Right? You want to fight?

“Now?”

“Yeah.”

I was so dumbfounded I just stood there motionless.

‘…Let’s think.’

First, he’s pissed off because he didn’t think I’d actually get second place. Like, genuinely thinking, ‘A guy who learned for four months is chasing right behind me?’

‘Are you kidding me?’

What nonsense is this after he taught me specifically to make that happen? This isn’t even remotely possible.

Second, he saw many flaws while watching the broadcast and was disappointed. He probably intends to fix them immediately.

But is there a reason to call me out menacingly like he’s starting a brawl?

Third, he’s just bored.

Fourth….

‘I have no idea.’

I can tell that the second option is the most likely, at least.

“I thought I did exactly as you taught me. Did I make a wrong move? Even if I did, we can just do it later when we go to Bavaria.”

“……”

Leo didn’t answer. His face was a complex mix of various thoughts, making his expression unreadable.

After a long pause, he quietly opened his mouth.

“Did the training with Yulia go well?”

“It went well.”

“How was it? Tell me exactly.”

“She’s definitely skilled. Her movements were worth learning.”

“Exactly.”

I smiled and looked at him.

What more exactly should I say? Leo probably already knows how Tsheringen moves.

Before being competitors, they were friends who spent a long time together since the 3rd Academy; there’s no way he wouldn’t know.

“No matter how I moved, she compensated to ensure a good result. It was stress-free since I didn’t need to worry about anything else. Satisfied?”

“So, she adjusted well to you?”

“Pretty much. She’s kind too.”

It certainly is a pity. Missing the chance to train with Tsheringen, that is.

‘I should ask her to train together on weekend mornings.’

As I was lost in thought, Leo spoke quietly after a long pause.

“I’ll do that too.”

“What?”

“I said I’ll do that for you too.”

‘…Hmm?’

Wait.

Even though the words were blurted out without context, I suddenly recalled the most plausible hypothesis.

“I think there might be some misunderstanding.”

But there was no time to ask further.

Because Elias immediately warped in, landing with his hands on the ground.

“Bwahahahahaha!”

“What’s with him?”

Elias kept snickering and then punched Leo’s leg hard.

“Aigoo, our seventeen-year-old pulling stunts like this~ Ah, really, what did I just witness.”

“Are you going to keep bringing up age over a half-year difference?”

Elias ignored him and just kept laughing, then snapped his head up and said.

“Hey, the kids think you two are fighting right now. The Class 1 kids were going crazy too.”

“Then maybe you should have stopped them.”

At my words, Elias’s eyes flashed wide.

“Who would stop such an entertaining spectacle? Everyone’s dying to know who’ll win.”

“…Yeah… I guess that makes sense. Leo, why did you call me out knowing this would happen, and what exactly is the reason you wanted to fight?”

I have a guess, but it’s better to hear it directly.

Guessing in situations like this only leads to bigger misunderstandings, and more importantly, Elias is making things chaotic.

“Did he really ask to fight? Let me tell you from the beginning. That guy definitely cuts his words short.”

At Elias’s words, Leo flicked his finger, casting the soundproofing spell in reverse on Elias. Elias stared dumbfounded, slapping the air.

Leo spoke as if it were nothing.

“It’s fine. That part isn’t necessary.”

Kwaang—

Before I could finish speaking, Elias, who had been on the ground, grabbed Leo’s legs and tripped him.

Elias covered Leo’s mouth with one hand and suppressed his arms with Magic Power.

“Ah, the soundproofing’s broken now. Anyway, Luca, you’ve been ignoring all our calls lately. Suddenly going to visit Hans and all!”

“It wasn’t sudden, I’m the one who put him in the hospital, shouldn’t I go visit….”

I said, watching Leo try to push Elias’s arm away.

Leo can’t break free immediately.

I’d never sparred with Elias, so I hadn’t grasped his skill level, but now it’s hitting me clearly.

Elias, seemingly finding it increasingly difficult to handle Leo’s attacks, spat out words rapidly like a rapper.

“So I asked if you weren’t answering calls because of Leo.”

