67 – The timid guy
The timid guy
Roland took a deep breath and looked at the opponent in front of her.
Zeroa hides her whole body behind her shield like a turtle. A perfect defensive stance in which she seems completely unwilling to attack.
I see his unconfident eyes over the shield. A look of nervousness was evident in the foolish eyes.
However, Roland, who is in an attacking position, feels that Zeroa’s eyes are somehow pissed when her attack doesn’t work at all.
As soon as the match started, she continued to attack until now, but Zeroa’s strong defense did not open.
Roland wasn’t careless.
Zeroa, who was caught up in a fight between Philia and Lai at the beginning of the new semester, earned the title of the official weakest member of the academy.
However, it was just a rumor, and her academy contained endless possibilities.
No matter how weak they are, they are chosen for the academy, and during this period, there are many cases where their skills suddenly grow rapidly or unexpected figures emerge.
Because the academy was to recognize and develop talent.
Zeroa went unnoticed, but he diligently listened to her lectures and continued to receive private lessons from Rai.
As far as Roland knows, he has been visiting Rai’s house every single day and continuing her training.
Those who work hard in the affluent environment of the academy cannot help but grow.
Since he wasn’t on the high level in the academy, Roland didn’t let his guard down and dealt with Zero Ar with all his might.
As a result, we came to this situation.
How strong was Zeroa’s defense with her shield?
Defense should not simply block the opponent’s attack. A good defense is to block the opponent’s attack while looking for opportunities and counterattacks appropriately.
So the opponent can’t focus on the attack with the counterattack in mind. The fiercer the counterattack, the more deeply imprinted it on the attacker’s head and the weaker the attack.
And Zeroa made an excellent defense.
It wasn’t once or twice that I was taken aback by the stab that suddenly came out from behind the shield.
Her thrusting stance is hidden by her shield, so we can’t get a feel for her timing, and we can’t predict where she will bounce.
Once, a sword came out from the bottom of the shield and aimed precisely at her ankle. The attack was so unexpected that Roland was so startled that he jumped up like a cat and fell to the floor without even getting his posture right.
‘Raikang, you teach really well.’
Roland, who continued to attack throughout the match, but was rather on the defensive, praised Rai.
How on earth can the pure and introverted Zeroa be taught so skillfully with such a sneaky attack?
I knew the sting was coming, but it was hard to deal with it.
No, to be precise, I was too annoyed.
It’s not scary, it’s annoying. The power of the thrust is insignificant, perhaps because the stance is limited to hide behind the shield.
However, every time the thrust comes out, the pulse of the attack is cut off or it irritates the nerves, so it is impossible to concentrate on the attack.
If the human behind the shield had been Rai instead of Zeroa, he would have been angry and quit the match by now.
Zeroa doesn’t budge even if he repeatedly uses the technique he was stabbed to see if there is a pattern in his attack.
Roland, who doesn’t know what he’s looking at to see the counterattack coming in, is exhausted after consuming only his physical strength and mana.
Even if he stays still to catch his rough breath, Zeroa won’t let go of his defensive posture.
It is the standard of battle to not give the opponent time to recover, but as if he doesn’t know anything, he just keeps an eye on Roland.
I can’t seem to win anyway, but at this rate, even if I win, I’ll fight exhausted in the next round.
Roland, agonizing over her breathing, inserts her sword.
“Zeroa, you have become stronger.”
“Thank you…”
It’s still a voice that lacks confidence at all. From Roland’s point of view, whose attacks didn’t work at all, he thought it might be okay to be a little more confident, but he didn’t care about it.
Roland immediately withdrew and went down to the loser bracket.
2Nd round loser Johnny Even if you win once, you can advance to the 3rd round. If luckily it goes up to the third round, Roland withdrew, hoping that he would not meet Zeroa.
When the staff member calls out the name of the winner, Zeroa finally loosens her stance and looks around her with a bewildered expression.
There were cheering sounds from the audience for his unexpected promotion, but he walked off the stage with a stiff gait that seemed awkward to say he was a winner.
‘It really did as the instructor said.’
Rai is teaching Zeroa before the match.
First, they engage in simple sparring, but Lai, who imitates the opponent, copies the opponent exactly as if possessed.
I said that I was confident in following, but it felt like a miracle, not to the extent of myself.
As soon as he picks up his sword, he exudes the same atmosphere as Roland, and even imitates his swordsmanship and skills.
He even copied the motion of inhaling, saying it was a habit, but Zeroa got goose bumps when he saw Roland doing the same thing in the match.
I felt like Roland was following him, perhaps because I had seen Rai first.
After such a brief sparring, I listened to Zeroa’s analysis.
