The Last-Seat Hero Has Returned

14. Limit Test (2)

After embracing the primordial fire and returning through time.

I had never once gone all out.

To be precise, I never had the opportunity to go all out.

‘Well, there were various incidents.’

But most of them were just scuffles with the cadets.

In that sense, this sparring with Professor Lucas was something I had been looking forward to.

Even though it was just a sparring match.

He was the first opponent worthy of me giving my all.

-Kang! Kaang! Kagagak!

Swords and axes clashing at a speed hard to follow with the eyes.

“Hup!”

With a short shout, Professor Lucas swung the axe held in both hands in a cross shape.

He swung it lightly as if handling a toy, but the power contained within was by no means light.

Woo-woong!

The light emanating from the stigmata blazed fiercely along the axe blade.

The mere wind pressure created by the swinging axe tore through the solid oak floor of the training ground as if it had been clawed by a beast.

Truly overwhelming destructive power.

‘There’s no way to counter it head-on.’

The force emanating from the nearly two-meter-tall giant was immense, but the gap in magical power he possessed was even greater.

The stigmata engraved on Professor Lucas’s left chest was the stigmata of the ‘Earth God.’

The magical power created by the Earth God’s stigmata was heavy, massive, and destructive in nature.

If I tried to block that axe with my sword, the sword would shatter instantly.

‘In that case.’

I lowered my stance and angled my sword.

I squeezed out all the magical power in my body and condensed it into the blade.

-Kaang! Kagagak!

The moment the axe and sword collided.

The magical power condensed in the blade exploded, slightly pushing back Professor Lucas’s axe.

The pushed-back axe slid down the angled blade.

It was a technique I learned from Berald, applying the essence of ‘Sky Reversal’ to swordsmanship.

It was my desperate attempt to bridge the overwhelming gap in power.

“You’re using tricks!”

Another axe swung horizontally.

The target was my shoulder.

I dodged the swinging axe by bending forward as if falling.

“If you keep using tricks, they become skills.”

I straightened my bent body like a spring and swung my sword.

The Solar Sword.

A swordsmanship created by Reynald Helios, one of the ‘Great Five Heroes’ 500 years ago, and perfected by his distant descendant, Yuren Helios, one of the ‘Last Five Heroes,’ unfolded in my hands.

-Kaang! Kagak! Kang!

“Ugh… Where did you learn such swordsmanship?!”

“I taught myself.”

It wasn’t wrong.

The swordsmanship that unfolded from my hands did start with the Sun Sword, but it had changed so much that it was hard to see it as the same swordsmanship that Yuren used in his previous life.

After the world was destroyed by the hands of the demon god.

As I continued my training alone to remember my fallen comrades, I realized something painfully.

‘I am not Yuren.’

My sword cannot blaze brilliantly like Yuren’s, nor can it shine nobly.

Weak but tenacious.

Fragile but sharp.

Even if it breaks, collapses, and gets crushed.

It never disappears.

The swordsmanship of ‘Dale Han.’

‘Using magic is only for the brief moment when the swords clash.’

It doesn’t need to be fast enough to be untraceable by the eye, nor overwhelmingly strong.

What matters is targeting the most vulnerable part at the most appropriate moment, most lethally.

That was enough.

-Kaang! Kang! Kaak!

The sound of metal echoed in my ears.

Feeling my breath rising to my chin, I continued to swing my sword.

Slashing, stabbing, bouncing, and twisting.

I could tell.

‘It wasn’t in vain.’

The snow-covered field.

The days of silently continuing my training while wandering alone in the pure white world.

The struggles over hundreds and thousands of years.

‘It wasn’t in vain.’

It wasn’t because I had a grand goal.

It wasn’t because I had a grand purpose.

Just.

I didn’t want to forget.

I didn’t want to let it rot.

The most precious legacy they left me.

“Ha, haha!”

A chest so full it bursts into laughter without thinking.

A thrilling shiver spreads through my entire body.

I was so happy I wanted to shout for joy right then and there.

‘Why?’

Why is that?

Along with the joy, another emotion sprouted in a corner of my heart.

‘It’s not enough.’

A burning thirst scorched my throat.

‘Just a little more.’

I felt like I could climb higher, to a more distant place.

I felt like I could grasp the edge of the ‘ultimate’ that Yuren had spoken of.

My body felt heavy, as if weighed down by heavy shackles.

I knew what to do in my head, but my body wouldn’t follow at all.

In that terrible sense of dissonance,

I kept swinging my sword.

“Krugh!”

Professor Lucas barely managed to fend off the fierce sword strikes, swallowing his groans.

‘What kind of crazy swordsmanship is this!’

The sword strikes weren’t fast.

They weren’t strong either.

I could follow them with my eyes and easily deflect them.

But.

‘Why… why can’t I counterattack!’

The pressure slowly strangled him, like sinking into a swamp.

His body, which hadn’t tired even after swinging an axe for over five hours, was drenched in sweat in less than five minutes of battle.

