Then Will You Fight Me?
"So why'd you hit her?"
"You only learn what you did wrong by getting hit."
"She's not dead, right?"
"As if. She's tougher than she looks."
I answered Haring, who was hovering around nosily, while poking the unconscious Adela's cheek with a fingertip. Her face was bruised and swollen, but she wasn't dead. I hadn't hit her hard enough to kill her in the first place.
"She's Airi's descendant. She should be able to take at least this much."
"Who's Airi?"
"One of the members of Bahamart's hero party. She was ridiculously good with a sword."
Poke, poke.
"Nngh…"
"She's alive."
"She's alive, yeah."
I kept poking Adela's cheek as I thought. I roughly understood what Bahamart meant by "genius." I also understood the claim that her talent rivaled Airi's. If she kept honing herself like this, she might reach that level before long. But with so little real combat experience, she still made a lot of small mistakes.
Charging in with no defense just because she broke a wooden sword…
On a real battlefield, that would have been a fatal mistake with no way out. A mistake Airi would never have made.
"Her talent is excellent, though."
"Is she really that amazing? She did look incredible when she was blasting out all that sword aura…"
"She is amazing. She forged six stars at her age."
"S-six?!"
"Yeah."
The heroes blessed with the Goddess's power were special cases. An ordinary knight typically forged four or five. Talents like knight commanders and Sword Masters finished their lives with six or seven. Mages, by nature, produced more stars than knights — but even then, the difference was only one or two. Six at her age was a level where no one would bat an eye if she were called a high-ranking royal mage or a candidate for the next Magic Tower Master. For reference, the previous Magic Tower Master had ended his life with nine stars.
Did he end it, though?
I scratched my head. I'd never actually seen him die, so I couldn't be sure. Given the time that had passed, he was probably dead.
"So you all need to catch up fast. Stop spinning your wheels at one."
"…I can't get a feel for it after the first one."
"Nya-nya's almost finished her second, isn't she?"
"That's because she's weird…"
"Yugi's starting to get the hang of it too. Ka-zen's already halfway to his second star."
"……"
"At this rate you won't even make second place, let alone fourth—"
"I'm going to train."
Haring trudged off toward the nest clearing. For a mass-produced hero, her growth rate was impressive enough — but I couldn't leave them alone forever. The sooner they grew, the sooner I could kick them out of the nest and finally rest. At this rate, I wasn't even getting sleep; I was just teaching nonstop.
"Ugh…"
"You're awake?"
Adela had woken up.
"I lost."
"Yeah. You lost."
Adela stared blankly at me with her face puffed up like a balloon. Of course, her natural beauty hadn't gone anywhere — even swollen, her face still somehow glowed.
"Pfft."
"Please don't laugh."
"No, you're pretty."
"…Please don't tease me."
"Airi had moments like this too."
Even Airi, who had mastered an extreme sword style that guaranteed absolute defense, couldn't block every attack. Whenever she took a heavy hit from a powerful demon, her face would swell up just like this. Watching the Saintess throw a fit every time, wailing that such a pretty face had been ruined, had always been entertaining.
As I told her about Airi, Adela's narrowed eyes went wide.
"…Lady Airi was like this as well?"
"Yeah. More often than you'd think. She wasn't invincible either."
"……"
"I get why Bahamart sent you to me. Talent like yours is too good to waste just because it's peacetime."
Hmm. I stretched out my hand, and the Sixfold-Speed Remote — the former Magic Tower Master's staff — appeared. As the staff poured out red mana, Adela's wrecked armor cleaned itself up neatly. I hadn't ruined it by hitting her face alone; she'd rolled around on the ground and gotten covered in dirt, and there was damage here and there besides.
Adela ran her hand over her now-spotless platinum armor, then bowed her head.
"Thank you."
"Mm. You're welcome."
"And… I apologize."
"Hm?"
"Before I came here, I held a mistaken image of you, Lord Fire Dragon."
Adela continued as if confessing a sin. History books and fairy tales never showed my exact polymorph form, so she had assumed I would appear as a beautiful woman or an old man.
It's not like I ever hid my appearance…
Maybe too much time had passed.
