Chapter 82: What’s With That Trinket?
Chapter 82: What’s With That Trinket?
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Watching the nervous face of the Voidwalkers, Baiyi remained composed. Don’t worry about her faith in me, guys. She’s not like all of you— she’s docile to a fault. When the time comes, she will use that hammerhead shark plushie.
"That’s hardly the point! You should have been more precise instead of being so vague!" The Scholar cried out in alarm as she watched the battle unfolding through Baiyi’s eyes. Vidomina was dishing out attacks after attacks onto poor Mia, and the girl could only stand there, encased in her protective shield.
"Can you please not dramatize everything? She chose those tactics on her own will, alright? The least you people can do is respect her choice and her way." Baiyi hardly felt bothered looking at how she was doing but instead, he saw a viable approach to winning. "As long as that lady doesn’t cast a Silence spell, Mia could go on dancing forever with her just by her mana supply alone."
Coincidentally, that was exactly the strategy Vidomina and the elder had devised. With the superiority of their arsenal serving as an advantage, they were sure that an attrition warfare would swing fates to their side. Plus, they still had a Silence Spell hidden in her hand…
The elder finally exhaled a breath of relief, a confident look appeared on his face as Vidomina unleashed blows after blows at the girl’s Pavise like the mean kid who wouldn’t stop spamming attacks in a video game match. Mana expenditure— Who cares?! That pink robe, her earrings, her belt and her Saint Quartz staff were all preloaded with mana restoration spells. As long as she stuck to first to third grade spells, Vidomina could do that all day.
There was no way that Mia girl would be able to withstand it for long with her mana. The elder was sure of it, because while they passed by each other, he had already investigated her. There was nothing outstanding about Mia’s mana reserve, and it certainly could not hope to rival Vidomina’s.
How did that girl fell to this state when her first few battles were flawless? He thought it might be a trap from Mia’s side! He even thought that the girl had more more hidden tricks up her sleeves and it sent him into a neurotic frenzy.
But now look at the battle again! Vidomina had gained complete control of the battle. Mia really had made some irreversible mistakes in her judgement.
Could it be that the first two moves she made were just… luck? In the sense that a stopped clock could also be correct about the time twice?
Unfortunately, it was not only the elder that was harboring that sentiment. The audience, including the students and the principal, who had been watching since the beginning, were all puzzling about the same thing. Maybe the reason why Mia could boldly ignore Silence Spell was just because… she forgot that the enemy could cast it.
"D-damn it! That transfer student’s way too overpowered! That poor thing!"
"She can’t take it any longer, can she? Uhhh, that lady still has that Silence spell in her hands, guys. If she unleashed it, it’s all over for the poor girl!"
"I swear, she’s just enjoying the thrill of beating up others who are less priviledged than she is, what a bitch! Why don’t you just finish it quickly and cut Mia some slack?"
"I know right! There’s just no fury stronger than jealousy. Especially when she is quite a looker too. She must have gotten jealous seeing how much cuter Mia is compared to her so this is her way to get even!"
Despite the heat of the battle, Vidomina could still pick up stray comments and words from the audience. Even if she was, by nature, calm, the sheer untruthfulness in their comments was enough to frustrate her. She felt wronged, it wasn't that she did not want to end the match quickly it was because she hadn’t found a way yet to win the battle quickly.
She watched her opponent more closely and was horrified at the casual, almost blank expression on Mia’s face, even though she was clearly trapped by Vidomina’s attack. She was just standing there, encased in Pavise and it seemed like she was waiting for something.
Discreet details like that could only be picked up by keen and alert eyes of participating combatants, that was why the audience had completely missed them. But that didn’t mean that Mia wasn’t showing an alarming amount of confidence and Vidomina was starting to panicked.
Sweat started forming on her forehead. She was sure that the girl was just sandbagging the whole time— Mia had a trick up her sleeves that could negate the Silence spell! If not a scroll, then it must be her equipments!
That’s why she’s engaging in this game of attrition!
The more Vidomina dwelled on that possibility, the more hesitant she became in using a Silence spell.
She had already exhausted much of her psychic energy by casting two fifth-grade magic. Even if she had a lot of mana to spare, the type of spells she could weave was limited. If Mia managed to deflect another one of her heavy-hitting spells, Vidomina would be done for.
Listen, Vidomina. Never use Silence if Gravitas had failed to erode your enemy’s armor defense. The spell has another purpose— it inspires guardedness; it inspires intimidation. And that sort of mental pressure may very well be the catalyst to them making that one grave error in judgment.
And that is when you seize the opportunity.
The elder’s words rang in Vidomina’s mind. It was perfectly valid, except for one tiny problem. How should one face someone who doesn’t even give a fart about Silence spell?
That very spell that would completely nab away any sorcerer’s ability to cast any form of spells—even scrolls!
Only a Dispel scroll and certain rare armors, could fight could counter a Silence spell. The elder did not believe that Mia, who possessed no indication of being well off, would possess something that exquisite.
Yet, the elder could not gauge how much importance Mia placed in the threat of a Silence spell. And it was that uncertainty that had prevented him from suggesting anything substantive to Vidomina at the moment.
