Schrödinger's Swordsmanship
There was nothing particularly surprising about it, but Guild City was, in the end, nothing more than a single city.
This world had islands and continents, nations and territories, cities and fiefdoms. There were rulers and the ruled. And there wasn’t even just one country.
Camelot Kingdom. That was the name of the “nation” to which Guild City belonged.
The Five Great Families were the noble houses that ruled that very kingdom.
And right now, a mage from one of those families stood before Solomon’s eyes.
Arrowhead Family — the Prismatists.
Just as their name suggested, the mana flickering at his fingertips began to split and dance into countless wavelengths, as if passing through a spectroscope. It fractured and categorized spectra that could not normally be seen.
Solomon was well aware of the weight behind that act. In fact, he knew it far too well for his own good.
Back when he was creating his character, he had agonized endlessly over which of the notoriously overpowered Five Great Families to choose. Because of that, there was no way he wouldn’t know the capabilities of the Arrowhead Family.
Paradoxically, Solomon understood the power of the Five Great Families better than any organization or faction in Downtown.
The Five Great Families had protected ancient magical traditions for ages while ruling over both the kingdom and the city. Among them, the Veil Family specialized in espionage, infiltration, and covert operations. That was why they were called the Shadow Binders.
The Arrowhead Family, the Prismatists, stood at the exact opposite end of the spectrum.
They were destroyers who flaunted the kingdom’s might, crushed its enemies, and forced them to submit.
Their magic had nothing to do with secrecy. On the contrary, it was the kind of power anyone could understand — so clear and obvious that even a fool could feel its weight.
By the time you saw it, it was already too late. You had to move before it even appeared.
And the magic unfolding before Solomon right now was exactly that kind.
‘Shadow Mimicry, Shadow Swap!’
He burned two first-level spells in a combo to reduce the painful drain on his mana and slipped out of position. An instant later, the enemy’s attack pierced through the shadow he had left behind with a hair’s breadth of timing.
‘Goddamn it, I’m alive…!’
A streak of light shot forward. It looked violet, it looked white — a murderous ray of light that defied any single color. An absolute annihilation spell that left no room for defense the moment it touched you.
Nothing in this world could possibly be faster than light.
At the same time, if you dodged it in advance and the opponent had predicted that and was waiting — either way, the simple act of dodging was a gamble with your life on the line.
Fortunately, in this particular bet, the winner was Solomon. And what had he gained in return? The simple fact that he hadn’t died yet. That was all.
His heart pounded as if it would burst.
“Ah, shadow magic.”
Watching him, the Prismatist sneered.
“How very fitting for bottom-tier trash. A pathetic, ugly little spell.”
“……”
Solomon didn’t answer. He didn’t have the luxury. He simply moved to Violet’s side, silently checking his gear.
‘Only one first-level spell slot left.’
Even calling it desperate felt like an understatement. That was why Solomon wordlessly readjusted his grip on the modified Nightfall crossbow.
Tang!
He pulled the trigger. Ten bolts flew out with auto-tracking, but not a single one reached its target.
Clang!
A translucent, glowing shield. Its surface was covered in an endless fractal pattern of repeating geometric shapes.
‘Goddamn it.’
Solomon bit his lip and pulled the trigger again. Ten bolts. Ten more. Ten more. He swapped cartridges with a flick of his wrist after each volley. But after the last reload, he didn’t fire.
He already knew pulling the trigger any more would be pointless. It was meaningless. Solomon stopped shooting. And that was exactly when it happened.
Violet silently drew one of her three swords and moved in that instant. Like a flash of light.
Shaaak!
In the blink of an eye, she charged toward the mage as if the light itself were rushing forward. At the same time, her sword swung.
“!”
The moment one thought the sword had swung… another blade was already in her hand.
And the sword she had drawn first had somehow returned to its sheath.
She hadn’t simply put the sword back. The instant she swung the first strike, a second sword had already appeared in her grip — as if she had drawn that one from the very beginning.
