I Don't Particularly Feel Sorry for You

"...That's quite something."

Father replied that way and nodded.

We had nothing more to say to each other. He was a taciturn man, after all.

I stepped into the center of the training ground and lightly swung my live blade.

Whoosh!

The sound of the blade tearing through the air stirred the atmosphere.

'It still doesn't feel right in my hand.'

In my first life, I had swung a sword tens of millions of times, crossing the line between life and death.

It was only recently that I had far surpassed the Swordmaster realm.

Well, it didn't bother me much.

There was no particular physical defect, and swordsmanship insight and experience mattered more than the body.

"So, then."

The apprentice knights were bristling with anger.

I pointed the tip of my sword at them one by one.

"Who wants to go first?"

"I'll go!"

"No! I'll be the young master's first opponent!"

"Why don't you bastards move?"

The assembled apprentice knights eagerly raised their hands.

That lasted only a moment before they began fiercely shoving one another, each insisting it was his turn.

This was a chance to legally beat the hell out of that wastrel.

Every last one of them had impure motives. It was a scene more bloodthirsty than any I had ever seen.

"You guys really fucking hated me, huh."

None of them denied it. This was rather hurtful.

I keenly realized just how scummily I had lived.

After the squabbling ended, a large man emerged from the front.

He looked like one of the apprentices who had seen his share of swordfights.

"Look at you, all smug. So you've got some seniority, huh?"

"I'm Gartten, leader of First Squad."

"It looks like we have nothing more to say to each other. Don't hold back just because I'm the young master. Do it properly."

"Don't regret this, young master."

Ping-!

The moment the coin flipped into the air and fell to the ground.

Dash-!

Gartten kicked off the dirt and shot forward.

His bear-like bulk rushed into close range in an instant.

Whoosh—!

The live blade cut through the air, tracing a vicious arc.

It was movement and swordsmanship no apprentice knight should have possessed.

But to my eyes, it was plainly slow and clumsy.

I merely gave my wrist a light twist from where I stood.

Clang-!

That sent Gartten's sword sliding off at an angle.

A sharp vibration spread through my grip. I nearly dropped my sword.

'Now that's a difference in strength.'

I felt it from the very first exchange.

If I contested his strength head-on, the damage would only accumulate in my wrist.

When a knight's sword is slow, it isn't actually slow. It's heavy.

For now, the answer was to focus entirely on defense and redirect his force against him.

"Kuh...!"

Clang! Clang! Kaaang-!

Gartten's sword came crashing down ferociously.

Three exchanges, five, seven.

I continued to parry using only the minimum movement necessary.

The training ground echoed only with the sound of metal striking metal.

And then came the final, tenth exchange.

It was the moment Gartten's center of gravity shifted forward as he attempted an overhead slash.

I drew a short horizontal slash. A simple strike without much force behind it.

Kaaang—!!

They say accuracy surpasses power. It was true in every sense.

"Huh?!"

The sword flew from Gartten's grip. He toppled backward with a shout.

The sword spun through the air before plunging into the dirt with a thud.

"....."

Gartten stared blankly down at his own hands.

Only belatedly grasping what had happened, he ground his teeth.

"What was that just now?"

"The young master knocked the squad leader's sword away? Did the young master win?"

"You believe that? He must have held back. The young master has his pride, after all."

They seemed to think I couldn't hear them, but I heard every word.

Until recently, I was a wastrel who didn't even know how to hold a sword properly.

There was no way they could accept the fact that I had defeated their squad leader.

I approached Gartten, who was sitting on the ground.

He kept his head lowered and clenched his fists in frustration.

"You must be very pleased, young master. You don't even realize you only won because I let my guard down. If that hadn't happened, you would be..."

Swish-

I held out a hand toward him.

Gartten looked up at me with widened eyes.

"When you bring your sword down in an overhead slash, your blade alignment is completely off."

"Excuse me?"

I indicated his sword, still stuck in the ground, with a nod of my chin.

"You have a habit of hunching your right shoulder first. When you do that, you can't put your weight all the way into the tip of the sword. Start by practicing how to draw the strength from your lower body up through your waist and extend it through your shoulder. Otherwise, you'll lose that shoulder in a real fight."

"....!"

"Your footwork and strength are good, though. Other than that, everything was good. You? You've got talent. Keep at it."

Gartten's mouth hung open in a daze. A fly could fly right in.

