"Asagi, wake up, school's out."
"Ugh… Ha, Sid, is school out already? Then I have to go, I'm going to be late for my part-time job."
The woman in front of him, who had just woken up from sleeping on the desk, had black hair, red eyes, wore old-fashioned glasses, and dressed rather plainly. Her name was Asagi Aiba, a local resident of Itogami Island in World No. 2, and one of the minor character friends he had managed to find at this school.
It was said that before the world fusion, she was just an ordinary person with good grades. But after the world fusion, she was detected to have good magic talent, so she transferred from her original school.
The powers in each world were different. To clarify approximate strength, a new evaluation system was derived, from lowest to highest, in order: D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS, and Dragon God.
Unfortunately, even with good talent, with only a little over a year to cultivate, her strength was only C+. In this school, which placed great emphasis on practical combat ability, even with her written exam scores, her ranking was only in the lower-middle tier.
"Very busy lately? You slept all day and are still so sleepy. Luckily, Natsuki-chan didn't have class today, and other teachers weren't interested in bothering you, otherwise a self-reflection essay would have been unavoidable."
"I am quite busy. There was a small problem at my part-time job that I can't solve for a while, so I'm staying up late every night."
"Is it really a small problem? I've never seen you spend so much time, sleeping in class and still unable to solve such a small problem."
"Don't worry, I can definitely get it done in two days over the weekend. (And it's useless to tell you anyway.) I don't have time to chat, I'm going to work now. Once I'm done, we can hang out."
Sid sighed as he watched the girl quickly pack her things and leave.
The words she mumbled in the middle were very soft, and she probably thought Sid couldn't hear her, but he actually heard them, loud and clear.
Even though it was a mob friend he had found himself, it was still a rare instance of him showing concern for a friend, and being brushed off like that hurt him. Though part of the reason for his concern was that Asagi Aiba had been catching up on sleep for the past few days, which meant his campus intelligence hadn't been updated.
He packed his backpack, grabbed his wooden sword, and walked towards the school's training ground, ignoring the magic practice area, which was already a pit, and heading straight into the empty sword practice room next to it.
He didn't immediately take out his wooden sword to practice swordsmanship. Instead, he first walked to a blind spot in the surveillance, took out a white crystal from the void, and then walked towards the wooden dummy, swinging his sword at it.
"Whoosh~ Whoosh~"
Sid Kageno, this identity, in his setting, was a minor noble with a bit of talent, but whose written exams and strength were both in the lower-middle ranks—a mob character with no hope of inheriting the family fortune.
But after coming to this new school, both the passing grades for strength and written exams had increased by a notch. His original scores here were at the bottom, which immediately didn't fit his mob character criteria.
So, what could he do to bring his strength back from being a straggler to the lower-middle ranks while still fitting the mob character persona? The answer was extra practice. After all, a diligent mob character is still a mob character.
But then a new problem arose: he couldn't accept spending several hours every day on practice that was completely useless to him and only wasted his time, just to maintain his persona.
However, the problem was actually simple for him: he just needed to increase his training intensity in a way that others couldn't perceive (confirmed).
Just like now, on the surface, he seemed to be holding a wooden sword, but this sword was secretly accumulating a large amount of magic power, causing its weight to fluctuate between a sheet of paper and a mountain range, thereby training his body, reaction, and control.
Although it wasn't without drawbacks, such as needing to allocate extra magic to reinforce space, or if he accidentally lost control of his power, it could range from the school being destroyed to the island sinking.
But these minor drawbacks were completely negligible compared to his ability to cultivate as a Shadow Powerhouse while simultaneously playing the role of a mob character.
"Whoosh~ Whoosh~"
Even though the sword's weight had changed from a mountain to a sheet of paper several times within this short second, he was still able to repeat the same sword-swinging trajectory purely with physical strength each time.
He could detect the change in weight the moment it happened and adjust the force of his swing, maintaining a consistent speed throughout.
No, it's not that simple. The sword would slow down when it was 0.003 centimeters from hitting the wooden dummy, and then begin to retract when it was 0.001 centimeters away.
This is why, despite being the simplest sword-swinging motion and not using any magic, each swing seemed to be executed with full power, leaving him drenched in sweat in just half an hour.
If one didn't know the above, then to an outsider, this would simply be a mob character with poor talent but great diligence training by himself. It's not impossible that some dark-minded characters would mock him, saying his efforts were useless, and then a girl would step forward to say that effort isn't shameful, and after a series of events, she would secretly fall for him—this is impossible.
The reason he specifically came to the training ground after school was to avoid such incidents. His effort was to provide a reason for his improvement in strength, not to disrupt his mob character portrayal.
If anyone were to become suspicious of him, this video recording would dispel their doubts. After all, the mob character Sid is not a genius, and even a genius, unless they're crazy, wouldn't waste several hours every day on such meaningless training.
As Sid thought these things and swung his sword, his pupils suddenly constricted, and a cold smirk appeared at the corner of his mouth. The sword-swinging motion in his hand didn't stop, but the magic power changing the sword's weight and the magic stabilizing the surrounding space were silently withdrawn.
Maintaining that facade, he truly spent an hour and a half there, performing basic sword training that was utterly meaningless to him.
He prepared himself mentally, his face visibly exhausted, his legs weak from standing for two hours, and he braced himself to fall. "Alright, turn around, and then…"
"Whoa…Na-Natsuki-sensei, why are you here?"
He fell backward, putting on a startled expression. As a mob character, exhausted after two hours of training, he stumbled backward.
At the same time, he let out a startled cry, then recognized his teacher and instinctively blurted out her name, but his fatigue and the teacher's authority caused his opening words to break off. The subsequent question, delivered with a tremolo and a lively tongue, conveyed his nervousness—a perfect mob character performance. It would have been even better if there had been a protagonist training alongside him to create a contrast.
"I just arrived. And that question should be mine to ask you. Why are you still here so late? Don't you know that non-staff are prohibited from staying in school after dismissal?"
Although it sounds ridiculous, the black-haired, waist-length, blue-eyed, approximately 1.4-meter tall loli in front of him, dressed in a black Lolita outfit, was indeed a teacher at this school. She was also a top Demon Destroyer in World No. 2, essentially the highest combat power on this island under normal circumstances, known as the "Witch of the Void."
"Um… I'm very sorry, Natsuki-sensei. You know my talent is very poor. To pass, I can only do extra practice. But the training grounds outside school are too expensive, so I can only use the school's. So… Natsuki-sensei, please don't tell the school."
"Since it's your first time, I won't report you to the school. But this is strictly a one-time exception. I will be patrolling the school from now on, so you'd best find somewhere else to train."
"Eh!!! Well, alright."
He put on a dejected expression, went to the corner to grab his backpack, and left.
"Also, things haven't been very peaceful recently. It's best not to go out at night."
Nangong Nayue warned him as he walked out the door.