Chapter 8: Ch.7 - An interesting fight
Multiple Perspective Theory was a theory developed by a social psychologist named Viklund, this theory suggests that when someone doesn't experiences primal emotions related to survival he can enter a state of mind where he can critically look at different perspectives regarding a certain situation, action, belief, or even idea and in this state, he can gain the benefit of being able to accept the diverse, the "alter" (Latin for other), tolerate what is foreign and being able to look at the world with an open mind.
Of course, this theory has many problems, but it can help us understand how humans work: to be able to accept another opinion or worldview one must first have experienced contrasting views, once that happens the individual will be more prone to be able to accept different opinions in general, non-dependant by the topic in question.
With this, we can understand why nobles in this country cannot seem to accept a commoner at the top of the ranking, and even less considering that said commoner is close to a duke's daughter, a prime candidate for anyone's marriage. Disgusting. As such, noble's scions, who have never met either physical opposition or any kind of intellectual challenge and even less experienced the struggles of the common citizens, unable to enter a state of "multiple perspectives", drunk on superiority, and incapable of distinguishing a direct attack on their pride from a simple gap in pure skill decided to simply challenge the mc left and right in hope to gain his place and some glory while at it.
After looking at the 10th young master in a row who left the arena humiliated in the span of a few days while proudly promising vengeance at the cry of "My father / my brother will hear of this" (spoilers they won't), I decided to also challenge the MC.
Pride? Useless, I just wanted to measure myself against him as simple as that, no doubt I would lose but the experience would be invaluable.
"What are you trying to accomplish?" suddenly asked a voice behind me, interrupting my concentration and making me and the group that was beginning to look like a clique turn their heads in the direction of the voice.
Quinta stood there in righteous indignation frowning heavily, eyes murderously focused on mine, my aloof expression angering her more and more every single millisecond for whatever reason.
"Conquer the world?" was all I was willing to answer her
"What?"
"What?"
...
This exchange seemed to irritate her to the maximum extent humanly possible, for her part noticing the look everyone was giving her and realizing that maybe, just maybe, nobody wanted to deal with her shit she settled on glaring at me before leaving.
Emerson was the first to break the silence "Seriously dude... What the hell did you do to her, I don't think I have ever seen a girl more angry in my whole life..."
"Oh come on, it is just that we girls are trained not to show unsightly emotions in public, that is why you never see us angry" huffed Mara with Celine nodding her head.
"That doesn't answer my question though"
"Well long story short, I found her hideous enough to find an excuse to break up my engagement with her"
...
The tension was palpable
"Isn't she Duke's Reinhardt daughter? How in the 9 hells..." muttered Celine
"And the Duke doesn't want you dead for it?" asked Emerson
"Oh please, who do you take me for? I managed to get out of it with his blessing and the whole "I'm sorry it didn't work out" spiel, I'm a professional after all" I smugly answered
Pinching his nose Emerson just shook his head "Well, if I am ever in a marital pickle remind me to call you"
Anya simply nodded, her silence expressing more than a thousand words- yea no... Not really.
Like this, we spent the day chatting before it was finally time for me to enter the arena.
...
In the center of the arena stood Noah, the Japanese hero from another world, completely oblivious to the story here, a bit naive and technically overpowered.
He was a great testing ground, so I hoped to at least last for a while.
"Hello again," said himself, smiling like an idiot, of course since he was to be treated as an equal at the academy I had absolutely no qualms about speaking informally with him
"Been a while Noah, are you enjoying your life here?" I ask him a bit on the nose, secretly hinting at his previous life without making it obvious
"I would probably enjoy it more if people stopped challenging me" he smiled wryly
I laughed "You brought this onto yourself, you are a great benchmark after all" to which he nodded tiredly
"Shall we dance then?" I continued
"Let's roll" without waiting for the announcer he sprinted towards me sword in hand.
Creating an ice wall I immediately retreated forming an ice staff/spear while trying to ready as many ice shards as possible.
For his part he just charged through the wall with the Holy Charge ability dispersing some mana in the process; normally that would make him stagger a bit, but apparently not the hero, as I was trying to exploit that moment to counterattack he was already positioned to stop me.
CLANG
My ice spear broke on his sword, Holy Glow is an ability that allows the user to coat his weapon with holy powers finding the weak point of the opposing construct and in the best case scenario shatter it, but as soon as the weapon shattered and he was about to slash my way I allowed the shards hovering on me to attack him gaining me time to regrow my broken spear and getting some distance.
I was not about to grow complacent however as I knew his fastest combo was about to get to me, it consisted of shielding from an attack and retaliating with a Holy Smite; normally as all spells at low levels Smite needed a bit of cast time but not when there is already holy energy around, in that case, the spell would not need a cast time and would attack the target at an incredible speed making it hard to predict.
If I did not read the novel and watched the hero fight I would have fallen victim to it, so I immediately erected an ice wall that got destroyed a fraction of a second later allowing me to get out of the fight with a positive trade. For all the power holy magic allows the wielder the drawback was huge mana consumption, and considering the huge capacity of the hero's core we were just about even on mana left.
Running from him was impossible, cause of holy charge so the only possible continuation to this fight was a...
CLANG
... Stat-Check, a pure fight only based on swordsmanship vs spearmanship.
A horizontal sweep was avoided thanks to my superior range with the spear, I followed with a stab he easily parried, he tried getting closer, but I launched a few shards and then continued my onslaught every time he tried to counterattack, left, right, parry, disengage all in the span of seconds.
CRASH
Eventually, he was able to break my weapon, but gritting my teeth, I formed more spikes to keep him occupied.
In the end, my mana was dwindling, and his skill with the sword was better, maybe if I practiced the spear more I would have lasted longer but that was it, on the backfoot I could only keep parrying horizontal sweeps and overhead strikes as he kept his onslaught, the spears broke too easily so I formed staffs with stronger ends, all I had to do was parry, left, right, left, overhead, the flurry was unending.
Desperately I used all my mana and from the ground, ice spikes were directed at astounding speed at the hero, who...
...just shielded ending my attack and aubsequently resting his sword as soon as he glanced as my figure
I had my hand up in the air, "I yield" I announced officially ending the fight.
He smiled at me, "Great fight, the best I had all day"
I shook my head, the guy fought basically all morning and I was his first fight of the afternoon "It was a great fight indeed, helped me more than you can imagine"
His smile visibly shone brighter "I don't think I will be able to continue like this morning, maybe just a few more fights, I also learned a lot"
We then shook hands to the cheer of the crowd.
...
"Not bad, not bad at all," said Alfred, Geralth at his side
"Indeed, I told you, the hero however is way too much. I wonder what the gods were thinking" sighed Geralth shaking his head and making his way out of the arena
...
Just honing my writing skills on battles, could be worse
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