Chapter 344: Crashing Expectation

———Lynda———

<11: 40 am>

The blinding light dissipates. All we can see are smokes covering the arena once we can finally observe with our eyes again.

Luik lacks the energy to stand, having one knee on the ground and trying to remain somewhat dignified with a few scorched marks on her body. Nothing actually severe, those aren’t serious burn marks, but that is the most visible amount of damage done to someone. Others were beaten down but there was no hint of gore since Emmie made sure to hold back by a lot.

Meanwhile the audience members are all silent. They have been for a while, the battle has been very intense and hard to follow for many, so they have to focus on that and not be distracted.

“<Looks like our challenger has reached her limit! It seems like the battle has finally come to a close!>” Rico declared the match’s end. "<Let's congratulate her and see how well she did!>”

The screen then showed the score rising before it settled at 3,411. That is almost five times the previous record. I can hear the audience gasping in shock at the absurd jump in rating.

“Hey, Glery, is she actually five times stronger than that healer girl?” I asked despite knowing that the rating is based more on overall performance instead of raw power.

“No.” She bluntly answered. I stared at her for a while to nudge her to elaborate on it further. “Three and a half is my rough estimate.”

“That is still quite a vast gap.” I pointed out. Even if she does have the same excuse as Uires about not having as much first-hand experience, even a normal civilian against a trained soldier doesn't have that kind of gap.

It’s obviously just how the world is gonna be with the existence of magic. We all know that at this point, and the previous competitive events already made it clear that there is a massive gap between certain students. Everyone already knows about the gap in strength, but the thing is that it has only continued to widen. Not only between the average student and normal citizens, but also among each other.

Unfortunately for anyone stressing over the matter the power creep will only get worse as time goes on. That’s something I already made peace with. Nothing worth feeling crisis over, just keep pushing on is your best bet to live in this new age.

“You alright?” I asked Luik who got teleported back to her seat. It took like two minutes for her to come back after being teleported away. I didn’t notice that with the other contestants since they are seated elsewhere.

“I’m fine.” She flatly answered. Her energy is low but she has no injuries on her or any damage on her clothes despite a few torn patches seen on her in the battle itself. One of those things the organizer keeps in mind which probably subtly helps the students be more confident in participating. The last thing you want was for anything to be damaged at all, which for a fighting event like this means that the only thing you could do is repair them afterward, which is the more costly option but they are clearly comfortable with setting up the repair shop or wherever they sent the challengers.

“Where did you go for a few minutes?” I asked, since she should still have vivid recollection of that.

“...A room with some drones and a few tables. It is all very nondescript.” She answered. I suppose that makes sense. No need for a place no one is going to stay in for less than five minutes to have anything noteworthy.

“I guess I should’ve expected that.” I remarked while on the stage a new bamboo sword was thrown at Emmie for her to use. She grabbed it without even looking in its direction. “So… I think we can all guess, but you didn’t use that cutting technique so the pace wouldn’t move too fast, right?”

“Of course. This is still a fight for the sake of entertainment. Trying so hard at the beginning will do nothing but makes me winded and cause Emmie to become aggressive too early. A rushed fight isn’t something that can get me a lot of points.” She explained.

“You didn’t even use it during the final stretch, right?” I pointed out. She has been holding that off until the very end.

“It’s just not very useful in this particular battle. Nothing more to it.” She replied.

The discussion among the crowd has grown louder as the new challenger still hasn’t presented themselves. With the shock of how the previous fight went, perhaps it’s going to take a little while before someone steel themselves and ready to challenge the king of the ring.

“One hell of a bold move to go down there that early.” Histon remarked. “So what did you get for scoring that high? No one else got anything aside from points for scoring that low.”

“...Fifty exit tickets, fifty skip tickets, a random mana gem, and… a pure gold spoon.” She recounted with obvious sense of bewilderment at the last item. “It’ll be delivered later, so for now we can’t inspect it.”

“A mana gem? You’re not even primarily a spellcaster.” Kroin pointed out.

“I could maybe slot it into my weapon, if I find a good blacksmith specializing in such a thing.” She said in response. Where the hell would you even find someone like that? I don’t even know how many traditional blacksmiths are near here, let alone one that could incorporate magical items like that.

I know Emmie and that class know about someone like that, but clearly they weren’t willing to elaborate on who that was.

Ah. Looks like someone has already chosen to fight. That was way quicker than I thought. Just some guy wielding an axe. I don’t remember seeing anyone notable in combat looking like that.

“I wonder if she’ll get any actual breaks.” Trener asked.

“It’s almost lunch time, so I don’t see why they won’t let her rest after this match if it goes long enough. All of us can get some time to relax and move around a bit” I pointed out. I think all of us would appreciate leaving the stadium so we can walk around and not sit here for a few more hours.

“I don't think this match is going to last that long.” Histon uncharitably remarked. Well, the guy going down there is basically in the same ballpark as the others not named Luik. He’ll probably get four hundred-something points with how it’s going, just really struggling to even get close to her but manage to tank some weak hits.

