Rage Arts: Are You Prepared?
She tapped the floor lightly with the tip of her shoe—tap, tap—and instead of soft earth, hard marble answered through the sole of Rosaria's boot.
"All right. Before we begin the spar, I'll go over the rules."
"Uh, this is probably the wrong time to bring it up, but… aren't you supposed to stop students when they just walk out and start something like this?"
Rosaria eyed Gerton, who had planted himself between her and Letten to deliver the pre-match briefing, and asked the question with a distinctly unimpressed look.
Pushed past her limit by Letten's relentless needling, she had challenged him to a spar—though "challenge" was generous. It had been closer to a provocation. Rosaria had planned to keep her head down and coast through academy life so long as nobody bothered her. But when someone went out of their way to pick a fight this openly, she fully intended to teach him a lesson.
Even so, the idea that a professor who had sat quietly through the whole mess would, the moment sparring came up, march his entire class down to the training grounds and throw his own students into the ring struck her as absurd. This was the first class of the term, for crying out loud.
"Eh, if you've got a problem, settling it with your fists is faster, isn't it? I'm all for it, personally."
Gerton scratched his head with a sheepish grin. He hadn't set this up on a whim, though. In a combat track, where raw force decided most things, establishing a pecking order early made everything smoother later. Stepping in to stop it would only earn him a reputation as a coward hiding behind a professor's authority—so Gerton had decided to let this class sort the hierarchy out cleanly.
"Man… this takes me back. Back in my merc days, if some guy got in the way, you just drew steel first and asked questions later…"
He was absolutely not excited about watching a bunch of greenhorns beat the living daylights out of each other, noses bloody and bones cracked. Definitely not.
…He's lost it.
Watching Gerton's mouth twitch as he fought to suppress a grin he couldn't quite hide, Rosaria couldn't wipe the exhaustion off her face.
"What's the matter, little lady? Getting cold feet now that you're actually here?"
Seeing Rosaria protest to Gerton only seemed to delight Letten. He curled his lip into a sneer and started needling her again, having decided on his own that her questions meant she was scared.
"You figured if you pushed hard enough, Professor Gerton would step in and stop it, right? Why not just apologize and beg for mercy while you still can? Who knows—I might be feeling generous enough to let you walk."
"…Where's that mutt barking from?"
"Ha! So that's how it is. You're going all the way, then?"
Convinced he had already won, Letten offered what he considered a final show of magnanimity—only for Rosaria to dig a finger into her ear with a look like she'd bitten into something foul, flipping him off without saying a word. His puffed-up shoulders sagged, and he let out a hollow laugh.
"No weapons. No strikes to vital points…"
"Can't use that thing you haul around on your shoulder, huh? You were counting on it, weren't you?"
"Don't. If that hits you, you're actually dead."
"…?"
When he brought up the magic staff she always carried, Rosaria muttered under her breath. Pulling a gun in a spar like this would be pointless—and even she didn't particularly want to put a hole through a classmate's skull in broad daylight.
"…That's the standard spiel, anyway. Just don't kill each other too hard. As long as you're not dead, you'll heal."
Having just finished listing every forbidden move in a spar, Gerton promptly negated everything he'd said with a final smile. As far as Rosaria could tell, the man had tossed any concern for his students out the window and was simply having the time of his life.
"Surrender now. I don't make a habit of hitting girls."
"…Oh yeah? So you're saying every other combat-track girl standing here isn't worth your time either? That none of them are even worth fighting?"
"…Huh?"
How to win a war of nerves, Chapter One: latch onto whatever the other person says and twist it until it snaps. Rosaria put the principle into practice, and Letten visibly floundered. Her family was extraordinary in all the wrong ways, which usually left her playing the role of the normal one—but she was still an Evergarden, and it showed.
"What a sexist. You dare reject the very principle of fairness that Scythia Academy stands for? How did a bigot like you even get in here? I genuinely don't understand."
"Th-that's not what I—ugh! Fine! Let's do this!"
"That's right, you bucking male-chauvinist meathead! Time you tasted the bitter punch of gender equality!"
