A Split-Second Showdown
“The winner — Eva!”
Chloe raised Eva's hand just like a boxing referee would.
Eva bounced in place like an excited rabbit, hopping up and down.
“I-I-I won, right!? That's what happened!?”
“Good work, Eva. That was an excellent strike.”
Chloe rested a hand on her shoulder and lavished praise on her without reserve, cheering her on from the side so that Eva could ride this momentum and gain some confidence.
“I lost to that. Pathetic.”
Marin poked my swollen temple with her finger. A dull ache throbbed around my skull — a pain that seemed to resonate straight through my brain. Dizzy. So dizzy.
“Solis is an idiot. Didn't even use his ability.”
“I threw the match on purpose, so read the room.”
In the original story, Eva had never been able to overcome Solis's Usurper. Even though she'd eventually found a way around it, the fact remained that she'd been at a disadvantage — which is why she'd pulled out her trump card: a Divine Artifact.
The legacy of the God King — ten armaments used to forge the world itself. By the time of the final battle, she'd possessed three of them. Her firepower was so overwhelming that she treated magic like a joke, completely changing her means of attack. Eva had bulldozed Solis on raw gear power alone.
But here, at the start of Part 1, when the story's journey had only just begun, she had no clear way to counter the Usurper. Even just channeling mana through my entire body instead of my hand to activate the Solar War Body was enough to deflect practice rounds without so much as flinching.
“I know you threw it. But saying it out loud? Ugly.”
“A guy can't even talk.”
I'd acted my heart out to set the stage for her, and all I got back was a woman's abuse. ...Honestly, though? Maybe this isn't so bad.
“Anyway, good work. Rest up.”
Marin stroked the injured spot with her hand. Her touch was as soft as a warm blanket, and it soothed body and mind alike.
“Pain, pain, fly away.”
“You're pretty practiced at that. Done it a lot, have you?”
“Grandpa had a bump like this once. He looked like it hurt a lot.”
The priest Ether — the one who had taken in the homeless Marin and cared for her. The man she called "Grandpa" could only be him.
“It hurt him a lot. So I petted it, so it would stop hurting.”
“Did it work?”
“Yes. Grandpa smiled. Said my hands were magic hands, and that it didn't hurt anymore. He praised me.”
Had a memory from the past surfaced? A faint flicker of emotion crossed Marin's otherwise blank face. It was blurry, like an old faded photograph, but I could feel it in my chest — that it was happiness.
“You'll be fine with this. Probably.”
“Can I ask you one thing?”
“Go ahead.”
“The thing where you touched my dick — was that for the same reason? Because it looked like it hurt?”
“Dick?”
“Here. This thing.”
I pointed at my crotch with a finger — the exact spot she'd fumbled with back in the elevator.
“You looked like you were in agony. Weren't you?”
“Well, it did hurt, but thanks to you stroking it, it feels a bit better. The problem is it swells up again later.”
A healthy cock swells at any time, any place, circumstances be damned. Remembering what happened earlier — good grief, my dick is quite firm right now, thank you for asking.
“See? It does this all the time.”
“Want me to take care of it?”
“I'd love th—”
[Writer]: Excuse me, dear reader?
“...But that'll be all for now. I'll take a rain check.”
One chilling line had appeared in the chat window. Upon seeing the Writer's warning, I respectfully declined Marin's kind offer.
“Tsk. What a shame.”
[Writer]: A shame, my ass. My one regret is that when I dragged you into this world, I possessed you without castrating you first, you bastard.
“How can you say something so horrifying!?”
Scary. Scary. First she abducts a man and forcibly drags him here, and now she's threatening to cut off his junk? A demon, straight up.
[Writer]: And shouldn't YOU be feeling a little guilty? You have a girlfriend named Yupi, yet you're making other women do... that kind of thing to you.
“A girlfriend and a friends-with-benefits are different things, aren't they? Having another girl lend a hand downstairs? I don't see the problem.”
[Writer]: I genuinely want to extract your brain and study it, dear reader, to understand what kind of thought process could possibly produce that mindset.
Those words scrolling up the chat window — she meant every one of them. I could feel vicious, murderous intent radiating off her messages. Mind my mouth around here. If I said any more, this wouldn't end as a joke.
“Right then, Eva's match against that piece of trash is over. Next up: me and Marin.”
“That's what she says.”
“Off I go.”
The next contestant was Chloe. And her opponent — Marin.
I withdrew from the sparring arena and settled against the spectator seats.
“Chu-Chloe, you can win! Fighting!”
Eva cheered for Chloe right beside me, fists clenched and raised. This girl, normally so self-conscious about people watching her, raised her voice loud enough to ring across the entire training grounds. Whoa, loud. I plugged my ears with my fingers. My eardrums nearly burst.
