Chapter 8

Chapter  8

Watching the two of us take our stance together, Persica bit her lip.

“So that sword really was teaching you.”

Her expression was quite something to behold.

It was as if doubt, greed, and anger had all been kneaded together into one.

She had probably realized by now that I was capable of teaching things ordinary fairies could never explain.

“Why not me, and a girl like her...?”

Her gaze refused to settle on Ishara and remained fixed on me instead.

She looked utterly unable to understand why I had chosen Ishara over her.

[Your opponent is Ishara, not me. Keep your eyes on her.]

A fairy that had materialized could be seen even by other people.

I snapped at Persica as if scolding her.

[And I cannot stand clingy people.]

“......”

Persica ground her teeth so hard they made an audible crunch.

How did human teeth even make a sound like that? It was unsettling.

[If you are not going to come in, then we will. Ishara.]

“Ready!”

Following my lead, Ishara’s body shot forward like a bullet.

At the same moment, Persica swiftly shifted into a counterattacking stance.

‘Just as I thought.’

House Ortanis’s swordsmanship was called the Flash Lightning Thunder Sword, a high-speed thrusting style centered around piercing strikes. Naturally, it was also a skill you could learn in the game.

I had played plenty of PVP as well as PVE, and since the Flash Lightning Thunder Sword had been popular as an anti-personnel style, I had both used it and fought against it many times.

Naturally, that meant I was more than familiar with how to read it.

CLANG!

I knocked aside the incoming counter with my blade, caught it against the crossguard, and turned it into a counterattack of my own.

Persica had evidently not expected me to break through her counter like that, because she flinched and quickly twisted her wrist to knock the blade away.

‘This is easier than I thought.’

The Flash Lightning Thunder Sword was fast and powerful, but the gaps between its linked movements were long.

Normally, those had to be covered or cut short with other skills, but she did not seem to be at that level yet.

And naturally, an opponent who used only one technique was the easiest kind to fight.

“Kh...!”

Persica drew her sword back as if reeling it in, then shifted into an attacking stance instead.

Even from this alone, it was obvious how closely the Flash Lightning Thunder Sword resembled fencing.

It was too late to jump back, and blocking would cost us too much, so I drove inward and slammed into her with Ishara’s shoulder.

“Ugh...?!”

From Persica’s point of view, it must have felt absurd.

After all, I was doing nothing but targeting the flaws in her swordsmanship.

“How are you... urgh!”

[You should not underestimate us.]

Persica had probably assumed that even if we were stronger in PVE, she could still beat us in PVP.

And it was not strange for her to think that. House Ortanis’s Flash Lightning Thunder Sword truly was a sword style specialized for duels.

But not against me.

What stood before Persica now was a grizzled veteran forged through thousands of deaths, and the genius wielding the sword in which that veteran resided possessed the talent of a conqueror.

She was not fighting a fellow examinee.

She was clashing against a fragment of a player who had seen the end of the world.

“What is that... ? That girl is going toe-to-toe with the Ortanis young lady.”

“Who even is she? Have you ever heard her name?”

“There is no way someone that skilled could have gone unnoticed until now....”

By this point, people’s attention had gradually begun shifting from Persica to Ishara.

Unlike Persica, who had been famous from the beginning, Ishara was an unknown nobody, neither her name nor her face recognized.

So of course all eyes would be drawn to her when that nobody was fighting the daughter of a great noble house on equal footing.

CLANG! CLANG!

With the situation turning like this, Persica must have been growing anxious, because the force in her sword clearly intensified.

She seemed to think that if nothing else, she would win in a contest of raw strength, having trained for so long.

Not a chance.

[Fighting too simply is a mistake.]

Ishara’s pure character stats were so extraordinary that she had been nicknamed the Overlord of the Tutorial.

And that was before her abilities had been inflated on top of that. There was no way she would lose in a contest of strength.

“Is that all? I am a little disappointed~”

“Ugh... ngh...!”

That was why, even in a pure test of force with their blades locked together, Ishara did not yield in the slightest.

More precisely, she was being pushed back a little, but she was canceling it out through her stance and weight distribution.

‘I have nothing to say to that.’

That was not something I had taught her, nor was it something I even could have taught.

With sheer natural instinct, Ishara had created technique on the spot to make up for what she lacked.

“Then this time, from our side—?”

But then, the utterly relaxed expression on Ishara’s face hardened in an instant, and she let out a dry cough.

“Khk! Cough, cough...!”

[...!]

She hastily knocked Persica’s blade away to make distance and covered her mouth at once.

Black blood mixed into her coughing and dripped through her fingers.