I forcibly grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet.

"Well, look at him giving pointers just because he got lucky and won once."

"What the hell is wrong with him?"

The sarcastic voices struck my ears.

So they still had feelings left to work through.

I lightly loosened my stiff neck.

"Next."

"Yes, sir!"

The second apprentice knight stepped forward immediately.

The spar was short, and both the process and result were exactly the same.

Clang! Ching! Kaaang-!

I focused entirely on defense, wearing down my opponent's stamina and composure.

Then, the instant I saw an opening, I finished it with one strike.

"Kuhk...!"

"Your footwork while measuring your entry distance is too big. Your next move is obvious. Cut your stride in half and learn the feeling of gripping the ground with your toes. I'm telling you to pay attention to your supporting foot instead of focusing only on your upper-body strength."

"What? Ah, no. The captain has told me that before, but how did you..."

"Then fix it. Knowing about a problem and refusing to fix it is worse than not knowing. Fix it quickly. Once you solve that, you'll become a full-fledged knight in no time."

At some point, the whispering among the knights died down.

The ones who had been saying it was a beginner's fluke or that the opponent had held back merely stared blankly in my direction.

I thought some of them had realized it.

That my advice was far from mere knowledge I had picked up somewhere.

"Next!"

"Yes, sir!"

Clang-! Clang-!

Thud!

When one man went down, another came up, and after a few exchanges, that man was sent sprawling.

But that wasn't the end of it.

"Your situational judgment is careless. You blindly trust your quick sword and keep pressing forward without thinking of retreating. You still haven't realized that I gave up the centerline and opened a blind spot at my side. I was luring you into lowering your guard. You lost the psychological battle, too."

"Ah...."

"That made your sword's trajectory cross awkwardly, and if I had wanted to, I could have smashed your jaw with my crossguard. Remember this. Just because you've taken a blind spot doesn't mean you've escaped your opponent's range. Fortunately, this was a spar. In a real fight, it wouldn't have been strange for your head to come off."

The third opponent, the fourth opponent, the fifth opponent.

Seven men, eight men, nine men.

"You focus too much on the sword itself in the name of swordsmanship. Swordsmanship isn't merely a fight with blades; it's a battle to dominate space and angles. Watch the opponent's entire body broadly, not just the tip of his sword, and read the direction of his strength through the pressure transmitted when your blades become entangled. Anyone who reads an opponent only with his eyes will never rise above the third rate."

"I-I see...."

I pointed out the problems I noticed in each fallen opponent with cutting criticism.

That was also an extension of the spar. It was, in fact, the main purpose of sparring.

"Whether you're making a vertical or horizontal slash, the tip of your sword wobbles every time you swing it. It doesn't seem to be from an injury, so it looks like you've simply neglected physical training. Do you think muscles grow just because you swing a sword? You need to do proper strength training as well if you want to grow as a knight. Work hard on your strength training, and hang a sandbag from the tip of your sword when you practice, too."

"Huh...."

"You're so fixated on ending things with one blow that you can't even control your own body. If you use every last bit of strength to bring your sword down, will you have anything left to recover it when you miss? When I stepped back half a pace and redirected your strike just now, you lost your balance and nearly fell flat. In a real fight, all I would have hit was your back."

"Then how am I supposed to...?"

"Good grief, why are you asking about that? Keep your lower-body balance and reserve twenty percent of your strength so you can stop your sword at any time. That's obvious, isn't it?"

Whenever our swords met, the knights let out exclamations loud enough for everyone to hear.

Whenever I opened my mouth, everyone grew quiet as if on cue.

Kaaang-!

Before I knew it, the tenth opponent's sword was rolling across the ground.

"Good heavens! Ten wins in a row already!"

"We had it all wrong. He really is a Cardenos!"

"What kind of nonsense is that—doesn't the young master even get tired?"

"Did you hear the advice the young master just gave? It was exactly what the captain had pointed out!"

My pointers weren't something you could hear even if you paid for them.

Nor was I treating the knights with contempt or half-heartedness.

I had shown sufficient respect for their swordsmanship and honored the sweat they had shed.

They felt it clearly, too.

"I'll go! Young master, please teach me a move!"

"No! I'm first! Teach me the sword!"

The atmosphere in the training ground completely turned around.

The apprentice knights no longer saw me as a wastrel.

Their hatred vanished, replaced by respect.

