Martial arts test 1

Our martial arts teacher is a female, not as muscular as one would imagine; in fact, on the contrary, she has the body of a gymnast.

Her body looks flexible, and she is beautiful.

Her purple hair is packed in a ponytail, and her light blue eyes let out a subtle glow, making her look like a model.

*********************

"Do you really mean it, that I don't need to know the information, but all I need to know is that the grim reaper will have our heads if we lose?" I ask Henry

"Wait, do you think I'm joking? Look around, everyone's face is gloomy," Henry says, and indeed, everyone here has a soured expression.

"Damn, you're dumb," I say, facepalming myself.

"Huh? What do you mean I'm dumb? I'm not lying; you can ask around," Henry says defensively.

"I did not say I don't believe you," I say.

"So what are you saying?" Henry asks.

"That you're dumb" 

". . ." Henry becomes dumbfounded, totally confused about where I'm getting at.

~Sighing~ I decide to explain.

"I'm going to be done for if lose, right?" I ask.

"That's what I said."

"So, what do I have to do not to lose?" I ask.

"You win," Henry says.

"And how do I win?" 

"By not losing," he says.

". . ." (–__–)

I swear, I've met the dumbest dude alive, and he's just right next to me. Feeling frustrated, I tap on his shoulders as I calmly explain to him.

"Dude, the only way for me to win is if I know the instructions and meet the conditions, right now, I don't know what the instruction is. Can you please kindly tell me what she said?" I ask with a gentle smile.

"Oh, you should have said that earlier."

*It's not my fault; you're just slow-witted.* Still keeping my smile, I thought.

"She said that we'll have to check our punching strength and our force of impact before we face off against each other," Henry explains.

"Doesn't sound hard, why did you have to make it sound like a death sentence?" I ask.

"It's because it is a death sentence," he says.

"Huh? How?" I ask, confused.

"If you don't reach the average punch force, which is 95, you'll have to train with 'The Grim Reaper,'" he says with a very ugly expression.

No, not the grim reaper

"Sh–she's kidding, right?" I ask, fear noticeable in my voice.

Henry shakes his head.

You're wondering why I'm afraid, right? It's because the Grim Reaper is the last person any student wants to go to. He tortures students like criminals in a Chinese justice system.

I know this because I was once posted there on detention because I overslept and came late to school. I was asked to lift a 165-pound weight! Some grown men can't even lift it, but I, a teenage student, was told to. And of course, I couldn't; I only managed to lift one side of it, about 2 inches above the ground before dropping it again.

I bet you're wondering, "That's not enough to call him 'Grim Reaper,' right?" Well, maybe this would be enough.

He would smack the student with a cane anytime he/she sweats. When he smacks you and you do as much as flinch, he would continue to smack you until you 'man up,' as he calls it, which means, bearing the pain and not moving.

I'll be honest with you, after the first time I went there, I wasn't able to sit properly throughout the day. Hell, even air that blows on my butt hurts like crazy.

Now tell me, is that not torture? If that's not torture, then what is? You tell a teenager to lift a weight many times his size in an unventilated gym and expect him not to sweat?

That man's a demon; that's why he doesn't have any students in his class, and his class is being used as a detention class.

Since the gym was announced as a new detention area, no student has ever messed up as much as they previously would.

There are even rumors that he's tortured a student to death, but that's a rumor; the school wouldn't allow a murderer to keep working, would they?

I've been there like 5 or 6 times, and each time I end up drinking more than 5 bitter healing potions. He even calls me his "client" because my visit to him is regular, and I buy his torture services.

He's a sadist, and the way I visit his gym on detention makes people think I'm a masochist. I don't blame them; after all, it would be a perfect match. We would both be satisfying each other, that is, if I were a masochist, which I'm not.

I blame my messed up sleeping schedule; whenever I come home, I just can't sleep till it's exactly 5:00 in the morning. I even bought sleeping pills, and it didn't work.

I just pray I'm not a victim of failing this test, and I also pray that the victims who encounter him will survive.

Touching my shoulder, Henry tries to console me after seeing the horror in my eyes.

"Dude, you just gotta do your best. Besides, even if you fail, you should have gotten used to his extreme training, shouldn't you?"

Okay. Right now, I don't know if he's trying to console me or he's mocking me.

"Yeah, thanks for the 'nice' way of consoling me," I said sarcastically.

"What about you? Are you not worried?" I ask him.

"Me? I'll just do my best, and once I do, I'll be totally fine," he says with self-confidence.

"Wow, you really do have a lot of self-confidence, don't you? Funny how you who always sleep in class but never get detained, but I who only come 5 minutes late will always be punished. I think the teachers are showing favoritism, simply because you're the best student. I would have called it 'IQ inequality,' but after considering how messed up your logical reasoning is, I wonder how you're the top of the class. Do you have some cheat skill?" I ask.

~pfft~

"Pwahahahahaha!" Henry bursts out into laughter after trying so hard to hold himself back.

I look at him annoyed.

"You look like a three-year-old kid complaining about not getting her favorite flavor of ice cream. Cheat skill, who knows. After all, a magician never reveals his secret," he chuckles.

"So you're a magician now, huh...?"

"Eek!" Henry says shocked.

I equally feel goosebumps run down my spine as I feel a piercing gaze from both the class teacher and other students.

"Ehem!" I clear my throat as I slowly face the teacher and the class with some beads of sweat on my forehead.

Henry looks equally guilty, and his movements are rather shaky.

"We will now start according to your seat numbers," she says and presses a button on the remote she's holding.

As soon as she presses the button, my desk slides open in the middle. Not long after it slides open, a pair of red gloves 

 slowly elevates out of it and rests on my desk.

At the same time, I look around and see that the same thing happened to Henry's part of the desk, desk number 109. Not only Henry, it's the same for everyone in the class.

I decide to study the glove, and that's when I notice that it has a very striking resemblance to that of a boxing glove, except for the fact that it has a small rectangular screen at the back.

Guessing from what the teacher had explained earlier, which Henry summarized for me, it would make sense if this was the scale; as in the thing that would measure our punching strength.

"That glove you're seeing on your desk will measure your punching strength, so put it on," she instructs as the class puts on the glove. After doing that, she presses another button on her remote, and a dummy elevates from beneath the ground inside the glass cubicle.

"This will be the dummy testing your force of impact.

Let's begin your first practical of the term," the teacher says.