Chapter 5
Against a backdrop of murmurs, a man and a woman stood facing one another with swords in hand. Professor Derek accepted the sudden request for a spar with a hearty laugh.
The condition was that they would not use real swords, but even that was enough to clearly demonstrate the difference in skill. A master was not one to discriminate between tools.
Of course, there was an interruption in the midst of it all. A pretty girl with black hair neatly tied back had barged in.
She immediately smacked Ian on the back with her palm, making a sharp sound. Then, looking flustered to anyone who saw her, she began babbling whatever came to mind.
“Hey, hey, hey! A-Are you crazy?! M-Miss Yurdina? I think Ian oppa must have temporarily lost his mind…….”
“Selin, it’s fine, so don’t worry.”
“No, what do you mean, it’s fine?!”
The black-haired girl cried out with a tearful expression, but not even the slightest change appeared on the man’s face. Seria felt a little envious of that.
Having someone who sincerely worried about you had to be a blessing. If only he had listened to advice from someone so precious to him.
Unfortunately, Ian did not seem inclined to heed his friend’s advice. That was why he and Seria were now standing alone, facing each other with their swords.
It was arrogant. Seria had given up everything except the sword. That was the level she had barely managed to reach through such sacrifice.
Her desperation was on an entirely different level from that of someone who did nothing but drink and loaf around. Naturally. To her, the sword was synonymous with survival.
That was why Seria had no doubts about her victory. There was only one thing that troubled her.
That bizarre sword path she had seen this morning.
As she recalled that memory, Seria’s grip naturally tightened around her wooden sword. Tension flickered across her previously tranquil eyes.
Had she really been mistaken? At the time, Seria had been overwhelmed by that sword path, if only for a moment. No matter how pathetic Ian looked, like a senior who did nothing but drink, this was the academy.
Everyone had at least one hidden card. Otherwise, they could not survive at the academy.
Seria’s aquamarine-like eyes settled into a cautious light. Her gaze swept over every inch of Ian.
His posture was relaxed. He had not even drawn his sword from its sheath, standing in a comfortable stance. He looked as though he might yawn at any moment.
A surge of anger rose in Seria, and she had to chew it over once again.
Even so, this was a duel between swordsmen. There was such a thing as the minimum courtesy one ought to show an opponent. Though she sometimes spoke rudely without meaning to, she had never deliberately looked down on an opponent during a spar.
Her eyes turned cold. She pulled at her hilt and assumed a stance as though she might spring forward at any moment.
If her opponent had a hidden card, there was only one best move.
Crush him before he could reveal it.
Fortunately, Seria possessed legs strengthened by mana.
Overwhelm him with explosive speed from the instant the fight began. Her years of battle experience against magical beasts had provided that answer. Her muscles tensed taut.
Professor Derek cast a sidelong glance at Ian, who had not even drawn his sword, then let out a deep sigh. His expression suggested that he could already see the result.
Apparently, he thought Ian was putting on airs, relying on his seniority to bluff. However, he was not kind enough to offer individual advice to a student who could not distinguish courage from recklessness.
Everything had to be learned through the body. Guided by that conviction, he immediately announced the start of the spar.
“Then, begin!”
And before that heavy declaration had even finished echoing across the sparring arena,
With a sharp pop, space compressed. The landscape, scored with straight lines like an engraving, streamed past like a torrent.
The sound of wind being cleaved—yet the sword was faster than sound.
It was the instant her tensed muscles launched Seria’s body like an arrow. She had already reached Ian’s immediate vicinity. The blunt point of her wooden sword was just about to drive into the man’s solar plexus.
Even without a sharp edge, a strike to a vital point could result in serious injury. That was why Seria intended to divert the sword’s path toward his abdomen at the last moment.
Until an unpleasant clacking sound brushed past her ears.
It was a lightning-fast draw. The dark wooden blade split the instant and struck Seria’s sword point aside.
It happened while her center of gravity wavered and she stumbled.
With a whoosh, her body was pulled forward.
The man had seized her blade with the hand not holding his sword. He had moved without even a moment’s hesitation.
One wrong move and his palm might have been torn open. Yet he was riding the flow of force with uncanny precision.
The girl’s body rolled across the ground as though it had been thrown away. Though she had watched it happen right before her eyes, she could not understand what had happened to her at all.
With her back against the ground, Seria blinked and stared blankly up at the sky.
