Teaching, Learning, and Growing (Part 4)

After the sudden turn of events in the arena, I forced myself to maintain my composure and carried out the rest of the day's routine as if nothing had happened.

A normal lunch, sword practice, a quiet dinner.

Only after the entire day's schedule had run its course and Astrea had finally gone to bed was I able to let my real emotions surface.

"Calm down."

A tangled mess of feelings was churning inside me. Watching my reaction throughout the day, someone might have pegged it as petty jealousy or dread, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. What filled my head right now was sheer, electric anticipation.

"Phew..."

After several long, deliberate breaths, I began methodically sorting through everything that had unfolded before my eyes today. Astrea clearly possessed next to no understanding of supernatural powers, and her technical proficiency had been practically nonexistent. Yet the moment she gripped a blade, she had demonstrated a level of mastery equal to—if not surpassing—my own.

This proved that the practical applications of her abilities were virtually limitless. More importantly, it meant her rate of growth was vastly outstripping my wildest projections. Connecting the dots led to one undeniable conclusion.

"...If this keeps up, could we actually clear the Main Gate during this wave?"

Yes. That was the real reason my blood was racing.

Conquering the Main Gate was a monumental feat I had estimated would take at least another thirty years. And thirty years was an optimistic minimum under the best assumptions—a calculation based on weakening the gate every single day for half a century without fail while continuously refining every one of my abilities.

That was why, during the two Main Waves I had weathered over the past twenty years, I had never once dreamed of clearing the gate. I had merely scrambled with everything I had just to plug the breach.

If Astrea can maintain this pace, it's actually doable.

Assuming she kept up this trajectory, factoring in the explosive growth in my own combat power over the past six months, repelling the wave six months from now was guaranteed—and subjugating the gate entirely was well within reach. No, it wasn't just a possibility. Right now was the golden window of opportunity.

From what Astrea had said, whether an interstellar war broke out or the diaspora decided to return, the remnants of humanity would inevitably make their way back to Earth. There was no telling the exact day, but it would happen within a decade at most. If so, there was no guarantee Earth would remain in its current state by the next wave—ten years and six months down the road. For all I knew, I might end up dead at the hands of the returning humans.

Weighing all those factors together, staking everything on the upcoming Main Gate was the only rational choice. If I succeeded, I could welcome all of humanity back to Earth and finally pay the price for my sins.

"Then I've got no time to sit around."

There wasn't a second to waste. I booted up the Demon Lord Gallery and fired off a direct message to Leon. Naturally, his reply came back in the blink of an eye.

My question was only natural. Nothing had changed about her except holding a blade, yet her power control, spatial mastery, and spatial perception had skyrocketed in an instant. No matter how I sliced it, the idea that something was baked into the swordsmanship itself seemed far more plausible than her achieving enlightenment in mere minutes.

My intuition proved spot on.

"Ah."

A hollow sigh escaped my lips. No wonder it had felt familiar. It was based on Leon's dual-blade style?

Thinking about it for a second, it shouldn't have surprised me. Dual-wielding styles were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rare to begin with, and the specific footwork, stances, and Leon's uncanny fluidity in the recording were all dead giveaways. There had been plenty of clues; ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠anyone paying a modicum of attention would have spotted it. It was just...

"I was being an idiot."

That was all there was to it. After briefly cursing my own density, I hurried to upload the recorded footage to a private post and invited Leon. I had already written a detailed breakdown of which parts were astonishing, so no further explanation was needed. Shortly after, I received an explanation from the prized swordmaster himself.

Hearing the swordmaster validate her talent, I felt the Main Gate subjugation—which had lingered as a mere 'possibility' in my head—crystallize into an actual 'plan.' This could work. The odds were more than enough. My hands trembled faintly at this brush with good fortune and hope, the first in twenty years.

Zero point six of a person. He undoubtedly meant with me pegged as a 1. In that case, it was more than enough.

The vague discomfort and lingering doubts I had felt about Leon up until yesterday didn't matter in the slightest. Even if he was plotting some underhanded scheme, I didn't care. Conquering the Main Gate. If I could achieve that, I would gladly smile even if a demon stripped away my soul.

"Selling my soul to a Demon Lord to save Earth, huh."

