Chapter 18: Combat

Nicole was the first to enter the portal after receiving ‘good luck’ from her group.

She was nervous but controlled her breathing to stay calm.

Inhaling and exhaling, she reduced her nerves.

As she entered the portal, her surroundings changed, and with no discomfort from being teleported, Nicole arrived at an arena.

This place looked like a coliseum, and Nicole found herself in the center of the arena.

She was thankful there was no audience in sight, but she was sure they were watching her.

Reinforcing her body with magical energy, she braced herself.

“Are you ready?”

Professor Miller’s voice rang out from nearby, but she took a deep breath and, after a moment, nodded.

She had been training hard for this and had pushed herself and her group together.

Alice and Aurora had given her a lot of advice, so she was prepared not to mess up not only her hard work, but the support of the others.

Nicole clenched her white fists and looked to the center of the arena, where the magical energy was condensing.

A magic circle was engraved in the center of the arena, and as Nicole concentrated to face the enemy, a creature emerged from the magic circle.

“...” Nicole froze at the sight of the creature.

A muscular body with rock grey skin, its features were grotesque as it sniffed the surroundings.

The pair of wings on its back gave it the finishing touch to make it a classic horror movie creature.

A gargoyle.

Only this gargoyle was not made of stone, but appeared to be made of flesh and blood.

Nicole didn’t freeze at how terrifying the creature was. Truth be told, it had a fierce and frightening expression, but the reason she froze was that she was expecting a more grotesque creature.

“Waaa!” Giving a shout that raised her own battle spirit, she charged towards her opponent.

The gargoyle was frightened due to the human woman approaching her like a lunatic, but revealed a fierce and bestial smile when she noticed that it was just a simple human woman who looked weak.

As a C-rank creature, it did not have great strength, nor did it have a high degree of intelligence, just from appearances.

Strike after strike, Nicole let out her fear with each blow she delivered.

It was as if she was venting her fear on the gargoyle’s face.

She had learned how to perform ‘combos’ from Aurora, and now that she had a ‘punching bag’, she wasn’t about to let go of it quickly.

“Grhhh...” The gargoyle growled weakly and used its claws to push Nicole away.

She quickly retreated as she stood in a fighting stance.

Her breathing was still light, and her concentration was in perfect condition.

“Grrrr...” growled the gargoyle angrily.

It did not intimidate Nicole because the gargoyle was missing several teeth that she herself had forcibly pulled out.

Its face was bruised, and a liquid that Nicole identified as blood was dripping down its face.

Feeling Nicole’s will to hit him, the gargoyle floated and rise.

The arena was large enough to allow for fluid combat, both on the ground and in the air.

Although the gargoyle could not escape, as the roof was closed, and the boundary of the arena was reinforced with barriers, the gargoyle had room to fly freely.

“Waaa!” Nicole screamed and charged again as her expression changed.

She couldn’t let that creature fly free, she couldn’t fly, and if she faced the gargoyle’s aerial attacks, it would undoubtedly complicate everything for her.

Nicole reinforced her body with magical energy and then jumped towards where the gargoyle was flying.

Aurora was someone who fought everywhere, using the surroundings and controlling her body in general; it was she who taught Nicole how to increase her weight or decrease it.

In flight, she decreased her weight with her magical energy, and then when she could grab the gargoyle’s leg, she condensed the magical energy and made her whole body heavy.

*Boom*

The gargoyle hit the ground, and Nicole rolled on the ground because of the force with which she had thrown her enemy, but she quickly moved and caught the gargoyle on the ground, kicking and punching it with her body reinforced in magical energy.

Leslie was someone who always shot the creatures when it was on the ground, claiming that a situation like the horror movies where they got up after ‘dying’ could happen.

The gargoyle looked like something out of a horror movie, and Nicole was not about to ‘shoot’ a scene from a movie.

******

“Wow, that girl is wild. I like her!” Oliver exclaimed with an amused grin.

He was in the private boxes of the coliseum and had an authentic view of the situation.

Sure, he could also plug in dozens of screens showing the fight from different perspectives, but for Oliver, there was nothing better than the real thing.

“I have to admit it. If I was a freshman and I got this battle, I don’t think I’d manage to beat it,” said one of the classmates Oliver had invited.

“I believe I could have won,” said the other student with a dignified tone.

One was a fighter, and one was an archer. Clearly, one would have more of an advantage than the other.

Oliver, as a fighter, liked how Nicole acted, looking to defeat the gargoyle on the ground.

The reason was that Rank C or B fighters who didn’t have magic items dedicated to flying were basically useless when their enemy took to the sky.

And those items for ordinary students came out quite expensive.

“Let’s see another one,” Oliver muttered, looking at the screens with different combats and changing them.

Actually, there was not only one colosseum but several throughout the academy.

The most important ones were in plain sight, and the others were underground to reduce space.

But since these were the private boxes, one could connect to the cameras in the other coliseums and watch the fight as if watching it directly.

