The Weight of Defeat
“What do you think you’re doing, acting so insolent during class? Get up!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Grab your wooden sword. I’ll give you some personal instruction.”
Idel rose unsteadily, his eyes as murky as a dying fish. Clark sighed inwardly. Students like this were always the first to die. What good was being smart if you didn’t train diligently? You’d just end up dead in a monster’s claws.
“Show me your stance.”
“Like this?”
“Sloppy.”
His center of gravity was decent, but that was all. The framework existed, yet the finer details were a mess.
“I’ll have to prune a few things.”
Clark adjusted Idel’s entire posture. He lengthened the boy’s stance to match his height, straightened his spine along the centerline, and raised his hands so the sword tip aligned with eye level. Idel trembled as he replied.
“Please spare me.”
“Good. Hold that stance.”
“Please spare me.”
“Stop whining. In the army they make you hold this all day.”
“Please spare me.”
Idel was teachable enough, but he had no particular talent for the physical side of swordsmanship. He was ordinary. Clark had thought so right up until they began actual sparring.
“Attack me.”
“Really?”
“I’m an Omega. Stop talking and come at me.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Idel rushed forward. Clark expected an obvious movement he could dodge with ease. He raised his wooden sword to block casually—then the blade curved. For an instant his vision blurred. Thought froze. Feints looked real, real attacks looked like feints. A sensation he had never felt before.
When he came to his senses, a cold wind brushed his right temple. Idel’s wooden sword had stopped a hair’s breadth from his skull.
“Instructor?”
“Huh? Uh?”
Clark’s mouth produced only stupid sounds.
“You really couldn’t react to my attack?”
“……No. I was going easy on you.”
“Come on, going easy? You clearly couldn’t react. If I’d gone a little farther you would’ve passed out, right?”
It had been a long time since he’d shown such an obvious opening. Even when facing an Avatar he hadn’t reacted this clumsily. His shoulder ached. The stigma carved into his back trembled. The Constellation King he had contracted with—the Archer of the Zodiac—sent a warning message, urging caution. It wasn’t just any Constellation, but one of the kings who protected the universe against Outer Deities. And it was trembling.
Clark’s face hardened, deaf to Idel’s teasing.
***
Intentionally staying behind alone to ask Clark for guidance had been the right decision. Compared to when Rustilla had taught him, his posture already felt noticeably better.
All that remained was watching her duel. While Welton steadily gained the upper hand against his classmate Matus, and Mezlen and Christine traded wins and losses with their childhood friend, Rustilla and Zernya continued their evenly matched fight.
Rustilla, moving more cautiously than yesterday, dashed forward in a curving arc the moment Zernya showed an opening. But it was a trap. Zernya flowed like water and pushed Rustilla away as she dove in. Then came the follow-up thrust.
“Kgh!”
She pressed forward with the speed of a well-trained fencer. Rustilla groaned. Clutching her injured abdomen, she retreated. Zernya was not the type to miss such an opening. The gap in skill decided the match. Zernya was a girl who could distinguish real openings from fake ones. Her strikes surged like a wave.
“Aah…!”
Rustilla let out a shrill cry and fell backward. A sword blade immediately pressed against her throat. The heavy iron, just short of ionization, rested on her shoulder.
“Big sis!”
Seti, who had been training with her classmates, came running. I caught her mid-sprint and calmed her down. Zernya withdrew her sword and swept her hair back.
“You need to know the difference in our levels.”
“……”
“If you have any conscience, go back to your original class right now. That’s the path that’s best for you, blondie.”
Rustilla hung her head. Her second defeat. She must have been devastated. Strictly speaking, Zernya had been the one in the wrong first, so Rustilla had no reason to feel downcast—but to a girl whose entire world was the sword, such petty arguments hardly mattered.
I half-dragged her up from where she lay sprawled on the ground.
“Ugh.”
“You okay?”
“My side……”
Rustilla frowned, cold sweat beading on her forehead. She probably needed to be taken to a proper hospital.
***
After examinations and a brief admission process at Amor General Hospital—one of the ten major hospitals in the south run by the Rhineland family—Rustilla was placed in a private room. Now dressed in hospital clothes, she stared blankly out the window. Beyond the hemispherical glass membrane stretched a vast vista of the cosmos like a silken tapestry.
“I’ve already submitted your sick leave. Rest well.”
Instructor Clark scratched his head and sat down beside Seti and me. He peeled a few apples from the fruit basket and popped them straight into his mouth.
“Just how hard did you two fight for her to crack a rib?”
I snatched the apple heading for his mouth and answered while eating it.
“They’re like oil and water.”
“She fell out with an Adelbein? That must be rough. So, why exactly did you two fall out?”
