Me? Human? : Chapter 46 : Freaky Ice Doll..... (Patreon)

Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters appearing in High School DXD or the Anime or the manga whatsoever.

Nephilim Institute

–Motohama Kenji–

“Hai! That’s enough!”

He looked at Lavinia, who pouted at him, but her eyes were sharp, keeping close watch over his movements. Tobia stood up, but still remained hunched over, which meant that even with the shadow patch that softened the blow a bit, it still hurt him enough. He supposed that Tobio was, in the end, a human and did not have the innate durability required to take even a glance from his full power blow.

The spear was really something, alright. He wondered just how his subconscious mind manifested it. An amped up reinforcement spell imbued into a Spear, which he could summon at will, despite having no Sacred Gear or pocket space to store it. The spear was just made up of light that he could summon and shape into whatever, but somehow, he had a switch to summon that specific clump of light that could instantly double his stats.

Speaking of which, he dispelled the spear to reduce the tension in the air, but did not dispel the Armour, as he still hadn’t fought Lavinia yet. He was curious as to what she–

He watched as Lavinia cast a spell on Tobio, who looked defiant in the face of the spell but had no way to defend against it as he was teleported away, likely to some kind of medical bay, leaving him alone with Lavinia in the combat hall.

Lavinia then turned around, her entire face having been changed, making him grin a bit at the upcoming fight as he was pretty sure that Lavinia had a high tier Sacred Gear. Maybe even a Longinus so–

“Alright, that’s enough!” Azazel appeared in between them, his hands raised to ward both of them off. 

Lavinia instantly relaxed, so he dispelled the armour as well. Azazel lowered his hands but looked at him with a complicated look in his eyes before replying, “You are really one odd ball, aren't you?”

“What?”

Azazel did not reply to his question as he dismissed Lavinia before turning to him, “Your mother is waiting for you. We will talk about this later on. You have your first regular classes tomorrow. Make sure you are on time.”

Saying so, Azazel disappeared as well, leaving him behind in an empty hall full of multiple craters, and oddly enough, no exhaustion as well.

It would seem that he needed to go through a lot to actually exhaust himself now. Even during the fight with Tobio, he could feel his power adapting to the shadow projectiles that Tobio and Jin both sent at him, but he didn’t feel the emptiness he felt whenever he adapted to something even a little bit powerful.

Sighing, he walked out of the combat hall and walked up to the elevator before taking the elevator to the ground floor, like the pleb that he was. He really needed to learn some magic, preferably the support kind, so that his life would become a bit easier. Otherwise, he might just get stuck like the only non magical fighter in the Grigori, surrounded by people who used magic for their every need.

Also, a smile came to his face when he thought of showing off seemingly mundane magic to his mom, like heating water or summoning water or fire just as a trick.

Speaking of mom, she was worried sick when he reached home, as he was late by a grand total of 25 minutes, a cardinal sin in her opinion.

___xx__

The next day, he was back in the academy. Only this time, there were no Sacred Gears to fight or Cadre to fight or talk directly to Azazel. Damn, even before taking his first official lecture, he had met and fought a lot of bigwigs, huh?

Unfortunately, this lecture was an actual lecture, not a combat application or some in the field study. It was the classic branches, whiteboard, and a teacher with a pen of some sort in his hand.

It was funny. Even with something as versatile and powerful as magic, they still used regular whiteboards and proper notebooks with pencils. When asked about it, his teacher, a four-winged Fallen, told him that they figured out years ago that writing with your own hands made more sense than just seeing something on a magical construct.

Huh, he wondered how long it would take regular humans to get to that point.

Either way, he was at his first lecture, and shockingly, it was only him present. When asked about it, he was told that he was the only new student to take the class. That shocked him as he stood up and all but demanded an explanation about Asia and the total lack of communication between them.

The Fallen Angel had been terrified, but he immediately babbled what he knew, and that was that Asia was enrolled in the healer class and they had an entirely separate building wing dedicated to healers specifically. Apparently, Nephilim had a medical division that healed everyone, for an appropriate amount of money, of course. It was also very demanding, and the students there were sometimes locked up inside the building for weeks on end, with no exit in sight.

