The Author's Extra: My SSS Skill Turns Souls into Anything!

"Just what class is he?"

Someone in the upper tier had said it loud enough that it carried, and then everyone was checking at the same time.

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Name: Alden

Level: 32

Rank: A

Class: Undefined

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"W-WHAT?!"

"He doesn’t have a class?!"

"How is that even possible—"

It spread through the stands like wildfire, hopping from student to student until dozens were staring at the arena with the exact same shock on their faces.

"Then how was he using sword techniques earlier?!"

"He was casting magic! He had a beast companion! He caught two full-powered strikes with his hands—"

"Is he a swordsman, a mage, or a tamer? WHAT IS HE?!"

Darius, watching from the platform, glanced at the noise and offered calmly "It may simply mean his class has yet to be properly defined. If the system registers someone as capable of multiple disciplines without a dominant path, in my opinion, it defaults to an all-rounder instead of giving them a single class."

"SO HE CAN USE EVERYTHING?!"

The explanation made it considerably louder.

"He’s insane," Leon said, jaw somewhere near the floor.

Legion stood beside him with an equally dismantled expression.

Emilia had stopped cheering. Had stopped breathing for a moment, actually.

In the council section, Augustus had stopped looking relaxed.

His eyes had narrowed at some point during the last exchange and hadn’t gone back to their usual lazy expression. He watched Alden stand between two of the academy’s strongest second-years, casually holding both their fists. Behind Augustus’s eyes, the wheels were turning faster than they ever had before

’He’s actually pushing Nicholas back. Where was this last year? Where was all this power when he was supposedly just an expelled kid from no house?’

Seris watched and said nothing.

The faint smile on her face hadn’t moved.

’I can’t predict you anymore. I gave up trying at the mountain.’

On the field, Alden’s fingers tightened around both fists.

Then he pulled.

He yanked them apart in opposite directions using their own committed stance and locked arms against them.

"UGH—"

"WHOA—"

Daniel went shoulder-first into the arena floor, rolling hard across the cracked stone before catching himself on one hand. He pushed back up immediately, dropped into a crouch, fists up.

Nicholas went the other way, momentum carrying him, but he was already twisting mid-flight, body rotating once cleanly, and landed on the balls of his feet.

He slid backward across the stone. Two clean lines carved behind him.

He came to a halt and looked up.

Alden was still standing exactly where he’d been.

Coat a little dusty. One shoulder of it cut from Nicholas’s blade earlier. Expression still wearing the same thing it had worn since the fire ring went up. Utterly, frustratingly calm.

Nicholas looked at him.

And for the first time in the entire match, something that wasn’t strategy appeared on his face.

Then Alden’s expression changed.

Not because of anything outside him but something inside.

His smile dropped by a fraction. His breathing shifted like a pressure building somewhere deep in his chest that he hadn’t asked for.

’Not this again.’

Black smoke began leaking from his body. Just wisps at first, curling from his shoulders, almost invisible in the chaos of the fire ring around them.

’Not now.’ His knees dipped.

He caught himself, one hand pressing against his temple, and forced his legs straight.

Nicholas caught it.

’He dropped.’ His eyes sharpened instantly. ’Is his mana running out?’

He pushed off the ground and rushed forward, sword low, arc building before he’d covered half the distance.

Alden’s eyes snapped to him.

’Damn it—’

He threw himself backward. Nicholas’s blade cut through the air an inch from his chest.

He cleared Nicholas but was not able to clear Daniel.

"GOT YOU!" Daniel’s arms wrapped around him from behind, locked grip, driving forward with all his weight. Alden went down with it.

BOOM.

Back against the arena floor. The impact knocked the air out of him and he felt it in his spine.

Daniel locked his arms before he could twist free.

Alden pulled against it. His body still felt wrong. The dark smoke or whatever it was, had taken something out of him, left a gap between what he was trying to do and what his body was actually doing.

’Move.’

A shadow fell over him.

Nicholas stood above him.

Breathing heavily. Sword then lowered until the blade rested against the side of Alden’s neck.

Nicholas looked down at him.

"You’re defeated."

In the eliminated section, Leon let out a long breath. He started clapping.

"That was an incredible fight... He was amazing out there. It’s the least we could do as his teammates."

Legion joined him. Emilia too, her hands coming together, the applause genuine.

"You were so good, Senior Alden—"

Alden lay on the arena floor with a sword at his neck and Daniel’s weight across him.

And laughed.

It was quiet at first. Just a short exhale through his nose that his shoulders were shaking with.

Nicholas’s expression changed.

Daniel frowned. "What?"

"Heh."

Alden looked up at both of them.

"You’re fools."

Nicholas’s brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"The match," Alden said simply. "Did you forget what it’s actually for?"

Nicholas went still. For one second, his mind ran blank.

Then something landed. His eyes widened. "...The mana crystal."

Alden’s lips pulled into the full version of the smile.

He sent Pyrion the moment he created the fire ring.

Pyrion had been watching the whole match from inside Alden’s intent. It knew what the objective was. It knew what it needed to do while every other person on the field was looking at the one person making himself impossible to ignore.

The fire ring hadn’t been about trapping them.

The fire ring had been about keeping them from looking anywhere else.

Nicholas’s head turned toward the far section of the arena.

Beneath a tree at the edge of the field sat the mana crystal.

It glowed with a steady golden light, fully charged and sealed.

Right beside it, Pyrion sat on the ground, tail wagging in slow, proud sweeps.

"Awoo!"

Nicholas’s face went blank.

Daniel’s grip on Alden loosened.

Roselle, who had pulled herself off the wall and was standing at the edge of the fire ring, stared at it.

Still trapped in the grass by the threads, Sierra looked over in disbelief while trying to work her ankle free.

The announcer’s voice came out a note higher than usual.

"The— the mana crystal has already been fully charged?!"

"THE WHOLE FIGHT WAS A DISTRACTION?!" The entire stadium blew up.

It was a massive, chaotic noise, born from hundreds of spectators hitting the exact same moment of sheer disbelief.

Alden pushed himself off the ground.

He came up slowly, rolled his shoulder, straightened his coat where it was dusty. The dark smoke had faded, whatever it was settling back into whatever place it came from when he wasn’t paying attention.

He looked at Nicholas.

"You were so focused on defeating me—" he glanced at Pyrion, who had gone from tail-wagging to sitting with the dignified patience of something that knows it did a good job, "that you forgot about the objective entirely."

Pyrion tilted its head.

"Awoo."

Alden looked back at Nicholas.

"So no." His eyes settled.

"I’m not the one who’s defeated, Nicholas." He brushed the last of the dust from his sleeve.

"I’m the one who won."

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