As expected from the main character

I thought I had gotten stronger.

I really had thought so.

He swung his sword diligently every day, went through the hard training of the special class, and faced Senior Takehiko every day.

He believed that his skills had improved by leaps and bounds, and the words of praise from those around him made him believe that fact.

He really had thought so.

"Agh..."

Slowly waking up, Kein sat up with difficulty, pulling his face away from the ground.

Drip- Drip-

Blood spurted from his mouth. Arthur's kick had hurt him far more than he thought; it had even knocked him unconscious.

With a grimace, he brought his hand to his mouth, trying to stop the bleeding, but the blood continued to gush out.

Still dizzy and with blurred vision, Kein tried to locate Arthur.

He raised his head and saw something that puzzled him.

Leticia was on the ground, and Arthur was standing in front of her, pointing his sword at her.

"I have to... move!"

Seeing one of his friends in danger, his first thought was to help, but his senses were still numb and his body wouldn't move the way he wanted it to.

I am so useless.

He felt helpless.

He thought he had become stronger. He thought he could finally get to call himself a strong person, but the truth was that he was nothing; he was still just a little frog in a huge sea full of monsters.

Move...

[■■■■■]

Move!

[■■■■■]

MOVE!!!

Kein's eyes took on an intense golden glow, and his body finally responded to his will.

Woosh-!

In less than the speed of a blink of an eye he approached Arthur and swung his sword.

Arthur, for the first time, showed an expression of surprise and quickly raised his sword to block the attack.

Clank-!

Kein's attack surprisingly managed to push back Arthur, who up to that point had blocked all his attacks without the slightest effort.

Kein did not stop there and continued his attack; his speed and strength had noticeably increased, forcing Arthur for the first time to act defensively.

Clank-! Clank-! Clank-!

After fending off several hits from Kein, Arthur began to counterattack, but surprisingly, Kein was able to block and even respond to his attacks.

Clank-! Clank-! Clank-!

[■■■■■]

"I can see it!"

As an unfamiliar feeling grew stronger and stronger inside Kein, he was able to see Arthur's attacks that had seemed imperceptible to him before.

Clank-! Clank-! Clank-!

[■■■■■]

Faster! Stronger!

With each hit, Kein's attacks became more refined and lethal.

This continued for a while until...

Slash-!

Kein managed to cause a cut on Arthur's cheek.

Arthur, visibly surprised, quickly stepped back.

Once he was away from Kein, he touched the cut on his cheek and stared at his blood-stained hand.

Kein at that moment felt he could beat Arthur. He still didn't understand what was happening to him, but he felt a growing power inside him with which he definitely thought he could defeat Arthur.

He then took a step forward with the intention of continuing his attack, but stopped immediately afterwards.

In front of him stood Arthur. His look was much more serious than it was a moment ago, and the cut on his cheek had already stopped bleeding.

The air around him had done a 180° turn; if it was relaxed and carefree before, now it was like a dagger ready to slice his throat.

Danger.

Kein's body unconsciously leaned back; then it passed.

Woosh-!

Arthur suddenly appeared in front of him, and his sword passed inches from his neck.

He had not looked away from him for a second, and his senses were on high alert.

But still, he hadn't seen him approach.

"What the...?"

[■■■■■!!!]

Woosh-!

Kein, engulfed in his surprise, could barely react when his body moved again, dodging Arthur's sword by mere inches.

Woosh-! Woosh-! Woosh-!

This was repeated a few more times; Kein was not even able to see Arthur's hits, but his body moved on its own to dodge his attacks by a very small margin each time.

However, after a while, he was unable to dodge the attacks at all.

Slash-! Slash-! Slash-!

His body began to show multiple cuts all over, and his stamina was rapidly depleting.

"Huf...huf...huf."

Kein, covered in wounds, gasped for air with his face still wearing an expression of disbelief.

"I couldn't...see anything."

He couldn't see even one of the attacks Arthur had launched; if it wasn't for the instantaneous movements of his body, right now his head would be rolling on the floor.

"Dammit...!"

He gritted his teeth helplessly.