Professor Miller had used all the coliseums because there were about seventy students, and it would be difficult to finish everything in one day.

As he was changing the screen, a bout caught his eye.

Cristian Cortes, a swordsman, was fighting a ‘Stone Boar’, that creature was a little bigger than a normal boar, but its skin had the rocky appearance and texture.

It was only in appearance because the hardness was more significant than some rocks.

That swordsman had trouble cutting his enemy due to its high defence. Oliver immediately realized that he lacked studying the characteristics of creatures and monsters.

The ‘Stone Boar’ had a complete defense but was weak in its butt... It might look like it was protected with stone everywhere, but once hit in its butt, the boar would squeal like a pig.

The reason was simple... Boars could not be covered with stone everywhere and more so in the rear area where they did their business.

Oliver switched to other fights.

He came across a female archer facing a ‘small’ rabbit with horns that moved quick and dodged her opponent’s arrows.

It was the size of an adult dog, but its speed was fast.

As the fighting ended, others entered, and more creatures appeared.

A young ice mage faced another gargoyle, and she had to cast quick spells to drive it away and then cast a more potent spell to defeat it.

She had slight trouble with the former, but on the latter, her ice spear was devastating.

Then a psionic appeared and engaged a horned rabbit.

The young lady created a barrier around it, and the rabbit moved quickly around it, seeking to penetrate it with its horn; then when it made its last charge, the young woman opened a breach and locked the poor creature in.

At the end, she made the barrier start to shrink and... The next thing was a grotesque scene, so Oliver kept changing.

“An important fight is about to start,” one of his companions told him.

Oliver quickly changed the channel and intently watched the fight.

Clémentine Delacroix, one of the best students who led her group in the test.

Oliver turned his attention to that psionic of great strength.

“How is everything?”

At that moment, a voice rang out, and Oliver looked at the door.

“Gregorio, Frank, sit down and watch one of the students who led you to your defeat,” Oliver said with an amused smile.

Gregorio, the Rank A swordsman who had led the ‘crooks’ in the test, quickly sat down, and his gaze twitched at the sight of Clementine.

Then the psionic Frank did the same and unconsciously rubbed his temple.

“Damn it, I will never agree to work with you again,” Frank spat at Gregorio with a shaky tone, as if remembering the headache Clémentine had caused him.

Gregorio laughed in amusement and just watched the fight that was about to begin.

Clementine, a B-Rank psionic, was due for a creature that would test her limits.

“She’s screwed,” Frank muttered with a severe expression as he saw the fire elemental in the form of a deer.

Clémentine was known for her telekinesis, but it was impossible for her to control an elemental that naturally had magical barriers that repelled her control.

Although that elemental had taken the physical form of a deer made of fire, it was a magical creature.

It was known that psionic and magical energy naturally repelled each other.

Clémentine’s expression did not change, and with a quick movement, she made the ground beneath her feet begin to move, throwing rocks at the elemental.

The sand of the coliseum could be broken and used against their enemies; that was the reason why Clémentine could break it.

The fire elemental shook its body and sent dozens of fireballs against the rocks colliding with each other.

Amidst the minor explosions, the deer charged towards Clémentine, trying to damage her with its fire horns.

“Ughh...”

Clémentine could only defend herself by creating a psionic barrier to hold back the deer and the heat it was emanating.

But the fire was magical and made Clémentine’s psionic barrier difficult to maintain.

Clémentine didn’t hesitate and tried to enclose the deer in a barrier, but it stopped its charge and shook its body, creating a minor explosion.

“Perfect,” Frank praised as he saw Clémentine hovering in the air, surrounded by a barrier.

She used the force of the deer’s explosion to pull away and levitated, so she didn’t have to hit the ground while taking advantage of the entire shock-wave.

The deer shook its body and threw small fireballs at Clémentine, which she dodged by rising into the air and then...

“...” They both looked at each other.

The deer couldn’t fly because it had taken the physical form of a deer to fight on earth, and just like Clémentine, it was only a B-Rank elemental, which couldn’t control the element to soar in the sky.

Clémentine smiled and opened her arms.

She created dozens of psionic daggers.

These daggers looked like ‘lights’ that glowed incandescently and covered the deer’s vision.

The deer launched its fireballs as it shook its body, but the daggers were superior in quantity.

“Go!” shouted Clémentine, and sent all her daggers in an unparalleled barrage.

Some daggers and fireballs collided with each other, but in the end, the stag was hit by the daggers and disappeared, leaving a highly exhausted psionic.

Bringing an end to their combat.

“First years are full of monsters,” Gregorio commented, shaking his head, not hiding his own surprise.

“Yeah, she’s a real monster,” Frank added, stroking his head.

“Monster? Please,” Oliver scoffed, and seeing that the person who beat him up was about to start her fight, he declared. “This is a monster!”

The screens changed and revealed Alice eating some chips with a lazy expression.

Watching a young woman of great beauty eat some chips seemed more ‘cute’ than ‘monstrous’, and that was why everyone looked at Oliver as if he was an idiot.