Only now did I notice it—several veins crawling up along her jaw had darkened to black.

[Ishara?]

“I am... fine.”

Ishara forced a smile, but judging by how badly the hand wiping her mouth was trembling, she was anything but fine.

Had she overdone it by moving too violently?

I had thought her condition looked bad ever since right after she killed Sasquatch, and now it seemed her sick body had finally reached its limit.

“...How ridiculous.”

At some point, Persica had lowered her sword and was staring at Ishara and me.

“If you came here in that condition, then it must be an illness that cannot be cured outside either. And as far as I know, there is only one disease with symptoms like that.”

Persica smiled.

Not mockingly, but as if she found it ironic.

“You are suffering from Mana Stone Disease, aren’t you?”

“......”

Mana Stone Disease was an illness in which the entire body slowly turned into mana stone and hardened.

Its cause was unknown, and it could not be cured.

If it appeared in an extremity, survival was possible through amputation, but in Ishara’s case it had taken root in her heart and lungs, so her prognosis was poor.

Like me, whose lungs had slowly been hardening, she too was fated to do nothing but watch death draw nearer.

“That girl does not have long to live.”

By now, Persica was speaking not to Ishara, but to me.

“If she is already coughing up blood, then she is in the very last stage. Since it is inside her body, it cannot even be cut out... at best, she has a month.”

And then she held out her hand to me.

“Come to me.”

[What?]

“Inside the Selection Grounds, you can switch weapons as much as you like, can’t you? I am telling you to leave her and come to me.”

For a moment, I wondered if I had heard her correctly.

‘Did she really just say that in front of someone coughing up blood?’

The confusion I felt was nothing compared to Ishara’s.

Her eyes shook violently, and I could feel her tightening her grip around the hilt.

“I am just as exceptional as she is, and unlike her, I am healthy. On top of that, I am a member of the strongest great house in this land, not some commoner with nothing.”

As if Ishara were not even there, Persica kept trying to persuade me from start to finish.

“I am more suited to you than she—”

[Ishara.]

“—could ever be... what?”

[Her name is Ishara.]

That had been bothering me for a while now.

Why did she keep calling her that girl when the child standing right there had a name?

[I know everything you said already. I knew it, and I still chose her.]

“......”

[No matter what you say, I have no intention of taking back that choice.]

From the moment I possessed this place, my only choice had been Ishara.

She was the only character I had ever played, and the only reason I had never left the game behind.

There was not the slightest chance I would change my mind now.

[I am actually quite loyal.]

When I turned back, Ishara’s eyes were wide open.

She was staring blankly into the air, looking like someone who had just been struck by shock.

[And did I not say this earlier? I cannot stand clingy people.]

“...Ha.”

By some strange twist of fate, Persica had now been rejected twice by the same sword, and a hollow sigh escaped her.

Rolling her eyes as if she could not believe this, she eventually fixed us with the coldest stare she had shown yet.

“Fine. If that is your choice...”

A bluish haze began to gather around Persica’s sword.

‘I had a feeling she could use it... but she really is using it.’

It was only a simple manifestation without any special technique behind it, but even so, an attack imbued with magic power was dangerous.

An attack carrying magic power had the property of piercing through an opponent’s defense.

In Ishara’s condition, she would never be able to endure it.

[Listen carefully. I know you are hurting, but you need to keep moving a little longer.]

Ishara had only just unlocked magic power.

I had not even taught her how to use it yet, so taking it head-on would be dangerous.

[You need to be careful. Dodge as much as possible, and—]

“This really...”

Ishara let out a deep breath.

The hand gripping the hilt tightened even more, and the light that had returned to her eyes now gleamed with a frightening sharpness.

Only her mouth was smiling. Anyone could see that she was furious to the core.

“This is making me angry...?”

Even gentle Ishara could not endure having both her incurable illness and her trauma gouged open one after the other.

Killing intent poured off her so thickly that even I felt a chill.

“Should somebody stop this? It looks like she is really going to die at this rate.”

“She picked a fight with a great house. There is nothing to be done.”

“They said it was Mana Stone Disease. Looks like that young lady is headed for a bad end.”

The moment Persica began using magic power, everyone assumed Ishara was going to die.

They all knew what magic power did, which meant they also knew that in Ishara’s current physical state, she could not last long against it.

“Die!”

Persica’s body shot forward.

I stepped as much as I could to evade, but with her speed increased by the effects of magic power and Ishara’s condition worsening, dodging was not easy.

CLAAANG!!

“Kh!”

Ishara let out a groan as she barely managed to deflect the blow instead of taking it head-on.

