CHAPTER 31: WEAKEST IN THE GROUP

One of the boys went to the other end of the corner to stop anybody trying to come in. Eric knew it was going to be a long day, seeing how carefully discreet the mage students are trying to be.

’Well, that’s one person less. But I can’t take on three of them though.’

[The mana from this mage boy is overflowing. You might get double the usual value if you consume it.]

’That’s it. But I can’t kill him inside the academy. I don’t think I’ll be able to hurt him even with my current stats.’

[Place your hand over this ice wall for his stat evaluation.]

Eric moved slowly backward as gel-head moved closer to him with a wicked smile on his face. His back finally touched the cold wall, and he pressed his palms against the slippery surface.

[Analyzing Basic Stats...]

Magic level: 27

Dex: 20

[These are the stats I can get from his ice wall. Seeing how he’s a mage, he must be lacking some physical abilities. In other words, he’s a really weak person if you engage him in physical combat.]

’I get that he must last physicality, but with those sharp icicles, I don’t think I can manage to get close to him.’

[You have something he doesn’t have.]

[New Quest Issued: Defeat The B-ranked Mage.]

[Reward: ???]

"Why are you touching my wall, worm? Is it cool? Oh, you wish you can do that, huh?" Gel-head finally spoke, taking his time with his words like he has no worries in the world.

"It’s cool, literally. But what you’re doing with it is not cool. Just let me go."

The boy bully opened his eyes wide, an amused laughter in barks escaped him. He looked back at his friends while pointing at Eric. "Can you hear him? He’s talking back to me now. Oh my."

Fat-face smiled while conjuring a little ball of fire on his fingertips. He edged nearer, moving closer to Gel-head but still behind. He was absentmindedly held back by the differences in power rank between them, Eric noticed.

’This gel-head must also be from a rich family, seeing how they’re sucking up to him.’

Eric stared up at him, his eyes betraying nothing but a cool head.

"Don’t you think three against one is unfair? How about I fight you all one after the other, starting from the weakest of you. And by weakest, I mean fat-face over there," Eric smiled, pointing at the boy with the ball of fire.

Gel-head raised an eyebrow, pausing and appearing to be having a deep thought about it. Then he decided.

"Acceptable. If you lose, you’ll accept whatever comes from it. Cheng, he’s seeking a challenge with you because he thinks you’re the weakest. Will you be a good boy and make him think otherwise?"

Fat-face—whose name turned out to be Cheng—gave a grunt as a reply as he moved forward to face Eric with his menacing, half-closed eyes. "I’ll make him pay in no time, Styles."

’Styles? This gel-head is named Styles? Don’t make me laugh.’

[Wow, you can detect he’s the weakest in the group? That’s impressive, Styles]

[INT: 0 (+0)]

Eric smiled, humored at the system’s comments. "Why do I get 0 pts for what I didn’t ask for anyway.’

[I still stand on the fact that you’re a dumbass, so 0 pts for INT.]

[Plus, you don’t need my the system’s stats to evaluate how Intelligent your are.]

[Now go get the weakest here. Do it in under a minute for a reward.]

"What’s funny, wimp?" Cheng sounded like a cartoon. Eric almost smiled again.

’These clowns will deal damage to me by getting to my tickle bones?’

Cheng launched his first attack without warning, sending a roaring ball of fire at Eric. It was bright and moving at a fast speed. But compared to what he’d seen when Winter was fighting against those stray A-ranked beasts, this one showed nothing. He couldn’t even feel the heat. So, he was tempted to stand still and let the fireball hit him, to show Cheng how weak his ass was. Nothing like making your opponent feel extremely terrible.

But at the last second, he instinctively leaned back, arching his back all the way till his upper body was nearly horizontal with the ground. The fireball crashed against the ice wall and exploded with a pop. But Eric slipped while trying to dodge the fireball. He’d mistakenly stepped on the ice that served as the base layer of the ice wall, so he landed on his butt.

Styles and the other boy who hadn’t spoken since laughed their hearts out. Cheng scoffed while closing the distance between him and Eric. He had a satisfactory gleam in his face as he looked down on him, conjuring another fireball.

’Good. You’ve gotten close enough. Just what I need. Let me see your fat ass get away from this.’

As soon as Cheng threw the fire, Eric kicked against the solid ice wall and bounced back up while stepping to the side, away from the fireball. He put his Agility to the test, dashing straight toward Cheng.

He expected Cheng to hurl another round of fireball, but he opened his palms and sprayed his magical power out of them. But it made no difference.

Eric had gauged the fireball’s speed, and he was ready to change direction before it hit. But Cheng had changed his form of attack, using the fire spray form. It made no difference because it still came out with the same level of speed as the fireballs.

"Weak ass, constant ass, slow ass, fat ass bag of flesh," grunted Eric as he changed direction swiftly.

After dodging the attacks, he came back to Cheng’s line of attacks, and when he got close, he bent down from his waist downward and flew forward, slamming himself into Cheng’s body.

They both crashed down on the white marble floor, with Eric on top. Cheng hit the back of his head against the floor when they crashed. A deep groan escaped his guts while Eric sat on his belly, and without a second look, rained a load of blows on Cheng’s face till he felt his fist mushy from all that blood from Cheng’s broken nose and mouth. The rest of the gang stood still, not coming to Cheng’s rescue.

Finally, Eric stopped. He got up with a deep breath. Leaning back down, he wiped the blood in his fist against Cheng’s uniform. After he was done, he grabbed Cheng’s red belt and pulled forcefully, yanking it away from where it hung on his waist.

"I’ll take this as a souvenir," he said.

’Did I get a reward for this, system?’

[No. You ended the fight in 1m 10s]

’That’s poor.’

Eric shot his gaze up and pointed to the boy who hadn’t spoken since. "Your turn. Let’s be quick this time."

"No," interrupted Styles. "Let’s end it now. It’s my turn."

Styles’s aura had changed visibly.