Chapter 107
The sparring match with Richard, commander of the Second Imperial Knights, had been arranged.
I had already fought plenty of people who were quite strong, even among slaves.
Like Kalben, Edelhied’s magic knight, the Imperial Knights, and Aslan, the former commander of the knights.
None of them were opponents I could afford to dismiss.
But more new strong opponents kept popping up, like some manga with completely busted power scaling.
The Richard standing before me was no different.
In terms of presence alone, he fell short of Aslan.
But Aslan was an old man with more days behind him than ahead of him. Physically, Richard would likely have the edge over him.
One mistake, and I might never be able to write again.
“What weapon would you like to use? A practice sword? A real sword?”
“Let’s use a real sword. I want to raise the tension a little.”
“Good. I prefer real swords over practice swords myself. Then I’ll use my favorite sword.”
Richard picked up the sword carefully laid in one corner of the weapon rack.
It was a bastard sword with a pure white scabbard and a golden lion crest intricately worked into it.
-Shrring.
With a smooth sound, the blade slid free and reflected the sunlight.
Richard lightly swung that huge sword one-handed, stirring up sword wind.
It was nothing special.
But in that spotless, no-frills stance, it was plain to see how much swordsmanship he had honed.
“Why are you standing there? Why aren’t you coming over to choose a weapon?”
Richard, already in his stance, turned his head toward me, still standing rooted in place.
I was standing quite a distance away from the weapon rack.
Because I just stood there without moving, he found it odd.
“Just a moment. I’m trying something. Please wait a little.”
“Are you warming up? Well, unlike me, who’s already warmed up from a full spar, you’ll probably need a bit of prep. Take your time. I’ll wait.”
Richard seemed to think I was doing some sort of warm-up.
Of course, I did need that too, but it wasn’t what I was about to do.
I stood as if nailed to the spot, staring intently at the distant weapon rack.
I focused all my attention on the sword lodged there and issued a command.
‘Come.’
I pushed my mana resonance to its limit.
I sharpened my sense of space.
I entered the state of [Immersion], the skill I’d gained from writing.
In my mind, I pictured the shape of the sword and etched in the image of my arm gripping the hilt.
Invisible energy tangled together like threads, wrapping the sword tightly from all sides.
-Clack.
The sword I’d been staring at twitched for a moment, but it was still far from enough.
The distance was too great. The mana I had forced out was trying to scatter like the wind.
‘All at once.’
I squeezed out the mana inside my body in a single burst, as if detonating it. I forced the sword to submit through sheer power.
‘Aren’t you coming over here?’
Even I, a slave, come running when my master calls. And this is just a sword?
‘Come right now.’
That was when it happened.
-BOOM!
A thunderous blast rang out.
The weapon rack was smashed apart, wooden splinters scattering in every direction.
And from within it, the sword I had been staring at shot upward.
A sword crossing the sky as if it were piercing right through space itself.
I thought it was coming straight at me.
“Huh.”
Its direction had gone astray.
Like a meteor defying gravity and reversing course.
The sword traced a diagonal arc before vanishing beyond the distant sky.
-Whiiing.
And just like that, the sword became a star in the sky.
Only the desolate sound of the wind lingered where it had passed.
“Tsk, that didn’t work very well.”
What I had been trying to do was sword control.
It was a sword technique that often appears in wuxia novels, just like the formless sword.
I had tried it because I thought it would be cool to control a sword freely, but it was harder than I expected.
If I wanted to use this in a real fight, I’d probably have to put in a lot of work.
I clicked my tongue in disappointment.
“Hm?”
After slipping out of [Immersion], I was a beat late to notice the gazes pouring in from all around me.
The people were staring at me blankly, as if they had just seen a hallucination.
I blinked for a moment, then awkwardly scratched my forehead.
“Sorry.”
Do I need to pay for this?
I don’t have any money.
***
Well, there had been a bit of a commotion.
I had just demonstrated sword control for the first time and blown the weapon rack to pieces.
I had thought I’d have to pay for the whole thing since I didn’t have a single coin, but fortunately I didn’t have to.
Because I’m a slave.
‘What? Since slaves aren’t people, what I wrote is the master’s property too?’
Then if I’m not a person, my master should be the one responsible for me. It’s the master’s fault for not managing their slave properly.
Of course.
Exactly.
So Aurora ended up paying for the damages.
I picked out a new sword. This time I didn’t do anything foolish; I went over quietly and took it by hand.
If I broke another one, Aurora would probably use compensation as an excuse to treat me harshly again.
I stood before Richard.
I loosened my body with a light warm-up.
“Ready?”
“Yes. Sorry to have kept you waiting. Please begin.”
The instant I finished speaking, a sharp light flashed in Richard’s eyes.
The air around us sharpened as if it could be cut.
“Then here I come.”
-Crack!
With the sound of sand being gouged up, Richard’s massive body burst forward.
It was a single leap.
