novelraw Chapter 95 : Chapter 95
Chapter 95 : Chapter 95
095
Rozalin headed to the training ground.
By his side were the main members of the Firestorm Mercenary Guild, including Hati.
They were all people who had awakened their Aura.
“Why did the teacher call for us?”
“I wonder. Besides, isn't this the first time he's called all the people who have awakened their Aura?”
Cassian often gave teachings even if they weren't academy students.
He didn't hold lengthy lectures like with the students, but he would give a few pointers if they swung their swords in front of him.
There was immense value in that brief coaching.
The Firestorm Mercenary Guild was second to none in the entire world, and the mercenaries knew the value of the words Cassian threw out from time to time.
They focused intensely, learned quickly, and improved their skills.
But this was the first time he had called so many people at once.
"Huh?"
As they were heading to the dormitory, they felt a tingling sensation on their skin.
It was a sensation they felt when they met a swordsman of a similar level.
“What’s your business?”
“Chief of Security, you too? He called for me as well.”
It was Sordian.
Behind him were Jessie and a teaching assistant named Shasha.
It seemed that all the people who had awakened their Aura at Akarind Academy had been called.
'Suddenly?'
Rozalin's suspicion deepened.
And as Cassian's dormitory came into view from a distance.
'Huh?'
Cassian was standing outside his house.
“Welcome.”
Unlike with Sordian, no presence could be felt.
'Is it because he's the teacher?'
Cassian was frail and couldn't emit mana constantly like others.
So he usually exuded the same aura as an ordinary person.
'But he has even less of an aura than other people. Was he always like this?'
Somehow, only Teacher Cassian seemed to have a different tone.
His body, bathed in the moonlight, felt so delicate that it could scatter into the air at any moment.
Yes, it had a sacred feeling, like the one she felt every time she saw the insecurely swaying Yuria.
It seemed Rozalin wasn't the only one who felt that ambiguous feeling.
Even though many people had gathered, they were all hesitant, unable to say anything to Cassian.
Cassian smiled brightly at them.
“Let's go to the training ground.”
They couldn't say anything and just headed to the training ground as Cassian said.
It was partly because they were all Teacher Cassian's students, but today, Cassian had a strange power.
When they arrived at the training ground, Yuria, who had already arrived and was waiting, was standing in a corner.
That made Rozalin even more anxious.
'You're calling all the Aura users and having Yuria stand by?'
Is the teacher going to overdo it again?
That thought first came to her mind.
As the people gathered and took their seats or stood, Cassian opened his mouth.
“Thank you all for gathering here. I think I’ve realized something recently, but I don’t have anyone to verify it with.”
“Verify?”
"I think I've realized something different about swordsmanship."
Something.
A simple word, but a scary one at that.
It was none other than Teacher Cassian who had realized something about swordsmanship that was beyond his current level, and she couldn't even guess how great that level would be.
"I'm not very confident in myself."
At the ridiculous statement, hollow laughs erupted from here and there.
To be frank, if they were to start a war with the people in this academy, a small kingdom could be destroyed within a week.
Even if they fought against the powerful Empire with magic, they could harass them for a few years if they used guerrilla tactics.
But they couldn't defeat Teacher Cassian alone.
Although he was frail and couldn't swing his sword many times, those few swings created miracles.
What was wrong with such a person?
At Rozalin's grumbling, Cassian smiled faintly again.
“We’re walking a path that we’ve never been on before. I might be right to open the door and point the way. But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.”
“Teacher.”
"We have to go together. I'm sharing what I've learned."
Saying that, Cassian slowly drew his sword.
At that moment.
Everyone gathered around felt a chilling sensation as if their necks had been cut.
Even Rozalin felt it.
‘……!’
Rozalin realized that she had stood up in surprise without even knowing it.
Everyone around her was the same.
Some had even drawn their weapons and were panting for breath.
'What was that?'
It wasn't killing intent or fighting spirit.
It wasn't shot with hostility, but a sense of pressure created by the very act of drawing the sword.
But that was as far as she could guess, and she couldn't understand what had just happened.
“Don't be nervous. Could you all step back? Ah, Rozalin. You'll have to face me for a moment.”
Me?
Rozalin swallowed hard.
Something was unsettling.
The shadow of the moon stretched long in the cold night sky.
The wind was strong, and the clouds brushed against the moon and the sky.
As summer was ending, the wind was cool, and the sound of insects singing of the future, burning their lives out for the last time, filled the air from a distance.
Her body had become so sensitive that she could awaken to that level of sensation in an instant.
"Um… I think I've realized something, but I'm not sure what it is. But if I swing it at other people, well, I think they might die."
“Ha, haha.”
"What should I call this sword? No, I need you to check if it's right to keep this sword as it is."
Rozalin tried her best to laugh as if it were a joke.
But cold sweat was forming on the hand that held the sword.
She felt like she knew why Teacher Cassian had pointed her out.
It was because she was the strongest here.
"I predict you'll last about five times, Rozalin. So try to receive my sword."
“……Yes.”
Rozalin licked her dry lips with her tongue and took a stance.
A counter-attack stance for a one-hit kill, to block the opponent's attack and crush them.
It was the full power Rozalin could muster right now.
'If I make a mistake, I'll really die.'
Her teacher had never given a warning to that extent before.
It was not an empty threat.
At that moment, Cassian in front of Rozalin slowly began to take a stance.
“Hoo.”
He took a deep breath and looked at her with serious eyes.
Teacher Cassian became a completely different person before he started swinging his sword.
It started with that breath-holding.