When Zeroa rolls her own head and comes up with her answer, she tells her what went wrong and what she did well, and tells her to come up with a plan to deal with her.
Zeroa, who learned her own way at the academy, came up with a method to deal with her that is close to standard.
Rai gives detailed advice and completes Zeroa’s countermeasures.
And throw it away.
Throw it away and Rai will redefine details such as how to deal with her and how to fight. If she was Asran, she would have been angry, asking why did she tell me if she was going to do this.
However, Zeroa quietly listens to Rai’s words and agrees.
Although he had a personality that assimilated into those around him, it was because he recognized that Rai was training him.
And there were many things that Lai could not learn from books.
For example, Roland has a habit of breathing in with his mouth slightly open when he is about to watch a match. It’s probably a habit I got when I gathered mana, but it’s good to stop the attack with a stab at that timing.
Usually, you respond by looking at the opponent’s posture or atmosphere, but they tell you to counterattack by looking at their habits.
Of course, it’s not that she hasn’t learned that way. However, she says it is different when she learns it verbally and when she applies it in real situations.
This kind of habit is difficult to recognize and difficult to actually use, but Rai correctly pointed it out.
Roland likes to use his brain and is planned. He’s not to the point of being thorough, but he moves according to his own plan and has sincerity.
The combat method based on this was to eat away at the opponent’s stamina and make them give up first.
After hearing Rai’s words, Zero knew that she would win, but since she was strengthening her defense, Roland withdrew first.
Thanks to the uniqueness of her contest, that even if she loses once, she can challenge again, Zeroa could easily go up without any damage.
Zeroa, who had been told that she had to use her surroundings in battle, nodded her head saying that she could use it this way.
After checking her opponent for the third round, Rai told Zeroa that she was lucky.
As for the fighting style, I was told to attack differently from defending with a shield.
Lay, who slapped Zeroa’s back when he was told to use a different fighting style, said that he should learn to enjoy the pleasure of winning, but Zeroa still couldn’t understand what pleasure was.
It’s good to win, but it was harder to endure the tension in battle.
From noble mtl dot com
This time, Zeroa, who went on stage after sparring with Lai, who possessed the same as the opponent, looked at the other person.
The opponent is one year older than you. He has learned more and seems to have more experience.
It’s a different feeling from dealing with the same freshman. He kept feeling like hiding behind the shield he was holding, but Zeroa took a deep breath, picked up the shield, and slowly walked forward.
Zeroa, who overcame the opponent’s attack in place until the second round, approached first, and the opponent tilted their head and then smiled.
I don’t know if she thought she underestimated her skills, or if she saw Zero Ah coming to face her, and her sense of self-righteousness increased, but her smile soon disappeared and she rushed at it in an instant.
After dozens of battles, the final winner was Zeroa.
Unlike the previous match, it was a match that felt desperate.
Only the vital points are blocked with the shield, and the rest of the attacks are ignored. If the opponent attacks, I attack too.
One for me and one for you.
The people who watched the battle overflowed with toughness cheered, and Zeroa became the winner with a tattered appearance.
The only time he is in tatters is when he loses disastrously to his opponent. Zeroa, who has experienced a fierce and ridiculous battle of being hit and beaten for the first time, sees people screaming out loud.
I am dazed from being hit so many times, but strangely, I can hear people’s voices well.
Rai in the audience laughs and raises his fisted hand.
Zeroa, who had been watching blankly, raised her hand after him, and the cheering grew louder.
At that moment, something thrilling ran down her spine and penetrated Zeroa’s body. Sensing that this is a pleasure, Zeroa opened her mouth wide and laughed.
Then he passed out.
Zeroa, who narrowly passed out later than her opponent and became the winner, looked at the familiar ceiling and blinked his eyes, then jumped up.
“Are you awake?”
“Yes, did I lose?”
“No, I won. I can go on to the next round. Hey, Mr. – Who wants to fight so stupid. I said to aim below his waist, but he only hit his shoulder?”
“I’m sorry… I was so distracted…”
At Lai’s words, sitting next to the bed, Zeroa lowered his head.
I can’t remember the details of the match. I just swung what I saw and hit what I saw.
No matter how much mana you protect yourself, it’s a shame that it was a practice sword.
“Huh?”
Zeroa sees his body and realizes his strangeness.
She even passed out, but her body is light. Although there were scars on her body and some places where she felt some pain, she was much better than she thought.
“I’ve restored it. It’s close to the point where you won’t get fouled.”
Rai smiled and said. The line that Rai said is probably a line that goes beyond the rules.
