Chapter 82. Coach Meets Master

Nicole looked cautiously around the gym, stopping once she noticed me, and smiling right after. I raised a hand in greeting and jumped off the arena since now there were a few other students who were moving up to it. I also saw a handful of people that were hurriedly walking over to the spots where cracks were left and using magic to fix the few bits and pieces that were destroyed.

As I was making my way to her, I could notice how she was nervously looking around the gym, clearly trying to identify who Reeta was.

“Shh! I’m not ready yet!” she hushedly exclaimed. “What if she kills me?!”

I raised an eyebrow, since I hadn’t said anything, but I quickly realized that she was probably answering something to Asteora. There was something else that caught my attention and it was that Nicole was armored and even wearing a red helmet that covered her head and the sides of her face.

“What are you doing?” I asked once I was closer to her. “What kind of helmet is that?”

“It’s boxing headgear that I begged my dad to lend me,” she said without looking at me, and seemingly trying to use me to block everyone’s view. “I’m trying to avoid being hit by the coach. I think that if she thinks that I have been here all along, she’s not going to try to test me.”

“You don’t have anything to be worried about. She matches her skills to the ones of the people that come in here, so you won’t get hurt,” I replied, turning around while beckoning her with my head. “Come on in.”

“Ugh…” she replied with a worried expression, taking careful and quiet steps into the gym.

However, as soon as she did, Reeta noticed her and suddenly moved to be behind me. “Well, lookie here, a new face comes into my gym.”

“Eek!” Nicole exclaimed, covering her face for a second and then scrambling into a fighting position.

“Hmm…” Reeta hummed as she considered Nicole for a moment. “Looks like not a lot… but there also seems to be something else… Hmmm…”

Without warning, Reeta suddenly rushed to Nicole, a fist raised and ready to slam her. The young girl screamed and scrambled backwards, but as soon as Reeta was a step away from her, a white barrier appeared, completely stopping Reeta, who crashed face first with it.

“What the—” she exclaimed, placing a hand on the barrier as she removed her face from it, looking at it up and down. “Well… this is…” she started, but trailed off as she looked at the surprised Nicole on the ground. “What?”

“Don’t you think it’s rude to attack someone else’s disciple without permission? Especially when said disciple doesn’t want to be attacked?” Asteora said, materializing in the air from her head first and ending by her feet, as if someone was drawing her.

Reeta took a step back, her eyes wide as she looked up to the expressionless Asteora. “You—you!”

With a wide grin, the surprise on Reeta’s face disappeared, and a magical pressure unlike anything that she had ever showed so far filled the area, causing vibrations in the air that were stronger near where she was standing.

I was forced to empower my body once more to not be pressured down by it, but the people in the gym all around Reeta who weren’t inside the arena were forced to drop whatever they had in hand as they kneeled and held their chests, cold sweat pouring from their bodies.

For some reason, the arena’s barrier was raised, and the people inside were spared from the pressure.

“You are that big shot that’s been spotted in the city,” Reeta said, pointing a finger that emanated heat from it, just like the rest of her body. “A lot of people might ignore who you were in the past, but I still remember that you’re the most important companion of the long gone Hero.”

“Hm… and why does that matter now?” Asteora said, completely calm, but curious about Reeta’s actions.

“It matters because I had set myself in my youth to punch in the middle of their face the most powerful person in the world. Right now, I can’t punch the Hero, as she’s dead, but you’re the next best thing, and I won’t miss the chance now that I have it!” Reeta exclaimed, lowering her body to get in a running-start position.

“Hmph,” Asteora scoffed, completely unconcerned about the pressure that Reeta was emanating. “You may try, but I don’t need to see your stats to know that you won’t be able to reach me.”

“Can’t know if I don’t try,” Reeta said in return.

“Eh? Eh?” Nicole exclaimed, confusedly looking between Reeta, Asteora, and me.

It seems like the barrier that Asteora had raised was also keeping Reeta’s aura away… However, as for keeping the actual wolf-woman away…

With a booming rush, Reeta disappeared from her spot, and with as much of a powerful boom, her claw-like nails struck the barrier. The people around the gym fell to the ground from the shockwave of the impact, and the arena’s barrier shook.

