Mightiest Melee Magician

27th.

26th.

25th…

I stopped counting after that.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

“Move! Get out of my way!”

“Huack! Go away!”

Actually, most students did make way for me when I shouted ‘move’.

“I-I got out of your way!”

“Sorry. I just wanted to say that.”

Bam! Boom!

But I didn’t care.

I crashed into everyone’s backs.

“Kuack!”

“You’re too much……”

The students that collided with me flopped away like paper cutouts and either went out of the course’s bounds or became so separated from me that they would never be able to catch up.

There were no exceptions.

Even if the target was someone who I became quite close with, such as Seta Malkiri.

“R-Ruin?”

He was running while riding on that guardian that I beat up last time.

After seeing me run like crazy behind him into the mid-ranks, he asked me while terrified,

“You…… When did you catch up to me? I swear that you were the last to…”

“Seta.”

“……What? Why are you saying my name like that? I’m getting nervous.”

“You understand, right?”

“……”

Seta nodded his head, having understood my intentions, and made a determined expression.

“So it starts again. The fight that we never finished. Alright……”

And then, he shouted while drawing in the reins around the neck of his guardian,

“Run, you stonehead! It’s the end if we get caught!”

“Grrrrrrr!”

Operation Name,

Run like the wind away from here.

As Seta attempted to drastically increase his speed and make distance from me, I just kicked the guardian’s butt with my feet.

Bang!

“……Uck!”

The guardian stumbled forward and hit its head into the ground pitifully with a bang, throwing its master off its back.

“Ruiiiiiiin!”

“Sorry!”

And I heard Seta’s shout of resentment as I bolted past him.

Well…… Seta, since I kicked you lightly, you should still be able to run.

Of course, it would be pretty hard to ride that guardian now.

I kept running.

And then, after running for a while,

“Chi! Chiek!”

The scene of multiple students fighting off a goblin horde could be seen.

But I didn’t slow down.

Rather, using the speed I had accumulated while running, I punched forward.

Bang! Boom!

“Chiek? Th-that guy. He’s not human. Chiek!”

With one fist, I froze multiple goblins at once.

With one stride, I launched myself at the other students.

Whether they be goblins or students, I threw punches equally at everything I saw and just ran forward.

Nothing could stop me.

And at some point, there was no one in front of me.

Other than the ‘front-runners’, that was.

Naturally, they were definitely running ahead of me.

But as I ran faster than them,

‘……Found them.’

Like this,

I was able to find them.

* * *

“……So you eliminated everyone else?”

“Well, not all of them. A few of them should still be running and trying to catch up.”

“……”

Irene looked at me, baffled at my explanation, and I turned before smiling brightly at Doom, who was standing behind her, analyzing me with a cold gaze.

“There’ll be no interruptions now.”

“……”

Taunt.

This small taunt provoked Doom to react, and in an instant, he summoned a Spirit Horse, dark in colour like his outfit, and sat on its saddle.

As he tugged on the reins, raring to go at any moment, Dylan became flustered.

“Doom, we’re in the trapzone right now. There’s no way you’re thinking of just blitzing through, right?”

“……”

The trapzone.

This was a castle ruin built from heavy stone walls.

The hundreds of permanent traps laid here to protect the treasures in the underground vault preyed on the intruders that entered the ruins.

The treasures had all already been taken out, but the traps still remained.

All contestants that set foot here could land themselves in an ice net or take fatal damage from arrows that appeared out of nowhere.

The reason that such a trapzone existed on the course of this ‘running competition’ where every minute mattered…

This was a race between magicians.

There were multitudes of methods that could be used to get past this trapzone, and there was also the safest method.

‘Disable the traps’.

* * *

* * *

This was a test of a magician’s danger sense and their knowledge.

Because of this, time could be wasted here.

The time taken to disable a trap was also part of the test.

However, the method Doom had chosen was a little different.

“Ruin.”

“You called?”

“I’ll see you at the end.”

Break through.

Neigh—!

He forcefully tugged on the reins of his Gray Spirit Horse and rushed into the castle ruins.

He deflected arrows using his sword and slow magic and overcame nets with horsemanship.

He protected using mana barriers against traps he couldn’t dodge and destroyed any traps he fell into.

Magic, swordsmanship, horsemanship. Maybe this was a method that only Doom Prime could use, as he was proficient with all 3 of them.

“……As I thought, he’s impressive. Hoo. I can’t waste my time here either.”

Looking at this, Dylan shook his head and Irene immediately started disabling traps.

‘Disable the traps.’

The ‘only’ method of passing through the castle ruin’s trapzone.

However, it had one fatal flaw.

‘Disabling each trap takes too long.’

It was impossible to try and catch up to Doom Prime while disabling all the traps.

Because of this, I chose another method.

Similar to what Doom Prime had done…

A method that only I could use.

Don’t I have one too?

Bing bing bing—.

