Chapter 43 Entrance Exam [4]

'But if he says it's fine then it's fine, don't hold any hard feelings if I ended up killing you. Also, I'm not kidding here.'

No, I really was just kidding here.

There's no way that I was going to take this exam seriously after that mess I made in the previous one.

It was clear that what I did there was by no means an ordinary thing you see every day, so I was more or less sure that I will end up with a high grade on the second exam.

I performed mediocrely in the first exam so even if you take that into account and calculate my total score, it was likely that I will be out of those average student criteria I want to be in.

So, to balance things up I was going to perform just enough to get a passing grade, that's all.

I was also not that good in sword arts so the possibility of something like the last time happening was out of the question.

The only way I stood on the ground during battles that required fighting with sword art was because of that skill I have—Foresight.

That helped me a lot in improving my defense and because of that in this exam I was going to do just that; play defense.

"Let's get started," said the young man in front of me.

"Oh…no actually. Please wait a minute," I replied and signaled him to stop.

He stopped in his place and then I held the sword between the armpits of my right hand and then removed the black gloves I was wearing.

They are not made of leather so if I kept wearing them while wielding a sword, then I may have to compromise some grip.

I removed the gloves and put them in my pocket, after that, I held the sword again with both of my hands. This time I was able to feel its cold metal blade and its wooden handle.

"I'm ready now," I said and stood in a battle stance, looking directly at the young man—who was the examiner.

He smiled at me and with his body language, he hinted to me to get real now and come at him with everything I've got.

Of course, I wasn't going to do that.

But just to make it look like I was taking things seriously I charged at him and aimed at him with my sword.

It was supposed to be a piercing attack that can be used for stabbing your opponent but if the other person has even a bit of experience then it can be dodged pretty easily.

The same thing happened and he titled his waist—where my sword was about to stab him—to the right and then using his legs and moving away he dodged it completely.

My speed though was by no means slow and I was not able to stop instantly—or I probably made it look like that.

When I stopped and was about to turn around I felt an enormous presence behind me, the air suddenly became heavy and a bit of sweat dripped from my temple.

Without wasting a single second I used [Foresight] and then multiple examiners appeared before my eyes; each of them was going to land a different attack on me.

I got to know this recently but instead of showing me the exact future, [Foresight] shows me all the possible futures and one of them can become the true one—I don't know which one.

The images it shows me like for example I am seeing ten images of the examiner then it means that in the next 0.1 second, one of them can come true.

There was an option to simply dodge all of them but that was not possible most of the time because to react in 0.1 is not a simple thing to do.

Then there was an option to predict the future that can come true by the elimination method. I was able to do it due to a feature of this skill; the images that I see are sorted by their opacity.

The skill helped me quite a bit. The opacity of the image with the future has the most possible chance of becoming true and the image with the least chance is almost transparent.

So by that what I have to do is dodge the attacks launched by the examiner's image with the highest opacity.

And when this time I used [Foresight] on the examiner I was shocked down to my bones. The number of images I saw was high, too high; around a hundred or so images were there.

This means that there are hundred possible attacks he had in his mind now and he was going to perform one of them.

The attack that came was one where he swung his sword from up to down with a huge amount of force behind it and his sword aimed for my right shoulder.

I reacted in less than a second and leaped back a few steps and then blocked his sword with mine.

A loud sound of two pieces of metal clashing with each was heard throughout the room.

Scraping through my sword he moved—sparks were released when our swords rubbed against each other.

He did a three-sixty-degree spin and then launched another attack that targeted the right side of my waist; it was a slashing attack.

I darted forward and before he could fully perform his attack I locked swords with him, making him unable to move freely.

He both increased the amount of force behind our swords, trying to push the other back and launch an attack.

This power struggle continued for a while, sometimes I pushed him back, and sometimes he got me into a corner.

In the end, we both backed off to catch our breath. To be honest, this was the first time I was actually having a bit of trouble.