And it wasn’t that she performed the motions in rapid succession. It wasn’t about speed. It was as if someone had cut and pasted parts of a video, skipping the entire process and connecting the actions directly.
Calling it “fast” wasn’t enough. No — it was physically impossible.
Shaaak!
When she swung the next sword, the final blade from the sheath was already “in her hand.”
Three swords. Without ever drawing and sheathing them in sequence, the blades swapped in the blink of an eye and appeared in her grip. Faced with that physically inexplicable paradox, Solomon swallowed hard in silence.
“Ah, I see.”
Even within the incomprehensible dance of those three blades, the mage didn’t show the slightest hint of panic. Instead, he smiled as if he were genuinely enjoying Violet’s swordplay. Like a parent watching a child’s adorable antics.
Not a single one of her strikes could break through the fractal barrier protecting the man. It didn’t even leave a scratch.
“I thought they wouldn’t send just any old sword-for-hire for something like this. And indeed, they didn’t.”
After laughing, he continued speaking in a leisurely tone. As if savoring his absolute superiority.
“To think there was still a sword-for-hire capable of using Schrödinger’s Swordsmanship.”
Schrödinger’s Swordsmanship. At that name, Solomon blinked. At the same time, the practitioner herself — Violet — silently readjusted her grip on the hilt.
Schrödinger’s Swordsmanship is a sword style that, according to the uncertainty principle, overlaps countless possibilities and selects one “possibility” to fix in reality.
A sword style that overlapped countless possibilities according to uncertainty and then selected and fixed one of them at will. Even after hearing the explanation, he still had no idea what it meant. But there was one thing he did understand. The fact that it had been deliberately spoken of in the past tense.
“According to the uncertainty principle, it’s entirely possible that every practitioner of Schrödinger’s Swordsmanship is already dead.”
Hearing those words, Violet answered calmly.
“Or it’s possible they aren’t. —Either way, it’s merely a state of overlapping possibilities.”
“Haha, what difficult words.”
The Uptown mage laughed at that.
“I’m not sure if I understood it correctly, but shall I explain it my way?”
“Go ahead. I’m kind to idiots.”
Violet said. The mage answered without losing his composure.
“No matter which it is, if you want to kill the cat in the box… it’s better to just pierce the whole thing at once.”
The moment he finished speaking, a ray of light shot forward from beyond the fractal barrier. Death Ray. An unavoidable beam of death pierced straight through her. It clearly hit. It clearly penetrated.
“!”
Solomon panicked, but that was exactly when it happened.
Before he knew it, Violet was standing there — the version of her that had not been pierced by the ray. She drew her blade once more and kicked off the ground.
As if the fact that she had just taken that blow had never existed in the first place.
The distance closed. Before long, the strikes of Violet, the Special Class Sword Watch, no longer consisted of simply swinging her blades in succession.
‘……!’
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He thought she had stabbed — but it had already changed into a slash. She performed a slash — yet it became a thrust. She aimed for the right side — yet the attack came from the left.
The moment one thought she had taken a certain action, she was already reborn as another form of “possibility.”
‘So that’s Schrödinger’s Swordsmanship…!’
Solomon didn’t know everything about this world either. Even so, the swordsmanship Violet displayed was shockingly unique. Could something like that even be called swordsmanship in the first place?
It was closer to magic… no, not even magic. It was filled with an incomprehensible mystery that defied all description.
Even so — it couldn’t reach him.
More shocking than the incomprehensible logic unfolding before his eyes was the overwhelming power that crushed that very mystery beneath its heel.
‘It won’t break through.’
Solomon knew about the fractal barrier enveloping the mage. Violet the swordswoman surely knew it too.
The secret itself wasn’t complicated. Endless self-repair. Unless you dealt damage that overwhelmed its recovery and reduced the barrier’s energy to zero, it could never be broken.
‘It doesn’t look like enough.’
That was why Violet continued her relentless assault, and the mage watched her with leisure, occasionally firing off a single strike.
