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Chapter 48: Even the Magic Arts is Annoying

Dorara Corazon.

Ranked second in the Magic Arts.

Innate trait: Inferiority complex.

Specialty magic: Wind.

As befitting someone ranked second in the Magic Arts, Dorara could handle various types of wind magic and, with time, even wield large-scale wind magic.

His razor-sharp wind magic could easily slice through trees.

However.

“You… what the hell are you?”

In this world, the concept of compatibility exists.

After taking a direct hit to his side from me, Dorara was furious and continuously cast wind magic at me.

Razor-sharp gusts of wind struck me multiple times, and Dorara laughed, confident of his victory.

But in truth, they didn’t leave so much as a scratch on me.

The mystery of my body: Steel Skin.

It rendered me nearly immune to cutting attacks, making his wind magic the worst possible match against me.

“Didn’t you even bother watching the team battle properly?”

Well, it’s no wonder.

This guy only has eyes for Sharin.

A guy who’d even spread nasty rumors just to beat Sharin clearly wouldn’t notice anything else.

That’s why I found it all the more necessary to teach him a lesson.

People who refuse to admit their own shortcomings and only bring others down are utterly useless.

As I charged at him, Dorara panicked and conjured a gust of wind, lifting himself into the air and flying out of the rooftop garden.

Even I had no way to catch someone who could fly.

Realizing this, Dorara let out a sigh of relief, though his rage reignited as he remembered the humiliation I’d inflicted on him.

“That bastard. I should’ve known back when he started hanging around with that Sharin girl.”

Feeling safe, Dorara’s mouth started running again.

Winds began swirling around him, and the staff in his grip glimmered in the light.

As pathetic as he looked, he was still the second-ranked student in the Magic Arts.

While the gap between first and second place was enormous, Dorara had still bested countless other mages to earn his rank.

The amount of mana he commanded could easily overwhelm most other mages.

Watching him, I instinctively assumed a starting stance.

Placing both hands on the ground, I lifted my back foot slightly.

Seeing my movements, Dorara’s face took on an expression of disbelief.

Thud!

I shattered his disbelief, pushing off the ground and sprinting toward him.

The moment my foot reached the iron fence—

Boom!

My body soared over the rooftop garden’s railing, launching into the sky.

The garden was suspended far above the ground.

Falling from here would be essentially suicide, even for me.

“You lunatic!?”

Dorara screamed in shock.

His confusion opened a massive gap in his defenses.

I pulled my arm back.

At the same time, a magical engraving activated across my steel-like skin.

The magic: Explosion.

“If you thought you were safe in the air…”

You need to be taught otherwise.

KABOOM!

The explosion triggered in my palm, propelling my body forward in mid-air.

The distance between me and Dorara vanished in an instant.

Panicked, he tried to cast another spell, but it was too late.

When a mage allows a melee fighter to close the gap—

They’ve already lost.

Crack!

My fist drove into Dorara’s jaw without hesitation.

“Gahk!”

The impact knocked out several of his teeth, which scattered into the air.

The blow briefly knocked Dorara unconscious, causing the magic keeping him aloft to dissipate.

Even so, he proved surprisingly durable, befitting his rank as second in the department.

Half-conscious, he flailed desperately to avoid plummeting to his death.

“P-please, help!”

His face was pale as he screamed, unable to focus enough to cast magic.

He thought he was going to die.

Just as Dorara reached that conclusion—

Grab!

I caught him by the scruff of his neck.

Then, using another explosion from my free hand, I propelled us both back to the rooftop garden.

Thud!

I slammed Dorara into the ground, sending him rolling several times before he came to a stop.

Having come so close to death, his eyes were completely unfocused.

Step, step—

“Hrk!”

Hearing my approaching footsteps, Dorara sprang to his feet in terror, drenched in cold sweat as he stared at me.

He now knew that he would’ve died had I not saved him.

Realizing his life was entirely at my mercy, he was consumed by fear.

“You were running your mouth quite a bit earlier.”

Crack, crack—

As I cracked my knuckles, Dorara flinched with every sound.

Still, he scrambled to feel around the ground, searching desperately.

Eventually, he noticed something was missing.

“Looking for this?”

I held up his staff, and his face stiffened even further.

The most basic tactic when fighting a mage is to take their staff.

Without it, their accuracy plummets, reducing them to little more than a slightly trained civilian.

Clatter.

I tossed the staff back to him.

Dorara looked up at me, his expression one of utter confusion.

He couldn’t understand why I’d return a weapon to an already defeated opponent.

“Let’s keep going.”

I decided to become someone even more incomprehensible to Dorara.

“Ending it here with the second rank would be disappointing, wouldn’t it?”

For the first time, Dorara noticed the madness in my eyes.

Whether he had the will to fight or not didn’t matter to me.

I challenged him to a fight as practice for battling mages.

If this was all it took to end things, I wouldn’t be satisfied.

“You lunatic.”

Dorara muttered as though he were facing something entirely alien.

But I had already prepared to strike again.

“Plenty of lunch break left.”

Dorara’s screams echoed throughout the rooftop garden.

* * *

Murmur, murmur—

The voices of shocked and astonished students buzzed around me.

But their chatter didn’t faze me in the slightest.

In my hand was none other than a thoroughly battered Dorara Corazon—the second-ranked student in the Magic Arts.

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This was the Magic Arts’s building.

Since I was shorter than the average boy, I was dragging Dorara’s body across the ground.

The sight drew countless stares, with the students wearing puzzled expressions.

“What’s going on?”

“Dorara’s being dragged around like a wreck.”

“That’s the kid who came in first during the team battle, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Hannon.”

The murmurs grew louder as I walked through the crowd of magic arts students and entered Dorara’s classroom.

