Flying Sword (3)
The training grounds of the Armaals family estate. While I stood there in a daze after receiving nothing but a half-hearted lecture from the knight commander—thanks to some ridiculous misunderstanding—Poeto Slit, who had been dragged out even on his day off for extra training, muttered to his fellow trainees.
His buddy, whose head had been shaved clean because he couldn’t focus on his own training, followed Poeto’s gaze out of curiosity. When he spotted the family’s guest standing there like a scarecrow, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
“Are you out of your damn mind?!” another trainee growled under his breath at Poeto.
Their skills were clearly lacking, which was why they’d been forced to train even on the weekend. If their superior heard them talking so disrespectfully about the family’s honored guest, they might all get punished with pay cuts or worse under collective responsibility. Actually, that would be the lucky outcome. Getting kicked out of the Flying Sword Knight Order for insulting a guest would ruin their futures. What noble house would take in a low-ranking knight who’d been dismissed for rudeness? Only the shady ones. If they didn’t want to end up as disposable arrow fodder and die young, they’d be stuck living like adventurers—day-to-day scavengers. That was a nightmare every third-rate knight like them knew all too well.
They’d finally gotten through the narrow gate into knighthood. They couldn’t afford to stay stuck as low-ranking grunts forever. Spending their nights in some adventurer guild tavern, drunkenly bragging about how they used to be knights back in the day… that kind of life was just too pathetic.
But Poeto slapped his chest like their hesitation was suffocating him.
His friends’ faces turned deathly pale. They started glancing around nervously, terrified someone might overhear. Fortunately, the black-haired Kitai guest didn’t seem to have noticed. The knight commander had been running them ragged with brutal training anyway, still beating himself up over failing to protect the young master. No other knights had come out for weekend training besides them.
Poeto kept running his mouth, completely ignoring his friends’ tense silence.
“Maybe he came on his own…”
The trainee who said that quickly shut his mouth. Sure, the man had been invited as a guest, but coming out here to train by himself? The way he was just standing there blankly, staring at the ceiling and sighing? That didn’t look like self-training at all.
When doubt began to creep into his friends’ eyes, Poeto puffed out his chest triumphantly.
Poeto came from a fairly well-off family and had received a proper education. His words carried a strange persuasiveness. His friends hesitated before offering weak counterarguments.
─Snap!
Poeto clicked his fingers.
The constant pushback was starting to piss Poeto off. He cursed under his breath.
His meticulously prepared escape route—at least that’s how it looked to them—started to tempt the other trainees. It was also true that Poeto’s condescending glare had lit a fire under them. They had become knights dreaming of fame and glory, but while some of their peers had already been promoted to mid-ranking knights, they were still stuck at the bottom. They were desperate for good marks from their superiors. On top of that, they couldn’t help feeling jealous of the massive support the sponsored prodigies received. And if some adventurer scum who was weaker than them, lazier than them, and lived like a degenerate was getting that same treatment through lies? That was something no knight of the family could possibly overlook. Even setting aside ugly jealousy, this was a matter of principle.
His friends made their excuses while snickering behind Poeto’s back, fully convinced by his logic.
…And it took less than ten minutes for them to bitterly regret that complacent judgment.
“Are you really sure about this? This sword may not have a sharpened edge, but it’s still made of iron.”
The bald blue sweet potato—who had clearly been lying when he pretended to stiffen up at my provocation—spoke with a smug grin. He was mocking me, pretending to be concerned that I had thrown away my blade and stepped into the sparring area empty-handed.
“I’ll avoid your vital points, but if I accidentally break an arm or a leg—”
“Was ‘teach me a move’ code for ‘let’s have a chat’? In that case, you’d be better off asking the family’s maids. Or did you already try hitting on them and get shot down?”
Maybe it was because I’d grown used to throwing out provocation commands while facing opponents head-on. The moment I instinctively fired one off, the blue sweet potato turned red and blue like a taegeuk symbol.
“…Don’t regret this.”
─Shing.
The sweet potato raised his blunted practice sword. Why the hell are you opening your eyes so wide, you idiot?
I lifted a finger.
“Before that, let me give myself a few handicaps.”
Crackle—!!
A single Lightning Missile appeared above my finger. It was closer in size to a catapult stone than an arrow. It was bigger than I expected, and even I was slightly surprised by the power I’d output.
Shit, it’s been a while. I can’t control the output properly.
Even though I was internally panicking, I made sure I looked calm on the outside as I spun the arrow once around my body.
─Kwaaaaaang!
When I made it explode as a threat, the missile violently sprayed sparks everywhere. The blue sweet potato’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open.
Hey old man, your sword tip is shaking.
“As you can see, I am both a warrior and a mage. But if I fought you from a distance, it wouldn’t be much of a training exercise for you, Sir Knight.”
Using that excuse, I pulled a mana pipeline from my wrist. It was the Absorption Great Law I’d stolen from the black mage Corentus.
─Swoosh!
The green mana that shot out wrapped around both my wrist and the blue sweet potato’s like a rope.
“W-what is this?”
“It’s a mana rope. I’ve set the length to three meters. I will not step outside the range of this rope.”
In other words, I was declaring that even when maintaining distance, I would only move within three meters. Three meters. It sounded long, but it was actually quite short. Any modern person would know how short a one-meter phone charging cable feels. Three meters was three times that, but it was by no means a long or comfortable distance. One step would put you within the reach of fist and blade alike. For me, who wasn’t even holding a weapon, it was the most disadvantageous range possible.
─Grind.
The moment I set my handicaps, the blue sweet potato—who had been intimidated by the Lightning Missile—gritted his teeth. He was still a knight, after all. He seemed to understand the importance of distance in combat.
“Are you underestimating us that much?”
I thought about giving him even more attitude, but decided against it since it would be annoying if it caused problems later.
The Aura training got postponed for a bit, but it’s rare to find a sandbag I can beat the crap out of this casually.
I’d picked up three or four different martial arts during the operation to rescue Tirsi, but I still hadn’t perfectly mastered any of them. I couldn’t even use the latter half of Gertur’s forms yet.
Guess I’ll test them out one by one and digest them slowly.
─Tap. Tap.
I put one hand behind my back and beckoned with the other. A perfect taunting pose worthy of a true master. I didn’t activate Beast Regression. If I covered myself in mana coating, these guys could swing their swords all day and not leave a single scratch on me. That would kill their motivation.
“…I will learn from you!!”
The blue sweet potato raised his sword high, veins bulging on his neck.