Daimon raised an eyebrow feeling the other part of the confrontation putting more strength, what was more surprising was that he was actually feeling the pressure, although he was restraining his strength, none of them was using battle aura… in other words, the girl that was clashing with him head on, has an innately strong body.
A glint of surprise flashed through the eyes of girl, then an excited expression of competition appeared on her face, she stopped the clash and returned to her previous stance, this time a metallic silver glow covered her hand.
“Metal affinity”, mumbled Daimon, but he accepted the challenge as currents of electricity crackled on his hand.
“Ahem, that’s enough”, Boris which was watching from the sides noticed both parts were starting to get serious so he interfered before things got out of hand.
However, his words seemed to be ignored, the girl nodded at Daimon and both of them flashed frontwards, the sound of metal colliding echoed through the classroom as their claws clashed against each other.
Even then none of them stepped back, the clash continued for about another minute until the girl suddenly retracted her hand, taking Daimon by surprise, he was enjoying letting loose his physical strength, when the opposition suddenly disappeared
His body lost its balance and moved frontwards against his control, which made him softly snort, he stomped with his right foot, redirecting the momentum towards the ground and recovering his stance.
And that wasn’t all, the claws of his left hand ended a few millimeters away from her neck, only then he stopped as he gazed at Calvin.
“I guess she is the one that wants the spot for the second years, right?”.
Calvin sighed; but his face had surprise written all over it, he scratched the back of his head as he answered.
“Sorry class rep, don’t take it personal, she is like this with everyone”.
Michael who was sitting near the door and now had his hair messed up due to the shockwave, yelled at Calvin.
“God damn it Calvin, couldn’t you have told me she was going to do this beforehand; I should have expected it… a madman gets along with other psychos”.
Calvin simply shrugged, he also didn’t know this was going to happen, he only expected a clash of mana and battle aura, not a literal contest of raw strength.
‘Now that I think about it, I have never seen her testing her physical strength against anyone like that’.
Daimon slightly shook his head, although the first attack was a surprise one, it had no malicious intent behind, even if it would have landed, it would have not hit any vital spot and due to the trajectory, the claws wouldn’t have pierced his skin, at most the momentum would have made him step back.
Only now Daimon focused his attention on the girl that tested his strength a moment ago, she was rather tall being on par with Liz and Elaine, she had long messy dirty blonde hair which reached her middle back, her eyes had a honey like color, as for her get up she was wearing a white shirt and a black leather jacket, if anything Daimon thought she looked like a rebellious girl.
But what drew his attention more were her ears and tail; they were somewhat similar to the ones of the Jolbaris but different at the same time.
‘Werecat, no her tail is more like the one of a… lioness, a variant?’, thought Daimon confused, there aren’t any lion families among the feline related beast races in the wonder myriad stellar chart.
The snow leopard clan also called Leeris family and the storm tiger clan in other words the Jolbaris family are the major feline races, there are others but apparently the records of their origins were lost in the ancient times, so they were all classified as “werecat”.
And as the name implies their ears or tails are similar to the ones of a cat, also werecats are physically weak but talented in mana, but this girl was clearly more similar to a lion and she is walking in the path of a knight.
The lion girl as Daimon baptized her in the meantime, hit Calvin’s shoulder as she laughed out loud.
“And here I thought you became a wuss for not getting the first rank”.
Calvin sobbed his shoulder, while thanking the heavens for his strong defense for preventing that hit from breaking his bones.
The lion girl then turned to see Daimon; she extended her hand offering a handshake, which Daimon accepted.
“You are Daimon right, I’m Aleah, you can consider me Calvin’s older sister, since I saved his ass more times than what I can count, when we were younger”.
Calvin bitterly smiled, back then he accepted to take her as her older sister after she saved him from some wild magic beasts, later he realized his life was never in danger since he had some life saving scrolls and other treasures.