A one-sided defeat.
She had been superior in both physical strength and mana. She had even seized the initiative. Yet in the end, she was the one rolling across the ground.
As the result made no sense by any reasonable standard, murmurs began to arise from the surroundings.
Some sounded amazed, some entertained, and some even laughed at her.
Everyone seemed to think she must have let her guard down. Before long, Seria herself ended up believing the same thing.
This couldn’t be happening. How could it have been so simple?
She had devoted her entire life to the sword. There was no way she could lose to some idler who did nothing but drink. She was a genius, and she simply had to work harder.
Only then could she clear away the shadow cast over her life—the brightest sun of House Yurdina, the legitimate heir of the Golden Lion who guarded the north, and her half-sister.
“Do you want to continue?”
The indifferent voice struck Seria’s ears like thunder. Startled back to her senses by those words, Seria soon rose to her feet with a grinding of her teeth.
She staggered slightly from the impact of rolling across the ground, but she was still in decent condition. She had not yet let go of her sword.
Her blazing blue eyes turned toward Ian once more. He had already walked back to the spot opposite her.
“……Please.”
The heated voice emerged as she bit down on her lips. To anyone watching, it was obvious that Seria was stepping forward in earnest.
Yet Ian merely gave a slight nod, as though her words were of no concern to him.
His attitude seemed to say that she could come at him whenever she wished. Seria did not hold back any longer.
Another leap. That was enough to close the distance between them. But Seria was not foolish enough to repeat a strategy that had already failed.
She had drawn too straight a sword path because she had placed too much emphasis on speed at the start. Her opponent was not a stubborn bear, but a cunning fox—a dangerously formidable opponent who knew how to turn her strength against her.
She therefore needed to be even more cautious. Her leap came to a halt a short distance from the man. Then came a strike that continued as she charged forward.
She concealed the sword’s path until the final moment. Perhaps he could not read it in advance, because the man answered the rising strike from below with a downward slash.
It was an appropriate response at an appropriate moment. If only Seria Yurdina had not been his opponent.
A shock wave like an explosion rang out with a boom. Strengthened by dense mana, the sword strike possessed terrifying power even without being layered with aura.
The man’s wooden sword was knocked into the air, naturally opening his shoulder. It was proof that Seria was vastly superior in mana reserves.
Unfortunately, she had not managed to knock the sword from his hand, but her opponent was now defenseless. Seria sensed victory.
Yes, this was how it should be. She had devoted her whole life to swordsmanship. That desperate effort had made her a genius. She could not be denied now.
Yet when Seria brought her wooden sword down again in a smooth, flowing combination,
With a whoosh, her sword cut through empty air,
and with a crack, the man’s wooden sword smashed into her solar plexus. A fierce pain accompanied the broken breath that escaped Seria’s mouth.
Struck without warning in a vital spot, she rolled across the ground several times as though she had been sent flying. It was a blow strengthened by mana. In terms of sheer power, she was vastly superior, but her opponent was also a third-year at the academy.
He possessed enough strength to bounce the lean girl’s body away like a springy ball. A groan escaped Seria as she absorbed the blow.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She could not even remember the last time she had experienced such pain. It hurt so badly that tears sprang to her eyes. She could not breathe properly, and the sharp pain bored into every nerve cell in her spinal cord, honing itself to an edge.
A tingling pain spread throughout her body. She realized that she had unconsciously let go of her wooden sword. That, at least, she could not endure.
Even amid that terrible pain, Seria groped around and seized her wooden sword again. Murmurs once more tickled her ears.
If the earlier murmurs had sounded as though everyone was enjoying her humiliation, the current ones were tinged with bewilderment.
It was an unexpected result that no one had anticipated.
Their confusion was inevitable. They were slowly beginning to realize that something was unfolding strangely.
It did not matter. Seria had decided to live without caring in the slightest about the eyes of others.
Her mind was entirely focused on painstakingly replaying the exchange that had just taken place.
How had he dodged that?
She had not even been able to see it. His stance had collapsed, too. Yet his body had slipped past the sword strike by the narrowest margin, as though that was simply how it was meant to move, then avoided the direction of Seria’s descending sword and drove his blade straight into her abdomen.
She could not understand it at all. And things one could not understand were frightening. Alongside the intense pain she had not felt in so long, Seria’s eyes turned toward Ian with a faint trace of fear.