A ray of annihilation rushed forward. Violet twisted her body to avoid it.
“All that effort for one minute and twenty-nine seconds has just gone to waste.”
In the brief gap created while dodging that strike, the fractal barrier had already repaired all the damage and returned to its original state.
“Including your pathetic little girl attacks.”
“Do you really think so?”
The Prismatist sneered. Every time the ray pierced her, a version of Violet who had not been wounded by the attack would overlay the scene. At a glance, both versions looked equally unharmed.
“……Cough!”
Then blood suddenly gushed from her mouth.
“The poor cat in the box is suffering within the overlapping uncertainty.”
The Prismatist spoke in a relaxed voice. Solomon didn’t understand the words, but he understood what they meant.
‘She can’t… keep this up forever either.’
That ability wasn’t something she could spam without any restrictions. Solomon swallowed hard.
The fact that, from some point onward, her movements had clearly shifted toward “trying to dodge” the rays was proof enough.
“One minute and twenty-three seconds. What a shame.”
The Prismatist sneered again.
“There’s nothing quite like watching possibilities fail to materialize and turn into nothing… it drives people to despair.”
Violet didn’t answer. Blood flowed once more. Not from her mouth or nose.
It was flowing from beneath her sunglasses. Even as she shed tears of blood, she paid it no mind and readjusted her grip on her sword.
“……!”
Solomon couldn’t do anything. Just like Dr. O’Neil, who was there with them.
No — Dr. O’Neil had already suffered a fatal wound, collapsed, and lost consciousness.
Compared to him, Solomon was standing firmly on both legs, yet he remained silent.
Even though he knew — he couldn’t even intervene in the fight between those two.
Just watching was overwhelming. Following it with his eyes was difficult.
To Solomon, who was only level 4, even Violet the Special Class Sword Watch was an opponent far above him. And even that opponent from the heavens was struggling against another opponent from the same heavens.
That was the power of a mage who carried the name of one of the Five Great Families.
‘I have no spell slots left. If I jump in recklessly, I can’t guarantee the outcome.’
So he simply bit his lip in silence.
Helplessness.
For the first time, the miserable sense of powerlessness — that he could do nothing in this world — swallowed him whole.
It was different from the desperation he felt when struggling to survive. At least that hadn’t been shameful.
But this — being unable to do anything while watching the battle before him — was shameful. His utterly powerless appearance.
‘I should just run away and save my own life…’
He could abandon the fight between the two of them and flee right now. Yet he couldn’t. His feet wouldn’t move. Why? Because of pride?
He didn’t know.
The battle between them had already far surpassed the realm Solomon could handle. Clumsily jumping into that fight would likely do more harm than good — it would only drag them down.
His head understood. He knew it perfectly well.
The most “efficient and rational” action in this situation was to turn around and run without looking back. At least when he played TRPG, he would never have doubted that answer.
‘Then what the hell am I hesitating for?’
In fact, the mage no longer even glanced at Solomon. As if he weren’t even worth the effort.
To him, Solomon’s existence was no different from a bug. Even if he ran, it would be nothing more or less than the feeling of letting a bug escape.
‘…Being treated like a bug.’
If he fought, he would just die a dog’s death. In this unknown world, he would die a meaningless death without knowing anything. Knowing that, was he really supposed to risk his life over something as trivial as pride? It was foolish. It was the kind of “foolishness” that, as a player, wasn’t even worth reconsidering. Solomon bit his lip.
And after biting it—
Caw!
With the frantic flapping of wings, the black spirit crows all rushed toward the mage at once.
“Pathetic.”
The thirteen dark spirits scattered in every direction and flew around the man. Immediately after, the man snapped his fingers without even looking at the black spirit crows surrounding him.
Crackle!
Thirteen rays of light pierced through all thirteen black spirit crows with perfect accuracy.
“You didn’t seriously think that was your trump card, did you?”
The mage sneered and turned his head.
And there, Solomon was no longer to be seen.