Chapter 11

Chapter 11

“You know, I think the single most important thing for a person is individuality. Just think about it. If there were only one way to grow stronger and everybody had to walk the exact same path, how boring would it be when people like that fought each other?”

I listened to her in silence.

“I spent a long time thinking about what I should teach you, what exactly I needed to teach you, so I went ahead and sorted out your strengths and weaknesses.”

She pointed to things like my split-second judgment and dynamic vision as strengths, while identifying physical factors such as striking power and speed with the sword as weaknesses.

“Unlike that old man from the White Lion Knights, I am open-minded. So I do not particularly want to change your style. We will go with what you have now. As you are now, you are fine.”

Defense followed by a counterattack.

That, according to Katarina, was my style of fighting.

To begin with, Katarina was a genius acknowledged throughout the world, so if I trained exactly as she told me to, I would surely grow stronger.

And yet, there were too many sources of unease for me to simply obey her guidance without question.

First of all, Katarina still believed I had defeated Jefrin through pure skill.

The truth was not that simple. Before the fight, I had memorized every last trait and technique of Jefrin’s swordsmanship, and because I knew his personality from the original, I had been able to predict his thinking.

All of that had come together into a victory I had forced out by sheer stubbornness.

What I truly needed was the strength and skill to block even a single punch thrown in a fit of irritation by an overwhelming monster like the Crown Prince.

“But, Lady Katarina, what am I supposed to do if I am ever struck by an attack I simply cannot block?”

“Then you die, obviously. That is why we are training in the first place, so that something like that does not happen. So work hard.”

“Yes, I would prefer for nothing like that to happen as well. Sadly, though, I feel as though it will.”

How was I supposed to explain this?

As I racked my brain trying to think of a way to persuade her while hiding the fact that I was a transmigrator and that the strength with which I had defeated Jefrin was false, nothing satisfactory came to mind. All I could really do was insist like an idiot.

“I am telling you to just train hard.”

“Yes, of course I will train hard. But I think something like that really is going to happen to me. I am going to have to fight someone I can never defeat. Someone I absolutely must fight.”

“Then train hard and become strong before that happens.”

“That opponent is different from me from the very foundation of their talent. Even if I spent my entire life striving, there would still be a gap I could never close.”

WHACK!

Katarina flicked my forehead.

And this was no ordinary flick. Instead of cocking her finger with the nail, she drew back from the bent knuckle joint and snapped it forward with the full recoil behind it. It was not a mere forehead flick. It was a monstrous forehead flick.

Clutching my forehead, I let out a groan.

Katarina snickered and said,

“Just shut up and work hard. There is only one promise I can make you. Work your damned hardest and do exactly as I say. If you do, I will make you damned strong. Strong enough to beat a Dragon.”

At that, I nearly snorted.

She could not beat a Dragon herself.

Still, it was enough to comfort me. The greatest swordsmanship teacher in the world was encouraging me and telling me to trust her. How could that not stir my motivation?

Katarina corrected several of my basic movements. Her guidance was careful and concise.

“Hm. It is not bad, but…”

About a week passed after Katarina’s instruction began.

It was only a short time, but I was already starting to feel that the sword I wielded now was completely different from the one I had swung before entering the Academy.

And yet, something still felt lacking.

---

From the moment she entered the Academy, Bishot Puremoon was struck by one unbelievable event after another.

The first of them was that Raphael had taken first place in the Swordsmanship Department.

Raphael might have inherited the Isaac family’s excellent bloodline, but that was all he had ever had.

Long ago, he had despaired at Jefrin’s talent and turned away from that path.

He had put down the sword.

The fact that such a Raphael had enrolled in the Swordsmanship Department was startling enough on its own, yet now she was being told he had taken the top spot.

Impossible.

At first, she doubted her own ears.

To take first place in the entrance examination meant that he had defeated Jefrin in a sparring match.

That was impossible.

Bishot shook her head so violently that her black hair swayed from side to side.

She knew nothing about swordsmanship, but even she knew that Jefrin was a genius.

Every knight who had taught him had clicked their tongues in admiration and praised his talent. He was a rising star who might one day become a Sword Master. That was Jefrin.

On top of that, Jefrin had worked hard.

Ever since the day he promised to protect her as a child, he had held a sword and swung it every single day without fail.

Calluses had formed on his hands. Those calluses had split and torn away, only for new ones to form again, and he had continued practicing swordsmanship until his palms were in tatters.

Even the family’s knights, who were famous for their severity, had gaped in astonishment.

And Raphael had beaten someone like that?

It was preposterous.

Bishot went to Jefrin at once and asked whether it was true that he had lost to Raphael. Jefrin gave her a bitter smile and said,

“Yes, I lost. And I realized that I am far too weak to protect you. I will return after becoming stronger. Until then, I pray nothing happens to you.”

The moment he entered the Academy, Jefrin took a leave of absence and departed. There had even been something almost refreshed in his expression as he did so.

Seeing that, Bishot thought,

“Have I been focusing too much on alchemy all this time? Is that why I no longer understand the way the world is turning?”

Not long ago, she had achieved a great breakthrough in alchemy. It was a discovery significant enough that, if she organized it properly and presented it, she would likely earn a considerable amount of money. Thanks to that, she had quit the part-time work she had started at the beginning of the term and devoted herself entirely to her studies.

