I was facing off against Mr. Wallace.
I could sense an immense amount of magic from him, but he didn’t seem prepared to start the fight just standing there.
Thinking to quickly finish this, I moved in and struck at his face with the palm of my hand.
However, in an instant, his figure disappeared, and I caught sight of a fist coming from the left.
“Hmm…]
I evaded by leaning my torso away, dodging that punch.
Then, as our eyes met, I went to strike the side of his face with my left hand in an uppercut with the palm of my hand.
“Pretty fast, as expected,”
Mr. Wallace said while dodging and putting distance between us.
“You’re faster though. Not to mention your vision’s exceptionally sharp.”
It should be impossible for an amateur with heightened magic to ever dodge my attacks. That much should be obvious from the training I’ve done with Sharl.
“Because my strength, speed, visual tracking, and everything increase alongside my magic,”
he explained.
That’s ridiculous.
I was surprised to see someone who must be over forty moving that well, but it seems that there was a drug that could boost abilities to this extent.
“Maybe if Sharl had taken this, she could’ve beaten Toko more easily?”
“Don’t do that. It’s a banned substance. Besides, take better care of your sister,”
he said, giving the type of advice one would expect from a teacher.
“Huh… I’ll keep that in mind,”
I said and then closed the distance quickly with sliding steps.
I aimed a kick at his face.
However, Mr. Wallace bent down to avoid it and swung a punch at me.
“You’re still an amateur…”
I deflected the extended arm he had, redirected it, and dodged.
I then struck his chin with the palm of my hand as his upper body was leaning forward.
He arched back and staggered a few steps with his face tilted towards the ceiling, but he didn’t fall down and turned to face me again.
“It’s not working…”
“Not at all,”
What is happening?
That palm strike should’ve definitely delivered a blow to his brain, and there’s no way he should be able to stay standing.
“I’ll ramp it up a bit…”
Muttering this, I closed the distance once again, and slammed another palm to his face.
Stepping back half a step, I spun around, unleashing a roundhouse kick to his torso.
Yet, Mr. Wallace only retreated a few steps; not only did he not fall, but he even stepped in aggressively.
“No wa—y!”
I dodged by turning my head away at the sight of his incoming punch.
This time, I raised my left arm as his kick approached my face, blocking it.
“——Gh!”
The moment his kick hit, an incredible impact coursed through my left arm, and I was pushed back a few meters, sliding along the floor. My left arm was now tingling with pain.
“See how that feels? That’s enhancement magic. The one you’re using,”
he explained.
Wow, what an insane strength.
It’s incomparable to a bear.
“You’re strong,”
“Indoors, this makes me more advantageous. That’s why I lured Andy here, who’s not skilled in martial arts. Though it was unexpected that Charlene came as well, it’s the same situation.”
Sharl focuses only on long-range combat after all.
She’s still a beginner in martial arts even though I’m teaching her.
“You’re smart, but you’re also dumb, Mr. Wallace,”
“Why do you think so?”
“Well, actually, you can’t use magic yourself, can you? I have an advantage,”
“Strength, speed, magic… I surpass you in everything,”
he responded.
Ah, you’re an idiot.
“There’s no way an amateur could beat me even if they had the best weapons in the world. They’d mean nothing if the wielder is an unskilled person,”
“Hmph… I thought you were a calmer student,”
he said, and it wasn’t such a bad evaluation as far as evaluations go from a teacher.
“Hell no. People who have done martial arts since childhood tend to be savage. Die, trash!”
I flipped off and stepped in.
I jumped in front of him and drove my knee into his chin.
“Ugh! It’s not working,”
he replied as he leaned back and stepped in to punch me again.
I easily knocked his punch away with my hand.
“Clumsy. There’s a knack to throwing punches,”
I said and struck his exposed abdomen with the palm of my hand.
“Therefore, it won’t work,”
and he swung another punch without hesitation.
“Right…”
I replied monotonously, and again knocked away his punch.
“Tch! Annoying.”
“There’s something you can’t protect even if your magic is heightened. One of them is the so-called vitals,”
“Feh! Such things can be handled with magic!”
he exclaimed as he swung another punch.
I watched his movements and stepped back slightly.
Seeing this, Mr. Wallace pressed forward aggressively.