He was way better than Anya—the only one I have fought using sword arts—and this man was hard to read.

He never spoke anything since the fight began and he also had a poker face up all the time, making me unable to read his expressions.

? Of course, the same was the case with me.

I am not praising myself here but I am better at making a poker face than him by a landslide, and it showed clearly.

When he found that he was not able to read me, I saw him narrowing his eyes from time to time or twitching his brows. Sometimes, wrinkles formed on his temple, and all this indicated that he was not good with poker faces.

'He can't hide his irritation completely and that is enough to make one aware of his intentions.'

Now I decided to finish this, keeping this fight go on any longer will only waste time.

Thus, I dashed toward him at full speed and surprisingly, he did the same thing. I had expected him to defend but he also dashed toward me.

In the blink of an eye, we were beside each other and at the same time, we moved our swords against each other.

Clashing them with full force, the sound traveled in each and every inch of this room.

Then, I loosened my grip on my sword, due to that he was able to push me back and my sword slipped from my hand and was thrown back in the air by him.

The next moment, his sword stopped just before slicing my neck. He then pulled his sword back and put it in its sheath.

"Did I pass or fail?"

"I can't answer that now, you'll have to wait for the results."

Figured this much, that old man also said the same thing.

"Well, thank you. Can you now tell me about the fourth exam? We were not told anything about the nature of the exam and everything is kept a secret from us."

I asked as I put on my gloves again after wiping the sweat on my palms with my handkerchief.

"For now, go back to where Mr. Halls explained the entrance exam to you. You will find out there where the fourth exam is taking place and what it is about," he replied.

Tch! I tried to ask it in a roundabout way but he avoided my question entirely.

"Okay, thank you very much. I guess I should go now," I said and began walking toward the exit door.

And then I remembered something; the sword that was thrown into the air by him was still lying on the floor so I went there and picked it up to put it back in its place.

I bent my knees and picked the sword and then.

"Why were you not taking this seriously? I said to come at me with everything you've got, didn't I?" said the young man.

At this point, I was standing again, but after hearing this I didn't move and just stood there.

"Even though I am very young among the other teachers, I do have a good amount of fighting experience. I can predict the strength of my opponent when I cross swords with them for the first time. And the same…goes for you also…you were not fighting with your full power."

'Is he really going to do it now?'

I kinda expected that he might find out but I never thought that he will just ask me straight.

'Sigh! Troubles after troubles!'

"Huh? What are you talking about sir? I really went all out against you, it's true," I said.

He was standing behind me at a distance but I didn't turn around when I replied to him, nor did I look at him. Just answered like any normal student would in this situation.

But…

"No, that's not quite true. You can lie to the others but not to me."

***

After he finished saying that, the young man unsheathed his sword in an instant and threw it at Zero with great force. If that attack landed then it was likely to drill through Zero's neck.

But what happened next surprised that young man as his eyes widened in shock when he witnessed it.

As the sword was about to hit Zero, he moved, so fast that it looked like a flash. Then he strike at the sword with his own and the sword he held was not normal.

The blade was red hot like someone has thrown it into a furnace and heated it, but it was the result of Zero using his elemental magic on the sword.

The red hot blade sliced the other sword in two and both of its pieces landed near Zero's legs.

Then the young man looked at Zero and his face. It was completely different from before, his eyes were devoid of any expression and so was his face.

Those eyes looked straight at him and when he gazed into them, like the void, those eyes stared back at him.

It was enough to make him go silent, but then the teenage boy, Zero, spoke up.

"Forget about what happened here otherwise the world will forget about you. And give me the marks according to how I performed, not based on what you thought I will perform like...understand?"

His voice was cold, plain, and enough to send shivers down one's spine.

Zero then walked to that desk and placed the sword on it, after that, he quietly left the room.

Now, the young man was alone, it took some time but he regained his composure.

"Seems like we have many interesting students this year," he muttered to himself, and then a faint smile appeared on his face.