Chapter 5: Fight

“Wow. This is incredibly extravagant.”

What kind of academy for teaching children has an administrator’s office this lavish?

Instead of building it with ordinary stone, countless expensive-looking stones with a subtle sheen were stacked, and their surfaces were densely carved with unknown characters.

I heard that since it’s the Imperial Academy, it’s entirely funded by imperial taxes, which made me wonder if it was acceptable to waste money on such unnecessary things.

Of course, I had never paid a single penny in taxes myself.

“Please come in. The Dean has permitted your visit.”

Moreover, for an administrative staff member, he was incredibly overbearing and arrogant.

He hadn’t even pretended to listen until I showed him the Whitefelt family’s crest.

Even though I looked like a shabby homeless person with unkempt hair and a sparse beard!

Shouldn’t an employee working at an academy that teaches students, even if not an educator, naturally adopt a kind attitude?

I wanted to give him a good smack to knock some sense into him right then and there, but I held back.

I couldn’t cause trouble before even getting the job.

I could cause plenty of trouble even after becoming a Special Instructor at the Imperial Academy, a secure civil servant position.

Even if it was only a three-year term.

“The Dean doesn’t seem to be in a very good mood, so please be careful.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

The administrator led me to the door with the ‘Dean’s Office’ nameplate and then quickly made his escape.

The aura emanating from beyond the door was quite fierce, too much for an untrained ordinary person to withstand.

Knock, knock.

Even though we could sense each other, I still knocked for formality’s sake.

“I’m coming in.”

Click. Creak—.

As soon as I opened the door, my eyes met those of an old woman standing in front of a desk.

Outwardly, she was a crabby-looking old woman with rough, white hair tied up and deep wrinkles etched onto her face.

For some reason, she seemed to be already extremely angry.

Seeing the crumpled letter and the squashed cigar on the desk, I didn’t know what the contents were, but it looked like she had gotten angry after reading the letter.

However, she only appeared to be a cranky old woman on the surface; it was clear at a glance that she was an incredibly powerful individual.

There were natural indicators like her standing posture, breathing rhythm, and weight distribution.

And I felt a powerful aura within her.

It seemed the intense energy I felt was merely a fraction that had leaked out.

‘This much is going to be far more interesting than I initially expected.’

“Oh… quite something.”

“What, you damned brat?!”

CRACKLE—.

As if she had held back long enough, her aura exploded, beginning to shatter the office.

“Oh dear, I only meant to think that. I apologize, so please calm down. It’s not good for an old person to get angry; your blood pressure will rise, and… it’s just not healthy.”

For me, a fine young man from a land of etiquette, to make such a mistake.

In my previous life, I thought I had mastered the art of appeasing old people by catering to my master’s whims, but almost 30 years have passed, and I ended up provoking an old person.

“You… you damn bastard…”

Her rage seemed to have crossed its threshold, as her aura gradually materialized, and a golden aura began to swirl around her.

“I told you to calm down, didn’t I? There’s no medicine to fix you if you get hurt in your old age.”

“BRAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

CRASH!!!

As she let out a lion’s roar, the Dean’s office could no longer withstand the force and completely collapsed.

It was so utterly and satisfyingly destroyed that it could relieve a bystander’s stress.

However, her own stress didn’t seem to be relieved.

“Come… come with me now. If you want to leave even your corpse intact.”

Hmm. I had a feeling from the moment she started radiating her aura, but her personality is truly fiery.

She reminded me of my master from my previous life, so I poked at her a bit, and she was moving exactly as I wished.

Indeed. Having met such a strong opponent, I couldn’t just pass by without exchanging blows.

It didn’t matter if I failed the interview as a consequence of my rudeness.

There were plenty of ways to protect Aria even without becoming a Special Instructor.

Thinking that, I followed her and left the place.

****

“You’re ready to die, aren’t you?”

Deep within the foothills to the south, far removed from the academy.

Landing there, she looked exactly like the “lion-like old hag” that Brother Tien had described.

The overwhelming presence of a beast burst forth.

It wasn’t just an aura, but a primal fighting spirit, like that emitted by the king of beasts, a hungry lion just before it roars.

In response to that fighting spirit, a golden aura took form, swirling and enveloping her entire body.

A lion’s mane-like aura fanned out behind her head, and sharp, claw-like energy condensed on her taloned hands, extended like rakes.

“I am Astra Lionheart. You should know who is about to kill you.”

“Well, you can call me Kain.”

“I’ll have that carved on your tombstone. Along with the words, ‘A greenhorn who didn’t know his place’!

No further conversation was needed between us.

A fighter speaks not with their mouth, but with their body.

“Haat!”

The ground where she stood cratered deeply as she instantly lunged at me like a predator pouncing on its prey.

An explosive movement that seemed to transcend her age.

Her right taloned hand ripped through the air, fiercely thrusting towards my abdomen.

