Chapter 163: Mr. Brown's funhouse [5]

"I understand Zero. Please sit down again."

"Ah...? Oh, I'm sorry, Ms. Turner!"

Her words had woken me up from the trance I had found myself in, and, a bit abashed, I sat down again. Suddenly, the memories I had from a second ago felt blurred and vague, and although I could remember what I said, I couldn't quite recollect what I had been feeling.

'Maybe I'm actually going insane? Or maybe I was insane from the start?'

Before my mind could sink deeper into the thoughts that I would get thrown into a mental asylum, my teacher brought us back to the topic at hand, "But Zero, are you sure you want to duel Arthur? If you are struggling so much with hurting others, isn't it useless to duel again? Even more so taking into consideration that you wanted stakes."

There was no doubt that dueling with stakes was pretty stupid, and on that note, I completely agreed. However, the duel itself wasn't meaningless at all. Not only was this a chance for me to see what the starting point for Zero would be, but it would also make for quite a good story as long as I put up a good fight.

A freshman who had only attended the academy for a couple of days, being strong enough to make one of the strongest students in the school get serious? Wouldn't that be an amazing narrative?

Also, I hoped that my performance with Robert would have integrated some thoughts into Arthur about how the duel should go down. If I knew him well enough, which I absolutely didn't, he would probably get some kind of idea of him attacking and me defending. At least this would be the case if he followed the clichés of a fantasy story.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't go back on the challenge. And no matter how embarrassing it was, there was also this nagging feeling of wanting to... 'show him'?

"I don't think it's useless, teacher. Even if I can't win, Arthur is someone who will be standing on the front lines in the future, doing what I cannot. Not only do I want to pay respect to his efforts, but I also need to know what level he is on right now."

"So the thing about the stakes?"

"Ah, that was just to make sure he would be serious when facing off against me. Even if this world is a bit foreign to me, I'm not stupid. If we didn't have stakes, there would be nothing incentivizing him to give it his all."

'Also, I have a stupid brat inside of me that somehow thinks he has a chance against the hero...'

==========

Coming back to the stadium, we had wasted a bit more than Ms. Turner thought we would, arriving right in time for the last freshman battle to start. "Now, Stella and Evan, please come up."

"Hey! That's my last name, and it's Evans!"

"Whatever, just get your asses over here."

They had probably decided to let Robert fight the first and the last of the freshmen duels to make sure he had some rest in between, but it was obvious that the duel against me was still fresh in his mind, making him a bit more easily agitated than he otherwise would be.

Now, getting ready to fight, Robert was once again holding his longsword in his hands, while Stella was holding both a shield and a shortsword. However, what was surprising was the size of the shield she brought out.

Even if she wasn't nearly as tall as Sophie, I still believed her to be a fair bit over 180cm, and the shield she was holding was almost as big as her. 'Can she even move while holding that thing?'

"5,4,3,2,1...Go?"

This time, Robert didn't rush forward. Instead, he carefully started paying attention to the way Stella was moving. In response, Stella was walking forward while keeping her shield raised, making sure she would not fall for any surprise attacks.

The reason for Robert's approach was the difference in matchups. Against a mage, the most effective strategy was almost always to get in range before they could wall you out with spells. However, against another melee combatant, this was oftentimes detrimental, as you put yourself in a position to get countered.

Of course, there were upsides to gaining momentum, but Robert appeared to have decided that the risks overweighed the pros. Circling each other, with Stella slowly decreasing the distance with a smile, I had but one thought.

'Man, this is boring.'

If this had been a fight between two [A]-rankers, I could have seen the appeal in them gauging each other, sizing each other up for any openings their opponents might have shown. But this? This was like watching two bunnies stomping the ground in an attempt to look strong.

"Hupp!"

Finally, the fight began for real, with Stella doing a small dash in with her shield. Dodging to the side, Robert instantly gained the upper hand as he now find an opening. And this was what I had felt the problem had been all along.

Stella's shield was just too big for her to reposition it quickly enough if someone managed to find an opening. *BAM!*

'What?!'

Although I had no idea how, Stella's shield somehow looked like it moved by itself to block the attack, surprising not only Robert but me as well. Not letting go of the opportunity, Stella's arm that held her sword burst forward, ready to pierce his stomach, but it was too slow.

Once again, Robert had effortlessly dodged her attack and now swung his sword towards her yet again unguarded right side. *BAM!* With history repeating itself, I also got to see the strange phenomena of her shield looking like it had a mind of its own, moving quicker than she should be able to move it to guard its master.

*BAM! BAM! BAM!*

Now the fight was on, with Robert relentlessly trying to use any openings he could find, and Stella blocking followed by a counterattack which the swordsman had to dodge. Still, the most wondrous thing about this duel was the fact that Stella looked like she was having the time of her life.

Though her face was determined, her face was adorned with a beautiful smile, showing just how much she enjoyed the fight. On the other hand, Robert also appeared to have gotten in the zone, with his completely expressionless face contrasting Stella's.

*BAM! BAM! BAM!*

Now, the sad thing was...

'It's just going to be a battle of stamina, is it? And by the looks of it, it's obvious who is going to win...'

The problem was that even though Robert had to move around a lot more, he didn't need to use a lot of mana. Stella, on the other hand, used a moderate bit of mana every time she used her strange skill to move her shield.

"Huff, huff..."

Noticing that she was getting driven into a corner, the blue-haired girl resolved herself, knowing that she had to be the one to end the fight if she didn't want to run out of energy. "[Shield Slam]!"

As she screamed out the name of her skill, which made my face wince a bit, her shield looked like it was almost burning as she dashed quicker than ever before toward Robert. Yet, Arthur 0.5 didn't even move, just waiting for the attack to reach him.

Then, he mumbled out some words that I could just about hear, "[Dance of the Swallow]".

His body blurred as Stella's shield appeared to go right through him, just for Mr. Abbas to quickly appear behind the tanker, stopping the sword that was about to slice her back with two fingers. "Evan is the winner."

"It's Evans!"

Not caring about the young man's outburst, I quickly collected and analyzed my thoughts about the match I had just witnessed. 'They are more interesting than I thought...'

Even if it was like watching two bunnies go at it, they still showed me a couple of good things. First, the skill that Robert had used, [Dance of the Swallow]. Even if he might have looked like he teleported behind Stella, he had actually just spun around her really fast.

In the game, it was a skill that allowed the user to counter an attack, and the stronger the attack the stronger the skill would be, so I assumed it to be the same here. What made it interesting was the fact that Robert actually had a Manual that I knew from my research to be a pretty unique 5-star Manual, [Singing Blade].

However, what was more interesting about this duel was his opponent. Stella, the energetic girl that always smiled. 'That girl...'

Not only did she already have a sub-manual, which would be the [Shield Bearer], but she also had a main Manual that, if my suspicions were correct, could be incredibly strong in the future.

'[Manipulator of Space], is it?'

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