She had not even blocked it properly, only redirected it, yet the impact pierced through and sent her body skidding back as if she had been struck.

“You cannot keep blocking like that forever!”

We rolled across the ground to avoid the next thrust.

But there was a limit to how much we could rely on evasion alone, and moments inevitably came when we had to defend.

CLANG!!

“Urgh!”

CLANG!!

“Kgh...!”

By the time she had blocked three times, the skin on Ishara’s hand had split open and blood was streaming down it.

Not only that, her body was trembling violently now. It looked as though she had suffered internal injuries as well.

That was the penetrating damage of magic power.

“—I see.”

And yet, even in that situation, Ishara did not look afraid.

If anything, she was smiling more deeply than before as she looked at Persica.

“So this is how you use it?”

At that moment—A deep blue radiance burst from the sword in Ishara’s hand.

Not a mere hazy shimmer like Persica’s, but a flame so vivid it was plainly visible to the eye.

“That is...!”

Persica’s eyes widened so far they looked ready to split, and the same was true of everyone watching.

“Magic power! She used magic power!”

“No way, is that child from a great house too...? No, that cannot be right.”

“That color is so dense... could it be...?!”

Sword Aura.

A high-order technique that went beyond merely coating a weapon, fundamentally amplifying its destructive force itself.

After seeing the way Persica used magic power, Ishara skipped all the intermediate steps and drew out Sword Aura on the spot.

As though she had understood not just how to use magic power, but the very principles by which it worked.

[Stop.]

This was unexpected.

Sword Aura was a technique that normally required at least a three-star level before someone could even begin to imitate it.

If she forced herself to use a technique that difficult and that costly while barely at the one-star level—and in a body that was already half-broken—I could not even begin to estimate how much strain it would put on her.

[You are going to die if you keep this up.]

“No! I will not!”

And yet she smiled.

Brimming with confidence, as if death had never even entered her calculations.

“You are the strongest...”

With the sword in her hand, she took her stance.

“And I am invincible!”

BOOM!

Ishara kicked off the ground with all her might.

This was insane.

I had no idea how she had even managed to use such a high-level technique, but using Sword Aura in her current state was little different from suicide. She would not last ten minutes.

By all common sense, I should have stopped her.

But for some reason, I did not want to.

If anything, a different feeling was rising within me.

I wanted to see more.

It was not something simple, like wanting to swing around a strong character.

It felt like those days when I played the game, when I crushed enemies through Ishara.

More than worry, the thought that she could do it flashed through my mind.

[...All right. Let us do this.]

There was no time, so we had to finish this with the fewest exchanges possible.

I took my stance and called back the memory of using Sword Aura long ago.

A beat ahead of Ishara, I shot forward and drove a strike straight at Persica.

CLAAANG!!

“Kgh...?!”

Blade met blade, and with a metallic crash a flash like lightning burst between them.

The Starting Weapon had infinite durability, so the sword did not break—but instead, Persica’s body was blasted backward like a bullet.

She went tumbling across the snow, her eyes shaking wildly in panic.

She got back to her feet on reflex, but her arm was trembling from the shock.

BOOM! CRASH!

Seizing control in an instant, we pressed the attack in a relentless storm.

Each blow sent Persica flying back, and she looked hard-pressed even to evade, let alone defend.

Still, she was enduring.

Even if she did not know why this had happened, or how something like this was possible, she instinctively understood that if she could just hang on, Ishara would collapse first.

[Faster!]

I raised the sword, and in response Persica shifted into a defensive posture.

She had realized that my movements were a fraction faster than Ishara’s and had begun shaping her offense and defense around me instead.

“An opening!”

At that instant, Ishara’s stance changed abruptly.

She lowered her legs, relaxed her arm, and transformed the downward strike posture into a thrust.

It was a move completely different from mine, and precisely because of that, it struck where Persica least expected.

“...!!”

Persica had already committed herself to blocking my attack.

That meant she could not stop Ishara’s strike.

It was an attack that exploited the fact that Persica had been responding to my movements, and at the same time a blow that perfectly targeted the weakness in House Ortanis’s swordsmanship.

CLAAANG!

At the force of that full-power strike, Persica’s sword was launched high into the air.

The flung blade flew out beyond the sparring ground and buried itself in the earth with a THUNK, and as Persica dropped to the ground as though thrown there, Ishara’s sword came to rest before her eyes.

With the blazing Sword Aura fading from her blade and her breath coming in ragged gasps as if it might break at any moment, Ishara smiled and declared,

“I won.”

Silence fell over the entire field.