Chapter 3: Shot Put
[You boys compete against each other over a bit of pointless man pride.]
[You are eager to regain face over the issue of height, while Tristan absolutely refuses to admit that he is the weakest among the three.]
[Therefore, you decide to use Shot Put to determine who is superior.]
On the empty training ground, hot wind blew, carrying sand and dust along with it.
Three male students stood facing each other, the atmosphere tense as if it were about to explode.
"The rules of this match are very simple…"
Eikou raised the heavy shot in his hand, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes.
"Whoever throws the shot the farthest proves that he is the strongest!"
"So that's how it is, Sir Eikou…"
Gawain also held a similarly heavy shot in his arms, analyzing as he spoke.
"Shot put does not only test upper-body strength, it also requires force from the legs and full-body coordination. Both Agility and Strength are indispensable. Therefore, the one who throws the farthest must definitely be the strongest among us!"
"Exactly."
"But isn't this a bit unfair? Sir Eikou's Agility Rank is not low either, so this competition is clearly very advantageous to him."
Tristan pointed out the issue.
"So noisy,"
Eikou spoke arrogantly.
"Precisely because the test content is quite comprehensive, the match has value. Tristan, if you're afraid, you can withdraw right now."
"You think I, Tristan, am afraid…?"
Tristan was slightly flustered, but he still solemnly opened his sharp golden eyes like an eagle's, exuding the high-pressure posture of someone ready for battle.
"Fine then, let's have a match. I'll let you see with your own eyes the bearing of one of the Three Lions of Britain!"
"Very well, then I'll start, Rank A here!"
Eikou stood on the white shot put line, took a deep breath, tightly gripped the metal sphere, and his wrist and waist exerted force simultaneously.
Immediately after, he poured all his strength into a powerful throw.
Whoosh!
The shot traced a beautiful parabolic arc through the air, soaring high, carrying a fierce gust of wind, before immediately crashing down onto the ground with a heavy thud.
"What…?!"
Seeing the distance he had thrown, Gawain and Tristan could not help but widen their eyes in shock.
The shot landed precisely at the farthest line—that was a distance only those possessing powerful Strength Rank A could reach!
There was no doubt anymore: Eikou's Strength fully met the Rank A standard, without the slightest bit of falsification.
"Mua ha ha ha ha!"
Eikou put his hands on his hips, boasting smugly like an elementary school kid.
"I told you already, my nickname Eikoucles is absolutely not undeserved! So, how about it—if you admit defeat now, you can still keep a bit of face, you know?"
"Too naive, Sir Eikou…"
Gawain thrust out his broad, thick, muscular chest, lightly gripping the shot put in his hand.
With an overwhelming presence, he stepped toward the starting position.
"Even if my stats on paper are one rank below yours, my muscle density still far surpasses yours. Among the Knights of the Round Table, my nickname is Gorilla. In terms of pure strength, there's no way I can lose to you."
"And you even think that's a nice nickname? You were definitely being teased by your colleagues in the Round Table—"
Before the words had even finished, Gawain had already used a perfect throwing posture to hurl the shot away with tremendous force.
Boom!
The shot carried astonishing momentum, almost traveling in a straight line right before everyone's eyes, slicing through the air under the midday sun, and in the blink of an eye flew far past the position of Eikou's throw.
That power completely surpassed Eikou's!
Bang!
Immediately afterward came a loud crash as Gawain the Potato Gorilla's shot slammed heavily into the steel mesh of the basketball court opposite, producing a deep sound.
"This is… my victory!"
Gawain waved his arm and shouted loudly.
"..."
Eikou was so shocked that his jaw was about to drop; he even raised a hand to rub his eyes, suspecting that he had seen wrong.
"Gorilla… is your Strength really only Rank B＋?!"
With such exaggerated muscular power and such terrifying explosive force, no matter how one looked at it, it had to be at least Rank A＋.
Immediately after, he suddenly understood.
"Ah..."
Damn it, right now it's around nine in the morning, which is precisely the time considered noon in the judgment of Numeral of the Saint EX.
At this moment, Gawain's strength will be increased threefold!
Even though Eikou himself also has Numeral of the Saint, its rank is very low and completely cannot be compared to Gawain's rank EX multiplied by three.
"How can someone use a Skill right in the middle of a competition like this? This is clearly a foul!"
He voiced his protest.
"There's no helping it, this is also part of one's strength."
Gawain felt the brilliant midday sunlight.
"Moreover, this is my innate special constitution. Even if I wanted to cancel it, I couldn't."
"This is too unfair, I demand a rematch at night!"
Eikou shouted unwillingly.
"Just accept it, Sir Eikou, our rules never said that Skills can't be used,"
Tristan patted his shoulder.
"Though it's very hard to swallow, this Gorilla really does hold an enormous natural advantage. In a normal state, he truly is stronger than us in terms of raw power. It's just that… I have a premonition…"
The red-haired Bard suddenly revealed a solemn expression.
"I, Tristan the Son of Sadness, will definitely surpass both of you today!"
"Heh~…"
Hearing such bragging, Eikou and Gawain only remained silent with magnanimity, not even bothering to mock him.
