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Chapter 16




Chapter 16. It's Not You, It's the Two of Us
Meanwhile, Aster was at peace.
Whoosh—
A fist charging straight at him.
It was quite vicious.
The fist, as large as a child’s head, was covered in calluses, and the power it contained was incomparable to that of a trained adult.
This was the fist of one who had mastered Aether.
‘Dolanpega, huh?’
Indeed, he was worthy of being from a prestigious family.
But that was all.
‘Not bad, but…’
It was lacking.
Despite his large build, he was quite fast, and each strike was deadly, but that was all.
His attacks were straightforward, predictable from the movement of his shoulders and the change in his steps.
It must have been maddening for Hixter.
His attacks were neither particularly fast nor hard to dodge, yet they somehow never landed.
‘Then, it’s time…’
Just as Aster thought this,
“Don’t underestimate me—!”
Whoosh—!
A heavy fist flew at him.
The fist, aimed at his solar plexus, was delivered with a spinning motion from below, and if it landed, it would surely put him in a groggy state.
It was clear that this was a full-effort strike from Hixter. As a result, Aster stopped his evasive maneuvers for the first time.
Bang!
The sound was so loud it didn’t seem like a human body was being hit.
Aster’s body flew into the air.
“Oh! Finally!”
“Indeed, Hixter!”
The academy students cheered.
Most had bet on Hixter, but his expression was not good.
“Grr.”
The sensation of the punch clearly indicated a direct hit.
But why did it feel subtly lighter?
He had certainly hit, but the impact didn’t fully transfer. It felt like hitting a bouncy slime with all his might.
And as expected—
Thud, thud.
“...”
The opponent landed lightly.
He didn’t seem to struggle to regain balance. Just two steps back, and he had dispersed the impact and stabilized his stance.
“Grrrr!”
Hixter, seeing this, charged forward with a roar.
His charge was like that of a bull.
But it was straightforward.
An attack that the usual Hixter would never have made. But this strange fight had taken away his reason.
Crackle—
Crack.
A spark flew from Aster’s fist right after.
His shoulder pulled back.
His chest opened naturally, and the muscles in his back contracted. Meanwhile, Aster’s gaze focused on Damian.
‘Let’s see, power control…’
Damian, still smiling, cast a healing spell on Hixter.
To finish Hixter, he needed to knock him out with a single strike.
But it wasn’t difficult. He had been testing the limits by striking Hixter’s body.
The mana from his core enveloped his fist, and the double-layered mana barrier began to circulate in opposite directions.
As the circulation intensified, the sparks grew fiercer.
Crackle! Crack!
While the core’s mana was finely adjusted for the right power.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Hixter’s massive body approached.
“Wh-what?”
“Isn’t this dangerous?!”
The academy students, caught off guard by the unexpected situation, gasped.
Aster’s fist extended.
A flash of light followed.
Flash—
A shockwave extended.
This was not magic.
It was a technique devised by the previous life’s Aster and his comrades. It used mana but didn’t belong to martial arts or magic.
A pure technique utilizing the properties of mana.
Collision Style.
A technique that extracted energy from the collision of mana particles.
Boom—!
A deafening sound echoed.
“Wh-what?”
The academy students, unable to grasp the situation, stood dumbfounded.
Hixter’s massive body seemed to have lost its inertia, stopping in place, with Aster’s fist right in front of it.
A moment of silence.
Bang!
Hixter’s massive body fell.
A dead silence.
The noisy auditorium, filled with students, became quiet as if doused with cold water.
No one spoke. After all, it was a match between the second son of the Dolanpega family and an unknown student.
The gray-haired student, not of noble blood, was either a distant relative or not from a prestigious family at all.
“What, what’s going on?”
“Who is he? Does anyone know?”
Amid the students’ confusion about Aster’s identity, silence fell again.
For a reason.
Swish.
Aster’s fist extended straight up towards the ceiling.
His voice followed.
“Cheer.”
“...?”
“...?”
Perhaps they didn’t understand the soft voice. The students looked at him with puzzled eyes.
“Waaaaaah!”
“Amazing!”
