Chapter 81: Open Classes (4)
In the center of the coliseum sat a giant wyvern prepared for the last battle of the first day of public classes.
Edward had brought the wyvern out beforehand, building up the crowd’s anticipation, then stood in front of the wyvern and opened his mouth.
His voice echoed loudly through the amplification magic necklace he was wearing.
“And now for the final battle of the day. The cadet who will culminate the first day of open classes, the cadet who will defeat this hideous wyvern… Who will it be?!”
The President of the Adventurer’s Guild Association, who was in the audience following Edward’s exciting proceedings, mumbles.
“I thought he wouldn’t come out… But here he is at the end, Headmaster Juliut, is this a deliberate move?”
“I don’t know the details, hehe.”
Juliut was just assuming it was his son, Edward, doing.
“Who do you think it is?”
“A third-year cadet, I think. He seems to be much larger than the wyvern Cadet Aizel took down.”
“…Were any of the cadets you saw last year better than Cadet Aizel?”
Those in the audience were trying to guess who the last cadet would be, but only those inside the Academy had a vague idea of who it would be.
“He” had yet to appear.
Sword Saint Chris and Jeras Clementine, who should have known of his existence, were thinking of him.
As Edward paused, the Colosseum began to roar.
“…And since it’s the last time, I’m going to make it quick and to the point, so if you’ll join me in applauding, I’d like to welcome…Cadet Zetto, Class A, First Year…Cadet Zetto.”
Edward’s voice boomed out.
“Gahhhhhh!!!”
“Zetto!!!”
“Zetto!!!”
The cadets, especially the female cadets, were screaming his name, even though he hadn’t even appeared in the coliseum yet.
Within the academy, Zetto was already a celebrity but outsiders who didn’t know him were asking, “Who is Zetto?”
Finally, he walked slowly out into the coliseum and immediately, applause erupted.
Outsiders, who had been applauding, now recognize him, and their surprise quickly turns to panic since Zetto’s eyes are covered in white bandages.
“What is that bandage?”
“Is he going to take down a wyvern?”
The outsiders stopped applauding and began to murmur, questioning those around them.
As the coliseum erupts in applause from one side, and murmurs of confusion from the other, Jeras opened his mouth.
“I heard he was strong, but I never thought he could take on a wyvern.”
Jeras shrugged and turned to Maxim beside him.
“…”
Maxim didn’t say anything else, just watched Zetto carefully while the deputy leader of the Silver Winged Knights was wide-eyed.
‘A blind acupuncturist with bandages over his eyes…They said it could be a swordsman…but it can’t be an academy cadet, can it?’
The deputy commander was recalling a story told by Saint Bernice.
She hadn’t attended this open class, but had gone in search of a ‘blind acupuncturist’.
It struck her as odd that a cadet should have such a trait, but there were few who possessed all of them at once, so she figured she’d contact the saint as soon as this battle was over.
‘The blind swordsman… Zetto…’
Chris had finally come face to face with the ‘blind swordsman’ Kaen had told him about in her letter.
The only question was…
..As he approached the center of the coliseum, the life force in the air was getting closer.
“Hmmm…”
Chris scratched his head in disbelief because the owner of the life force was that blind swordsman, a cadet named Zetto.
Meanwhile, the President of the Adventurers’ Guild approaches Juliut with a question that was simple, yet perhaps the most important.
“Headmaster Juliut, how is that cadet named Zetto able to walk so well…?”
Juliut’s head snaps back to look at him and answers.
“From what I’ve heard from the instructors… He said he has a special ability so he doesn’t have much trouble living or fighting.”
“Oh…”
Having learned of Zetto’s information thanks to the Guild President, the others nodded. Meanwhile, Zetto, the center of their conversation, walked to the center of the coliseum and thought to himself.
‘This is ridiculous…the last monster is a wyvern…’
It was a little overwhelming to be the last to go, and to have so many eyes on him as he tried to kill a wyvern.
Edward, who had set the whole thing up, was looking at Zetto as he walked towards him and smiling casually, as if nothing had happened.
The crowd wasn’t worried about him since they had already seen Aizel, a first-year cadet like him, take down a wyvern, so they knew that Zetto would be able to do the same.
In fact, they were looking forward to seeing what he would do.
Edward glanced at the protective enchantments that should be on Zetto.
“Shall we begin?”
Edward asked, and Zetto nodded once before snapping his fingers.
-Keeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
An ear-splitting wail echoed through the coliseum from the wyvern that had just been freed from the illusionary spell.
Zetto placed his hand on the Spectral Sword at his waist and with a slight tilt of his head, Zetto’s vision focused on Sierra.
Sierra wore a fierce expression but Zetto wasn’t sure if she was looking at him or the Sword Saint who was sitting in the audience.
Sierra’s voice echoed in his head, the only one he could hear among the many in the Colosseum.
[Go and show him the swordsmanship that will defy and defeat him…Reverse Heaven]
Zetto smiled weakly and pulled out Sierra.
While most of the people watching Zetto were thinking of the words reverse grip, he was contemplating whether to use chapter one or chapter two.
– Aaah!!!
As he pondered this, the wyvern chose to use his wings to soar into the air instead of lunging at Zetto.
The Colosseum was surrounded by Reina’s magic circle, so there was no way he could escape. However, the wyvern wasn’t trying to escape. It was a wyvern’s habit to soar into the air and then swoop down to attack its foes.
Zetto watched the wyvern flap its wings and move further and further away from him while thinking what move to use.
