A Natural Talent or Something Else?

After Alfyr had walked to each student group and handed out combat technique he started patrolling the arena and looking for opportunities to help the students who needed it.

Caxon made sure to make a few noticeable but tiny mistakes and at one-point Alfyr came over to correct him but when he did so he looked at Caxon once again in a strange way but didn't say anything as he walked away and helped other students.

'Is it possible that Alarat told him about me and he knows I am hiding my skill? I showed much better swordsmen ship to Alarat out of necessity but he shouldn't have been able to share that with the school and exposed me already, right?"

'I believe that teacher expected more from you because of the way you reacted to him when you first walked in. Anybody your age who can stare down death like that would be special. There is also the fact that, although you couldn't react before he got behind you, your body still moved more than an unskilled student should have so he probably expected more. I think you should continue the plan of being a lazy kid who had to life a tough life as an adventurer and now wants to rest while learning peacefully and everything should be fine.'

Caxon agreed with Amon and continued to swing his sword around halfheartedly as he had been before.

After a few hours of training in their perspective weapons Alfyr announced that he wanted the students to fight someone with a different weapon to expose them to a range of situations. Caxon was suspicious however since as Alfyr was explaining his eyes seemed to linger on Caxon more than they should have.

"Ok let's have you with the spear against a swordsman what about uhhh you go against him, be careful we aren't trying to kill anyone here remember."

Unsurprising to Caxon he was chosen after Alfyr "debated" which swordman should fight the spear user. However, he ignored this obvious ploy as he went to the elevated platform nearby designed for sparring and prepared to face off against the spear user.

As he stood across from the spear user, he simply held his sword to the side as though he didn't want to be here and waited for the fight to begin.

"Begin!"

"I forfeit."

Not only Alfyr but every single student was confused, as soon as the match began Caxon dropped his sword and forfeit the match. The spear user who had just started their charge looked at the teacher in confusion since he didn't know what to do.

"Huh, very well, let's have different sword user up there then."

Alfyr sighed before he called another sword user up to fight while ignoring Caxon. This fighting went on with everyone fighting at least once except for Caxon.

Caxon simply acted like he was lazily watching every fight while he was really trying to pick up some tricks on the other weapons. That was until Williams fight while he completely ignored the student wielding two daggers and watched William's every movement.

Since the very beginning of class Caxon had watched him and it had only proven that his suspicions were not unfounded. Willam was in every sense of the word a genius. When they first picked up a sword it was clear that he had never been taught to wield one and it was possible he had never even held one.

This already seemed highly suspicious but as he continued watching only more warning signs appeared. Before Alfyr had even finished handing out techniques they had the basics nearly perfected. As Alfyr started correcting students William listened closely and used his own mistakes along with others to improve twice as quickly.

Before Caxon's very eyes William started to learn the advanced details of the book and make corrections in flaws that weren't even described within the technique's book.

He wasn't sure if this insane skilled showed he was a participant or not since he made no effort to hide it. Was it possible for a participant to care so little about hiding themselves as to show their full talent? Or was this the best possible way to feign ignorance in the competition between reincarnators since it meant you had no attempt to hide anything?

Caxon's head started spinning in circles as the infinite loop of reversing the reverse psychology took ahold of him. Luckily Caxon had time to calm down as he watched other students spar and now, he was calm as he watched William go onto the stage.

William trembled as he stood across from the other student with his sword shaking. Once again Caxon didn't know if he was over acting or if he just had no idea that his sword skills were good enough to decimate the student across from him.

"Begin!"

At the start of the spar the dagger user rushed towards William who was desperately trying to calm himself.

As the twin daggers approached William, he skillfully blocked both attacks but instead of taking the wide-open attack that had presented itself he backed away as fast as he could. The dagger user not realizing how out matched he was approached once again.

Once again William's still shaking sword was able to block both attacks but it seemed as though William himself was completely unable to attack his opponent.

'Could it be a Hyper defense skill, or maybe it is a force field that he is skillfully disguising as his sword?'

Caxon ran through any special ability that could explain the reason William was acting the way he was. Although he didn't want to Caxon was slowly opening himself to the possibility that William was not a participant and that he was simply a scared little boy who held all the skill but not the mindset to put it to use.

Alfyr eventually called off the spar saying it was a draw, the students booed William as they thought he was the loser. It seemed as though very few students were able to see that even during this fight William had gotten more skilled at blocking and he could have ended this fight instantly if he wanted to.

After this a few more students demanded rematches or challenged specific people with Alfyr humoring them while reminding them that this was just for learning and they shouldn't develop any animosity between themselves because of it.

At the end of it all Alfyr dismissed the class while keeping Caxon behind, although William also wanted to stay Caxon told him that he would meet him in their room and he finally left.

As soon as the door closed Alfyr started talking to Caxon.

"Tell me, what is your name?"

"My name is Caxon sir."

"Then tell me Caxon how is it.."

As he said this Alfyr once again dashed with incredible speed and stood in front of Caxon with a sword to his neck.

"That are you so calm in this moment?"

Before Caxon could even react, the sword was already at his throat although he knew that it posed no real threat to him from the look of the teacher.

He sighed before he answered the teacher in a lazy manner.

"haah...Listen I have met enough creatures and people who have truly wanted to kill me and I can tell that you don't. I don't want any trouble if this is about me forfeiting then I won't do it again can I go to my room now?"

"Haha, I do not care that you gave up your match, I simply want to know why you did it."

Caxon stopped for a second to think of Alfyr's question before he breathed in and once again sighed.

"Because what's the point, this school is a joke, you seem to be the only one who cares to actually teach. There are no grades, if I beat him, I would gain nothing, if he beat me, he would gain nothing. It was clear he wasn't going to learn anything from me if I actually fought him. I would rather save my energy and take a nap instead."

At this Alfyr nodded in understanding before he smiled.

"I see so you are just lazy I suppose that makes sense, I wonder what happens when your logic breaks down and you can actually gain something from your opponent. Maybe I should pair you against your young roommate and see if you still stick by your words."

Caxon did not respond as he simply frowned at Alfyr, he felt that it was probably safer to avoid fighting William just in case he was not as simple as he seemed, and although he had already committed to his story, he didn't really like being called lazy.

"No need to give me such a vicious glare geez, if you don't like that this school isn't teaching you then how about I fix that... what if I told you, I could get you into the royal academy. I promise you those teachers wouldn't dare slack off since your classmates would include children from the royal family itself."

Caxon once again said nothing as his frown only deepened.

"Ok, ok I guess not, but still there is something to gain from this school, as I am sure you know in two weeks there will be a small ranking tournament and I highly suggest you place in the top ten since the benefits for it are very real.

"Why would the academy give commoners like us a prize that is actually worth something."

Now it was Alfyr's turn to frown as he prepared himself to explain the academy's structure to Caxon.