"Leige-sama." Angelica didn't really want to touch the sleeping boy, so she poked his face with the back of her pencil, not the sharp bit, because she was nice like that.
Since it was tiring for her to keep on stressing the word '-sama' when she spoke, she just glared at him whenever she felt as though she needed to renew her hatred for him.
Which used to be often. It just went unnoticed because all the boy did was sleep, and so she eventually stopped doing that after the first lesson.
Leige blinked, letting the blurry objects in front of him focus in their own time before looking at the clock.
However, a figure blocked him before he could.
"No, it's not lunch. And you slept through break. It's training period now, we all go as a class so I had to wake you up. It wasn't like I optionally woke you up or anything!" she ended the last sentence hurriedly before hurrying off, joining Yumi.
Leige looked at the class, who were indeed leaving.
Why though? What was training period?
Looking around, he saw the boy in front of him still standing up to go.
Ah. Sashimi-kun.
"Sashimi-kun."
"Samishi." the other boy corrected.
"Sashimi-kun."
"..."
"What's training period?" Sashimi's eyes lit up as he looked at the smaller boy.
"Oh, you don't know?! Well, obviously, it's for the Annual Tournament next month!"
...Was he going to explain how they would train?
Luckily, before he could respond, Sashimi continued.
"We, as a class, all compete by alphabetical order! Then, the winners fight the winners and so on! It's like a mini class tournament, so exciting!!" Sashimi explained with a smile, looking genuinely excited to start training.
Ah.
Leige was going to get his ass kicked wasn't he.
"Oh, don't worry about changing. Changing into a more suitable outfit for fighting wouldn't do any good for a rank 5 like you." and just like that, Sashimi returned to his cocky attitude.
Leige didn't reply, instead thinking of how he could avoid getting a beating.
Did they have some sort of nurse? Healing magic?
...He would need it.
For some reason, Sashimi was waiting for him, and it was only then when he realised that Sashimi was indeed wearing different clothes.
It was nothing fancy, just an outfit that allowed him more movement than the school uniform.
"I specialise in fire. Cool, right?!" Sashimi exclaimed as they walked down the hall. "What do you specialise in? Oh wait, you're a rank 5. I forgot." he smirked, looking down at the unaffected boy.
...Weren't these insults a bit necessary? It was like after every sentence, Sashimi had to say an insult, or something rude to him. Sashimi's genuine excited expression would always change into a superficial sneer or smirk whenever he added a little jab.
Well, the fact that they were at the end of the sentence, almost like a full-stop, made it easier to ignore.
As they reached the field with the other students, Leige had another revelation.
He would have to 'train' outside.
Outside.
In the heat.
Hot hot hot.
Not fun.
And he would be beaten up.
...What had his life come to?
However, Leige, not really one for self-pity as he was more focused on if he was going to be able to learn more about magic with this new opportunity, soon got over it as they all gathered around in the hot sun.
He would just have to hope that somehow sunburn wasn't a problem.
And that according to game logic, he wouldn't sweat yet somehow cool down the same.
"Ok, everyone's here. So, as we all know, the Annual Tournament is coming up! Remember, this is a great chance to prove your skills to everyone watching, which will include specialised knights and healers!" the teacher clapped her hands excitedly, in turn causing the other students to get even more fired up.
Except Leige, who was busy thinking of how he could possibly learn from the situation.
Since his body was weak, he had no intention of trying to fight back physically. He didn't expect himself to be able to dodge anything either.
He would just have to use this as an opportunity to look at how the students fought, and any weaknesses they had.
"Miss, who's going to pair up with the rank 5?" another person from a Duke's House spoke disdainfully before snickering with his friends.
The teacher glanced over at the fluffy-haired boy and smirked.
"I suppose someone gets a lucky pass. The rules are the same for everyone, just a reminder to be fair." in other words, feel free to hurt the useless guy until he can't get up, or he surrenders. Both were humiliating options for the rank 5, but to everyone else, it felt like Christmas.
The annoying, arrogant guy who paid to get in their class could finally learn his place!
Leige caught the gleam in everyone's eyes.
He would only train with one person. That was a rule, unless he won the fight, so he wasn't afraid of the blood lust some students aimed towards him with smirks on their faces.
...What were they, demons?
They all sat down, each waiting for their name to be called.
First was some orange guy in a rather flamboyant suit, and a girl still in her school uniform.
Leige watched with intense interest, with it being the first time he saw magic although he had imagined it while he was studying.
Well, seeing it in person was even more spectacular.
As soon as the whistle blew, the orange guy immediately pounced with impressive strength to the girl, who parred it with a shield that seemed to be made of water.
Without a second of being dejected, the orange guy attempted to slice through with a sword that looked to be made of iron or some other metal, although crudely shaped.
Failing, he jumped back as the water girl turned to offensive, forming what looked to be a katana while somehow her short skirt remained covering what needed to be covered.
A quick battle followed, with the orange guy breaking the katana with an iron fist, while the girl changed her tactic to quick arrows.
Leige, instead of focusing on the flashy attacks as a whole, as he would have liked to, focused on the little details.
All of the girl's weapons were made of water, and likewise, the orange guy was only using iron. There did seem to be a cool down however, even though the girl hid it well.
She seemed to hold some arrows back, evident by the different numbers each time, so she would be able to constantly fire them.
Likewise, the orange guy also relied on his strength and physique to block a lot of the attacks, although the arrows that hit him drew blood, leaving stains on his clothes.
However, the girl wasn't done.
She suddenly formed clones from the water, as if the battle was going too slow, all of them charging at the same man, who seemed to be in much worse shape.
"He's done for!" a student exclaimed, all of them watching with bated breath as a few others murmured in agreement.
However, Leige frowned. Since he had been more attracted to the small details, he had noticed that the orange guy was using a lot less magic in the battle than the water girl.
In fact, he mostly relied on physical combat, something Leige had thought would be fairly rare in a world of magic.
Just as the clones were about to attack him, the orange guy let out a smirk.
Then, his first flashy attack came.
His arms seemed to melt and harden and grow into two metal arms, bigger and a lot stronger than before.
Without hesitation, he seemed to use the rest of his magic he had in the time frame to speed past all the clones, smashing their water skulls on the way.
Leige quickly glanced over to the water girl, who flinched as every clone was smashed, and it was then he saw the blood dripping down from her mouth as the orange guy approached her.
She attempted to fight back, but all her magic was taken up from her clones.
A fist to the stomach was enough for her to fall backwards, spurting some blood from her mouth before she lay flat on the ground, the orange guy towering over her.
"Asahi-sama, congratulations on the victory!" after a short while of the girl not getting up, a whistle blew and the teacher started to applaud, leading all the other students to applaud as well, realising that it was over.
"Of course Asahi-sama won, he's obviously superior to her!" someone who Leige had recognised as the one who shouted out earlier that the girl was going to win exclaimed, followed by a bunch of cheers as agreement.
"How dare she! To think that she stood the slightest chance against Asahi-sama!" endless praise followed the match, and although Leige applauded with everyone, his eyes were on the girl, lying unconscious on the ground with blood dripping from her mouth.
...That was going to be him soon.