Chapter 705: Instructor Duel

I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt nervous like I was going for an interview or something as I was waiting my turn to duel the instructor.

I was expecting them to take a while to fight it out but their duel lasted for less than five minutes before the VR Capsule opened up to allow Yumiko to leave.

She hopped out of the VR Capsule and immediately gave us a thumbs up, "I got it~"

I couldn’t help myself.

I went up to her and kissed her on the lips in celebration, my Inucani lover letting out a gasp of surprise before leaning into the kiss and kissing me back.

One of the other Mercs whistled but I ignored him. They can watch all they want but they ain’t getting any of this~

Once I was satisfied, I broke the kiss and smiled at Yumiko, "Good job~"

"Ah... Hehe... Thank you, Mistress..."

"I suppose it’s my turn?"

She nodded cutely, her hand subtly reaching down to stroke me between the legs brazenly a few times before stepping away.

Oh, just for that... I’m going to do you extra hard tonight.

I climbed into my VR Capsule after my girls wished me good luck.

The machine started up and my configuration for the cockpit appeared, allowing me to settle down in my seat.

I sucked in a breath, trying my best to calm my nerves before I breathed out.

Alright... Let’s do this then.

The screen changed and I found myself in the empty arena with another Exo-Knight a short distance away from me.

A screen appeared in front of me, showing the face of the instructor.

"Hmm... Miss Tera, correct? Yes. Are you ready? Same rules as before, first to beat the other will win. If you beat me, you get what I promised. Any questions?"

"Not at all."

"Very well then, let’s begin."

The floor started popping up from the ground again to form obstacles and I did a quick check of my equipment.

Seems like they’re exactly the same as the duels so I don’t need to spend time familiarising myself with them.

Ok, let me think... This guy is not an amateur and since he had already lost to Yumiko, he might be even more on guard and careful about fighting me.

Unless... He believes that Yumiko was the best and I would be vastly inferior to her and let his guard down because of that.

Nevertheless, I should just operate on the assumption that he’s more on guard now, just to be safe.

In that case...

I decided to climb up onto the obstacles again, trying to take the high ground advantage to at least spot where he might be.

It was rather risky since he could easily spot me if he was already rushing here but it seems like luck was on my side as he was also moving cautiously on his side of the arena.

I stopped on top of one of the taller boxes and started spying the area below me, trying to find where the instructor might be.

I was also careful that I don’t give myself away and made sure to stay hidden just in case he was also looking up or had also chosen to climb up here as well.

Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case as I eventually spotted him walking in between the obstacles carefully, checking his corners before turning and even checking behind him as though expecting me to suddenly appear behind him somehow.

Which was exactly what I planned to do though...

What he didn’t do was look up as he probably wasn’t expecting me to have managed to climb up here at all, either because no one else has done this before or he didn’t believe I would do something like this.

Too bad for him then.

I waited as he got closer, trying to aim for the best timing to jump on him since I don’t fancy my odds of fighting him fairly.

This guy had way more experience than I do in piloting Exo-Knights and he definitely defeated way more people than I have using these machines so if I were to fight him fairly, I would most likely lose.

I held my gun close as he moved closer to the area below me, waiting for the moment he passed underneath me to drop down and attack him from behind.

Sure, the thought of just shooting him from here did cross my mind but he had too many places he could take cover for me to defeat him before he could hide himself.

That’s why I have to make sure that once I begin my attack, he has to be defeated as fast as possible before he can have time to recover properly.

And right as he passed by the ’tower’ I was hiding on top of, I quickly dropped off the edge and started shooting at his back.

The sounds of my autocannon reverberated around the arena and the kinetic shells struck the shield on his back.

He immediately spun around and started shooting as well, which would have also peppered me with autocannon rounds had I been directly behind him.

Unfortunately for him, I was still in the air so all his shots ended up missing me instead.

To his credit, he adapted pretty quickly and switched his aim upwards, squeezing a few shots that my shield protected me against while I traded a few shots with him in return.

His shield points should be lower than mine which would have resulted in my win had we continued this exchange, a fact that he definitely realised as he suddenly put away his autocannon to rush towards me with his energy blade while I was still in the midst of my descent.

If he manages to stab me with that, it wouldn’t matter if my shield points were higher since that would bypass my shields anyway.

Seeing that I didn’t have time to gun him down before he reached me, I also made the decision to put away my gun to pull out my energy blade as well, swinging out my arm just in time to parry away his attack right as I landed.

He tried to close in again but I kicked him in the chest, sending his Exo-Knight skidding back before I did a quick switch to my autocannon once more and squeezed in a quick burst fire at his chest.

His shield must be at critical levels right now and he once again tried to bring it to a close combat fight.

Unfortunately for him, I had no desire to do that and I immediately started retreating while shooting a few more rounds from the hip.

His shield finally shattered and at this point, even I could tell that he was getting a little desperate.

That’s why, he did the next thing that I already expected him to do.

He activated his thrusters to boost towards me and I immediately switched to my energy blade as he came flying towards me, his energy blade held in a thrusting motion that was aimed at my Exo-Knight’s chest.

I side stepped him and pushed his arm to the side, making sure that the threat of his energy blade was completely neutralised before I stabbed my own blade into his chest, securing my win.

There was a pause and I almost thought I screwed up somehow and I didn’t actually manage to win, only to have a screen appear in front of me once again to show the instructor’s helmeted face.

"Congratulations. I have to say, you might be the first one who actually utilised the advantage of height against me. Most new pilots wouldn’t even think about trying to climb up the obstacles. Was this what you did in your arena fights as well?"

I saw no reason to hide it since he probably had them recorded or something so I just nodded, "That’s right. I figured out that the Exo-Knight could actually pull itself up onto the cubes so I used that to climb upwards."

"Interesting. Quick tip though, your booster can also boost you upwards, which means you don’t really need to climb up yourself but you can just jump up onto a higher elevation instead. But of course, that would make quite a bit of noise which was why I didn’t think you were up there to begin with since I didn’t hear your boosters."

Oh, that’s interesting, I didn’t know the boosters could boost me upwards as well. That’s something new.

He continued, "Good fight though. As promised you’re now officially a graduate student. I’ll have one of my staff send you the license later and you’re free to use the facilities here for the duration of your lessons. I’ll send you the details later. Oh, and for the sake of fairness, I would prefer that you don’t share any tips with the others who have yet to face me. That is all."

I nodded at him and the screen turned off at the same time as my machine shutting down.

Whew... That was... Quite intense. But I did it!