But his father saw Aleah’s potential and took her in, surprisingly the girl which lived in the wilderness with no money nor family, surviving thanks to her own strength, refused to accept charity and instead asked for a job in the border patrol.
Anyway, Calvin used to hang around with her but their little adventures ended in fights against magic beasts… or other people.
“Aleah, your claws”, mumbled Calvin, she was too enthusiastic after meeting someone with a physical strength that could match up with her, to the point that she forgot to retract her claws.
“Oh, my bad”, she said, but then looking at Daimon’s hand which had no wound, she smiled showing her slightly larger canines.
Seeing that there was no wound in Daimon’s hand, Calvin let out a sigh of relief, remembering how he lost a layer of skin in a similar situation.
“She is a bit wild, but her strength is no joke, twenty-five years old and she is a peak five-star knight”, said Calvin, which earned him a glare from Aleah.
Boris felt his blood pressure rising with every second.
“Oi brats, one thing is ignoring me, but wasting the time of the class, maybe I need to ask the instructor to take you all to a little “nice trip” once again!”.
“If you don’t mind let’s have some spars later Daimon”, said Aleah as she excused herself.
Daimon nodded, he was also curious, without using battle aura Aleah was able to fight head on with him, being in the same rank as a knight as him.
To not make Boris suffer a stroke, everyone returned to their seats for the class to start, Aleah left as she wanted to stroll around the campus.
…
As soon as Aleah left the area where the 1-S classroom is, she looked at her hand, her black nails changed into claws, she then noticed there were slight scratching marks on them and an excited smiling expression appeared on her face scaring away the students that were about to hit on her.
‘Finally, someone that can match up to me without using any reinforcement!’, she yelled in her heart.
When Calvin told her he had changed his plan of rising from the tenth rank position to the first one in a single jump, she nearly beat him up.
But then to her surprise she saw that Calvin had genuine respect for the rumored “demon” of the elite class, which made her feel curious, what kind of person could earn the respect of someone like Calvin, who feigns to be a moron just because he is too lazy.
Remembering the gaze in Daimon’s eyes Aleah felt her fighting spirit rising, the first attack she did was to see whether he was like her… someone who has survived through a life and death situation.
Even then she purposedly stopped her attack to see what his reaction would be, and the result sealed the deal, in her eyes Daimon is someone with real experience combat, not like those young masters who had grown like flowers in a greenhouse.
Without noticing Aleah wandered until she was on the area designated for the third-year students.
“I guess, not all the descendants of high ranked families are herbivores, like I used to believe”, she concluded, only then she noticed she had no idea where she was right now.
Some of the students couldn’t help but frown, since Aleah wasn’t wearing a uniform nor anything from the academy, it was obvious she wasn’t a student, so they were insulted right in their faces in their own academy by a stranger.
“Hey you, herbivore, where is the public arena of the academy?”, she asked to a bull-headed man which was already angry, his eyes became bloodshot as she called him “herbivore”.
He took out his spear and pointed at the right where a tall building could be seen from afar.
“Follow me ruthless woman, let me Haraldian Faresh teach you some manners”.
Aleah snorted, but she followed him.
‘A little warm up before Daimon finishes his classes doesn’t sound that bad’.
Back at the 1-S classroom, Calvin was being stared by all his classmates, the girls specially, Aleah didn’t turn out to be as they expected, in their minds for Calvin to not show interest in a woman, they imagined someone from the races that have really “outstanding” characteristics, like the Faresh family.
But Aleah was way different to that, ignoring her unusual personality, she was quite beautiful and since she could stand up to Daimon, she was quite strong too.
Calvin understood what they were thinking, he looked at the clock in the wall of the classroom and inwardly sighed.
“It’s been five minutes since she left, if tutor Ogien can spare a moment, you’ll understand”.
Boris looked at Aliya and saw her nodding at him, her knowledge hungry self was interested in Aleah too, as she seems to be the only one of her race.
