Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Lilia
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Chapter 18 – I Shall be a Sandbag②
For now, I finished training Erin.
I was a little doubtful whether I could call it productive, but I guessed it was okay to say it was over. After all, I still had two students to practice with.
“Then it will be Sharon or Kuyumi next…”
“What should I do in my case?”
Sharon once came close to destroying the equipment at the training ground in the aftermath of a single attack.
As she looked anxious, I gave her a strong thumbs up.
“It’s okay. Sensei will make sure to tank it this time.”
“……I can go all out, right?”
“Of course. Ah, so both of you, please retreat further away than before.”
Hearing my warning, a pale-faced Erin and an amused Kuyumi quickly disappeared from sight.
I faced Sharon with my back to the outer wall of the practice field.
The distance between her and me was the boundary where physical slashes had a chance of combating artillery fire.
“ ‘Chains are steel’── there you go.”
Defensive magic was deployed with three-quarters of the chant omitted.
For the time being, it could be classified as advanced defensive magic.
I had memories of this magic shield getting torn to shreds by a nasty greater demon, so the reliability was low.
The Knight was also able to tear it apart with her bare hands.
Although it was just a training session, I really felt like I was going to pee my pants.
“……Gh, ‘Crushing star’ ‘golden angle’.”
When I nodded at her, Sharon’s gaze sharpened and she began chanting.
Apparently, she heard my shortened chant and thought I was looking down on her.
Her assault spear expanded its structure with a clanging sound.
The steel plates smoothly slid past each other to form the gun barrel.
“ ‘Kneel before its majesty’ ‘may you crush your own eyes’.”
Along with a high-pitched charging sound, the overflowing excess magic power punctured the ground at random.
No good, was this happening because she unleashed her full power? I guess the practice ground would be destroyed in the end.
“──FIRE!”
I took the bombardment head-on.
The advanced defensive magic… made a faint sound.
When I looked closely, I could see a slight crack. Even if it was just surface damage, this magic was really useless. It was supposed to be advanced, but my student’s attack could damage it.
“……Gh, no damage?!”
“No, it’s a little damaged. You’re amazing.”
“Where’s the damage…” said Sharon while frowning. She took her stance again.
Her assault spear was filled with magic power.
“……!”
“──FIRE!!”
It wasn’t a chant omission.
It was one of Sharon’s active skills, [Chant Chaining].
Simply put, she could fire another spell of the same type as her previous spell by just repeating the final word of her previous chant.
Could such a game-breaking vicious skill description actually exist?
Well, it did, so Sharon developed a high-frequency max damage skill cycle that destroyed everything in its path.
She wasn’t known as the single-task onee-san that killed all her enemies for nothing.
“Heeeh, so you can fire it continuously!”
While pretending that I didn’t know about her ability, I poured magic power into my defensive magic and repaired the damage.
Sharon’s bombardment magic impacted the shield directly and scraped away the surface layer of my defensive magic.
“You……!”
The voice that came from the other side of the blast was clearly irritated.
I guess she couldn’t believe that she couldn’t crush something like a defensive spell formed from chanting a single verse.
Well, it was advanced defensive magic, so her current goal should be to destroy it with one shot.
“Haah……! Haah……! Haah……?!”
Eventually, the blinding light faded away, revealing craters dotting the ground and a panting Sharon.
Seeing that my defensive magic was still intact, she opened her mouth again.
“ ‘Crushing Star’.”
“Ah~ wait a minute.”
When I canceled the defensive magic, Sharon glared at me with a dissatisfied expression.
“……I can still fire dozens of them.”
“In terms of your magic power, that is. But it puts too much physical burden on your body. You can’t rely on spamming it forever.”
For now, I told her to try and break the shield in two shots.
“Realistically, there aren’t many people who will allow the same spell to be fully chanted over and over again in actual combat.”
“But I can chain my spells together──”
“I said multiple times. By the second shot, most strong people would have prepared an appropriate counter. After that, your attack is practically useless. So, your goal should be to break my shield in two shots.”
It was true that [Chant Chaining] was a really great advantage.
For example, if she were to unleash a spell that would beat an unprepared opponent, she could catch them unprepared by doubling it up from a different angle.
The opponent would assume she needed to complete the chant and would focus on charging a more powerful shield or counter after hearing the chant for the first time, so the second, almost instantaneous shot would likely land successfully.
Sharon groaned but nodded.
I could strongly feel her thinking that it would still work if she could just shoot as many shots as it took.
I thought it would be best to take another opportunity to revise her thoughts about this point.
“Then, the last one.”
“Oka~y♡”
Kuyumi held her left and right daggers with reverse grips and smiled broadly.
“Do you know what you’re going to do?”
“Checking maximum speed♡ also checking the duration♡ and finally, checking the accuracy of movement during maximum speed, right~♡?”
