Chapter 162

Chapter 162

At that moment, just as the students were catching a glimpse of a side of Demona they hadn’t known about(?),

Leap— crash—!!

“Good to see you! Class begins!”

Gulba shouted as he leaped and landed in a single bound from the training ground to where the students were gathered.

“Aaargh! It’s Professor Gulba!!”

Demona raised both her arms high and fled altogether.

—W-Was Professor Gulba in the warehouse too?!

—Should we run away too?

—B-But Professor Gulba is originally scary.

—That’s true…

Roan sighed as he listened to the students.

It was fortunate that Gulba was an innocent islander who knew nothing; otherwise, he would have been deeply hurt.

‘Although there is something that looks similar to Gulba, still.’

The ‘similar-looking’ thing was also used in Gulba’s class, but they probably wouldn’t see it for the time being.

One of the students asked Gulba.

—Did Professor Kaina not launch you today?

“Gulba! Remembered the way today! Do not forget in just a week!”

—Ooh!

The students admired Gulba’s brilliance.

‘It means he’ll forget once the vacation passes…’

And Roan lamented the students’ stupidity.

Anyway, Gulba said in a hearty voice as usual,

“What did we learn last week!”

—Is that a question?

“Truly do not know!”

—I guess it is a question…

A professor asking students about last week’s progress!

Even though last week was the very first week after admission.

“We learned defensive techniques.”

When Roan replied, Gulba burst into a hearty laugh.

“Defensive techniques? Remembered! Dark, demonstrated!”

“Yes.”

“Then this week, offensive techniques! Learning offensive techniques!”

At the seemingly highly impulsive class content, Hektor said,

“Isn’t that too haphazard?”

“Oh.”

“…Why are you impressed, Roan?”

Hektor asked with a highly suspicious expression.

For the sake of his friend, Roan did not say something like, ‘Don’t you live like that too?’

Instead, he nodded.

“It is haphazard indeed.”

“…”

The friends were lost for words at their conversation.

Whether it was the student making a rude remark to the professor, or the student admitting it as it was.

However, Roan’s words did not end there.

“Still, that’s the same for Professor Uli and Professor Timothy. It’s not something to blame only Professor Gulba for.”

“True.”

Gulba tended to look more haphazard due to his image.

In any case, there were many other professors who conducted classes in that manner.

At any rate, the other students seemed quite excited at the news of learning offensive techniques.

—They are learning offensive techniques! Offensive techniques!

—Wooah!

—Spurting red blood! Powerful strength!

Roan turned back to the students with a dumbfounded look.

‘Are those bastards really clergyman candidates behaving like that?’

Of course, there were aspiring paladins and heresy inquisitors, but most of them dreamed of becoming ordinary clergymen, which was far from that.

For those who claimed to serve Hiloa, whose primary teachings were love and tolerance, to prefer offense over defense.

But come to think of it, it wasn’t a day or two that things had been like this.

“Training equipment! Bringing it!”

Crash—!

With those words, Gulba leaped high and disappeared.

Gulba vanished in an instant.

The students each guessed what kind of training gear Gulba would bring.

—What will the professor bring?

—Well, isn’t it something like a scarecrow?

—You fool, there are plenty of scarecrows here too! It must be an evil black mage!

—Oh, that sounds plausible.

‘What about a black mage?’

As the black mage listening to this, Roan felt extremely displeased.

Of course, they did call black mages ‘training gear’ in Akerandir, but Gulba had not been exposed to imperial ways that much.

Besides, using a live black mage as training gear in an offensive technique class, wasn’t that too cruel!

…Of course, the only one among them who had actually beaten up a black mage was Roan.

Crash—

“Training gear! Brought it!”

A moment later, Gulba returned with barbell weights packed all over his arms.

—Aw, what. It’s just barbells?

The students seemed slightly disappointed, but putting that aside,

“Those aren’t just normal barbells, are they…?”

Sion said as she looked at the barbells Gulba dumped onto the ground.

Rumble—!!

Her point was accurate.

The thunderous sound when the barbells fell made the listeners instinctively shrink.

And people did not usually refer to something with rocks the size of a person attached to both ends as a barbell.

“Brought more!”

Clatter—

“Brought more!”

Clatter—

“Crash—!”

Clatter—

‘Something is strange…’

Gulba stopped only after bringing enough barbells for every single student.

Each time, a few students nearby fell over, unable to withstand the shockwave, but it was no big deal.

The students who had mentioned ordinary barbells also wore slightly pale expressions when they saw them piled up like a mountain.

Gulba laughed loudly and said,

“To do strong attack! Must be strong! Students, must lift this well!”

—Well, that’s certainly true, but…

The students seemed a bit skeptical.

Actually, it was only because the number was so vast; for students who grew up in paladin families,

—Don’t we see that sort of thing occasionally?

—Yeah. There was something like that in our family’s training grounds too.

A barbell like that was not shockingly surprising to them.

…Though it was strange to expect a shocking event to happen in every class anyway.

“Garland, can you do it?”

“Of course! Haha, it seems Professor Gulba looks down on us too much!”

Garland, who had been guarding Trian’s side, stepped forward confidently.

At the appearance of the bulky Garland, the surrounding students cheered.

