Now that his espera had recovered, he didn't hesitate to use it again to fortify himself instantly against the pressure.
The woman showed a hint of surprise; through her senses, she could tell that this boy did not have this much espera when she was assessing them.
But now, all of a sudden, more and more espera was flowing out from his body like a smooth waterfall. Where was this espera from then if not from him?
Did she make a mistake when analyzing them? The chances of that happening were slim but not zero.
And for some strange reason, she felt that she could not properly analyze this little kid. Either he had an artifact strong enough to counter her, or something else...
Nonetheless, the pressure that was directed towards him was quite a lot for his level, and he was doing fine against it.
While she was angry, there was a part of her mind that was shocked by his resilience.
'Hmm...?'
She narrowed her eyes when she saw him looking at her.
Shiver!
Suddenly, a cold chill went up her spine as she instinctively put her hand in front of her, preparing to block an incoming strike.
However, the anticipated strike did not come.
She was sure that just now she felt that he was going to attack her with something deadly.
She could feel it in her guts; just a moment ago when she looked into his eyes, something definitely happened.
It was an instinct. She was a veteran who had lived close to death during her prime days on the battlefield.
There was no doubt about it. If she dared to instinctively block an intent directed by him towards her, then it was unmistakably something dreadful.
To make her be on guard against him?
He, who was barely a Rank-1 exorcist?
If she told someone that a Rank-1 exorcist was able to make her be on her guard, her colleagues and friends would never believe her.
She let out an amused smirk, as the previous anger slowly dissipated, and so did the pressure that was being exerted on Oliver.
Oliver felt relieved that the pressure was now gone.
He was really pissed off at her for suddenly targeting him when he did not even do anything to her.
The only thing he did was to defuse the situation before tensions escalated.
Just now he had to use suppressed [Enshrouding of Death] on her to bring her back to her senses.
What sort of teacher was she!?
If she was able to lose her temper over a verbal thing, then she was not sane at all.
Leaving children like them with her was madness.
Looking at the angry expression Oliver was making, Alisa could not help but laugh.
"Now, now, I apologize for my outburst. It was childish of me to behave as such with mere children. I am sure you guys are the clueless bunch here," she softly smiled at him as she added, "In fact, it should be those bunch of old men who instigated this whole thing now that I think about it… My gosh, such scheming people to use children as bait just to get at me."
"And here I was thinking why they left so suddenly without meeting me personally. I thought at that time they might have clan duties, but now I am sure why they were in a hurry to leave... or escape?"
Oliver heard this but still did not feel any better. It could not change that she did behave rudely with him alone.
Perhaps sensing his emotions and train of thought, she said, "Alright, don't be like that. I did apologize already, no? I will give you a gift, so let's forget about it."
Hearing her mention 'gift' made his ears perk up. Well, if the gift was worth it, then he was willing to let it off.
"You are not joking, are you?" he looked at her suspiciously. Despite being old, Oliver never had a decent experience with aged people of this world. One might think you mature as you age, but all the old people were behaving this way.
"Of course, I never go back on my words," she trailed off as she looked at his suspicious stare, "You... don't believe my words, do you?"
Oliver did not say anything and just went back. He would see if she would keep her word in the future or not.
"Miss Alison, well, but what happened? Why were you so angry just now?"
Bella asked in a curious and alert tone. Just now, they were almost crushed by her pressure alone.
Alison's face twitched for a second before she shook her head, "Forget it, it's a long story. I will tell you some other time. For now, we should proceed further."
"Oh..." Bella didn't pursue the matter anymore. She could see Alison was uncomfortable with this.
"So, let's start from the beginning. From now on, I will be your teacher, so refer to me as such, or you can call me 'Master' too, just like Sigfor if you want." Alison went back to her composed expression as she continued.
"While you were all climbing, I made some analysis by observing you lot and will devise different training plans for each one of you. Not only that, I have recorded the steps you have climbed."
She clapped her hands, and a blackboard emerged out of nowhere and started floating to her right.
It was probably retrieved from her storage artifact that she might have been carrying on her.
On the blackboard, there was something written in bold and big words.
It was a leaderboard of sorts, written by her.
"This here is the leaderboard that I made, your future—"
"Excuse me, Miss Alison!" Alphonso suddenly interrupted by raising his hand.
"What is it?" she frowned in displeasure at being interrupted once again.
Once again?
"Umm, well, the thing is Daniel is still not here after you 'pushed' him out some time ago..."
"..."
It was only then that others also realized that they had continued without Daniel.
It's true. He was still not here.
It couldn't be that she threw him off the mountain, right?