Chapter 7
Seria Yurdina was afraid.
It had been that way since childhood. For a girl scorned as lowborn and forced to live off scraps under the watchful eyes of others, fear was a kind of survival skill. It was the awe and terror she felt toward those who held the power of life and death over her.
To avoid returning to such a miserable life and escape her weak past, she devoted herself to swordsmanship.
Fortunately, it did not take long for the results to appear.
On the day she received the surname Yurdina, she felt a strange pleasure upon seeing the servants of the lord’s castle—who had secretly looked down on her—unable to hide their unease.
Yes, this was the gaze of the strong.
Only the weak worried about the eyes of the strong. Whenever the strong turned their gaze upon them, they stiffened, trembled, and fidgeted as they struggled to discern the other person’s intentions.
After taking up the sword, she no longer had to experience the feelings of the weak.
There were only two exceptions: her father and her half-sister. Even her father was now so weakened by illness that he had little strength left.
That was why, when she stood before Ian again after their previous spar, she felt something unfamiliar.
Each time Ian’s eyes swept over her, she flinched. Her muscles stiffened, and the heart that remembered his brutal violence raced of its own accord, forcing her to draw ragged breaths.
He was frightening. The helplessness she had felt last time, the pain etched into every one of her pain receptors, and the strikes of his sword that had shown not the slightest hesitation.
It was utterly unbearable. Feeling as though she had returned to the miserable state of her childhood, Seria gritted her teeth and gripped her wooden sword.
She would overcome it. She would conquer it and prove her worth once more.
Her enemy, Ian, looked somewhat reluctant, but he readily accepted her request for a spar. After all, she had overwhelmed him so completely last time.
A challenge after only a week might not even be worth laughing at, but to Seria, it was more urgent than anything.
Victory alone. Her mistake last time had been misjudging her opponent’s ability. Today, while her body was in peak condition, she would fight him with everything she had.
That was why Seria launched herself forward before Professor Derek had even finished saying, “Begin!”
It was not a straight line. She approached at a slight angle, but close enough for her sword to make contact with her opponent’s body.
Her body was stiff with tension, but her long years of training did not betray her. Her sword struck the man’s form head-on.
Then came a hollow thud.
Accompanied by a sound like a club pounding leather, the man’s body flew through the air. Seria’s movements came to a halt. She was plainly flustered.
This shouldn’t be happening. She had already calculated her next move, and the one after that, with meticulous precision. Yet among all those possibilities, she had never imagined the man flying through the air from her very first strike.
And with good reason. He was the opponent she had been unable even to graze, no matter how hard she tried.
She had thought that even if she landed a blow, it would only be possible after exchanging several attacks and counters, thanks to his superior physical abilities and mana reserves. Yet now Ian was rolling across the ground after a single strike.
Could this be a trap as well? Suspicion began to spread through Seria’s deep-blue eyes.
Whether it was or not, the man merely staggered to his feet with a groan.
“Ghh… Take it easy, take it easy… okay?”
Judging by the fact that he managed to rise despite staggering, the blow had hurt him but was not fatal. Since she had struck him with a wooden sword in a place that was not a vital point, that was only natural.
The man groaned and resumed his stance. Seria continued to watch him with wary eyes.
This couldn’t be the end. He was the man who had inflicted a humiliating defeat on her last time. Seria charged once more.
Crouching as she came in, Seria unleashed a sword strike from within her guard. A clean diagonal slash ran from the lower left to the upper right. Ian tried to defend, but the result was the same as last time.
A sound closer to an explosion than a mere bang rang out, and the man’s stance collapsed. Seria bit down hard on her lip.
Should she aim for the opening? It was a tempting option, but she quickly abandoned it. He might counterattack once again with that mysterious footwork.
Instead, she drove straight forward as though shoving her body through him. The moment she reached Ian’s now-open guard, she drove the hilt of her sword into his solar plexus.
The clean blow sank in with a solid thud. Ian could not even produce a proper groan. His waist folded from the impact, and he went flying, rolling across the ground several times.
The man could not even draw breath properly. It took a long while before a broken gasp finally escaped him.
Strange. By this point, Seria had begun to feel that something was wrong.
The flow was the same as last time, but the result was the exact opposite. In truth, this was how things should have been. Even if she was a year his junior, she was the top student in the department, while he was barely a middle-to-lower-ranking student.
It was only natural that Seria had seized the upper hand. Even so, she still could not shake off her fear.
