Reckless

Now that I think about it, showing off my fighting style to basically all of the nobles put me on the backfoot when it came to surprising people. From what it looked like, Sam was consciously preparing for the moment I went for a liver punch.

But at the very least, while it was blocked, there still seemed to be an effect.

While Sam was a bit out of it, I used it to press my temporary advantage, trying to get an upper hand over him in combat.

I performed several feints before twisting my sword like a snake, attempting to catch him off guard. Yet, Sam's reaction time was enough for him to guard despite not expecting them.

In all honesty, I was actually kind of surprised by Sam's capability.

While the story definitely makes him come out to be a pushover, at the end of the day it looks like he was still someone rightfully in Class A. Though he was far from the best in the class, it was still a fact there were hundreds of students below his rank.

His sword shot toward me like a spear.

Yet, at the same time, his fighting style just felt way too prim and proper.

I let his blade slam into my hilt before pushing it away.

Like all the other nobles.

A bright smile formed on my face while my hand reached out toward his face.

They lacked cruelty.

Sam's eyes widened as he paled. He looked at me like I was some sort of beast, which I personally found a little rude.

But of course, I decided to give him his deserved-

Ah, wait.

Suddenly I stopped my hand, letting my smile fall.

I forgot this was a spar.

Instead, I ducked down and lowered my hand.

Because I wasn't fighting this battle alone in the first place.

Nathan's knee pressed hard against my back. His eyes flew wide open as he basically threw himself and the spear at Sam. A neutral frown remained on his face the entire time.

Sam saw it coming, but the fear had dulled his reaction speed.

And so, a loud thump resounded.

Sam cried out in pain as he recoiled backwards, hitting the ground loudly as a purple bruise formed on his forehead.

"Sam is out!"

He would probably be complaining at this point if it wasn't for the fact he had been directly knocked unconscious.

But still, while we won here, it didn't change the fact it was still a three-on-three. Charlotte looked rather fancy by holding off two people, but at the end of the day she wasn't able to land a hit on them, so they were still at a standst-

"Louis is out!"

"You blundering fool! Why did you strike me?"

Huh. Louis, who was one of our opponents, was hit by his ally, another noble.

"Apologies!"

The other noble apologized, but there was still a frown on Louis' face as he walked off. It wasn't the nicest attitude, but at least he didn't make a scene like Sam always does.

Um, I guess it was a three-on-two now.

This seemed to be a byproduct of nobles not knowing how to fight with one another effectively. The true culmination of that was Charlotte though. Honestly, I have no idea where she learned to fight like that. It made her seem like an uncontrollable wild animal.

Ela and the other noble were both panicking somewhat while they fended off Charlotte's strikes.

Her use of the greatswords was both barbaric, yet ingenious in a way.

While she treated them as weapons, she also used their large size as shields as well. When one strike would go out, the other would cover the more unguarded side of her before quickly becoming an attack of its own.

Of course, there were weaknesses to doing things like this, but Ela and the other noble didn't know them.

Nathan and I looked at each other with our weapons raised. Then, we lowered them and just watched Charlotte do her thing. It wasn't that we were just leaving her out to dry, but rather the fact that trying to fight in tandem with Charlotte was basically impossible.

And so, We just stood there and watched the stalemate going on for what felt like hours. Rae continually called out names as people continued to get eliminated one after another. Something I noticed was that noble teams always won against the commoner ones.

It made logical sense, since nobles were better fed and were actually taught the proper techniques.

I didn't care too much about it though.

Most people were rather awkward while they were fighting, too afraid to close the distance because they didn't want to get hit and called out. This made the overall pace of the battles on the slow side, but since it only took one hit, it could only go on for so long.

About a third of eliminations were actually based on friendly attacks rather than enemies. It wasn't as though anyone was particularly bad at fighting, not even Arianne.

However, the aspect of teamwork seemed far too much for them.

"Hah... Hah... Hah..."

Charlotte began panting like a horse. Sweat had already drenched her short orange hair, making it press flatly against her head. Ordinarily, nobles didn't like to go so far that they began sweating, so this was strange within the realm of nobles.

But for Charlotte, this was only natural.

Her opponents, both Ela and the other guy were also tired but were at most breathing a little faster rather than panting as though on the verge of death like Charlotte. At this point, both Nathan and I began walking closer.

