Chapter 40.1: The Magician’s Weakness

“Kuhahahaha!!! Hey, you, take a good look at this too───, …huh?”

When Kevin turned his gaze to the rear—wondering just how miserable the expression must be on the face of the one who had reduced that cherished dagger to splinters—he found, for some reason, an unfamiliar male student standing there.

“Who are you…? You,”

Kevin, who had been laughing merrily only moments before, suddenly lost his smile as if all amusement had drained from him.

“! …Hey, look at that!”

As if having noticed something, Dominik pointed at the man’s feet—or rather, at Elliot, who was crouching by the man’s feet.

“Hmm…? Ah!? Isn’t that that little runt’s dagger!!”

Then, Marco, turning his eyes in the direction Dominik indicated, exclaimed in astonishment.

“………”

Kevin also looked that way, confirming that it was indeed the dagger he had just shattered into pieces.

“………Hey, Class C Gray Line. Could it be that you were behind this?”

With an insinuation of “if that were the case──”, Kevin fixed an enemy-laden gaze on the man.

However,

“Hey, you all,”

the man, without answering Kevin’s inquiry, continued unilaterally.

“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but… do you intend to grovel and apologize to this guy?”

The man glanced toward Elliot for a moment before once again fixing his eyes on Kevin and the others.

“Ha? Buhahahaha!” “Are you out of your mind or what?”

In response, Marco and Dominik burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of the question.

“Ha, I was wondering what you’d say next…”

Kevin, standing between the two, snorted lightly.

“There’s no way I’m apologizing to a guy like that…!!”

As if deliberately provoking the man, he wore a contemptibly lewd smile.

In response, the Class C male student said,

“……I’m glad you said that,”

smiling thinly in apparent relief,

—and then, immediately after,

“Honestly, I couldn’t calm down until I beat you all up…”

In an instant, the man’s expression transformed completely. From his temples to his forehead, his veins bulged as if they might burst, and his handsome eyes became shockingly bloodshot.

“!!”

With eyes filled with hair-raising, terrible anger, Marco and Dominik trembled slightly.

Then, the Class C male student slowly began walking toward Kevin and the others.

“Oh, oh, that’s brave.”

As the man, exuding an anger so intense it distorted the surrounding scenery, approached, Kevin let out an exaggeratedly admiring remark.

“Cool, really cool, Class C Gray Line. But hey… it’s fine to act like a hero and try to look cool, but idiots who don’t know their place are just asking for trouble, you know?”

Threateningly, Kevin deployed a magic circle toward the man.

The man knew that the red stripe on the uniforms worn by Kevin and his companions signified their A-Class affiliation, and the vast difference in ability between them was obvious.

Even so, the man—despite Kevin’s magic circle—remained completely unfazed, clenching his bulging fist as he advanced in a straight line.

Seeing this, Kevin furrowed his brow and clicked his tongue in irritation.

“You idiot!! A Class C nobody like you can’t even lay a finger on me!!!”

Roaring, Kevin unleashed a spell at the man who continued advancing.

“Thunderbolt!”

The spell was the basic lightning-attribute attack magic, “Thunderbolt.” Though simple, its power can be adjusted to render an opponent unconscious without causing severe injury, making it widely used in situations requiring force, such as subduing rioters or de-escalating violent brawls. However, aside from its ability to incapacitate without serious harm, its speed is its most outstanding attribute. Even if used by a mediocre magician, its speed far surpasses that of a released arrow. Kevin had cast it from less than two meters away—a high-speed strike that was undoubtedly impossible to block or evade.

Kevin vividly envisioned “Thunderbolt” hitting the man directly, causing him to collapse on the spot.

However───,

the spell Kevin had unleashed passed—through—the steadily advancing man.

“Wha…!?”

In reaction to that shocking scene, Kevin’s eyes widened in astonishment, and in the next moment,

“────Huh!!!?”

The distance between them should have still been just under one meter, yet as if time had been frozen, the man’s right fist was already embedding itself into Kevin’s face.

“Gua…!!!”

“!?”

Kevin, who had his face struck so forcefully that it sent him flying, staggered backward. Marco and Dominik, who witnessed it up close, were greatly shaken and instinctively stepped back.

“Kuh…!!!”

