Chapter 143: Lightning Strike

Joint combat training was going well.

In today’s lesson, Lucia finally managed to imagine a non-Amon target as Amon and hit it with her magic.

It was a moment when all her hard work paid off. A proud Lucia explains that she can now see Amon in thin air.

Amon was nervous about being Lucia’s bull’s-eye, but a good thing is a good thing.

The last time we fought, none of our allies were hit by Lucia’s magic except for the “real” Amon.

If there’s an unintended benefit, it’s that Amon seems to have become quite resistant to wind magic.

I doubt he’ll ever have to deal with a mage who uses wind magic, but it might come in handy someday.

Yuri and Aizel, despite their occasional bickering, seemed to get along pretty well.

I wonder if they always bumped into each other like that.

Anyway, it didn’t affect the battle, so I decided to ignore it.

So, after another day of training I left with Rei and Geppeti, and went to the forest outside the academy, away from prying eyes.

After all, Rei needed to develop her strength as a hero, and Geppeti needed to see how much power she had.

Boom!

Sword clashed against sword, creating a clear resonance of sound.

Behind Rei and I, who were locking swords, Geppeti swooped down on us.

A long blade protrudes from the underside of her forearm.

I wondered if there was any reason for such an ugly thing to be protruding from her body, but her explanation was that she was basically equipped to protect herself.

Bam!!!

I deflected Rei’s sword at an angle and took a step backward, catching a stream of Geppeti’s blows.

The gap in Geppeti’s body, which was floating in the air at that moment.

Aaah!

I didn’t miss it and opened my palm, pushing away from Geppeti’s abdomen.

“Ugh…”

Geppeti, who was hit in the abdomen, dragged the blade on her arm to the ground and was pushed back.

She frowns as she clutches her abdomen, obviously in pain.

Geppeti is unaccustomed to pain, having only recently acquired human flesh.

She could have removed the pain from her body on her own, but that would have crumbled her flesh, she said.

‘A brother who beats his sisters relentlessly…’

I was doing something that was forbidden, but they had asked me to make it as close to realistic as possible.

Rei felt like fighting and Geppeti agreed that the more realistic the fight, the easier it would be to collect data.

Of course, it wasn’t as close as it could be.

I hadn’t been able to use my highly lethal power, so I kept it sealed while fighting them all at the same time.

It was a rare combination of a reincarnated hero and a highly developed AI, but it wasn’t too difficult to deal with them.

Rei’s understanding of swordsmanship was excellent, but her body hadn’t yet caught up to it.

Geppeti was quick with calculations and good at analyzing her opponent’s movements, but she struggled with her own physicality.

‘Maybe it’s the physicality that’s the problem for both of them.’

I remained vigilant and examined their condition.

“…”

Rei wiped a bead of sweat from her chin. The fire in her eyes is still burning, but her legs are wobbly.

“…Hmph.”

Geppeti stood, holding her stomach where she had been hit earlier. Well, that was the third time she’d been hit in the same spot.

Surveying their condition, I lowered my sword and opened my mouth.

“…I think we’re done here.”

“I can still fight.”

“If I can reduce my pain by 30%, I can still fight.”

They don’t give up easily.

“It’s good that you want to do more, but it’s not good to push your body.”

My firm response finally relaxes Rei and Geppeti.

[Overexertion…ha, that doesn’t sound like something my student would say.]

Sierra’s laughing tackle was a bonus.

Soon, Rei, her sword sheathed, shambles over to me.

“…Candy.”

Rei looks up at me with a blank stare.

I remembered that I said I’d give her candy after the fight.

I had no intention of not giving it to her, so I took the candy from my arm and put it in her tiny hand.

Then Rei, who was looking at the candy in her hand, looked back at me.

“Not this one.”

I wonder if she means the other flavor.

Since I’m supposed to be blind, I don’t want to bother sniffing through the candy and picking one out, so I just pull out the bag of candy from my subspace pocket and offer it to her.