Realizing he'd been thoroughly toyed with, Letten finally snapped for real. He re-tightened the bandages wrapped around his hands, and Rosaria, catching his fire, settled into her stance with genuine enthusiasm.
"Then… begin!"
Gerton stepped back from the center of the sparring floor, and the match was on.
"I didn't think you could make me this angry. You'd better be ready."
"You know that's the exact line every empty-handed poser spouts when they're full of hot air, right?"
"…Hah—hup…!"
Even his last words before the match got a sarcastic comeback. Letten drew a deep breath, dropped low, and charged.
Oh… not bad.
At the start they had been roughly seven meters apart, but in a blink Letten had closed the gap, driving in toward her side and throwing a clenched fist straight at the bridge of her nose.
I'll wreck that pretty face of yours completely…!
Even Letten would normally hesitate to ruin a girl's face—but he was well past the point of making that kind of call.
It's over!
The rising punch was a hair from her straight nose when Letten already foresaw the outcome. The winner of this spar was obviously going to be him.
Except—
A soft tilt—
"…Huh?"
The girl who had been staring blankly at him a second ago tipped her head just slightly, and Letten's fist whistled past her throat into empty air.
A sharp rush of wind from the missed punch sent her long hair streaming.
"Well, well. Going straight for the face, are we?"
"Tch…!"
Rosaria, having casually slipped the punch, curled one corner of her mouth in amusement. Letten immediately launched his next attack. Having already committed his right arm, he didn't bother retracting the punch—he used the momentum, twisted his body, and drove a hard left elbow in a brutal arc.
The first hit might have been luck. This unexpected follow-up, he was certain, she could never dodge.
Except—
A light tap—
"Wha—?!"
This time she didn't even dodge. Rosaria simply raised her arm and redirected the blow upward.
"H-how did she…?"
With his attack broken again, Letten spun off-balance, barely recovered his footing, and stared at her in bewilderment. She still hadn't taken a single step since the match began. She had simply slipped or deflected everything he threw, and now she was smiling at him.
The first time could have been chance. The second was not. That elbow hadn't even been aimed at her face—it had been aimed at her chest. Dodging it without moving her feet should have been nearly impossible given the angle. And she hadn't blocked it; she had redirected it, which meant she had caught the underside of his swinging left elbow at the exact right moment with the exact right amount of force.
That was a technique even he, the one throwing the elbow, couldn't pull off. Cold sweat beaded on Letten's skin.
If he had thought about it calmly, he would have realized just how vast the gap between them already was.
"What, did you come here to dance instead of fight? If so, the ballroom's that way."
"Y-you little…!"
No way…! There has to be a trick…!
But Letten couldn't accept that a pampered noble girl he'd always dismissed was beating him—someone who had trained relentlessly—so he couldn't make that judgment. He charged her again.
"Hup—! Hah—! Hup—!"
What followed was pure toying.
Punches, kicks, knees—Rosaria never left her spot. She slipped or redirected every single attack.
"Hah…! Hah…! Hah…!"
"What, already done?"
I'm the one hitting… so why am I the one getting tired first…?
After a dozen-odd exchanges, Letten was gasping in ragged, irregular bursts, his form long since collapsed. Rosaria hadn't broken a sweat.
"How is that even possible…?"
"Letten's getting completely toyed with…"
"He was top five last semester—how…?"
As the one-sided display continued, the mood among the students who had been snickering in anticipation of Letten's victory shifted hard. For all his attitude, Letten had ranked fifty-fourth in the combat track last term—mostly because he'd bombed every ethics exam—but purely by combat major, he was easily top five. Watching him get dismantled by Rosaria left the crowd murmuring in disbelief.
And one other person was just as stunned.
How strong have I gotten?
That person was Rosaria herself, currently toying with Letten. She had sparred with Darian and Gordon every single day, but she had never once tested herself against anyone else. She knew she was strong—she just didn't know how strong. That was why she had piled on the provocation, hoping to get Letten fired up. But his movements looked painfully slow to her. And she wasn't even using Ariel's help.