“I didn’t answer calls because of Leo?”

“Why, that day….”

Kwaang—!

Leo, instead of using his pinned arms, stomped his foot. Light blue Magic Power flew towards Elias. Simultaneously, tree stems shot out from somewhere, wrapped around Elias’s arms, and flung him far away.

‘Oh.’

Been a while since I saw that.

Leo’s unique ability, allowing him to freely amplify or retract the life force of plants.

The last time I saw it was when we caught the chimera wolves, and I haven’t seen it since.

In the novel and here, Leo preferred honing his inherent strength rather than relying on his unique ability.

Kwang!

Elias used Magic Power to land just before crashing to the ground. Of course, he was still covering his mouth, apparently startled from being thrown.

Leo brushed off Elias’s residual Magic Power from his face and muttered, exasperated.

“How long has it been since we graduated the 3rd Academy, yet you still act like this? So much for being an intellectual.”

“Isn’t it better if I explain? You’ll just fail to say what you really mean again and create more regrets. Even now, just asking to fight, what is this?”

“……”

Leo pressed his lips together, apparently having nothing to say about that part.

More importantly, did I just pinpoint the root cause of all this?

“Eli, what do you mean I didn’t answer calls because of Leo?”

“What you did to Hans is what Leo usually does to you. In fact, what Hans suffered was mild in comparison. Until now, you let it slide because there was nothing to compare it to, but from now on, I thought you might feel unfairly treated?”

That’s true.

How does he know so precisely?

Elias looked at Leo, who had turned away with a troubled face, and said with an amused laugh.

“Seriously, I was always really bewildered watching you two train. But Luca, you must have thought that was the standard, right~”

“So.”

“So I joked that you, Luca, were pissed off because of Leo’s training methods, and it ended up like this.”

“……”

I smiled and looked at Elias.

Elias smiled back gently.

“What are you smiling about?! You’re the cause!”

“No, seriously, I didn’t think Leo would bolt out like this so suddenly. Usually, he just ignores stuff like this!”

That’s true.

It’s a joke they could make amongst themselves, and Leo lets whatever nonsense Elias spouts go in one ear and out the other.

This time, Leo must have felt guilty about something too.

Elias cast a soundproofing spell and whispered.

“And Narce and I guessed this together, was I wrong? I brought it up to tell him to go easy on you during training.”

Even Elias must have thought it was too much.

Well, I know very well his intention wasn’t just to beat me up, and thanks to him, I caught up on 15 years in 4 months, so I don’t really care now.

It seems the misunderstanding arose because I talked to Narce on the exact day my fist was ‘crying’ and I hung up the phone.

Just as Leo tried to break the soundproofing spell, Elias dispelled it first and teased.

“Just when Luca found a training partner as skilled as Leo but kinder, and having just found out the truth during the spar with Hans, what if he refuses to spar with me from now on….”

“Cut it out. I didn’t think anything that childish.”

Leo threatened.

“…is what he must have thought. Anyway, weren’t you afraid he’d spar with Yulia from now on, so you just dragged him out? The timing was impeccable~”

“……”

“Isn’t it always better to resolve everything through conversation right away?”

A sharp edge could be felt beneath Elias’s playful voice.

He might not know that Leo gave up medical magic and switched to the combat track after seeing Luca’s Magic Power, but he knew very well that the usually calm Leo wasn’t the type to rashly hate someone and show it.

Meaning, Elias had known for a while that Leo wanted something from Luca and that Leo was expressing his desires in the wrong way.

He clearly came to prevent such a thing from happening again.

‘Well, this time wasn’t really a situation where emotional rifts would deepen.’

Besides, before Elias arrived, didn’t Leo himself say, ‘I’ll do it like Yulia too’?

Unlike his childish ways in the first year, his expression this time was quite clear.

Elias now looked at me with serious eyes. Then he diligently rolled his eyes towards Leo, giving signals.

‘Hmm.’

He probably means I should state my intentions clearly myself.

Now that I see it, Elias tackling Leo to spill the beans must have been for Leo’s sake.

Because Leo skipped the really important part.

