Chapter 42
It had already been a day since I had clashed with Senior Elsie’s gang.
A great deal had happened in the meantime. Not only had Celine scolded me for doing something so dangerous, but I had also stopped by the temple just in case and been subjected to a long lecture from the Saintess.
I insisted that it had been unavoidable if I was to defend a noble’s honor, but in return, I had to pretend to be moved by her sermon that honor was not more important than one’s life.
The priests of the Holy Kingdom did not understand how important honor was to nobles. To them, life itself was akin to a mission bestowed upon them by the celestial god Arus.
Yet when nobles tried to throw away those precious lives like worthless weeds while going on about ‘honor,’ it was understandable that the priests responsible for treating them would find it absurd. Nobles might court danger, but saving their lives was entirely the priests’ responsibility.
In the first place, each country had its own culture, so it could not be helped. No matter how much I tried to persuade her, there was no chance the Saintess would change her mind. If so, there was only one answer.
Listen to the old-fashioned sermon with one ear and let it out the other while nodding as though deeply moved.
If I kept this up for a few minutes, most priests would nod with satisfied smiles. The Saintess was no exception.
“Brother Ian, I’m glad my words moved you so deeply. Most Imperial nobles dislike listening to me, but you are an exception. This, too, is the grace of Arus.”
As she said that, unmistakable pride lingered in her pale pink eyes. Perhaps she had grown pleased with herself, because she straightened her shoulders, making the already prominent curves of her chest stand out even more.
I cleared my throat and looked away. Then I made the sign of the cross.
Arus, forgive Your son, who was born sinful.
Yet the Saintess seemed to mistake my sign of the cross for some expression of emotion. I could tell because she grew even more animated, her movements becoming subtly more pronounced.
As a result, her ample breasts proudly displayed their firmness. I swallowed a groan and made the sign of the cross once more.
Arus, now that I think about it, being born male isn’t my fault, is it? I shall accept this, too, as a gift from You. Immanuel.
Having finished rationalizing things to myself in an instant, I stole glances at the Saintess while pretending not to. The Saintess merely left me with a benevolent smile to the very end.
“The faith of Brother Ian, whose reputation has risen so high recently, is so deep that even the Lord in heaven will rejoice. I hope we have more opportunities to speak in the future. Immanuel.”
As she said that, she glanced at me and smiled with her eyes. At the final moment, guilt kept me from meeting the Saintess’s gaze directly.
According to mythology, humans were created jointly by the celestial god Arus and the evil god Omeros. It is said that because Arus created human reason while Omeros created the body, human flesh still retains a sinful nature.
It was indeed a sinful body.
Not mine, but the Saintess’s.
I tucked that depraved memory into a corner of my mind and left the temple.
There had been plenty of other things to deal with as well. First came the looks and whispers that followed me everywhere.
It brought to mind the day I first opened my eyes after losing my memories. If anything, it was even worse than then.
The rumor that I had defeated Seria in a duel lacked any sense of reality, and there had only been around a hundred witnesses. It was the sort of rumor that could easily be dismissed as nothing more than a stroke of luck.
But the place where I had attacked Senior Elsie was right in the middle of the Academy. Such a spectacle was rare in the Academy, where violence was forbidden to begin with, and it was even rarer for a third-year student to defeat a famous fourth-year.
Moreover, the fact that the person I had felled was Senior Elsie had helped the rumor spread. Who was Elsie Rainella? Wasn’t she the ‘Little Villain’?
If you uttered even a single syllable of the word ‘little’ in front of her, you would have to brace yourself for brutal retaliation. But in her absence, that nickname was already widely used.
She was short, with a doll-like appearance. Judging solely by her looks, she was clearly a cute and lovable girl.
Yet her foul mouth, discourteous personality, and habit of leading a gang around while intimidating students gave her the exact opposite image. The things she did were no different from those of a street thug.
That was how she had acquired the nickname ‘Little Villain.’ It sounded somewhat cute, but quite a few people shuddered at her viciousness.
And then Senior Elsie had been unable to defeat a single junior, even with her gang at her back.