The distance of dozens of steps vanished in an instant.
He was already right in front of me.
A longsword filled my field of vision.
A slash came crashing down, tearing the air apart.
-Kaaang!
I angled my sword, pushing the descending blade’s path aside.
It was clearly a clean defense. Yet a tingling numbness climbed up my wrist.
‘Damn, he’s strong.’
His intent came through in that one strike.
He meant that we didn’t need any probing exchange and should clash at full strength from the start.
I had no reason to refuse either.
Richard absorbed the recoil of the opening strike with a twist of his waist and immediately sent a second slash at me.
-Whoosh.
This time, it was a horizontal blade wind.
Sharp yellow mana rippled fiercely along the longsword’s edge.
It was threatening, but still within the power I could handle.
I had been about to raise my sword normally to defend, but
In that instant, a deeply alien sensation washed over my entire body.
-Wooooong!
Along the path of Richard’s longsword as it cut through the air, a huge vortex rose.
The mana surrounding the blade suddenly spun explosively, generating a powerful pull.
Like a black hole.
It sucked in everything around it.
‘What the...’
My center of gravity pitched sharply forward.
My body was yanked into the sword’s path against my will.
My stance collapsed.
If I defended like this, I’d be cut down along with the sword.
Then.
‘I’ll meet it head-on.’
-Thud!
I tapped the sand lightly with the tip of my foot.
And the next moment.
-THOOM!
The mana I released through my foot drilled into the ground.
The sand of the sparring arena surged violently.
The ground beneath Richard’s feet caved in for an instant.
“……!”
His balance was thrown badly off.
The vortex trying to swallow me lost its axis. My body, which had been leaning forward, drifted slightly to the side.
Only for a moment, but
‘Enough.’
I threw myself forward.
The pull trapping me and my acceleration locked together tautly.
My body was flung outside the spinning orbit. Fierce centrifugal force slammed into me.
Normally, I’d have been swept away by that violent repulsion and sent flying into the air.
But instead, I held out against the inertia trying to fling me off and bent the trajectory.
In an instant, I slipped out into Richard’s blind spot.
I used that pull in reverse to gain explosive momentum and kicked the back of Richard’s head.
-Thwack!
The sensation in my instep was heavy.
It had definitely landed properly.
Richard’s head lurched forward, and his huge body reeled as it was shoved diagonally away.
But he didn’t fall. It was a kick that wouldn’t have been strange even if it had sent him crashing straight into the ground.
What absurd toughness.
‘It’d be strange if that were enough to finish it.’
The moment I landed, I kicked off the ground hard once more.
I drove my sword toward Richard’s unguarded back.
No, I tried to thrust it in.
-Crunch!
Before I could, Richard’s sword pierced the ground.
He hadn’t bent over or turned around.
Still in the posture of toppling forward,
Richard rammed his longsword deep into the ground at the very instant his balance broke.
‘What is this?’
A chilling sensation rose up through the soles of my feet.
Mana spread out from Richard. It felt as if something buried beneath the ground were swelling up just before it burst.
The sand churned.
The air trembled.
The entire surface of the sparring ground rumbled.
-Wooooong!
My body reacted before my mind did.
I withdrew the sword I had been about to thrust. Instead of stabbing, I swung it wide and leaned my upper body back.
A counter-movement using sword wind. I hurriedly widened the distance, as if fleeing from the ground.
At the same time.
-BOOM!
An explosion erupted.
The sand of the sparring arena burst upward around Richard.
The sword shattered the ground.
Yellow mana raced along the cracks like lightning, then exploded in every direction the next instant.
-Kwa-gwa-gwa-BOOM!
A wave of sand rushed toward me.
I swung my sword diagonally. The slash split the wave at an angle.
-Tap.
I landed lightly at the edge of the sparring arena.
“Damn, sand got in my mouth.”
I wasn’t hurt, but I was covered in sand. I spat the sandy saliva onto the ground.
The dust cleared, revealing Richard standing at its center.
The ground around him, except for where he stood, had been blown to pieces. The sand had turned to powder and was drifting like yellow dust.
“Who’s paying for this?”
“These are the proud scars of training, so why would there be any compensation? His Majesty said to train freely and not worry about it, so don’t worry.”
“It’s coming out of the taxpayers’ pockets anyway.”
“You could say that.”
Then that’s fine.
Because I don’t pay taxes.
“Still, I was quite surprised. I never expected you to evade that attack. That was my specialty.”
He dragged enemies in with gravity and then blew them up. It felt like some fighting-game combo.
For the captain of a knightly order, it seemed he had one or two tricks like that.
‘I’ve actually been learning a trick or two myself lately.’
Just in time, a good opportunity had come.
I could check whether I could use it in a real fight.
I should try it once, right?
‘Hehe, fighting is fun.’
This shiver-inducing thrill.
Victory and defeat decided by split-second judgment.
So exhilarating.
Swords are nice.
Pens are bad.
Sparring is fun.