It was a heavy, sharp, and clearly intentional killing blow, like a lion’s paw swiping at its prey.

That gesture contained a clear will to destroy, to tear my flesh and scatter my insides.

A cool, thrilling shiver ran up my spine.

My lax mind became exhilarated, and brain chemicals surged.

This is why I had no choice but to make combat my lifelong pursuit.

Such feelings could only be experienced in the most primal struggles where life and death were decided, by clashing the skills accumulated over a lifetime.

I stepped back a pace, deflecting the taloned hand that had come within an inch of me.

Astra, as if she had naturally anticipated that much, used the momentum of her swinging taloned hand to deliver a lightning-fast high kick.

CRASH!

Even though it was a person’s forearm and leg colliding, a sound like an explosion reverberated.

The lingering shock alone made the trees tremble, and leaves rained down.

Yet Astra did not stop.

She unleashed a storm of consecutive attacks, as if intending to overwhelm and dismantle me in one go.

Before I could even fully shake off the impact on my forearm, her other fist was already flying like a cannonball towards my temple.

As I leaned my head back to evade, knees, elbows, and taloned hands radiating killing intent flew at me in quick succession.

A faint drop of blood appeared where a knee grazed the tip of my nose, and red claw marks were etched onto my body where I received her taloned hands.

Her relentless, flawless onslaught was like a beast possessing both savagery and reason.

But even within that, I slowly began to see it.

Her flow.

“Brat! Are you just going to keep blocking?!”

Like navigating a small sailboat in a storm, I precariously deflected, absorbed, and sometimes narrowly dodged her attacks, constantly observing her.

I could see the flow of power, generated by her advancing step, traveling up her leg, through her hip rotation, and into her fist.

I could see the minuscule, millisecond gaps between attacks, the flow of her breath as she controlled time, splitting a second into dozens.

I could see the habits she had built over a lifetime: how she chose from hundreds of millions of possibilities, whether to use taloned hands, fists, elbows, knees, or legs, moving horizontally, vertically, or bending from an angle.

‘Now!’

A heavy kick targeting my waist, following a series of upper body attacks.

In between, a momentary opening appeared.

A tiny gap that, even if seen, I wouldn’t have been able to exploit had I not already read her flow.

It was for this single moment that I had been taking a beating, reading her flow.

I instantly ducked low, pushing off the ground and burrowing in.

The fierce kick grazed over my head, making strands of my hair fly.

“What?!”

It was too late for her to be surprised.

I had already extended my arm and seized her pivot.

Her leg was firmly caught in my grasp.

Through her leather pants, I could vividly feel the firm yet subtly trembling sensation of her muscles.

She, too, must have instinctively known the moment her pivot was seized.

That she couldn’t escape my grip.

I hesitated no longer.

I drove my shoulder deep into her inner thigh and forcefully snatched up the leg I had seized.

“Kuh!”

Astra’s short gasp.

Her balance was already completely broken.

She struggled desperately to stand on one leg and struck my back multiple times with her elbows, but it was a futile struggle.

Attacks without weight behind them are infinitely light.

Ignoring her minor counterattacks, I put my full weight into fiercely pushing the remaining leg she was standing on.

The imbalance of forces created by my charge and her lifted leg.

The principle of the lever worked perfectly, and Astra’s body briefly lifted into the air before tilting helplessly sideways like a paper doll.

THUD!

A clean single-leg takedown.

A dull thud echoed on the ground, and her back slammed hard into the dirt, raising a thick cloud of dust.

Before she could even recover from the impact of hitting the ground, I immediately applied pressure.

When you can just emit energy from your body and kill someone with a single strike, when would you ever have practiced grappling like this?

For me, it was like a perfectly set meal.

As expected, she instinctively tried to turn her body sideways and escape.

Exposing her back was the worst move, but she had no other choice at the moment.

Naturally, I wouldn’t miss that movement.

I rotated with her as she tried to get up, slipping behind her back.

Perfect timing.

I firmly wrapped both legs around Astra’s waist, controlling her inner thighs.

Then, I wrapped my right arm deep under her neck and slipped my left arm under her armpit, naturally completing a seatbelt grip.

I completely sealed off all of Astra’s movements.

Without delay, I precisely pushed my right forearm under her chin, towards the carotid artery.

After creating a brace by grabbing my right bicep with my left hand, I exhaled deeply and began to apply gentle yet powerful pressure to her entire neck using both arms and shoulder muscles.

A perfect chokehold that cut off blood flow, performed with minimal force but precise angle and pressure, as I couldn’t break her neck.

“Ugh… Ugh!”

Astra struggled desperately.

She raised her energy-infused claws to try and pry off my arm from her neck and twisted her body to create space, but it was a meaningless resistance.

Her movements grew increasingly frantic, then noticeably weakened, and finally, all resistance ceased as she went limp.