‘This is impossible.’

I had no recollection of when it happened, but there was no point in dwelling over it. A sword would serve no purpose other than restricting my movements. Besides, she had already cut it in half somehow with her blocky wooden sword. The only physics I needed to know was that it was dangerous. It didn’t matter if it were a stick, slipper, or an oonga boonga club, I was running the fuck away.

“Haah!”

I said run away, but that wasn’t nearly as realistic as having a stick shoved up my ass. This girl was way faster than me if it were solely running. In fact, if she gave up swinging that damned lightsaber, she could catch me just like she did before and grope—well, I shouldn’t need to explain what comes next.

But thanks to her unperfected swordsmanship, I was able to exploit her attacks with my foresight. And while I say “exploit,” there was nothing to exploit other than evading. If I tried blocking with my elbow or forearm, it would be chopped off clean. And who the hell in their right minds would go on their offense against this monster? The best defense is offense?—Go fuck yourself.

On that note, if my memories are correct, she has improved a lot.

I was an amateur myself so I couldn’t quite say how I knew, but from my general knowledge, she no longer telegraphed her movement, meaning it was harder to read where she would go next. Still, it was her eyes that gave it away.

Let’s ignore the uncanny buttery pupil—she was making a mistake a lot of rookies did. Just watching where her eyes went told me all I needed to know to avoid the next strike.

‘Sideways.’

I slipped to the left, and rolled my shoulders to a ducking position, just barely avoiding the diagonal slice.

In all honesty, I did not know how I was keeping up with her demonic speed. There were only so many evasions in my arsenal; I was certain she would see through one of them eventually and prepare a pre-move to follow up.

‘Shit.’

There was also this other disadvantage. I couldn’t quite lay my mind on it as it triggered like an excruciating itch. My body would lock itself a couple times in a row as if a chiseled ice statue.

I had been lucky so far that it only happened when I avoided an attack or after a flurry of attacks. When I concentrated enough, I could break out of it so that was good.

But this issue presented a bigger question as well as an answer to my previous thoughts.

That is, my body freezing up had nothing to do with my mindset or my brain. I was sure of that.

I wasn’t in denial or anything, I just knew. I was too much of a genius to succumb to such shenanigans. If anything, my subconscious was starving for a decent fight, not afraid of it.

In a literal sense, I had always been addicted. I guess it can be called “combat addiction.” The name rolled off the tongue well.

This order of logic was nothing short of my rebuttal to accept my own incompetence. I had enough excuses to write a whole thesis on why it was impossible for me to freeze in a high-stress situation.

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Needless to say, it was also an indicator that I wasn’t pushing myself enough. I had to train even harder from now on. I must.

‘Bitch.’

While I was frozen in a ducking position, she came down with a recurring combo.

‘Roll, you fat fuck.”

I could roll.

‘Shoot, you piece of shit body.’

Instead, I darted straight for her juicy calf. If I was in any position to strike, that exposed meat was asking to be kicked—though it wouldn’t do much since she was somehow immune to physical attacks. Was it some sort of iron-fist, iron-abs, and iron-skin kind of thing like described in those Kyokushin Karate manuals? I didn’t know.

‘Focus.’

I grabbed her lead leg, firming my grip on it. With all the explosive strength I could muster, I thrust upward from my feet to my pelvis, trying my best to disrupt her balance.

Rather than blasting upward like a rocket, I ran my hands all the way up from the calves to the thighs—somewhere in between the two.

With my arms wrapped around her knee joint, I manipulated the momentum and tossed it sideways, essentially throwing her on the ground.

‘You’re a motherfucking genius.’

I cheered myself on, having realized that great strength did not necessarily mean great weight. She was still in the same threshold as I, weighing the same as a tee—no, that’s giving her too much credit. She’s a baby.

“Iviconenco…” The only noise I could hear was garbled. Whether it was from Sam or my classmates, it didn’t matter.

I lunged at the opportunity, going straight for a front naked choke.

Everyone has heard of the rear naked choke, but the front version was a luxury to be pulled off correctly. To a layman, such complex jargon meant shit from a pot, so sit back and relax as I demonstrate the greatest submission of all time. That’s right, the greatest!

I got on top of her chest and put my hands around her neck, and squeezed. That’s right, strangle the chicken!

‘Let go of your sword idiot.’

She still held onto her sword when she was about to be choked unconscious.

I could only nod my head in disappointment seeing her flail—

*Pffft

—Samantha—

‘Eh, what happened?’

My vision was hazy as to what went on, but in the next moment, a weight came off my body and my vision fazed back to clarity.

I could see again.

“Huh?”

Beside me, was some—Daniel? Why is he coughing out blood?

‘Eh? Why do my knuckles hurt?’

Before I could think of anything, a black aura ate Daniel and the white-beardy guy dragged me away.

When I looked at the seats, no one was there.

‘Did everyone leave?’

‘Did that girl leave too?”

“Samantha, right?”

“Eh? Uuuuh, that’s my name.”

The white-beardy man stroked his beard. “Would you like to join the blah blah blah blah…”

I looked at him strangely, not quite sure what he was talking about.

“Blah blah, Daniel is also a member blah blah…”

“Okay!” I said when I heard him say Daniel was a part of the… Uh, whatever it was called.

“Oh, are you sure you don’t want to read the blah blah blah first blah blah…”

I nodded, “Yeah!”

“Mmm. Good spirit. All you need to do is sign here.” He handed me a pen and paper.

I could read some of it, but a lot of the sentences had big words I didn’t really know. But I still had a general idea of what it was with the added context of some membership or something.

I took the pen and signed.

“Mhm. Alright, now with this… Blah blah.”

“Where did Daniel go?” I interrupted him.

“Him? Oh he should be fine. No need to worry about him.”

‘Fine? What happened? Did he die? Did Daniel die?’

The white-beardy guy nodded in some sort of approval as light started coming from somewhere.

‘He was coughing blood, right? So he’s dead? He’s dead!? Who killed him!?’