Chapter 20: Ice-cream

"Hm… how about the whole training ground in a minute?" Rewen said in a bland voice.

"Are you serious? That isn't even a challenge. How about I show you run the course within ten seconds?" Francesca countered with a bland voice.

Of course, she wouldn't believe him. In fact, which sane person would? But Rewen wanted exactly this. The impact would be much heavier if she realised he wasn't kidding. He stretched his knees before standing totally erect doing the breathing exercise.

"Alright, start the count." Releasing a long breath, Rewen said.

Francesca slightly nodded. "3."

'Temporarily sacrifice [Blacksmith] and [Missions to Doom].'

"2."

'Temporarily sacrifice my bloodline along with the perks.'

"1. Go!"

'Activate [Boost].'

A gust of wind along with dust passed by Francesca's body as she failed to keep her eyes open. By the time, she opened her eyes, Rewen was already out of her vision. She looked around in puzzlement and finally spotted a figure faraway sprinting. From the distance, the pace looked nothing special but Francesca knew how vision works and had nothing but horror in her eyes. 'Who is this guy?'

When he was half-way through, she sat down on the chair and looked at her phone. "0:31." She just couldn't comprehend the speed. From her estimate, if it was a late-Rank 2 Mage, only then would it be believable. 'He hasn't even reached Rank 0 which means he should have trained his physique to a superhuman level. I don't know about the whole Empire but this should be a first in the kingdom. Should I report this to the higher-ups? I should probably ask him first.'

A few seconds later, she saw Rewen coming into a stop and immediately stopped the timer. Even though Rewen was profusely sweating, his face was anything but tired. Jogging over to her, he asked.

"How much time did I take?"

Initially, Francesca was about to dump loads of questions upon him but decided to do that later. She held her phone and turned the screen towards his eyes. "1:03 minutes."

Rewen sighed and squatted down. He did some squats and got up. "That was my best. Any way I could bring my pace within a minute?"

Francesca shook her head. "I can't say. Besides, you are already very fast. If you practice for a week, you should be able to achieve your goal."

Rewen fell down flat on the ground wondering what to do. 'My absolute best would be 62 seconds. There's no way I could complete the quest unless…' His eyes darted towards Francesca's feet and then looked at his own.

Francesca noticed his stare. "You can take them if it helps." She goes off to take off her shoes and keeps it beside him.

Rewen got up immediately and took off his shoes before putting on her shoes. "Thanks. The size fits perfectly."

Francesca smiled. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah." Rewen focused on the path ahead of him and calculated.

"Go!"

*Dash*

This time around, Francesca watched him disappear clearly but was still gobsmacked by his speed. She watched some other classmates of her coming towards her and guessed their reason.

"What's with this guy?"

"Is he a graduate senior?"

"Wasn't he wearing a uniform when he came in?"

"He is in his first year like us." Francesca admitted.

"No way."

"More like 'are you kidding me?'."

"No, I'm not. He should be the 'Future Strongest Man on Earth'. The guy in the meme who went viral yesterday night."

"No freaking way!"

"Look, he's coming. You can verify my words."

Francesca stopped the timer as soon as she saw Rewen stop. She smiled at him while her classmates had the same face as her when Rewen first ran. "Do you want to check the timer?"

Blasting water from the tap on his sweat-filled face, he replied. "No need. It should be under a minute this time."

[Quest Updated]

[Do you want to continue the quest?]

[Yes] [No]

'Of course.' Rewen would be a fool to not continue. He didn't know how many goals he needed to reach before getting the "Unknown" reward but he would do it.

---

Quest: Baby Steps of a Knight

Grade: A+

Goal: Defeat five people within ten seconds.

Rewards: Unknown

Failure: None

Note: This is a chained quest. Instead of "details", "goals" are targets of completion. Chained quests update itself after the current goal is achieved. The quest would start as soon as the Host is done reading it.

---

"Shit. Friends, come and spar with me. Be quick!" Rewen took a stance. He didn't know if they would really come or not.

Two seconds ticked by and nobody spoke a word.

At this point, Rewen decided that if the time exceeds five seconds, he would go up to them and start flipping them up. He had a vague idea of what 'defeat' means so he was fairly confident in achieving the current goal.

"Haha, alright. Since you asked for a fight, a fight is what you would get- eukkk!"

The young man nearest to Rewen said the dialogue like a third-rate villain as a third-rate villain and tried to pull on a sharp punch on his jaw only to be faced towards the ceiling in less than a second.

"One." Rewen didn't even need to use the [Freestyle Knights Combat] technique. His fighting experience and martial arts was enough to defeat them. "Two, three, four or any number. Come at me!"

"I-I have some important things to do."

"Yes, I remember my maid asking me to go to the grocery."

"Urhg- Yeah, I have to go as well."

They aren't brainless minions. Seeing him flip a bulky guy, they understood well that numbers won't work.

Rewen sighed seeing them ready to run away. "Don't blame me for doing this!" Using the [Freestyle Knights Combat] technique, he swiftly went near them and sweeped his leg making them fall over.

Francesca watched the scene in front of her with all kinds of emotions. Awe, confusion, surprise, anger… 'Why is he doing this? To impress me? How cheap- wah' Her thought process was interrupted by a sudden force which made her stumble and fall.

[Quest updated]

[Would you like to continue the quest?]

[Yes] [No]

'Wait.'

Rewen then helped each one of them up as they gave him looks. Under such pressure, he could only awkwardly laugh and say. "I have a medical condition."

"Sure you do." Francesca replied with clear hostility in her eyes. Other's expressions were not better off.

Rewen looked around hoping to get out of this predicament when he noticed an ice-cream stall. "How about I treat y'all ice creams?" As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he realised he had misspoken. They aren't kids who needed to be pacified with ice creams. However, their response surprised him.

"Oh, you sure? You can't go back on your words now." The bulky guy who was the first to view the ceiling said.

"I'll get the extra large vanilla." Francesca added.

Followed by them, the other three also showed enthusiasm towards ice-cream.

Rewen didn't know what to say and took them to the stall, then ordered their ice-creams. He wasn't some ice-cream fanatic but seeing others eating it with the face of pure bliss made him get one for him. While exchanging credits with the storekeeper, they started talking for no particular reason.

"I haven't seen you before."

"That's because I am from a different class. Also, it's rather strange that you could tell this because it has only been a single day."

"Yeah, a medical doctor said that I have semi-eidetic memory. Forget that, you shouldn't treat your friends."

"Eh? Why?"

"From what I know, students from this class have to maintain a very specific diet and they are actually prohibited from eating and drinking certain things. One of them being ice-creams."

"That sounds like a violation of freedom."

"It is worse than that. Don't think they had to implement the diet just after they got into the academy. They had been following this diet this since they got to know their mana resonance percentile at the early age of five or six."

"Why?"

"To maintain their physique."

"Not eating ice-creams maintains their physique? Cool. By the way, why are you setting up an ice-cream stall here? Isn't the business shit?"

"I was told to set up a stall here. I receive monthly income from the academy regardless of whether I manage to sell ice-creams or not."

"Understandable, have a nice day."