24. The Misunderstanding That I Hid My Strength

When Rokser subtly left his seat.

“Ahhh-! Rika-!! How can this be!!”

Struggling with the shock, Erin wailed, hugging Rika.

She was complaining to Rika like a puppy grieving its sad incident.

And for a good reason, she was the youngest daughter of the third largest guild in the alliance.

She secretly studied and researched to meet the expectations of her flying older siblings and parents, she even poured coffee, stayed up late, and tried all kinds of efforts.

“I studied so hard and I haven’t even finished solving everything!!”

And she got defeated by a pervert who always played, ate, and stalked.

Not only had he finished all the problems when she hadn’t solved half of the problems yet.

“Why does he always solve everything so quickly and get all the answers right-!!”

He solved all the questions perfectly like an answer sheet had popped up.

Erin asked Rika indignantly, “Can that always playful guy change like this?”

She was furious that all her efforts had evaporated with a few gestures of Rokser, and she couldn’t recover her senses.

The students around them were equally surprised.

“It’s unbelievable… He’s not even studying, how did he solve all this?”

“If it was once or twice, you might call it a fluke, but 30 times…”

Ricardo understood Erin’s lament from within his embrace.

But, there was one among them, wearing a knowing smile.

“Indeed, Roxy was always extraordinary. She had been concealing her strength all along!”

Believing in Roxy’s words, Jane clenched her fist, as though her own thoughts had been confirmed.

It made sense. Others may not know, but Jane had received insight on the jewel golems from Roxy.

This time, she was in a position to learn Roxy’s technique that was premiered during the villain’s expulsion.

Meanwhile, Roxy had been long gone from the scene.

“Who said something strange?”

She was pondering what to prepare for the practical test.

Being there would only cause turmoil, considering she made Erin cry.

So, she hastily jotted down that she is preparing for the practical test on a high-grade healing bandage with visible characters.

Camila, who discovered this, gave a tilt of the head towards the residual healing power within the special material.

“Roxy will be fine, right?”

She fell deep into thoughts about how to prepare for the practical examination while recalling the original work.

“The practical exam is comprised of fights against each other and monsters, and in the case of students’ rivalry, Awakens Academy is open from the outside…”

Meanwhile, Erin, whose eyes were swollen from crying secretly in bed, and who had a headache, was unable to extricate herself from the shock of defeat. All day long during the Academy’s class time, she frequently stole glances at Roxy.

“Why is she looking at me?”

Roxy was spending her afternoon theory supplement lessons staring off into empty space because it was the period before the Academy’s written exam.

“Sure enough, there are lots of articles about the Awakened who overcame the attack rather than the attack itself.”

Roxy had no further need to prepare for the written test.

She was web surfing on her laptop, visible only to her, to search for something.

The space was filled with stories of the students who had repelled the previous attack from the Disanord Guild.

Not surprisingly, most of the stories focused on Rika, Erin, and Jane who repelled the villains.

There were quite a few mentions of large guilds taking note of them.

Meanwhile, Roxy was the student who broke the core of the jewel golem and repelled the villain.

From noble mtl dot com

“No, who wrote the article with the title ‘Academy’s Last-Concealing Strength’?”

The provocative story of an Awakened hiding their power had been stirring plenty of gossip.

Roxy, out of curiosity, ventured into the ‘Black Web’—used for a multitude of dealings in the underbelly of society.

The Black Web was the shady underbelly of the internet, a lawless zone handling all sorts of information and requests.

The roots of this underground economy run deep.

It was like Pandora’s box, for even high-ranking individuals frequently used it.

“Fortunately, my original rank has been maintained…”

Thanks to her registration when she played the original game.

The ludicrous amount of points she had accumulated in the original game were all gone.

However, she still had her highest rank, ‘Dark Meter.’

Thanks to this, she could view most of the information and instructions she had subscribed to.

“…Sure enough, the news has already spread here.”

From the Academy and Guild Association to the villains and the kingpins of the underworld, they were all blatantly showing off.

The information dealers released the reason why the villains of the Disanord Guild attacked the Awakens Academy.

Considering that these pieces of information could not be purchased or viewed unless at the ‘Dark Meter’ level…

…it meant that there are a few who know, but they are high-ranking or strong individuals who know about it.

