Chapter 13
"Cadet Serena and Cadet Herman, please come forward!"
As my name rang out when it absolutely shouldn't have been called, my mind froze again.
I tapped my head to get my stalled thoughts moving, then quickly reviewed the original story once more.
Normally, I shouldn't have appeared here at all.
Wondering if I'd remembered something wrong, I pulled out the notebook where I'd written down what was supposed to happen next and checked it.
Even after checking it over and over dozens of times, nothing I'd read differed from what I remembered.
[At the freshman sparring matches, Roben and Abel first became aware of each other's existence, and Abel's opening attack marked the start of their match.]
It was so early in the story that there was no way I could have remembered it wrong.
Whenever an update was delayed, I reread the whole thing from the beginning.
So I was sure I hadn't misremembered it. My memory wasn't bad, either.
"Hurry up and come out! Do you intend to keep this great me waiting?"
I don't want to go out.
The story changing so suddenly was already enough to drive me crazy, and now I was right at the center of it.
On top of that, my opponent was Herman, one of Rael's lackeys.
He's the heir to the family that represents earth, one of the Four Great Families.
His talent is a serious nuisance, but judging by what happened in the original story, he must have pulled some kind of trick.
I really don't want to fight him. I could end up getting hurt if things go wrong.
But no matter how much I don't want to, there's no such thing as forfeiting a sparring match.
"Get out here already!"
"Why are you wasting everyone's time?"
"You're holding everything up!"
I'd already made a bad impression during the talent assessment, and now that the sparring matches had started, I was being showered with jeers and insults for not coming out.
But none of those words reached my ears.
The sound of my heart, pounding as if it were about to burst, kept ringing in them.
Was I afraid of this situation? No.
Was it because I thought I couldn't win? That wasn't it, either.
Then was I excited by the thought of fighting? No, that wasn't it, either.
The pounding in my chest, whose cause I couldn't even understand, stopped so easily at one remark from Herman.
"Why would a commoner with such a worthless talent even enroll at the Academy? Why don't you go outside and sell your body? I'll come visit often and dote on you."
"....What did you just say?"
"I said you should go sell your body. Got a problem with that?"
"Shut up and get your guard up. If you can't block this, your head's coming off."
"What the hell did you just say, commoner?"
I wasn't sure if he'd provoked me like this on purpose,
but if he'd been trying to make me angry, then I'd say he'd succeeded spectacularly.
He'd gotten me to step into the arena without a second thought, even though I'd been reluctant to go up there just moments ago.
I picked up the axe from among the weapons laid out beside me and climbed into the arena, glaring at Herman.
With a single thought in my mind: I was going to split that bastard's face open with my axe.
"Then... begin!"
At Rayren's signal, the first match of the freshman sparring event began.
Herman's specialty was covering his body in hard stone, allowing him to attack and defend at the same time.
Ordinary attacks wouldn't work, and his defense against slashing attacks was truly astonishing.
But that only applied to slashing attacks.
I wasn't slashing. I was just hitting him.
"Die!"
"You're the one who's going to die."
I swung my axe at the guy charging toward me, relying only on his body and his talent's defense.
At first, the axe blade stopped against his arm, but it didn't take long for his stone armor to shatter to pieces.
He couldn't hide his shock, and he activated his talent across his entire body before charging at me again.
"You insolent brat!"
Maybe he hadn't learned a thing, because he charged at me just like before. I raised my axe to block him.
But the axe blade that should have stopped his charge was completely smashed, and his fist slammed into my ribs.
"Guh!"
"Rrragh!!!"
I rolled across the floor and crashed into the edge of the arena, then used the broken axe handle to pull myself up.
It seemed the axe had been defective from the start.
The weapons provided by the Academy were durable enough to withstand the protagonist's full strength.
But one of them breaking from a single punch from Herman?
That's impossible.
When I looked closely at the broken fragment, I saw that it was covered in rust.