Instead of talking, Leo unilaterally jumped to conclusions about my thoughts and decided I would choose Tsheringen.

Then he just blurted out that he would spar in Tsheringen’s style.

‘Thinking about it now…’

His saying ‘Let’s fight,’ meaning let’s spar, might have been an attempt to immediately prove ‘I can do it like Tsheringen too.’

No, it doesn’t just ‘seem’ like it, that must be it.

‘…….’

Didn’t he just say he wasn’t thinking anything that childish…?

Of course, I’m glad we didn’t fight. If he had really tried to fight me, I would have already been dead during the spar.

I nodded and opened my mouth.

“Alright, I’ll tell you the truth. It’s true I was momentarily dumbfounded after sparring with Hans.”

“…!”

Leo flinched visibly for a moment.

I didn’t even mention not answering calls because I thought I might want to punch him if I saw him, but his reaction to just this is amusing.

“But it was only for a moment. Whatever the case, the fact that I could achieve this result in just 4 months is entirely thanks to you.”

“……”

“You honestly think your method wasn’t wrong either, right? Correct?”

“Yeah.”

Leo nodded.

His conviction was palpable in his unhesitating answer.

“The method you chose was certainly effective. Because I desperately tried to land even one more hit on you. You said you’d do it Yulia’s way, right? No. You don’t need to do that.”

“What do you mean, I don’t need to?”

Elias snickered while looking at Leo mid-sentence, but Leo ignored him and asked seriously.

Alright, since I’m saying it anyway, I should make it clearer.

I looked straight into his sky-blue eyes and said seriously.

“I have no intention of changing sparring partners, nor do I intend to ask you to change your teaching methods.”

“……”

“Are we clear now?”

Leo remained silent for a moment, then after a long pause, a faint smile touched his lips.

“That’s a relief.”

“……”

A chill flickered in that smile. He was definitely smiling, yet I felt a strange sense of crisis.

‘I feel like I’ve crossed a river of no return.’

Why?

I don’t know why now of all times, but I think it’s because I palpably sensed Leo’s fanatical preference for Magic Power in that response just now.

Truthfully, though not comparable to Leo, Tsheringen also examined my Magic Power with interest.

Not just Leo, but those serious about magic seem interested in unusually prominent Magic Power.

Maybe this is how guys like these end up researching only magic for decades and becoming professors.

‘How on earth did you not go to graduate school?’

“Hey, isn’t that refreshing~ Huh? Stop digging yourself into a hole and just talk~”

Elias laughed heartily.

Leo looked at Elias with a smile filled with many emotions.

“But what’s with suddenly tackling me? And we were talking just fine before you came.”

“Hmmmm~”

Elias shook his head, feigning ignorance.

Still, without Elias, the guy definitely would have chickened out and claimed he couldn’t say anything.

Since the situation seems mostly resolved, I should head back.

“Is it okay to go back now?”

“Why leave? It’s free time after the exam, you don’t have to go.”

“I have to give Yulia an answer, don’t I? I left without answering because of you.”

At those words, Leo replied with indifferent eyes.

“I’ll tell her tomorrow. Okay?”

“Hahahahaha!”

“……”

A hollow laugh escaped me at Leo’s chilly question.

Tell her what? I plan to train with her on the weekend.

There’s no rule saying you can only train with one person. I will train with Tsheringen too.

‘Absorbing both is beneficial.’

Since I’ve become quite close with Tsheringen too, it might be good to become even closer while sparring.

As I was thinking about calling Tsheringen later myself to give her an answer, Leo shook his head.

“Lucas. Actually, I called you because I had something to discuss as well.”

“As well~?”

Elias mocked openly.

I understand, but I asked anyway.

“What is it.”

“We need to go to Bavaria. I got the call last night, but for the first time, Victims have appeared who cannot be treated.”

Cannot be treated?

My face hardened instantly.

It means they die even if subdued and taken to the hospital. Until now, after attacking the Vitriol mass inside the body and providing treatment, they returned to their original state.

Elias, quickly turning serious, said.