She remembers Rai’s usual theory that if you don’t notice, everything is legal. She smiles a little and says thank you.
She would have been embarrassed if she was a normal guy, but since she had been with Rai for a long time, her personality was changing little by little.
“The next opponent is a miser.”
“Yes?”
There is only one person Rai calls a miser.
Aria Shane Brickville, the supreme goddess loved by everyone at the academy.
Zeroa, who has been busy these days with tactical training and martial arts competitions, has not been able to have a snack time with her on the bench.
She has no time to spend with Arya because there is no point of contact without snack time.
She was zero, shedding tears and wishing that all of her schedules would end soon, but she said that the end of her schedule meant the end of the semester, so her snack time was gone.
Her Zeroa is happy to be able to face her for the first time in a while, but he hesitates at the fact that he has to fight her against her.
“Are you going to abstain too?”
Unable to understand Rai’s words, Zeroa, who was rummaging through the medicines in her infirmary at will, sees him.
“The miser. So far everything has come up by default.”
“…… Is that possible?”
“That’s right. Aren’t you guys too fond of misers? Since all of them withdrew, the misers went up to the 4th round without even fighting. At this rate, they wouldn’t fight and win.”
If true, it’s a chilling story.
The martial arts competition is important for academy students. They said that they had to raise the rankings for the future, but they all withdrew because they couldn’t bear to raise the sword to Arya.
However, I sympathize with Zeroa as she seems to give up in front of Arya.
“Your chance of winning in a fight with a miser is less than 20 percent. It’s not that you win once in five fights, but I barely managed to win one in twenty fights, so even if you fight, you can almost lose.”
“Are Miss Arya and I so different…?”
Zeroa bows her head with her disappointed eyes.
“He grew up drinking all the elixirs since he was little. It’s amazing what a skinny kid eats so much. And as he comes from a ducal family, he has good blood and thorough education. Unexpectedly, he has a lot of experience in battles. You don’t have any elements to win at all. . You have to fight meanly to get 20 percent.”
From Rai’s words, Zeroa thinks that there is still a long way to go.
It was Aria that made her decide to become stronger. She had been trying so far to be able to stand beside her and raise her sword together.
She may have gotten a little closer because she did well in the martial arts competition, but she is looking straight ahead from a high place where the opponent can’t even reach.
“I need a little more time to keep my promise to stand by her side.”
“I see… Yes? How do you know?”
Zeroa opens her eyes wide in surprise.
All I said to Rai was that I wanted to protect people. She said that she wanted to stand by and fight, but she never said that she promised Arya, although she said she would stand by herself.
“Yes, I will wait. Please stand next to me.”
Zeroa sees Rai copy Aria’s words with her smirk and creepy voice, and her cheeks turn red.
She doesn’t know how, but since she thinks she knows the story between the two of them, she wants to hide right now.
She laughed at Zero Ah, who was so embarrassed that she didn’t know what to do.
“So are you going to fight? Are you going to give up?”
“……”
Zeroa was speechless at Rai’s words.
She announces the 4th round, and Aria goes on stage.
There is a sword in her hand, but she has never used it. She met her ugly person and felt sorry for her sword, which couldn’t even play her own role.
Three byes.
Everyone I’ve dealt with so far has come up on stage and said they’re dedicating the victory to you, then abstained.
I am grateful that people like me, but I did not come to the academy to receive this kind of treatment.
Why doesn’t anyone treat you the same as everyone else?
I am also a knight, and I came prepared to raise my sword, but why do I see it differently?
Unable to trample on the honor of those who declare that they will support victory, Arya, contrary to her growing dissatisfaction, receives their resignation and becomes the winner.
Arya, thinking that she would rather give up the contest, went on stage without even checking her next opponent.
Aria, begging God not to give up on her opponent this time, is pleased to see Zeroa standing in front of her.
I’ve been busy these days, so I haven’t had a good snack time.
I’ve seen Zeroa’s fights from afar, where they go up and down every round.
Zeroa raises her shield with her hard eyes towards Arya, who smiles with delight.
Unlike her usual soft eyes, these are eyes that deal with enemies.
As if she was going to do her best from the beginning, mana flows out of her body and even flows out to live.
Aria, who has only seen the good Zeroa, is momentarily taken aback, but soon a beautiful smile forms on her face.
Even her staff next to her stared blankly at her, but Arya could only see her zero ah now.
Arya raises her sword towards Zeroa, who is looking straight at her with her deadly eyes.
Her ferocious aura, which doesn’t suit her at all, rides her sword and spreads all over her, raising her aura even more so that her zero child won’t lose.
It was a stage full of malevolent energy, but a small smile hung over the lips of the two parties.