Ten Fell Before Her
When Nina stepped out first, the knights looked as if they had expected nothing else. Once she was eliminated, Jin would be the one left to face them. That was the shape of it, exactly as they had planned. Red-haired Jin had made a fair name for himself in the civil war, and every man there was wary of him.
"Don't think I'll go easy on you."
Nina answered with a short laugh and crooked one finger.
"Come on."
"You—!"
The enraged knight slammed his visor down and charged her head-on. For an instant Nina vanished from his sight. In the next bewildered heartbeat a tremendous impact crashed over him, and his memory ended there.
Clank. Clang.
Plate armor tumbled across the ground, and silence settled over the field.
"Just now..."
"What...?"
The soldiers and knights, all of them primed to roar, could only stare, slack-jawed. Look as they might, none of it made sense. Nina had taken the iron sword in both hands and swung it like a baseball bat, bringing it around from behind with a sharp yah! to crack the knight across the back. That much, one could allow. What followed, one could not: the man who took the blow flew a long way off and hit the earth, and even from where they stood the plate was visibly caved in.
Nina gave the iron sword a few more whistling swings, then spoke.
"Next, if you please."
Only then did a cheer burst from the stands, as if a spell had broken.
"Waaaaah!!"
"Waaah!!"
It was nearer a scream than a cheer. The farmers threw every scrap of strength they had into the roar.
The second knight stepped forward on reflex, and still he could not understand it. With a build like that? How? Had something gone wrong?
"You are going to signal, aren't you?"
Only when Nina said it to the referee did the man, flustered, give the sign at all.
"Begin!"
The second knight raised his sword with care. I'll take a good look first, and then... And his memory cut off just the same.
The cheer broke out again.
One man, and then another. The knights who came forward as if spellbound could not endure so much as a single blow from Nina. By now the farmers were weeping and clutching one another.
Feeling how completely the mood had turned, Nina let out a long breath.
"Ha. I'm too softhearted."
A blow to the head would kill them, so she was being generous and striking only the body, letting it end in injury. How very tender of her. Of course, hit a man hard enough to crumple his armor and send him flying, and bones might break, a lung might be punctured, the gut might burst. Still better than a shattered skull, isn't it?
Around the fifth, the knight order changed its approach. They stripped off their armor and chose speed instead. Either way, to Nina they were nothing but mice before a cat.
Six. Seven. Eight.
Each time she beat another down with the sword, the farmers shot up from their seats and howled. Nina's blade knew no mercy. The knights were not cut, but they were broken for certain, and they were out cold.
When it came to the ninth, the order had gone silent.
"I—I'll forfeit."
The ninth knight flung his sword down with a hand that would not stop shaking.
The captain's rebuke came down like a lash.
"A forfeit, in a duel? What do you think you're doing!"
"Captain, th-that thing is a monster! A monster, I tell you!"
There is a limit to the strength a human body can produce. Had Nina been a giant of two meters, a hundred kilos or more, they might have understood. But she was built lean and long-limbed. No such power ought to have come out of a frame like that.
The captain, Teravolta, shook where he stood, then came down off the platform.
"I'll take the last one myself!"
"Oh."
Nina blinked. She had thought fear of losing would keep him back, and here was the captain in person. So a knight order really is a knight order. She spun the iron sword in easy circles.
Teravolta refused the armor. That thing was a Bellac. A being no different from one. If so, there was no point in wearing armor meant for human opponents. He took up an iron sword and set his stance.
"I am in your hands."
At that, Nina smiled, gentle.
"Let me teach you one thing."
The words were arrogant, but Teravolta did not grow angry. He concentrated. The first blow had to be avoided. After that, he had to open plenty of distance. Tension drew his whole body taut.
"Begin!"
At the referee's cry, Teravolta charged her. In an instant Nina was gone from his sight.
"This way, then!"
He cut across, and the space was empty.
"The answer is core muscles."
A whisper reached him, and Sir Teravolta lost consciousness where he stood.
When even the captain folded onto the floor of the dueling ground, everyone stared at the scene in a daze. It had not taken long at all. The ten best of the Eagle Knights had fallen to a single hand. Every victory, every scrap of renown, had come apart in that one person's grip.
Nina swept the iron sword high. Light flared brilliant at its point, as if the sun itself had struck the steel—only because she had quietly laid a highlight over it with the Sun. The effect was extraordinary. In the same moment the farmers sprang to their feet, stamping, clapping, shouting.
"Long live Rubuaene! Long live the ducal house! Long live!"
"Long live the Black Knights!! Long live!!"
As if the roar had jolted them awake, the people of the Eagle Knights came running in a rush.
"C-Captain!"
"Captain!"
Everyone had seen it. Out of regard for his being captain, Nina had brought the edge of her hand down on his neck rather than the sword. A blow of that force would ordinarily have snapped the neck and killed him, but she had measured it so carefully that he had only lost consciousness. He was alive.
"So we won, didn't we?"
Nina's bright voice cut clean through every noise. Every gaze swung to her. She lifted the iron sword and leveled it at the Eagle Knights' banner.
Nina shook a bottle of wine and marveled.
"Look at them living well. They were drinking the expensive stuff."
"Is this really all right?"
"Is what?"
"No, I just..."
Jin glanced around. The two of them had settled into a tent the Eagle Knights had not managed to clear. Tents built for a long stay were not easily taken apart and abandoned in a hurry, and the defeat had to be carried to the count at once, so the order had poured out with nothing but what they could grab, as if they were fleeing a raid. Had Captain Teravolta been awake, they would not have withdrawn in such a rabble, but he remained unconscious right up to the moment they left. And the monster who had blown away the Eagle Knights' ten strongest was staring straight at them. There was no telling when that woman might snap and start swinging. Fear had driven the whole retreat. Thanks to it, the tent overflowed with luxuries more than enough for Nina and Jin.
Nina had urged the farmers to stay the night as well, but they refused. They wanted to get back to the village quickly and carry the news to everyone else. She divided up the provisions in the tent, and they offered their thanks again and again. She did not forget, while she was at it, to slip in a little promotion.
"Now that Young Master Adrian has become a duke, life ought to get easier for you."
"Of course. Of course it will."
The farmers bowed and scraped, shared out the food, and went back the way they had come, singing a bright song.
There was food in plenty, perhaps laid in for a feast after the day's victory. Beyond whatever the farmers had brought, these were fine things the knights themselves had hauled in: baskets of soft white bread, wine, jerky, fruit, even pork already dressed and ready.
"Well. Is there anything they don't have?"
Nina and Jin lit the brazier and ate and drank their fill. Nina, who had spent her strength, put away a portion for ten grown men in a single sitting.
"What if they come back?"
Jin asked it around a swallow of pork roasted golden-brown.
"Those lot?"
"Yeah. It's not as if the soldiers are only here. What if they join up with the others and come?"
"They already lost the duel. They've got no pretext."
"They know it's just the two of us."
What he was asking was plain enough. What if they came back and killed the two of them, so that no word of it could get out?
Nina laughed, short and sharp.
"And what if there are two of us?"
At that, Jin lost his words for a moment. Nina tilted her head and spread butter thick across a piece of white bread.
"If the Eagle Knights and their soldiers went missing, wouldn't the Count of Rava's house be the one in trouble?"