“Got it! Got it! Kids, this is what it means to bet against the odds! Against the odds!”
The cheers echoed through the auditorium.
Those who won their bets rejoiced at their success, and even those who lost cheered for the thrilling fight.
And—
“That was fun!”
“...”
Damian, too, jumped around excitedly.
“We won!”
Aster glanced at Damian.
“Didn’t you lose?”
“Winning side, our side.”
“Alright.”
As the students cheered for the event before the opening ceremony,
A commotion arose from behind.
“Hey, don’t push!”
“Hey, who are you?!”
A massive figure pushed through the crowd. The students grumbled at the uninvited guest but—
soon fell silent.
Why?
“Move! Move, you guys! Who’s fighting on the first day of the opening ceremony? You? You are! If you don’t move quickly, I’ll take you all in!”
A faculty member, alerted by the commotion, appeared.
He seemed to be a professor, judging by his academy uniform. The students quickly made space to avoid being dragged in.
Seeing this, Aster thought,
‘Hmm.’
He had caused trouble.
But it was fine.
‘I’m a troubleshooter. There are many witnesses, but there are even more ways to escape. Besides, since we all had fun, no one will speak up if we’re not caught now.’
With this thought, he tried to blend into the crowd with Damian.
“It’s not us!”
“...?”
A cheerful voice and a hand suddenly shot up beside him. Turning his head in confusion, Damian shouted,
“It’s us! Us... Huh!”
Aster quickly covered his mouth.
However, the professor, a skilled individual, had already spotted Aster and Damian. Soon, an angry voice echoed in his ears.
“It’s you two!”
He glanced at Damian.
An innocent expression.
“Mmm! Mmm!”
With his mouth covered, he raised a hand and hopped around, announcing his presence to the world.
At this point, no thoughts came to mind.
“Sigh.”
A light sigh.
Aster finally removed his hand from Damian’s mouth and raised a hand like Damian.
“Here! Here!”
Amid Damian’s excited shouts—
“That’s right. It’s us... It’s us.”
The words, which echoed, felt unusually hollow, perhaps due to the mood.
* * *
In the end, Damian and I had to visit the Jenion Academy’s faculty office before the opening ceremony.
“Damian, Aster.”
“Yes.”
“Yes!”
“You turned yourselves in honestly? For that, I’ll let this slide without a penalty this time. The other student doesn’t seem to be seriously injured.”
The faculty member in charge of student affairs, with a stern face, said this and then gave me a warning.
“I’ll be watching you.”
“...”
I simply nodded.
Back in the auditorium.
Fortunately, the opening ceremony hadn’t started yet. The scattered academy students had all taken their seats.
“Oh.”
“Oh, is that him?”
Damian and I, receiving the attention of the academy students, found our seats.
Even in the midst of this, Damian smiled and waved at the students, becoming a celebrity.
He said,
“Someone must have saved our seats.”
“Yeah, it seems so.”
I was too tired to respond, so I just went along with Damian’s chatter.
The opening ceremony began.
It was quite boring.
“Blue and brilliant~”
The academy anthem, containing the teachings of the founding chancellor, was followed by a speech from the elderly chancellor.
“E, so...”
For some reason, the chancellor couldn’t end his speech once he started.
‘And’, ‘so’, ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘however’—the words kept coming.
How long had it been?
Looking around, more than half had their heads down.
Damian was no exception.
I wiped the drool flowing from his chin onto his uniform sleeve.
He didn’t wake up even then.
Fortunately, the chancellor’s speech didn’t last long.
“Chancellor, there’s somewhere you need to go right now...”
“Hmm, what could be more important than the opening ceremony...”
A secretary hurriedly approached and whispered. The chancellor’s eyes flared. The conversation echoed through the auditorium via the sound amplifier.
The secretary turned off the amplifier and whispered.
The chancellor nodded shortly after.
“Sorry, students. I have to go urgently.”
The chancellor moved with a feigned regretful expression.
From his expression, it seemed there was a more important event than the academy opening ceremony.
A red-haired professor took the stage afterward.
“Everyone, pay attention!”
A red-haired female professor, clearly a mage, in a neat academy uniform, shouted without a sound amplifier, waking up all the students.
