16. To New School IV

To a great confusion of everyone in the auditorium, including both other teachers and students, Elrich followed Mattheia to the main hall just behind the auditorium's door.

Once they opened the door, the boy approached his two guardians, Nine and Junie. Then, the Iron Fist reached towards the two women like crazy.

"Not only lady Junie, but lady Aukkleia too!?" Elrich asked looking from the two ladies to Mattheia "Are you saying that those two are your private teachers!?"

Nine and Junie looked at each other.

"Mattheia, would you mind telling us who is that person?" Nine asked the boy, looking at strong-looking martial artist teacher.

"Elrich the Iron Fist, one of the teachers responsible for the trials" Kabanos family heir replied "She wanted to meet Junie."

Junie, who was as confused as Nine until now, suddenly changed.

"The Iron Fist? You mean you are that little Elrie?" she was looking at the powerful figure in front of her, surprised.

Elrich looked as if she was about to cry.

"So, you do remember me, lady Junie? It's such an honour for someone like me..."

"Now, now, no crying, okay?" Junie gave Elrich a pat on the shoulder "Looking at you now, you must've put a lot of training to get such results."

"Yes, day and night, I was training hard for years..."

"But don't you have duties today? Is it alright for you to get outside in the middle of work?"

The Iron Fist seemed to be a little bit out of it for a moment, and then she said:

"Wait, you are right! I guess I got carried out!" Elrich turned around to go back to the auditorium, her cheeks red after realizing the situation, but suddenly stopped "Lady Junie, I apologize for requesting, but maybe you would like to help with hand-to-hand combat trials?"

Junie looked at Nine and Mattheia before speaking to Elrich.

"Should I though? It's the entrance trials for the students, and two of them are actually the ones I personally know."

The Iron Fist waived her hand.

"No worries there, Mattheia already went through my trial, so the remaining person I can take care of too. If you tag along, it will be a big event, and it's going to go much faster too. Headmaster Dante will agree for sure, you can count on that!"

The Flash was still uncertain as to what to do, but Nine pushed her into agreeing on the condition that they both can go inside. Junie felt that her friend simply wanted to be there, and this situation gave them a perfect opportunity.

In the end, the Flash sighed and agreed to tag along.

To much of Mattheia's surprise, the headmaster immediately gave permission for Junie to help Elrich, and had his eyes fixed on Aukkleia for some reason from the very moment she entered auditorium.

The boy wanted to ask her about it, but Dante called her to sit with the teachers, making it impossible for Mattheia to talk with her, therefore he returned to Kashia.

"What in the world happened there?" the angel girl asked him "I thought that no one aside from teachers and students is allowed in here during the entrance ceremony."

Mattheia shrugged.

"I guess they are making some kind of a new trend."

With that, the trial was resumed. Initially, when Elrich mentioned another person helping with the process, many of the new students let out a sigh of relief at the sight of Junie's slender figure, so different from the muscular teacher standing next to her. However, everything changed when they heard Junie's title - a number of people immediately got pale.

"It seems I'm not the only one who remembers you, lady Junie" the Iron Fist smiled at the Flash "Atmosphere is a lot different now."

Junie sighed.

"So, what am I expected to do?"

"Not much, each student has thirty second of time to land a single hit on you. Obviously, by no means make it easy to them."

The Flash smiled wide, and took her signature combat pose.

Students were coming at them, one after the another, but only a handful managed to touch Elrich, while there was none to reach Junie.

"You sure are strong, lady Junie" Elrich told her with respect, once they concluded the test.

"It's not a matter of strength, Elrie. While muscles do make your blows harder, proper balance with agility is a must. There was a time I did overdo it with strength training and nearly lost a competition. If you wish to become a better fighter, you need to find your own perfect balance. When you do, I would like to have a spar, or maybe even an official match with you."

The Iron Fist looked as if she was about to cry, when she thanked the Flash.

Once they returned to the spots reserved for the teachers, it was Ricaud the Robust who went to the front with a big smile on his face.

The man was really tall, probably the tallest person Mattheia saw in his life so far. When they first met at school grounds, the boy was actually amazed by Ricaud physique, though he quickly learned that he managed to see only a portion of this teacher's strength.

Up until now, the Robust was wearing a long robe like the ones typical of mages, so most of details of his figure were hard to notice, and he did hide quite a lot - as Nine pointed out, he had a belly of considerable size, but now that he was standing in the open, without the top of the robe, in a sleeveless vest, everyone could see powerful muscles.

"He looks more muscular than Elrich" Kashia pointed out.

Mattheia actually looked at Elrich now, and noticed her watching Ricaud with jealousy.

However, to the lad, the more important thing was the remaining equipment the teacher had - vest was actually a sturdy piece of armor, and apparently the robe served the purpose of hiding all the weapons he was carrying around, and the amount was quite big for a single person.

"I can see nine swords" he said to his angel companion "Why does he need so many?"

"I heard that grounders have some unusual fighting techniques" Kashia replied "Maybe he has a way of making use of all of them?"

They heard someone slightly laughed, so they immediately turned into the direction from which the sound reached them.

