NOVEL NEXT Ch. 23
Chapter 23
“Ten silver on Professor Oliver!”
“I’ll put one gold on Henrik!”
The students packing the stands were running a full betting ring, turning the academy arena into a miniature imperial coliseum.
Grade exams were the most popular spectacle on campus precisely because they offered pocket-sized drama, and the final stage-the professor-versus-student spar-always drew a crowd.
Today, however, it was professor versus professor.
Curiosity blazed past its peak; it was wildfire.
With every lecture canceled for exam day, the rumor that two professors would cross blades filled the seats within minutes.
“Come on, Oliver’s a lock. New professor or not, he’s Department Head Carlo’s son-his skill’s basically certified.”
“I tossed Henrik a sympathy silver. Guy needs the morale boost.”
Side-bets snowballed until the odds stretched comically wide.
Oliver’s payout stayed modest; Henrik’s climbed to nearly three-to-one.
A few students flicked Henrik the odd silver out of pity, but no one seriously expected him to win.
His duel with Amecitia hadn’t revealed much, and, frankly, they liked his opponent too much to root against him.
Oliver Mandolin, son of the legendary Carlo Mandolin.
A father as strict at home as he was in the lecture hall; Oliver’s prowess was campus legend.
“Make way!”
A red-haired girl elbowed through the Oliver faithful and slammed a fat pouch onto the table.
-Thud!
“Twenty silver on Professor Henrik,” Amecitia declared, voice cracking with bravado.
Her hands shook; the pouch held her entire month’s living expenses.
“Are you insane?!” the bookie yelped.
“Perfectly sane. Henrik wins. I know it.”
Nobody had watched his growth closer than she had.
She’d heard the stories about Oliver, but she’d felt the gap of experience herself and was staking her rent on it.
“You sure about this?” Grimory asked, trailing behind her.
Today’s cap bore Henrik’s initials in neat embroidery.
“What, you think he’ll lose too?”
“No, I’m saying that’s your food money for thirty days. Be careful.”
“...Sometimes you sound like my mother.”
Henrik’s three-to-one odds meant three months’ allowance if he pulled it off.
Short on cash, Amecitia couldn’t resist.
“Thirty gold on Henrik,” a quiet voice added.
Carmine slid a clinking purse onto the pile and retreated.
“......”
“......”
Amecitia and Grimory stared after him.
“What just happened...?”
Before anyone could answer, Ted’s shout rang out:
“Spar-begin!”
The stands erupted.
* * *
Over the roar, Henrik and Oliver closed the distance.
Oliver lunged first, test-sword angled to gauge the older man’s measure.
-Clack! Clack!
The wooden blades rang like dull bells, Oliver striking hard enough to rattle bone.
Henrik parried every blow, relaxed, almost casual.
‘So it doesn’t trigger against people.’
He wasn’t thinking about the exam; he was testing himself.
During his fight with the Sovereign of Sloth he’d briefly seen the lines of incoming attacks, a regression souvenir.
But the knack wouldn’t come at will; the sight flickered, uncooperative.
-Clack! Rattle-clack! Clack!
They traded rhythmical exchanges, neither able to land a solid hit, the duel flattening into something disappointingly tame.
‘Strange. It’s like he’s reading every route I take.’
Oliver sensed it first: Henrik anticipated each angle, meeting strikes with the staff’s length instead of countering.
No aura flared, no special energy, yet nothing slipped through.
It felt less like defense and more like recognition-like Henrik knew the syllabus by heart.
‘He’s completely inside the Royal Sword Style...’
Oliver recalled the newspaper dossier: village burned in childhood, years in the slums, trained under the enigmatic Dusk, hunted demons solo.
For someone like that to know-no, to dissect-the court-bred style felt off.
A slum kid mastering palace footwork? Impossible.
‘Just sharp eyes, then?’
Oliver shifted his stance, feinting low.
Henrik answered by widening the gap, staff already in position.
Of course he knew the form.
In the war-torn timeline Henrik had lived before, knights had died waving this same upright, over-polished pattern.
Royal Sword Style wasn’t battlefield craft; it was dueling etiquette-flashy, predictable, invented for show.
At first Henrik had assumed Oliver chose it for fun; one look at the younger man’s grave face told him otherwise.
Henrik snorted.
For all its flaws, the style still demanded discipline, and Oliver’s execution was crisp.
Whatever its origin, the man wielding it was undeniably a knight.
The weight behind each cut numbed Henrik’s palms.
‘Can’t lecture a colleague outright-let him figure it out himself.’
Clack! Clack! Clack! Clack!
Henrik went on the offensive.
The louder the rhythm grew, the more restless the students became.
The duel was unfolding in a way no one had expected-perfectly even.
They’d all read the papers labeling Henrik a second-rank Hunter, yet here he was, trading blows with Oliver without giving an inch.
“Professor Oliver, fighting!”
The female knights-in-training squealed his name like a cheer.
Oliver flashed a grin at Henrik’s steady advance.
He hadn’t thought Henrik would recognize the Royal Sword Style.
Countering it, however, was simple enough: just switch to something else.
‘I was going to take it easy because this is only an exam, but this guy’s no joke.’
Whoosh!
His strike turned sharp and unorthodox, slicing the air a finger’s breadth from Henrik’s bangs.
