21 – Elysia 5
“About two hours left. Anyone who is awake during that time will fight me again.”
Hearing Professor Elysia utter those unpleasant words, I closed my eyes again.
“Roki, I know you’re awake.”
Of course, someone as skilled as Professor Elysia could tell I was awake just by hearing my breath. Despite knowing that, I pretended to be unconscious.
She’s still pretending to be unconscious. So, please don’t disturb.
“Oh? Are you not going to wake up?”
Bump, bump.
Perhaps because I closed my eyes, my other senses became sharper, and Professor Elysia’s footsteps echoed vividly.
‘The demon instructor won’t just pass by.’
Sensing an ominous feeling, I opened my eyes and glanced at what Professor Elysia was up to.
Since my face was covered, Professor Elysia couldn’t tell whether I had opened or closed my eyes because of the mask.
Seeing what Professor Elysia was doing, I quickly got up.
Thud!
“Eek! Throwing a desk suddenly, isn’t that dangerous?”
“As expected, you were awake.”
Professor Elysia lifted a desk and hurled it towards me. If I hadn’t gotten up, I would have been hit square in the face with the desk.
“You were awake, yet you say such disappointing words. When you sense danger, your body moves on its own to avoid it.”
I took advantage of being already up to look around. During the time I was unconscious, the desks I had thrown forward were scattered throughout the classroom.
Among the scattered desks, it was hard to find one in good condition. Most were either smashed or split in half, and some were currently on fire.
“Next time we fight, it might be better to take the desks outside and then engage.”
Professor Elysia, surveying the surroundings just like me, agreed with my suggestion.
“That seems reasonable.”
While Professor Elysia was gathering the scattered desks in the classroom, she seemed to recall something and asked me.
“Next time, you probably won’t be able to throw desks. Is that okay?”
“It’s fine! There are still plenty of things in the classroom to use!”
If there really is nothing to throw, I can always store broken desks in a pocket dimension and throw them later.
“Your skills are impressive. Where did you learn to set traps?”
“Thank you for the compliment. I didn’t learn separately; I’m self-taught.”
Thanks to the touch of the creator, a trap is easy to make as long as I have the materials.
The challenging part was figuring out where and when to set up traps, and it took a long time to get a sense of it.
If I hadn’t learned how to fight from Adellian Duke, it would have taken a while to set up traps.
After examining the classroom once, I asked Professor Elysia, who hadn’t broken a sweat.
“Is this classroom an artifact?”
“Yes.”
Of course. Items like desks were smashed, but the floor and walls looked intact. Even the wall that Kuran had pierced earlier had returned to its original state.
“Any more questions?”
“No! None for now. Should I help clean up the classroom until the others wake up?”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Attack before I go myself.”
Che. I tried to smoothly transition, but it didn’t work.
Other students, excluding me, were still unconscious. If another student were awake, we could have used the time to set up traps.
“I don’t really want to fight in a place with no spectators, you know!”
Shoo.
While speaking, I unexpectedly pulled out a dagger and threw it towards Professor Elysia. The dagger flew straight towards her.
Thunk.
Of course, Professor Elysia easily caught the dagger. Seeing that, I raised both hands as if in victory and said,
“If you surrender, do we still have to fight?”
“Are you really asking out of curiosity?”
“hahahaha, surely not. But isn’t there always a possibility?”
“Sigh… I felt it from the first moment – you talk too much.”
Professor Elysia couldn’t finish her sentence. A dagger suddenly fell from above. She narrowly avoided the falling dagger.
“Don’t you think it’s a shame even from the professor’s perspective just now?”
“Was that thrown when you raised both hands?”
“Ding-dong, correct! Professor, you catch on quickly.”
Although the words were casual, there were no traps set up, and even if I threw the dagger myself, it would have been easy to catch.
‘Guess I have no choice but to fight directly.’
I rushed towards Professor Elysia and swung my staff. Professor Elysia, who had been continuously fighting, dodged my staff without showing any signs of exhaustion.
Swoosh.