“It was under embargo, so you wouldn’t have read it in today’s newspaper. In other situations, maybe, but right now, publicizing this information won’t help prevent contamination.”

“True.”

Reporting it would be right if emotions weren’t involved, but that’s not possible in this situation.

It would surely amplify anxiety and increase the victim rate.

“But why wasn’t a report sent up to me?”

“I cut it off, saying I would deliver it myself before evening. Knowing earlier wouldn’t have helped anyway since you couldn’t skip the exam to come.”

Leo answered.

“Hmm, okay. How many deaths?”

“Three so far.”

I nodded and warped.

Thanks to the emergency warp coordinates provided by the royal family, there was no longer a need to stop at the border checkpoint to warp.

I checked my watch and changed my hair and eye color with Divine Power.

‘There’s about a 2-hour gap.’

I promised to train with Adelbert, so I have to keep that promise.

“Who deputized until now?”

“The Head of the Disease Treatment Department.”

Leo handed me the file lying on my desk.

It contained the directives given by the deputy and the investigation status as of this morning.

‘It’s all good, but….’

It hasn’t been determined yet at which stage the problem occurred.

We need to know if it’s an issue with the individual victim’s constitution, or if Pleroma changed the substances they release into the water and land.

“We’ll need to assign people to the field, not just the hospital.”

“Right.”

If it’s the former, maybe, but if it’s the latter….

‘They intend to kill off all the unfit ones.’

I stood up and said.

“I need to go directly to the areas where reports are coming in.”

Leo nodded, took off his school robe, and grabbed his wand.

* * *

‘Ah, damn it….’

One hour before the exam start time, Adelbert, who was about to stand up, slumped back down, cursing inwardly.

His eyes kept closing.

It wasn’t time to sleep, and he had slept sufficiently because of the exam.

Actually, he hadn’t been able to sleep, but after Sunbae-nim whacked the back of his neck, he fell asleep and woke up feeling refreshed.

Being Elias’s friend, his methods were indeed strange, but anyway, he had slept enough, so there was no reason to be tired.

‘But….’

Kwaang—!

Knocking over his chair and collapsing onto the floor, Adelbert blinked slowly.

He didn’t understand.

Did someone drug him with sleeping pills?

But who would dare do such a thing? Especially at school, entering his locked room?

The thought didn’t last long.

He felt all his Magic Power surge backward, just like a few days ago.

Adelbert’s vision turned black.

* * *

I checked if there were any differences from previous Rampage sites and returned to the school again when it was time for my appointment with Adelbert.

It was still too early to draw conclusions, but for now, there were no differences in the cases involving non-mages.

‘He’s not in the training ground.’

It’s already 50 minutes before the exam starts.

I went out again and warped to the dormitory.

Standing before Adelbert’s door, I knocked.

Knock knock—

“Junior.”

“……”

No sound came from inside.

I knocked harder on the door.

Even concentrating my Magic Power, I only felt strange waves from inside; no proper presence could be sensed.

Could it be….

‘Is this bastard sleeping?’

One hour before the exam? Seriously?

I knocked on the door, channeling Magic Power, then abruptly turned the doorknob.

‘He’s not the type to do that.’

Anyway, I don’t know the warp coordinates into the room. If I ask the administration office, they might open it….

‘The waves are rather peculiar.’

Waves that definitely shouldn’t exist in this school, protected by five layers of barriers alone.

“……”

It’s highly unlikely, but if what I suspect is true, involving the administration office is a bad move.

The administration office would likely send staff to check the situation instead of letting me, considered somewhat of a dangerous element, enter.

If that ‘one in a million chance’ is true, it would be the worst experience for both Adelbert and the staff.

However, at times like these, a witness is necessary. If something happens, I shouldn’t be framed as the culprit, right?

I tapped the artifact hanging by my ear and called the guy most likely to be suspected.

“Elias.”

Fortunately, the guy answered the call immediately.

[Uh, yeah~?]

“Tell Narce your cousin’s room location. And you stick close to Leo.”

[Eh?!]

First, I need to pick the lock.

I slammed Magic Power into the doorknob.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep