Chelsea Honeycutt VS Lars Elwood

     One last, deep exhale. It was time to go all-out.

     Focus on the target. Reach it at all costs. One single mistake and it’s game over for me.

     With the wind at my back, I surged forward once again, moving through the arena like a wolf stalking its prey.

     “Hammer and NAIL!” Lars roared once more.

     Another volley of nails rained down on me, but by now, I had already memorized their trajectory. Dodging them had become second nature. In fact, the nails scattered across the battlefield were now working in my favor. By weaving between them, I used the stuck nails as shields against the new barrage, leveraging them as footholds to leap and launch myself straight toward Lars.

     I finally closed the distance and landed a blow. Still, it was useless—nothing more than shallow scratches against his heavy armor. On his end, Lars refused to yield under the pressure, relentlessly combining hammer strikes with nail bursts.

     Not to brag about being one of the fighters in the ring, but this was a true display of physical skill. In both speed and raw strength, the two of us were deadlocked in perfect balance, trading superficial blows like a choreography tailored for the crowd.

     Neither of us had noticed, but seven of the fifteen minutes had already ticked away. If things kept going at this rate, it would end in a draw.

     After slipping past another one of Lars’s heavy hammer swings, I took a few steps back and used one of the embedded nails as a springboard for a flawless leap. For only the second time in the match, I caught him completely off guard.

     Slicing through his plate armor was out of the question, so I aimed straight for the joint between his shoulder and forearm, seeking to sever the connection and disable his arm entirely. I spun my body to add momentum to the slash and delivered the hit.

     Clank-Tchak! My machete jammed hard into his pauldron.

     It wasn't deep enough... I had failed.

     “Heh! Nice try!” Lars raised an eyebrow, visibly impressed, though the victory smirk on his face gave it all away.

     I tried to yank the machete free, but realized it was a lost cause. It would take too long, and more importantly, I had to dodge his counterattack. On instinct, I kicked his fingers to break his grip on the weapon. It worked—he dropped the hammer to the floor—but luck wasn't on my side. He didn't need the hammer anymore.

     “Gwaah!” 

     A punch. Right to the pit of my stomach. The single blow knocked every last drop of air out of my lungs.

     A second punch followed. Then a third. A brutal barrage rained down from all angles. My vision began to blur, edging dangerously close to a blackout. My legs gave out, leaving me kneeling powerlessly before him.

     Is the duel still not over? It seemed that as long as I remained conscious, Ye Xian-sensei had no intention of stepping in.

     How foolish of me... even after all this humiliation, I still couldn't bring myself to surrender.

     “Ghhh!”

     Lars grabbed me by the neck and hoisted me off the ground effortlessly. With my feet dangling in the air, I truly began to suffocate. This wasn't a duel anymore—it was a public execution.

     “You gave me a bit of trouble. Not bad for a newbie,” that disgusting smirk returned to his face. “Now, tell everyone how you surrender to the almighty Lars!”

     “... What a joke! I’d rather choke to death than say a word of that!”

     “Have it your way, then.”

     “...”

     This was it. My end.

     Had I been too ambitious? Was my dream of becoming a legendary mage—despite my inability to properly read a grimoire—just a delusion? Was I simply too weak for a world where reading is the ultimate manifestation of power?

     The truth was cruel. It wasn't that I didn't try, or that I couldn't reach their level. I just... functioned a little differently.

     “Chelsea! Don’t give up!” A voice cut through the arena.

     Someone in the crowd was cheering for me. It was the girl who had tried to help me earlier. What was her name again? ...Right, Henrietta.

     “Yeah, beat his ass!” another girl beside her chimed in.

     “You can do it! Just be careful...” added a third girl standing with them.

     I hadn't noticed because I was hyper-focused on the fight, but I had actually won over a part of the audience. The majority were still cheering for Lars, but a few wanted to see an underdog miracle.

     It felt good. Having people root for you, even when the odds were stacked against you, sparked a fierce determination inside me.

     “Ugh... I have no intention of surrendering.”

     No. I won't surrender. I won't give up.

     I grabbed his wrist tightly and planted the tips of my toes against his waist to relieve the suspension. From there, I threw my weight backward, trying to off-balance him. Almost there... just a little more... That’s it! I finally found an opening to counter.