"Blondie there has a good idea" the person who said that was actually Sherkhan Gerhan, a student who was first to spar with Elrich "I come from a long line of swordsmen, and it's a duty of everyone in my family to study various styles. When you are aiming to be a top swordsman, you need to be aware of who Ricaud the Robust is. I guess it's not the path you wish to take since you don't have the idea."

This felt like an insult to Mattheia.

"Well, excuse me, but in the parts I'm from I had no way of hearing about him."

"Then you must come from some quite remote part of the country. At the same time, you know such people like Aukkleia of the Nine Magics and Junie the Flash. Weird thing you never heard of Ricaud."

"Maybe, instead of boasting about how we have no idea, you could tell us what's the deal with this teacher?" Kashia was not as patient as the boy from Kabanos family.

Sherkhan smiled.

"Interesting. I guess, you may be worthy of my time. Ricaud the Robust is actually a type of swordsman we call a juggler. He is trained in various different styles, capable of changing them mid-fight and using more than one blade at the same time. More than that, he is good with blade throwing techniques and hand-to-hand combat. I wonder how this test is going to be. I would love to have a go to see how my skills would work against him."

However, the idea for this trial was different and instead of letting students fight him, Ricaud put them against each other, creating a kind of tournament. Similarly to what Elrich set as a rule, each fight was ending with the first clean hit. That way, this challenge was proceeding much faster than the previous two.

Students were facing one after the another, gradually lowering the amount of fighters left, ultimately leading to four of them remaining, including Mattheia and Sherkhan, and Ricaud jumping in-between them.

"Now, that we have the final four, it's time for the last part of the trial" he took out two of his swords "Work together to land a hit on me. It doesn't matter who does it - as long as you get me, everyone who is not hit by then gets a full score."

Moments after he said that, one of the four remaining students rushed in, most likely attempting to catch the teacher off guard, but failed miserably.

"That was a nice idea, though executed quite poorly" he smiled at the girl who tried that "Now, what do remaining three plan?"

Mattheia felt quite confident about his sword skills owing to training received from Galhardt, and support he was getting from Ardbolg. However, his snarky sword companion was not with him at the moment since they all had to leave their personalized equipment outside of auditorium.

As he was thinking it would be good to have Ardbolg around, Sherkhan poked him and said:

"Try to keep him busy. Don't let yourself be hit."

Kabanos family heir have only just met this guy, but the tone of Gerhan's voice showed some confidence, and he himself thought avoiding hits is something much easier than going into head-on exchange of blows.

"So, that's your plan, huh?" Ricaud rushed forward, using two swords to aim at Mattheia and the other student, who stayed aside from Sher. "You sure it's a good choice?"

The teacher somehow managed to draw three additional swords while fighting, throwing all three at remaining students - while Mattheia and Sherkhan managed to react, the third student got hit.

"Don't mind it" Sher communicated to Mattheia "Rush now!"

The boy attacked as per instruction - Ricaud leaned forward to avoid a straight blow, and that very moment Sherkhan made his move, doing an aggressive, dance-like move full of numerous blows from different directions. It was so fast and fierce that Mattheia froze for a moment, just watching what is happening in front of him.

"Don't stand like that!" Sher shouted, visibly struggling against the teacher who was fending off all the blows "I need support!"

Kabanos family heir joined in again, trying to match the rhythm. Then, suddenly, the Robust decided to make use of more swords than before and the fight became even more heated. Unexpected move from the teacher shot a weapon straight into the area of the body Mattheia could not block in his current position.

"Damn, he got me" as he thought that, a whistling sound echoed, before the training sword of his teacher got shattered into pieces, and Ricaud was thrown a couple of meters away, landing on his back and coughing.

Mattheia had a quick look around and noticed a familiar shape floating in front of him.

"You called?" Ardbolg's voice echoed in his head as sword was staying mid-air.

"What in the hell did you do!?" the boy asked the sword in his thoughts "You aren't supposed to be here."

"Apologies, I felt a weird sensation, telling me you are in danger. Not sure what was that, but I felt I need to get here."

Mattheia blinked quickly and noticed the bracelet he got from Catleia was shining in red.

"I think I will need to talk to someone about it." he caught Ardbolg and put the sword on his back before approaching Ricaud "Are you okay, sir?"

The Robust was quickly back on his feet, shaking his head and stretching arms.

"Seems I'm all fine, but this was one heck of a hit." the teacher seemed more intrigued than angry "What was that just now, is it your sword?" he immediately pointed out at Ardbolg.

"Apologies, I didn't plan on doing that" the boy started explaining "It was some kind of subconscious reaction, I have no idea how I did that."

Both Ricaud and Sher were looking at him intensely, then looked at each other to move their eyes back on Mattheia.

"Boy, you say you have no clue how you did it, but you know what it may mean?" the Robust looked excited, completely forgetting about everything around him "It could have been a sword chant, a really special skill."

"Yes, I heard about it from my father" Sherkhan joined in "One of my ancient ancestors was capable of doing that. They said he could even communicate with a sword, as if he was talking with a living being."

Up until now, Mattheia was not really sure about Ardbolg, so he kept these weird conversations limited and done in private, without anyone else involved. However, if what they were saying was true, it meant it could be not him going crazy or finding a special sword, but the actual skill within himself.

He still did not feel talking about it openly was a good idea, though he knew he needs to learn more about this rare skill.