The academy stadium was filled with students, today was a holiday and the second, third, and fourth-year students had also come to watch the practice session.
At this point, I don’t if calling it a practice session would be right because it was almost like a tournament, with the only difference being that it was not. The academy has probably set it like this to make create a sort of entertainment activity for the senior students.
There are several reasons I think of for doing this, first was that the senior students didn’t really get time to sit back and relax since their courses were a lot more than ours so maybe the academy wanted to give them a break or something.
And the other one is from a business point of view, this training session was a good way to collect extra money from the pockets of the students. Except for the first-year students who were taking part in the session, the senior students had to pay the fee to come and play the spectator.
To me it felt like both the reasons were contradicting each other but let’s not worry about that, it’s not my problem, after all.
Right now I was sitting in the area meant for class 1B and was watching at the arena, waiting for the first match to start.
The stadium we were in was a round building with an open roof. Seats were placed on the sides in a staircase pattern—just like in a football stadium. After the seats were the floor made out of polished cobblestone and in the center, was a big ring-shaped area, the floor there was not covered with stone, instead, it was just a normal ground of soil and dust.
The ring-shaped area was the place where the fights will take place and currently two students were marching towards it—both from opposite directions.
One of those students of a boy from our class, his name was Roclus. In the class, he was among the students who were above average in both magic and sword arts, but he did not excel in one thing; sort of like a jack of all trades and master of none.
But even so, he was good in sword arts than most of the students in our class; it was because he got beginner-level training before coming to the academy hence his basics were already clear.
When we started learning magiken he got used to it pretty quickly. You can he was a good choice to go first in this training session; since you wouldn’t want to reveal your ace in the first turn and sending someone weak will gain you a loss, lowering the morale of the whole class as a result.
I mean, yeah this was not really a tournament but everyone had that spirit in them; every class wanted to defeat the other. At this point, it was not about rewards, it was about pride and self-respect. For them though.
Roclus had a short sword in his hand, according to its size I’d say it was between more than a dagger and less than a sword. Playing with the sword in his hands, he walked toward the ring-shaped area.
And the other student who was going against him was a girl from class 1A, well I didn’t expect her to come this early but it was Anya. With a slim long sword in her hands—which was her favorite type by the way—she also stepped inside the ring.
Well, I have to confess one thing. I actually knew that Anya will be the first from class A’s side; the order in which the students of class A will go was mentioned in loli_pop’s novel, hence I also knew that.
‘And of course, along with that I also knew who will win the match. It kind of spoiled the whole fun of this but I was not here to enjoy, to begin with, so that was not much of a problem I think. If anything I should be grateful.’
Both Anya and Roclus got into the position as the referee raised his hand and then with his whistle, the match started.
***
At a good distance away from Zero but straight in his line of sight two students kicked the ground at the same time and dashed toward each other—from far it looked as if they were flying close to the ground.
A loud sound—like two pieces of metal hitting each other—was heard the next second as the swords of both Roclus and Anya clashed. Both of them looked at each other, they were observing every little move their opponent made and carefully planning to counter it.
Both were applying pressure as much as they could for the moment but their swords were locked in a way that the forces from both sides were canceling each other out.
Seeing this, the one who leapt backward was Roclus, in admitted that in the heat of the moment he got worked up and acted rashly; in reality, he didn’t plan to perform the first attack in this way.
But now he was calm and could focus clearly, after all, he can’t afford to lose here. He didn’t care much about the class reputation but if he lost here then his personal ego will be disturbed and his image also. That’s why he was going to give it his all; even though this was just a practice session.
He adjusted himself into a battle posture and raised his short sword against Anya who had gone into defense and was waiting for him to attack. Roclus calculated his odds and simulated the whole battle in his mind before he did anything.
Then when he was done, “Here I come,” he said and kicked off the ground with a BOOM and went at Anya with utmost speed.
Anya raised her sword straight above her chest, strengthening her arms and legs as she prepared herself for the upcoming strike.
Roclus appeared in front of her and moved his sword down in an instant, Anya defended and opposed his sword with her own, and then pushing him back she leapt to the side, throwing his sword off balance he gained a distance from him by stepping back.
For Roclus this fight was tense but Anya was taking it pretty casually, the only reason Roclus wasn’t knocked out as soon as the match started was that she was told by her class to play along for a while before finishing him off.
But for Roclus, this was going on for far too long. He should’ve won by now. What was the problem? Yeah sure, his opponent was a class A student but he was Roclus! It shouldn’t have caused much trouble for him.
The passing time was irritating him, hence he decided to finish this with the next attack.fre𝙚𝓌𝒆𝚋noѵel.c𝚘m
