SRS 153

The purified divine beast of the Mirror Temple, having regained his original power, had indeed learned how to copy his opponent’s abilities from the time he spent with the doppelgängers. Or was it more than just copying? If the target was a being of lower status than himself, he enhanced the copied ability by one level before unleashing it.

It was a nightmare for the students, who had to fight a divine beast that copied their own abilities and used them more effectively and powerfully than they could.

“Aaaaargh!”

“Save me!”

“No, just kill me!”

After a brief moment of hesitation, the first-years of the West Tower, who had bravely charged in under Suhyeok and Kylus’s urging only to be defeated, screamed while pinned under the divine beast’s paw. Yohan was horrified to see his friends fail to last even five minutes against him. No matter how much he and the rest of Room 304 had sat out of the battle, he hadn’t expected this. If it hadn’t been for Suhyeok’s suggestion to step back and observe to gauge their friends’ current levels, he might have never realized just how much they lacked.

“…Everyone, let’s stop joking around and try to be serious.”

However, Yohan believed in his friends’ potential. They were, after all, people who had survived three months in Fantasiademia alongside him. Hoping that they weren’t so weak as to be unable to handle even this, he watched as his friends, faces flushed with shame, began to stammer.

“R-right… It’s just because we were joking around.”

“It’ll be different if we fight seriously…!”

“It was just because it was our first time and we were nervous…!”

Suhyeok frowned at the students’ reactions.

“I can’t watch this.”

Kylus turned his head away, ignoring the desperate yet pathetic sight of his friends. Suhyeok silently agreed.

Yohan stroked the divine beast and requested another mock battle. The divine beast was starting to find it tedious, but he did not refuse the request of his savior.

“Grrr!”

“Aack!”

“You crazy beast, that’s my magic! That’s my magic!”

“Argh!”

“What kind of divine beast uses mental control…!”

And five minutes later. Exactly one minute longer than the previous battle, his friends were wiped out again. Finally realizing that this was reality, Yohan’s jaw dropped as he looked dejectedly at the students sprawled across the ground.

Seeing Yohan’s expression as he looked Read ondown at them from atop the divine beast, the first-years slowly turned their heads to hide their faces.

“It’s… It’s because we didn’t have orders!”

Melek suddenly shouted. Then, those who shared a room with Melek nodded. Only Isaac, who blushed with a timid face, was the exception.

“We’ve always followed your orders! If we suddenly have to fight that strong divine beast on our own, of course we’d panic and fail to show our true skills! If it were a monster weaker than that, we would’ve fought well too!”

As Melek huffed in protest, the other students began to agree. Yohan reflected on the events of the past.

Ah, certainly.

Whether it was the hydra, the phoenix, or the previous large-scale invasion of dimensional monsters… In battles where the scale was great or the enemy formidable, Yohan and his friends had always taken the lead. They hadn’t intervened in minor battles because their friends could handle them on their own, or because Yohan himself was fighting elsewhere.

Judging it to be a valid point, Yohan looked at Suhyeok.

“…If it’s just giving orders, well, that’s not hard.”

Suhyeok understood his intention. He scratched his head, and stepped forward. The West Tower students looked at him as if he were their savior.

A short while later, the students’ battle began again, now with Suhyeok as their commander.

Perhaps the divine beast was a bit annoyed by the third repeated battle, as he faced the first-years with a fiercer momentum than before. However, the West Tower students’ response was excellent now that they were assigned a commander.

“Everyone, be careful not to break the formation while capturing the divine beast! Those who get hit and go down, pull back and fill the gap. Priests, only get the patients back into fighting condition and deploy them immediately!”

They were hit by the divine beast’s tail, fainted from their own reflected attacks, and fell, yet they strictly maintained the encirclement. Consequently, for the first time, the divine beast showcased his own physical prowess rather than just copying abilities.

Thump!

As the divine beast of the Mirror Temple stamped his paw, the ground vibrated. With the ground shaking, the students standing upon it naturally lost their balance. With the formation disrupted as a natural consequence, the divine beast aimed for the weakness and swung his tail.

“Argh!”

“Ugh!”

“Guh!”

With one sweep of his tail, the students fell like stalks of rice. Suhyeok facepalmed.

“Next time, I should place the tanks throughout the rows so they can deflect it. …Sorry, Yohan. It doesn’t look like I was much help.”

“No. Once you started commanding, everyone’s movements definitely changed. I think they’ve gained courage too.”

Yohan praised his apologetic friend and briefly expressed his gratitude. The other first-years were indeed the type whose efficiency [visit our site]increased when they had a commander.

If they had more time, he would have trained them to fight independently without a commander, but there was now less than a week left until the group evaluation. For the sake of the upcoming Friday, he had to be satisfied with turning his friends into excellent soldiers, even if it was a bit disappointing.

“Ugh… I think my arm is broken…”

“Ahh! My b-bone…! It’s sticking out…!”

“Priest! Priest! Nerzilla’s internal organs burst over here! Help!”

