READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 20 - Elysia (4)
✦ Chapter 20 – Elysia (4) ✦
「Translator – Creator」
𒋝𒋝𒋝𒋝𒋝
Ignoring my conversation with Clara, Professor Elysia charged forward, but not towards me—she aimed at Clara.
Her fist shot out, aimed directly at Clara’s face.
“Tch.”
With a flick of her wrist, Clara summoned a mana shield, hoping to protect herself from the blow. A shimmering, blue barrier materialized before her, larger and thicker than any ordinary mana shield.
However, as soon as Professor Elysia’s fist touched it, the shield shattered, exploding into a shower of blue sparks.
“Clara, you need to develop a defense against close-range attacks that doesn’t rely solely on mana shields,” Elysia said, her voice cool and analytical, as if she were simply offering constructive criticism during a sparring session.
Just before her fist reached Clara, I reacted instinctively, tugging on a thread connected to Clara and yanking her towards me.
As a result, Professor Elysia’s punch hit empty air.
Clara, propelled by the force of my thread, stumbled into my arms, landing in a classic princess carry.
Looking down at her, I spoke gently, “How does it feel? Like you’re being rescued by a prince on a white horse?”
I may not have been a prince, but I was confident that my face, even hidden behind a mask, was far more attractive than any fairy-tale hero.
Clara glared at me, then struck my head with her staff. “Whose fault do you think this is? Put me down, now.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
I released her, and she landed rather ungracefully on the floor.
She glared daggers at me from her position on the floor. “Hey, you told me to put you down. It hurts to see you look at me like that,” I said, feigning hurt.
While Clara and I exchanged our brief dialogue, the rest of the special class students continued to struggle against Professor Elysia.
“All for the glory of God!!!” the bald priest roared, charging towards her, a mace gripped tightly in his hand.
“Blessing yourself to fight isn’t a bad method, but it’s a brutish way to battle,” Elysia muttered. In Croaka, priests typically healed others or granted blessings to temporarily boost abilities. However, the bald priest attacking Professor Elysia blessed himself with all his powers and swung his mace fiercely.
*Whoosh. Whoosh.*
The air whistled as he swung his mace, each strike imbued with enough force to pulverize a boulder. Yet, Elysia remained untouched, her movements precise, her timing impeccable.
“Kuran may seem like a brute, charging in with his fists, but his attacks are actually quite sophisticated, incorporating techniques passed down through generations of his tribe.”
She punched the priest, her fist connecting with his solar plexus. He collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath.
“But you, without any technique, rely solely on brute strength and thus are easily defeated.”
Next, Professor Elysia set her sights on the swordsman from the East.
The swordsman from the fallen Eastern Kingdom, wielding a pair of crescent-shaped blades, attacked Elysia with a flurry of strikes.
“You rely too heavily on Eastern swordsmanship,” she observed, effortlessly dodging his attacks.
His blades, a blur of motion, danced around her, tracing elegant arcs through the air.
“Are you belittling Eastern swordsmanship?”
“No. You are too fixated on it. Though it appears flashy, to someone who understands Eastern techniques, it looks simple.”
His swift, intricate maneuvers were easily countered.
Elysia caught both of his blades with her bare hands, stopping them mid-swing.
“Instead of clinging to tradition, develop your own style, your own techniques. That is the path to true mastery.”
With those words, she delivered a swift kick to his chest, sending him crashing to the floor, unconscious.
Turning her gaze towards Clara and me, it was clear she intended us to be next.
“Looks like we’re next, Clara,” I said, stating the obvious.
“Yeah, I got that,” she replied, equally recognizing the situation.
Just as Elysia launched herself towards us with blinding speed, the ground rose up, creating a barrier between us and her.
“A… spirit?”
Clara was right.
Only a Spirit Summoner could manipulate the earth with such precision, and there was only one Spirit Summoner in the Special Class.
Sepia Leviathan
Sepia, with her pink hair flowing behind her, appeared and addressed me.
“You owe me one for this,” she declared.
*Boom!*
Elysia shattered the earthen barrier with a single punch and continued her approach. Four elemental spirits hovered around Sepia.
“Attack!” she commanded.
The spirits, however, remained motionless, trembling as if frozen in place.
“This never happened before. Why won’t they attack?”
Spirits are entities close to nature, inherently fearing dragons. Their instinctual fear paralyzed them.
“Sepia Leviathan, though you have an exceptional affinity to have contracts with all four Great Spirits, you spread yourself too thin to master controlling each perfectly,” Elysia critiqued while her fist aimed for Sepia.
