As I left the audience seats full of people and stepped onto the desolate stage, the burden was no joke.
The gaze of countless people pressed down on me with tremendous weight.
'To think Ríolíkin, who fears the gaze of others, bravely didn't run away, climbed up to this place, and even achieved victory. Is that a little praiseworthy...?'
Trying to shake off the tension, I slowly calmed my breathing while recalling random thoughts as they came to mind.
And maintaining an expressionless face while letting the hand holding the whip hang down, I tried hard to project a calm and arrogant attitude.
I don't know whether it looked that way in the eyes of others.
"I..., I cannot withdraw! Because I will definitely win today and confess to the person I like, and tomorrow the two of us will go on a date...!"
The match opponent standing across from me abruptly revealed his ambition in a voice full of determination.
It seemed he had witnessed the scene where I passed the preliminary round with four consecutive wins by forfeit, but he spoke quite strangely.
As if I had forced the preliminary-round participants to withdraw by asserting my social status or something.
Is the extra in front of me the only one who has such a misunderstanding?
'Like this... If I don't properly display my skill in this match, the misunderstanding will spread quickly and harden into an established theory.'
Feeling my mood sour for no reason, I wanted to retort sarcastically, 'Is that schedule something you've agreed upon with the target of your confession? Why don't you consider that they might reject your confession?' but—
If I replied to that person's words, it was certain I would be asked what kind of conversation we had as soon as I returned to my seat.
Engaging in a childish verbal argument with an extra goes against Karvaldr's character traits.
So I decided to simply ignore the opponent's words.
"Then we will start the fifteenth match!!"
As soon as the host's remark ended, I saw the match opponent kick off the ground and rush toward me.
Is he ignoring my skill because he thinks I got an easy win in the preliminary round?
Or maybe he's doing this because he wants to show a cool side of himself to the person he likes.
Or perhaps he simply judged that since my weapon is a whip and his weapon is a sword, he needed to close the distance quickly.
Thanks to the opponent spilling his personal information before the match started, I was able to activate the Thought Acceleration Skill easily.
While gauging which part of my possessed body he intended to attack and how by examining where the opponent's gaze, which seemed to have stopped moving, was directed.
I intentionally slowed down the speed of the Sky Blue Ether acting on my brain.
Then the opponent began to move.
Very, very slowly, like a slow-motion video shot with a high-speed camera.
Activating the keyword buff skill 【Encouragement】, my movement of raising the hand holding the whip also became extremely sluggish.
It felt somewhat stifling, but in exchange, the sense of pressure disappeared.
In a world where everything flowed slowly, sounds also rang out very slowly and deeply, so I wasn't conscious of the noisy audience at all.
Thanks to that, I swung the whip roughly with a relaxed mind.
While doing so, I racked my brain, guessing how the opponent would respond to my attack.
I saw the opponent's center of gravity shifting to the right. It seemed he had decided to dodge instead of deflecting my whip with his sword.
It was the outcome I wanted.
Since I had swung it intentionally to make it easy for the opponent to dodge.
The reason was...
'Because I have to activate the 【Exaltation】 skill.'
Because I had other thoughts for a moment, the Thought Acceleration Skill deactivated, and the sound of the whip tearing through the air—
'Jja-aak—!'
—rang clearly in my ears.
I have experienced situations where the Thought Acceleration Skill deactivates during sparring several times.
If I don't turn it off midway like this, the overload is severe, so I can't endure it for long.
Therefore, without getting flustered at all, I activated the 【Exaltation】 skill, matching the timing of the whip's crack.
As vitality circulated throughout my body, a sense of exhilaration welled up.
I wonder if that's why the skill is called 【Exaltation】.
Feeling the corners of my mouth rise on their own.
This time, with the intention of attacking properly, I swung the whip with all my might toward the opponent.
Did he misjudge the attack from before, which I had attempted roughly with only 【Encouragement】 applied, as my best?
Perhaps missing the timing to dodge due to the whip's suddenly faster and more precise movement, the extra hurriedly raised his sword with a startled expression.
Thus, he deflected my attack and retreated a great distance backward.
Judging by the way he looked at me warily with a serious face, it seemed he had at least realized that I wasn't a pushover.
'How will he respond now? Will he try to rush in and close the distance again? Or will he try to use his Ether Attribute Ability?'
It was still unknown what Ether Attribute Ability the opponent in front of me possessed.
His eyes were orange, but since he's an extra, there's a 99% probability that it's unrelated to his attribute.
Maybe he won't use his ability at all because of some setting that makes him the possessor of a skill unrelated to combat.
'But if he uses the ability. And if he can perform a long-range attack with it, it would be a good opportunity to attempt a probing attack...'
I gripped the whip firmly while adjusting the Ether flow of the Thought Acceleration Skill that had activated before I knew it.
As expected, I saw the opponent raise the hand not holding the sword.
And an aura tinged with transparent orange light gathered in that palm, forming the shape of an arrow.
'Since he's an extra, he wouldn't have been granted a special ability. According to the worldview setting... or rather, for the convenience of the original author, elemental attribute ability users are common, and since it's not liquid, it must be a wind attribute ability.'
I swung the whip toward the wind arrow flying slowly.
Then the opponent tried to dodge the whip by directly controlling the wind arrow, but changing direction mid-attack is possible for me too.
By controlling the Purple Ether, I manipulated the movement of the whip it was wrapped around.
The wind arrow couldn't respond to that erratic movement and collided with the whip, exploding with a pop.
'Having seen something like this, the opponent will now grit his teeth and face the match seriously.'
