Chapter 120 Disappearance [1]
Along with the referee and Enen, the students sitting in the audience were also in awe. And it was understandable. After all, Zero had just literally cut through Enen's sword and divided the blade in half.
No one had seen a move like that before and truly it was amusing enough to revive the hope in class 1B that had once been lost. The score between class B and class A was class A with 7 wins and class B with 3.
Class B hadn't entirely lost the chance to outshine class A here; there were still some aces hiding in the cover no one knew about. Just like Zero, until now no one knew who he was or that he even existed. The students who did were probably his seatmates or had seen him in the class once or twice.
But now, as well as class B the rest of the students who were watching the match—whether it be first years, second years, or other senior students—had registered an image of him in their minds.
Though the senior students were to forget him soon enough, he had gotten the attention of the first-year students—especially class A whose student he beat.
Now, why did Zero—who wanted to stay in the shadows—did something like this which was bound to attract attention to him? There was a specific reason for that.
Here in this match, he wanted everything to go the same as it went in loli_pop's novel. And in the novel, he won against Enen, but that was because the Zero in the novel—Anya's actual brother, was able to use magiken like the other students. Plus, he won because there it was convenient for the plot.
However, here in the real world, our Zero isn't able to wield magiken—an important thing to beat Enen. He would've won without that if he tried but then the method of his victory was sure to stray from the original plot.
It might've caused something to change later on which he wanted to avoid at all cost. After all, if the plot changed then the method of his death could also change, and if it happened in a way he didn't expect then his death was set in stone.
That's why he experimented and after many tries, finally found a way to replace magiken without actually replacing it.
He used elemental magic and heated his sword until it turned white hot, at the same time using ice element to prevent it from melting instantly and to not himself get burned by the heat it'll emit.
Doing this gave him a sword that looked like magiken—since the blade was glowing white—but it was not magiken. Because it looked like magiken and Zero also screamed "magiken" before attacking, Enen and everyone else thought he was really using it thus getting the same outcome as the novel.
Screaming "magiken" also helped him to get Enen off guard as he prepared to defend against a magiken-driven strike, he never thought it would be a burning hot sword that'll slice through his blade.
Via this method Zero won the match while winning it in the same way as the original Zero did in the novel. Now there was little to no chance of the plot changing.
***
The match was over and now I was heading back. Fortunately, Enen reacted exactly the same way as he did in the novel after losing. I doubted that cutting his blade might change something but it didn't happen.
Since I didn't have a sword to submit back to the weaponry room—since I melted it, I was going back empty-handed.
Entering the corridor I saw that the staff member from before wasn't there, probably he'd gone to escort another student to the weaponry room. I was alone but that was fine.
As I walked forward in the dull corridor and pulled out a test tube from my pocket, opening its cap I emptied the yellow-colored substance inside the tube into my mouth and then threw the glass tube to the ground.
As I took a few steps forward I made sure to burn the tube with elemental face—fire and leave nothing behind.
I was moving forward in the empty corridor and only the sound of my footsteps was audible. Soon I passed the weaponry room, I didn't look inside but the room was quiet so I figured that the staff guy hadn't arrived yet.
Though after a few minutes I sensed a presence out of nowhere, the next moment someone grabbed me from behind. Holding both my arms they folded them behind my back and then forced me down to the floor.
The force that person was applying was too much, it felt as if a person with a fairly built body was holding me down.
Right now I was lying on the ground face-down and that person was sitting on top of my back while folding my hands and holding them with my own. And then-
'Does it hurt? I…guess it does. Yes, it does for sure. This is my first time, isn't it? Experiencing something like this…though it is not what I imagined it would be…it is like a tingling feeling. No wait, now I'm starting to feel hot, it's hot, I'm not kidding. This is really, really hot. Ah fuck, the heat is increasing! This is nothing I've felt before, the heat is too hot even hotter than the time when I accidentally burned myself. Something is coming out, is that my blood? I guess it is…'
There was this unimaginable pain I was currently feeling, well, it was only to be expected. The person who was holding me down had stabbed me in the back.
From what I could tell the wound was not too deep but enough to make my blood spill out, though a fair amount of time had passed. Before something else could happen I gulped down the liquid I was keeping in my mouth for all this time—which I drank from the test tube.
I closed my eyes and let loose my body, relaxed my muscles, and started breathing slowly. When the person examined my body and was sure that I was not going to move, he released me from his grip and stood up.
After that, I felt as if that person was picking me up and then carrying me over his shoulder as he walked.