Because the man had risen once more. Ian had somehow managed to get back on his feet and stagger into his stance.
It was as though she were looking at herself from the previous week. For that very reason, Seria stared at Ian with an even colder gaze.
She knew. Until he admitted defeat, he had not truly lost.
And if he refused to acknowledge defeat, she could not win either. At any moment, he might turn her into the weak one again.
Seria wanted a flawless victory. A trace of impatience entered her eyes.
She dashed forward. Her charge compressed the distance as though space itself had been squeezed. When her blade flew in from the side, Ian raised his sword and barely blocked it.
With a heavy shock wave, his body shook at an angle. Seria did not miss the opportunity.
Thud, thud, thud—the sound of an axe chopping into a tree. Seria’s sword hammered relentlessly against the man’s blade, something only possible because of her overwhelming physical abilities and mana.
Ian could not hold out for long. His stance crumbled once more as he let out a faint groan, and Seria struck the man’s side with her blade.
With a strangled cry, the man rolled across the ground again. The spectators, who had begun watching the two of them with subdued anticipation, now wore unmistakable looks of disappointment.
Just as expected. Mocking voices began to ring out. Seria found it somewhat amusing—the ridicule of those who lacked even the courage to step into the sparring arena.
But that was the end of her interest in the spectators. If anything, part of her even hoped they would jeer a little more.
The sooner the man’s spirit broke, the sooner Seria’s victory would arrive.
Yet the man stood up once again, groaning despite the pain written plainly across his face.
Seria’s face tightened on its own. Even she could not possibly enjoy beating someone one-sidedly.
“……Are you still going?”
“You did the same thing last week, apparently.”
It was a perfectly reasonable point, even if it sounded rather pathetic coming from a senior to a junior.
Seria composed herself once more. A cold hostility returned to her eyes. If that was what he wanted, she had no choice but to give it to him.
For some reason, Ian was markedly weaker than he had been last week. If she failed to win now, she might never get another opportunity.
That realization made Seria impatient.
She charged in, the man countered, and eventually he once again allowed her to land a blow, sending him rolling across the ground.
It was a repeat of last week. Only the positions had been reversed.
Yet as time passed, Seria was the one who grew more impatient.
The number of exchanges Ian managed with Seria gradually increased. At first, he could not even counterattack. Then, at some point, they exchanged two or three blows, and now several exchanges had to pass before the man went rolling across the ground.
Was he regaining his feel for the fight? It was an illogical thought, but driven by impatience, Seria felt that it might have some merit.
That was why Seria took a reckless gamble.
While struggling against the man’s strength, Seria pulled her sword back. The man’s body pitched awkwardly forward, and at that instant, his vital point came into view.
His temple. Seria swung her sword without thinking.
With a sharp crack, as though something had broken, the man staggered and collapsed. A powerful blow had struck his skull, so it could not be helped. His body convulsed faintly as he lost consciousness for an instant.
Only then did Seria realize her mistake. She had struck him far too hard. She had controlled her strength at the very end, so he probably would not die, but it had been an extremely dangerous act.
What if her opponent suffered a permanent disability? Seria felt the hairs on her body stand on end. At the same time, a scream-like voice rang out from beyond the sparring arena.
“Hey!!!”
Seria’s startled gaze turned toward the source of the sound. There stood a girl glaring at her with blazing eyes.
“Y-You… are you insane?! Whose head do you think you’re hitting?! If something serious happens to Ian oppa, you… No matter what I have to do, I’ll……!”
The longer the girl shouted, the more flustered Seria became. She had not meant to do it. It had been an accident. She needed to apologize, but as someone inexperienced with human relationships, her thoughts became hopelessly tangled, and she could not even come up with a proper excuse.
She merely lowered her head and fidgeted. Whatever the black-haired girl made of that reaction, she gritted her teeth and began trying to enter the sparring arena.
As though she intended to beat Seria herself.
The thing that stopped Selin, furious enough to see red, was a single word.
“……Enough.”
The man rose unsteadily and spat out the words, as though he still had not recovered from his dizziness. Fortunately, he did not seem to be suffering any aftereffects.
Seria inwardly breathed a sigh of relief at having controlled her strength at the end.
“It’s noisy, and it’s giving me a headache… I’ll handle it myself, so stop.”
“What?! Are you insane?! Professor Derek!”
Selin now stamped her feet and looked at Professor Derek imploringly. But Derek slowly shook his head.