He silently walked back to the spot opposite Seria. Then he stood there and gazed down at her once more.
His eyes seemed to ask what she intended to do. Gritting her teeth, Seria rose unsteadily to her feet.
Her ragged breathing was harsh. Even so, Seria once again pointed her sword at him.
“……Again, please.”
Yet no matter how many times they repeated it, the result never changed.
Several times, Seria became certain that she had seized the advantage, but in the next moment, it was always she who was rolling across the ground. It would have been fortunate if she had merely rolled across the ground.
The side of the sword struck her temple, a kick slammed into her abdomen, and her arms and legs were battered dozens of times until even her senses no longer functioned properly.
After several exchanges, blood burst from Seria’s mouth. The repeated impacts had torn open the inside of her cheek.
And after several more exchanges, Seria vomited bright yellow stomach acid.
When the final exchange ended, Seria could not even get up. Her entire body was a wreck.
She seemed to have suffered fractures in several places at the very least. The terrible pain dulled the sensation in her limbs. Her vision was blurry, and she could barely breathe. For all she knew, her lungs had been injured as well.
The murmurs died down only after the exchanges had already been repeated several times.
They were overwhelmed by the merciless violence: countless blows being inflicted on the fragile body of a young girl who could not even keep herself upright, let alone fight back.
Bones broke, flesh tore, and blood burst forth. Even so, Ian mechanically swung his wooden sword.
Each time, flesh and blood flew alongside a scream. Seria’s body, collapsed after taking the final blow, was twitching faintly.
Even Professor Derek, who should have intervened to stop the situation, was pale-faced and unable to speak easily. Such vicious violence inflicted by one human being upon another was a sight even he, a legendary magical-beast hunter, had rarely witnessed.
The only one who remained composed was Ian. He walked toward Seria with heavy steps. She could no longer even cough properly, her breath mixed with blood. That alone made her instincts scream.
Run. Please, get away. Seria’s body, the embodiment of violence she could not even resist, trembled uncontrollably against her will.
Seeing Seria like that, Ian spoke in a low voice.
“Get up, Seria Yurdina.”
At those words, Seria flinched and stiffened.
Was that still not enough? She had done her best. And yet he was an opponent she could not defeat.
Every part of her body was screaming. Please stop. He was an unchallengeable monster. If this continued, she would only die.
Seria’s trembling eyes turned toward Ian. As he had been from the beginning, his face was expressionless.
“This is pain you’ll have to endure countless times in the future. Surely you don’t intend to break over something this minor?”
She did not dare meet the man’s gaze and looked away. Her eyes trembled pitifully along with her body. She was on the verge of shedding tears.
She was afraid to stand. Even stubbornness had its limits. Even if she rose, she would only suffer through that pain again. No matter how proud and haughty a swordswoman might be, before that, she was still a girl who had only just passed twenty.
In the end, Professor Derek stepped forward in her place. He had been watching the spar with a vacant expression, but he soon cried out in shock.
“Stop! The spar is over! Seria is already seriously injured. The spar is over!”
Professor Derek then began trudging toward Ian and Seria. His intervention was late, but it was not too late. The academy had high-ranking priests from the Holy Kingdom who could completely heal even severe injuries within a week.
Even if Seria were entrusted to the saintess currently enrolled as a third-year, her injuries were at a level that could be fully healed within a few days. Her mental wounds, however, were another matter.
As Professor Derek approached, Ian’s gaze, which had briefly rested on him, plunged back toward Seria.
He asked once more.
“That’s what he says. What will you do?”
At those words, Seria felt a surge of emotion. What would she do? Of course, of course.
Of course she should give up.
She was afraid, and her trembling body would not obey her. Her muscles screamed. Her body was moving only through the mana she could barely muster. Her bones were hardly unharmed.
She fell forward several times, unable to keep herself upright.
She had been unable to win even when her entire body was fine. There was no way she could win now. Though she knew all of that, Seria used her wooden sword as a crutch and rose to her feet.
The arm gripping the wooden sword trembled. Even now, whenever she met the man’s gaze, she felt as though her blood were freezing. And yet she could not give up.
Because the sword was her life. If she broke and gave up now,
another shadow would fall across her life, one she could never sweep away. She could not endure that.
Seria drew a ragged breath and raised her sword point again. Her body tilted sideways for an instant with a wobble.