There, I tossed him onto the floor.

Dorara rolled across the ground, still unconscious with his eyes rolled back.

I exhaled deeply, feeling the stares of the gathered magic arts students.

Second semester of the second year, Act 4.

Thanks to Dorara’s efforts, rumors about Sharin would soon spread, and she would become ostracized within the Magic Arts.

This wasn’t a particularly important part of the scenario.

It only served as an element to convince the erratic Sharin to join the team.

Act 4 can proceed much more smoothly with Sharin’s help.

In other words, resolving Sharin's ostracism sooner or later doesn’t matter.

"The Magic Arts kids have fallen this low, huh?"

The moment I spoke, the Magic Arts students' eyes collectively changed.

Every one of them here takes great pride in their magic abilities.

Even if they're the lowest-ranked at Zerion Academy, their excellence would still be recognized outside the academy.

This place is a collection of talent upon talent.

Thus, their pride is higher than anyone else's.

After all, there’s no domain as pure in talent as magic.

"Your department’s second rank said it, you know. That I only won first place in the team competition because of Sharin."

Of course, the second rank was too busy gossiping about Sharin to say anything like that.

But the students, who were already predisposed to dislike me, naturally assumed Dorara had said it.

"What nonsense."

I cursed and looked at the Magic Arts students with a disdainful expression.

"Even if one of you had taken that position, I still would have won first place in the team competition."

"What?"

"What is he saying?"

A sharp glint appeared in the students’ eyes.

Many of them were envious of Sharin.

Sharin had shown them—those who had been evaluated as geniuses their whole lives—that there was a pinnacle they could never reach.

Of course, they couldn’t suppress the inferiority complex that arose.

However, despite that inferiority complex, they also acknowledged her talent in their hearts.

Sharin had defeated every Magic Arts student and ranked first.

Denying her would mean denying themselves, who ranked far below her.

"Don’t make me laugh."

"Do you think the top of Magic Arts is a joke? Without Sharin’s magic, you wouldn’t have gotten that timing in the first place!"

"What do you even know to spout such nonsense?"

As expected, the students began to defend Sharin instead.

They had to prevent her from being denied because that would also deny them.

Thus, they began to stand up for Sharin.

Watching them, I smirked.

It was a blatant sneer.

"It was all calculated. I would have just restructured the team and prepared differently if someone had been there. It’s not important that it was Sharin. You know nothing, do you?"

The Magic Arts students have a subtle tendency to look down on Martial Studies students as dumb.

So, for me, a Martial Studies student, to say they "know nothing" caught all their attention at once.

"Blabbing whatever comes out of your mouth, huh?"

"What would you know about magic?"

"Such a disrespectful little..."

The students' language began to turn harsh.

Looking at them, I remained perfectly composed.

At the same time, I pointed to Dorara, who was slumped in the corner.

"At the end of the day, all of you are still below that second rank over there."

Fury lit up in their eyes.

They all turned to look at Dorara, clearly irritated.

Their expressions made it obvious they couldn’t understand why he’d gone out and embarrassed himself, tarnishing their pride.

As a result, more and more of them began to resent Dorara.

They probably thought to themselves that they wouldn’t have suffered the same disgrace if they were in his place.

It was written all over their faces.

"I’m not even the top rank in Martial Studies. But the fact that your second rank got humiliated by me means none of you are worth much either, doesn’t it?"

The atmosphere among the students became even more hostile, as if they were ready to attack me any second.

Yet, even in the midst of that, I casually shrugged my shoulders.

"Honestly, what’s the point of talking to clueless people who can’t even grasp the flow of a team competition?"

Some of the students drew their wands.

They were clearly signaling that they wouldn’t tolerate further insults.

"Hannon?"

At that moment, the protagonist appeared.

The top rank of Magic Arts.

Sharin Sazaris.

She emerged from among the students, looking puzzled as she tried to grasp the situation and looked at me.

"Sharin!"

"What’s with him? Why did you team up with someone like that?"

"Does he think the top of Magic Arts is a joke?"

"If it were Sharin instead of Dorara, he’d already be dead!"

The moment Sharin appeared, the students’ voices grew louder.

Sharin looked bewildered by their reactions.

Amidst their intense reactions, I locked eyes with Sharin.

"The top rank and the second rank—what’s the difference? It’s just one rank apart. What’s so different about them?"

My mouth didn’t stop running.

Their eyes flared up even more.

Ding-dong-ding-dong—

At that moment, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch break.

Hearing this, I walked toward the students surrounding me.

The hostility in the air was palpable, but when I glared at them coldly, they couldn’t bring themselves to stop me.

After all, it was true that I’d left Dorara in that miserable state.

"Hannon."

"Sharin, don’t hang out with someone like that."

"How did you even win first place with that trash? If it weren’t for you, he’d be nothing."

"Don’t associate with him."

Sharin called out to me, but I could see the Magic Arts girls sticking to her, chattering away.

From now on, their insults would focus on me rather than Sharin.

And in their eyes, Sharin would be elevated even more.

To protect their own pride, they’d make her their idol.

To that end, I deliberately stirred the competitive spirit between Magic Arts and Martial Studies.

No matter how much they disliked their representative, they couldn’t tolerate them being disrespected by someone from the rival department.

That sentiment had taken root in the Magic Arts students.

So, from now on, I’d be the one to bear the brunt of their insults instead of Sharin.

And Dorara, who had been defeated by me, would share that burden.

Thanks to Isabel, I’m used to being insulted.

The only difference now is that there’ll be more people hurling insults.

‘I’ve repaid the debt for the magic engraving.’

The debt I owed for helping with the magic engraving and the team competition.

With that repaid, I left the Magic Arts building without looking back.

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