“The other is joints. Fool,”
I dodged his punch and quickly moved in, kicking at his knee with my magically enhanced leg.
His extended knee buckled far in the wrong direction.
“Ughh!”
Mr. Wallace collapsed as his leg bone broke.
“Good night,”
I lifted my leg high, and as Mr. Wallace leaned forward falling, I brought it down with force onto the back of his head.
The heel drop collided directly with his occipital area, and his face was slammed into the ground.
“I almost forgot… When using enhancement magic, it’s important to concentrate. If concentration wavers, the magic can wear off from the pain… But it’s probably too late for that anyway,”
Mr. Wallace didn’t move a muscle.
“Tsukasa!”
“Tsukasa-kun!”
Sharl and Mr. Andy, who had been standing back, hurried over.
“We won, we won!”
Yay!
“Your arm?!”
Sharl grabbed my left arm where Mr. Wallace’s kick had landed.
“Nah, it’s fine.”
“Are you sure? Do you want to take a potion?”
Sharl took out a blue potion.
“Since you’re offering, I’ll take it,”
I accepted and drank it.
The taste of an apple spread in my mouth, and the tingling sensation in my arm began to fade.
“Tsukasa-kun…”
Mr. Andy, who had been crouching to look at Mr. Wallace, raised his face.
“What? He isn’t dead, right?”
I had held back, after all.
“No, he’s dead…”
What!?
“Eh? Did I…?”
Really!?
What should I do!?
“Senior, may I speak with you for a moment?”
Sharl started to examine Mr. Wallace who lay fallen on the ground.
“So, it was as I suspected…,”
Sharl murmured with a serious expression.
“Eh? What? He was alive before?”
“No, he’s dead.”
This is bad…
“Um… what should we do? Was it self-defense? Expulsion? Arrest?”
Mother will cry.
“Calm down. Yesterday, I overheard you talking and sensed something was off, so I followed you,”
Huh?
“What do you mean?”
“Yesterday, weren’t you talking about the bear on the phone?”
“Ah, yes. The talk about the bear selling for 120,000 mana,”
The story where Klaus reduced the price by 300,000.
“And wasn’t the reason given for the price reduction that the meat was rotten?”
“Right,”
“And just now, watching your battle with Mr. Wallace, it became clear—”
“What? What’s clear?”
It wasn’t because I’m stupid that I had no idea.
“His attacks had absolutely no effect on you. No matter what, someone getting hit that many times in the jaw without brain damage is odd. Moreover, the bear you defeated earlier had rotten meat… This is necromantic magic.”
What’s that?
“Uh…?”
“One of the forbidden magics that controls corpses,”
“Huh? So, Mr. Wallace was a corpse?”
A zombie!?
“I suspect so. A more detailed examination through dissection might reveal more,”
Dissection…
“Eh? What about the bear?”
“That too was necromantic magic. Meaning, it was being controlled by someone who had already died.”
Who? Mr. Wallace?
“I have one more question…”
There’s more?
“What?”
“Didn’t you notice something odd about the doors? There’s no tool in this world that can restore something to its original state. It’s impossible to revert objects to how they were in the past,”
“Eh? But…”
Hold on…
Mr. Wallace had already been dead and was being manipulated.
The bears attacking the seniors were similarly being controlled.
Senior Joan, who was supposed to call Mr. Wallace, hasn’t returned.
Also, Senior Joan was his disciple.
Everything started connecting in my mind…
“Senior Andy, you didn’t know I was from La Folle, right?”
“Eh? Yeah, I didn’t know,”
“Do you know about the Nagase family?”
“Sorry, no. Japanese Wizards have undergone a unique evolution and are not well-known to the public,”
Right…
The Nagase family isn’t famous.
Moreover, I had been keeping my association with La Folle hidden.
Yet, Senior Joan knew I was from a prestigious family.
Did Toko tell her?
No, Toko said she didn’t know either Senior Joan or Senior Andy.
Why?
Then…
“Ugh… Mr. Wallace, you were really hopeless,”
A voice sounded, and we all turned our attention to the door.
There stood Senior Joan with her arms crossed, her hand supporting her cheek.
She wore her usual smile, though it seemed eerily unsettling…
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