Chapter 45

Chapter : 45

Navier had actively built ties with noble youths her own age from other regions even before entering the Academy. That was why a first-year student like her had been able to become such a social butterfly.

Navier Loveone was the sort of name any Academy student had likely heard at least once.

She was famous in many ways.

So once word spread that she was entering the tournament, it was only natural that people’s attention would gather. A few students who otherwise would never have given it any thought submitted applications to participate simply because she was doing so.

From my perspective, as someone hoping Navier would win, it was excellent news. The average level of the participants had dropped sharply, which meant the odds of Navier climbing high rose along with it.

The tournament was held by borrowing the Swordsmanship Department’s training hall.

As with the entrance examination, seats were prepared for spectators, and a fourteen-meter piste was set up in the center of the hall.

Ordinarily, they would have used the practice room with the metal piste, but since it seemed far more onlookers than expected would come, they installed a piste inside the training hall and filled it with packed earth instead.

In place of the electric scoring machines used in the modern world, a professor from the Swordsmanship Department judged the bouts precisely.

Before the tournament began, I took a seat among the spectators.

It wasn’t as though my sitting here would change the outcome, but I wanted to know the result as soon as possible.

And, truthfully, I was curious too. Navier had declared with confidence that she would fight on her own skill. I wanted to see with my own eyes how much she had improved to say something like that.

No sooner had I settled into my chair than a competitor wearing a jacket and protective gear approached me. She removed her mask and showed her face.

It was Navier.

“You came to watch?”

“Of course I did. Do you know how much effort has gone into this?”

“That’s what surprises me. You’re usually so cold that I thought you’d say cheering wouldn’t change anything and that coming here would only waste your time. I’m glad to see your face.”

At Navier’s complaint, I drew in a hollow breath. Had I really been that harsh with her?

It seemed I probably had.

Then again, I had deliberately drawn more of a line than necessary with Navier. In the Original Work, both she and I had been villains, after all. I had thought of the two of us together as a minus combined with another minus.

As I sifted through the past for a moment, Navier let out a sigh and tapped the floor lightly with her foil.

“So you didn’t come to cheer me on. You really only came to watch.”

“No. I came to cheer you on. You absolutely have to win. Good luck!”

“Yes... I’ll do my best.”

Navier moved toward the piste.

As befitted a tournament intended to be finished in a single day, it used a tournament bracket format, with one distinguishing feature being that the breaks between bouts were a generous two minutes.

As I waited for it to begin, someone sat down beside me.

There were still plenty of empty seats and lots of time before the first bout began, so I wondered who would deliberately choose the seat right next to mine and glanced sideways.

I saw bright golden hair.

I leapt to my feet and greeted Kartea.

Without even pretending to look at me, Kartea kept his eyes fixed on the piste and said,

“There’s no need to act surprised. That’s enough greeting. Sit down again.”

“Yes. Understood.”

“So she really did enter the tournament.”

“I heard her ankle has completely healed, and she’s been practicing hard lately, so there wasn’t really any reason for her to withdraw.”

“I see... Then I hope she gets a good result.”

“Yes! Thank you!”

“I wasn’t thanking you.”

---

Navier Loveone stood on the piste.

The line she had grown sick of seeing ran beneath her feet.

When she rubbed the sole of her shoe against the ground, dust rose. The sensation was unfamiliar compared to metal, so she moved her feet a few times to get used to it.

If possible, score aggressively. Even when I don’t have right of way, don’t retreat too excessively.

This was a match for show.

Keeping in mind that something mattered more than victory, she waited for the referee’s cry of “Allez.” There were sixty-four participants in the tournament. Five victories would take the championship.

With her mask on, Navier raised her head and assessed her opponent.

Judging by the lean build and the awkward hand, it looked like someone who had either left the foil untouched for a long time or was a complete beginner.

Two advances, then a thrust.

The opponent failed to react properly and gave up the point. Navier scored with remarkable ease.

Would all the other participants be like this too?

Probably not. She had likely just been lucky.

Even as she took her first win with ease, Navier didn’t let down her guard.

Yet the next bout was much the same. Navier won simply again. Her opponent had beaten someone else to get here, and the thought struck her.

How, with skill like this?

Navier looked down at her own body.

She had only had about two months, but she had truly worked hard. She had improved quite a bit. That much was certain.

Still, she was not so overwhelming that she ought to be dominating tournament participants like this. And yet she was winning with absurd ease. The whole thing felt strange.

“You’re very good.”

Her opponent, having lost all three bouts without scoring even a single point, spoke in a bright, cheerful tone.

There was laughter in the voice.

Navier replied that she had simply been lucky, and at the same time recalled why Raphael had kept scolding her not to smile.

Smiling as though nothing mattered, even after losing, was not a very good look.

Why not?

Navier had heard so often that one could not spit at a smiling face that her ears had nearly worn out.

That was why she had practiced smiling until the corners of her mouth felt as though they would split.