Professor Derek, who had been walking over to mediate the spar, stopped short at that resolve. Anyone would have done the same.
Anyone who saw Seria’s coldly burning blue eyes at that moment would have.
“Again, hngh… again, please.”
Only the man showed neither surprise nor admiration at Seria’s determination. He merely nodded twice, as though he had expected this all along.
“……Yes. If you’re Seria Yurdina, that’s how you should be.”
And his sword once again struck Seria’s body without mercy.
Her body flew through the air and rolled across the ground. It had happened countless times during the spar. The difference this time was that he had accumulated just enough damage to reach the point beyond which she could no longer endure.
Her fading consciousness hung precariously, as though it might slip away. Through her narrowing field of vision, Seria drew ragged breaths and groped around with her hand, trying somehow to grasp her sword.
But the sword was too far away, and sleep was far too close.
She merely heard the man’s voice before losing consciousness.
“You only fight magical beasts, so your muscles are far too honest.”
Before she could even ask what he meant,
her consciousness was swallowed by darkness.
This was the full story behind the ‘Yurdina’s brat beaten half to death’ incident that had shaken the academy over the past week.
**
After hearing all of Selin’s account, I had no choice but to fall silent.
The gist of the story was that I had dodged every one of Seria’s sword strikes, counterattacked, and beaten her nearly to death. All because she had said one rude thing.
I had even told her to get back up after she vomited stomach acid and collapsed in a battered heap?
“……You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish I were kidding too. Ian oppa really seemed like a lunatic back then.”
At Selin’s gloomy reply, I leaped up on the spot. It was such an intense reaction that I even forgot everyone was watching me.
“No, not ‘seemed like a lunatic’—I was an actual lunatic! I’m the trash who beat up a girl who had collapsed and couldn’t even move?!”
“Yeah, that’s why guys like Tean are trying to get involved.”
Selin looked at me with her arms folded, gazing at me pityingly. It was the same look one might give a cat dying in the street with its entrails spilled out.
She quietly shook her head.
“I tried to stop you, okay? Anyway, it’s a crime Ian oppa committed, so take your punishment like a man. Now that I think about it, getting hit a few times probably wouldn’t be enough, would it?”
“No, I’m telling you, I wasn’t myself back then?!”
I tried to defend myself in exasperation, but both Selin and I knew it was an argument that would not get through to anyone. It certainly would not get through to Seria.
The situation was more serious than I had expected. At this rate, I could be beaten to death by Seria and have no excuse.
I groaned as I pondered whether there was anything useful in what I had just heard.
Then, suddenly, the last thing I had apparently said flashed through my mind.
“……Hey, come to think of it, what did I say?”
“What did you say?”
Selin, who had been clasping her hands and praying for the repose of my soul, tilted her head at my sudden question. But I was desperate, so I placed both hands firmly on her shoulders and pulled her toward me.
It was to show her how serious I was. Selin seemed startled, turning bright red and fidgeting as she avoided my gaze.
“W-Why are you suddenly, suddenly, suddenly acting like this……?”
“At the end. You said I said something to Seria when she was collapsing, right?”
“Th-That?”
Selin must have been extremely flustered, because she did not play coy in response to my nearly forceful question and immediately began thinking. After pondering for a moment, she found the answer I wanted somewhere in her extraordinary memory.
“Wh-What was it? ‘Your muscles are too honest because you only fight magical beasts’…….”
“Yes, that’s it!”
I exclaimed and finally released the hands that had been gripping Selin’s shoulders. Selin had been blushing and fidgeting, but when I brushed her off as though shoving her away, she glared at me with slight displeasure.
She gave a hollow laugh as though she could not believe me, then asked,
“Do you know what that means?”
“……No, but I’m screwed, aren’t I?”
As though she had expected that, Selin shook her head vigorously from side to side. But unlike her, I was serious.
“But I have to figure it out somehow……,”
Otherwise, I’ll be beaten to death.
It was practically certain that Seria would challenge me to a spar during today’s lecture. It was an opportunity to erase both her shattered pride and the trauma of her crushing defeat at once.
So I had no time left. No time to prepare for my fight with her.
I desperately racked my brain to take responsibility for something I did not even remember.
I had thought it would be an ordinary day until this morning. How had things ended up like this?
I sighed inwardly, but there was nothing I could do about it, because Seria’s aquamarine-like eyes were still fixed solely on me.