“Seria was struck in the temple and got back up during last week’s spar as well. If it is her own will, I want to respect it. But she cannot suffer too serious an injury, so I will place a limit on the match from here on out. If she takes two more rounds, Seria wins.”
It was a decision impossible to imagine from anyone who had not endured every kind of hardship and placed such importance on real combat as Derek did. He was allowing a man who had been struck in the temple and was still staggering to remain on his feet.
But it was good news for Seria. She had already been uneasy about injuring her opponent.
Her body stiffened again. In addition to the tension, the events of striking her opponent in the temple and having his friend shout at her reproachfully had shaken her confidence.
Blood was already streaming down from the man’s head. He might have struck something while rolling across the ground, or perhaps something had burst when she hit his temple.
An even heavier sense of guilt settled over Seria’s heart. She bit down on her lip.
Only two more times. Just two more, and this would be over. Then she could become the victor again. The rumors spreading through the academy would quiet down as well.
That way, even if she met her half-sister again, she would feel a little less ashamed.
Seria exhaled and once again pointed her sword at the man. There was a faint hesitation, but it did not last.
When she kicked off the ground again and her sword shot straight forward with a fierce whistle through the air—
There was a solid thud.
A familiar resistance met her, and for an instant, a question surfaced in Seria’s eyes.
Her gaze shifted toward the blade. There, her wooden sword stood thrust straight out. And gripping that blade was a hand covered in scratches.
That can’t be, Seria muttered inwardly. She knew, because she had been in the same situation with him last week.
He should have been battered beyond recognition, barely able to move his body. And yet, how?
Seria’s jewel-like eyes slowly turned toward the man’s face. His eyes met hers.
Blood streamed from the man’s head, leaving him covered in gore, yet he smiled.
“……Got you.”
As if he had finally gotten the hang of it.
**
Facing Seria in the spar, I had made two resolutions.
First, I would win, even if I had to resort to something underhanded and pathetic.
This was a spar with a junior. Even if I could not win as overwhelmingly as I had last week, I had to at least secure victory if I wanted to avoid humiliation.
I had also talked big in front of Tean, and there was the matter of pride between a senior and junior. In truth, even if I had not sparred with her last week, I would have been told, “I knew this would happen,” but the milk had already been spilled.
The only unfair part was that I had not been the one to spill it.
Second, I would somehow keep rolling around while waiting for an opportunity.
I was inferior to Seria in physical ability, mana, and even effort. To make up for that gap, I had no choice but to roll around a lot.
Since I had heard that Seria had rolled several times last week, I decided to consider it payment for that debt.
Of course, I was not the one who had incurred it either.
It was not easy. I could somehow endure the first blow, but when she struck me directly in the solar plexus, I felt as though I might vomit on the spot.
A tingling pain paralyzed my muscles, narrowed my vision, and roughened my breathing.
Was this what Seria had felt like last week? If so, she was one tough woman. I was no pushover myself, gritting my teeth and enduring it as my wounded pride flared up with every blow.
Why was that? The pain I felt throughout my body seemed strangely familiar today. If I had been my usual self, I might have decided that I was reaching my limit and given up.
Above all, after rolling across the ground several times, I learned a few things about Seria.
One, Seria was tense. The more familiar I became with her stiff movements, the more clearly I could see it. It was strange, but my eyes were gradually beginning to recognize Seria’s ‘tells.’
If she had not been tense, I might never have noticed. But perhaps because of last week’s trauma, she could not display the fluid combinations she usually used.
Another thing was that Seria grew more hesitant as time passed.
She had not been like that at first, but each time I staggered back to my feet, I could feel impatience and hesitation appearing in her eyes at the same time.
It was around then that I decided I would see this through to the end.
It was a cowardly tactic. A pathetic act of exploiting my opponent’s trauma and guilt to wait for a single opening.
But as we exchanged blows several times and Seria’s movements and ‘tells’ grew increasingly familiar to me, the situation began to tilt in my favor.
The decisive moment came when she struck me in the temple.
The instant I was hit, pure white sparks burst before my eyes. It was not an exaggeration or a joke. My vision literally went black, and something flashed brightly.
When I came to, I could hear Selin shouting and pointing her finger at Seria. My head hurt. Through my blurred vision, I examined Seria’s expression.
She looked flustered. More than ever before.
So I forced my immobile body to rise. There was no way I could match her with mana, so I circulated the mana I had been saving to restore my physical condition as much as possible.
I heard creaking noises wherever my bones met. My muscles screamed. My trembling hand seemed to tell me to stop.