Some might think I revealed a technique that can catch people off guard too easily, but I don't think I made the wrong judgment.
Because I didn't want to be evaluated as someone who could win easily only because the opponent had let down his guard.
Also because I hoped the opponent would fight with his best effort for the sake of improving my skill.
'Still, I should settle the outcome before the opponent gets used to the weapon called a whip, right? Since I can't lose.'
This time, the opponent sent three arrows flying.
And then, rather than standing still, he kicked off the ground and rushed toward me as if chasing after the arrows.
'It seems his intention is to close the distance and suppress me while I deal with the wind arrows...'
If I had to swing the whip once for every arrow, a total of three times, things would go exactly as the opponent wanted.
But right now, in my eyes, the three arrows flying toward me looked as slow as crawling slugs.
Calculating a trajectory that could knock them all away with a single swing wasn't that difficult.
Although the Thought Acceleration Skill deactivated while I was calculating it.
Since I had already derived the answer, I swung the whip without hesitation, keeping the opponent, my next target, in sight.
At that moment, I saw the extra pause.
His gaze was also directed at the wrong place, not at me.
'He's controlling the wind arrows he sent flying!'
The realization came in an instant, and the Thought Acceleration Skill reactivated immediately.
I thought he would be flustered if I knocked away all the arrows with a single swing, but surprisingly, his response was calm.
After all, because he is an extra with the label '1st year' attached, not only is his technique simple, but he also seems unaccustomed to moving his body and the wind arrows simultaneously.
Recalling such thoughts leisurely, I followed the opponent's gaze at a speed that felt slow only to me.
Sure enough, one arrow had narrowly avoided my whip and was approaching me.
When I changed the direction of the whip once again and destroyed it decisively, bewilderment appeared on the extra's face.
But he soon showed an expression full of resolve.
He must want to succeed in his confession quite badly.
Although that impression came to mind, there was no reason for me to lose on purpose.
Anyway, a confession is something you can make even if you lose the match.
'If someone rejects you because you lost the match, that just means they don't particularly like this extra, right?'
Therefore, I swung the whip toward the extra without hesitation.
Even after dodging my whip, the opponent followed it with his eyes.
He must have thought I would manipulate the whip's movement this time too.
Since using that method reduces the speed and power of the whip, it's not a very useful card if the opponent is already wary of it.
'Moreover, maintaining the Thought Acceleration Skill, slowing the flow of the Sky Blue Ether, and simultaneously manipulating the movement of the whip with Purple Ether is burdensome after all...'
【Encouragement】 and 【Exaltation】.
I am managing somehow because these two buff skills increased my mental power as well; otherwise, I would have considered it impossible altogether.
Anyway, in a situation like this, it is much better to simply move my arm ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) and swing the whip again.
So I did.
There would be no one in this academy who didn't know that my Purple Ether Attribute Ability was 'Buff'.
Because of the conversation I shared with Reisir in Chapter 61, it seems word also spread by word of mouth that the Sky Blue Ether is an 'ability to make rain fall'.
Is that why he judged that I had absolutely no means of attack if the whip was excluded?
The extra wasn't looking at me while I attacked.
Fixing his gaze on the whip being swung at him, he dodged it and created wind arrows.
And when the whip struck the floor once again, the extra looked at me.
'He must have checked the target point for the arrows.'
Perhaps three wind arrows are the maximum he can create at once, since the number was the same this time too.
Therefore, the result was also the same.
Just like earlier, I swept them all away at once.
The opponent couldn't have failed to foresee such a situation either.
He simply used them as a means of closing the distance.
Now only two or three steps remained before the sword's range could reach me.
The extra took a large step forward and put strength into the arm holding the sword.
While pondering what trajectory his sword would draw, I retreated backward to secure proper distance and swung the whip.
Then the opponent threw himself to the side to dodge my whip.
'Next, he probably intends to advance diagonally and immediately swing his sword to attack me.'
Recalling that impression, I maintained the Thought Acceleration Skill and altered the whip's trajectory using Purple Ether to match the opponent's movement.
This time, the purpose wasn't attack, so I didn't care whether the power decreased or not.
Although my head was throbbing, I had to endure it.
Just as I intended, the whip wrapped around the extra's sword.
Then the opponent stopped with a jolt.
Is he perhaps agonizing over how to deal with this situation?
There is no reason for me to wait until the opponent finds an answer.
Thus, I kicked off the ground and sprang forward to close the distance from my side. While rotating the wrist holding the handle, I wound the whip around my hand to shorten its overall length.
As I did so, I extended my empty left hand forward, and the end of the whip remaining after wrapping around the sword slipped into my grip.
An obvious statement, but I moved it by manipulating the Purple Ether.
As I pulled the ends of the whip with both hands, making it taut, and pushed forward, the extra also put strength into the arm holding the sword.
It must have been to avoid the unfortunate event of cutting himself on his own sword.
No matter how much I increased my physical strength with buffs, I had no intention of engaging in a contest of strength.
If the opponent made a wind arrow and fired it while doing that, only I would get hurt.
So I quickly kicked the opponent's leg, and while he stumbled, I sharply pulled back the arm I had been pushing forward with and retreated a couple of steps.
Since he was already in a state where his balance had collapsed, the extra fell forward and lost his sword.
I snatched the sword's hilt with my left hand and stepped on his shoulder so he couldn't get up again.
In that state, I aimed the sharp tip of the sword at the opponent.
"Match ends! Student Karvaldr wins!"
Simultaneously with ending the Thought Acceleration Skill, I heard the host's voice announcing my victory.