Kevin quickly tried to sit up and glare at the man, but the impact of the punch left him with a slight concussion that blurred his vision and distorted his expression in pain.

The man, giving Kevin a sharp look, said provocatively,

“What was it… about a single finger?”

“────Hah!!!!!!!!!”

Upon hearing that, a look of intense anger appeared on Kevin’s face.

“You… bastard!!”

Marco, still reeling from the shock of the previous events, regained his composure and impulsively raised his fist.

Marco swung his fist at the man before him, but his wide, untrained punch—having no martial arts experience—was easily anticipated by the man.

The man slipped beneath the trajectory of Marco’s punch and, in one swift motion, grabbed the shoulder area of Marco’s uniform with both hands, pulling him in and delivering a powerful knee strike to his abdomen.

“Guee…!!!”

Crushed by a blow that felt as if his organs were being squeezed, Marco’s eyes went wide in agony as he let out a pained cry and collapsed, his knees buckling on the spot.

“Kuh, you…!!!”

With panic and anger plainly evident, Dominik immediately lunged at the man from behind.

Just as Dominik’s arms reached to seize the man’s body, the man—who had certainly been right in front of him—vanished from his sight.

In Dominik’s momentum-fueled, empty-handed state, a voice came from his rear-right.

“Hey, over here.”

“!!!”

When Dominik swiftly turned toward the voice, he saw something rapidly approaching.

“Guwa!!”

Before he could even react, Dominik had a sharp, slicing kick slammed against his side.

With overwhelming force, Dominik was swept aside by the kick and sent flying, collapsing onto the ground.

Kevin, Marco, and Dominik each groaned in pain.

In just an instant, the three A-Class magic students—high-ranking second-year students—were brought to their knees by a single C-Class magic student.

Despite the overwhelming gap in power, the primary reason for this turn of events lay in the inherent weakness of magicians when it came to close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat.

Every magician has their own strengths and weaknesses in magic to varying degrees, but there is one area in which nearly all magicians are universally weak.

That type of magic is “Body Enhancement Magic.”

Body Enhancement Magic literally alters and enhances the body through magic, yet most magicians are inherently incompatible with it; even those born into highly gifted magical families find it difficult to significantly strengthen their bodies.

Conversely, those who excel at Body Enhancement Magic often lack proficiency in other forms of magic and are typically from lineages of knights or warriors who use close-combat weapons.

Rarely, there are exceptions like Alphonse Freed who can master both types of magic, but these are outliers, and Kevin and his comrades, like most magicians, are weak in Body Enhancement Magic.

Thus, magicians cover this weakness by employing offensive and defensive spells that keep them out of close-quarters combat, rather than training their bodies or learning martial arts.

However, this time, it backfired.

The result of Kevin and his comrades being drawn into a hand-to-hand fight they were completely unprepared for was that they were overwhelmingly dominated by a C-Class student—clearly their inferior in magic.

“You lot, who relentlessly beat up those weaker than yourselves and trample on what’s important, would never understand…”

The man said quietly, his voice laden with anger.

“I’ll make you understand—the pain of others.”

With that, the man clenched his fist once again and began walking toward Kevin.

“Kuh…!! You punk, don’t get cocky!!!!”

Kevin stood up and, with clear malice, unleashed a more powerful lightning spell at the man than before.

But, however.

“Damn it!!! Why isn’t it hitting!!!”

As expected, the spell passed right through the man.

“Kuh…!!”

Kevin, who had cast several similar spells at the steadily advancing man, was concerned about him closing the distance again, so he once created a wall of rock with magic right in front of him.

While the wall was holding the man back, Kevin attempted to retreat while keeping his gaze fixed forward, but something touched the back of his head, hindering his movement.

“!!”

In the moment Kevin recognized that he had been—grabbed—by a hand, his forehead was slammed into the wall he had created.

“Gugah!!”

The impact cut off the magical energy feeding the rock wall, causing it to crumble into sand.

“…Raa!!”

With his eyes bloodshot from pain and anger, Kevin swung a reverse punch forcefully toward his rear.

But the man immediately lowered his stance and easily dodged it.

Then, using his right hand to deliver a reverse punch, he simultaneously drove an upward left hook into the gap that had opened in Kevin’s right side.

“Ugh…!!!”

With a sound like “mishiri,” a powerful impact struck Kevin’s liver.