Chương 6: First Step [6]
"This... is your sanctuary!"
Gazing up at the man who had now grown several sizes larger in my eyes than he did a few seconds ago, I could feel my legs slowly tremble as the insane pressure he exuded didn't dissipate in the slightest.
'No, it's increasing...'
The large yellow aura of pure energy around the man was slowly growing more intense, stronger, and more compact. As the pressure increased, more and more students began falling to their knees, unable to compete with the fighting spirit coming down on them. And for me whose time was running extremely slowly, I got the pleasure to enjoy every single second of it fully.
'Tch! As if I am going to fall from something like this!'
Grasping my legs as hard as I could, I wasn't going to allow myself to fall here, no matter what, no matter how excruciatingly slowly time passed. My eyes were still intently set on the old man on the stage, who was still wearing a cocky smile as if saying 'Is this all you've got?'.
I had no idea what was going on, and even after speaking with the goddess, I couldn't say that I truly understood what this thing called mana was, or how magic worked in this world. What I did know, however, was that the pressure I was feeling right now was no different from what I had felt in my own world when my father had shown me one of the secrets of becoming a strong boxer.
'Bloodlust...'
Bloodlust may sound a bit grim, but it was one of the pillars if you wanted to pressure your opponent. You needed to make sure that whoever you were fighting against was feeling like his life was at stake, and that wasn't any different from what was happening right now. Which naturally meant...
"-Guh! I can't take it anymore!"
*Slam!*
The first individual to truly give up started running away from the stage, running out of the assembly hall in both fear and embarrassment. Something that acted as the starting gun for other students who also followed his lead.
"-Fuck this!"
"-I'm out!"
Although the majority of the students were still present, the number had decreased by about 15% during the Principal's "speech". Which, even though I had a hard time judging time, couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes.
Then, suddenly, something weird happened.
"-Principal! We told you not to do something stupid!"
"-Please stop, Grandpa! They are just freshmen!"
Two people ran up to the stage, a man wearing a black suit with glasses who I assumed to be the vice-principal and a woman wearing a white dress shirt and a black skirt, with her pitch black hair flowing in the wind due to the speed she approached the old man at.
In sync with their shouts, the yellow aura around the Principal quickly faded and a moment of silence ensued.
...
"-What do you mean only freshmen! When I was young no one would hold our hands just because we were "freshmen"! Bah! Let me tell you, I used to be...!"
"-Yes, Grandpa I know. You were "the strongest there ever was" and if it wasn't for "that guy" you would have conquered the world with your strength!"
"-Principal would you like a cup of chamomile to ease your mind a bit? We have some backstage for you if you want."
For some reason, the three people on the stage had started arguing, with the two newcomers obviously desperate to get the old man off of the stage as quickly as possible. And after a couple of minutes had passed, we finally got to the 12th round.
"-I don't want no damn cup of tea! And yes, I would have conquered the world if it wasn't for him! That damn scoundrel...! I swear I will find him and have the rematch that he promised me!"
"-Okay... but do you really think scaring off new students is the way to get him to show up? Didn't you say that he always told you that "Strength doesn't make you strong. Protecting people does.".
"-Guh!"
The woman had delivered a spectacular verbal one-two combo, successfully knocking out the Principal, and making him hang his head in defeat.
"Fine... I'll have that cup of tea..."
A non-sounding "Ding! Ding! Ding!" could be heard as the champion was defeated and brought off stage, escorted by the woman while leaving the vice-principal on stage. In turn, he took to the microphone and spoke with a voice a lot more confident than one would expect after the circus that just went down.
"Cough! That's all for the Principal! For those that are left, I want to invite the two top-scoring students who got accepted this year to stand on stage as we recite the Academy's lines of pride!"
Shaking my arms and legs a bit to get rid of the stiffness that I had been inflicted with, I kept my eyes on the stage to see who the two top dogs of the freshmen currently were, knowing that if I wanted to attain my goal, I would one day have to interact with them.
'Interact? No... I want to fight them!'
As the two students entered the stage, I couldn't say that I was all too surprised by the sight in front of me.
First of all, was a girl with almost snow-white hair, her fair skin glowing beneath the headlight. I assumed that for a lot of people, her beauty was absolutely breathtaking, but to me... she was a bit disappointing.
'She is so small though? How would she be able to fight anyone?'
She was incredibly petite, and although her legs did give away that she was pretty fit, I had a hard time imagining her as someone strong...
*Slap!*
'No! I'm being naïve! This is another world, so the rules of Earth don't necessarily apply here!'
A quick slap to the leg was all I needed to pull my head out of the gutter and regain focus, knowing that underestimating an opponent was a one-way ticket to defeat. Instead, I switched my attention to the man who I wasn't at all surprised to see standing on stage.
A clear contrast to the wintery woman, the man appeared as if to be a blazing fire, his red hair illuminated by the headlight as if it was meant for the sun to shine onto it. His broad shoulders and thick arms couldn't be hidden even underneath the black uniform, and his fearless smile showed that he wasn't going to allow himself to ever fall.
*Throb!*
A stream of warmth began to run throughout my body, and no matter how much I tried to keep calm, there was no use. My body had already decided on what it wanted, and no matter what my head thought, I wasn't going to be able to stop it.
'I want to fight him! Fight him! Fight him!'
[Cerus' POV]
Although it was a bit embarrassing to get on the stage in front of all these people, I tried to do what I always did. Face the challenge head-on with a smile, just like my mother had always told me to do.
Beside me stood the one I very much respected and viewed as my rival, Zoe Damaris, the prodigy from the Damaris family who has been said to be the new hope for humankind. Although she was small in stature, she didn't look small to me.
"What are you looking at...?"
Perhaps I had stared a bit too intently at the white-haired woman, as she quickly turned her head to me with a displeased look.
"Ah, nothing. Sorry."
"..."
Awkwardly I instead listened to the vice-principal speak into the microphone again, hoping that Zoe wouldn't remember this embarrassing interaction.
"-We will now recite the Lines of Pride that symbolize the Academy of Heroes! A hero is not born, it is sculpted, not out of effort but out of need! Acts of power are not based on..."
At this point, I knew the Lines of Pride so well that I didn't need to pay attention to the vice-principal to follow along at all. Which gave me a chance to fully take in the other freshmen who had gathered at the academy with me.
There were quite a lot of interesting faces spread out in the room, many of which I wanted to keep an eye out for in the future as I believed them to have a lot of potential. I also saw Celine with a bored face as she didn't find much value in the Lines of Pride, as well as a very pissed-off-looking Wyll who still didn't seem to have calmed down after his interaction...
'Hmm? What was his name again? He should still be back there, ri...?!'
As I turned my sights to the back of the room, where I assumed the poor boy who got bullied would still be standing, the guy that I had met previously was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was someone else there, his bloodlust shining through every cell of his body, covering it in a purple hue that darkly shone.
Although the room was already dark, his eyes somehow still managed to become so black that they contrasted the surrounding darkness, almost as if they were sucking in every single bit of light that existed around him.
That was when I fully realized that his words back then hadn't been a joke or lighthearted banter. He had been serious... deathly serious.
'-I want to fight you.'
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