Second Draft - Reincarnated Into a Game in Impossible Mode

"40 points... The archers have used the situation very wisely! But they're still not completely unified. 315 people remain."

That slash had taken dozens more lives in the blink of an eye.

"Damn... I accidentally used both sword stances at once... Everything's been revealed." - Teacher Kenzo said with a somewhat sarcastic tone.

Whether revealed or not, the fact remained that he could eliminate hundreds of candidates with just one slash. That alone increased the difficulty of the challenge by hundreds of levels.

And that's not even mentioning that he had reduced his main stats to F rank. Meanwhile, some candidates here were already E-rank Awakened, meaning their raw power should theoretically overwhelm the teacher. But his technique and combat experience alone were enough to shatter any preconceptions about rankings.

Ryoshu touched the area around his right ear to check.

'W-where is it...?' - He began to panic when he couldn't feel his precious ear anymore.

When he raised his hand in front of his face, he saw fresh blood dripping onto the building's cement floor.

Only then did Ryoshu realize his ear had been sliced clean off.

He felt a terrible humiliation when he realized something:

'He deliberately missed me...' - Ryoshu felt his face burning with anger. His blood-covered hand clenched tightly while trembling.

The reason it was trembling wasn't because he was afraid. It was because he felt overwhelming disappointment in himself.

"Now my stats are too weak, so the power and number of times I can use the Kaminari sword technique have decreased significantly. You should take advantage of this weakness and charge forward before I have time to recover." - Kenzo began to feel bored with the new students' lack of initiative.

And his words only rubbed salt in Ryoshu's wound. He unconsciously bit his lower lip so hard it bled.

Before, when he was weak, Ryoshu had only one goal: survival. But once he became strong enough to fight a C-rank boss, his confidence had increased somewhat.

'I thought I could easily survive with all these useful skills.'

But when he encountered Kenzo, that half-baked confidence was completely shattered.

'I still haven't... gotten any stronger at all... I'm still just a weakling.'

While it was true that the teacher's main stats were still superior to his, Ryoshu didn't want to comfort himself with that fact when the road ahead was still thousands... no, millions of times more difficult.

'I need to try harder! I can't make such stupid mistakes anymore.' - Ryoshu remembered the fatal error of returning to the grave of the mother and baby rabbit.

If he hadn't gone there, he probably wouldn't have gotten involved with that Russian imperial prince.

If he hadn't gone there, he wouldn't have lost that useful system.

If he hadn't gone there, he wouldn't have been wanted with a bounty of half a billion RC.

'I'm just an unranked nobody. I'm disgustingly weak. I can't even save myself, let alone save this world...'

The more Ryoshu reflected, the more he realized how naive he still was:

'I need to map out each step and check for any flaws in the plan. Only then should I execute it as precisely as possible...'

He closed his eyes tightly while blood continued to flow. Ryoshu tried to internalize these life-changing lessons into his very bones.

'I... remember it now.' - He slowly opened his eyes and perceived the world from a different angle.

Suddenly, his worldview changed rapidly. Now he could sense everything, even the finest details or the sound of a drop of blood landing gently on the building floor.

Ryoshu clearly remembered the feeling of those lightning-fast sword strikes grazing past his ear.

'I know how to time my dodges now... I just hope he won't use skills to temporarily boost his stats.'

Normally, humans would need quite a long time to adapt to such things. But for someone with SS+ Adaptation stats, those things were nothing.

Ryoshu took less than a second to make it a part of his body. After getting used to this new sensation, he stood up and tried to bandage the bleeding part with some tattered clothes from inside his spatial ring.

'Though I adapt quickly... only these kinds of pains are impossible to get used to.' - Ryoshu tried to suppress his screams while tightening the bandage.

Now his face was completely covered, leaving only space to see and breathe. Fortunately, no one paid attention to the problems of an anonymous pawn like him. Especially when there was a formidable threat standing in front of them.

After waiting for a long time with no response, Kenzo said with a somewhat weary expression:

"If you don't do anything, I'll have to hunt you down one by one. At that point, there won't be any bonus points. Ineffective hiding will only counteract the power of numbers. The more I whittle down your forces, the more your chances of getting high scores will decrease."

Ryoshu was quietly going up to the next floor. And of course, as a habit from when he was in the forest full of Slimes, he didn't forget to turn off the Mana flow naturally entering his core. Even though only a few hundred people had been eliminated, he couldn't see anyone.