As I lightly tapped the heavy walls, Straang asked me,

“Are you actually thinking of destroying the walls?”

“I mean, this is Draka’s method.”

“Well, that’s true, but this thickness is still too much for you.”

“I know.”

Yeah.

No matter how strong I was, trying to break this type of wall was still impossible.

However,

“But this is a ruin.”

“Oh ho… Are you saying you’ll target the weakened points?”

“Yeah.”

This was the ruin of a castle that was far older than the Raynac Imperial Federation’s history.

“A tree that wouldn’t fall after ten hits can exist, but if that tree was rotten, it would fall after being hit by a lot less.”

“Huhu. You’re not wrong.”

I used both the Minimap and Player’s Eye to analyze the surrounding walls.

‘Found it.’

Seemingly having been destroyed by a siege weapon, there were traces and cracks on a particular part of the wall.

From here on out, I couldn’t afford to lose any more time.

I clenched my fist hard, activated Ogre’s Fury, and pulled in all the strength I had before punching the wall.

Bang!

A sound that shook the earth echoed out from the hit, but the wall only shook a little and still stood strong.

“What? That guy… What is he doing?”

Like hitting a rock with an egg, seeing me punch the wall with my bare fist baffled Dylan and he muttered to himself,

“Is he thinking of breaking the wall? What nonsense. No matter how strong Ruin is, impossible things are still impossible.”

“……”

However, I didn’t reply.

The changing of impossible into possible.

Hadn’t I already witnessed this firsthand?

I had already erased ‘impossible’ from my dictionary long ago.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

I felt as if my fist would break before the wall, but I didn’t stop.

Looking at this, Irene spoke up.

“No. If it’s Ruin, he might be able to do it.”

“Irene, I know you’re closer with Ruin, but what he’s doing is futile. How can a human break a castle wall with their bare fist…”

“Look over there.”

“……What, what the hell?”

Crack! Crush!

“D-did he really break it? With his fists?”

Eight punches.

The crack had started to grow bigger.

And finally,

“Done!”

Boom!

With only nine punches, the sturdy outer wall fell away and a small hole, barely large enough to fit a single human, opened up.

“Huu… Didn’t I say it’ll be done in ten hits?”

“Look at that. Wasn’t I right?”

“Th-that’s insane! How is that possible?!”

As I climbed to the other side of the ruin, I smiled brightly toward Dylan, whose face was frozen with shock.

“R-Ruin… I’ll also—”

“Don’t even think about following me here. I’m going to block it off right now.”

“……”

“Then, I’ll see you later.”

And then, I pummeled the wall from the other side.

Crush!

The rubble from the wall closed up the gap in an instant.

“Ruiiiiiiin!”

And Dylan Marken’s cry of resentment soon filled the castle ruins.

Hm.

Seems like there were a lot of people calling my name today.

Then, Straang jumped up and down on my shoulder.

“Wow! You destroyed a castle wall with only 2,400 strength?!”

“It was pretty close. My fist nearly broke first.”

The Ring of Invulnerability.

If it wasn’t a ruined wall and just a normal castle wall, this would’ve never been possible.

“I guess finding the weak point of a wall is also a skill. How was I?”

In any case, Irene and Dylan wouldn’t be able to follow me through here.

And so the front-runners were reduced to just me and Doom Prime.

Doom was still struggling through the traps, and as he locked eyes with me, who had no injuries and was standing on the outside of the ruin,

“……Giddy-up!”

Neigh!

He hastened his Spirit Horse to run faster through the ruin.

He looked too pressed for time, and as expected…

Shoop!

“……!”

He had let an arrow slip past and hit him in the shoulder.

His face looked determined to not lose to me, even if he had to sustain some injuries.

“Alright… Then should I go too?”

And I answered his determination by kicking off the ground again and rushing forward.

I also…

Never want to lose to you.

After running through the forest outside the castle ruins, I arrived at a paved path.

But the path broke into three.

Clop! Clop!

From the direction of the ruin’s exit, Doom was riding toward me.

We, who were taking two different paths, had converged onto one.

“Did you say you wanted to see me at the end?”

“……”

“Seems we met a little earlier, Doom Prime.”

Hwat!

Before I could even finish talking, we both started speeding up.

As Doom was riding a horse, he quickly distanced himself from me at the front, but as the spell ran out, I caught up to him again.

If we were just running without using magic, I was definitely faster.

Doom Prime also knew this, and as soon as the distance between us started to widen…

Shwing—

He unsheathed his sword and aimed at my back.

However, that wasn’t even the Sword of Brilliance.

He had also already taken some injuries from the arrows.

As Doom lunged at me with his sword, I dodged by a blade’s length and then grabbed him by his neck.

And then, after lifting Doom into the air,

“Let’s go together.”

“……!”

I just flung my body with him.

Towards the 3rd and final course.

“You don’t have a fear of heights, right?”

Towards the bottom of the cliff.

——