The Retired Hero is an Extra

Seeing the sword approaching so swiftly, even Jash was startled at first, and his brain couldn't react in time.

Thankfully, his body was fully active after fighting for so long and reacted on its own before he could think of anything.

It all happened in the blink of an eye as Jash leaned back and let himself fall to the ground but he reacted at the correct time.

—Trrng!

His sword clashed with Helios's and he used the moment of contact to kick Helios in the shin in order to not fall to the ground completely.

After all, even he would need more than a second to get up and that would be detrimental when he was completely surrounded.

There was no way he could escape unscathed and did get some minor flesh wounds, but they weren't even noticed.

All the attention was on his sudden and instinctive movements as if he had decades of battlefield experience and nothing could stop him.

Alas, it was true, but how could anyone else know it?

'Just what happened?' Jash couldn't help but think this way as he was just as surprised as others, unable to understand how his past life experience could resonate with this new body.

'According to all theories, the body is just a vessel for the soul,' he recalled, shifting abruptly and finally managing to stand.

His thought process was simple: the experiences were engraved in his body and had nothing to do with his soul,

And even if they indeed had something to do with his soul, how could it reflect on his new body?

It just didn't make sense to him and his head buzzed at the contradiction, not realizing it was his own fault for such a result.

Unlike him, Helios stood frozen, completely dumbfounded, his thoughts slipping away for a moment.

In his mind, he had already envisioned Aileen or Ronan moving out to end the Duel yet the most absurd outcome occurred.

Just at that moment, he seemed to have felt a sticky sensation on his leg and realized he was bleeding as a result of Jash's kick.

Though the force wasn't enough to even make him stagger due to his momentum, he got injured due to the skin sliding off.

But no one had the time to care for Helios, their focus fixed on Jash, who was also bleeding.

While the attack from Helios seemed to have missed, the sword wind caused by his forceful swing left a cut on Jash's nose.

It was just a few drops of blood and nothing much to worry about, but the most conspicuous part was Jash was bleeding from his nose.

The blood trickled down his nose to his lips, leaving a disgusting metallic taste in his mouth as Jash frowned in displeasure.

He roughly wiped it off with his left hand and took another stance, but no one attacked him.

Although they knew it would be easy to overwhelm him after his injury, it would have been a huge blow to their already shattering prides.

They just wanted to save the last bit of their vain prides and

valiantly

gave up the duel.

Originally, Helios still wanted to fight, but after seeing everyone's downcast faces, he knew it was useless to try to convince them anymore.

They had given up.

And Jash also seemed to have noticed this, feeling smug inside as he wouldn't have to deal with Ronan anymore.

'But isn't Ziva still there?' Jash finally realized this and couldn't help but grunt in annoyance, frustration bubbling within him, "Urgh!"

Others thought he would finally collapse but all he did was stabilize himself with his sword before straightening his back and walking away.

He only stopped in front of Ronan and spoke with a tone of finality despite his voice coming out hoarse, "So... are we done now?"

While it seemed like a question, the sheer calmness and frigid air surrounding Jash made Ronan almost want to act on his impulse.

Only, Aileen was standing next to him, watching his every movement, and the instant he moved, he might very well have lost his life.

His inner thoughts and flaring anger didn't matter, he could only acquiesce. "...Yes. Here is your YP," he said after a bit of hesitation.

Jash didn't care, though, and just nodded perfunctorily after confirming his YP had increased by 2500.

'I can probably buy a D-Rank Mana Gem that will be usable in the future with this,' Jash mused before briskly walking away.

He knew his condition better than anyone and couldn't remain for long and Aileen didn't make things difficult for him.

"Since you've gone through much, you're excused from the class today," she announced before looking coldly at others, startling them.

"As for you all..."

Jash had already left by the time she went hell mode on the others and wouldn't let them leave unless they were probably battered.

'I need to recover fast,' Jash thought to himself, ignoring Ziva and Amael glancing at him and even their messages.

He really didn't have it in him to put up any more of his calm facade as his body grew weary after all the ups and downs he suffered back then.

It was really a wonder how he was yet to collapse despite his internals being almost in a mess.

Thanks to him reigning himself in and altering his Mana Circulation Pathway to the five nodes from his past life, he could delay the effects of his internal injuries.

It wasn't difficult to understand; he just had to let the mana suppress his internal organs, which were a mess and about to suffer deep cuts.

One could easily recover from any sort of flesh wounds, but even a small internal injury could be detrimental to life if ignored.

Yet Jash had played with fire, shocking his entire internals from multiple clashes and even forcing his stamina to keep up.

"I'm spent..." His voice sounded low, almost as if he was sighing.

Thankfully, his mana and Aura could still help him keep going and his battered state somewhat helped them from overflowing and not being able to reside in his body.

In a twist of fate, he went through another round of excruciating pain as sweat covered his face and he felt like crying tears of blood.

His injured internal organs, arteries, veins, muscles, nerves and every cell was being mended with Aura, somewhat mutating its genetic code itself.

It was simple in words, but extremely complex in procedure to the point Jash really wanted to stop it and let himself rest for a few days due to internal injuries.

At least that was his plan until the process began after removing the handcuffs stopping his mana flow.

'Just... why did I not faint right then and there!?'

He cursed in indignation, but no voice escaped his lips except a few wails of pain but the soundproofing of his room was really effective.

Not to mention only Ziva resided in this building and she was still in class, so it wouldn't have changed a thing even if he cried hysterically.

Alas, all good things came with pain, be it the pain of being persistent and working hard relentlessly, or the pain of one's body on the verge of a breakdown.

'Ugh, I would've ranked up again if not for doing it recently,' Jash thought, as that was a legit possibility in this situation.

However, he seemed to be a little unlucky, or maybe lucky, as he didn't rank up and his body finally fixed itself after a daunting process of one entire hour.