Chapter 14
“Heh-heh.”
As Haru headed toward the sparring grounds in R Building, Miriam followed behind her, letting out a snickering laugh.
“Why have you kept giggling like that?”
Charlotte, walking beside her while keeping her distance from Kariya, tilted her head and asked.
“Because that guy….”
Miriam whispered, subtly pointing at Kariya walking ahead.
“He picked a fight with Instructor Haru.”
“…I agree that picking a fight with an instructor is stupid in itself, but.”
Charlotte frowned and asked.
“I understand that the man named Kariya is by no means an easy opponent.”
“Really?”
“I’ve heard that even before the transfer exam, he was already skilled enough to enter Class A on ability alone.”
Charlotte said in a hushed, tense voice.
“That’s not all. It’s well known that, in a spar caused by a personal dispute before enrollment, he defeated that Karen Gatling from Class A.”
“Hee.”
“Even though she’s an instructor, Instructor Haru is still new. I can’t help worrying that perhaps….”
“And here I was wondering what you were so worried about.”
Having listened quietly, Miriam suddenly burst out laughing.
“Don’t worry. What you’re worried about will never happen, not in a million years.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because….”
Miriam grinned and declared,
“Instructor Haru is much stronger.”
=
Haru crouched and silently infused mana into the boundary stone.
Standing opposite her, Kariya stared at her and thought,
‘I can’t sense even a trace of strength.’
If she had been an instructor in an ordinary academy uniform, he might have been a little more cautious.
But Haru was dressed in Eastern-style clothing from head to toe. Along with her youthful appearance and jet-black hair, she was, by anyone’s reckoning, a quintessential Easterner.
Regardless of whether they were men or women, as far as Kariya knew, no powerful Easterner ever failed to flaunt it.
Therefore, if he couldn’t sense any strength from her appearance, he was certain she was nothing special.
Because things had always been that way. All the so-called ‘strong ones’ he had met had been people desperate to show off their strength. Some of the capital-city bastards were even worse than Easterners.
Yet Haru showed not even a hint of that.
“Student Kariya.”
Having apparently finished channeling all her mana into the boundary stone, Haru rose and said,
“Would you like a handicap?”
“…A handicap?”
Kariya asked stiffly, then let out a derisive scoff.
“You must think very little of me. I don’t need one.”
“…Is that so.”
Haru nodded.
-Clack.
Kariya gripped his main weapon, the chain sword, firmly in both hands.
‘Just as I thought. She’s letting her guard down.’
And he was exceptionally skilled at exploiting the openings of careless people.
Even that arrogant woman from Class A had smugly left an opening against him and ended up losing outright.
Honestly, if they had fought head-on, his chances of winning would have been even, but her carelessness had nevertheless played a major part in his decisive victory.
And this time too, he had no doubt that things would unfold the same way.
‘Capital-city bastards are always like that.’
They looked down on him as an Easterner, ignored him, and let their guard down, only to be caught off guard and defeated in the end.
Kariya loved the moment when he forced those who had arbitrarily looked down on him to their knees and made them crawl at his feet.
Standing opposite him, Haru quietly drew the strange-looking magic sword from her waist.
‘There’s no blade…?’
Her magic sword was a bizarre katana consisting only of a guard and hilt. The hilt alone was nearly fifty centimeters long.
If that was the case, the blade had to be at least a meter long, no matter how conservatively he estimated it. Could she even properly lift and swing something that massive?
“I’ll let you make the first move.”
Haru said quietly. Startled by the sight of her magic sword, Kariya soon regained his composure and answered.
‘Yeah, she really is letting her guard down.’
As he took his stance, Kariya thought,
A magic sword without a blade. By ordinary standards, that made it defective.
If it generated the blade afterward by some means, that would be different, but even then, common sense dictated that one should manifest the blade beforehand and be ready.
That wasn’t all. Haru’s stance was nothing that could even be called a stance: she merely stood still with her feet shoulder-width apart.
From a posture like that, with that mindset, there was no way she could produce the explosive power needed to respond properly to a surprise attack.
‘I’ll win. Just as I always have.’
Thinking that, Kariya took one step forward.
-Bang!!
Then he pushed off with his toes and launched himself like a cannonball.
“….”
At that moment, Haru’s gaze changed. She spread her legs a little farther apart and bent her knees.
‘Too late to take a stance now!’
Kariya sneered inwardly and kicked off the ground again.
Not straight ahead, but slightly to the left.
-Boom!!
Twisting his direction at the last moment, Kariya grazed past Haru.
-Boom!!
Following up with another change of direction, Kariya launched himself behind Haru and kicked off the ground again.
He kept kicking off the ground to build speed, constantly changing direction to confuse his opponent.