“…Hmm.”

Making them fight three consecutive battles was indeed too cruel for his friends. His battered friends had suffered injuries that the few healing mages, priests, and saints in the West Tower could not handle alone.

“Mikael, can you help a little?”

Yohan said as he climbed down from the divine beast’s head. Mikael, who held Yohan’s hand and assisted him with magic so he could descend safely from the divine beast, readily agreed.

The two moved among their ragged friends and used magic and divine power to heal them.

“Thank you, Yohan…!”

“Ugh… Thanks, Mikael, I’ll definitely repay this debt…!”

The students’ wounds healed. Since none of them had suffered injuries serious enough that they couldn’t be healed with magic or divine power, there was no reason for it to take long.

It was just that there were many of them, but both Mikael’s Mana and Yohan’s divine power were far more abundant than their peers’, using their abilities consecutively was no burden.

When the treatment was finished, the priests expressed their gratitude. Yohan shook his head and looked back at his friends.

In order for them to engage in training without getting exhausted, their overall physical abilities needed to improve. Yohan closed his eyes and prayed.

‘O God….’

As he whispered, Yohan’s divine power spread into the sky like starlight and descended upon his friends. As the divine power, which sparkled like crystals, was absorbed into their bodies, their depleted stamina was replenished in an instant.

“Ooooh…!”

Those whose condition had been boosted looked at the sky in admiration.

“…Hey, doesn’t it seem that Yohan grew even stronger than when he enrolled?”

“He is stronger than he was during the large-scale monster raid just the other day…”

The priests and saints whispered among themselves as they watched Yohan bestow a blessing of such magnitude over such a wide range. Yohan, who hadn’t noticed because he was focused on the blessing, also didn’t know that he had ​stolen content​come to be called a “Descendant of God” among the users of divine power.

“Then, everyone, let’s train again.”

Yohan cheered his friends on with a smile once he finished blessing them.

“…….”

The West Tower students, who had momentarily lost themselves in the wondrous sight while their bodies and minds recovered, looked at Yohan with dark expressions as if they had never been healed. As the saying goes, you can’t spit on a smiling face; they couldn’t bring themselves to say anything to Yohan, who was doing his best to help them.

“Grrr!”

In the end, another battle began.

‎ The training for the West Tower students that day only ended under Mikael’s intervention after they had completed twenty mock battles.

***

“…Hehehe.”

“Hahaha!”

“…I’ve waited for this day.”

Friday, the day of the dormitory group evaluation. The students from other towers stared at the West Tower friends who were marching forward with grim determination while laughing like vengeful ghosts returned from hell. Because Suhyeok, Kylus, and Mikael had told the other students not to let it be known that they were training, the other towers only guessed that the West Tower was plotting something, but did not know exactly what they had done.

The West Tower students, who had stubbornly kept the secret for fear that word of their training would make their mock battles with the divine beast even more grueling, shed a few tears as they recalled the past week.

Just the mock battles they had fought against the divine beast for that day exceeded 120. From the third day onwards, the divine beast had intentionally trampled them and used his abilities just so he could go home early, making it a hellish time.

Recalling the past, they looked fearfully at the four students walking in front of them, specifically at Yohan’s back. It was terrifying how he would appear everytime they felt like they couldn’t go on to heal all their wounds, and push them to fight again with a benevolent smile. In just one week, Yohan had been engraved as the most frightening existence in the West Tower. It was unfair to Yohan, who had done nothing but sincerely cheer for and treat his friends.

As everyone gathered before Professor Homern, who served as the judge for this evaluation, Suhyeok nudged Yohan and whispered something. At that, Yohan’s eyes widened, and he lowered his voice with a shy expression.

“…In front of everyone?”

Suhyeok nodded. Upon seeing that reaction, which suggested it was only natural, Yohan glanced at his friends and the professor before turning around.

He slowly opened his mouth as he looked at the West Tower students standing in formation.

“Roll… roll left…!”

Yohan closed his eyes and shouted, feeling embarrassed and shy about giving such commands in front of the other students. Then, thinking he should see his friends listening to the instructions, he hurried to open his eyes.

Roll, roll.

The friends, standing in five columns, nimbly rolled to the left and stood up. As their speed was perfectly synchronized, exclamations erupted from the students of other towers.

Suhyeok nudged him again. Yohan suppressed his embarrassment once more and commanded.

“Roll right…!”

Roll, roll.

The students quickly rolled to the right and stood up. After that, Yohan gave instructions such as “Hit the deck,” “Get up,” “Jump,” “Turn around,” and “Run in place,” and looked upon his perfectly synchronized friends with pride.

As expected, the past training wasn’t in vain!

When he turned around, Professor Homern, who had his arms crossed, was looking at Yohan with a surprised expression.

“Yohan Herse. I heard the rumors that even if you lack talent as a tamer, your other talents are extraordinary… but have you finally decided to rule the tower?”

“…….”

Yohan lowered his head in embarrassment.