     His arm dropped just an inch, and in that split second, I whipped my legs over his arm, locking him into an armbar.

     “This is useless!” he grinned. “I still have the upper hand!”

     Not for long.

     Retracting my legs slightly, I aligned the soles of my feet with the machete still embedded in his shoulder armor—my right foot on the hilt, my left on the back of the blade.

     “Arghhh!” Lars screamed in pain.

     Putting all my leg strength into it, I stomped down, driving the machete deep into his shoulder pad. The blade finally cut into his flesh, and before long, blood began to flow from the wound.

     “You little bitch!” He used his free hand to grab my right leg, trying to stop the blade from advancing.

     “I’m not done with you yet!” I gripped his wrist even tighter. Armor or no armor, his body was still made of flesh and bone. The searing pain in his shoulder forced him to loosen his hold on my neck, giving me room to breathe.

     CRACK! ...The sharp sound echoed across the arena.

     “ARGHH!!!” Lars shrieked in sheer panic as the pain of a shattered wrist hit him.

     CRACK! CRACK!

     One by one, I snapped his fingers.

     “Enough of this!!!” In a frenzy of despair, he started thrashing his arms around, trying desperately to shake me off.

     Such a huge mistake.

     CRAAAAAK!

     Leveraging my body weight at the exact right moment, I put pressure on his elbow joint, snapping his arm completely in two.

     “UWAAAGHHHH! YOU CRAZY BITCH!” Lars’s right arm was utterly ruined.

     In a fit of rage, he swung his left hand and punched me square in the side, forcing me to let go. An excruciating pain flared up where he hit—the impact had likely broken a rib.

     Even though I struggled to stand, the tide had turned. Now it was Lars who was down on his knees, clutching his mangled arm and sniveling like a child.

     “Looks like you don’t plan on surrendering either, huh?”

     “Hell no! Of course not!” he spat, wiping away his tears as he dragged himself up.

     At first, I despised Lars for his obnoxious behavior and arrogant mouth. I still disliked him, but at least I had gained some respect for him as an opponent. He made me realize that being a mage didn't stop someone from being a frontline brawler—and that I didn't need to be ashamed of my own weaknesses. If one of the "most promising mages in the academy" was a meathead who charged headfirst into battle, what was stopping me from walking the same path?

     “You know, it’s not that I don’t have a grimoire, or that I don’t know how to use it.” I turned to face the crowd, reaching for the grimoire at my hip. “I just have trouble reading. The words get all jumbled up, so I specialized in using my mana flow for physical combat instead of spellcasting. But still... I want to overcome this and become a mage everyone will remember.”

     “..........”

     The crowd fell dead silent, staring at me in utter shock.

     It was Lars who broke the silence. “Is this some kind of sick joke? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? This is the Iron Lotus Academy! If you can't cut it, then get the hell out!”

     As painful as it was to hear, he was right.

     “...But if you’re not gonna quit, then show me what you’ve got! Go on, try using your magic!”

     Guess this bastard can actually act like a decent senior when he wants to.

     If that was how he wanted it, I’d give it my all! I flipped through my grimoire as fast as I could, searching for an enchantment that was easy to pronounce.

     "Let’s see... Not this one... Not this one either... Ah, this will do!"

     Honestly, I would have preferred to beat him with brute strength alone—and considering the state he was in, I already considered this a moral victory. But I didn't mind giving my grimoire a shot. After all, it was something I had to face eventually. Even a basic spell should be enough to wrap this up.

     “Bring forth the rain,THUNDERBOLT!”

     BOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!

     In the blink of an eye, a jagged bolt of lightning descended from the heavens, striking Lars dead center. With zero time to react and no way to escape, he was instantly knocked out.

     “What was that?!” “What just happened?!” The crowd began to mutter in disbelief.

     Truth be told, even I didn't know how to explain it. I glanced back at the grimoire to double-check. It wasn't Thunderbolt—it was Thunderball. It was supposed to be a simple spell, just a small ball of lightning hurled at the target, but I had ended up casting something completely different.

     "Looks like I mixed up the letters again..."

     Well, at least I managed to cast magic.

     “It's over! The winner of the grimoire duel by knockout is...” Ye Xian-sensei raised her arm, pointing directly at me. “Chelsea Honeycutt!”