Roze is a sharp one... and now I am worried she may be the mole... I do hope not, but she is a devout believer from much before her tenure as an apprentice, so it would track.
And it would be interesting to see someone who was trained by Beryl have very different moral standards than him, and she is probably the only person who has a chance to go below Beryl's radar, as I said... she is SHARP.
Wow... I love Kuruni in full armor, her skirt even makes more sense now because some chainmail shirts would extend well beyond the waistline to provide more protection but allow maneuverability.
I am really curious about something... Lucy mentioned that a beast that could absorb and nullify magic was defeat by a mage who had mastered body-enhancing magic, and was a martial master too... but we clearly see that there are people here with physical capabilities well beyond normal human levels.
When Lucy used body enhancement, she threw only a punch, a badly thrown one because she is no fighter... but the damage was enormous.
My best guess... that type of magic doesn't "exactly" make a person physically stronger, but it flows internally on the body, and has effects that "simulate" superhuman physical feats.
Examples to give meaning: the mage throws a punch, the magic makes so that when there is a connection of the fist, it releases a lot of focused energy; the mage wants to move fast, the magic makes burst of propulsion; the mage wants to enhance their resilience, the magic envelopes their body in a skin deep shield that resists/nullifies damage taken.
With the punc as the main example of variable... if the mage that defeated the magic nulling beast had used unarmed combat, there was a chance the beast could have resisted, because following my logic there would be magical energy going out of the body, but when Lucy mentioned him... the flashback image showed a swordsman, so the mage would have only needed to enhance their body directly.
So going back to my point... I think the people who are naturally physically gifted here, can somewhat do the "same", but instead of being one single aspect of physical enhancement, they have their whole bodily structure already "enhanced".
Or maybe I am reading too much into this series XD.
Anyway... I am really happy this manga exists, because by what people said... if it was the anime, this arc would have ended in the last chapter, but there is so much nuance to this whole situation that deserves to be told.
This training exercise has a lot of interpersonal and political possibilities on how things can progress, and seeing how the author tackles the different types of armed combat.
Seeing Kuruni in full armor, and two full armored knights on horseback fighting with swords... oh, that is so cool.
I'm not sold on Roze being the mole, but I do agree with her being very sharp and having a different moral compass. But I don't think the needling was malicious, I think it was jealousy.
See, I sort of get the feeling that Roze wanted to bring Beryl sensei out the town, but she wanted him to come of his own accord to her. She might feel like she was cheated a bit by Aleucia inviting/forcing Beryl out of his town into the Knights Instructor. And I get the feeling that she might not be the only student out there that might have similar feelings, as they all seem to love him in some way.
As to your thoughts on body enhancement magic, I think that the magic enhances the muscles, ligaments, and bones, allowing them to access more of their strength and removing the natural limiters our brain subconsciously puts on our bodies to stop them from destroying themselves. Much like how we can only consciously use 10-20% of our brains, we can only use a tiny fraction of the explosive power our bodies can use without destroying itself.
You hear about this kind of thing in the news, or you used to at least, about people lifting cars of kids, and other incredible feast of strength, which is now referred to as hysterical strength. If we could access that kind of power on the regular, our bodies would tear themselves apart. Like a weight lifter lifting too much at once that they weren't prepared for, and their muscles literally ripping themselves off the bones.
So the magic strengthens an already toughened body, and removes some of the limiters, then yeah, even an untrained person could punch through a wall. Then if you add in any form of martial arts, you could easily take down a magic nullifying beast. The magic would interact with the best because it is only enhancing what you already have.
As for some people being super human without magic or miracles, yeah it does seem a bit odd, but there is the possibility that they also have magic or miracles, but at such a low amount that it isn't noticed and they're subconsciously enhancing themselves just a bit.
That is one of the selling points for this adaptation, all the attention to detail that the artist puts, not only into the fights, but into the world around them. It feels more real then some of the others of similar genres.
Armor 40kg, the person who can wear that kind of armor (that the weight not hinder his movement) must be a giant muscle giant. Strongmen muscle giant can weight minimum 80 kg. So she need to have the strength to lift a minimum of 120kg easily.
Not to mention a trained human can use their muscles to planted themselves in the Earth, that made the heavier.
Not really. With the size difference between the two of them, if he tried to push his height of her in the fight, like leaning down over her, to push her guard down and out of the way, he has already done most of the heavy lifting. Like a throw, the more the attacker leans over the defender, the easier it is for a smaller defender to turn their body and just use the attacker's weight and height against them to pull them over the shoulder. With the addition of the sword she can further help that by applying momentum into his lean and subsequent throw. Some martial arts excel at this type of grappling.