Episode 7: Kick, Kick, Kick

“Flames, take hold! I’ll burn and slash with my magic sword! FLAME SABER!”

“Such lukewarm flames and a dull blade… I’ll slice through… RAZOR SHOOT!”

The chosen knights were kicked, knocked down, and sent flying.

Kicks cloaked in magic, legs that launched magic itself, and sometimes just raw kicks—all with enough force to snap and shatter the knights’ weapons and armor.

“Too… strong…”

“This is… the Magic Kicker… Damon!”

Everyone knew. They knew Damon was a heaven-gifted superhuman.

The fallen knights were reminded of it firsthand, their bodies bearing the proof.

And that was exactly why…

“B-But… why, with this kind of strength… is he a commoner?”

“Yeah, even if he wasn’t chosen as a Hero, to fail every class selection…”

“The magic mirror didn’t react, they say… but something’s definitely off, right?”

Yes, witnessing Damon’s strength anew made the knights question how someone so powerful could be rejected. It didn’t add up.

Damon turned back to the Saintess.

“How’s that, Saintess… huh?”

“…”

“Seeing this, seeing my power, you still dare call me a commoner? Huh?!”

“!?”

Damon unleashes a sharp high kick.
The kick stops just short of the Saintess’s face.

“O-Oi, Damon, you bastard!”

“No matter what, to threaten the Saintess-sama… If anything happens to her, you’re done for!”

If anything befell the Saintess dispatched from the Holy City, it wouldn’t just be Damon’s problem. The knights present, and even the empire itself, would face severe consequences.

Everyone understood the gravity of the situation, but Damon was too enraged to care.

“Next time, I’ll crush that face of yours…”

“…Barbaric… But perhaps that’s exactly why.”

“Huh?”

Even facing Damon’s halted kick, the Saintess maintained her expressionless facade, though a faint bead of sweat trailed down her cheek.

A doll-like beauty, her apparent age not far from Damon’s.

Yet, faced with his raw fury and overwhelming violence, her instincts faltered.

Still, she refused to budge from her stance that “the selection’s result is correct.”

“I do not know you. But I have now witnessed your extraordinary strength and magic. A power that even a group of active knights, class holders, cannot match… Truly, you may be exceptional. However… the magic mirror does not err. For any *human*, no matter how wicked their heart, it will select their class… Yes, if they are *human*.”

“…Huh? …What? …Hm?”

In that moment, Damon couldn’t grasp what the Saintess was saying.

But as her words replayed in his mind…

“Huh? What? No, wait… Wait, wait, wait, wait! You’re not seriously saying—!”

Against Damon’s claim that the selection was wrong, the Saintess, considering the situation, reached a conclusion he hadn’t anticipated at all…

“You are a demon. Or one who carries their blood—”

“This chick’s hopeless… As if that’s true! I’m seriously gonna kill you!”

“!!!?”

The Saintess’s words pushed Damon’s disbelief and rage to their breaking point.

Yet her words carried immense weight, and to the knights groveling on the floor, they provided a convincing explanation for why Damon hadn’t been chosen for any class.

And then…

“Brat… In this sacred ritual ground… What are you doing?!”

A voice and pressure so intense it drowned out Damon’s roar echoed through the chamber.

Damon turned.

There stood knights radiating an aura leaps and bounds beyond those he’d just scattered…

“You… The empire’s strongest… The Bushin General and the Elite Magic Knight Corps…”

It was the arrival of the empire’s mightiest, among the world’s most elite knights.

At their forefront stood…

“Damon Goku… The results of the selection ritual reached the palace immediately. Right now, the palace is in chaos over both your rejection and the separate news of a Hero’s birth. You may not accept it, but for now, we need to sort this out. Stand down quietly—”

A man of towering stature, exuding overwhelming martial prowess and the aura of a battle-hardened veteran.

The empire’s strongest general. A single glare and word from him made the air crackle with tension.

Even the Saintess broke into a cold sweat under his immense pressure.

But…

“Shut up! I’m proving it with my strength because I can’t just stand down, you muscle-headed trash!”

“Ngh?”

“Wha?!”

At this point, not even the empire’s strongest could rein in Damon.

“That’s right… Instead of these half-baked weakling knights, if I take you down, that’ll prove everything, won’t it?!”

Far from stopping, he saw this as the perfect chance to prove the selection ritual’s error…

“I’ll crush you!”

“Insolent whelp!”

But no matter how strong Damon was, the empire’s strongest weren’t so easily overcome.

Above all, he was vastly outnumbered.

Damon’s rampage finally subsided an hour later…

And he was imprisoned.