The ambush, my luck, and various other circumstances had all favored me. But rumors did not spread with every trivial detail taken into account.
In the rumor mill, Senior Elsie had suffered the ultimate humiliation. She had even become a pathetic senior who was so afraid of me that she had wet herself.
At that point, noble honor and all, she had nothing left. She would have to carry it as the darkest shame of her life.
The rumor that she had wet herself might even require her family to intervene. She had been born beautiful, but if a disgraceful rumor like that spread, it would ruin her marriage prospects.
In hindsight, I did feel a little sorry for her.
After all, all Senior Elsie had done was bring her gang, drag a helpless junior to a deserted clearing, and try to beat that junior half to death.
Of course, that had only been an attempt, and I had no way of knowing what sort of vicious things Senior Elsie had actually been planning.
But thinking about it again, I did not feel very sorry. Justice always triumphed in the end.
Naturally, the rumor continued to spread even after a day had passed. If anything, it was mutating and evolving. That was the nature of rumors.
It seemed the rumor had reached Leto’s ears as well. The moment he saw me, he began snickering.
“Well, well, who do we have here? Isn’t this the Academy’s famous ‘Handaxe Young Master’?”
“What’s that nickname supposed to mean?”
The moment I heard the strange nickname ‘Handaxe Young Master,’ my expression twisted into a frown. But when Leto saw my reaction, he only laughed even harder, as though he were delighted beyond words.
He thumped me on the shoulder. It was his way of showing that he could barely hold back his laughter.
“Pfft, heh… They say you love using that handaxe whenever you beat someone up. Tean fell to a handaxe, Senior Elsie fell to a handaxe… Thanks to you, handaxes are apparently all the rage as secondary weapons at weapon shops these days.”
I let out a hollow laugh at his words, as though I found them utterly ridiculous.
The reason I favored handaxes was simply that they were unexpected as secondary weapons. Most swordsmen found it difficult enough to handle a single sword.
The path of the swordsman was long and arduous. Most swordsmen preferred to spend the time it would take to properly master a secondary weapon honing their aura instead.
Yet as my case had proven, a secondary weapon could provide a powerful advantage in actual combat if one was skilled enough to use it. Even if I lost my sword, I could continue fighting, and the mere appearance of a new weapon with completely different reach and speed could throw an opponent into confusion.
It was even better if, like me, one was skilled at throwing weapons. Whether it was a sword or a handaxe, I could throw either and create all sorts of variables.
But that was only possible because I happened to meet such demanding conditions.
Using an unfamiliar secondary weapon could instead expose a fatal opening. A secondary weapon like a handaxe had shorter reach than a primary weapon, to boot. Naturally, the danger increased as well.
If my body had not handled the handaxe instinctively after I lost my memories, I would never even have dreamed of adding a secondary weapon. And yet, the weapon I used had suddenly become fashionable.
It was absurd. It did not seem like a particularly practical choice.
Leto was not the sort of person to be unaware of that. No, perhaps that was precisely why he was enjoying himself even more.
He was the very model of a twisted mage who knew how to turn other people’s pain into his own amusement.
Why did all mages have to be such awful people? I could only lament inwardly.
“Isn’t it funny? Someone actually said it with a straight face. They claimed your real weapon was a handaxe, and that you had been hiding your skill with a sword… Puhahahaha!”
“Don’t laugh.”
I said that because Leto’s delight was somehow getting on my nerves, but his laughter did not stop. He even went so far as to praise me.
“Still, heh-heh… You did well, kid. If you want to make a name for yourself, you need an image that leaves an impression, you know? Now, wherever you go, the moment you casually pick up a handaxe, everyone will scream and run away!”
“Even so, would they really…….”
Unable to withstand Leto’s insistence that I try it once, I drew a handaxe. The students walking through the middle of the Academy began stepping away from me with frightened looks in their eyes.
No matter how I thought about it, it was an unfair reputation. I was not that frightening a person.
The evening training session with Seria was no different. The clash between Senior Elsie and me had become the topic of conversation once again.
