Chapter 81: Kenji's Victory Bed!

Kenji's POV:

I was woken up from a ruckus happening outside. The last thing I could remember was falling on top of Aiko after barely eking out a victory. When I had closed in on my opponent, I hadn't completely dodged his attack, and he pierced my side causing me to lose consciousness soon after leaving the arena.

I was currently lying in the infirmary of the colosseum, with bandages wrapped around my stomach. I wondered how long I was out as I looked around the room. Seeing that no one was present I stepped out of bed only to feel a sting on the side of my stomach that caused me to flinch. Shortly after, the door to the room opened. The ones who entered were the boss, Shinji and a dusty and ragged Aiko.

"Hey, Kenji! You shouldn't be out of bed yet! You're still recovering from that hole in your stomach!"

"Go back to bed!"

Shinji and Aiko said as they gently pushed me back in bed.

"How long was I out?"

"About a day!"

"What?! Then we need to get to the competition now!"

"The match already ended brat number 3. Just rest up and wait for tomorrow, the quacks here say you'll be able to walk by then."

"What?! Is that why Aiko looks like that?" I said as I looked at the purple haired girl covered in soot

In the case of someone not having a tester or a replacement in case their original tester gets injured, the enchanter can risk fighting themselves should they choose not to forfeit. Most enchanting specialists are noncombatants, which is why most would choose to forfeit the match as there is a real risk of death should they lose. It seemed that Aiko had chosen to fight.

"So, how did it go?" I asked.

"We won!" Aiko said as she gave me a peace sign.

Although her skills aren't that bad for an enchanter thanks to boss's combat training. She would still be considered mediocre compared to most of the testers here. Which means she either got lucky and fought a pushover, or she got lucky with the materials and managed to craft herself a golem of some kind. She might suck as a fighter, but if you give her a golem she could beat anyone except for the boss. I still remember how she turned a snowman into a makeshift golem that spit out snowballs from its mouth back during winter. By the end of our snowball fight she had to dig me out from under a mountain of snow.

"Hey, boss! Can't you just fix me up like usual?" I asked.

There had been many times back at the academy where the boss would injure us as part of some test or lesson. Some of those injuries were just as bad if not worse than the one I got in yesterday's match, like back when the boss had me scale that cliff last semester. Every time we got hurt, he would use some strange method to quickly heal our injuries. So, I wanted to ask him to fix me up now so I could go do some practice for tomorrow's match.

"Nope!"

"What? Why?"

"Because you need to think about what you did."

"…?"

"Just because you can rely on me now doesn't mean you can in the future. If you made a habit of pulling reckless stunts like that without a solid way to recover on your own, then what will you do when I'm not there to save your ass? You think about that!" And with that he left.