And yet, there was no way the Academy would make a mistake like this.
"Do you understand the difference between us now?"
"I understand perfectly."
"Then, like I said, go sell your body. Don't ruin things for the rest of us."
Right now, I was effectively powerless, unable to use even a single talent.
It wasn't as if I could change into my maid uniform here.
To put it simply, this was like facing an enemy who'd awakened their powers while I had nothing but my basic stats.
Even so, what I had to do wouldn't change.
"This is the end."
"No."
-BOOM!
I used the broken axe handle in my hand to redirect the punch he'd aimed at my head, and his fist slammed into the floor.
It was a technique Lucille had taught me before I enrolled at the Academy.
Bellias Style, Third Form: Deflection.
It was a simple technique for redirecting an attack, but I had to take over a thousand beatings from Lucille just to learn it.
Even now, all I was doing was imitating the technique she'd used.
But imitating it was enough against Herman. I had no intention of killing him here.
"My turn now. Let's see you block this."
"No matter how much you struggle, you can't break through my defenses! Just crumple up and die!"
I tossed the broken handle to the ground and clenched my fist.
'The Bellias Style is not limited to any one weapon.'
Those were words Lucille had repeated so often, I'd nearly had my ears bleed from hearing them.
What she meant was that the Bellias Style was never restricted to a single weapon.
In other words, I could use its techniques even with nothing but my bare fists.
Bellias Style, First Form: Heavenbreaker.
"Die."
"Guh!"
My fist shattered the hardening around his arm and slammed into his face.
Herman was driven into the ground by my punch and passed out, while my fingers were nearly broken.
Heavenbreaker was a technique specialized in breaking through defenses and damaging the target from within.
So it was an especially devastating technique for Herman.
"The winner is Cadet Serena!"
Even after Rayren announced the winner, the entire arena had fallen into a stunned silence.
Probably no one had thought the heir to one of the Four Great Families could lose. In a way, this was a perfectly normal reaction.
"This is impossible... How could a commoner like you beat me?!"
"You should've watched your mouth. If you hadn't run it like that, I would've let you win."
"You filthy commoner!"
Furious beyond belief, he turned toward me and tried to conjure a stone sword and swing it at me.
I already knew he was going to do that, but I didn't try to dodge or block him.
-Click.
"That's enough. Move even a little more, and I'll cut your head off."
"Who the hell are you?!"
I was certain someone would appear and stop him like this.
A girl who'd suddenly barged into the arena had a longsword held to Herman's neck.
He seemed to think her sword was nothing special, and wrapped his hand in stone before grabbing it to throw her off.
But no matter how hard Herman tried to attack her with his strength and talent, none of it worked.
The sword didn't budge at all, and the girl holding it simply gazed into space, as if bored.
Herman struggled to push the sword aside, attacking her again and again, but her strike reached him before any of his did.
The sword she swung sent Herman crashing to the floor, blood spraying from him. Leaving him behind, she came over to me and held out her hand.
"Can you stand?"
"I'm not hurt."
"Then that's good."
When I took her hand and looked at her up close, I was certain.
A sword that showed not the slightest hesitation; movements so fast they were hard to follow with the eye; and a lethal strike hidden within swordsmanship that could seem almost graceful.
On top of that, there was only one character in the original who looked enough like the protagonist that I could imagine she was what he would look like as a woman.
The girl standing before me had to be Cecilia, who held the title of the Sword God's first disciple.
Since she'd barged into the sparring match and slashed the heir to one of the Four Great Families, it was only natural that everyone's attention turned to her.
"Move again, and I'll cut your head off."
"Grr..."
"Answer me."
"I... I understand!"
Herman knelt before her and begged for forgiveness, while Cecilia claimed all the attention and cheers.
Everyone was praising her strength and beauty, but to me, Cecilia wasn't someone who could be judged by her skill and looks alone.
Cecilia was the one and only regressor in this novel, irreplaceable by anyone else.