I Think I've Got the Hang of It
The sun was setting.
Crimson light spilled through the skylight, painting the hall in a dreamlike wash of dusk. Outside, the laughter of boys and girls mingled with the chirp of insects, a soft backdrop to the quiet within.
Inside the training hall stood two men. One held a sword. The other sat on the floor with a cigarette between his lips.
The one on his feet was Goren. He spoke.
"With a swift sword, accuracy matters more than anything. That much is obvious."
"Mm."
Leon exhaled a slow ribbon of smoke and nodded.
"Think of a lightning bolt. Nothing is faster or more devastating — yet no one treats it as a genuine threat."
"Because it almost never hits?"
"Exactly. Most of the time it strikes somewhere that isn't a person. Nobody walks down the street fretting about getting struck by lightning."
"Mm."
"So even if you swing a sword as fast as lightning, if it never lands, it means nothing. A blade that only cuts quickly is as useless as a fly's wingbeats."
"Fair enough."
"The point is to move the sword swiftly — but only at a speed you can fully control. And that principle applies to more than just the sword. Footwork. Body techniques. All of it."
"Right. I could go faster too. I just choose not to."
"······."
Goren flinched at the casual admission.
"Which is why our family drills this teaching into every student. We don't swing the sword quickly — we place the sword at the intended point as quickly as possible."
Isn't that just wordplay? It's the same damn thing.
"······Judging by your eyes, you think it's wordplay. But the difference starts with that subtle shift in mindset."
"Does the Baltvin family teach mind-reading too?"
"So then — to control the sword, to keep it in your hands even within that compressed span of time — what do you need to cultivate?"
"Hmm. Concentration? Eyesight? Processing speed? Reflexes?"
"All of them. We call those elements, taken together, Instant Force."
Instant Force — the ability to command a single moment. Close cousin to raw reaction speed.
Leon summed it up.
"So building Instant Force comes first."
"Foundation. First step."
"Then······."
Leon flicked the cigarette butt over his shoulder.
"Where do you figure I stand right now?"
Goren's eyes sharpened.
"I was planning to find out anyway. Get up."
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whooooosh—!
"This feels somehow······."
Leon twisted his head this way and that as he muttered. The blade skimmed past his cheek, then the nape of his neck, again and again.
"Hup!"
A suppressed shout tore from Goren's throat. His hands branched outward, leaving a storm of afterimages.
Pivivivivivivit—!
Dozens of needle-sharp thrusts lanced toward Leon. His eyes flashed — and only then did he move the wooden sword in his grip.
Tadadadadadadak—!
The blade held the center line, deflecting, parrying, cutting off every incoming shock. His body twisted with exquisite precision, slipping past whatever remained. Like solid bedrock, he did not take a single step.
"Done?"
"Huh······."
Goren let his wooden sword hang limp, the fight drained out of him.
"······I felt it last time too, but you're still far beyond me. Enough to make me ashamed of the Baltvin name."
He admitted it cleanly. Instant Force. For a man who had spent his entire life refining that very field, the gap was a gut punch. Of all things, he should not have lost here.
"Well."
Leon shrugged. His Instant Force was not merely the product of raw sword talent.
Combat experience. Everything he had felt and forged while crossing countless lines of death — and the memories poured into him by the Demonic Soul Pill.
A fight where lives hang in the balance is a different creature entirely from drills and sparring. Leon had rolled through nothing but the roughest places imaginable.
Places where blades, poisons, and hidden weapons sprang out without warning. Where bricks dropped from above as you walked an alley. Where a child begging for bread would bury a knife in your gut. Where the stew an old woman offered with a gentle smile was laced with poison. Where you watched every step for fear of landmines.
And that was only the beginning. Group combat. Annihilation battles. Pursuits. Hand-to-hand brawls. Retreats. Close-quarters indoor fighting — more kinds of battle than two hands could count. Armed robbers, gangs, hitmen, operatives, demons, magical beasts, monsters — an equally endless parade of enemies.
Leon had fought without regard for time, place, or opponent. And so certain things had grown in him the way scars grow.
Intuition. Sixth sense. Instinct. Composure. Boldness. Equanimity. Concentration. Reflexes. Reaction speed. Every faculty required to seize a fleeting instant.
