Chapter 57

Chapter : 57

Beneath the faint moonlight, where we could barely make each other out, we faced one another. Each of us drew our sword and took a stance.

Jefrin’s stance had changed from the sparring match during the entrance examination.

Compared to then, he leaned forward in a more aggressive posture. He had drawn in his axis for an explosive advance.

If Crescent Slash came pouring out at random from there, it would be difficult to react. There was no guarantee he had compensated for its weakness, but it was right to assume it could come from both sides.

“If you are ready, shall we begin?”

“Yes. I am ready.”

Immediately after hearing Jefrin’s answer, I cast magic with the mana I had gathered in advance.

I dug a pit beneath Jefrin’s feet. Because the night was dark, and because I had cast the spell so stealthily, Jefrin’s reaction was somewhat late.

In particular, because he was leaning forward, the pit opening beneath him made him stagger badly and slide toward the ground.

HSSSS—!

As expected! Jefrin had reached Sword Expert.

In an instant, he infused his sword with aura, drove it into the earthen wall, and kicked off the ground to spring upward.

It was only a brief moment, short enough to pass in the blink of an eye, but it was also enough time for me to form Sword Aura.

BOOOOM—!

I threw myself toward the wall Jefrin was climbing.

In a sword fight, the side on higher ground had the advantage. On top of that, Jefrin had difficulty finding a foothold.

Jefrin counterattacked while running up the wall. It was an exchange where I, striking vertically with my full weight behind the blow, had no choice but to gain the advantage.

The two swords collided. At the full-force clash between us, Jefrin sank back to the bottom, and I was flung out of the pit.

As if performing a trick, Jefrin drove his sword into the wall and held on. Then he spun his body nimbly and shot up above the ground.

I activated my gloves. I reached toward Jefrin as he climbed the wall and sprayed water.

I had chosen that element because stones were easy to avoid, and fire could simply be stripped away with Sword Aura.

WHOOSH—!

A stream of water poured down vertically like a waterfall and crashed over Jefrin.

Jefrin tried to dodge the stream of water by escaping the pit, but the waterfall poured down faster than he could move. He was swept up in the waterfall and fell to the bottom of the pit.

Jefrin clenched his teeth. He bent his knees. His muscles contracted, and he leapt upward with all his strength.

He tried to escape the pit in one go, but his soaked clothes were heavy, and the ground was slippery.

He advanced more slowly than before. I breathed fire at him. Flames filled the pit and surged toward Jefrin. I judged that even if he swept the flames aside with Sword Aura, the smoke would bring him down. It was a perfect victory.

It would have been, if Jefrin had not been stubborn.

It was not a battle with our lives on the line, but merely a sparring match to compare each other’s skill. Even so, Jefrin approached with both eyes reddened from the smoke.

Trying not to inhale the smoke, he even held his breath as he climbed out of the pit one step at a time and came right up to me.

Crazy bastard.

After cursing him inwardly, I set my mind turning.

I had thought he would surrender once it came this far, but he insisted on continuing the sparring match, so things had strayed from my original plan.

SLASH—! SLASH—!

Jefrin advanced, cutting through the fire with his Sword Aura-wrapped blade.

Facing that, a solution came to mind. I split the flames. Before Jefrin could scatter them with Sword Aura, I spread the fire and wrapped it around him from every direction. Then I struck all at once.

Jefrin spun with astonishing speed around his right foot and swept away the fire, but it seemed difficult for him to block every flame coming at him from all sides.

Of course, the same was true for me. This was the first time I had handled fire so delicately. It felt as though my brain was going to break.

At that moment, Jefrin burst out of the flames to the left and charged toward me. I hurriedly tried to stop him by firing Mana Bullets, but Jefrin swung his sword and knocked them away.

I blasted the ground beneath my feet with magic, making it rise high.

Then I infused my sword with Sword Aura. Thanks to the gloves, I completed the Sword Aura faster than usual. As expected, it seemed we would have to clash swords in the end.

I knew my opponent’s swordsmanship. Looking at Jefrin’s half-closed eyes, bloodshot red, he would have no room to weigh various moves, so he would come with the one he was most confident in.

The technique name was Crescent Slash.

His technique was set. The problem was its direction.

Left or right. It would be one of the two, but Jefrin’s sword was far too sharp to choose by guesswork.

And preparing for both directions was also awkward.

What would I do if I were Jefrin?

The reason Jefrin had challenged me again was because of his previous defeat.

Starting from that defeat, to avenge that defeat, he had trained with blood and sweat and challenged me like this. That defeat must have remained deep within Jefrin’s heart.

Why had Jefrin lost back then?

Because he could only use Crescent Slash to the left. He would try to make up for that.

Right.

I raised my sword as though protecting my left temple and approached Jefrin. Then, the moment our ranges overlapped, I moved my sword to the right and swung.

CLAAAAANG—!

Our blades collided directly, and I knocked Jefrin’s sword away.

The instant the two swords collided, I felt the gap between our levels.

It was difficult even to react properly to Jefrin’s sword. On top of that, even though he should have been far more exhausted than I was, the force behind his sword was tremendous.