Charlotte was clearly running on fumes at this point, but how fast she swung her greatswords remained exactly the same. I noticed that Rae was looking at Charlotte with a bit of a frown, clearly not favoring how she fought.

And as expected, it was eventually too much for her.

However, Charlotte didn't gradually slow down. From how vigorously she fought, there were no signs of fatigue.

Yet like her strings were cut, the greatswords suddenly fell out from her hands as she fell face-first.

Right at that moment, both Nathan and I sprung forth, thrusting our weapons swiftly.

Both Ela and the noble were completely caught off-guard. Just when they thought they could relax because of Charlotte falling, two thuds rang out.

The two of them landed on their butts.

"Ela and Ballard are out!"

Nathan and I flashed smiles at each other.

A strategy we had employed before when playing this shitty game was actually what we had just done. Instead of trying to join in on the fight with Charlotte, we wait just behind her area of attack before lunging at the moment she inevitably falls to the ground exhausted.

Despite having two greatswords and an incredibly aggressive fighting style, she ironically fits the role of a guardian.

Rae looked over at us with complicated expressions but brushed it off shortly after. By now, everyone had come to, including Sam, though he was rubbing his forehead in pain.

There was a strict expression on Rae's face.

"All of you have at least a somewhat acceptable standard for fighting individually, however, the grand majority of you are incredibly lacking when it comes to fighting as a team. What do you think will happen if you are out on the battlefield and accidentally hit an ally? Do you think you will have time to convince them it was an accident before they turn on you?"

She let out a sigh.

"Far too many of the eliminations were done by a friendly hand. Of course, none of you meant it, but nobody will want to be allied with someone that has slain one that has fought with them, purposefully or not. From now on, we will be starting from the ground up and learning how to fight alongside someone else."

From there, Rae pointed at Charlotte with a small frown.

"And you, how can you be so reckless when you have teammates with you? Even after eliminating a friendly player, you continued with that recklessness, not even bothering to check if one of your allies were nearby. And yet, you were unable to get a single elimination yourself!"

Charlotte was on the floor, but looked up as the teacher lectured her. Unlike her normal stubbornness, she looked down with a soft frown.

"Sorry..."

Rae looked like she had more to say, but decided against it upon seeing Charlotte's reaction. She took a deep breath.

"That's all for class today. I hope most of you reflect on how you could've worked with your allies better."

She was definitely a little too strict about this whole thing overall. I mean, all things considered, we weren't even that experienced in the first place and weren't even taught how to fight with others.

If it were say Class B that were required to do this, the rates of friendly eliminations would probably be far higher.

But I guess it may have been that she was angry at some other class for not learning this properly and transferred that anger onto this class.

Nathan and I were about to leave, but someone called out in our direction.

"U-Um, commoner? Could you help me?"

It was Charlotte, who was still on the ground. She had an awkward smile on her face. From playing the game, we knew that whenever Charlotte went all out like this, she would collapse right after and be unable to move for at least a few hours.

That was enough to know she wasn't faking it to garner sympathy.

As for Nathan, he had a rather complicated expression. I could tell there were several voices screaming in his head not to help her and just leave. If he did end up helping, then the already bad harassment would simply get worse.

Yet-

"Fine. But only to your carriage. Get your servants to do the rest."

Charlotte smiled brightly.

"Ok!"

Nathan went over to give her a piggyback ride.

"Your arms are probably dead tired, but your legs should be able to hold on at least."

Charlotte proceeded to wrap her legs around his waist, while Nathan grabbed onto her limp arms and brought them over her shoulders.

Raisa looked at that while holding onto her head. She stumbled over to me with a similar awkward smile.

"C-Could you help me too?"

A bitter smile formed on my face. It would be too much to reject her after Nathan was so accommodating, as tempting as it was.

"Alright, but only the shoulder."

Raisa was visibly confused about what I meant, so I decided to just show her by taking her arm and placing it on my shoulder so she could use it for support. From there, we walked out.

And we were close enough to overhear Charlotte talking.

"Hey, commoner, was she right? That I don't fight properly?"

Nathan smirked, but not in a mocking way.

"Of course she was."

Charlotte let out a sad hum.

"Then... should I learn a different way of fighting?"