“They could just have another one go in.” I suggested. The schedule has to be a bit flexible since we don’t know who is going to fight her, and hopefully the next person isn't actually a strong fighter.

“A bit of betting, I see.” Kroin remarked, knowing full well that if a strong fighter joined it’s going to take up to ten minutes like last one. Not a lot of people are as strong or stronger than Luik, but those guys are going to be the ones with enough confidence in themselves to even try fighting her in the first place. Those weaker than that probably need a lot of time mentally preparing themselves.

*Shine* *Boom*

Unexpectedly he suddenly threw the axe away and cast a spell that quickly engulfed Emmie in a massive explosion.

“Interesting swerve.” Histon dryly remarked. It’s certainly a powerful spell way above that guy’s weight class, but the wind-up is definitely an issue. If Emmie didn’t choose to stand there and take it because it’s another zero damage spell to her, she can easily brutalize that guy multiple times over by the time the spell is finished casting.

At least that makes the fight a little bit interesting, but it’s clear that now he lacks the energy to fight, let alone cast a second explosion.

“Here I thought he was a purely physical fighter.” Trener commented.

“Usually mastering both physical combat and spellcasting is an arduous task, but if one were to pick a branch of either then the workload would be significantly decreased. It’s possible that the explosion spell might be one of the very few spells he has in his arsenal.” Kroin speculated. I feel like the fact that he isn’t actually all that strong does lend credence to that. A very strong fighter tends to have more diverse movesets. Even if they are mainly a fighter or a caster, they usually have a technique they learned for a few niche situations they might run into.

“Huh…” Trener muttered. Does he… not have anything like that? Having an AoE spell like that is one of the appeals of becoming a strong warrior in the first place. He’s definitely stronger than the guy below and he doesn’t have a spell of that caliber?

“Anyway, that was pretty quick. They are probably expecting another fight before we can all go take a break then?” Histon said while everyone watched the score stopped at 531. Barely below Uires, which is still above average so far when counting Luik’s score as an outlier. We certainly can’t make that generous remark later on when stronger opponents hit the field.

“That should be the case, as long as one appeared sooner instead of later.” Kroin said in response. All we really need for the break is being let out of the stadium for a walk. It’s starting to feel uncomfortable staying seated for this long.

“<Looks like another one has chosen to take up the challenge!>” Rico’s voice rang out as another one joined in quite quickly. Looks like we don’t have to wait to see if the awkward amount of dead time would’ve led to an awkward transition.

“Another weak guy.” Trener gave out a quick and uncompromising judgement. He’s not wrong, but how many times are we gonna say that?

It’s another mind-numbing fight where it doesn’t look like the challenger can even make her move. It feels mean to say that but it is essentially a filler fight.

“Are you thinking about going in next?” I said to him since he’s bold enough to say that within earshots of other people.

“Me? Nah, I’m good.” He quickly shuts down the idea. Then why even talk big in the first place? Even Histon says something like that with less frequency.

The fight is about the same as the last one with even less intensity. Nothing really worth bringing attention to as Emmie entertains the fight to go on way longer than she normally would. It would still end in less than three minutes, but she can end it in a literal second.

“So where are you guys hanging out after this?” I asked since just yapping with the class would be more entertaining than focusing on the fight.

“No idea. Just walk around the campus for some fresh air, maybe.” Histon half-heartedly answered.

“Probably the same for me in that case. Sitting here for hours is kind of a pain.” I said in response.

“I’ll go read a bit more in the library. I still have some books I haven’t finished reading.” Kroin gave out a typical answer. Ain’t that a bit more sitting around? Then again reading while walking is an option. I bet there is plenty of free space to roam around with how few people there are and how big the library already is.

“For me, I’ll probably stay here since I’m still quite winded from that fight.” Luik answered. She is way more than just winded, Emmie drained a lot of stamina out of her, I don’t think moving around is a good idea at the moment.

Oh, the fight is already over. Looks like we can finally leave in that case. It’s almost noon which means lunch time.

The score is 334 which is kinda embarrassing, but that’s not something worth paying attention to… Why is the sky suddenly turning dark?

*Rumble*

“<Uh oh! Looks like we got a surprise guest coming here without an invite. Not to worry, we’ll make sure to welcome her with open arms!>” Rico said with the casualness that is probably not warranted with what we can see looming over the sky.

“Screeee!!!” A bird’s cry rang loudly as the monster resembling one slams down on the campus’ barrier. Its white body contrasts the metallic armor covering its chest, arms and thighs. It has purple feathers jetting out of its head and arms with what look like yellow hair braids coming out of its head and back.

The main thing to actually take note of it is that it’s freaking massive. It looks like it could crush the entire stadium, that’s how large it is.

The audience began to panic while Emmie remained calm as she looked up.

What the heck is going on right now? Where did that thing even come from!?