Given all of that, Leon's time could not help but flow more slowly than anyone else's.
Goren, who knew none of this history, simply refused to understand.
Does that even make sense? Did our family's mana cultivation method leak? Could Crucif have—?
He was inventing conspiracy theories on the spot.
Slap!
"Ugh!"
Leon cracked the dazed Goren across the cheek.
"Snap out of it, man. So what's next. What do I need to do."
Goren rubbed his stinging face.
"We need to at least push you to your limits······ but you're too strong. You're not threatened at all."
"Tch. That so?"
Just as Leon furrowed his brow—
Bang!
The door to Training Hall Six burst open. A slender silhouette stepped through, backlit by the dying light. Ruby eyes. A swaying silver ponytail.
"Leon, why are you here—"
"Ohhh! Your Highness!"
Leon waved with extravagant enthusiasm.
"Good to see you! How did you even know to come here!"
"······I asked the cadets where you were and came··· but."
Esabel faltered under the sheer volume of his energy.
"Let's spar."
She finished what she had come to say.
"Hmm······ is that so?"
Leon, of course, paid no attention whatsoever. A living training golem had conveniently walked through the door, and that was all that mattered.
"Perfect timing. First, help me out a bit."
"······?"
"Here. Take this wooden sword."
"??"
Esabel in front. Goren behind. Leon caught between them.
Tak, tadadadak! Tadak!
Three wooden swords crossed and collided, cracking through the air.
"Keep concentrating! Feel that sensation of time slowing to its absolute limit!"
"······."
Leon answered only in his head. There was no room to open his mouth. With the third- and fourth-ranked cadets coordinating a proper assault, the difficulty was high even for him.
Especially Esabel. Whatever had her so furious, she was swinging as if she meant to crack his skull open. From the front came a swift blade; from behind, a heavy one. Two completely different natures of sword — and twice as many things to watch for.
Esabel, whose every strike carried crushing weight. Goren, who cunningly hunted openings and vital points. Truly tricky. Truly difficult. His hands and feet began to tangle. Leon felt himself approaching the ceiling of the speed he could produce.
He treated it as a life-or-death duel and drove his concentration higher still. His exceptional talent with the sword rose to meet him. The world's time grew slower and slower. He was entering the realm of the instant.
From the tips of their toes to the points of their blades — everything resolved into a single glance. He could see the fire in Esabel's eyes, the set of her clenched jaw. Following Goren's instruction, Leon observed this very moment.
Hands moving on reflex. Lower body acting of its own accord. Breath regulating itself. Mana racing wild through his circuits. The next motion predicted and formed by pure instinct.
He had to control all of it. Command it. Govern it. Nothing could be left to the unconscious. Everything had to move by his will alone — freely navigating the gaps between moments.
Extreme focus. Leon accelerated his thoughts. His head throbbed; it felt as though his brain itself had seized up. He envisioned a single motion. Calmly, he conceived of one sword.
He said to get the sword to the intended point as quickly as possible.
A shift in mindset.
Pivivit—!
Whoooom!
A light-speed thrust. A mountain-like slash. The two swordsmen's breathing, their spacing, their openings. The maximum speed he could produce. The perfect path of the blade. He weighed every element, synthesized them, and derived what he needed to draw.
Thump—!
His heart beat once, hard and full.
Whooooo—
Esabel's ankle and waist twisted; her sword tilted onto a diagonal.
Whooooosh—
Goren shifted his sword to one hand and launched a strike aimed at Leon's left armpit.
That instant froze like a photograph. Vision sharpened. Leon saw the path.
Fwit—
He stepped the Heavenly Spirit Steps, slipping between them as if gliding on ice, and connected his sword to two points marked in the air — points that would sever Goren's and Esabel's flow. Left and right, his blade drew the line.
—Tak!
It struck twice, but so fast the sounds collapsed into one.
"······."
"······."
"······."
Everyone froze. Silence settled over the hall.
Tak, tadadadak—.
Two wooden swords rolled across the training hall tiles.
Goren and Esabel stared blankly down at their empty hands. Leon stood behind them. He slowly released the stance he had held.
"I think I've roughly got it."
And he muttered it with a crooked grin.