Eikou's Strength was Rank A, while Gawain's Strength, once tripled, went far beyond the normal level.
Compared to them, Tristan only had Strength Rank B. He was purely there to make up the numbers, with absolutely no chance of winning.
"Sigh, then let's just give it a try…"
Eikou helplessly sighed.
"But don't use a Skill to cheat."
"Don't worry, Sir Eikou. None of his Skills increase Strength anyway, he can activate them however he wants."
Gawain laughed heartily as he spoke.
"You two… fine then, I'll use my real strength!"
Tristan held the heavy shot in his arms, stepping to the starting position while feeling both angry and embarrassed.
Gawain and Eikou continued chatting and laughing, even starting to discuss who was bigger and who was smaller, completely paying no attention to the other side.
Without even looking, it was obvious that the Bard with the lowest Strength would definitely come in last.
"From today onward, Gorilla will be the eldest brother, I'll be the second, and Tristan will be our little brother—"
Before the sentence was finished, Eikou suddenly sensed an extremely violent Mana fluctuation.
He saw Tristan open his sharp golden eyes wide, Mana in both hands transforming into a Longbow.
He drew the bowstring taut, clenched the shot tightly, and prepared to put it like a bullet.
This damn Tristan, he couldn't even be bothered to pretend—he directly treated the shot as an arrow and actually used a Noble Phantasm?!
"Watch carefully, I did not activate a Skill."
He said with a stern face.
"Using a Noble Phantasm is ten thousand times more outrageous!"
Eikou yelled in complaint.
Before the words had even finished, Tristan frowned and focused intensely, his wrist relaxing as he forcefully shot the shot that had accumulated power from the bowstring.
"Explode—"
The red-haired Bard shouted loudly, releasing the Noble Phantasm without the slightest hesitation.
"Song of my pain and sound of my grief..… đây chính là shot put của ta! Failnaught!"
Rumble!!
The pitch-black heavy shot shot out violently from the bowstring.
It was like an unstoppable arrow, flying straight up into the high sky, its momentum seeming to want to pierce even the sun.
"Well then, now the outcome should be clear, right?"
Watching the shot put soar high into the sky, Tristan revealed a proud smile.
"Are you out of your mind?! Why would you activate a Noble Phantasm in a shot put competition? No matter how far you throw it, we won't acknowledge it!"
Eikou said irritably, then turned his head to look at Gawain beside him.
"Right, Gorilla?"
"..."
Gawain only raised his head, looking at the shot put flying extremely high in the air, and said in a deep voice:
"If I remember correctly, Tristan's Noble Phantasm seems to have the effect of Sure Hit? As long as he shoots the arrow, it will definitely hit something."
"Is that so? Then it'll probably just shoot down a few birds in the sky…"
The three boys simultaneously raised their heads, following with their eyes the shot as it flew up into the sky.
Just like that, a long while passed. The shot finally lost the augmentation of the Noble Phantasm and began to fall straight downward.
"..."
Under the gaze of all three, that shot put was like a meteor, falling straight back toward Chaldea Academy.
"Boom!!!"
Like a surface-to-surface missile, at the very instant the shot put touched the ground, it caused a violent explosion.
The huge blast sound rang out not far away, accompanied by a mushroom cloud that rose up in an instant.
The three of them could not help but fall into prolonged silence, no one daring to open their mouth to say a word.
"..."
"..."
"Uh, for some reason…"
Tristan swallowed dryly and spoke in a small, tense voice.
"All of a sudden I gained a lot of EXP, could it be that…"
Could it be that… someone just got hit on the head and died?
Tristan, you bastard, did you just send someone in the academy straight to the Throne of Heroes?!
[...]
[After the sound of the explosion had echoed for quite a long while, you finally decided to face reality.]
[Taking advantage of the fact that the others in the academy had not yet noticed, you rushed to the scene at the fastest speed possible.]
[What appeared before your eyes was a charred, devastated area, the tragic traces left behind by the violent explosion and the Noble Phantasm…]
[You saw a huge block of blackened iron, metal fragments scattered everywhere, along with electrical cables still sparking and crackling. This machine had been trampled into a miserable state by Tristan's Noble Phantasm, too horrible to look at.]
[It took some time before you finally managed to distinguish what this mass of iron actually was.]
[That thing turned out to be…]
Eikou rubbed his eyes and looked toward the block of iron that had completely stopped moving.
"Ba… Babbage-sensei?!"
Looking at the devastated scene before him, he could not help but let out a miserable cry.
"Tristan, you bastard, you killed Babbage-sensei one more time! Was this some kind of assassination plot of yours or what?!"
"Th-this, I…"
Tristan awkwardly raised a hand to his forehead, so embarrassed that he could not utter a single word.
Accidentally blowing Babbage to death might have been one thing, but the problem was that later Babbage was still supposed to come to their class to observe the lesson. After being blown into this state, how was he supposed to explain this to Finn and the others?
Most importantly, this was also a crucial Open Class attended by the King of Heroes Gilgamesh. Absolutely no mishaps were allowed to occur!
This was truly encountering the worst crisis, at the unluckiest possible moment!
...