Chapter 52 Volume II – Chapter 18: Just a C+

“Oh… hello!”

Aiden stood up, quite elated, and then stretched as if he had just woken up.

I couldn’t move a muscle, I just stared at him, and finally, I forcefully gulped.

“A- Aiden?”

I can feel the chaotic energy coming from him, his expression tells me everything, but…

How… can I accept this?

Aiden narrowed his eyes and looked into mine. His devilish smile didn’t drop a bit, he was enjoying himself.

I thought of his determined expression just a few days ago, yelling because he was hurting during practice but never backing down.

He wasn’t my best student, not even a genius, but he never gave up. That’s why I liked teaching him something.

For a person like him… to be in a situation like that…

It’s…

Without realizing it, I was lost in thought, and Aiden disappeared as if he had been waiting for this all along.

A purple glow exploded where he had just stood. Caught off guard, I reflexively raised my hands and closed my eyes, which was one of the big mistakes I made because I had left myself completely defenseless.

Before I had a chance to open my eyes, I felt a pain in my stomach and I was knocked off my feet. I was violently thrown backward and ended up pinned against a wall, and I could only stop when the wall filled with cracks.

“I thought you would be stronger… I’m sorry.”

I gritted my teeth and pushed myself out of the cracked wall.

Aiden…

No, that’s not Aiden. I must not make that mistake.

I gripped my sword tightly and looked back at Aiden. He had that evil smile on his face again. His eyes looked as if he saw me as a toy instead of an enemy.

He’s… definitely not Aiden, it’s not possible for one person to act like that.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, it’s too late.

I drove the tip of my sword into the ground and shook myself out of my thoughts.

I’m not here as a professor, I’m here as a guardian, I have to fulfill my purpose… I have to stop thinking emotionally.

“I am Calvin Gladio, Guardian of Diligence.”

I introduced myself in the traditional way. Then I looked at my opponent’s left eye, which was glowing purple.

Why aren’t both eyes purple? What makes him different from the others?

I must find out.

“Who are you?”

Aiden sighed in response to my question. He looked around, ignoring me, and then smiled again when he saw a sword on the ground. He moved toward it and I couldn’t help but sigh.

“Don’t you care even a little bit about me as an opponent?”

I gripped my sword tightly and clicked my tongue, looking at Aiden, who hadn’t even turned to face me despite what I said.

Not being taken seriously… frustrating as always.

I focused on the energy inside me, something different from mana. It was much more subtle, much more pure, but just as powerful.

A light blue glow slowly surrounded me. My body was filled with tremendous power.

I’m going to finish this in one go.

After I released my energy, Aiden paused. He looked like a mad demon.

“Oh? Are we playing dirty? Fine by me!”

These words were said and then a purple glow began to surround him as well.

Unlike the energy I was using, this was much heavier, malevolent, and chaotic than mana.

The purple glow surrounded Aiden’s whole body. Then it moved strangely toward his hand and concentrated there. In his hand was now an embodied, translucent sword, purple in color.

Not only can he use it, he knows how to materialize it… This is not normal, is he a representative candidate?

“I hope it won’t be boring like before!”

Aiden widened the evil smile on his face, his body disappeared in an instant.

I quickly defended myself with my sword, which was glowing with light blue energy, and then I found the purple sword just inches from my head.

I managed to defend myself, I did, but he is… strong.

He’s not using any technique, and his body is not overpowered. It’s just that he knows how to use that purple energy so well that it covers all his vulnerabilities. His control, his intuition… it’s really on par with a representative candidate.

I have to take this seriously.

I raised the sword slightly and then the purple sword slid to the ground under its own pressure. Taking advantage of this, I spun around and swung the sword at Aiden.

As my sword approached his neck, a smile reappeared on his face and his eye, which had been glowing purple, became even brighter.

In an instant, the purple glow spread like a flood from his body, filling the entire room.

The walls that the energy physically touched began to erode. Breathing became difficult and I felt heavy, as if gravity had suddenly intensified.

Of course, there were other things besides these. The voices kept ringing in my ears.

“Cal, run!”

I heard a woman’s voice, worried.

“You must live, Cal.”

This time it was a younger voice. There was a lot of compassion in her voice.

“Bastard…”

The purple-colored energy, with its chaotic quality, gave me hallucinations; it made me hear voices from nothingness.

“Ah! Here we go!”

Aiden jumped up and down excitedly. I focused deeper into my soul and then the light blue-colored energy wrapped thicker around my body. Not only that, I released it into the room as Aiden had done.

I felt the excess gravity disappear, breathing became easier and the voices disappeared. While this was happening, two energies, purple and light blue in color, began to collide in the room.

The places that the purple energy had touched and eroded were slowly being renewed by the blue energy.

The inside of the room was constantly being eroded and then constantly being renewed. It had entered a cycle, a cycle that was eye-catching to an outsider, with two different eye-catching colors spreading throughout the room…

“What sin do you belong to?”

I’m still not too hard on him, but it’s certainly an admirable achievement that he can still subdue my energy.

I no longer have any doubt, he is a representative candidate, but what does or will he represent?

“Was I supposed to say? I don’t give a damn about those stupid traditions.”

He twirled the purple sword in his hand like a toy. Then he disappeared again.

It was clear he was attacking me, but this time I dodged him instead of defending.

“Oh?”

When I dodged the sword by stepping aside, Aiden deflected his attack with a nimble movement and attacked me again.

He had redirected his sword so fast that I couldn’t avoid it, so I inevitably defended.

So our swords clashed. Because his sword was not metal, a strange, hollow sound echoed through the room, and then I noticed an opening.

I grabbed him by the arm and slammed him to the floor.

Without giving him a chance, I dragged his arm behind his back and pressed it down, put all my weight on it, and put my sword to the back of his neck.

The best he could do to break free was to break his arm.

There are things I don’t know, like why he only has one purple eye. I shouldn’t kill him.

“But you forget one thing, professor.”

I was about to knock him out when he continued to smile as if he didn’t care about the situation he was in.

“I’m not the ‘Aiden’ you know.”

For a moment I didn’t know what he meant, but then, without a care in the world, he spun around and a cracking sound entered my ear.

I saw Aiden’s strangely twisted arm and my eyes widened.

Even though he had brutally broken his arm, his expression hadn’t changed in the slightest, and to my surprise, I barely saw the purple-colored kick coming at me.

The kick landed right in my face and I hit the ground with a loud thud.

The floor cracked and a considerable amount of dust flew into the air.

My jaw ached as if it had been dislocated, but it was still there. Aiden just stood there, looking at me with a pitiful expression.

“Disappointing… I guess I shouldn’t have expected more than a C+, even if you are a Guardian of Virtue.”

He was unsatisfied, his expression clearly emphasizing that.

“Anyway, see you soon!”

Aiden smiled again, the sword in his hand vanished into thin air, and then he turned his back to me and started walking toward the exit.

“Tch.”

The sound of me clicking my tongue echoed in the room. Aiden stopped walking.

“C+… Is that so?”

I need to stop him here, it’s my duty as a guardian and I’m going to do it anyway.

“I wasn’t picking on you because you’re just a simple representative candidate, I was being soft. Congratulations! You pissed me off…!”

That’s… enough.

“C+, huh…? Come, I’ll show you that ‘C+’. Let me show you why I am a ‘guardian’.”

I took off the ring on my thumb and then the room lit up with a deep blue glow.

The mocking expression on Aiden’s face disappeared.

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