บท 11: Bullshitting

I ruffled my hair and decided to just let it go. Although I now owed Raisa a favor, so long as I was shameless enough I could just decline whatever she asked for since I said nothing too overboard.

I sat down in the same seat, waiting for people to file in. Surprisingly enough, despite being out at the entrance when I was, Nathan was actually the last person to enter the classroom.

And... he also looked even more exhausted than when I last saw him.

The moment he stepped into the classroom, he weakly spoke.

"3D women... are tiring..."

Hm. It seems he considers game characters to be 3D now. Though, they kinda are 3D in our situation. Maybe we can call them 2.5D?

...Is that a thing?

Anyway, Harold tapped onto the chalkboard and announced the start of class.

"I will be going over the basics of magical spells for those that do not know anything about them. However, if you believe you understand the basics of spells well enough, then you can raise your hand for a piece of paper that contains a spell and attempt to derive the steps to casting it. Please do not actually cast the spell for now."

...Hm. I didn't really think about what I should be doing in this situation.

I'm supposed to be 'smart' which wasn't a problem for the other classes, but this one was different. Should I just not take the paper and acknowledge my lack of understanding?

Or maybe... I should take the paper and then pretend I was trying to solve it while actually paying attention to the lesson!

Wait, but then when I never end up solving the thing, it's going to look really weird.

People began raising their hands one after another. As a side note, Ela, Raisa, and Sam all raised their hands. In the end, while hesitating I was unable to come to a decision and thus kept my hand down.

Harold was about to stand up to hand out those spells, but instead, he looked at me with confusion.

"Lord Bryson? I have seen how you solved those questions on the magical section of your test. You surely do not need to bore yourself with the basics once more."

Shit. I take back all my goodwill towards this teacher. Did he really just have to call me out?

In my panic, I randomly stood up. Everyone was looking at me before, but now I was drawing even more attention. All of them stared at me wondering what I was going to say, as it seemed like I was preparing a speech.

...Hm.

Well, when all else fails, you gotta rely on a very special skill.

Bullshitting!

"The reason that I chose not to ignore the basics is because... I believe the foundation of one's magical skills is most important. Sure, I may already understand the basics, but if I can even get a slightly better understanding, then it will surely increase my future prospects."

I waved my hand to the side. As for the words coming out of my mouth, I didn't really understand half of them.

"A building can only stand as high as the foundation allows. While it may seem essential to continue climbing upwards and upwards, you can never neglect the fundamentals. I plan on becoming a powerful mage, so I will not be skipping this lesson."

I sat down with my eyes closed, not wanting to think about what I had done any longer. Harold didn't seem too offended by what I said though.

"Hahaha, such maturity at such a young age. I have great expectations for the heights that you will reach. If only I had the same kind of mentality when I was younger... then I wouldn't have needed to become a teacher."

I slowly opened my eyes and noticed that Raisa was smiling bitterly. She slowly lowered her hand.

"Well, if you go and say all that... then I can't really ignore it now, can I?"

There were several other people that also lowered their hands, but some still kept them up. This included both Sam and Ela.

...Were they able to see through my bullshitting?

Harold took a deep breath and handed out the pieces of paper to the few that still had their hands up. After that, he went back to the front of the class before drawing out a diagram made out of chalk. He pointed at it and began explaining.

"For starters, all spells have both cores and nodes. Nodes sprout out from cores and connect to other cores."

He cleared his throat.

"You will have to first recreate the cores using the mana in your body. Then, you will create the nodes to connect these cores. For now, we will start with the simplest spells that only have a single core, so you won't have to learn connecting for now."

Harold was about to erase what he had written on the board, but stopped himself.

"Ah, I should probably give more details, as a future Paragon Mage is with us."

...Huh? What is that?

Harold continued without explaining that, which was what I preferred to know.

"Cores dictate what elements are within the spell and compressing more mana in these cores will increase the power of the spell. On the other hand, nodes can be thought of as a technique. The more masterfully crafted nodes will allow you to perform very specific and intricate actions."

