Time to Cut Something Down
“I think I’ve got the hang of it.”
Leon said it with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“······.”
Goren’s hand, having lost its grip on the wooden sword, trembled violently. Goosebumps prickled across his entire body, and his mind went blank.
He got it? He says he got it? How? I haven’t taught him a damn thing yet.
What had he even done so far?
He’d recited the barest fundamentals of theory. He’d thrust his sword a few times. He’d tossed out a handful of words about trying to feel the “instant.”
That was it.
And yet—
That strike just now… he’d clearly stepped into Flowing Instant.
In the martial arts of House Baltvin, the concept of Extreme Instant was used constantly.
Extreme Instant referred to the absolute limit of speed that any given being could perceive.
In other words, it was a concept that applied to everyone.
A five-year-old child. A seventy-year-old man. An Expert-rank martial artist. A Sixth Circle mage.
The level varied wildly depending on individual capability—but for every person, there existed a threshold of time they could handle.
That was why every martial art of House Baltvin began with Extreme Instant.
And the stages of mastery over Extreme Instant were divided into eight ranks.
First: Instant Recognition.
The stage of simply perceiving Extreme Instant. Even someone who couldn’t sense mana could reach it with steady effort.
Second: Instant Response.
The stage of reacting within Extreme Instant. There was a vast gulf between merely perceiving something and actually responding to it—but with enough training, most people managed this as well. Any properly trained martial artist could handle Instant Response without much trouble.
Third: Instant Motion.
From here on, it was the domain of seasoned fighters. It meant being able to move, to some degree, within Extreme Instant. Reach this far, and you could walk around most places being called a skilled fighter.
Fourth: True Instant.
Moving normally within Extreme Instant. Acting more or less as you would under ordinary conditions. It was far from easy. Even among carefully selected elite martial artists, few could manage it. It demanded both grueling effort and high-caliber talent.
Goren himself was currently at this stage.
You had to be an eighteen-year-old genius raised in House Baltvin to pull it off.
Fifth: Flowing Instant.
The stage of moving through Extreme Instant as fluidly as flowing water.
Between True Instant and Flowing Instant stood a massive wall—roughly the gap between a User-rank martial artist and an Expert-rank one.
A lofty realm reachable only by masters of the swift sword. The level at which you could completely control your body within Extreme Instant.
The difference was like the wingbeats of a sparrow versus those of an eagle.
That was why Goren had intended to give Leon the first foothold into Flowing Instant.
Of course, Goren himself had never grasped Flowing Instant—but he had the theory memorized down to the last detail. He’d even harbored a quiet hope that, in the process of explaining it to Leon, he might gain something himself.
After all, people often learned while teaching.
······Yes. That had been the plan.
“H-how?”
Goren’s mouth flapped open and shut. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It felt as though the world he’d known until now had collapsed.
Leon laughed brightly.
“Hey, this is what you were talking about, right? Feel the instant, or whatever? I get what that feels like now.”
Just now, Leon had experienced something entirely new—something he hadn’t even felt during his hair-raising duel with Billy.
A sensation of slipping through the gaps in time like water.
Normally, once a fight’s speed crossed a certain threshold, he’d left part of it to pure instinct. This time, in that fleeting moment, he had fully controlled his body and moved exactly as he intended.
If he had to put it into words: until now, he’d been flailing around gripping only the pommel of the sword. Now he’d seized the hilt properly and swung.
Like going from piloting fifty or sixty percent of his body to using a full hundred.
“S-sorcery!”
Spittle flew from Goren’s mouth as he spat the word.
“What the hell do you mean, sorcery, you bastard. I just did what you told me.”
“Insane! That’s—that’s impossible!”
“Has this guy not been hit enough yet?”
“Hiiiek!”
“······.”
Gulp.
Esabel swallowed dryly as she watched Leon raise his fist.
She’d somehow ended up as Leon’s sparring partner, and because of that, she’d witnessed something extraordinary.
How long has it been since the evaluation ended, and he’s already grown again?
How did he keep shooting up like this every time she looked?
That last strike—Goren, who’d rigorously trained his instantaneous speed for years, had barely managed to catch it with his eyes. Esabel had only seen Leon’s afterimages, chopped into stuttering fragments. She hadn’t even glimpsed the sword that knocked her weapon aside.
“······.”
Esabel’s eyes twisted into a complicated expression.
Honestly, she’d been regarding Leon as a rival. Someone she might be trailing slightly for now, but could catch up to if she worked hard enough—a back-and-forth, roughly equal relationship.
······That wasn’t it.
The gap between Leon and Esabel was only widening.
She felt her self-esteem plummet. Her pride took hit after hit.