“Do you remember the entrance ceremony?”
“Of course, I remember!”
How could I forget the day I first met the main characters in Croacca?
Swoosh. Swipe.
“I saw all of you fighting back then.”
“Your handsome face probably didn’t get captured on the monitor. Professor, do you think I look even more handsome in person?”
Swipe.
“The special class students were handpicked by me after seeing how you all fought.”
Professor Elysia didn’t respond to my recent question.
Silence commonly signifies affirmation, they say. Professor Elysia seems to think I’m good-looking in person.
“A face recognized even by dragons. That’s me.”
Swoosh. Swish.
“I have two criteria for selecting special class students. Can you guess what they are?”
“······.”
I swung my staff without uttering a word.
“One is possessing a special ability that others find difficult to teach. The other is students who, like you, Lucas, and Clara, had angry expressions when defeating golems.”
Professor Elysia evaded without attacking me.
“Actually, those students with angry expressions have become much stronger in just a week.”
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I kicked the ground and stepped back, distancing myself from Professor Elysia.
“Lucas and Clara have also become stronger, probably stimulated by someone.”
“······.”
“But the one who has become the strongest in this short time is Rocky, precisely you. What happened in a week?”
What happened? I kept fighting with the emperor. The reason I became the strongest is probably because of the ‘Jester’s Mask’ I’m wearing.
Since I kept using it and fighting with the emperor, my proficiency in shadow steps and swordsmanship must have increased significantly.
“Other students haven’t noticed yet, but your weakness is simpler than you think.”
Professor Elysia’s following words pierced me like a dagger.
“Endurance. You must know that better than anyone.”
The reason I didn’t attack Professor Elysia and deliberately kept my distance, the reason I didn’t respond to Professor Elysia’s words, is precisely because my stamina had hit rock bottom.
Students engaged in close combat must have built up their stamina since a very young age. Unless you’re a magician, there’s nothing as crucial as stamina in a fight.
But I am different. Before coming here, I was just an ordinary person, excluding the fact that I was incredibly handsome.
I had only six months to increase my stamina after coming here. Although I could quickly boost my stamina with the clown’s mask, it was still not enough.
“Moreover, it seems that your movements require a lot of stamina.”
The shadowy steps consumed too much stamina as they moved a lot. During the entrance ceremony, everyone was weak in magical arts, so stamina consumption wasn’t significant. I focused on avoiding when dealing with golems.
“So, are you fighting mostly with traps, as Professor Elysia suggested?”
As Professor Elysia said, since it’s impossible to wield a staff for a long time, I tried to finish it off as much as possible with traps.
“Oh~ You noticed that. Indeed, Academy professors are different.”
Due to my poker face trait, the depletion of stamina didn’t show outwardly.
So far, only three people, including Professor Elysia, have noticed that I lack stamina.
The other two have in common that they both fought with me for a long time, one being the Emperor and the other the Duke of Adelian.
“Still, overcoming the weakness of stamina shouldn’t be difficult.”
Overcoming the stamina issue was not difficult. You just needed to train stamina.
“It may not be difficult, but it will take time. However, who am I? There’s a separate way for me to increase stamina.”
The way to overcome it is the elixir received from the Emperor. The elixir’s efficacy includes increasing stamina.
Originally, I was going to take it right away, but I didn’t because of the Emperor’s advice.
‘It would be better to build up some stamina on my own before taking it, rather than consuming it now.’
According to the Emperor, at the current rate, it would take about a month to accumulate enough stamina, and then taking it would be just right.
“Ho ho? A separate way to increase stamina? What is it?”
Even though I felt like I was going to die from exhaustion, I said with my index finger at my mouth.
“That’s a secret.”
No matter how tough it gets, I must deliver this line without fail.
Professor Elysia spoke, satisfied, as I sat down to rest.
“But who gets to rest at will? The only time you can rest is when you’ve fainted.”
I recalled why Professor Elysia was called the Devil Instructor in Croaka.
“So, take the hit and faint.”
I woke up two hours later.