Combat Assessment (1)

What is a tragedy?

Does it have a happy ending or a sad ending?

Is it simply a tragic life with a fulfilling ending?

Or is it a life that winds up with a tragic ending?

I suppose I don't know yet, however, I can infer from the works of geniuses long past.

For instance, we can refer to Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet quite obviously had an overbearing love and attraction.

They led a dramatic yet exhilarating life.

And in the end, their blossoming love was cut short as a misunderstanding led to their deaths.

In short, a tragedy.

We could also take a different type of tragedy.

The comical tragedy of Tom and Jerry.

A show from a time long before mine, yet I had seen it in passing and it had caught my attention.

In it, one of the main characters, Tom, goes through a series of failures.

His entire life is built on failures, and yet he keeps trying.

Tom never once looks back and laments upon his failures.

And yet time and time again he fails.

And so in the end, Tom commits suicide, closing the comical tragedy.

Yet you have me.

I suppose I most related to Tom as I had been through a very similar life experience.

However, I still didn't know my ending.

And let me tell you, it certainly wasn't looking good right now.

Perhaps I had been through many things in my life.

Much as most people.

At times there were happy moments and at times sad ones.

People came and went like the wind.

Ever shifting, always changing.

In the end, I suppose out of my desperate need for companionship, I ended up being the most alone.

And so I walked through life as such.

Constantly searching for a purpose.

Until I landed here.

After all of the hills I've climbed, I thought I was done.

And yet instead of the endless green fields of purgatory, I'm stuck in front of a mountain.

'The Villain's Fate'.

My very own personal mountain.

A mountain so steep no man could possibly climb it.

And yet I had to.

After all, if I didn't I would die.

So…

Would it be better to die trying? Or to simply give up and die.

At some point in my life, specifically on that day, I had made a choice.

A choice I perhaps regret to this day, yet I still waver unsure if I made the right decision.

However, I suppose at this point, it's long too late to regret.

After all, Hold to a thing long enough, a secret, a desire, maybe a lie, and it will shape you.

Perhaps that's what happened to me.

And so I gained conviction.

The conviction to push through this dark path, despite the cost.

After all, no matter how much my soul is torn, I must proceed without fail.

For my survival.

And so I ended up in my current predicament.

It had been a week since the incident in the hallway and I had yet to understand what I was supposed to do.

With the threat of eternal damnation looming over me, I could only lament I didn't have more time.

"Today we will be conducting your first combat assessment." came the resonating voice of our Combat Instructor, Viktor Lyonov.

He was a lanky bald-headed man, his pale skin making him look akin to a corpse.

However, his veins bulged prominently, his muscles depicting the harshness of his training to reach the perfection of the human body for combat.

"Each of you will enter one of the rooms you see on your right, there you will fight for as long as you can in order for me to assess your skill level," he said, an edge to his tone as if he was daring one of us to not meet his expectations.

"When I call your name step forward.." he said, eyeing us before rattling off several names from the tablet in his hand.

Among the many names, a couple of familiar faces stepped forward.

With her wavy light brown hair bouncing on her shoulder, Anna stepped forward.

Holding the grip of her bastard sword in hand, she kept it sheathed in the scabbard the school had provided.

Stepping forward she joined the row of students and stared at us with a vigor that hadn't been there before.

Her emerald eyes momentarily locked with mine and she grimaced slightly before turning away.

The second familiar face to step forward was Lucia, unlike the others, she ignored everyone as she waited for further instructions.

The dagger at her hip, undisturbed by the combat uniform we were wearing.

The combat suit was made out of nanites that could withstand a fair amount of damage and even had a self-repair function.

However, it wasn't viable in combat due to the large quantity of mana it required of the user in order to repair it as well as how long it took.

Its sleek design was a tight fit against the body, it was to the point of being embarrassing with how it showed each and every curve and muscle.

Its black and blue design at least looked cool.

It was totally my style.

I mean it's just cool, alright?

Who am I even talking to?

As I questioned my sanity, I watched as the people who were called forward followed the instructor to their individual rooms.

As we waited, I was left alone to my thoughts.