She had lived trying always to smile, and yet now she found another person’s smiling face unpleasant. It felt somehow strange.

As she thought about why, the answer came at once.

Because the purpose of the match was different, and because the opponent each of them wanted was different. Navier had wanted to meet someone who had entered the tournament to win it.

Her opponent, by contrast, had wanted someone with whom she could exchange a few bouts and make a social connection.

I see.

“Lady Navier, you’re active in the Academy’s social circles, and you work hard in your studies too...”

As the other girl removed her mask and showed her face, Navier recognized her.

The instant she saw that face, Navier’s mind spun.

So that’s how it was.

She understood how the girl had made it through the first round. The bracket was published in advance, so if she won her first match, she would know she could meet Navier.

A chance encounter like this, forming a connection at a tournament, was several times stronger a bond than simply speaking once at a ball.

For a lesser noble, it was the sort of connection worth spending a good deal of money to obtain.

So that was her game.

Navier recalled the proposal she herself had once made to Raphael and gave a faint laugh.

The girl, however, seemed to interpret that smile differently, because her face brightened and she stepped closer.

“I hope your next match goes well too. I’ll be cheering from the stands. When it’s over, would you like to have tea with me? I brought tea from my territory. What do you think?”

“I’m sorry. I already have another arrangement afterward. What was your name again? Next time...”

“Yes!”

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the next opponent was a real fencer.

One could tell that much just from the pre-bout salute. She was different from the two before her.

This time, the opponent had right of way first. Her advance came in long strides, fitting her height.

She used a beat and then thrust to take the point. The instant Navier lost the point so suddenly, a sense of crisis gripped her.

Am I going to lose here?

That wouldn’t be so terrible. Reaching the third match was already more than enough.

She had only come this far through sheer luck, but Raphael wouldn’t blame her for it. Even if she couldn’t win, she told herself not to be disappointed.

Navier drove her foil forward. The opponent skillfully evaded the attack, then tried to knock her foil aside. Navier lifted her elbow and slipped the beat. Retreat, then a quick advance. She came down and forward, stretched the back leg to its limit, and drove the foil out.

Touch. It was a point.

It felt as though someone were tickling her skin lightly.

This won’t do. I have to stick to the plan.

She scolded herself to regain control, but the corners of her mouth kept trying to lift.

It was fun.

It was enjoyable. She wanted to win, desperately. And at the same time, she was afraid.

Afraid that if she simply followed her own emotions, she would ruin everything.

The thing she had feared happened immediately when the opponent next had right of way.

Trying to flee by moving the body around was inefficient. The piste was barely two meters wide.

And from the en garde line to the rearmost warning line was only five meters.

To avoid defending with the foil and instead retreat blindly while twisting left and right was almost ridiculous. And yet Navier did exactly that.

She became so desperate not to lose the point that she forgot the original plan entirely. Only after she finally yielded the point while running away did she realize she could not go on like this.

No. I’m different.

Navier recalled the two opponents she had faced before. She was not like them. They had run because they were afraid of the foil, because fencing felt awkward to them. Navier was different. She did it to win.

As Navier returned to the en garde line, she suddenly remembered the book she had read at the ball.

There had been a line in Imperial Studies.

He who conquers fear conquers the world.

A laugh burst from her.

What in the world did that have to do with anything now?

Navier stepped toward her opponent.

The girl liked to use the beat. She liked blade engagement too.

Navier had the distinct feeling she was being tested. It felt as though the girl wanted to see how she would react.

Without warning, Navier leapt and thrust.

It was the sort of choice that should have lost her the point outright, but perhaps because it was so unexpected, the opponent reacted slowly, and Navier scored.

Her heart pounded.

---

“She’s good, isn’t she?”

“Not technically exceptional.”

I forcibly suppressed the laugh that tried to escape at Kartea’s judgment. The last time he and I crossed foils, he had come at me like a brute relying on nothing but force. With what great technical brilliance was he making judgments about others?

Amazingly, Navier won the tournament.

She barely managed to beat the opponent in her third match, and after that she had looked as though all her stamina was spent, but fortunately the opponents after that were unimpressive. Or perhaps they had realized Navier wanted the victory and lost on purpose. Either way, Navier’s skill had improved at a frightening pace over the last few days. It was astonishing.

When I saw Navier score the final point in the championship bout, I rose from my seat. In my heart, I wanted to go congratulate her at once, but the glare from the man sitting beside me was frightening.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes. It’s all over now.”

“Wasn’t it you who taught her? In that case, I would think it proper for you to go praise her, or at least congratulate her.”

I blinked.

Kartea, of all people, would naturally dislike me being close to Navier, so hearing him say something like that was unexpected.

“Yes, now that you mention it, you’re right. I’ll do that.”

I stepped down from the spectator stands and went to find Navier. Mask removed, she was smiling broadly. The moment our eyes met, she raised her foil toward the sky and waved it.

“I did it!”

“Congratulations.”

Clap. Clap.

I applauded.