I blinked a few times before realizing that was actually quite helpful. It was already confirmed that Bryson had bad magical affinity, thus I should probably focus on my skills with nodes.

...Though, I do recall in the later stages of the game when Bryson goes berserk, he has power on par with the already overpowered protagonist.

I guess he found a way to overcome his bad magical affinity, so I shouldn't just neglect the cores either, assuming I somehow find a way to replicate it.

Harold continued to spend the rest of the class explaining techniques on how to manipulate mana and tips on casting spells and such. Despite being in Class A, Harold never skipped over any important steps that allowed understanding it to be easy.

I couldn't help but compare him to our math teacher back on Earth and felt the difference was huge. After all, our teacher wouldn't even finish the answers to his examples, so we couldn't confirm if we did it correctly. Not to mention, he would skip so many damn steps!

...Ugh.

By the end of class, a few people had handed in their solved spell... puzzle thing? Ela was one of them, while Sam was not.

Math class came soon and left soon. It was the same thing as ever, boring basic math. The only reason I even paid attention to class was that there was nothing else to do. Unfortunately, there were no phones to fiddle with as they weren't invented yet.

Lunch was nothing special either, consisting of me, Raisa, and Nathan sitting together and eating some food.

English class was... hm. What happened there again? Ah, whatever.

Going through this routine made me feel like I was back on Earth again, going through the monotonous school life.

...What the fuck is this?!

I thought this was going to be an exciting life! Isn't that how an isekai works?

Then gym class came.

Our teacher was a woman with bright red and short hair. She had a big smile on her face and was rather enthusiastic. It kinda rubbed off on me and made me feel not as bad. Her name was Rae.

She pointed up into the air the moment we all funneled into the giant gymnasium.

"Alright! Yesterday I measured your physical fitness. Now I want all of you to find a sparring partner to fight! Once you do, it will be standard sparring rules."

Rae lifted up a finger.

"First off, no magic! We aren't testing your mage capabilities for now.

Second, you are allowed to surrender at any time and the opposing party must stop their attack else they will be punished by me personally!

Third, if you are standing off of the platform, or if I believe you should step out, you lost! No more fighting after!"

I looked into the gym, and there were twelve different platforms across the floor. They were relatively small, but enough to comfortably fight. At least, I think there's enough space.

Before I could get a closer look, Raisa appeared right in front of me, with her face just a little too close to mine.

"Hey, let's spar with each other! I'm not too confident in winning, but I would like the experience!"

I couldn't help but feel cold sweat form on my forehead. Unlike the real Bryson, I still hadn't gotten any training in combat, so I would probably get my ass handed to me by Raisa.

I raised my hands and shook my head.

"Um, no, no. I would like to spar with um, Natan instead!"

Nathan heard what I said and also rushed over.

"Y-Yeah! We already agreed on this beforehand..."

It looked like he had the same worries that I did. If we fought each other... it probably wouldn't be too bad.

Raisa pouted and looked at me as though I was bullying her.

"Aw... well alright then."

She left to find another partner, while Nathan and I went up to one of the platforms after grabbing a wooden weapon. As we were about to start, someone called out.

"U-Um, I don't have a partner."

It was Arianne, one of the capture targets for this shitty dating game. We had twenty-three people in the class, meaning that one person would be left out. Rae smiled and pointed to herself.

"Hahaha, that just means you'll have to fight me! Don't worry, I won't put too much power into my strikes."

Arianne nodded, though she blushed. By the way, you had to become her partner if you wanted to go down her route.

I looked at Nathan, and he looked at me. There were still traces of fatigue in his eyes, but his injuries had healed already.

I wonder if I have the same kind of monstrous regeneration.

A smile began forming on Nathan's lips as I realized he was getting a little serious. Similarly, I began smiling as well. This kinda reminded the both of us of old times.

Though we were best friends now, the start of our relationship was... a little rocky. We would fight each other a lot, and definitely hurt each other pretty badly.

We didn't really do it anymore, mostly because we would get in trouble.

But while we were both kinda weak and wimpy, fighting was still quite fun to us, though gaming obviously took priority over it.

It was just a spar, but it was still a match of pride.