But the moment Seria resumed her stance and pointed her sword at me,
I barely managed to suppress a laugh that tried to burst out.
I can see it. Where she will come from, and where her sword will stop.
Her eyes trembled with impatience, her muscles were stiff with tension, and her judgment was clouded by hesitation.
Everything was flowing in a single direction.
It was a ‘tell.’ At last, I understood what Professor Derek had meant.
It was a habit one could only fail to notice when fighting mindless magical beasts—or even intelligent opponents who lacked the skill to exploit it.
Muscles were always honest. That applied not only to the muscles moving the arms and legs, but to the eyes, breathing, organs, and everything else as well.
So when Seria kicked off the ground again and thrust her sword like a bolt of lightning,
My hand caught the blade with a thud. The pain was sharp enough to make my palm feel as though it were being torn apart. My judgment had been early, but my body had been late. Even so, it was enough to stop Seria’s sword.
Seria stared blankly at me, her eyes filled with disbelief.
So I returned her smile.
“……Got you.”
The next moment passed in an instant. Before she could recover, I exerted my strength, wrenched the sword from her hand, and threw it away.
With a light clatter, her sword was sent flying, and dismay filled Seria’s eyes. She must have realized her mistake, but she had no means of resisting anymore.
One more strike would end it. Even if I could not make up for all the damage I had accumulated, I had to inflict as much critical damage as possible. Only then could I seize victory.
A bleak killing intent filled my eyes. It was a strange reaction that even I had failed to notice.
And when I raised my wooden sword high into the air,
“……Hngh!”
Seria made a pitiful sound and covered her head with her arms. Her body trembled violently, as though she remembered the violence inflicted on her the previous week.
At that moment, I suddenly came to my senses.
What am I doing right now?
I had taken a sword away from a defenseless junior and was actually planning to land a ‘critical blow’ on her.
Seria was trembling with her eyes squeezed shut. She even seemed to be covering her ears, so the violence that was about to follow must have terrified her.
Of course it would. Even just what Selin had told me was more than enough to explain such a reaction.
So I relaxed the arm that had been raised to strike.
Instead, I gave the trembling Seria a finger flick on the forehead. Seria stiffened, apparently believing that the merciless beating was finally about to begin.
“O-Ow……?”
But all that came back was a faint pain that reverberated through her head.
Even as she let out a cute little shriek, Seria opened her eyes in confusion. Then she looked at me as though she could not understand what had happened.
I met her gaze and laughed as if I could not believe her.
“What are you looking at? Did you think I was going to beat a junior senseless after taking away her sword?”
“……B-But.”
With confused eyes, Seria moved her lips as though she wanted to say something.
Last week, didn’t you do that?
And today, didn’t I do that too?
Then why?
That must have been the question in her mind. It was a perfectly reasonable question. But I had no intention of answering it.
The Ian from last week had not been me, and I was far too tired to launch into a long explanation that I was not the sort of man who beat up his juniors like that.
I merely gave her some advice.
“You give yourself away when you’re nervous. Your movements become stiff, so it’s obvious where you’re going to strike. And practice hiding your gaze.”
Then I tossed my wooden sword away with a light clatter. It was a clear declaration that I had no intention of fighting anymore.
Only then did the spectators, who had been staring blankly at what I was doing, come to their senses. Some looked impressed, some puzzled, and others openly dissatisfied.
It did not matter. How many of them would have the courage to challenge me over it? I silently looked at Professor Derek.
Professor Derek nodded with a pleased smile.
“……All right, the spar is over. Let’s call it a draw.”
I had not won in the end, but simply avoiding defeat was achievement enough.
I trudged out of the sparring arena, then suddenly remembered something and turned around.
There, Seria sat on the ground, staring blankly at me.
“And one more thing.”
Meeting Seria’s vacant, foolish stare, I gave her a slight smile.
“Try to mind your manners from now on. Let’s say hello when we pass each other, all right?”
Heh, now that was a senior’s dignity.
Satisfied that I had upheld my dignity as a senior, I turned and walked away.
I had pretended to be fine, but I felt as though I might collapse at any moment. Whether she knew how I felt or not, Selin came running over and began pounding my back while making a huge fuss.
For someone who had lost a week of memories, it was the best possible start. More than anything, settling the tangled grudges and debts surrounding that rude Yurdina girl was the greatest gain.
Thinking that I would never get entangled with the child of an influential family again, I had to enter the temple’s intensive healing room.
And the next day.
Seria began following me. Secretly, too.