Had Sepia mastered control over all her spirits, they would have overcome their fear and attacked.
“Consider your debt repaid!” I shouted, using the thread to slightly alter Elysia’s punch trajectory. The punch landed beside Sepia instead of on her.
“Lucas, now!”
As if on cue, Lucas’s spear descended from the ceiling, aimed directly at Elysia’s head.
She leaped back, effortlessly dodging the attack.
Lucas swiftly grabbed his spear and swung it at Professor Elysia. His speed and ferocity had increased significantly since the entrance exam, showing how much he had improved in just a week. Despite the sharpness of his attacks, they still couldn’t reach Elysia.
“Lucas, there’s not much I can critique about your spear technique. But why aren’t you using ‘that power’?” Elysia questioned.
“That’s…”
“Do you believe you can survive in the academy without using it?”
Lucas flinched, unable to meet her gaze. She’d struck a nerve.
Elysia disarmed him with a swift maneuver, sending his spear flying across the room before tossing him against the wall.
“That’s arrogance, Lucas. When a weakling faces a stronger opponent, they must be willing to use every advantage at their disposal. Like him.”
Elysia said, pointing her gaze at me. The few students who were still conscious followed her eyes to me as well.
“Collected all the daggers, Loki?”
“Yes, Professor! All accounted for!”
I’d been scurrying around the classroom, retrieving the daggers I’d launched earlier.
“Unlike the other students, Loki, you seem accustomed to facing stronger opponents.”
“The ones who taught me were all incredibly powerful,” I said.
The Emperor and Duke Adellion — the two individuals who’d taken me under their wing — were both monstrously powerful.
The Emperor had schooled me in the art of Shadow Step, pushing me to my limits and beyond.
Duke Adellion, his body coursing with raw mana, had turned every training session into a brutal, exhilarating test of my adaptability and cunning.
Those brutal training sessions had honed my instincts, teaching me to anticipate my opponent’s moves and exploit every weakness.
“I still have a few more traps to set up. Any chance you could give me a bit more time, Professor?”
She’d caught on to my tactics sooner than I’d anticipated, leaving several of my planned traps incomplete.
“I’m afraid not, Loki.”
“Is that so? Well, in that case, I’ve prepared something else that won’t disappoint you!”
“And what would that be?” Elysia asked, puzzled.
Before she could question me further, a voice, hesitant yet filled with a surprising confidence, piped up from behind me.
“I…I did it.”
Elysia immediately sensed something had changed about her body.
“This… is it a curse-related spell?”
“Ding-ding! Correct!” I confirmed.
While retrieving the daggers, I’d asked the shaman in our class to cast a curse on Elysia.
Though someone of Elysia’s caliber could break curses easily, there was one significant factor.
“Professor, you did say you wouldn’t use mana, didn’t you?”
Even for Professor Elysia, undoing a curse without using mana was nearly impossible. Naturally, the curse’s effects wouldn’t last long.
I activated Shadow Step, charging towards her, my staff held high.
The curse had slowed her down, but her movements were still incredibly swift.
My focus was on evasion rather than attack, knowing that a single hit from her would be the end for me.
While focusing on dodging, I noticed a momentary opening in Elysia’s stance. Seizing the opportunity, I struck—but it was a trap. Elysia’s speed suddenly increased, and her fist connected with me, disrupting my stance and preventing any evasion.
‘How?’
Why had she suddenly become faster? The curse shouldn’t have worn off yet.
“As unfortunate as it is, I have more experience than you. No matter how skilled you are in strategizing, you’re still lacking compared to me,” Elysia said.
That’s when it hit me.
She hadn’t suddenly become faster.
The curse hadn’t been broken.
She’d been feigning weakness, deliberately slowing her movements to lure me into a false sense of security.
And the moment I’d taken the bait, she’d unleashed her true speed.
The realization hit me just as my consciousness faded.
.
.
.
.
.
I opened my eyes, my vision blurry.
‘I must have blacked out.’
The memory of my defeat, of Elysia’s masterful manipulation, flashed through my mind.
Elysia was now engaged with Kuran. How much time had passed?
*Boom!*
Kuran, struck by another one of Elysia’s well-placed punches, crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
She glanced at a clock on the wall, her expression as calm and serene as ever.
“About two hours left. Anyone who wakes up fights me again.”
Closing my eyes again, I vainly tried to feign unconsciousness.
“Don’t pretend, Loki. I know you’re awake.”
Still unconscious, Professor. Still unconscious.
— End of Chapter —
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