It had already been a few days since the incident which I still refused to think about.

Needless to say, I was scared shitless.

I had been having an even harder time sleeping since that incident, knowing my life had been so close to ending.

When I looked in the mirror this morning, I had looked even more worn down than usual.

If that was even possible.

I was kind of nervous, as I didn't know how well I would perform in the combat assessment.

I had been training ever since the start of school for around 3 hours a day, I had also been eating relatively balanced meals.

I also looked up the Mana Codes for a couple of Magic Spells as my status showed my Affinity as question marks which was confusing as every Mage usually had 1 or 2 affinities with the rare exception being more than that.

Luckily my Mana Control was at E- Rank thanks to the Pool of Life so I would be able to control some decent spells that I transferred from the SIC 'System Interface Chip' in my brain into the MSM.

However, as my Mana control was E- Rank it meant I could cast E Rank Spells however they wouldn't be as effective and controllable as if I had E Rank or E+ Rank Mana Control.

It was like having one foot in the door.

I had been following the instructions from a book I picked out in the library, there was nothing special about it, it was simply an instruction manual on how to use the rapier.

For real training on how to use the rapier besides the abilities of my Technique, I would have to go to a place I dreaded going to and so that would have to wait until I was more capable of staying alive.

Despite my constant training and proper eating habits, my appearance didn't seem to be recovering from its corpse-like look.

I saw some muscle development, however, I still looked as lifeless as ever.

Some things never change I suppose.

"Isaac!" came a loud shout, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Yes sir!" came out of my mouth immediately, my arms snapped to my sides and my body turned as rigid as a plank.

It was a reaction I still couldn't shake off.

A few old memories flooded through the gates of my mind, latching on to them I threw them back out.

"What are you? A bloody robot? Get your ass over here, More." he said, rolling his eyes and scoffing at my display of attention.

"It's Moreau, sir," I said as I jogged over to join the other students waiting in the row.

"I'll give you some moreau that detention you seem to be craving if you don't zip it," he said, glaring at me.

Glaring at me with love, I'm sure.

After all, I knew that he secretly wasn't a bad person and even went out of his way to help students who were struggling.

He had done so for Luke in the original novel.

"Luke Villin!" he called out once more, eyes scanning over the students in front of him.

Out stepped a lanky boy, his messy black hair parted in the middle.

His eyes looked like he had just woken up.

Joining the rest in line, his shoulders slumped as he nearly fell asleep while standing.

Truly a skill worth learning.

Perhaps one day, if he wasn't trying to kill me ill ask him to teach me how to do it.

However, with the weight of the rapier on my hip, there was no way I would be able to fall asleep standing.

The rapier was sheathed in a black leather scabbard that rested at my hip.

For added protection of course.

One could never be too careful.

The final student to join us was Emilia.

Her wavy blonde hair bounced behind her as she settled in, slightly away from the rest of us.

Is she afraid of cooties?

Scratching my head as I contemplated over this useless matter, I waited as Viktor led us to the private rooms.

*YES IT'S IMPORTANT OKAY? SO JUST READ IT*

Ok, First things first I want to clear up some misconceptions I've been asked about so il go over them.

1. The class name (A-1) is not indicative of the student's skills it's just a number.

2. F+ is not a bad rank as most mages only make it to E or D rank in their lives.

3. this is the most important, so basically I want you guys to understand the nature of my story and the reason it's very hard to write.

It usually takes me 2-5 hours to write a chapter due to the nature of my story as I tend to focus more on the mentality of the characters and their connections as well as the main character's emotional development specifically.

Now, this is extremely difficult as unlike when writing a fight scene where I can just push it out easy peasy, relationships and conversations that are meaningful take a lot of time to write and are very hard to make natural, and that's what I attempt to do with each interaction.

therefore my upload speed will not be as fast as others as I am dealing with a lot of stuff in my life and simply don't have the time to write that much. but anyways I'm just telling you guys I can't push out more than 1 a day max and that's stretching it a bit so I hope you guys can understand that in order to maintain the quality of my work I can't release more than 1 a day. that's all, Hugz <3