Despite the power with which it was struck, Asteora’s barrier stood as if nothing had struck it. But that did not deter Reeta from striking it, hitting it a couple of times, with just as much power as she did the first time, and stopping only to try to claw her way into the barrier.

Her claw-like nails slid right off the barrier, not leaving a scratch on it.

In a fit of apparent anger, the magical pressure was raised once more, and the people in the gym started falling unconscious to the ground. I realized that it could be dangerous if she continued, so I raised a Darkness and Hellfire Barrier of mine with what little power I had left, trying to cover as much as possible, and lessening the burden on the people who were being crushed by Reeta’s magical pressure.

“Wolf-woman, this is not the right place for this,” Asteora leisurely replied, completely unconcerned about the banging on the white barrier.

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“Anyone that walks into my gym gets tested!” Reeta shouted in response.

Her fists were wrapped in a mix of fire and lightning as she hit the barrier. The ground under her started cracking, and the air around her emitted a wave of both magic and heat. However, even with the power that she was directing on the barrier, it wouldn’t crack; it would even shake.

Asteora sighed. “Wolf-woman, that’s enough. You’re causing more damage than necessary, and if I were to retaliate, you would be shamed in front of your pupils.”

Reeta seemed to not be paying attention to her words as she simply growled and kept going.

I felt the necessity to jump in there and stop her, but I knew I didn’t have the power to do so when just a few minutes ago Reeta had managed to beat me down, so if I were to try something, she could hurt me badly—if not kill me. The best we could do was wait for her to give up, or have Asteora subdue her.

As if hearing what I was thinking, Reeta suddenly stopped, heavily heaving while she looked at the white barrier that stood undamaged with a carefree Asteora and an absolutely terrified Nicole on the other side.

“Finally realized the difference?” Asteora asked, with a serious tone, not mocking but rather sounding as if she was stating a fact.

Reeta shook her head harshly, lifting her hands up in the air and condensing more magic into her hands. I felt a powerful spell being created and I felt panic fill me. On one hand, because I didn’t know that spell, and on the other one, it was gathering far too much power and the damage—or even dead people that could result from that—were going to be large.

“Reeta!” I shouted, but the woman didn’t seem to be listening. I urgently looked over to Asteora. “You must stop her!” Asteora didn’t pay attention to me as she simply watched the gathering of magic, so I turned to the remaining people in the gym as I moved to empower my barrier even more. “Take cover, quickly!”

The people inside the gym scrambled in a panic to look for a place, while the people trapped inside the arena’s barrier moved as far back from our position as they could.

Reeta’s spell quickly formed. It was a purple orb no larger than her fists with black lightning running all over it. It was a small orb, but it had a very condensed amount of power.

Right after it was formed, things in the gym were suddenly dragged over to where Reeta was, first it was light things, like towels or bottles, and then it was the weights and equipment that were dragged to her.

“Let's see if you can withstand this!” Reeta shouted, swinging her spell to the barrier.

I worried if I could stop even the aftershock of such a powerful spell with my barrier when just a while ago Reeta was able to break mine with pure strength, but there was nothing more that I could do as I poured as much as I could into my own barrier.

I braced for the worst as the spell approached the barrier, but Asteora pointed a finger at the spell, and it stopped just half a step away from the barrier. Reeta tried her best to push the spell forward, but it wouldn’t budge.

“I think that’s enough,” Asteora said, and the spell started shrinking.

Reeta poured more magic into it, but regardless of how much mana she infused, the purple ball got smaller and smaller, until eventually, it burst into a tiny flash of purple light. The objects in the gym stopped moving, and Reeta fell to one knee, after which her magic pressure slowly disappeared, bringing the whole area back to normal.

“Haha…!” she forcefully laughed, heaving heavily. “I guess—I guess I still have a long way to go, huh.”

“That you do,” Asteora replied, finally bringing down the white barrier.

I matched her action and brought mine down too, reabsorbing as much of the Darkness and Hellfire Power that I used to create it as I deeply frowned. “That was far too reckless, Reeta.”