The longer the exchange of blades continued, the more disadvantaged I would be.

Fortunately, Jefrin’s condition was not normal.

Magic and fatigue had dulled his judgment, and his body was slower than usual.

I swung my sword with one hand and fired Mana Bullets with the other.

Whenever our swords collided heavily and distance opened between us, I used earth-elemental magic to target Jefrin’s feet.

I minimized the number of times our swords clashed and used magic to disorient my opponent.

BANG—!

A Mana Bullet struck Jefrin in the chest. Jefrin lost his grip on his sword and collapsed to the ground.

He lay on the dirt, gasping for breath, then raised an arm to cover his face.

I won. I had won.

With the relief that it was over, fatigue flooded in, and the sweat I had shed felt sticky against my skin. I spoke to Jefrin.

“When you have calmed down, come inside. I will wash and wait, so let us eat first. I am hungry.”

I returned to the manor and watched Jefrin through the window.

He lay on the ground for a long while before getting up. After confirming that he was coming into the manor, I went to wash.

I washed the grime from my skin and changed into new clothes. Afterward, when I went out into the corridor, Jefrin was waiting for me.

Judging by the dirt still clinging to his clothes, it seemed he had not washed yet.

“Go wash. Change your clothes too.”

“No, I am fine. I intend to return now.”

“It is late. Sleep here.”

When I checked the clock, time had passed while we were fighting, and it was now deep into the night, well past midnight. The late hour would not make it dangerous for Jefrin, but moving around would be inconvenient in many ways.

“If that is so.... Yes, thank you.”

---

Jefrin took off his clothes and stood beneath the stream of water. With his eyes closed, he revisited his sparring match with Raphael.

He had lost. Why?

Raphael’s surprise magic.

That had been the start. He had heard the rumors that Raphael had learned magic, but he had not known Raphael would be that proficient. He had been caught up in it from the very beginning.

No, had it started even earlier?

It was correct to assume that Raphael had intended even the time of the sparring match.

Even if Raphael had used magic stealthily, the reason Jefrin had noticed it late was because it was the middle of the night.

From the very beginning, he had danced inside Raphael’s plan. As Jefrin searched for the reason he had lost, for excuses, he struck the wall with his fist.

‘If we fought again, could I win?’

He remembered the impact when Raphael’s sword and his own collided.

Both swords had been layered with Sword Aura. There had been some awkwardness in it, but that meant Raphael had reached Expert just like him.

Would things have been different if they had fought fairly, under the sun, with a judge present?

It was a childish thought.

Swordsmanship was a technique for killing and being killed. Since when had it cared about fairness or judges?

Jefrin resolved to accept his defeat humbly. No matter the conditions or the situation, a loss was a loss.

‘Then what should I do now?’

If he defeated Raphael, he had intended to return to the Academy.

There was a face he wanted to see. Bishot Puremoon.

He thought of her, the young lady of the Puremoon Family. He wanted to become someone she needed. He wanted to have his usefulness acknowledged.

If he defeated Raphael, it had seemed as though that would happen, but thinking about it now, it was a foolish idea. Had Bishot ever asked him to do that? No. It had been his own arbitrary stubbornness. Then? Then what should he do now?

Jefrin clenched his fist. He wanted to become strong.

---

The moment I put on clean clothes, my stomach sent a signal.

Although I had picked at various things in the carriage, it had not been a proper meal, and because I had also moved my body violently, I had consumed a great deal of energy.

I asked a servant to bring some simple food, then went to find Jefrin.

“You are hungry, are you not?”

“I am fine.”

“I am hungry. Eat with me.”

I had meant to ask him naturally while holding the food, but there was something forlorn about Jefrin’s face, which made it difficult to speak casually.

As I only stole glances at him, Jefrin spoke first.

“If we speak only of swordsmanship, I was stronger.”

He was talking about the sparring match. Since I agreed with him as well, I listened quietly, and Jefrin continued.

“But in every other aspect, I fell short. I think that happened because I lack experience. It is something I cannot surpass by only polishing my swordsmanship.”

He wiped his mouth with a napkin and met my eyes.

“Please take care of me in the second semester.”

“You are returning to the Academy?”

“Yes. Learning under Captain Haok was truly valuable. It felt as though my view had opened. The sparring matches within the knight order were good as well.”

“Then why? Would it not be fine to keep staying with the knight order?”

“Before coming here, I met Lady Bishot. And I heard about you as well. Nothing I need to worry about will likely happen, so it would be fine to build up my swordsmanship in the knight order. Perhaps that would let me grow faster.”

“Then why?”

Jefrin sighed. He felt the hilt of the sword at his waist.

“When I trained in the knight order, many idle thoughts came to me. If I return like this, it will be the same as before. I must win at least once before I go.”

“You are openly saying you will win and run away.”

After roughly resolving what I had been curious about, I returned to my room and slept.

Jefrin woke at dawn and left somewhere before the sun rose, and as if exchanging the baton in a relay, the next person arrived.

It was Navier. She came to visit, bringing desserts from her own territory.

“You missed me, did you not?”

She smiled as she spoke.