“Amazing…”

“No matter how many times I see it, it's always chilling.“

Blaine and I hid behind the trunk of a dead tree, we both peeked out from the trunk and looked at the rising cloud of dust in front.

There, a lone child with a greatsword in his hands was a lone boy standing in front of a giant crab and two worms. The body of the worms was riddled with wounds as a puddle of purple-black blood formed wherever they stopped. The crab on the other hand, with a slimy, almost acidic green membrane covering its shell had one of its claws cut off.

“There's never a single gap in his stance, huh?“ Blaine remarked as Luke Reese, the rank 2 student took in a deep breath and raised his blade in front of his eyes.

I raised my eyebrow at her comment, I didn't think she was well-versed with swords, but it wasn't a big surprise. “His style is something I've never seen before, so simplistic, yet so immaculate.“

Then, Luke slightly turned the blade of his greatsword in his hands, and a glint of light reflected from the sword. The balls of his feet kicked against the ground. In the blink of an eye, Luke's sword swung down to his lower left as he zapped through the ground. He appeared in front of the crab and brandished his sword.

The crab raised its claw in the path of Luke's sword, seemingly expecting the sudden attack. It was ready to block the blade and use the momentum to throw him back and stomp down on him, but it was faint.

Like a flowing river, Luke's sword naturally changed its direction and swung to the other side. A yellow glow covered the blade—

“[Light Sword: Light Slash (D)]”

—A crescent of gleaming yellow light emerged from his sword, blinding everything in range. All the monsters, the drones, and even Blaine seemed distracted by the light for a split second.

And that second was enough.

The crescent of light traversed through the air. It swerved ahead and slashed into the mouth of the deathworm on his left.

Two screams rang out at once.

The mouth of the worm was cleaved apart into two halves from the center and its body fell limp on the ground with blood spurting from all directions.

And the heart of the crab, below its body, was pierced through Luke's sword and cut apart in pieces.

Luke slid out from under the crab's body in one fell sweep as the monster fell to the ground. Not wasting a second, Luke Reese jumped off the crab's dead body and took to the skies. The pure strength in his feet launched him 15 meters up as he flipped in the air.

The sword came closer to his chest and was pushed up in an overhead stance with Luke's feet dangling toward the air. The yellow glow covered the blade again, his body positioned right above the last remaining worm. The beam of light coalesced at the tip of his blade.

And Luke tore through the last remaining worm as well. His sword cut just next to the spot with the core as a faint beeping of his wristband reached my ears through the scream of the worm.

“Flashy, is it not tiring?“ Blaine muttered next to me as she reached out a little more from the trunk to see the situation down there.

“Eh, I guess it's rather inconsequential in front of his stamina. That guy is a fucking beast, ok?“

“Alright, so Luke Reese can kick your ass, thank you.“

I snickered and turned to face Blaine. To my surprise, despite giving off the image of a stuck-up smart girl, she was rather adaptive in this situation and joked around rather well. I wasn't sure if she was still acting to make me drop my guard by being friendly, but if she was, her acting skill was truly terrifying.

“Well,” I shrugged, just to indulge her a bit. “He can't kick my ass, not even close actually.“

“Really?“ Blaine asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Ok, I say equal footing, almost. But I can't be sure, I've never seen him go all out. He might just be hiding a lot of strength.“ With that said, I nodded again and stood from my spot. “Alright, since we've seen him fight, let's go find the boss.“

Blaine stared at the place a second longer before nodding, we both turned back—

”—Oh hey, what are you guys doing here?“

Standing in front of us was a blood-soaked boy with a flashy grin and a charming face. He ran his hand through his hair and pushed it back.

“Ralph… and Blaine Sothsfield, what an odd pairing,” Luke said.

Both Blaine and I froze.

This bastard. Did he just go past my senses and sneaked up on me? It was chilling, just like his swordsmanship. The fact that he was nowhere close enough to launch a lethal attack was what gave me a little peace of mind. It was still very dangerous.

“Luke, been a while,” I said.

“Yes,” Luke nodded. “You didn't come to the training grounds for quite a bit.“

After the fight with my sister in the training grounds for the awakener class, Luke, Leone, and Zachy became frequent visitors of the training grounds and invited me quite a few times, almost all the time. I did not go as much, so I wasn't as friendly with them as the three were with each other, but I was acquainted rather well with Luke and Leone.

“I believe this is our first time talking,” Blaine said as she extended her hand.

“Wow, really?“ I blurted out.

Even Luke looked surprised at the information as he awkwardly reached out to shake her hands.

Blaine, this novel addict took being anti-social to a new level. Luke had even reached out to everyone in the class for a conversation. Seeing the lack of link and the awkwardness in their words, I steered the conversation between the two to a lighter tone, talking about Luke's fight and the contents of the exam. When the air around us all became amicable enough, Luke returned to the pressing topic.

“So, you guys were talking about something with the boss monster?“ Luke crossed his arms. “Sounds interesting, mind filling me in? Of course, it's fine if you'd rather not.“

“No, no, we don't mind at all, right Blaine?“

Blaine nodded emphatically in response.

“We're planning to get the boss directly.“

“Hm?“ Luke tilted his head to the side. “No checking things? What about insurance, how many points do you have?“

At Luke's words, I thought about my answer for a second. A second was more than enough to weigh different things in my mind.

An estimate of Luke's abilities. It took a huge priority. There was no reason for me to be half-baked as well since I was now Isabella's student. I was also a bit worried about handling the Zachy and Kristina matter after the boss, so saving energy was good.

A slave, and a nice guy. These two would be more than useful for me.

I tapped at Blaine with my elbows and she put forward the giant bag from her shoulders to the ground. She pulled open the string and a small sea of orbs of many colors revealed itself.

Luke's eyes widened and his jaw drooped down at the sight of the many cores in front of him. The cores shifted to the side, and the tremendously cute head of ReRa 1.0 popped out.

“We've got that part covered,” Blaine said.

“How many points do you have, Luke?“ I asked. It would've been rude to others, but Luke was a sensible person.

“201. I only ran into 6 monsters, though, including these three” Luke said.

So it was roughly 40 points for each core.

“We have 15 cores here,” Blaine said. Of course, the number of cores had increased again. Since I was feeling better, I gave Blaine a hand.

Luke kept staring at ReRa with a fluffy grin that seemed extremely off with his bloodied face. Enjoying the attention, ReRa swam and twirled around in the bag while going beep beep at Luke.

We added quite the number of useless features.

“Ahem,“ Blaine coughed to pull Luke's attention back. He shook his head after turning away from the golem and looked at us.

“300 each for the other two, huh?“ he said.

Luke seemed to be completely on board even though we hadn't openly invited him. Less work worked for me, though. As expected, there was no need to explain things to him.

A three-person raid on the boss, and the since only one could get the points from the boss, the other two would use these cores as insurance to get enough points. A win-win situation all around.

“I've got one question. How would we decide who gets to keep the boss' core?“

Blaine looked at me at that question and nodded.

“Heh,” I smirked. “Rock paper scissors, of course.“

Luke smiled again, though this time with a much more motivated look in his eyes.

“Alright, I am in.“

Thank you for playing right into my hands.

“Alright, we've got a boss raid team!“ I said with a smile and raised both my hands. Luke smiled and gave me a high-five on one hand and raised his other one as well. The two of us looked at Blaine, who still seemed slightly awkward, but then joined in on the team high-five!

“Beep Beep!“ And ReRa too raised its hand.