She shook her head as she tried to recover her breath. “It’s—it’s fine. I knew that she would be able to stop me. But—hah—I just wanted to see how far I could get.”

“Hm… and what would you have done if I hadn’t stopped it?” Asteora asked, floating down to the floor and walking over to Reeta.

Reeta forced herself to stand back up, grinning confidently as she looked down at Asteora. “Then I guess I would’ve faced the consequences.”

“Even more foolish than someone else I know,” Asteora replied, giving me a quick glance.

With a vigorous nod, Reeta laughed. “I just can’t help myself.” She turned to Nicole. “And this is supposed to be your new disciple? Like a new Hero or something like that?”

“Not at all a new Hero. Just someone special that deserves special attention,” Asteora said, half-turning her body to look at Nicole.

Nicole quickly stood back up, fixing the headgear that she had accidentally moved as she covered herself a moment ago. “Hello! I’m Nicole Lain and I came here to train!”

Reeta looked at Nicole closely once more, leaning her body forward slightly as she looked at the girl from top to bottom once more. Nicole backed away one step with a terrified expression on her face, but still looked ahead at Reeta with a wry smile.

“Well… I can’t test you right now because of your… teacher… but just from looking at you, I can’t tell what’s so special about you. Tell me,” Reeta said, leaning back once more and placing her hands on her hips.

“Yes! I can only do fire magic, ma’am!” Nicole quickly replied.

“Eh… you sure you ain’t just bad at—”

“Nope! Asteora and Althea said so themselves! I’m a Fire Deviant!” she interrupted, quickly shutting down the question that most people threw about her magic.

“A Fire Deviant, huh…” Reeta said, thoughtfully looking at Nicole, before throwing her hands to the side in a shrug. “Never heard of that.”

“A rarity for sure,” Asteora said, “I wasn’t too keen on having her come to train her body here since she can only use fire, but after thinking about it carefully, I’d agree on Althea’s assessment that it would be good for her. However, since I’m no master for close combat, I hope that you can teach her properly.”

Reeta gave a half-grin, raised a fist and slapped the muscle of her arm. “Don’t you worry. I’ll make sure to shape her into a proper beast!”

“U-um… then I hope I’ll be able to keep up,” Nicole said with a worried tone.

“We should start right away!” Reeta said, turning to look over the people who were warily looking at us from the arena, and pointing a finger at them. “Get to it!”

“Right away!” Nicole shouted and clumsily ran to the arena, where Victoria was looking at her with an anxious look.

“Are you going to be watching?” Reeta asked with a glance at Asteora.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?” she replied, disappearing as if she had never been there.

I couldn’t help but feel weird seeing her do that so often, since in the past we would almost always walk out in the open, trying to display my radiance as much as we could to both the people of the empire and my enemies; be it to inspire or intimidate—depending on who one asked.

“Well, not like it’s going to change the training,” Reeta said in the direction of where Asteora had been, before turning to look at me. “You are free to do whatever you want. I already saw what I wanted to see, and I think you’re doing fantastic. Keep it up.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I replied and walked over to where David and a passed out Steven stood, somewhere close to the arena as Reeta jumped back there as well.

“You’ve changed quite a lot,” he said with an impressed face as he wiped the cold sweat from the side of his face. “But I must say…” he turned to look at Nicole. “I didn’t expect Nicole to be under the SSS Rank Mage.”

“Yes. It was quite surprising indeed,” I said with a nod.

“But… I ain’t planning to be left behind!” he exclaimed, giving me a confident smile as he shook Steven awake. “Let's go train.”

“Huh…? What…?” Steven replied, seemingly lost about what happened.

“Get up, Mister Hero. You can’t be passing out like that if you want to become strong,” David said, dragging him from the neck of Steven’s shirt. “No time to waste!”

Without waiting for me to respond, he turned and hurried over to a machine. I looked at Nicole and Victoria in the arena being drilled by Reeta, who was teaching them the fundamentals of combat, and finally, with a soft smile, I followed after David and Steven. There was still much training to do before I could beat Reeta, and time shall not be wasted.