Born a princess, she had abandoned politics and power early on. As a late child, the age gap with her siblings had been too great to compete, and she hadn’t wanted to dirty her hands in that filthy political arena anyway.
Instead, she’d chosen the path of a martial artist. It suited her nature far better.
She’d lived immersed in the sword alone. Day and night, nothing but swinging a blade.
On top of that, she possessed outstanding talent—deserving of the title “martial genius of the century” without the slightest exaggeration. And she’d received the imperial family’s support, the kind no one else on the continent could obtain.
Among her peers, there had been no one who could compare. She’d even defeated martial artists far older and of higher rank, more than once.
Esabel had lived without knowing defeat.
Until she came to Elprime and met Leon.
What’s his secret?
Esabel wrestled with the question.
Talent alone couldn’t explain it. She worked just as hard as anyone.
······Experience?
That had to be it, didn’t it?
From the start of the semester, Leon had constantly been dragging large and small incidents in his wake—everything from petty brawls to major affairs that made the front page of the newspaper. He’d been racing around nonstop, causing trouble wherever he went.
Whatever else you said about him, it was clear Leon had been living denser than anyone else.
Just look at what had happened in Pribil a few days ago.
This won’t do.
Esabel gave a small nod. She’d reached a conclusion about what to do going forward.
I’ll stick close to Leon for a while and watch him.
To win, you first had to understand your enemy. Simply grinding away at training the way she always had didn’t seem likely to close the gap.
I can’t keep losing forever.
Esabel’s fierce competitive spirit blazed to life. Drive and passion surged up inside her.
With a goal named Leon standing right in front of her, the path she needed to walk felt wide open and clear.
It was different from Billy, who was in the same class. His incomprehensible talent felt too vague and distant even for her—she’d never even considered treating him as a rival.
Leon, by comparison, was a realistic, human target. The perfect opponent to spur her on.
And so, while Esabel lit a fire in her chest—
Leon cracked Goren across the cheek.
Slap!
“Aaagh!”
“Enough with the nonsense already. Don’t tell me that’s all you’ve got? Keep this up and I’ll have to take back what I gave you.”
Goren had been looking rough for a while, so Leon laid down the threat.
“······A-alright. Let’s keep going.”
“Your Highness, mind helping out a bit longer too?”
At Leon’s shameless request, Esabel nodded readily. If she wanted to observe him, she needed to stay close anyway.
“Fine. But when we’re done, you spar with me.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
Esabel’s unusually compliant attitude made Leon tilt his head for a moment.
What’s gotten into her all of a sudden?
They finally left the training grounds well past dinnertime.
Leon and Goren continued meeting after that day as well.
Leon insisted that having paid the price, he was entitled to learn, and Goren—well aware of how precious a elixir Melshakra’s Tear was—couldn’t argue.
“In theory, there are eight stages. Instant Recognition, Instant Response, Instant Motion, True Instant, Flowing Instant, Dancing Instant, Commanding Instant, and Transcendent Instant. What you showed yesterday was setting foot into the Flowing Instant stage.”
“······So you have to train until you can enter the Extreme Instant state whenever you want. We call that Opening Instant.”
“Make your sword and body endlessly light. Accuracy over speed. Think of it as holding a reed, not a blade.”
Goren taught the conceptual framework with complete sincerity, withholding only his family’s critical secret techniques.
Which was exactly what Leon wanted. He had no interest in House Baltvin’s secret arts to begin with.
All he wanted was the high-level theory on the swift sword that they had systematized.
Weren’t they considered the absolute best when it came to swift swordsmanship?
Once the theoretical foundation was more or less complete, they moved on to physical practice.
“······You’re here again?”
“Got a problem with that?”
For some reason, Esabel kept showing up as well.
The method was simple: Goren and Esabel attacked, and Leon defended.
Leon focused entirely on locking onto the sensation of Flowing Instant.
He quickly realized that pulling it off on the first try that day had involved a heavy dose of luck.
But once you’d succeeded once, the second time came fast.
Twice. Three times. Five times. Ten times······.
Gradually, the duration of each entry grew longer, and the frequency increased.
Leon was awakening to the realm of Flowing Instant at a terrifying pace.
Crack!
“Ugh!”
“Guh!”
Leon’s wooden sword struck Esabel’s and Goren’s wrists with pinpoint precision and swept past.
Both of them had only just begun to raise their swords.
Nice.
Leon smiled with satisfaction.
If he kept refining it this way, it would work. He knew the direction he needed to go.
Time to cut something down.
When it came down to it, real combat was more effective than any amount of practice.
And conveniently—
It’s about time for that to show up.
Right before the start of vacation, the final event of the first semester was approaching.