.
-She normally went around acting so high and mighty, didn't she?
-The top student of Class C can't even beat one top student of Class E?
-More importantly, that guy from Class E is pretty good, isn't he? His name was Victor, right?
Voices erupt here and there.
Questions, disappointment, ridicule, admiration.
Emotion soon becomes pressure weighing down on the examination site.
Sharien is, unsurprisingly, the one feeling that pressure.
-Surely··· she's not going to lose like this, is she?
-No way. Even so, she's the top student of Class C, isn't she?
-Judging by the way things look, they do seem fairly evenly matched···.
-Then she ought to drop out. How can she keep attending the academy after such humiliation?
With each comment, the girl's steps grow more hurried.
The arrows' trajectories waver, and mana flies erratically.
“You seem to be getting more and more desperate.”
“Haa, haa··· Shut up!”
“Indeed. It must be humiliating to struggle against a mere top student of Class E.”
“Shut up! You're the one who keeps doing nothing but dodge!”
Her sky-high pride.
Words and circumstances that strike at the very foundation of the girl herself.
‘It should be about time.’
She is at her limit.
Sharien's stamina must have been exhausted long ago.
Even so, she has stubbornly kept drawing her bowstring.
But even that is now reaching its end.
The girl prepares her final attack.
Fwoosh-!
The air grows hot in an instant.
The hellfire caught on the string is ferocious, staining even the scene red.
She must have scraped together every last bit of strength, because it is vastly stronger than her earlier attacks.
Sharien declares with a shrill cry.
“I'll finish this! I'll show a lowlife like you··· the difference in our standing···!”
Compressed by extreme heat, the arrow is black unlike the earlier ones.
She has layered several flames together and focused them in a single direction.
Sharien's fingers release the taut bowstring.
-Sharien-Style Secret Flame Art-
‘Hellfire’
Then, a vicious storm is fired.
It charges forward with a shimmering heat haze trailing behind it.
A strike powerful enough to astonish even the spectators.
Kwoooaaaaang-!
‘But.’
Its trajectory is obvious.
A mind thrown into disarray awakens instinct, and instinct soon produces straightforward actions.
And I have been predicting the reaction that would come reflexively from the start.
In short,
‘It means it's easy to dodge.’
Click-.
The scene slows as always.
I slip past it by a hair and parry the arrow as it approaches.
Fwish-.
“······!”
Kwoooong-!
An explosive report that leaves my ears ringing.
I don't stop, instead burrowing toward my opponent's exposed opening.
Sharien has just made a major misstep.
“Eek···!?”
I quickly close the distance.
A look of panic.
The girl corrects her disordered stance and draws the bowstring once more.
However, hastily cobbled-together magic inevitably has a crude weave.
The flames still blaze, but their power is comparatively weaker.
‘I'll break through.’
Click-.
Click-.
Click-.
I press the watch again and again, swinging the balloon sword with keen precision.
The feeble flames die out without even managing to graze me.
By then, the gap has narrowed to a single step.
“Got you.”
I whisper quietly.
I immediately raise my foot and shove it hard into the girl's abdomen.
Since I have no strength to speak of, I have to put my weight behind it.
A delayed impact rings throughout the training ground.
Wham-!
“Guh···!”
The girl expels a breath and is sent flying.
Perhaps because she is exhausted.
The damage dealt seems greater than the kick's actual power.
Sharien remains suspended in midair for several seconds before falling.
Flop-.
A body sprawls haphazardly.
The girl cannot stand up again.
She merely gasps for breath.
“Haa, haa···.”
“Oh dear.”
I look down at the girl while standing perfectly straight.
I still don't have so much as a scratch.
Swish-.
I grip the colorful sword once more.
Then I point it at the incapacitated redhead.
The bouncy balloon's surface comes to rest against her snow-white neck.
“That's the end, isn't it?”
I toss out the declaration with a sly grin.
No one has anything to object.
《······Examination over. The winner is Victor.》
And so, the duel ends.
At the same time, a familiar mechanical chime rings out.
Ding-!
[Condition fulfilled! You have acquired a new title!]
[One hidden function in the Status Window has been unlocked!]
[Reward]
-Acquired title ‘The Collector of Misconceptions’
-Unlocked Status Window function ‘Misconception Collector’
A blue window floats up before my eyes.