Seria’s aquamarine eyes were sparkling. She was looking at me with admiration and respect.
No, I was weaker than you.
But I did not have the heart to reject the admiration of a junior I cared about, so I deliberately added nothing more.
Seria had even brought along a newspaper published by a campus club, though I had no idea where she had found it. It was the same newspaper that had once printed nasty rumors about her.
Personally, my opinion of that newspaper had worsened after that incident, but Seria did not seem particularly bothered, perhaps because she had not seen the article. If anything, her eyes shone as she read it with rapt attention.
She held out an article to me. Its headline read as follows.
‘The Little Villain Gets Taught a Lesson! How Far Will the Rebellion of the Empire’s Neglected Lower Noble Go?’
“Rebellion? What kind of outrageous thing is that to say about a noble……”
That single line alone was enough to leave me dumbfounded; I could only mutter those words.
Treason was a grave crime. It was the same in every country. As a result, nobles, whether they came from the Empire or the Kingdoms, generally avoided uttering even similar words.
And yet, even at the Academy, they were using an expression like ‘rebellion.’
I was already beginning to feel dizzy. Moreover, didn’t the expression ‘lower noble’ clearly imply that its counterpart was a ‘high noble’?
There was no way to win the favor of high nobles, who held power both outside and within the Academy, by offending them. Even reading a single line left me feeling mentally exhausted.
Yet contrary to how I felt, Seria addressed me in a slightly excited voice. To anyone else, the difference would have been so subtle that they could never have noticed it.
“Senior Ian, you defeated that Elsie Rainella… That’s amazing.”
“No, I was just lucky.”
I had also benefited from drawing a real sword without warning, and from my opponent letting her guard down.
If I had faced them head-on one-on-one, could I have beaten one or two of them?
Even that was a generous assessment based on my rapidly improving skills and the practical value of a handaxe as a secondary weapon.
Of course, the fact that a third-year was even discussing whether he could beat one or two fourth-years already meant I was fairly capable. It was astonishing even when I thought about it again.
It had not even been a month since I lost my memories, yet the more real combat I experienced, the faster my skills grew.
There were limits, however. At most, I was skilled enough to be called ‘strong in actual combat,’ while my fundamentals and mana reserves were only slightly better than they had been in the past.
Ultimately, true strength did not come from variables and unpredictability, but from solid fundamentals and abundant mana. Improving those would be the task I needed to solve going forward.
Yet regardless of what I thought, Seria seemed unreservedly pleased that I had defeated a famous and talented senior at the Academy. A faint delight glimmered in her eyes.
“Even so, it doesn’t change the fact that Senior Ian is amazing. How did you think of launching an ambush at that moment?”
“I don’t know. I just felt like doing it.”
It sounded a little strange, but Seria exclaimed in admiration, saying that a true master’s instincts were extraordinary from the very beginning.
By then, I was almost embarrassed myself. Assuming I used aura, if I were to face Seria right now, nine times out of ten it would end with my defeat. Being showered with praise by someone I would probably lose to made me feel uncomfortable.
I coughed to clear the air. When Seria looked at me curiously, I brought up something that had just occurred to me.
“That reminds me—I met her.”
“……?”
“Your half-sister.”
A faint “Ah” escaped Seria’s lips. Her mood grew somewhat gloomy. More precisely, ‘cowed’ would have been the right word.
That was how massive a wall her half-sister seemed to be to Seria.
After all, she was the top student in the swordsmanship department among the Academy’s fourth-years, the highest grade. I could roughly imagine how formidable she was without having faced her myself.
Seria cautiously asked me,
“……How was she?”
“It was too brief a meeting for me to evaluate her. She was surprisingly favorable toward me, though. Oh, and……”
I smacked one palm with the other and told Seria about the memory that had just come to me. A puzzled light lingered in Seria’s eyes.
And then, the next moment.
“We’re going to meet alone tonight. Just the two of us.”
Seria’s expression froze.
The light went out for an instant in her jewel-like eyes. Her reaction was so dramatic that I could only grow flustered.
What was wrong with Seria?