Rei finally found the flavor she wanted in the candy bag. It was chocolate vanilla.

She immediately popped the candy into her mouth and enjoyed the sweetness, then turned to Geppeti, who was on the other side of the room.

“You too?”

“…I think I might need some sugar.”

With a snap, Geppeti, blade tucked into her forearm, approaches Rei and takes the candy.

“Hehe.”

Rei laughs as Geppeti suddenly pops the candy into her mouth.

Then, with a wicked, childlike grin, she whispers to me.

“I guess from now on, we’ll just have to feed her tasteless flavored candy.”

“…”

It was an uncharacteristic remark.

I left them to rest for a while, and moved on to a more sheltered and quieter part of the forest.

I hadn’t been paying attention to my growth lately.

Sitting down on a suitable rock, I immediately checked my status.

<<Zetto>>Lv.48

Skills

-Ghost Slayer Technique Lv.28

-Sierra Reverse Heaven (Incomplete) Lv.6 – [Ghost Slayer Technique]] in effect

-Ki Sense Lv.5

-Weakness Detection Lv.MAX – [Blindfold That is Beyond Reason] in effect

-Night Vision Lv.MAX

-Acupuncture Lv.5

-Shade of Shadows Lv.MAX

-Surge of Power Lv.1

Skill Points remaining: 7

I’ve been leveling up here and there since I got to level 45 after one massive wave of demons, and I’m now at level 48.

“I’m eager to start the …”

We are beginning to enter the middle of the ‘story’ as I knew it.

I still had a lot of work ahead of me, but most importantly, I was getting closer and closer to the time when I needed to rescue Aizel.

I had made plans to learn Chapter 3 around this time.

[It’s been a while since I’ve been a teacher, isn’t it?]

Sierra granted my request, seemingly amused.

Sierra’s violet eyes glowed with a strange light in the bluish moonlight as she continued to explain.

She reminds me of the roots of the technique.

A sword technique to defeat a swordsman.

What kind of swordsmanship is that?

What kind of sword was it that Sierra was struggling with?

The answer to this question is found by comparing Sierra’s skills to those of Sword Saint.

The answer to this question can be found by looking at the anomalies.

The same would be true in Chapter 3, as I would learn.

As a sword disciple, Kaen hadn’t yet mastered the sword techniques of Sword Saint.

So, since I didn’t have a true grasp of the sword art, I listened intently to Sierra’s explanation.

That’s when Sierra said something rather shocking.

[…I’ll try to keep it simple. To put it simply, the sword that he is aware of never touches him. Never.]

No attacks that he recognizes can reach him.

I had a vague sense of it, but Sword Saint was an outrageous human being.

Perhaps that was why he had remained the Sword Saint after all these years.

Sierra’s purple moon was basically a sword that focused on gently shedding the opponent’s sword, so it was said to lack change.

She needed a sword that could surpass the perceptions of Sword Saint whose senses were sharp enough to detect the life of a mere spirit.

So Sierra chose to defy the laws of the world.

[Actually, Chapter 3 is really just a combination of Chapters 1 and 2, but it’s not until Chapter 3 that you’ll be able to bring your sword up against him.]

Chapter 1 is containment, Chapter 2 is response.

Chapter 3 is offense.

“So what’s Chapter 3?”

The answer was already in my head, but my question came out of nowhere.

[Chapter 3 defies “cause and effect.”]

Sierra’s voice picks up again, her eyes wide.

In her explanation, Chapter 3 of Reverse Heaven was a technique that reversed the “cause” of “swinging the sword” to arrive at the “effect” of “slashing”.

In short, the sword strikes came out even though no action was taken.

‘Isn’t this beyond magic now…?’

It seemed useful.

But no matter how much I tried to explain to myself how it defied cause and effect, I couldn’t get it to work.

I decided to give it a try.

At level 6, I felt like I could do it.

“…Does that mean I don’t have to draw my sword?”

[In Chapter 3, it doesn’t really matter if you’re holding the sword or not; the point is that there are consequences even when there are no actions to cause them.]