“I wonder how it will turn out.”

Roxy chuckled expectantly, wondering what sort of butterfly effect might come back around.

“…Hey, the Academy has ended. What are you doing by yourself?”

Erin, who had been debating whether to talk to Roxy throughout the day, timidly approached.

But for some reason, Erin’s eyes seemed slightly red and her face slightly swollen.

Gritting his teeth, doing his best to feign calm. Pretending nothing’s wrong, that he’s unhurt, that he didn’t cry last night.

“Did you cry?”

“I didn’t cry!!!”

To any observer, he looked like he’d spent the night alone, which made Rokseo break out in a cold sweat.

‘He isn’t planning to take revenge, is he?’

Eerin mumbled in front of a hesitant Rokseo.

With a defiant pout and arms crossed, Eerin looked up at Rokseo.

‘What the hell is happening!’

Who knew he’d been hiding such skills and only chose to show them now.

The fact that he’d been stalking girls until just recently hasn’t changed.

That’s why Eerin regarded the suspicious Rokseo with suspicion.

“You won’t compete, you need to prepare for practical training from today.”

Rokseo waved his hands as if telling Eerin, who was staring at him with fierce eyes, to go away.

“No, not that!”

Eerin looked sideways as if avoiding someone’s gaze, her face faltering.

“There was a wager, you know!”

“So what?”

“…! So what? You won 30 times in our wager…! So. So….”

She fidgeted, her face looking as if she’d lost everything in the world.

‘Well… Even if I’m living normally now, I’m worried because of the mess the previous Rokseo had left.’

Considering dismissing her although there’s nothing to gain, Rokseo noticed some punks glaring at him from the classroom door, as if waiting for Eerin.

‘I’m not sure which heroine or protagonist I know, or a heroine I don’t know, to attack first.’

A few familiar faces were definitely corrupting gradually by making a pact with the devil after midterm or accepting magic through the dark route.

“You turn on location sharing to me.”

“What!?”

Recognizing that it would be convenient to track even the children he knew, Rokseo threw out bait.

‘Did it look strange?’

Eerin went white as Rokseo pulled out his smartphone.

“I’m not planning on stalking, there is a reason for this. You’ll know when the time comes. Just tell me if you don’t want to.”

Recalling Rokseo’s track record, he seemed to begin regretting his words, but he was met with an unexpected response from Eerin.

“I’ll, I’ll give you! But it includes saving me too!? And the 30 times you won!”

She thrust her smartphone towards him, approaching as if testing him.

Eerin didn’t entertain acknowledging Rokseo, but she was curious on another level.

What does he want with her location after he sunset his stalking activity and lost interest in her?

After all, she had a promise with him, and she didn’t want to remain as a bastard breaking the promise with one live girl, as the youngest daughter of a large guild.

“If you really stalk me with it…!”

But she looked at Rokseo with a nervous expression, probably due to his record.

“Then what?”

“Then I will bite you!!”

Like a puppy growling in warning, Eerin let out a roar- and breathed fire from her mouth.

They shared their location through an exclusive app for live girls and then Eerin marched off pompously.

Rokseo shifted his gaze from the live girls walking away to his laptop.

“All of a sudden, why are you sharing your location?”

This time, seemingly out of nowhere, Rika popped up next to him.

Out of nowhere, like a mob with beautiful eyes in the horror-ero game, she appeared.

Behind her calm expression, all sorts of doubts sparked sharply with a chill jealousy.

After a few days, Locke had become accustomed to this and his heart rate didn’t skyrocket anymore.

“There’s something like this. I’ll explain later, can you share it with me too?”

Locke gently pushed back in his chair and rotated it.

He faced her direction and clicked on his smartphone.

The location sharing via the smartphone was a kind of bait.

The reality was that he discovered while looking up ‘Reptile Wetlands,’ which was a hunting ground that he was planning to visit for practical preparation.

It was a new ability related to vision, made of purplish spider webs.

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The absorbed part of ◆”Time-Space Manipulation (時空造作)” has grown, enabling you to project to specific locations. You can specify a space and detect specific changes.

This was an ability to remotely monitor and detect changes.

