Did problem students always keep their word?

“First of all, I’m filling in for the director, but what I want to teach you is far from what would be taught here at the training camp. Moreover, I don’t know what you can do or how skilled you are, so I think it’s better to postpone making plans until after I know that.”

“Are you saying that you’ll test the members’ abilities and then look for an appropriate training method?”

“Nah~ That would take too long. How many of you are there to test one by one here?”

They say it’s better to do something once than to hear about it a hundred times, and better to try once than to see it a thousand times.

There’s no need to waste time when there’s a more definitive method than testing.

“If we have to look… Well, we don’t need to see everyone, just one person would be enough.”

“One person?”

“Like this.”

I immediately jumped down from the desk I was sitting on and kicked it towards the back of the classroom.

-Crash!

The desk flying from the kick messed up the orderly classroom in an instant.

“Now, let’s imagine a situation.”

Amidst the scattered desks and chairs spread all around, I calmly spoke while turning to look at the bewildered Disciplinary Committee members.

“If you received a report and arrived to find classmates trembling as they look at the classroom, and some problem student is rampaging inside, turning the place into chaos… What should the first Disciplinary Committee member to enter do?”

The Disciplinary Committee members looked at each other, unsure how to react to this sudden development.

Among them, only one person maintained composure and stepped forward towards me.

“According to the current policy of the Disciplinary Committee, the first member to arrive engages with the student in question… The goal is to guide them out of the incident site to minimize damage, and if subduing is difficult, to buy time until the remaining members arrive.”

“Right, so in this situation, our Disciplinary Committee head is the first to enter the classroom messed up by the problem student?”

“…I understand.”

Well, what’s the need for complicated tests?

There’s nothing easier than directly engaging to assess capabilities.

“The rules are simple. Victory goes to whoever pins the other to the ground and secures a position on top… Of course, since we’re assuming it’s a real situation, you can do anything you could do in a real fight.”

“Anything that could be done in a real situation…”

“You can use mana, you can use weapons. Though given your personality, you probably won’t use weapons.”

I chuckled and quietly put my hands behind my back as I added the final condition.

“By the way, the teacher won’t be using mana in this match. Even if it’s a mock battle simulating a real situation, it feels a bit wrong to go all out against a student.”

“…You’re saying you’ll fight as a regular person against a mana user, despite the difference between student and teacher. Surely you’re not unaware of how big that gap in capability is?”

“If you think it’s humiliating, you can come at me with full force.”

“……”

The Disciplinary Committee head clenched his mouth shut at my words.

Then he pulled his hat down and gathered mana in his body.

As he took his stance, he said,

“I’ll take you up on that offer.”

“…That’s a good look in your eyes.”

A proper stance and eyes focused precisely on the target.

At least if he’s not some out-of-spec existence like a barbarian, he won’t back down. Even if his opponent is a warrior of a higher level than himself.

“Well then, we’ll start when I count to three.”

If he’s going to take this so seriously, I should respond properly too.

I immediately unclasped my hands from behind my back and reached for the leg of a chair tilting behind me.

“One… Three!”

And a surprise throw.

-Bang!

Despite how startling this should have been, the Disciplinary Committee head quickly deflected the attack with his bare hand and rushed towards me.

With mana-coated fists, there would naturally be no damage.

-Whoosh!!

The mana-infused grip that followed immediately after split the air, causing a vacuum.

The wind pressure was palpable just from moving my body to the side. If I had been caught directly, I wouldn’t even be able to pick up my bones.

“You’re not angry, are you?”

“On the contrary, I think it’s appropriate. It’s milder than those I’ve dealt with until now.”

“I appreciate your leniency.”

-Crash!

Waden rushed at me, chasing as I retreated.

Every time his feet touched the ground, physical force spread out, causing the surrounding desks and chairs to rattle and twist.

Of course, his speed is much faster than mine.

At least when it comes to linear movements.

-Swoosh!

I avoided the outstretched hand closing in by twisting the axis of my foot.

Yes, even if he’s fast, it’s not like there’s no way to read his movements.

Even without looking at anything else, just by observing the stance of his feet, I can roughly guess.

When reaching out a hand, he never pulls his foot back, and when making intense movements, he inevitably has to bend his knees when bowing his waist.

To increase the speed of the outstretched hand, one must twist their body, and naturally, the axis of the foot also turns. When the waist twists, the movement of the neck changes accordingly, which means that the field of vision is greatly influenced by the movement of the waist.

Besides, the basis of all human movements is ultimately based on joints.

For me, as a surgery specialist, it’s really easy to read preliminary movements by observing joint movements.

-Whoosh!

As I avoided like this, the next thing I confirmed was his attitude and policy.

Naturally, his goal from the start was not to attack, but only to subdue.

Since I’m not using mana, he won’t make violent attacks. Concerned about causing damage, his attacks will be limited to jujitsu and ground techniques with less impact from collision.

-Crash!

Perhaps feeling impatient that a relatively slower opponent is not within his grasp?

The mana at the spot where he stepped became more violent, and his movements began to accelerate further.

Yet, his characteristic composure doesn’t disappear. Only the tempo has quickened. The strong determination is still felt in his gaze fixed on me.

“I think I get it now. What level you’re at.”

Fast movements, smooth combinations, high-level footwork, and maintaining calmness.

In terms of skill alone, he’s at the level of a veteran soldier.