“Hmm…”

I turned away from Sierra’s words and stood in front of the thick old trees around us.

I placed my hand on my Spectral Sword and steadied my breathing.

If there was one thing that had changed when I reached level six, it was that I now could use the skill without a trigger and just by simply swiping the sword.

I think of something I want to reverse.

I’ll draw my sword and cut down the old tree in front of me without having to cut it down.

As I was thinking about it an all-too-familiar sensation came over me.

The flow of mana was twisting and at the same time, a red sword light flashed in the dark forest.

The thick pillar of an old tree was crushed in an instant but strangely, I still hadn’t made any move.

I hadn’t even swung my sword at the tree, but somehow I cut it down.

[Hooray…You’ve succeeded, though you still lack destructive power and are a bit slow…You are my disciple after all.]

Sierra, who was perched on a rock on the other side, gave me an approving smile.

It was hardly natural that I had succeeded in learning yet another new skill on the first try, but perhaps my actions thus far had made it natural.

I stopped staring at the dead tree, which looked like it was about to break, and realized I had a question.

I turned to Sierra and asked.

“But, Master, does Chapter 3 have any side effects? For now, I don’t feel any strain on my body.”

[That’s the beauty of Chapter 3, there’s no cause, so there’s no burden on the body…!]

The corners of Sierra’s mouth turned up but her smile seemed to hide something.

“There are really no side effects…?”

It was hard to believe that such an anomalous and destructive attack, one that defied the laws of cause and effect, would have no side effects.

[…not that there weren’t.]

Or not.

It couldn’t be without side effects.

[…Don’t worry, it’s just a little lightning, and since you’ve disturbed ’cause and effect’… you’ll probably be punished by heaven.]

Just a little lightning.

What does that mean?

“Lightning…?”

I asked, not quite understanding.

“I guess it’s dangerous if I get hit…?”

Sierra gave me an amused look, and then spoke up.

[It’ll hurt, but it won’t kill you, and you can probably dodge a lightning strike by running a bit, right?]

…Apparently, Sierra has been able to dodge lightning strikes by simply running.

Sierra then looks up and looks at the sky. Something is gathering in the dark sky.

[I wonder if it’s about time…]

Then she looks back at me.

[…What are you doing, not running?]

***

“You’re saying that this joint battle could take a month and a half…is that true…?”

Kaliman, who was scratching his rough beard at Kaen’s question, spoke up.

“Yeah, well, it’s a midway check anyway, so I guess it’s possible…Are you sure you want to do the whole month in joint combat? I don’t think it’s easy to stand out on your own in joint combat.”

Innocence Academy, which was strictly divided into grades, did have a monthly class system.

Well, that was only for those who were unlucky enough to be placed in a class that didn’t match their skills.

Moreover, joint battles were literally fought in unison with the rest of the group, and it would be difficult to make it to the top class by showing off your skills alone in such a situation.

“I was like, ‘Ahaha, sure, I guess,’ and I just… I asked if it was possible.”

Scratching her cheek, Kaen laughed nervously but behind her usual goofy demeanor, Kaen was making a plan.

She was planning to hide her power, and then reveal it at the right time, so that she could pass the entire month with straight A’s.

This was against her plan, but she had to do it to get closer to Zetto.

As she stole glances at Aizel and Yuri, who were laughing and talking and naturally touching him, she felt her impatience growing.

After she left, Kaliman, leaning back in his chair, picked up a fountain pen.

He scribbles something down on a piece of paper, the kind that each cadet is given for instructions.

Kaliman had already realized from her earlier confrontation with Zetto that Kaen was not a C-class student.

Next to Kaen’s name, Kaliman writes a sentence.

‘I think it’s better to let her go and let Edward take over.’

With that, Kaliman stretched with a proud smile on his face.

He doesn’t know why she’s hiding her power, but he’s wise enough to realize that it’s not normal for a cadet to do such a thing.