He planned to cast a net like a spider and wait through this ability, to see if ‘magic energy’ approaches the girls.

It might look a bit strange to appear in front of them out of nowhere, even if by coincidence.

“Alright, I understand. You must have a reason.”

Rika, who had no way of knowing this, appeared less jealous, her plump face nodding in understanding.

As she pulled out her smartphone and pulled back her chair in front of Locke.

It seemed like once the jealous Rika sat down to share her location.

“Ri, Rika…?”

She had not really adjusted yet, and she attached herself to him with warmth from the touch of her back, acting as if she was in her place.

While casually glancing at Locke, she leaned against him as if it was natural.

“What are you doing? Share your location.”

Then Rika clicked her head as if she was genuinely puzzled.

He was already feeling uncomfortable being pressed by strange feelings these days.

Her firm yet elastic touch was quite dangerous.

She was lethal, acting as though nothing had happened and she was just sitting on a chair.

In particular, her natural expression, unlike her cheeky behavior, almost made his heart race.

“Is it a bit uncomfortable…?”

Whether she was doing it on purpose or not, Rika’s body on him was undoubtedly lethal.

While still attached to him, she crossed her legs and provocatively grazed her buttocks on him. Her desires became more honest due to the addictive heartbeat.

It was no different from shaking a Triple A grade beef in front of a starved beast.

In front of a parched conqueror in a fort, it seemed like a vast kingdom was unfolding.

‘Should I really show her what’s real…? No, I’ve lost my mind…’

Just barely, Locke did not reach out to the jewel that was sparkling so temptingly in front of his eyes.

###

“Wow, this is no joke.”

He went into the guild alliance building to prepare for the practical evaluation, while sticking out his tongue.

Whether it was because of nearly 10,000 SP built up, or due to receiving an award.

The staff recognized me, not only the gate leading to the Galleus mountain range.

Now I could enter other gates as well.

Among them was ‘Reptile Wetlands’ that I examined.

I was pondering how to prepare for the practical evaluation of fighting with the saints.

‘If I fight with Lizard Men, who fight well with tools like humans, I can practice 1v1, and if I fight with Lizard King, I can also prepare for monster battles!’

So, I prepared for the practical examination and also made money and collected SP.

I took on a solo C-rank mission to hunt Lizard Men and a public D-rank mission to hunt the Lizard King.

“I wonder what the state of the Lizard Men is.”

Because of the extreme difficulty level.

Even in the hardest level of this work, goblins who were holding rusty weapons and making clumsy parties.

Gathered perfectly like mercenaries and formed a party of five.

The orcs that kept charging without reason applied paint according to a skilled PVP user.

I’ve always wondered how guys who used outstanding weapon skills like humans would be.

“It’s really the best for practicing real combat.”

I stepped into the gate, my heart fluttering.

Bluish things like fairies were circling around the plants in the bluish wetland.

A space that felt like I was in the Amazon, a sufficiently lush forest.

For some reason, it smelled like I was in a botanical garden.

The wind was not strong, and with the suit I was wearing, the environment seemed humid yet comfortable.

“Hmm, it seems they won’t show up right at the entrance.”

There were no lizardmen in sight, but I noticed injured individuals moving in and out of our base camp, possibly hurt during combat.

The difference in level stood out in fields where C-ranked solo missions were standard.

The power of the lizardmen was incredibly strong, their skill level had greatly increased.

“Ughh…! My wound!”

“Damn, they’re not to be underestimated, I was off guard.”

“I’ve heard rumors, but their skills are really brutal…”

From noble mtl dot com

Even those who seemed quite strong were bleeding and being treated as if they were defeated.

There were a few people in serious condition, creating a more solemn atmosphere than from when we overcame the Jewel Golem at the Mount Gallerus.

That is why I trained hard to enhance my skills and basic physical abilities.

No matter how strong I am, the outcome of a battle depends on the difference in skill.

Having a powerful ability doesn’t guarantee a win.

Just as I was looking around, wondering if I should lend a hand,

“Roxer??”

“…Camilla?”

An Unexpected character appeared.

For some reason, the girl who always nailed the theoretical problems in our research club was tending to the injured.

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