Above all, his mana control is clean, without much waste of power. By minimizing the consumption of physical and mental energy, he probably wouldn’t collapse even if he patrolled the school all day.

“But in the end, it’s just at the level of self-defense techniques.”

-Swoosh!

I avoided the hand reaching out from the side and quickly twisted my body while entering his embrace.

Of course, the opponent is in a state of mana operation.

I could respond to attacks by increasing the hardness and weight of my body, but ultimately, that capability is limited to human levels.

By utilizing the principle of action-reaction and leverage, theoretically, one can overturn even an opponent more than twice their weight class.

“The first weakness of the Disciplinary Committee. They’re skilled in body techniques, but their coping methods are ultimately specialized only for human-to-human combat.”

As soon as I grabbed his collar and tripped him, his balance twisted, and at that moment, a low kick caused his body to stagger backward.

He was surprised, but only for a moment.

Waden, who managed to regain his balance, started glaring at me while creating distance.

“Your methods for dealing with evasion or counterattacks are limited to attacks using the human body. Rather than coping with attacks that directly throw objects, you just block them by surrounding your body with mana…”

“The match isn’t over yet!”

At the moment when Waden, who had been maintaining his composure all along, rushed in angrily.

Is it just because of emotion that there’s more power than before?

Or does he think I can withstand this much?

“Second. The attacks are too straightforward.”

Whatever the case, I’ve already figured out the pattern.

Just by slightly twisting my body, the attack passed right by.

In that state, I swung the chair I was holding directly at Waden’s head.

-Bang!

The young hand blocking the head with mana.

The chair shattered from that attack, but shattering doesn’t mean disappearance.

My other hand had already grasped the fragments of the chair scattering in all directions.

The sharp ends were precisely aimed at Waden’s eyes as he prepared to counterattack, stopping his action.

“In sports, you might get high points, but what we’re doing now is no different from a dog fight where rules and fairness are excluded. Of course, this level might be enough for student-level fights, but… was the previous incident just a student-level fight?”

“Ugh!”

Waden reached out to grab my collar, ignoring the fragments aimed at his eyes.

But by then, my hand was already precisely gripping Waden’s wrist.

His face turned pale at the unexpected grip. He struggled, applying force, but escape won’t be easy.

Of course. This time, I didn’t just grab, I used mana to grab.

“Lastly, third. You simply lack experience.”

Bang! With that, I performed a judo throw while gripping his collar and tripping his leg.

As his mana-surrounded body slammed into the bare floor with a loud noise, I immediately stamped my foot next to his head, warning him as he tried to get up.

“Three years in middle school and about a year in high school… It’s arrogant to think you can handle everything with just that much. Real fights don’t consider rules and manuals like sports do.”

The exploratory phase is over, so if we continue the match, it will escalate further.

As if reading my intention, Waden looked at me with eyes full of dissatisfaction.

“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t use mana?”

“Did problem students always keep their word?”

“…Ugh!”

Well, being an honest friend, it’s understandable that he’d be annoyed by me changing my words unlike at the start.

I chuckled and immediately grabbed the Disciplinary Committee head’s hand to help him up.

“Don’t be disappointed~ You getting me to use mana is already a passing grade.”

If he had been a mediocre person, I would have subdued him without using mana.

Using mana at the end is also a sign of respect that his potential exceeded my expectations.

Of course, what he’s satisfied with isn’t just passing the cut-off line.

“Well then, now that we’ve finished assessing your level, clean up this mess and sit down. We’ll start lightly with theory.”

After that, I straightened the fallen teacher’s desk, placed it in front of the blackboard, and picked up a piece of chalk.

It was time to start the real lesson.

---

-Tap tap, tap.

The sound of chalk friction echoed in the tidied classroom.

As the Disciplinary Committee members listened to that sound, I faced them with my back to the blackboard where I had drawn the necessary materials.

“Now then… The first thing I’ll teach you in this lecture is, of course, to identify your strengths and weaknesses discovered in the previous match and teach you how to complement them.”

Although I only tested the Disciplinary Committee head, all the members are following the head well.

Once educated, under the head’s guidance, they will all soon become proficient in following what I’ve taught them.

“Before we get into the main lesson, I want to ask the Disciplinary Committee head one thing. What was the base technique you used in the previous match?”

“It was the Imperial self-defense technique.”

“Right, it’s a technique that modified the fighting style mainly used by the Empire’s gladiators for use against people.”

A technique that naturally emerged from the life-and-death battles of gladiators during the time of slavery, and from there, maximally excluded lethality to lead to overwhelming the enemy without killing, but subduing them easily.

The essence concentrated over more than a thousand years has become so widely known that not only mercenaries but also guards, knights, and martial arts nobles refer to it, belying its past of being handled only by slaves.

“But no matter how much Imperial self-defense technique you learn, and even though it’s been passed down for a thousand years, it can’t be called a perfect martial art. Even now, experts are constantly making improvements, so it’s right to fix what can be fixed and complement what can be complemented.”

“Are you saying that in this education, you’ll teach us about those complementary methods?”

“No, rather than complementary methods, I should say usage methods.”

“…Usage methods?”

“Well, there’s something you need to know before handling body techniques.”

Eventually, the chalk in my hand pointed to the drawing at the center of the blackboard.

It was a human anatomy diagram that meticulously depicted organs and bones based on the human body.