amaotonovel Chapter 174 : Chapter 174
Chapter 174 : Chapter 174
174
The special class filled up with fourteen members.
Among the students, naturally, the ones I had been teaching for the longest — Pan, Bridget, Eleveth, and Freizia — joined.
Adding Ailen, the transfer student and magic swordsman who had come over from the Empire, made five.
For instructors and teaching assistants, Sordian, Freutche, Jacy, and Shasha had decided to join.
Among the other teachers, there were some who had awakened Aura, but few who could actually wield it properly.
From external personnel, four joined: Rozalin, Hati, the Spear God, and Kantaros.
Rozalin and Hati were absolute musts, and it seemed appropriate to teach the Spear God as well for the sake of our relationship with the Goldline Merchant Guild.
Among the auditors, only Kantaros joined, and in truth he was the weakest of the entire roster.
But Kantaros was a wandering knight roaming the world, one who wished to spend the rest of his life at Akarind Academy.
Educating people like him would become a major asset for Akarind Academy.
He could later become an instructor, or persuade other honored guests to come.
And lastly, there was Bonnie.
Fourteen in total.
Among them, more than half were individuals with personalities strong enough to qualify as character deviants.
So much so that —
"Well, now that we have all gathered, shall we settle the pecking order first?"
This sort of thing came up.
The Spear God cackled as he lifted his spear.
"They say we will be learning advanced swordsmanship. Should we not verify whether they are qualified to learn it?"
"Why do you, old man, have to stick your nose in? Huh?"
"This is a special class, is it not? Those who are not special should be weeded out. This is a rare occasion where I have condescended to seek tutelage in my old age — I have no intention of dining at the same table as those who are not on my level."
"This old man who probably cannot even chew meat properly with his dentures is talking about dining at the same table."
The Spear God set it off, Rozalin played along, Hati entered the fray, and Pan jumped in excitedly.
Pan was it.
"Hraah!"
The Spear God's spear spun in a full rotation, and those with insufficient skill were weeded out first.
Ailen, without even grasping what was happening, blinked her eyes and collapsed onto her back.
Last place was confirmed.
Shasha and Jacy barely managed to block the Spear God's spear, only to fall to the subsequent combination strikes from Rozalin and Hati.
"Were we not on the same side?"
"In a pecking order fight, there are no allies!"
The teaching assistants — confirmed below the students in this class's hierarchy.
Kantaros held his ground admirably despite his lacking skill.
He raised his shield and angled his body as much as possible, blocking the Spear God's attacks three times.
Age was not something to be underestimated after all.
"Opening!"
Then he fell to a surprise attack from Bridget and Eleveth.
"You brats!"
Indeed, age was not something to be underestimated.
"I-I surrender!"
Freizia had scraped by, trailing behind Bridget and Eleveth.
But among those remaining, she was the weakest.
Freizia meekly raised both hands and flattened herself against the ground.
"Mwahahaha! Come at me!"
Sordian and Freutche squared off against the students as if determined not to be taken down easily.
And the one who brought them down was Bonnie.
"Huh?!"
Bonnie charged at Freutche without hesitation.
Seeing this, Freutche flexed his muscles and laughed uproariously.
"A head-on contest? I accept!"
A fist flew forward at the speed generated by Freutche's overwhelming musculature.
Bonnie easily dodged the punch with a slight tilt of his head and snatched his wrist.
"Huh?"
Then he immediately hurled Freutche toward the Spear God.
It was the essence of "pitting one barbarian against another."
"UWAAAH?!"
Seeing this, Sordian immediately drew his sword.
His judgment was that Bonnie was a skilled opponent.
Sordian's sword lunged toward Bonnie at high speed.
So committed was he that the blade was wreathed in Aura.
But Bonnie deflected even that with a light kick, striking Sordian's wrist to knock the weapon away.
It was an advanced kicking technique that used the angle of the knee's rotation to bypass the blade itself and strike only the wrist.
"Gah?!"
The instant Sordian flinched at the pain, Bonnie closed the distance in a heartbeat, wrapped his arms around Sordian's waist, and rolled him straight off his feet.