In the past, she had only thought that it was for concentration or meditation.
But now she knew.
That was a breath of endurance to hide the pain.
That serious, hardened expression, unlike usual, was also because he was enduring pain.
And the eyes that were looking at the opponent, at her.
'They are eyes that are reading everything about me.'
The tense muscles inside Rozalin's clothes slowly repeated their contraction and relaxation.
Each time, the tip of Cassian's sword was finely adjusted.
The sword, the feet, the arms, the legs.
Because she had listened intently to Cassian's classes for over a year, she could tell.
All of her movements were being sealed.
'What?'
She had taken the intermediate swordsmanship class that Teacher Cassian had created.
He had said that it was impossible to see and block all of the opponent's sword strikes.
So one had to take a sword stance that blocked the paths the opponent could attack from and blocked only the minimum number of attacks.
But this was the opposite.
An attack was coming through all of her stances.
At this moment, she couldn't even drop her sword and run away.
'Crazy.'
Is that even possible?
To be able to cut and kill her for sure while standing at a distance?
How?
Suddenly, the world narrowed.
Everything around her was erased in black, and only Teacher Cassian's sword was visible.
That sword was slowly rising to the sky.
Whoosh—.
Cassian's sword stood firm in the sky.
At that moment, she felt as if the clouds that had filled the sky had disappeared in an instant.
A sword that had come down from the sky, as if it would pierce through the moon in one go.
“You have to block it well.”
If it weren't for that warning.
Swoosh—!
She would have died without even being able to dodge the sword that came flying, cutting through the air.
"Ugh?!"
Rozalin let out a big gasp and swung her sword.
Clang!
Aura and Aura collided, and her body was pushed back.
'My will was cut.'
It was an unbelievable statement.
It wasn't a matter of thinking that she had to block or dodge it.
It was different from Bridget, who stole the opponent's breath with a trick of the eye.
She could clearly see the opponent's sword, and she even felt an overwhelming strength when he raised his sword.
But the moment the sword was cut, she didn't even have the thought of what to do.
'What a crazy sword!'
Rozalin used the opponent's strength to roll her body as much as possible.
The teacher was not the type to move his body a lot, so getting out of the sword's radius was the priority.
As expected, Teacher Cassian was walking slowly from not too far away.
But that appearance was even more bizarre.
'How?'
As if he had predicted how she would roll a few times, how she would get up, and what she would do, he was walking from outside all of her sword paths with a leisurely gait.
And yet, the tip of Cassian's sword seemed as if it could pierce her at any moment.
Rozalin swung her sword without even properly realizing what sword she was swinging and why.
It was a completely new sword path that her usual self would not have swung.
Thud.
As if he had known she would swing it like that, Cassian's left palm gently pressed against Rozalin's hilt.
Since the force had not yet been fully applied, the sword was blocked with that light gesture.
'Again, again!'
It was purely luck that she had dodged the second sword strike.
If it were her master, he would surely aim for her opening at this moment.
So she threw her body back, and the sword flowed over her eyes by a hair's breadth.
She could even see the sword brushing past her at a very slow speed, as if her sense of time had been cut.
No, she must have become that sensitive.
Rozalin, with her body thrown back, kicked her leg straight up.
A physical fight using the whole body, not a sword.
As if he was not confident in that, Cassian took a step back.
As soon as the hand that was blocking the hilt fell, Rozalin lowered her body using the rebound of pulling her raised leg down.
Not up, but down.
The flow of movement that seemed to sweep the floor was not a Vürhelm-like swordsmanship.
Taat!
It was the most Rozalin-like swordsmanship of the past five years.
As if her entire body had elasticity, the sword bounced out from behind her body, which was leaning at an angle to one side.
The sword, swung like a whip, became an attacking surface from the hilt to the tip of the blade, pushing and pulling, and flew towards Cassian.
Cassian glanced at the sword and then struck down with the hilt of his sword.
Thump.
Not a thud, but a thump.
That light touch shook the center of the sword.
"Ah?"
Rozalin's hand let go of the sword against her will.
It felt as if the vibration of the entire sword was stabbing her hand from the inside.
'Did the attack come through the sword and stab me on the inside?'
It wasn't just a feeling.
That single attack that had just touched the sword had ridden the surface of the sword and stabbed the inside of her palm as if squeezing it.
It wasn't a pain that could be endured or not.
'Ah.'
And then she realized.
Having let go of her sword, she no longer had a way to block Teacher Cassian's sword.
Aiming for that opening, Cassian's sword flew straight towards her.
“Good work.”
No, it seemed to be flying.
It was an illusion.
Cassian had been retrieving his sword without any action since the moment she had dropped her sword.
It was just that the afterimage left by that single attack was so strong that it had even brought about the moment of death.
"Hmm. Is it something like this?"
Cassian opened and closed his hands and replayed what had just happened.
While he was lost in his own world, muttering his realization, no one who had seen the short clash could open their mouths.
“Teacher……?”
Cassian was unfamiliar to Rozalin.
No, not just Cassian, but everything in the world was unfamiliar.
Especially the sword she was wielding was unfamiliar.
She had done many things with the sword, but she never thought she could do something like that.
She couldn't even guess what level of skill she had just seen.
So, just as she was about to continue.
"Ah. As expected."
Cassian smiled bitterly.
“Yuria. Please.”
Huh? Before people could even wonder.
Cassian collapsed, and Yuria, who had quickly approached, poured holy power into him.
'Hmm, this looks a little familiar.'
30 minutes later, Cassian got up and was nagged by Yuria, who had a nosebleed.
It was the usual scene.