If it wasn't for that strange power, Kein knew that right now he would have ended up dead. Not only that, he knew that without the help of that power he wouldn't have become so strong so quickly.

But that power was not his.

He could completely understand it: that strange and immense power inside him did not belong to him.

Something or someone had been helping him, lending him some of that power, but knowing that without that power today he would not even be able to stand in front of Arthur made him feel a strong sense of helplessness.

Woosh-!

At that instant Arthur moved again, and, as with all his previous attacks, Kein couldn't see it, but he knew he would no longer be able to dodge it.

Clank-!

However, from the shadow under his feet emerged Akiyama, who managed to deflect Arthur's attack with difficulty, grabbing his sword with both hands.

He quickly grabbed Arthur's arm and shouted urgently.

"Now!"

In the distance, Freydis could be seen with her hands extended; mana was building up in great quantities around her, and she seemed to be muttering something.

"Thalionen... telarë a'lén tîra... nal oleyé nára... quelle tál que tur!"

In an instant, the landscape changed completely; the previously empty square had become a frozen wasteland.

Arthur's legs firmly held by the ice prevented him from moving.

Arthur was genuinely impressed; he had not expected Freydis to have mastered the singing to this extent.

"If I remember correctly, she was only able to control it properly during the fight against Benedict."

This was very good news for him; characters getting stronger quickly was exactly what he was looking for, and it solidified his determination to be the target of his enhancement.

Boom-!

"Uack!"

Using his free hand, he hit Akiyama in the stomach; he flew off, dragging Kein, who was behind him.

He then looked at Freydis with a smirk, as if asking him.

Is this all you have?

But Freydis smiled back and rested her palms on the frozen ground.

Then from the ground, golems made of ice of different sizes began to emerge; some were the size of a normal person and others were bigger than a house.

"Fiu~♪♪"

Arthur let out a whistle as he watched the hundreds of golems surrounding him, leaving him no room to escape to.

Woosh-!

One of the golems moved; more specifically, the biggest among them, raised its giant ice arm and threw a hit towards where Arthur was pinned down by his frozen legs.

Boom-!

His fist smashed into the ground, creating a huge crater and raising a huge cloud of frost.

Woosh-!

From that cloud of frost, Arthur shot out at high speed and scaled the golem's arm.

"My turn!"

Clenching his fist, he launched a punch toward the Golem's head that was several times larger than his body.

Boom-!

But when his punch connected, the Golem's head shattered.

The golem fell limply to the ground, crushing several other smaller golems below it.

Woosh-!

Slash-!

Arthur didn't stop there and, in one quick move, disappeared from above the giant golem's body, and instantly three other golems were cut in half.

Slash-! Slash-! Slash-! Slash-!

Each time Arthur's sword moved, hundreds of golems were cut down, but their numbers did not seem to diminish.

Drip- Drip-

Freydis wiped the blood that began to drip from his nose.

The golems she had created consumed a huge amount of her mana, plus she had to replenish them to keep Arthur at bay.

This task was difficult even for her, an elf who was born into the royal family with monstrous mana reserves for average human mages.

"I see golems aren't enough for you, in that case."

Clap-!

Freydis clapped her palms together, and the surrounding terrain began to change.

Several columns of ice emerged from the ground and headed towards Arthur.

Boom-! Boom-! Boom-!

Arthur deftly dodged them, but the ice columns branched out and continued to chase him.

This was a trick she had learned after watching Alexander do them multiple times during his fights with Takehiko.

"Just as I thought, mana consumption is absurd."

Freydis could feel her mana being absorbed quickly. She could last for maximum 3 more minutes before collapsing.

"Quickly..."

Boom-! Boom-! Boom-!

Arthur, for his part, continued to dodge the ice columns, but this started to become difficult, as besides having to dodge them he also had to deal with the golems attacking him.

"Even for me, this is becoming problematic."

But that was a good sign: it meant that Freydis had become very strong to the point of causing him trouble.

It was while he was thinking when...

Woosh-!

Clank-!

Out of the shadow of one of the columns that crashed near Arthur came Akiyama.