But with no one there to help fill the gap, Vidomina started coming up with her own theories regarding the situation. She was of elite status, a girl from the upper class society, where most of her peers had always possessed rare items in their arsenal— and Silence spell-negating equipments were one of them.
So when her anxious brain was trying to come up with conjectures to explain Mia’s behavior, she thought that the girl was just confident because she possessed the same equipments and that the girl must have come from a background as prestigious as hers.
Plus, Mia’s previous two moves were too flawless. In Vidomina’s mind, that was the testament to her opponent’s hidden depth.
If Baiyi was to comment on those two, the word that he would used was "overthinking". Those two were the prime example of overthinking— they were both elites, and so naturally, their judgement of Mia’s strength was all filtered through their elite-colored shades. The truth was that Mia was just a plain Intermediate Level sorcerer, using only Intermediate Level strategies— and was woefully inexperienced, too!
Even if Baiyi had given Mia a toilet-roll length of suggestions, when people got lost in the melee, they would always go back to their familiar fighting styles. Mia was fooling those two into thinking her true capabilities were better than it seemed by being exactly as predictable as an inexperienced, so-so sorcerer.
Even the Explorer chuckled. "They really thought they are fighting you when it is just Mia fooling around!"
"Probably not helping their judgment was how with a fool’s luck, Mia had mitigated her two previous moves, plus the fact that she seemed to be pretty calm despite the situation," The Soul Armature Practitioner added, amused. "My question is... Why isn’t Mia worried at all?"
To be frank, Mia did start to panic once she realized that she couldn’t step out of her protective bubble. But before that could be seen on her face, Vidomina’s own set of anxiety had appeared on her face as she looked like a five-year-old who had just realized that she got lost in the mall.
And because of her infantile thinking, once Mia saw her opponent like that, she interpreted it as a sign that she had an edge over Vidomina, even if Mia herself could not pinpoint what it was exactly. It didn’t matter, because clearly she was giving her opponent a very hard time, plus the fact that Mr. Hope had told her before that she had more tremendous power within her. So maybe that was what Vidomina had realized after a hard fight— that if both of them were going to fight to see who had more power reserve, Vidomina wouldn’t be able to top her.
Mia had always been that naïve since the beginning— it was everyone else in the arena who had overanalyzed her motives. Everybody, except Baiyi, might have given her a tad bit too much credit.
"Gods! This is surely a fight of endurance! And both of them can really last!"
"Yeah, their staminas are seriously astounding!"
"That transfer student had been throwing scrolls like there's no tomorrow since just now. Is that a rich kid thing? Gotta hand it to Mia though, that little birdy countered all of it with Pavise!"
"She’s forcing her to waste all of her resources! That’s brilliant!"
"Oopsie! Looks like someone threw that scroll in the wrong direction!!! This is not going to end well for her, believe me. C’mon Mia, make the Academy great again!"
The entire situation has fallen way out of the elder’s calculations. Vidomina had spent at least half of her resources but none of those attacks had made a dent on Mia’s Pavise.
As she was frantically rummaging through what she had left, her hand touched the textile of the parchment where the Silence spell rest dormant. Her slender fingers closed around them— before letting it go.
She still didn’t dare to foolishly waste her trump card in an unpredictable situation.
But that slight moment of indecisiveness was enough.
To a mind as childlike as Mia’s, that was a resounding GO.
She removed her Pavise and started hitting back at what she perceived as the beginning of Vidomina losing fire.
"What the--?!" A surprised Vidomina couldn’t even finish her sentence before a thick, white, disgusting slime exploded right at the direction of her face—
She managed to conjure her own shield at the last millisecond before that white thing went SPLAT! onto the shield menacingly.
Wh-what stupid, vile, REVOLTING spell is THIS?! The girl’s face started turning red. It was like being hurled with feces in the middle of a football match! Now you’ve made me mad! You deserve what’s comi—
--GAWDS!
More slime puked out from her opponent’s direction in an unholy white torrent, slime building up on top of slime as the bottom layer slithered down the edge of the shield she had raised just in time. It was as if some pigeons had ate too much spicy food and had picked her to diarrhea on.
Truly, the move was too infantile. But it was the only move Mia could remember that was fast and, as Mr. Hope had told her, best at disrupting whatever the enemy was planning. So now that Vidomina was properly distracted, Mia planned to use an ice-based offense to quickly finish the match…
Unfortunately, Vidomina saw exactly what Mia was going to do despite the slime.
This brat— has the face of an angel but the heart of a harpy! There was nothing in Vidomina’s mind but fire and fury. She tossed her shield away, grabbed that one scroll, met a new torrent of white slime right on her face—
OH, THAT’S IT!!
She chucked Silence Spell right at her enemy.
There was silence in the arena as Mia was instantly muted.
That’s right! You forced me to fight dirty, you jerk! Vidomina shouted in her mind. White slime was flowing down her face and hair, her vision was obstructed and some was even dripping from her lips.
She was not going to spend time cleaning herself up before Mia regained her composure. She mustered her remaining psychic energy, she intended to wipe herself off using Mia instead—
That was when the muted girl stuffed her hands into her pouch and took out a hammerhead shark plushie.