"It was disrespectful, but… when I first saw you, I thought you were just some little kid hero."
"Disrespectful."
"I apologize."
"Well, I guess that's fair."
Mm-hmm. No matter how much she was a once-in-a-century genius acknowledged by Bahamart, the strongest hero of all time, and a rival to Airi — whom even high-ranking legion commanders found troublesome — she still couldn't see through my perfect ultra-concealment technique.
I crossed my arms and nodded. Adela was quiet for a moment, then spoke.
"Th-that's right. I couldn't even begin to grasp it."
"Mm-hmm. Keep training harder from now on. And don't let your guard down in combat until it's over."
"I will keep that in mind."
"That aside — teach the heroes a bit, would you?"
"The heroes… you mean?"
"Yeah."
The one-armed golem had broken down anyway, and the kids needed something to train against. For mages like Nya-nya and Ka-zen I could just teach magic, but that didn't work for the others.
And Seri's not in a position to come either.
I'd sent a messenger bird once, and she looked pretty busy. Unless I went to the Magic Kingdom myself, fixing the golem would be hard.
Adela's expression turned serious.
"I don't think it will be easy."
"You don't want to?"
"It's not that. The swordsmanship is not easy to learn. Setting aside that it's a secret technique, even within the knight order, only those with exceptional talent can handle it."
"Hmm…"
"The heroes were chosen by the Goddess, but as you well know, Lord Fire Dragon…"
"They're a bit off."
"Precisely."
They had the special trait of immortality, but at the end of the day they were mass-produced heroes. She probably figured that a sword style even proper heroes struggled to learn was beyond mass-produced ones.
I shook my head, telling her not to worry.
"Doesn't matter. If they can't learn it, that just means that's all they were. Not your problem."
"……"
"And it's not like Airi-style swordsmanship is the only sword style out there, either."
There was the royal knight order's swordsmanship, and if nothing else, Bahamart's swordsmanship too.
Though calling that swordsmanship is a stretch.
Adela pondered for a moment, then nodded.
"I'll try."
Assembly!
"What? Assembly?"
"Why all of a sudden…?"
"Are we fighting again?"
"Did something happen to Knight Commander unnie?"
"There's eight of us?"
The nest clearing. Barely a day after Adela had been thoroughly beaten, an assembly order dropped across the nest. And this time, not just the ones who'd passed — even the ones who hadn't were all dragged in.
"They're handing out weapons too."
"These are real swords. Better than most Uniques."
"Holy…"
"Wait, are we fighting Lea-nim too?"
"No way…"
The users each received weapons suited to their class — weapons that outperformed most Unique-grade gear. No special abilities, but the raw performance and durability were rock-solid. Of course, among the users still remaining, none would be satisfied with "just" a weapon like this.
About five minutes of waiting later—
Thud. Soft footsteps.
From deeper in the nest, Adela and Lea walked out. Lea padded over and settled onto her usual rock, while Adela took her place in the center of the clearing and drew a wooden sword.
The users swallowed hard.
"The one-armed golem broke, so we can't use it for a while. I'm replacing it with Adela."
"Huh? Replacing it for what…"
"Whether you stay in the nest or not."
Lea grinned at Haring's question and swung her legs up and down.
"Time limit is two weeks. Land even a single hit on Adela and you pass. Anyone who can't does is out."
"Whaaaaaat?!"
"Th-that's impossible!"
"She's right! How are we supposed to fight Knight Commander unnie…"
The users clamored and pleaded toward Lea. Even in an eight-on-one fight, their opponent was a Knight Commander. A superhuman with six mana cores — a Sword Master. The users who'd watched Lea and Adela fight thought the whole challenge was absurd.
Lea tilted her head and asked,
"Then will you fight me?"
"That's… a bit."
"The Knight Commander is probably the better option."
"Urgh… I'm sorry, unnie!"
"……"
Adela looked up at me with something like indignation at how instantly the heroes' attitudes had flipped.
"…May I go all out?"
"Do whatever you want."
That day, Adela sent all eight heroes into the Goddess's embrace.
They came back, though.