Black Clover: Nah I'd Lose

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In this world, a magic knight belonged to two groups: either they were taken in by one of the nine magic knight squads, or they went into either Knight Corps or Personal Knights of various forces in the kingdom.

The latter mainly consisted of royals and nobles, with 10 percent of them being Senior level knights and the rest comprising mainly Intermediate levels.

The former, i.e., Knight Corps, mainly consisted of Junior level knights, with 10 percent of them being Intermediate Level.

Only 10 percent of the total knights actually went to any of the magic knight brigades, contrary to the popular belief that most of them did.

Around 40,000 Knights were present on the continent that was home to the Clover, Heart, Diamond, and Spade Kingdoms.

This might seem like a large number, but it wasn't when one looked at the population of this continent, which was nearly 40 million people.

This meant that in every 1,000 people, there was one person who could become a knight.

"Doesn't that mean we nearly lost 20 per cent of our forces in this skirmish?" Akeru asked, shocked at Rill's statement.

He had previously gotten information about the composition of the army under Rill, which housed nearly 1,000 Magic Knights—a significant number.

"Most of them were privates and corporals. We have had close to no deaths in the upper ranks," Fuyumi decided to interject before Rill could reply.

Akeru hummed as he delved into the report in his hands.

'Let's see, in this army, the Commander is the highest position, with two Vice-commanders under him and two Generals under him as well.

Each vice-commander has three generals under them. Although I don't know who will be assigned to me, that's not the current point.

Each General has five Lieutenants under them, with five corporals under each lieutenant and five privates under each corporal.

It seems they have chosen to keep it easier to remember for the lower ranks, as it would have been trouble to remember so much useless information, though the usefulness of that itself is arguable.

Anyway, most of the people are from one of the nine magic brigades mostly Lieutenant and above rank, so what we have lost is mainly people from Knight Corps, as they were mainly the ones in corporal and private ranks.

I guess for people here, it's fine as generally, people from those groups are deemed untalented, as talented ones could always join any of the brigades later if they show talent,' Akeru pondered as he read through the exact data.

"So, what are we going to do with Ladros?" Erza changed the subject.

"That was my next point of discussion," Rill nodded, and just as he was going to speak again, somebody else spoke.

"I think we should torture him for information," Gastric said.

"Then kill him," Langris said with a smile.

"I second that," Akeru joined in with a smile.

Some of the other people in the room were taken aback when they saw both Vice-Commanders talking about killing somebody with smiles on their faces.

"No, we are not going to kill him," Rill deadpanned at both of his Vice-Commanders.

"As Gastric said, we are going to get information from Ladros, though without the need for torture as we have somebody in our forces who can read other people's memories. Even if we ignore that, he is a very good bargaining chip for our future negotiations with the Diamond Kingdom," Rill said while not disclosing the mage's name.

'It's that Mushroom head, Max? Mars? No, wait, that guy is from Diamond Kingdom. Well, he should be able to do that, but I wonder if Rill is referring to somebody else as that possibility is also plausible,' Akeru thought while looking at Rill's body posture.

He was just agreeing with Langris on the point of killing Ladros to mess with Rill.

It was too funny not to.

He really didn't care whether Ladros lived or not.

After this, there were some more brief discussions about their future points of action, though they were told to be on standby for now.

'It hasn't been that long since this army was stationed here, as the battle they had today is the first serious one if we ignore the small skirmishes that happened in the last month. I wonder how the Diamond Kingdom would react to the death and capture of their top forces,' Akeru thought while looking at Rill, who looked back at him.

"Hmm?"

'Damn, I got distracted and don't know what the last few lines he said.'

Akeru felt like a teacher had chosen him to answer a question, not aware of the fact that Akeru hadn't touched the subject even once this semester.

"I forgot to mention but Ren, Kaiser, and Erza would be under your command."

"Oh, cool," Akeru said, internally sighing in relief that he was not caught not paying attention.

"That would be all." With that, Rill ended the meeting.

Akeru was the first one who left the room.

'Well, time to experiment with the insights I got from Ladros,' Akeru thought excitedly as he made his way toward the training room he was personally allocated.

Upon arriving at the location, he quickly set up some runes, which would prevent somebody from entering without permission and spying on him.

'Information is power,' Akeru, true to his cautious nature, didn't become arrogant just because he had reached Captain-level power.

'Though I might have shown a bit earlier, that's fine as they would have been exposed later anyway. Just the inner workings of my spells and their nature shouldn't be disclosed. I don't think anybody here knows that I am neither a mage specializing only in water or lightning,' Akeru chuckled at that.

'Seraph's Nursery.'

Akeru's very familiar shell enclosed him.

He started controlling the mana around the air with runes, which weren't visible due to a stealth array he had on his clothes, preventing those words from being seen by anybody else.

'Bystander's Magic: Still Spectator.'

The world disappeared for Akeru as he focused intently inside his head, replaying the fight between him and Ladros and revisiting the key points he had noted earlier.

'Though his mana bullets were not much faster than my water bullets, the method he uses is clearly superior to mine. I believe that the speed of my bullets would increase even further when I learn that method. For that, I need to first analyze his Reinforcement magic properly.'

'Not only that, but I could also use that method to create water beams finally, as they could give me more versatility, now that their speed would be significant enough to help me in battle,' Akeru thought giddily about this revelation.

He had tried to create pressurized beams previously, shortly after he created the water ball spell, but due to not having much destructive power, he gave up on them.

He once again tried them when he was 14 years old, though their performance was not up to par compared to water bullets, so he didn't use them ever in battle.

However, Akeru could see their usefulness now, as he had become a speed-type.

With Orion's Ordeal, whatever gain he would have from Ladros' method would be doubled.

With that, Akeru got back to grinding.

---

'Hmm, it's already 9. I guess it's time for dinner; I am utterly drained,' Akeru thought while feeling the mental and physical fatigue buildup, with the former being high.

He exited his allotted training room and was surprised to see somebody standing outside the room.

His surprise increased as the person who was waiting panted with sweat on their body, which was very similar to Akeru's current physical state.

"Ayo?" Akeru turned back and tried to sense the inside of the room in the disguise of shutting the door.

'Okay, so the runes are working properly. For a second, I thought I was being observed, though I don't think any other person would gain anything substantial from watching me unless they have similar skills as mine,' Akeru thought while looking back at the person.

"Well, you took your sweet time, didn't you? Boss~" Erza asked with a smirk.

***

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