Right where Hati happened to be.
"Whoa?!"
"Another last-placer rolling in!"
Hati kicked Sordian away in a single motion.
Seven remained now.
Pan, Hati, Rozalin, Bridget, Eleveth, the Spear God, and Bonnie.
The existing members of Akarind Academy took their stances and exchanged looks with their eyes, deciding who to attack first.
The Spear God was focused on maintaining his space by continuously swinging his spear.
That difference determined the course Bonnie would take.
"You come to me? How impudent!"
Reacting to the fighting spirit, Bonnie sprinted toward the Spear God with his body lowered almost to the ground.
The Spear God's spear immediately traced a bizarre, convoluted trajectory, crashing down from the sky toward the ground.
CRASH!
But Bonnie had already launched himself into the air and was running up the shaft of the spear toward the Spear God.
"You dare use my spear as footing!"
The Spear God raged and whipped the spear shaft.
Even atop a spear shaft rippling like a wave, the Spear God ran without losing his balance.
Judging that this was hopeless, the Spear God let go of the spear shaft entirely and balled both fists.
The Spear God's punches flew toward Bonnie tracing trajectories just as bizarre as his spear techniques.
Bonnie extended his palm to block the Spear God's attack.
CRACK!
It was a sound hard to believe came from a palm meeting a fist.
It was more like —
The sound of a fist slamming down onto a massive boulder.
"Ah, damn it, this one has solid bones."
Dragon-Fang Soldiers were, from the outset, entities forged from dragon bone.
However human they appeared, every component of their being was dragon bone.
Perhaps it was because he had punched, bare-handed, not just any object but dragon bone — said to be the hardest substance in the world.
The Spear God's fist visibly swelled and turned bright red.
But the problem was not merely his hand.
CRACK!
Bonnie's foot kicked the Spear God squarely in the jaw.
In the final instant, the Spear God raised his arm to block it, but he had clearly lost all combat capability.
With that, the Spear God — 7th place confirmed.
"I am 7th?! 7th?! This is void! This is — huh?! This is rigged! It is clear those scheming brats conspired with that bone-bag!"
If Bonnie had kicked his jaw a little harder, his jaw would have been dislocated and he would not be able to spout such nonsense.
Regrettably, that would have to wait for another opportunity.
And the ones who remained were Bridget, Eleveth, Hati, Rozalin, and Pan.
"......!"
Already close-knit to begin with, they seemed to have reached an agreement through a brief exchange of glances alone.
For now, they would deal with Bonnie.
In an instant they surrounded him from every direction and lunged at Bonnie all at once.
Up, down, left, right, above, below.
Attacks from every direction came cloaked in Aura.
"Die!"
Rozalin looked ready to shatter the Dragon-Fang Soldier for real.
At that moment, the mana in the surrounding area vibrated violently.
——!
It was a mana movement so intense it was hard to believe it came from a single person.
The mana of the entire space surged, converging on one central figure.
Bonnie.
VWUUNG!
In that instant, a deep crimson Aura manifested across Bonnie's entire body.
'I see. Because his entire body is a dragon's tooth — essentially a weapon — he can coat his whole body in Aura.'
It was a shocking and unprecedented sight.
Bonnie, clad in Aura, used his entire body to deflect the attacks and took down each assailant in a single strike.
He still had some sense of restraint — even as he struck those who had tried to kill him, at the final moment he withdrew his Aura.
Thanks to that, no one died, and no one was injured.
But everyone must have realized.
If Bonnie had not withdrawn his Aura at the end, every one of them would have died.
"Incredible."
I could not help but admire it.
This was beyond a question of keeping up with the lessons.
Rather, there was a great deal we ought to learn from all of those movements.
I stood still and replayed the movements of Bonnie's arms and legs in my mind.
'He is not human, yet his combat lines are human.'
Flexibility and muscular strength.
They were movements that utilized both to their absolute limits.
What especially caught my eye was his method of using his feet.
In existing swordsmanship, the feet and legs served as a support structure for exerting stable force.