How did she know?
“Then, let’s get started.”
At that moment, Kuyumi’s figure disappeared from sight.
I swung the training sword in my hand to block the multidirectional slashes that came from behind.
“So you can reach top speed in an instant. As expected of you.”
“You say that, even though you already took it as a premise♡”
Her voice could be heard clearly even amidst the intense sparks and crashing noises.
If I traced the trajectory of Kuyumi’s movement as a line, it formed a birdcage that trapped me.
“So you can block it after all. If so──”
I sensed an attack from behind and tried to block.
But when I turned around, instead of closing the distance, Kuyumi was stepping backward and throwing a dagger at me.
I parried it with my sword. There was a pink-colored afterimage in the place where I swung my sword.
I see, so she adjusted her distance well.
After parrying the charge, she ran backward and retrieved the thrown dagger in midair.
She was skillful, fast, and strong.
It was definitely beyond the level of a student.
“Okay.”
Kuyumi disappeared for the third time. It was her top speed.
She pretended to attack from behind, but the real attack came from my left.
I avoided the dagger that was about to slit my throat and grabbed Kuyumi’s arm.
“……?! Aren’t you too impenetrable?!”
“You’re perfect at this stage. Everything was better than I expected. There shouldn’t be any problem since you can keep up for this long.”
After being released Kuyumi quickly put away her daggers and backed away to an appropriate distance.
“Fu~hn, I guess I am competent enough by your standards♡”
Kuyumi looked satisfied compared to the other two.
It felt like Kuyumi probably had some grasp of how strong she could become from now on.
But too bad for her. Whatever image of herself she had in her mind was inaccurate.
Due to the style of the sequel plot, which was a cheerful story about Erin and her group saving the world, Kuyumi would also be awakened.
She had far more potential than she expected, for no particular reason.
As expected, the characters of the sequel and the first game felt way too different!
It was teased a lot, even in the anthology comic!
“Do you think there’s still room for improvement in terms of speed?”
“Hm~… I wonder about that? To be honest, the frequency at which I thought it could grow has decreased♡”
Most likely, what she considered an increase in speed corresponded to the skills she was acquiring and practicing.
I had a rough grasp of the skills she activated earlier.
It was likely the active skills [Proof of Murder] and [Dance of Fresh Blood].
There was also the passive skill [Tactical Thinking].
I think it was those three that were activated.
That’s supposed to be your skill set for the final dungeon, you know!
It’s definitely not something you should know in your current situation when you haven’t reached your first town!
Also, her skill names were all gorey. Why were those names chosen despite her cute appearance?
“Just pay attention, and don’t lose motivation. You’re more skilled than the others right now, but don’t slack off.”
“Ah~ I guess that’s true.”
I felt like that was really the only thing she should be concerned about.
I think we spent enough time training, so I decided to let them return to the classroom for some reflection.
With that in mind, I called the other two back over.
“Go back to the classroom and cool down…you’ve done well today.”
After Erin and Sharon nodded, Kuyumi suddenly approached me.
“Sensei……you said you were fighting for the sake of everyone’s happiness, right♡”
“Hm, aah… well, I did say that.”
I felt a little embarrassed when my philosophy was suddenly brought up in front of my students.
It felt quite embarrassing when put into words, it also felt like too much of a fantasy.
In fact, all I did was just temporarily push Mariemaia into the depths of unhappiness.
Ah, when I thought about it like that, it made me feel really sad.
Not only did I not want to do that, but I also hadn’t achieved much after doing such a cruel thing to her.
The deviation from the original plot surprised me, but there was no real momentum.
Because I didn’t have any mysterious powers, I had spent my time training, so my social skill test scored 0.
Well, I was the one who threw it in the trash, anyway.
It was like choosing to play solo in a MMORPG.
“Then I’ll ask you to do your best to achieve that♡”
As I started to lose myself in my past memories, Kuyumi stood on her tiptoes and poked my cheek with her finger.
When I weakly turned my head toward her, her eyes shone mysteriously. I could almost see my reflection in her eyes.
“……Is Kuyumi’s favorite thing to do becoming stronger?”
“That and teasing sensei♡”
My burden is too heavy……
The mini pink tails were swaying cutely.
On their way back to the classroom, Erin turned to Kuyumi.
“Hey, Kuyumi.”
“Hm, what is it?”
“Teach’s reason for fighting, that you said earlier… Did he really say something like that in front of us?”
“……That’s right. I also felt something off with that. I don’t remember ever hearing that directly from sensei. Kuyumi, when did you hear about that?”
Sharon also noticed it.
Upon hearing the question, Kuyumi stopped and slowly turned around.
“When do you think I did?”
It wasn’t in her usual teasing way.
Kuyumi had the face of a woman who was guarding her treasure.
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