The fight started off with the spear user sticking his weapon into the ground and using a Seal to launch himself off by stretching the spear’s handle backwards in a way that made it look a little too flexible to be a solid object.

As he was flying at full speed towards his opponent, the fat guy crouched down and with his entire body, jumped up as high as he could with the intent of landing on top of birdman. I didn’t expect the fight to be so intense honestly but this was fun to watch.

Both fighters were still in the air as the spear and chain guy threw the chain at his enemy’s left foot, I’m not sure why he would think that helps but let’s see what happens next.

I was proven wrong with the guy pulled the chain towards his stomach and rolled into a ball mid-flight, he ended up doing a full front flip and forced his opponent’s leg to harshly hit the floor at an awkward angle, spear guy then lunged forward, his body very close to the floor and hands aiming at the vulnerable leg of the fat man.

Fat guy didn’t take it silently though, he used the bad momentum of his left leg and forced his entire body weight onto the left knee, dropping to the floor on 1 knee and solidifying a good defence against the other fighter’s attempt at controlling the flow of the battle.

Seeing this, the chain user stopped his charge at the nick of time and avoided a two handed axe dropping on his head.

The match reached a stalemate of sorts after just 2 moves and Stern-Face decided to call it a draw and stop the 2 students.

I kind of wanted to see the conclusion of this fight.

I think the spearman should’ve won if he just used his weapons correctly, that spear is very strong against slow opponents, it could even be used as a ranged weapon, especially if you have the chain to cover for your lack of defense.

The next set of fighters came up. The fights went on until we reached the prince’s turn.

It seemed to me that my close combat experience wouldn’t be good enough to compete with almost all of the fighters so far. In a fair fight that is.

I have, however, learned quite a bit about their habits and techniques from watching the fights closely.

Red-hair and his female opponent both tied their hair into a ponytail and went up on the stage.

The prince unsheathed his sword and took a classic royal army swordsmanship stance, sword held in 2 hands, held parallel to the floor, almost like a spear and the body weight resting almost equally on both knees.

The girl on the other hand just casually threw her dagger into the air and caught it with the blade pointing backwards instead of towards the opposing fighter.

It was an interesting stance that was usually meant for defense. If I were in her shoes, I’d definitely use the gauntlet for defense.

“Begin” The knight yelled again and the girl rushed in first without hesitating.

The prince closed his eyes for a second, lowered his body and lunged at his incoming opponent, the fight was over in a single move.

Red-hair adjusted his speed to surprise the girl and managed to get close enough for her to not be able to react as he held his blade to her throat.

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I don’t think that was his original intention. He covered his abdomen with Sy as they were about to clash into each other. Too specific and accurate to be random luck, he covered the part where her dagger would’ve struck and forced his body into point black range with her gauntlet-clad left hand… This guy is smart.

He knew that Sy wouldn’t completely negate the damage from the shock a blunt attack would cause, so he forced the girl who rushed in too hastily to attack with her dagger which he could easily stop or divert with Sy energy.

Even if the girl broke the Sy shield, the damage would’ve been negligible due to the angle of the prince’s body. Interesting.

The fights went on for about 10 more minutes until the class was over. As they were leaving, I heard people talking about me while I was going down the stairs to leave the training stadium. “This murderer, isn’t he studying our weaknesses so he could kill us? Creepy.” The tension in my stomach started rising to my chest and I felt my body becoming hot.

“Pfft, he’s just a first year weakling who can’t participate so he has to watch from the sidelines.

also, he’s like, C rank or something and didn’t you guys hear? This guy is under a slavery Seal so he can’t even attack students if he wanted to.” The group started laughing loudly as one of the girls looked at me with a punchable face.

“But you know, fighting the A rank students is so scary… Why did we have to do an age class today instead of a rank class?” Another voice in the group asked.

“It’s because the younger students were busy today with preparations for their first class vs class tournament.

Only 2nd and 3rd years would be available for ranked classes so the teachers decided to have us take a small re-assignment test for efficiency’s sake.” A short haired guy explained.

I was about to exit the room when a hand on my shoulder made my instincts take over and I grabbed the person’s wrist and was about to twist it before the same familiar pang in my chest stopped me.

“Hohoho, a familiar face we haven’t seen in a while. Boy boy, how does it feel w-?”

I cut mister brown off as I tried to stand up again and said in-between pants “What do you want? Feeling the need to tell me what a murderer I am? How does it feel walking around school with my new title? Feels amazing. Now fuck off. ”

“He-!” Stern-Face’s interference was cut short for some reason and I just walked away without bothering to look at their faces.

I almost forgot in the last few days. I almost forgot how much I hate the people here. Putting up a gentle smile to greet a friend while showing their real smile when they talk to me.

Everyone here keeps treating me like some monster while their own poisoned fangs stick out.

My chest hurt as I walked down the corridor filled with monsters. This place reminded me of when I learned what a monster is, it was just like the part in the book when Jesse was walking down the corridor of regret, everything around him was dark. Every time he lifted his head from the ground, his eyes met with a creature that was vaguely human.

Every time their eyes met, the creature would put a piece of thin cloth over Jesse’s face and tell him there’s a monster walking beside him.

Jesse asked the creature what a monster was and the creature just said that he doesn’t know. Nobody really knows, but everyone is afraid of it.

At the end of the corridor, Jesse, for the last time couldn’t hold himself back from looking at the creature. At this point however, the layers of cloth over Jesse’s eyes were too numerous and he couldn’t see what was in front of him. Even the vague figure of a human was now pitch black. He could only look at the floor.

It was then that Jesse started thinking more and more about his past interactions with the creature and reached the conclusion that the creature was just trying to help Jesse avoid the monster. Afterall, he’s supposed to be afraid of it, right? The creature then whispered in Jesse’s ears that avoiding the monster would not make it go away and snapped his fingers.

The pieces of cloth disappeared and everything around Jesse was back to normal.

He looked around him and saw pictures of his childhood, scenes from his past encounters with enemies and regrettable interactions with friends.

When he turned his head forward to keep walking past the corridor, there was a wall and a mirror.

Jesse couldn’t understand what he was seeing in the mirror, he didn’t really know what he was looking at but he knew he was scared of it.

He was scared of the thing that vaguely resembled a human.