Ch 77
Became a swordsmanship instructor at the academy
Chapter 77
10 minutes had passed since the duel began.
Before the start, Bianca had definitely agreed to use all her magic, but perhaps her pride was hurt by my remarks, as she continued to stubbornly stick to using only her sword.
The swordsmanship she used felt like typical Western swordsmanship, where blocking naturally transitioned into cutting, with offense and defense flowing seamlessly together.
Even while attacking continuously, her balance never faltered—if I hadn't known she was originally a magician, I would have thought she was a swordsman who had only learned the sword.
Even considering that her teacher was the world's strongest swordsman, this was a level that could never be reached in such a short time, and I was genuinely impressed.
She is called the second coming of Merlin for her magic, and yet she handles the sword this well too.
This is truly talent worthy of receiving worldwide expectations as a promising prospect.
"That person made such a big fuss going up there, but all he's doing is defending."
"I heard you also learned swordsmanship from Conrad, but you need to develop your eye a bit more."
"Are you saying I saw it wrong? Our Bianca keeps attacking while that Shin-hyeok person is only blocking."
"Senior is right. I didn't know the skill gap would be this big...."
But a promising prospect is just that—a promising prospect.
She might be impressive enough among her peers, but to me, she's just at a cute level.
Honestly, if Bianca sticks to using only the sword in the finals like she is now, I think Se-jin will win easily.
Conrad's swordsmanship is indeed precise and quite tricky, but it's nowhere near comparable to martial arts.
And when it comes to talent with the sword, our Se-jin is by no means lacking either.
Perhaps because it's Conrad's swordsmanship, the completion level is quite good, but the critical weakness seems to be that it emphasizes the balance between offense and defense.
Now that I've figured it out to some degree, I should start attacking.
As I deflected an incoming thrust with my sword, a cut came in as expected.
SWISH!.
I slightly dodged it and pushed her sword in the direction of the cut with a bit of force, causing her center to collapse completely.
I could end it right now by pointing my sword at her neck, but I deliberately gave her time.
Bianca hadn't used magic yet, after all.
"I'd appreciate it if you'd stop that pointless stubbornness."
Whether my warning got through, Bianca corrected her stance and created distance.
Soon, dozens of fireballs about the size of a child's head appeared in the air.
Simple magic usually isn't memorized, so she must have used high-speed incantation—to produce this many in such a short time is amazing.
It's more like magical replication than high-speed incantation.
But no matter how many there are, this kind of magic is meaningless.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
I infused my sword with internal energy to create sword energy, swept it horizontally once and scattered them, causing all the incoming fireballs to burst apart.
Bianca looked slightly surprised and this time created dozens of ice spears to shoot at me, but I dispersed sword energy again and shattered them all.
Normally, if magic is forcibly cancelled like this, magic backflow would occur, but seeing her immediately counterattack, her mental strength seems to be quite good.
But mental strength has its limits too.
I slowly approached Bianca, who had a pale complexion.
I thought about waiting for her to use higher-level magic, but it was right to end it now.
If I let her use high-level magic in this state, Bianca would suffer internal injuries.
She'll meet Se-jin in the finals, so giving her internal injuries now might be helpful, but neither I nor Se-jin would want such a cowardly victory.
Magic kept flying at me as I approached, but I deflected them all and reached Bianca.
Bianca desperately swung her sword, but it was useless.
I knocked away even her sword and pointed mine at her neck.
"That's enough. Really excellent skill. To reach that level with an unfamiliar sword."
I replied that it was excessive praise and sheathed my sword.
That Bianca girl wore quite a resentful expression before leaving without a word.
Well, she had acted so confident about winning earlier.
If I were Bianca, I probably would have run away from embarrassment too.
"My daughter seems quite shocked by the defeat. You go comfort her. Sorry about that. I guess I spoiled her too much."
"It's fine. She's still a child, so I understand."
"If only this arm was fine, I would have been the one dueling... The timing is really... Ah! I'd like to hear your impression of facing her directly. How was Bianca's swordsmanship?"
"It was at a decent level. The fundamentals were quite good, so it didn't seem like something learned hastily in a short time...."
"I did have her do basic sword training from age 8, but after her aptitude test showed she was suited for magic, she stopped completely. I've been teaching her for about two months recently... As expected, my daughter is the best."
This person is an incredible doting father.
He cuts me off before I finish speaking and starts bragging about his daughter....
"In my opinion, I think it would be better for her to focus on what she can do better."
Conrad's expression slightly soured.
Korean should be listened to until the end.
"Are you saying our daughter has no talent for the sword?"
"I'm not saying your daughter lacks talent in swordsmanship, but when I faced her directly, magic felt a bit more threatening. To be good at both would require not just double the effort but even more than that, so I thought focusing and concentrating would be more efficient. I hope you don't misunderstand."
In the original work, Bianca only uses magic too.
As I thought earlier, it might be because her research failed, but thinking about it again, since monster levels rise dramatically in the latter half of the original work, even materials that are rare now can be obtained again easily.
Yet she doesn't restart her research and only uses magic because she herself judged that focusing on magic was better than learning swordsmanship alongside it.
"That's right, you fool. He's giving good advice, so why are you frowning? He means it's better to dig one well than to dabble in this and that half-heartedly."
When even the Vice Principal sided with me, he managed his expression, but the feeling was slightly different from before—he seemed offended.
"What Shin-hyeok and Senior say has merit, but that's only by general standards. I believe without doubt that our Bianca can do both well."
Though Se-jin is my student, I gave advice with good intentions because I enjoyed the dinner... This is absurd.