The professor who had come to catch Damian and me earlier also woke up, which was a funny story.
“My name is Jera. I will conduct the opening ceremony in place of the chancellor, who couldn’t finish his speech due to an unexpected schedule.”
Professor Jera, introducing herself, took the sound amplifier artifact.
“Let’s start with the student oaths. First, the representative of the magic students, Dalia de Dine.”
“Yes.”
A girl stepped forward with a short answer. A student with striking silver hair.
The students murmured afterward.
“What, the Dine family took the entrance exam?”
“Is their skill lacking?”
“Think before you speak. She’s the third daughter. If her skills were really lacking, would the Dine family have let her take the entrance exam?”
It was customary for prestigious families to enter through special admission.
The students were surprised by the unusual entrance exam.
However, I looked at Dalia for a different reason.
‘Dalia was in this year’s class?’
Dalia de Dine.
If the Deculan family was the top magical family in the east, the Dine family was the second.
Always striving to surpass the Deculans, they were the perennial second.
Dalia, the third daughter of the Dine family, would grow to represent the Dine family in the future—
‘Seeing her here is a pleasant surprise.’
During my troubleshooter days, she was a tiresome acquaintance, and when I decided to retire, she had been a significant help.
Of course, we were more like rivals than benefactors to each other.
“Next, the representative of the martial arts students, Pola.”
“...Yes.”
A black-haired boy walked from the back.
Judging by the lack of a surname, he didn’t seem to be from a prestigious family.
Regardless, the two students each held the oath paper given by Jera and recited their oaths.
Their voices echoed through the auditorium.
“...”
The students, now feeling the reality of their admission, seemed to be lost in thought.
“Koo.”
Only our Damian was sound asleep.
“With that, the oaths are complete.”
The two students finished their oaths and returned to their seats.
At that moment, I thought I met Dalia’s eyes.
But it was probably just my imagination.
No, it wasn’t.
“...”
Dalia, on her way down from the stage, even tilted her head to look at me intently.
“Ah!”
Perhaps it was inevitable that she tripped and fell on the stairs.
I looked at her for a moment and then turned away.
The time I had been waiting for had arrived.
“Next, I will introduce the professors who will be in charge of the 172nd class. Please come up one by one.”
The professors introduced themselves one by one, briefly mentioning their classes and specialties, and then returned to their seats.
During this time, I focused on the stage, waiting for the name I had been anticipating. Finally, near the end,
“I am Pharon, in charge of the basic principles of magic.”
Professor Pharon introduced himself with a somewhat cold expression.
‘Hmm.’
I had expected someone with a similar aura to Hengi, but it was different.
However, judging by outward appearances alone was dangerous. Hengi, after all, was not a great personality in his social mask.
I memorized Professor Pharon’s face and woke Damian.
The opening ceremony was over.
“Eh, um... Uh?”
“Wake up.”
“Is it over?”
“No, you were caught sleeping and expelled. You have to go home now.”
“...!”
Damian’s eyes, half-asleep, snapped open at the word ‘expelled’.
He looked around with wide eyes, seemingly fully awake.
“It’s a joke.”
“Phew. Thank goodness...”
“We need to go to the dormitory allocation. If we’re late, there won’t be any spots left, so snap out of it and let’s go.”
The effect was excellent.
At the mention of no spots left, Damian hurriedly tidied his clothes and moved with a pale face.
We followed the caretakers to the assigned dormitory, but someone blocked my path.
“...”
The bulky figure I had fought, Hixter of the Dolanpega family.
I learned his name from the conversation with the faculty member. It seemed he had also managed to attend the opening ceremony in time.
“You...”
“It’s not you, it’s the two of us.”
“Right, we are two.”
Hixter’s face swelled as if about to burst. He must have been furious.
But for a moment, he flinched and trembled. Why? His eyes, looking at me and Damian, showed a hint of fear.
‘...Trauma.’
Trauma.
Just as I thought this,
“Don’t think this is over. I will crush you two.”
Hixter, with a fierce look, spat out these words and turned around. But it wasn’t scary.
I just hoped he would overcome his trauma well.