—It’s Garland!

—Flatten Dark’s nose this time!

—Garland! Garland!

Excluding Hektor, since Roan and the other friends had relatively small builds, they needed to boost their morale in this kind of area.

—Trian! In that sense, you should obviously be able to lift it too!

“Uh…? Oh? Ah, right. I haven’t neglected my workouts either.”

But suddenly, the spark flew over to Trian as well.

‘I-I wasn’t trying to step forward because of Dark, though?’

It was just the competitive spirit unique to large boys, not that he was conscious of Roan.

In fact, it was the same for Garland next to him.

The two of them glanced at each other.

Unexpectedly, the matter had escalated rapidly.

Next, they also checked Roan’s reaction a short distance away.

As expected, Roan, with his gloomy and dangerous face, was watching them silently.

Trian and Garland swallowed hard as they looked at Roan.

‘Is he telling us to try if we can!’

‘H-He really looks like a great demon king.’

In their hearts, they wanted to back down even now, but.

Still, they couldn’t do that since they had already come this far, so Trian and Garland each stood before a barbell.

“Garland, y-you can still do it, right?”

“…Yes. Actually, I lift similar things when working out…”

Fortunately, seeing Gulba lifting several at once, they thought it might be manageable.

Grip—

It was the confidence befitting students who normally worked hard on strength training, but.

Silence—

“Uh, huh? What’s wrong with this?”

Trian and Garland broke into a cold sweat in panic when the barbells unexpectedly did not budge at all.

In fact, they usually managed to lift barbells of this size and weight.

But this time, it wouldn’t even move despite them putting their full weight into it.

Flash—

It was the same even when they reinforced the muscles of their entire bodies with holy power.

‘W-What kind of barbell…!’

When Trian and Garland failed despite straining so hard, the students buzzed.

—To think those two failed…

—What on earth did Professor Gulba bring?

Of course, since the two of them possessed their own talent, it wasn’t as if they gained absolutely nothing.

‘It doesn’t seem to be just because of the weight…’

They felt a strange resistance that could not be explained simply by weight.

Meanwhile,

Whoosh— whoosh—

“Bwahaha! Students are weak! Barbells are not heavy!”

—Aaargh! Professooor—!!

—We’re all going to die!

Gulba laughed heartily as if finding the students who couldn’t lift the barbells cute, and began wildly swinging one in a single hand.

“Wahahahaha——!!!!”

The surrounding students fled in terror, but Gulba’s laughter, which vibrated through the air, did not stop.

“Aaargh— Roan, save meee!!”

Among them, some students, like Demona, were caught in the wind pressure of the barbell and blown away.

[……! ……!!! ……!!!!]

Only after Gulba’s authority, Primitive Communion, materialized and threw a fit did the commotion finally end.

“S-Sorry! Are students weak enough to die from being hit by a barbell?!”

Gulba spoke as if he had merely swung a small wooden chopstick.

Roan replied, absolutely dumbfounded,

“Excuse me, but no matter how strong one is, they will die if hit by a barbell swung by the professor.”

A barbell itself is a threatening weapon if it can be swung, but the person swinging it was more important.

The barbell swung by Gulba, the Scourge of the Islands, was not just a weapon but on the level of military ordnance.

“Uwaaaah—!!!! I’m sorry!!! Did not know students were that weak——!!!”

Hearing Roan’s words, Gulba slumped onto the ground and wept like a child.

Gulba, contrary to his image, hated killing and violence extremely.

He was shocked to realize that someone could have died from an act that would be considered a light prank among islanders.

“R-Roan made the professor cry again!”

Demona, who had returned after being blown away, gasped in shock at the sight.

Roan ignored her, comforted Gulba saying it was fine, and straightened his hair which had been disheveled by the wind pressure.

“That is not a barbell you lift with brute strength.”

“Then?”

At that, the friends also showed interest.

“But didn’t those two utilize holy power as well? Even if the barbell is large, it shouldn’t be to that extent.”

In response to Hektor’s question, Roan nodded and continued his explanation.

“You can’t lift it just by blindly using holy power either.”

“S-Still, you don’t have to call it blind…”

Hektor seemed to feel hurt for some reason.

‘I guess he knows he’s simple.’

“Tsk, watch closely.”

Roan walked forward and grabbed a barbell.

The students buzzed as they saw that.

—Look at that! That Dark guy is trying to lift the barbell!

—Huh? Trian and Garland failed too, though?

—Even if Dark is good at using holy spells, his physical strength is mediocre, right?

The students naturally thought Roan would fail.

It was always the case, but standing before the giant barbell, Roan looked even further removed from someone who exerted physical strength.

However,

‘I must keep in mind that this class is an offensive technique class.’

Roan knew the secret hidden in this barbell.

No, in fact, even when he hadn’t known the secret, he hadn’t struggled like that.

Defense is a movement coming from the outside toward the inside.

Conversely, offense is a movement going from the inside toward the outside.

If so, one had to know how to actively change the way they moved their holy power accordingly.

‘Well, I suppose they are taking this class because they don’t know that.’

Roan lightly grabbed the barbell and channeled his black mana.

Rumble——

—H-He’s the great demon king…

—That guy, using dark attribute so unfairly!