“Thanks, Eva.”
Chloe gave a crisp thumbs-up. Then she gripped her wooden sparring sword straight and leveled it at Marin, settling into her stance.
“You too. Pick up a weapon.”
Chloe urged Marin, who had stepped onto the arena floor, to choose one of the weapons laid out beside her.
“Do I really have to?”
“It's for safety. These weapons reduce the impact they deal to your opponent to a reasonable level.”
“A weapon that makes you weaker?”
“A spar isn't about hurting your opponent — it's a form of training to sharpen each other's skills and grow together. Nobody likes getting hurt, right?”
“Okay. Understood.”
At Chloe's words, Marin's eyes swept over the training weapons on display. Soon she picked up a glove set with a crystal orb and slipped it onto her hand.
“Oh?”
Chloe's eyes narrowed as she watched Marin. Eva jolted up from her seat in shock.
“Eeeh! Marin — she's in the Magic Department like me!?”
“No, that kid's in the Martial Department. Class B.”
I immediately fed the confused Eva the correct information.
“Martial Department? But that glove...”
“It's a mage's glove — an armament that converts mana and stores it.”
Mages here used two kinds of weapons. The first was the staff: a weapon capable of holding powerful spells. It took time to weave magic into it, but its amplification far outstripped casting by hand. The perfect weapon for Eva, who could triple-cast — chanting three spells in a single breath — and she covered its weakness, the slow casting speed, by triggering her completed spells in sequence.
The other was the glove. Its casting speed was incomparably faster than a staff's, but its power dropped off dramatically. Equipment belonging to the non-mainstream arsenal — among mages, you could count the users of this tool on one hand.
“Don't tell me she thought that was a knuckle for Martial Department students?”
“Marin may be pure, but she's no fool. She chose that on purpose.”
A weapon perfectly suited to herself. She'd assessed exactly which tool would let her current self perform at maximum efficiency.
“Marin looks more serious than I've ever seen her. Seems she intends to face Chloe for real.”
“M-Marin might be strong, I don't know, but Chloe is the top student of the entire Martial Department! Sh-she'll absolutely win!”
"Top student" was a title granted only to the tiny handful of academy students with the most outstanding ability. Chloe was the beloved daughter of House Opal, daughter of the Sword Saint herself, and had received his swordsmanship firsthand. Whoever had been sent against her instead of Eva, any sensible observer would have predicted Eva's... well, Chloe's victory.
“One vote for Marin.”
“Wh-why, why!? How can you be so certain!?”
“Because Chloe lost to me, that's why.”
“Huh?”
“That kid's stronger than me.”
Having absorbed Solis's experience and power, and awakened through the knowledge of the setting guidebook, I already surpassed the present-day Solis, reaching the realm he'd demonstrated in the latter half of Part 3. If I'd fought the Solis of that era — the one who'd faced Eva — the advantage would have been mine. But that superiority only held if you excluded one fact: my proficiency with Divine Artifacts.
A mad weapon that grants mastery bordering on godhood the instant you learn to handle even a harmless little bug. I practiced when I could, but I was still hopelessly clumsy. Compared to those clan bastards who appeared in the original story, I'd only just learned to crawl.
And Marin? How about her?
“See this coin? The match begins the moment it hits the ground.”
“Got it.”
“Then — go.”
Ting!
Chloe flicked the coin with her thumb. The round disc spun through the air in a glittering whirl before gravity caught it and dragged it down.
Clack!
Chloe lowered into a drawn-blade stance. One exchange. She meant to settle it in a single stroke — as leader of this group, as the top of the Martial Department, she intended to demonstrate the gulf in skill.
Clang!
The coin struck the ground. She drove power into her planted foot, anchoring her balance, and targeted Marin with the one-strike-one-kill swordsmanship the Sword Saint had taught her.
That was the moment.
Fwoosh!
Light erupted. Not blinding, not dim — just a soft, sudden flash. That light, which had briefly veiled our vision, vanished as fleetingly as a midnight dream.
And then, everything was already over.
“Ch-Chloe?”
What met Eva's eyes and mine was Chloe, down on one knee in abject defeat. She was barely holding her balance, leaning on her splintered wooden sword.
“I win.”
Marin leisurely flashed a V-sign and declared her victory before Chloe. Against the acknowledged strongest student in Purity Academy, she'd shown an overwhelming gulf in skill.
Even I, who had dominated Chloe, had managed nothing more than a blurry afterimage of Marin's movement.
So this is the power that comes when a Divine Artifact truly bends to your will.
The Divine Artifact — Star's Fragment. Shuddering at the dazzling wonder that weapon had displayed, I trembled from head to toe.