I worried for nothing.
Confirming that Letten was well below her level, Rosaria allowed herself a small, relieved smile.
"…Can't be…!"
"Hm? What was that?"
He had stopped attacking and was muttering something through gritted teeth. Rosaria asked out of mild curiosity.
Then—
"There's no way I'd lose to a girl like that!!!"
He snapped his head up, eyes wild, and roared at her.
"What kind of dirty trick are you using, you cowardly bitch?!"
"Oh, please."
They had traded more than enough exchanges for him to understand the gap. He simply refused to accept it, so he screamed about cheating instead.
"Professor Gerton! This is foul play! That bitch is clearly using a magic tool or some other underhanded method!"
Unable to contain himself, he spun toward Gerton, who had been watching the spar in silence.
"…Yeah! Exactly!"
"That has to be it! It doesn't make any sense!"
"Boo—! Cheater!!"
The students who had been whispering among themselves immediately latched onto Letten's claim and piled their accusations onto Rosaria. Common sense said a count's daughter who hadn't known the first thing about combat until this semester couldn't possibly beat Letten on pure skill. Her sharp, villainess-like features only made the accusation easier to believe.
"…No. That student is not using a magic tool, nor any underhanded method."
Gerton shut it down without hesitation.
"She is sparring with nothing but her own body and her own technique."
"Th-that's impossible! Are you covering for her because she's from a count's house—"
"You think I'd do that? You? A brat like you?"
"……"
Gerton was a combat professor at the academy. There were professors of Felix's type as well, but no one at this academy questioned Gerton's skill. He had been famous long before he arrived, and his ability was first-rate in every sense. Faced with that ironclad verdict, Letten and the students who had been about to argue fell silent under the crushing weight of the aura he radiated.
"Hey, at this point I almost feel bad for you. I'll wrap this up."
"You little—!"
Rosaria, who had stayed quiet until now, still standing in the same spot with a thoroughly bored expression, offered the line like a pitying afterthought. Letten flew into another rage and charged her in a wild, flailing rush—nothing like the controlled form he'd started with. Just a beast with a head full of fury.
"Hah…"
Watching him barrel in like a madman, Rosaria drew a slow breath.
"Hup—"
"?!"
In an instant, she vanished from Letten's and the students' field of view. The girl who had been standing right in front of him was gone. Letten whipped his head around in panic.
Then—
"Over here, idiot."
A solid thud—
"Guh—?!!?!"
Rosaria had launched herself over his head, called out, and casually kicked him. The kick landed clean on the back of his skull and sent him flying.
A whoosh—then a crash!
Letten sailed through the air headfirst in a clean arc and landed well outside the sparring floor. He tumbled across the dirt, covered head to toe in mud, and finally collapsed several meters past the ring, out cold.
"Rosaria wins!"
Gerton glanced at the unconscious Letten—already a ring-out, now unconscious on top of it—and declared her victory at once.
All that remained was for the winner to savor the moment and step down from the floor… except Rosaria just stood there, back turned, unmoving.
"Hm? What are you doing? The match is over."
Gerton tilted his head and asked what she was up to.
"Next."
That single word was all she said.
A chill ran down every student's spine.
She had thoroughly wrecked Letten—but honestly, it wasn't just him. The students who had used him as a shield while talking behind her back had grated on her just as much. So Rosaria fully intended to use this opportunity to rough up a few of the others as well.
"Um… Professor?"
"Ho… this might turn into a pretty good class."
"…What?!"
"Excellent! While we're at it, why not decide who's the strongest in my class this semester? All right, you lot! Rec time!"
Rosaria stood there boldly calling for the next student. The others trembled and looked desperately to Gerton—only for him to grin with pure interest and egg them on instead.
"Not coming up? Then I'll come to you."
"Eek…!"
"R-run!!!"
"Aaaahhh!!!"
Rosaria stepped down from the sparring floor and started walking toward them. The students spun on their heels and fled in total panic.
That day, students reported seeing people flying through the air across the drill grounds.