The knights rushed at me like students burning with a thirst for knowledge.

Ten became twenty, then twenty-five.

My breath rose to my throat, and my grip split open, blood bursting forth.

I wrapped bandages tightly around my wounds and took up my sword again.

My entire body was drenched in sweat, and dust clung to me.

I tore off my shirt and pointed out the next opponent.

And then the last, the thirtieth opponent, stepped onto the training ground.

Boom-!

On the tenth exchange, the blunt side of my sword slammed into his abdomen.

He rolled disgracefully across the ground and went sprawling.

Ironically, his expression was far more filled with anticipation than it had been before the spar began.

"Well, young master. How was my sword?"

"Everything was good. Except for one thing. Whenever our swords collided, you tried to force your way through with brute strength. What you should do then isn't show off your strength; it's read the pressure from your opponent. When your opponent puts more force into it, don't stubbornly resist. Tilt the blade at an angle and break through the open side. Just as I redirected the direction of your strength and struck your wrist a moment ago."

I held out a hand and helped him to his feet.

Even after leaving the sparring ground, everyone's eyes remained fixed on me.

"""Waaaaaaaah—!!!!"""

A thunderous cheer erupted, loud enough to make the training ground seem ready to fly apart.

The faces once filled with contempt were now glowing with joy and respect.

The knights raised their swords and applauded with genuine enthusiasm.

"Thirty wins in a row! The young master beat them all!"

"Young master! We see you in a whole new light!"

"Shouldn't we have a banquet or something? We can't go without drinks on a day this good!"

"You bastard. You just want to drink."

The man everyone had ignored had effortlessly defeated thirty knights.

Normally, they would have been jealous of me or sunk into self-loathing.

But these men were different.

Because every one of them was a knight of Cardenos.

The knight order united beneath the Black Lion banner.

If a blood relative of Cardenos defeated them, that too became a source of Cardenos pride.

They were Cardenos, too.

I roughly wiped the sweat running down my forehead with my sleeve.

I lifted my chin toward the apprentice knights standing in formation and giving me a sword salute.

"I'm dead tired from fighting thirty of you. Don't you think you should suffer a little like I did?"

"""Yes, sir!!"""

"Fifty laps around the training ground! How many laps?"

"""Fifty laps!"""

"Look at that spirit in your voices. A hundred laps! Start running right now—gah!"

"Everyone, turn left! One hundred laps at a jog!!!"

Not one of them offered even a single word of complaint as they turned around.

They began running around the training ground, their faces still glowing with excitement.

Before long, dirt flew up and formed a thick cloud of dust.

"Whew...."

The breath I had been holding escaped as heat.

I tossed my sword onto the rack and rolled my stiff shoulder.

I lifted my head at the gaze I felt from above.

My father, standing there with the elite knights, was staring at me with a dazed expression.

I nonchalantly shrugged my shoulders.

"You haven't forgotten my wish, have you?"

"......."

"I'll escort you. Let's go, Father."

***

Rattle-

Inside the swaying carriage.

The woman gazed out the window and let out a deep sigh.

In the end, I came here after all.

"Halt! We need to verify your identity!"

A guard stopped the carriage.

He had been slowly approaching when he suddenly came to a stop.

He had recognized the family crest a beat late.

"I-I've confirmed it! My loyalty!"

The carriage began moving smoothly again.

The woman sank into the backrest. A troubled look clouded her face.

She had hardly any good memories of this place.

Only memories of smiling and flattering them.

Azelin took out the letter she had carefully kept against her chest.

Whenever her thoughts grew complicated, she would take it out and look at it.

The love letter he had written for her.

[To My Love, Azelin]

Azelin carefully took in each syllable with her eyes.

She read aloud the words she wanted to hear.

At the final sentence of the letter, Azelin tenderly stroked his handwriting with her fingertips.

[—A man who loves you, Julian]

"Ah, Julian. I miss you...."

When she was young, she believed blind love was true, pure love.

It wasn't.

That man's love for her was obsession wearing the mask of pure love.

My feelings for him are true, pure love.

"...."

The woman gazed at her ring finger.

She slipped off the ring there and tucked it into her pocket.

"Astin."

He'll think I was keeping the gift he gave me. He won't even realize it's only a delusion of his own.

"I don't particularly feel sorry for you. We were destined to end up this way from the start."

Azelin had erased Astin from her heart long ago.

In truth, he had never been there to begin with.