The matter concerned Earthroot Fleabane.

Most existing potions were made using troll blood, and because even a small number of captured trolls could yield a large amount of potion, they offered excellent efficiency for their cost. That was why many knights and mercenaries favored potions made from troll blood.

But not everyone used them.

Potions made from troll blood often stained the skin, and because of that, many people avoided them. Once a stain remained, no method could erase it, so it was difficult to use them on exposed skin such as the face or hands.

Bishot smiled.

She had discovered a way to solve the staining caused by potions. If one used Earthroot Fleabane, stained skin would return to its original color. She organized her findings into a paper and went to Gilbert to receive his comments.

“Hm? I already published this.”

Gilbert scratched his head in discomfort.

---

Katarina’s swordsmanship instruction was surprisingly orthodox.

Considering her rough disposition and hot-blooded temperament, I had expected her to make me do nothing but mindless strength training, but when she saw me lifting weights, she merely told me to improve my physical conditioning on my own and focused only on the finer details of swordsmanship.

“The performance of your body is fixed anyway. I do not believe that nonsense about people bringing out power beyond their limits. So what you need to practice is how to draw out the absolute maximum your body can produce.”

I learned which muscles I should use and which I should not when swinging or thrusting a sword.

I memorized things like the movement of my center of gravity and axis, and how to win a contest of strength even with inferior physical power. Katarina’s swordsmanship training was highly theoretical.

“This is unexpected.”

“What is?”

“I thought you were going to throw me a sword and tell me to come at you. But your explanations are surprisingly coherent, and your training is systematic as well.”

“Hey. Do you have a death wish?”

“Hahahaha.”

Every time I trained under Katarina, I could clearly feel my body becoming more and more optimized.

My swordsmanship improved by the day, and my movements became much smoother. With every technique I used, I could feel the stimulation in my muscles, and the motion of my joints mapped itself out in my mind.

Even so, it still fell short of what I had hoped for.

Katarina truly was an excellent teacher, but in the original, she had felt less like a teacher and more like one of those class-advancement masters from an RPG.

When she taught Jefrin in the original, it had been as though clearing a quest from such a class-advancement master instantly expanded the limit of his growth and evolved him in one step.

Not long after receiving her instruction, Jefrin had become several times stronger.

“Is there no way for me to become strong more quickly?”

I asked bluntly.

In the original, Jefrin had learned something from Katarina that instantly increased the power of his sword. What I meant was that she should hand that over to me as well.

Katarina jabbed the ground repeatedly with her heel.

Whether she was pretending not to know, or whether it was a technique that only Jefrin could use, she merely snorted.

“As if there were any such thing. Of course there is not.”

Katarina poked me in the back with her index finger.

“Who exactly is it? Who do you have to fight? Who did you make an enemy of? Ah, you are from a noble family, are you not? Is it a family matter? Are they making you do something difficult?”

“I will tell you later.”

“Do not say things you do not mean. Hey, come to think of it.”

Without warning, Katarina flicked me on the forehead again.

“Hey, did you not promise you would go see Gilbert after enrolling here? He was looking for you.”

Ah.

Right.

That had happened before my sparring match with Jefrin. I had promised Gilbert that I would come find him once.

At the time, Katarina had still been captivated by Jefrin’s swordsmanship, just as in the original. That meant that even if I defeated Jefrin in the sparring match, there was still a chance she might choose him.

To prevent that, I had gone to Gilbert and provoked Katarina.

That was how I got Katarina to promise that if I defeated Jefrin, she would take me as her disciple.

There had been no helping it. If I was going to protect my position as count and defend myself, I needed strength.

After that, I had run into Gilbert again while using the alchemy lab to make the sleeping draught for Ian, but we had not truly spoken.

It seemed Gilbert had something else he wanted to say.

“You joined the alchemy club, so go see him after class today.”

“What?”

“You said from the start that you had a deep interest in alchemy, did you not? That is what you said. So I used my authority as the instructor in charge and put you in. Consider this settled, and go the moment we are done here. Gilbert was looking for you.”

“No, why would you decide that on your own?”

“Hey. Do you even understand how precious what I am teaching you is, that you are standing there complaining? Show some gratitude toward your teacher and do as you are told. Why do you talk so much?”

If I went to the alchemy club, then I would inevitably meet Bishot.

It was something I had always known I would have to face someday, but I had postponed it as long as possible in pursuit of a perfect setup. And now it had leapt right in front of me.

Now I had to confront it.

“The club meets from four o’clock today, so make sure you show up before then. If Gilbert tells me you did not go again, I will kill you.”

“Understood.”

That day, in the club room, I realized that I had twisted the original much more violently than I had thought.

In the original, Bishot had been in the Alchemy Department, but rather than focusing on her studies, she had spent most of her energy trying to escape the harassment directed at her.

But in the original, Raphael’s obsession and abuse had been relentless, and as a result, Bishot had not been able to achieve any notable results in the early part of the story.

This time, however, things were different.

Because there had been no harassment, she had been given much more time to devote to alchemy. On top of that, in the original, she would have stayed close to Jefrin to avoid that harassment, become entangled in various incidents with him, and developed a budding tension with Ian as they kept running into one another here and there. All of that had disappeared.

I had never imagined that she would already have discovered the secret of Earthroot Fleabane, something she should not have conceived of until after the midterm exams in the original.