An opponent who looked down on him would be momentarily flustered, and he would seize that instant when their concentration wavered to launch a surprise attack.
A hunter’s sharp eye for spotting an opponent’s weakness in an instant—that was Kariya’s sure-win strategy, and what had elevated him to a fighter contending for second place in the practical division’s pure combat rankings.
-Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!!!
The intervals between his launches off the ground gradually grew shorter. Sand and dust began to rise, and Haru’s figure slowly blurred and scattered amid the dust.
Just before their lines of sight were completely blocked, Kariya turned toward Haru.
‘Now!’
He aimed diagonally at her back, on the side opposite the hand holding her magic sword, and swung the chain sword he had been whirling around.
‘It’s over—’
-Clang!!
A sharp metallic sound rang out. At the same time, wind that swept up from the center blew away the sand and dust in one stroke.
“…?!”
The impact felt strange. Kariya grimaced.
Without even turning to look in his direction, Haru blocked Kariya’s attack by sweeping the blade behind her back.
With the red blade of her magic sword, which had not been visible until just moments ago.
‘The blade of the magic sword that had no blade…!’
Its length, moreover, far exceeded his expectations. At first, he had guessed that the blade would be a meter long, making the total length around 150 centimeters including the hilt, but—
In reality, the blade alone was about 150 centimeters long. Including the blade and hilt, its total length came to roughly two meters.
‘It’s longer than her height, let alone the height of most adult men…!’
Kariya shouted inwardly. In truth, Haru’s slender forearms holding that enormous sword looked anything but sturdy. If anything, they looked so precarious that she might be toppled at any moment by the sword’s center of gravity.
But the weight he felt through his fingertips was completely at odds with the scene unfolding before his eyes.
‘The sword is heavy…!’
It didn’t budge. Not even a little, not by the slightest amount. It was as though he were straining with all his might to push away a rock driven deep into the earth.
If anything, he felt as though he himself were being pushed back.
-Crunch…!
No—he really was being pushed back.
As he watched his toes carve tracks in the dirt, Kariya clenched his teeth.
“I’m angry, you see.”
With their swords locked, Haru said quietly,
“I was born and raised in the East, where I spent most of my childhood. I met a master from the East and learned swordsmanship and magic from him.”
“….”
“And these clothes I’m wearing… are his personal effects.”
Looking Kariya straight in the eye, Haru continued calmly,
“Of course you didn’t know. I don’t think you said it with that knowledge. But I’m human too, so I couldn’t help getting angry.”
“Tch!”
Kariya clicked his tongue and backed away from her.
-Boom!!
He kicked off the ground again—faster, sharper, yet increasingly frantic.
Briefly tracking his movements with her eyes, Haru spoke to him calmly.
“I know this is a childish way to vent my anger. I feel a little sorry about it too, Kariya.”
-Boom!!
‘Got her…!’
Kariya thought as he charged toward her back.
-Slash!!
The chain sword, wreathed in a sharp sword aura, slashed across Haru in an X.
-Splatter…!
Red blood scattered in all directions. Yet Kariya only frowned.
He felt no impact at all. The red blood flying in every direction had not come from Haru.
What Kariya had cut was blood itself.
“A clone made of blood…?!”
“But.”
Hearing a voice immediately behind him, Kariya swiftly straightened and crossed his two swords.
-Clang!!
The red blade came crashing vertically down onto the two crossed swords.
“Ngh…!”
Kariya gritted his teeth. Both arms holding back Haru’s sword began to tremble.
“I accepted your challenge not simply because I was angry.”
Haru spoke calmly as she slowly pressed Kariya down.
-Crunch…!
“Your way is wrong. No matter the reason, an attitude that tries to force your way of doing things on others can never lead to a good relationship.”
“Ngh…!”
“I may be a rookie instructor, one on her very first assignment at that. Even so, I couldn’t just let this go.”
Kariya silently bit his lip and sank to one knee. It certainly wasn’t because her words had moved him—nothing so absurd.
The reason was extremely simple. He had been crushed beneath her sword.
“But putting that aside, I want to ask you something.”
Haru directed the question at Kariya, who was gritting his teeth,
“Doesn’t it wear you out, pushing yourself so hard?”
“…!”
At those words, Kariya’s eyes wavered for an instant.
The arms blocking her sword relaxed ever so slightly.
-Tap.
The red tip of the blade lightly touched the crown of Kariya’s head.
The one and only rule of the Eastern way.
The person whose weapon touched the other’s body first was the loser.
The Eastern way was clearly a method for resolving conflict through the simple logic of strength. Yet Easterners had realized long ago that resolving conflict through killing was meaningless as well.
“The spar is over, Student Kariya.”
Haru’s calm voice rang out above Kariya’s head.