Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest novel Chapter 372

Chapter 372 Chapter 86.2 - Sword and the Guide

Everyone has those times when they doubt their decisions until this point. It is inevitable as long as you are not a complete narcissist who thinks of yourself as always right.

Doubting is human nature, and every human has doubts at some point.

Eleanor was no different than that.

She rose up in the ranks as a Hunter, trying to improve herself for the upcoming future and for her role.

After all, without knowing the path, how could she guide?

But even then, improving as an Awakened and a hunter had never been an easy task. It was taxing, and it took a lot of things from the person itself.

The more battles one encountered, the more fights one had with monsters, the more they would realize how cruel this world was, and to fit the world, one would need to become cruel as well.

And Eleanor was no exception. Being a genius hunter, she faced countless trials and countless betrayals.

In the end, seeing the real human nature, she became cold and stiff. She couldn't maintain that zealousness when she was young.

That was how it was.

And honestly, she had never regretted her actions or how she behaved. Sure, she had been evaluating the students and the cadets according to their talents, but she didn't see anything wrong with that.

After all, when she was a hunter, she had seen a lot of her colleagues who thought highly of themselves because of the flattery of their peers.

And none of them met a good ending. Thus, for Eleanor, overly flattering someone in this line of work was no different than sending them to death marching.

Thus, she was harsh on students so that they wouldn't push themselves to death.

At least, that was what she thought so.

However, there was one big problem that needed to be questioned in this part. Sure, it was better for the Awakened with low talent to know their limits.

But who gave her the right to judge who was talented or not? What made her judgment better than others? Was it because she was the 'Invoker'? Was it because she was in the top 100 of Hunter's ranking?

Which one of those was the answer?

And most importantly – could she guarantee that her judgment was always correct?

For the first time, Eleanor was questioning herself.

'I might have made a mistake.'

She thought inwardly, observing the students who were training with their swords. Everyone was practicing, trying to refine the most basic techniques.

In fact, the whole purpose of this training was to give an idea about the general level of mana control among the freshmen and how good they were at understanding the Federal Swordplay.

After all, the Federal Swordplay was developed so that even the most basic non-trained Awakened would be able to learn it fast enough and would move as a unit in the military.

Amidst the flurry of activity in the training room, Eleanor's gaze settled on a figure standing apart from the others.

It was Astron Natusalune, one of the students who had recently caught her attention for reasons she couldn't quite articulate.

In the past, Astron had been something of a troublemaker, often not paying attention in class and prone to challenging authority at every turn.

His behavior had irked Eleanor, especially since Eleanor thought he was not even trying at his classes. It was like he didn't care about the grades at all. Thus, Eleanor was sure that this student would be expelled for his low grades and assumed that paying attention to him would be pointless.

However, she needed to make an example of him so that she could better control other students. Thus, she picked upon him from time to time. After all, students needed to know that going on her bad side is not something desirable.

But in recent weeks, she had noticed a change in him. But it was so subtle that she would have missed it if she had not paid attention. His presence was a lot less, as if something like a [Trait] was letting him conceal himself constantly.

And then, it was the events surrounding him. Though each one of them had their own main characters, somehow he was in every one of them. And considering that each of those events was somehow dangerous, even the fact that he survived showed that he was different from his past self.

Eleanor couldn't deny that she was intrigued by this change in Astron and knew that she needed to confirm it.

As she watched him practicing with his sword, Eleanor found herself wondering about the true nature of talent and potential. Could someone like Astron, who had once been dismissed as a troublemaker, possess hidden depths that even she had overlooked?

'This is quite possible. I am not omnipotent after all, and I can certainly make mistakes.'

Eleanor knew she was prideful, but she was also not stupid.

As Eleanor continued to observe Astron, her trained eyes honed in on the subtle nuances of his movements.

From the way he held the 'weapon' to the precision of his footwork, she could discern a level of control over his body that belied his previous reputation as a troublemaker.

There was a fluidity to his motions that spoke of dedication and practice.

However, despite his evident improvement, Eleanor couldn't shake the feeling that there were still areas where Astron fell short.

For instance, his control over 'weapons' in general was good. But, if it was evaluated as a 'sword,' it fell short. This was expected since he was not a sword user.

'For a dagger and a marksman, his performance is still better than expected.'