'These characters are hiding really well, huh? Whatever, now I need to get to the main characters... I think in the game, Esther said she had some plan that helped them earn enough points to enter Class A. I might get lucky with them too. Hahaha.'

Ryoshu rubbed his hands together with a nasty smile.

Suddenly, a familiar crackling sound appeared again.

"Kaminari Sword Technique, Second Stance."

Lightning from the sky shone down, illuminating a large space. And right after that, the lightning bolts gathered in one place with an ear-splitting sound.

"Lightning Tower."

This was the second time he used this ultimate move. But since Ryoshu had already seen him point the blade elsewhere, he was just waiting to see which unfortunate souls would be hit by that sword strike.

But this time, instead of a thin flat cut like before, this sword strike was crude and so large that it created a huge gap in the middle of the building where he was standing. The gap between the two sides was nearly ten meters long, making it very difficult for a normal person to jump across.

"20 points for knowing how to use the terrain. But some of you haven't completely hidden your obvious Mana flow, so it becomes a fatal weakness in your concealment."

"So I'll only give 10 points to those who revealed their Mana. Because I just need to use a wide-range technique in places with many people not hiding their Mana, and your formation will immediately fall apart. Now only 219 people remain."

'There must be a separate system to calculate points, right?' - Ryoshu felt curious, so he tallied up his own points.

'Let's see... 40 points for archery... and 20 points for hiding Mana. That's 60 points already! And Classes E, D, C will soon be filled. So at the very least, I have a chance to enter Class B... and if I'm lucky enough, I might even get into Class A!'

He felt proud of his abilities. But at the same time, Ryoshu became more cautious.

'But my goal is Class A-1... I need a safe number of points to enter the best class! And to do that, taking advantage of the main characters is the easiest thing.'

He immediately continued searching for the main cast. But he had to use a different path because of that huge gap.

'Damn... the stairs are on the other side of the building... if I jump across now, I'll reveal my position right away.'

But before Ryoshu completely turned back, he heard a weak moan from behind him.

"H-help me..."

He saw a hand gripping tightly to the floor that had been somewhat destroyed by the ridiculously strong teacher's sword technique.

Ryoshu immediately grabbed that hand instinctively. He tried to lift the body up before it was too late.

A honey-blonde head of hair appeared before his eyes. A balanced face with a perfect V-shaped chin. And meeting Ryoshu's gaze were those golden-brown eyes that looked somewhat world-weary.

'Ah... this guy is Charlotte's younger brother, right? I think his name is...'

"Alan Williams...?"

The boy didn't seem very surprised that someone knew his name. After all, he was a real prince, so having people know his name was all too normal for him. In the middle of the boy's chest was a rather deep wound bleeding profusely through his clothes.

Ryoshu felt a bit dizzy when he saw Alan's blood. But he couldn't reveal such an obvious weakness... because someone might exploit it later.

'Perhaps he fell from a higher floor, because if that teacher had struck him directly, he would have been done for.' - He thought about something else to divert his fear a little.

Seeing such a large wound, Ryoshu couldn't help but ask him:

"Are you okay?"

Alan suddenly froze and didn't answer. The atmosphere was quickly enveloped by a deadly silence.

'I think Alan is shy about talking to strangers, right? Or is it because I'm too ugly so he's scared?'

While thinking randomly, Alan's clear, distinctly British voice sounded in Ryoshu's ear:

"I'm fine. Thank you very much for helping me."

Those polite words seemed somewhat more social than sincere. And this wasn't just heard but could be understood just by looking at his cold, expressionless face.

'Alan's circumstances are also somewhat special, so that's quite understandable...'

Ryoshu didn't say anything more and just quietly stood up to leave before Teacher Kenzo discovered any movement here.

He looked out at the empty space and only saw another group of students who had appeared below with the teacher and were struggling to deal with that monstrously skilled swordsmanship.

Another familiar voice suddenly echoed behind him:

"Alan, are you alright?"

He instinctively turned back and saw a pretty girl with hair the same color as Alan's rushing towards him. And behind that girl were other familiar friends approaching.

'My luck isn't so bad, huh? Suddenly meeting the main characters right here.'

Very quickly, the room became crowded with the appearance of the male protagonist Haruki, the female protagonists Esther and Katia. Of course, including the Williams siblings as well.