They were a means of moving gracefully so that one's footwork did not become tangled while swinging a sword as large as one's own body, and a measure against being isolated among enemies.
What added a degree of conscious intent on top of that was footwork.
'The steps themselves carry Sword Intent.'
Each step holds meaning and constructs the battlefield.
A stance for walking a little faster.
A position for channeling mana a little more freely.
And a support structure for freely shifting one's center of gravity.
'But Bonnie actively used kicking techniques in his fighting.'
Legs were fundamentally longer than arms.
And by utilizing the elasticity of the pelvis and the entire waist, they carried more power than hands.
What if one incorporated that into swordsmanship......?
Move the foot as though thrusting a sword, and use the Aura cloaking the entire body to fill the gaps created while swinging the sword?
"Ah......"
Just imagining it a few times left my head in a whirl.
Perhaps because it was a movement I had never considered before, new images kept coming to me one after another.
I felt such chagrin that I had never thought of this.
"This is insane."
It seemed I was not the only one experiencing this kind of shock — everyone else appeared to be going through something similar.
Pan, whose eyes were as sharp as mine, seemed to be replaying the fight from the ground as he gasped for breath, and Rozalin and Hati had their lips tightly pressed together, apparently lost in thought.
Even the Spear God seemed to have grasped something — he smacked his lips and sank into contemplation.
"Teacher."
A voice calling me pulled me out of my thoughts.
A low, gravelly voice that sounded like something scraping against the throat.
It was Bonnie's voice.
"You could speak, too?"
"One remains."
......?
One? Surely not — me?
I looked around just in case.
There was no one else.
Only me.
"Come at me."
Fighting spirit welled up from Bonnie's body.
Despite having fought everyone present, he showed no signs of fatigue whatsoever.
Aura rose once again from his body, flickering like flames.
"Ha, haha."
He had probably given me this preparation time because I had not drawn my weapon.
A pupil challenging his master.
Ordinarily one might feel some offense, but for some reason —
My heart raced a little.
'He is one of the strongest opponents I have encountered so far.'
The only one comparable was perhaps the Wolf King?
If so, fighting Bonnie would let me properly gauge my own skill level.
I slowly drew my sword.
"Oh, the Holy Sword!"
Rozalin made a fuss beside me.
Glancing over, I saw the fallen students had gathered in small groups and settled in to watch, as though this were a spectacle.
I took my stance.
'No.'
Perhaps it was because I had just witnessed Bonnie's movements.
A stance that would have felt comfortable mere hours ago now felt somehow wrong.
I shifted my feet a little.
Changed my arms too, and adjusted the angle of my wrists.
Altered the trajectory of my sword swing as well.
'Good.'
Cut.
With a sharp sound, Bonnie flung his body to the side.
Almost simultaneously, sword aura split the earth.
An enormous fighting spirit exploded, and for an instant, my entire field of vision was dyed red — just like when I had faced the General.
The trajectories of Bonnie's attacks had filled my sight.
'Not dodging.'
I cut through every one of those trajectories, one by one.
Starting with the thickest, most dangerous-looking trajectory, I erased even the feints at the farthest edge with two or three sword strokes.
Into that empty space, Bonnie leaped in.
'It has been adjusted.'
These were not the combat lines I had seen moments ago.
The moment he saw his lines being erased, he had instantly generated new ones.
'His stance is different.'
The martial art that had seemed so impressive was not just one style.
He tightened his arms and shoulders, sharpened his upper body, and came at me like a launched projectile.
In that instant, a single point shot forward as if to pierce me.
A fist.
"Huup!"
I hurriedly raised the Holy Sword to counter his fist.
With a clang, the Holy Sword was thrown back.
The impact was tremendous for having merely struck a fist.
And then the second strike...... the second strike...... huh?
Hissssss.
Bonnie, having collided with the Holy Sword, was melting down onto the floor.
Oh, right — he was a Dragon-Fang Soldier summoned by a necromancer.
He...... broke?
I gathered up Bonnie's clothes and bone fragments and went back to Berlith.
I got scolded by Berlith.
Today's lesson.
Do not use the Holy Sword against Bonnie.