In the battle that approached a state of trance,

He gradually felt the pressure of his breath becoming labored.

‘At this rate, I’ll die.’

It’s not about ‘losing’.

It’s about ‘dying’.

Professor Lucas no longer even remembered that this situation was a sparring match with his student.

‘If I don’t want to die.’

I have to kill.

I must pour out everything I have.

I must kill the ‘enemy’ in front of me to survive.

“Huuu.”

The moment he realized that fact.

His body, sensing the crisis, moved instinctively.

-Wooong!

The color of the light emanating from the stigma changed, and a blood-red aura enveloped his body.

‘Blessing of the Blood Warrior.’

A unique ability possessed by only a very few among heroes activated, and the blood flow throughout his body began to circulate at an incomparable speed.

His entire body’s muscles swelled, and his eyes, with burst capillaries, turned red.

Enveloped in a blood-red aura, his appearance was exactly that of a ‘bloodthirsty hound’.

“Rrrrrrr!”

With a ferocious sound akin to a beast’s roar, Professor Lucas’s axe swung wildly.

-Kwaaang!

With a thunderous noise that couldn’t be believed to be the clash of a sword and an axe, Dale’s body flew through the air like a kite with its string cut and crashed into the wall of the training ground.

* * *

“Dale! Dale Han! Are you alright?!”

Professor Lucas urgently ran towards Dale, who was crashed into the wall.

Seeing the training ground with one side completely collapsed, Professor Lucas’s face turned pale.

Even if he was cornered, to use the blessing against a cadet.

“Damn it…! I’ll send a rescue request to the school right away, so hang in there!”

If the fact that he used the blessing against a cadet spread within the school, he wouldn’t be able to avoid disciplinary action, but what did that matter in a situation where his student’s life was at stake?

Just as Professor Lucas was about to contact the school through his Hero Watch.

“I’m fine.”

Dale, who had been collapsed against the wall, slowly got up.

“…Huh?”

Professor Lucas looked up at Dale with eyes as if he had seen a ghost.

“You… Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Seeing Dale nod calmly, Professor Lucas tilted his head as if he couldn’t understand.

‘Judging by the state of the wall, it shouldn’t have been a wound that could be fine…?’

If it had been a little worse, it would have been instant death. Even if not, at least a few bones should have been broken, but he was perfectly fine?

Wondering if he was bluffing, he examined Dale’s body, but he was indeed uninjured.

“I lost.”

“Huh?”

“I mean the sparring. I lost.”

“Oh.”

Only then did Professor Lucas, who had been sparring until just a moment ago, let out a low exclamation.

Dale chuckled as he looked at Professor Lucas, who had a bewildered expression.

“Still, I’m glad to confirm that I can at least draw out your true ‘strength’.”

“Ahem! Sorry. I unconsciously used my blessing.”

“No. I would have been a bit disappointed if you hadn’t used it until the end.”

Saying so, Dale sheathed his sword.

“It was an honor to receive your teaching today. I have another class, so I’ll be going now.”

“Oh… Okay. If you feel any pain later, be sure to contact me.”

“Yes.”

Without hesitation, Dale turned and left the sparring ground.

“…….”

Professor Lucas remained in the half-destroyed sparring ground, recalling the sparring… no, the battle with Dale just now.

“Hoo. I’ve been a professor for a long time, and now I experience things like this.”

When he first heard that Dale wanted to spar with him, he thought, ‘That guy has finally gone mad.’

Of course, it was natural.

No matter how much of a breakthrough he had shown recently, Dale was just a mere cadet.

The lowest-ranked cadet, who was evaluated as the worst dullard in the history of Reynald School.

“And that guy has become strong enough to push me to this extent in just one day.”

If I hadn’t experienced it myself, I would never have believed it.

“Did that guy really regress or something?”

Such a ridiculous thought even crossed my mind.

“Well, in the end, I still won!”

Though it seems odd to be happy about winning by using divine protection against a cadet.

Anyway, a win is a win, isn’t it?

At least I narrowly avoided disgracing myself as a professor.

‘Oh… but wait a minute.’

Professor Lucas’s expression hardened as he recalled the battle with Dale.

From the bizarre swordsmanship he’d never seen before to the acrobatic-like mana control and delicate movements.

Dale’s skills had transformed as if he had really returned from the future.

Except for one thing.

There was one part that hadn’t changed compared to before.

“Dale, that guy… his mana was no different from what I knew.”

Mana that was less than 10% of the average cadet’s.

Compared to himself, it was a minuscule amount, less than one-twentieth.

Yet, with that tiny amount of mana, he had pushed him to the brink of ‘death.’

“……”

For a hero, mana is like a weight class.

Considering the difference in mana between himself and Dale, it was like sweating profusely while fighting and barely winning against an eight-year-old kid.

What if.

What if Dale, with his current skills, also had ‘mana’?

“Hah.”

A chilling shiver ran down his spine.

“I might not have been teaching a hero cadet… but a little monster.”

A deep sigh escaped from between Professor Lucas’s lips.