Arthur managed to block his attack and immediately counterattacked.

Woosh-!

Clank-!

But Akiyama stepped back into the shadows, dodging his attack, and coming out from another direction, attacked Arthur again.

"Not this time!"

Woosh-!

"Oh?"

Arthur attacked faster this time, intending to hit him, but surprisingly, tentacles came out of the shadow Akiyama had come out of and pulled him back into it.

Clank-! Clank-! Clank-! Clank-!

Akiyama continued his attack, using the tentacles to quickly return to the shadows to dodge Arthur's attacks and return to attack from another direction.

Woosh-!

Slash-!

This seemed like it was going to last forever, but one of his attacks hit by plunging his sword into Arthur's shoulder; however, Arthur didn't flinch and grabbed him firmly by the throat.

"I got you!"

Arthur had purposely allowed himself to be hurt in order to capture him.

He tightened his grip on Akiyama's neck, and Akiyama let out a whimper for oxygen.

He was about to finish him off, but then something unexpected happened.

Boom-!

Arthur was hit and shot out, crashing into one of the ice columns Freydis had made.

"That hurt"

He said with some surprise as he stood casually, touching his cheek as if nothing had happened.

His body was extremely hard and tough, so they would have to hit him with a lot of strength to cause him pain; even Akiyama's sword that had pierced his shoulder didn't hurt that much.

Looking up to see who had hit him, then he saw him.

Kein was standing holding Akiyama, but there was something different about him.

His eyes instead of a golden glow had an intense blue glow; his body was also coated with an aura of blue, and that was exactly what it was.

Aura.

Kein had managed to awaken his aura.

"He's the protagonist for a reason."

Acquiring power from where there is none to save his comrades or overcome a seemingly near impossible ordeal, pushing himself to extremes to succeed in tearing down the walls blocking his path.

That was a protagonist.

"But it's a shame."

He wasn't going to let him tear down this wall.

***

In a place away from where Arthur was fighting, stood Livia dressed in her combat clothes specially designed by Arthur, though these had slight modifications.

Since they were no longer under the academy's watch, Arthur was able to get better-quality materials to sew her a new suit.

The upper part featured a sleeveless hooded shirt specially made of a material resistant to magic and cuts; underneath she wore a black high-collared shirt that fit her figure satisfactorily, and her arms were protected by armbands made of black metal, a special type of metal much more resistant than normal metal.

At the bottom was a belt with a cloth that went down to her knees, and at the back were two scabbards in which she kept her two swords made of orichalcum, which had a curved edge that allowed for cleaner cuts.

All around her lay on the ground several knights and mages who tried to follow Kein and his party.

She had not killed them, as Arthur had asked her not to.

"Don't you think it's about time for you to come out?"

She said seemingly out of nowhere, but then the cawing of a raven was heard and a figure began to walk towards her.

He looked no older than 15, had a raven perched on his shoulder, and was dressed in clothes that didn't appear to be his size, and his arms and hands were covered in bandages.

But the most remarkable thing about him would be his bright purple eyes and the huge sword he carried on his back.

"So... who are you?"

She had not drawn her weapons because she could not sense any hostility coming from the boy. But she still had her guard up, ready to act on any suspicious movement.

The boy remained silent, staring at her, then, as if he had confirmed something, he nodded and began to speak.

"Do you know this person?"

He said pulling out a piece of paper that had Arthur's image on it along with a price of 10,000 gold coins for whoever managed to capture him.

Seeing that, Livia brought her hand slowly towards the swords behind her waist.

"Why do you think that?"

"You have his same smell."

"...Eh?"

"I've been following his trail for several days now, and you have his smell permeating all over your body."

Livia felt embarrassed by the boy's words, but knowing the situation she was in, she put those thoughts aside and focused on the boy in front of her.

"Can you tell me where he is?"

"No."

"I see."

"Caw!"

The crow on his shoulder flew off, and the boy grabbed the handle of the huge sword on his back, bowed his body, and took a low stance like a beast ready to attack.

"Then I'll have to make you tell me."

"Try if you can."