That increased his concern a bit, but he let his teacher go, resolving to ask someone about it later on. Someone with the authority to do something about it, instead of accosting someone who could not do anything about it. After all, he was a Four Winged Fallen, one of the lowest.

“So, as I was saying, we are here to learn about the applications of a specifically curated team, much like the current Combat class does have, under the leadership of Baraqiel, for different situations.” And then, the teacher continued to drone on about a team formation, under a Cadre, something that was not going to be useful for him at all.

After all, within a span of two months, he had now grown strong enough to matcha  Cadre. There was also zero chance that Azazel was going to put him on some team. He was probably about to become a one-man unit, and he preferred it that way. It might also be that he was being too arrogant, having not seen active combat outside of the encounters with Raynare and then Freed. Aside from those two, he had never been in a fight with real danger to his life.

He should be looking to rectify that soon enough.

___xx___

He was back in the combat hall, this time only with Lavinia, who had summoned a weird looking Ice Doll, with six eyes on one side and thorns on the other, with four really thin, malnourished looking arms.

Either way, he was wary about the Sacred Gear, as with its mere appearance, it had dropped the temperature inside the hall, making his breath fog. Summoning his Light Armour, he felt a bit better, as he summoned his spear to—

He had to leap back, jumping back with all his might as the Ice Doll moved and, with it, brought a veritable avalanche of ice that drowned out his entire vision. The ice hadn’t even touched him, and he was feeling cold inside the Light Armour. As he reached the other end of the combat hall, the ice finally made contact with his feet, and instantly, he could feel his feet freezing, even through the Light Armour.

Gritting his teeth as the ice continued to increase, forcing him to get a little creative and use his hands to get the ice off the Armour, but even then, the ice continued to spread from his foot to the rest of his body. It was relentless, and he did not have a single ability that could generate heat. No spell to do that as well.

More than the cold itself, it was the effect it had on his movement. He could feel himself slowing down, his legs being a beat too late to respond, as all he could do was jump about. After about a dozen jumps, he felt his lower body go numb, the ice now having increased to blanket the entire combat hall, and his entire Armour, save for his face because he was constantly removing the ice from the area using his hands.

Thankfully, Lavinia hadn’t used any combat moves or moved in to box him in, so he had the room to carefully mold the Light Armour on his body to shrug off the ice on the outer layer, and then retain the inner layer. 

That worked, for a bit, as it only addressed the ice on the outside of the Light Armour, not the one that was already inside.

Making matters worse, he could feel his power getting into action, but now he had no floor to jump onto. The ice had already covered the entire flooring and was now slowly spreading from the sides.

What was the plan here? Drown him in ice and hope he suffocates?

Well, while that was a possibility, it would only succeed if his power was not already working to adapt to—

He winced as he had to jump away from a particularly sharp icicle, only for his right foot to make contact with the ice below, shattering the Light Armour around his leg when he jumped back up to the ceiling. Reforming the shattered part was quite easy, but the problem remained.

The ice was now cold enough to shatter his Light Armour, and that was a cause for concern. 

Deciding to go all out, he summoned his Spear and just dove straight in, the bottom of the spear aimed at the floor, ready to create a big boom and hope he did not make matters worse by spreading the ice everywhere and doing Lavinia’s job for her.

Unfortunately, his doubt was answered promptly, but it came in the form of an ice dragon, headed straight to him with two very wide jaws with very sharp teeth.

As the jaws of the Ice Dragon closed around his airborne form, he had to admit it.

Lavinia had one hell of a Dangerous Sacred Gear.

One moment, he was admiring her strength, the next, he had shattered the Ice Dragon with his spear and was jumping out, his body no longer numb as his power adapted to it by making him a human furnace. The dragon’s shattered remains turned into sharp projectiles that began battering him from all sides. Fortunately, his Light Armour held, but that was the least of his concerns right now.

The buzzing sense he had since the beginning? The one that told him about magical activity around him in the form of a sound?

Well, let’s just say that it was ringing like a siren right now, and the worst thing was that he couldn't tell the direction. It was as if everywhere around him was a magical bomb, waiting to explode.

That couldn’t be good.