Mandolin Sword Style-crude, battle-born, every move stripped to the essentials.
Henrik’s expression never flickered; he simply wasn’t there when the blade arrived.
Whoosh!
A second cut, same result-Henrik stepped aside as if he’d read the script in advance.
‘Impossible...’
Oliver swung again, then again, each time meeting nothing but air.
It was as though Henrik could peer one, maybe two seconds into the future, strolling through the fight with time to spare.
* * *
“......”
Amecitia jiggled her leg, nerves wound tight; her monthly allowance rode on Henrik’s performance.
The two men circled, testing, feinting, and she could barely stand the suspense.
‘Just flare your aura and finish it, Professor!’
She almost shouted the words aloud.
But this was a spar, not a match; the fighters set the pace they wanted.
“Amecitia, look.”
Grimory grabbed her arm and pointed.
A ripple ran through the crowd-the duel’s tone had shifted.
“That’s third-rank combat...!” someone muttered.
Oliver stood relaxed, aura rippling around his blade like heat haze-transparent yet unmistakable.
The arena fell eerily quiet.
“Ah...!”
Amecitia straightened, pride sparkling in her eyes.
This was why she’d dared to bet on Henrik-because he, too, now wrapped his weapon in aura.
“Never thought I’d see aura-on-aura in a class demo.”
“They said he was second-rank, but he’s using aura after a month? Maybe he was third-rank all along.”
“Think he went easy on the Insubordinate Swordsman?”
“Come on, who pulls aura against a student?”
Voices piled atop voices until the hall buzzed like a beehive.
Only Amecitia smiled, already pushing to the front row.
A third-rank showdown was rare spectacle, and she meant to engrave every second of it in memory.
“Wait up, Amecitia-I’m coming!”
Grimory scrambled after her.
* * *
‘So the power triggers the moment the conditions are met.’
Henrik finally understood the clause.
The regression had etched a rune into him-unintended, but tethered to his aura channels.
By refining his mana and reinforcing his body, he’d awakened it; Oliver’s lines of attack painted themselves across his sight.
Back when he’d been the Sovereign of Sloth, his physique hadn’t been strong enough to cycle aura properly; the rune had lain dormant.
Now, with a stronger frame, he could coax more from it-his preview stretching from one heartbeat to two.
The better Henik wielded the gift, the faster Oliver sensed the change and ignited his own aura.
CRACKLE!
The two auras collided, spitting arcs of raw mana.
Pure force turned the sparring ground into a storm zone.
CRASH!
A deflected strike shattered a window.
GRIND-CRACK!
Parried blows spider-webbed the marble floor.
‘This is tough.’
Where Henrik still looked almost bored, Oliver was stone-faced, every muscle locked.
He was already fighting at full throttle, yet the questions kept piling up.
On enrollment day Henrik had felt like nothing more than a seasoned second-rank Hunter with no aura to speak of.
In a few short weeks he’d become the man pressing Oliver to the brink.
SHRIEK!
Henrik’s staff skimmed the bridge of Oliver’s nose.
Cold sweat ran down his back.
“.......”
Clack! Clack-clack!
Oliver clenched his teeth and held his ground.
If he lost here, his honor would be ruined-and his father’s reputation along with it.
Then-
Crreeak......!
An ominous groan came from his weapon.
‘Damn-the blade can’t take any more!’
A crack lanced through the wooden sword. Oliver tried to open distance, but Henrik chased him instantly and hurled his staff like a javelin.
Crunch! Clang!
As he parried the final blow, both weapons exploded into splinters and clattered across the floor.
“Ah......”
Henrik gazed at the shards with genuine regret.
Oliver dragged in a ragged breath, relief washing over him.
“That’s enough.”
Carlo stepped down from the platform; the match could not continue.
“The duel is a draw. I announce the result: Henrik Dusk, I recognize you as 3rd-rank.”
Silence settled.
Every eye turned to Henrik.
Oliver too stared, jaw locked.
‘This... isn’t a draw. It’s my defeat......’
A knight knows.
Had the fight gone on, he would have lost. Yet the moment Henrik saw the crack in Oliver’s sword, he had deliberately smashed his own weapon to pieces.
It looked like coincidence, but Oliver understood.
It had been calculated to the fraction.
‘We’re the same age, yet the gap is this wide.......’
He lowered his head and compared their hands.
His own were elegant, calloused only where a noble’s fencing grip demanded. Henrik’s were knotted with old scars, terrain carved by battle.
One look at those hands told the story of the hells he had walked through.
“Good match, Professor Henrik.”
Oliver offered a rueful smile and extended his hand.
“Yes, good match.”
Henrik shook it, calm and matter-of-fact.
“And students.”
Carlo’s gaze sharpened toward the audience seats.
Awe froze into unease; the hall fell silent.
“Stop betting on professors’ duels.”
“Yes, sir......”
One by one the students retrieved their wagers and slipped away.
From that day on, for reasons no one could explain, Henrik’s lectures were suddenly packed with drop-ins begging to be taught “real combat.”
Henrik led the mob to the training yard without a word.
Thud!
He set a single weight on the ground and spoke once.
“Run.”
By day’s end they had tasted hell. None ever returned to audit his class again, and Henrik’s lectures shrank back to the faithful few.