Not a bad trade at all.

From the day possibility transformed into a concrete plan, our training underwent a shift. Instead of merely swinging swords at empty air, we began clashing blades against one another. In common parlance, we added sparring to the regimen.

Of course, real sparring wasn't like a martial arts novel where crossing swords once granted sudden enlightenment and effortlessly patched each other's flaws. Flaws patched? Enlightenment? Bullshit. Sparring purely with swordsmanship and physical martial arts—suppressing abilities and carefully controlling my strength—was several times harder than ordinary practice. Just keeping a rein on my own body was an agonizing struggle. There were plenty of times my wooden sword landed flush against Astrea's body.

Naturally, since I was wielding a simple wooden training sword rather than a metal rod, the blows barely registered to a superhuman like her. Yet every time the wood struck her flesh, a bizarre, uncanny chill radiated through the air. Wondering if she was angry, I would cautiously examine her face, only to find the same doll-like, expressionless mask as always. I had no way of knowing what was going on in her head.

Regardless, after days of trading blows in these grueling bouts...

Isn't swordsmanship just completely busted?

Whether Leon's style was excessively efficient, Astrea's genius was freakishly abnormal, or swordsmanship had simply always been broken, the tangible result was undeniable: she achieved the remarkable feat of enhanced spatial awareness and mastered spatial combat principles. To the point where she could trade hundreds of exchanges evenly with me using wooden swords. The result was nothing short of staggering.

And today was only day five of sparring.

"...At this rate, she's going to surpass me in pure swordplay before long."

No exaggeration: if abilities were off the table and we stuck to wooden swords, I barely held an edge over Astrea in any metric. Reaction speed? Hers was far superior. And that had nothing to do with supernatural abilities; it had been forged through horrific chimera experiments, so I couldn't even complain. Spatial perception? Roughly ninety percent of mine relied on my esper ability. While my reliance had dropped somewhat after picking up swordsmanship, it still paled before Astrea, who bridged the entire gap through sheer, unadulterated skill.

Physical strength? My passive physical enhancement kept us roughly on par. Since that wasn't something I could just switch off, I hoped she'd cut me some slack there. Swordsmanship? I might know a hundred techniques, but I only understood seven of them. Astrea knew five, yet she understood ten. There was no need to ask who held the higher ground.

Looking at it that way, I seemed outmatched across the board. The sole reason I managed to maintain my role as her master came down to one thing alone: experience. Actual combat experience. It was the one thing Astrea lacked, and one of the few areas where I held an indisputable advantage. Right now, it was basically my lifeline.

Maybe once I get that swordsmanship data from Leon, things will balance out.

My one beacon of hope was the new swordsmanship data Leon had promised to send. Come to think of it, wasn't it about time for it to arrive? Recalling our previous conversation, I booted up the Demon Lord Gallery.

Having buried myself in day-and-night training for five straight days since talking to Leon, I hadn't visited the forum once. I figured I would settle in for a long browsing session and gather some intel, but—

"What the hell?"

The gallery was practically burning down in a frenzy. Of course, the forum being on fire was an everyday occurrence, nothing to bat an eye at. What actually shocked me was that, amid this manic surge of posts refreshing at dozens per second, there wasn't a single fight breaking out.

"Is the forum bugged?"

What is this? Where did the sacred gallery traditions go—the gore bait, the asymmetric strategic weapons, the endless arena grudge matches? Give them ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back—actually, no, keep them. Watching the community burn with such wholesome, orderly enthusiasm felt so profoundly wrong for the Demon Lord Gallery that it gave me cognitive dissonance.

Wondering what on earth was happening, I stopped refreshing and went to check the popular recommendations list, when—

Ding!

With a cheerful chime, a private message arrived.

Is Leon the one messaging me now?

Probably shooting over a note to say the swordsmanship data was ready. Good timing, I thought as I clicked open my inbox without much thought. But the message waiting for me was something completely unexpected.

The sender was none other than a Demon Lord. Specifically, the bizarre woman I had met in the Pandemonium Neutral Faction lounge. The one Leon had called one of the absolute strongest even among the rulers of Pandemonium.

The Succubus Queen was extending a suspicious proposal to me.