‘Chapter One.’
Zetto repeated the words to himself as the flow of mana in his body twisted.
The distance between him and the spectators was such that only the strongest could notice it, but those in the audience were strong enough to witness it without missing a beat.
“I’m not mistaken…?”
Cicely Windless’ trembling voice echoed through the room but no one answered her question.
They looked at Zetto, who stood unperturbed by the distortion of his mana flow, and their common sense failed them.
‘The swipe of the sword was a move to distort the flow of mana…’
Chris raised one eyebrow at Zetto’s behavior, which he found quite intriguing.
‘What will you show me?’
Zetto tilted his head toward the wyvern in midair.
In his field of vision, he could see a red circle in the wings of the wyvern.
The ‘weakness’ was also visible on the wyvern’s neck, but he thought it would be a bit too much to decapitate it as it was.
Zetto’s sword, held in a reverse grip, was quickly thrust out and his action caused everyone in the Colosseum to question him again.
The first to recognize Zetto’s intentions was, of course, Chris, the Sword Saint.
‘Slash.’
He could feel it instinctively. But the question remained: how?
Even for him, it was something he had never seen before.
The wings of the wyvern that had been flying in the air immediately split open with a strange sound, and the wyvern that had lost one of its wings naturally began to fall to the ground.
‘It’s not even a sword, yet it slashed at a distant enemy. …That seems to be a direct attack, unlike a sword. Interesting.’
At that moment, Chris glanced at Zetto’s sword, which was covered in wyvern blood.
Zetto lowered his head and slowly walked forward and approached the spot where the wyvern had fallen.
Stopping in his tracks, Zetto swept his hand across the blade once more as the wyvern was falling with a screech from above where he stood.
‘He’s going to be crushed at this rate…?’
The deputy leader of the Silver Winged Knights was confused, wondering if it was because he was blind that he hadn’t noticed but she didn’t even know how he had cut off the wyvern’s wings in the first place.
The wyvern’s body was about to crush Zetto and whether he realized it or not, Zetto, who had been casually inspecting his sword, suddenly gathered mana in his legs, twisted, spun, and leaped.
“It’s dangerous…!”
The deputy leader was so engrossed that she forgot about the protective magic and exclaimed as she pushed herself up from her seat.
The cadet named Zetto could be the one the Saint was looking for, and she couldn’t afford to have him get hurt but just as she stood up, Zetto swept his sword through the air just in time and the Colosseum froze.
His body, soaring from his leap, was spinning at a terrifyingly high rate of speed as he twisted and turned in a sideways flip as his sword, held in a reverse grip, touches the head of the wyvern that is slowly falling towards him.
Zetto’s spinning blow sliced the wyvern in half as the wyvern’s flesh cracked and blood gushed out, but it was slow enough that Zetto’s body was not spattered with blood.
It had only taken ten seconds by his estimation and Zetto glanced at the Sword Saint that was seated in the audience.
The Sword Saint below him looked up, visibly chasing after him, even as the passage of time slowed.
‘…So this is your speed?’
Zetto felt a slight chill run down his spine.
***
“It’s dangerous…!”
The deputy leader of the Silver Winged Knights cried out as Zetto had suddenly leaped upward from where the wyvern was falling.
The others in the room assumed there was no danger, but they had their doubts. However that only lasted a few seconds as in the blink of an eye, something bizarre happened.
Zetto, who had made a rather normal leap, suddenly disappeared from view.
– POOF!!!!!!!!!
First, there’s a loud bang, as if something is ‘popping’.
“Uh…?”
The word comes out of the deputy leader’s mouth, and she can’t keep her mouth shut.
She closes her eyes and opens them to see the wyvern falling towards Zetto, snapped in half.
– Thud!!!!!!!
There was a dull thud as the two halves of the wyvern fell to the coliseum floor, raising a cloud of dust.
– Aaaah…
Then a red liquid, likely the blood of a wyvern, rained down from the sky but luckily, the cage was closed, so the blood didn’t splatter onto the crowd. However, Zetto’s figure was nowhere to be seen.
“…”
The deputy leader quickly scanned the field, trying to find Zetto and Chris, who had turned his head back to look at her, spoke up.
“…There he is.”
As he said this, he moved his arm and pointed his finger at the sky.
The deputy leader, who had been following her finger, was able to find Zetto in no time and he was somehow falling from the air.
Soon enough, Zetto’s feet touched the ground and he swung the sword he was holding, splattering blood on the ground, then immediately put his sword back into the sheath as a clear sound echoing through the Colosseum.
There was a brief moment of silence afterward.
– Aaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!
But soon the spectators, the cadets, the outsiders and the ones who understood the situation after the fact, let out a loud cheer as thunderous applause and shouts shook the Colosseum.
“…”
Zetto smoothly turned and walked out of the Coliseum.
‘Blood pours like rain.’
Zetto was moving as fast as he could, not wanting to get hit by the downpour of wyvern blood……and the onlookers were mesmerized by his easy going demeanor.
While watching him, the guests of honor had different things on their minds.
The deputy leader was feeling somewhat embarrassed by the words that had come out of his mouth, and his face was heating up.
“…”
Jeras stroked his beard wordlessly, seriously considering making him his son-in-law while Sword Saint Chris jumped to his feet and turned to Juliut, who had been rubbing his chin, and shouted.
“Juliut, I want you to arrange a meeting with this cadet named Zetto!”
To save his life, Chris wanted to talk to him now.