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Being called out on his own call out in front of commoners and nobles alike, regardless of being involved in this confrontation, did not leave Oswald much choice but to square up and follow through with the implied threat that was bringing together so many people just to confront Luke Ironcrest to knock him down a few pegs.
He knew what he was doing was borderline disgraceful even if things did not come to blows, but now he was left to choose between a bad or worse choice, so he was going to make the best of it and at the very least, wipe the smile of off Luke Ironcrest's face.
'In classes, he has shown swordsmanship that even I cannot match at the moment, but now let's see how he is going to do without his sword.' Oswald thought to himself, forgetting the first time Luke beat him and his posse bare-handed, in his mind, that was a surprise attack and did not count.
"So? What's it going to be? You guys gonna just gawk at each other and wait for someone to make the first move? How about you, uncle's boy?" Luke mockingly called out to one of the upperclassmen, Branston, the third son of the Viscount Dorwell household, "You going to take a swing? Or is your bum too sore to move after taking a long sit on your precious uncle's lap?"
Oswald looked at Branston to see if he had any witty comeback to win some points for their side, but all Oswald saw was Branston going stock still and white in the face with horror.
After a moment of silence, Luke Ironcrest spoke out with mild surprise in his voice, "Oh… Oh my… you really loved your uncle like that…"
At Luke's statement, muttering and excited gasps started amongst the observers, especially the girls for reasons Oswald did not know.
Not knowing what Luke was talking about, Oswald looked around to see if anyone had an idea of the meaning of Luke's words and noticed that while most had looks of confusion on their faces, some others had grim looks of disapproval or pity aimed at Branston, and there were even some mutterings of Branston's uncle deserving what he got.
As for Branston, his look of stilled horror gave way to rage as he shouted, elbowed others out of the way, and charged Luke.
"Wait!" Oswald said as he reached out to try and grab Branston before he could attack Luke, but he was too slow. 'We should have attacked him together! Now it is going to start with an unorganized fight!' Oswald thought to himself.
***
Turns out the noble bussy boy here did not take well to me accidentally calling him out on his scandalous relationship with his uncle, but I can't have all the blame on this, he could have not frozen up and at least tried to lie, or be a better actor. Even now, as bussy boy is charging me and flaring his aura, I can hear the girls in the hallway talking about boy love fantasies, what is it with girls and the boy love genre anyway? I guess some things don't change even in a different world.
Oswald tried to stop bussy boy, but was too late, and now that bussy boy was almost upon me, Oswald decided to give the signal to start things off and the hallway broke out in chaos.
Bussy boy reached me and threw a haymaker at my head, and I replied by moving into the punch with a counter punch as his fist flew past my head.
But with no aura activated, the counter punch, which hit him right on his nose, did little more than stun him while throwing his head back, which was something I remedied quickly.
As I flared my aura, I noticed the effect that tempering my mana pathways also affected my aura, I found that my aura, which was essentially just my stamina energy ignited with a spark of mana, could now speed around not only my muscles but also my mana pathways at an accelerated speed.
After doing some tests, I estimated a 20% increase in the potency of my aura, but it came at the cost of an additional third more stamina energy. But I only had to worry about that in long fights, I was not planning to have a long fight today.
With my aura on and bussy boy's head still in the process of snapping back from my punch, I bent him over with a punch to the gut and whispered into his ear, "Keep your aura up and teeth clenched if you don't want to die."
I then spun around him, bent down to grab him by the ankles, and swung bussy boy at another charging idiot. This sent the idiot flying as I once again swung my reluctant weapon at another boy.
Soon, I realized this was the perfect weapon for this situation because firstly, these boys were unwilling to shoot any magic in case of friendly fire against my weapon. Secondly, because my weapon is blunt and fleshy, so I am not expecting anything more than bruising on my weapon or targets. And lastly, because the majority of my current opponents are nobles, there were a lot of them who were able to use aura, ensuring that even if my weapon and target's head smack each other, I highly doubt their skulls will crack.
By the time I smacked my sixth opponent, I noticed the aura of my bussy boy weapon was no longer active and found that he was out cold, I then noticed one of the aura-clad boys get hit with an Augment spell that made his uniform glow, meaning it is probably a defensive Augment spell. Perfect, I could always use a tougher weapon.
I threw bussy boy at my new weapon, forcing him to catch bussy boy, and I used that momentary lack of defense to stun him with a punch to the face, and just like bussy boy, I crouched down and grabbed my new aura and augment clad weapon, and took it for a spin.
As I continued to beat motherfuckers with a motherfucker, the mages in the group slung out more augments that were allowing the frontline boys to at least tank a blow without flying, and that was not going to do, there were still around fifty people that needed an ass whopping and I did not have the stamina to burn in an attrition match with them.
I fought my way to a wall and did a wall run to get to the outside of the encirclement where all the mages were, and I made short work of them by giving them bodyslams with my weapon.
That just left me with the mages on the other side of the mob of boys gunning for me. On the bright side, I am no longer surrounded and had the option of running, but that would be just downright unsportsmanlike to run in the middle of a fight, and how would they learn their lesson of messing with me if I ran away? That just would not do.