“I don’t know.”
The fact that Zernya and Rustilla didn’t get along was taken for granted in Outer God Slayer. There was no need to attach any particular reason. They simply fought, so I assumed the time had come.
“Why? There are people like that in the world, you know? The kind who want to beat each other to death just from seeing their faces……”
“Ah, I get it. My wife’s like that with me for no reason.”
“What does she say?”
“She tells me to go die every single day.”
“I know that feeling.”
Clark chuckled and handed me another apple. I peeled it neatly with the paring knife, sliced it, and arranged the pieces on a plate.
“What would a kid like you know about that?”
“My family used to tell me to go die every day too.”
“Hey, that’s not the same thing.”
Seti shot me a look of protest from the side, but the conversation had already veered off course. I offered the neatly sliced apples to Rustilla and Seti. The two of them scratched their cheeks in unison like real sisters and polished off the entire plate in no time. I peeled another apple. This time I used a bread knife for a different style. Seti gave me a pitiful look as if to ask what kind of nonsense I was pulling, but she didn’t scold me. This was part of training too.
Originally I had only intended to learn the proper sword techniques from Instructor Clark, but thanks to his sudden interest in me I had secured focused guidance. The reason he was still sitting in Rustilla’s hospital room was, in truth, because of me. For me, it was a stroke of luck.
After steering the conversation for a while, I naturally changed the subject.
“What do you think of Rustilla?”
“In what regard?”
“Her talent as a swordsman. Do you see any possibility of her beating Zernya?”
Rustilla, who had been blankly munching on apple slices with vacant eyes, turned her head. The way she reacted reflexively the moment sword talk came up was rather cute. Instructor Clark sighed.
“Honestly, it’ll be difficult.”
It wasn’t that she lacked talent, but her technique relied far too heavily on wild instincts. No technique, only disorderly violence. Clark claimed that with this level she might defeat an A-rank monster, but she could never handle intelligent S-rank or higher monsters.
Rustilla naturally buried her face in despair. It was only natural to feel disappointed when told that if she wanted to grow, she had to discard the swordsmanship she had believed in and trained with all this time.
“You’ll have to start over from the beginner level. For reference, my technique relies heavily on orthodox methods. I never had much talent either. That’s why I clawed my way up by following the rails others had already laid down.”
It was self-praise, but it was also true. Professor Feynman had said something similar. In the end, if you wanted to reach the top of any field, you had to build a solid foundation from the beginning.
“But that’s the style I’ve been learning from my Constellation……”
“I understand. Still, you shouldn’t assume everything a Constellation says is correct. Especially if it possesses enough reason and goodwill to form a contract. What if that Constellation one day colludes with an Outer Deity and falls?”
Yes, it wasn’t common, but such things did happen. However, Rustilla’s Vega was so pure that unless it was directly absorbed by a black hole, it would never happen. In other words, Rustilla’s path was also the righteous path. Clark probably knew this deep down as well.
Rustilla was a student he could not teach. Therefore, he needed to introduce her to another swordsman who possessed a different “righteous path” suited to her.
Just then, a suitable person seemed to come to mind. He clapped his hands together.
“My wife, you see……”
***
Even after being discharged, Rustilla continued to challenge Zernya. Zernya’s skill was overwhelming, so Rustilla never lasted more than a few exchanges. Ten clashes was considered lucky.
“This is getting old.”
A month had passed. Today ended in Zernya’s victory once again. She lowered the sword she had rested on Rustilla’s shoulder and frowned.
“Let’s stop now. I’m sick of dealing with someone like you.”
“……”
“Duel me. One more time. Set a date.”
“Still haven’t come to your senses?”
Zernya was exhausted as well. Originally, she had no particular intention of welcoming or rejecting anyone who entered the elite class, whether it was Rustilla or anyone else. After all, she would be number one, and there would be no one superior to her. No tadpole would feel they were swimming in the same water as her just because they studied together.
Yet that thought shattered like thin glass. The boy she alone—and only slightly—acknowledged, Idel, was close with Rustilla. At the very least, Idel, who was currently far above her, was close with Rustilla, who was far beneath her. First of all, it was bad for her heart. Second, it was ridiculous.
If a nobody like Rustilla mingled with Idel, it could create an atmosphere where other students looked down on her. Such a thing must never happen.
“Get lost.”
Zernya spat the words at Rustilla, laced with killing intent. Rustilla clenched her teeth and stepped out of Zernya’s shadow.
“Hoo.”
Good. This should do it. Now that she knew her place, she would stay away from Idel. All that remained was to drag the top student down and take that position for herself.
The promised mid-term evaluation was approaching.