Talk about a doting father.
Even Lee Ji-sung, the protagonist, uses both sword and magic, but even that guy's main focus is magic alone.
Well, whatever.
It's not my decision whether to accept advice or not anyway.
***
"The winner is Korea's Kim Se-jin!"
Today was the last day of the WHCU tournament, with semifinal and final matches.
And with the referee's resounding cry just now, the semifinal match ended.
The Italian student who was this round's opponent lasted a record 1 minute, but like the other students, he was no match for Se-jin.
As soon as she came down from the dueling ground, reporters from around the world swarmed in, so it doesn't look like I'll be able to congratulate her properly.
Kim Dae-chan somehow pushed through the press and stood next to Se-jin, joining the interview—that's impressive in a different way.
After lunch, only the final match remains in the afternoon, and naturally the opponent is Bianca.
In the Group A semifinal match held before Se-jin's match, Bianca defeated the Chinese student in an amazing 10 seconds and advanced.
It's not just today's match—Bianca has been finishing her matches faster than anyone since the second day of the tournament.
On the first day, she at least gave her opponents a chance to attack first and exchanged some moves, but from the second day on, she's been ending matches overwhelmingly fast without mercy, which seems to be because of me.
When I was invited to Conrad's house, I advised that rather than trying to catch both rabbits of sword and magic, it would be better to focus on magic, which she's good at.
I really gave that advice with good intentions, but seeing her demonstrate like this, it seems she didn't accept it well.
Honestly, from our perspective, it's not bad... Rather, we could say it's good.
Even though Bianca's swordsmanship is excellent, it would never work against Se-jin.
"Teacher Kang, the interview looks like it'll be longer than yesterday, so let's eat first among ourselves."
"Ah, yes. I understand."
I thought about waiting for Se-jin to eat together, but when the interview ends, I'd have to eat with that annoying Kim Dae-chan too, so I headed to the cafeteria with the Vice Principal.
While eating at the cafeteria, the Vice Principal met some acquaintances.
They're apparently hunters who do well in America, but since they're characters who didn't appear in the original work, I'm not particularly interested.
I was planning to deal with them briefly and return to the waiting room quickly, but since everyone was praising Se-jin, I ended up bragging too and quite a bit of time was delayed.
‘I seem to have quite a doting streak too’, I thought as I returned to the waiting room.
When I opened the door and entered, that Se-jin girl was lying on the mat with her eyes closed.
I thought she might be sleeping from fatigue, but when I got closer, she stirred and got up—she must have been practicing internal energy cultivation.
"Teacher? When did you arrive?"
"Just now. Did you eat?"
"No. I don't feel like eating."
"Tsk tsk, you need to eat to have strength."
"Right now, I feel like I'd get indigestion no matter what I eat."
Is it because it's the final match?
She wasn't like this on other days, but she seems more nervous than she appears.
"It's a problem to not be nervous at all, but there's no need to be too nervous either. Just do as you always do."
"I know that too, but...."
"Teacher believes Se-jin won't make teacher broke. That's why I maxed out my credit limit on top of betting my entire fortune on you."
"If I actually lose, then really... Ow!"
I flicked the forehead of the girl who was speaking with a serious expression.
"There you go again, worrying about useless things. Teacher believes in you, but Se-jin doesn't believe in teacher?"
"I... Believe."
"Don't feel burdened. Even if by some chance... No, it's a non-existent probability, but even if you lose, teacher will be fine. Money can be earned again. You know teacher's abilities, right? Well, while I'm earning money again, Se-jin might have to help a bit with the loan interest."
"What?"
When I joked that even the runner-up gets prize money, so wasn't she planning to help with the interest, she laughed and hit my arm—now she's finally back to her usual self.
"You rascal, stop hitting me. Teacher's arm is going to break."
"You're exaggerating. I'm going to go full power from start to finish in the final match."
"Good. Just do your best. So you won't have any regrets."
Then you'll win.
***
On the night after the duel ended, Ryan came to my room and told me what happened after I left.
Focus on what you're good at?
Without even knowing what feelings I had when I started my research.
I even heard that when father argued back saying that's the standard for ordinary people but I could do it, he looked at me with an annoyed expression.
Just because he won one duel, how dare he... I was really getting irritated.
"Daughter? Why the sudden meditation? Are you going to use magic instead of sword this time?"
"I could win with just the sword, but it's the final match. This time I won't stubbornly stick to just the sword...."
"Really? In the first day interview, you said you'd only use the sword."
Originally I thought it would be too boring if I used magic too, but now the situation has changed.
"I heard that bastard Kang Shin-hyeok said last time that I should stick to what I'm good at?"
"How did you... Ryan told you, didn't he?"
"Yes. He said that guy was acting all high and mighty after winning the duel and was being rude to dad by saying such things."
"Huh? I think there's some misunderstanding... He said that because dad first asked what our daughter's swordsmanship skills were like."
"If he answered like that when asked about sword skills, that means he was dismissing me by saying my swordsmanship is mediocre so I should just stick to the magic I was already doing."
"Was that why you suddenly decided to use magic too? I don't think he meant it in a bad way...."
"How is that not a bad meaning! Ryan said when dad said I could do both well, that bastard even looked at me with an annoyed expression."
"Did he? I don't remember well. Even if he really did, wouldn't it be because he thought it was foolish?"
"Dad! Whose side are you on anyway?"
Why is he defending such a rude person?
Really, dad's problem is that he's too nice.
"I'm always on our Bianca's side. Don't worry about it too much."
"How can I not worry about it? I'm going to prove it in this match."
That dad wasn't wrong.