Dagger Arts (2)
Dagger Arts.
Following Hand Techniques, Stealth Arts, and Qi Manipulation…
One of the four subjects every thief cadet was required to take.
And of those, the very first dagger spar for the Novice Cadets was simple enough.
Each of them gripped a wooden dagger. Land a wound that would have taken a life, and you won.
Of course, no one was actually drawing blood with the things.
“Touch this mana sensor and your health drops in real time!”
It was closer to Olympic taekwondo with specialized gear—a scored match. Drain the opponent’s health bar completely, like a Street Fighter bout, and victory was yours.
“Caion and Ethan, both of you take your places at opposite ends of the training hall.”
Ethan rolled the wooden dagger across his palm.
Shields and twin blades were restricted until second year, for the skilled cadets. Both hands were free to use—but for this spar, they fought with a single dagger only.
He lifted his head.
“…Are you seriously planning to kill me?”
Caion stood in the northern sword style’s signature ready stance, blade hanging low. It was a dagger in his hand, not a knight’s longsword—yet the murderous pressure rolling off him was impossible to hide.
“Ready, Professor.”
Ethan tapped the gear strapped to his head and looked at Lena.
“I’m ready as well.”
On the far side of the hall, Caion rapped his breastplate once.
“Good.”
Lena Croix stepped back toward the wall and tilted her head.
“Seeing as the two of you posted the highest entrance scores, I thought we might put something on the line. Give the other cadets a little extra motivation.”
“….”
“A goal will make you both more aggressive. And it’ll make for a better demonstration.”
A goal?
“The winner of this spar will receive a special prize.”
Lena pulled out a crumpled pouch of five-colored cloth.
“An interspatial pouch, crafted by the Magus School’s finest minds working in concert.”
Gasps burst from the watching cadets.
“Th-th-that’s the famous interspatial pouch that can fit an entire merchant caravan?!”
“Insane… Exactly how much money does this school have? And they still won’t invest a single coin in the cafeteria food?”
“I swear, next semester I’m climbing to top rank—or at least second like Caion. I’m so jealous.”
Ethan’s eyes widened a fraction.
With that, I could move all my funds safely all the way to the Imperial Capital vaults…
Even with the Fourth Princess traveling alongside him, the road to the capital was long and treacherous. The anxiety was real.
I have to win.
The thought had barely formed when something else caught his eye.
Near the interspatial pouch, a keychain glimmered faintly. A fragment that flickered like a hologram in pale sky-blue light.
Ethan raised his hand.
“Professor Lena—what is that ornament?”
“Ah, this? I found it in a shrine years ago, after clearing a ruin.”
She shrugged.
“Never figured out what it was for, so I’ve just been using it as decoration.”
Ethan’s eyes went round.
“If you want it, I’ll throw that in as well.”
He knew it on instinct.
That soft sky-blue holographic shape dangling from the end of the cord—like a corner snipped from a picture frame. The true identity of the keychain.
“A Piece of the World.”
The very thing Goddess Vespera had spoken of. An artifact-grade item that, once obtained, would yield hints about the Imperial Seal.
A chill raced down his spine.
Ethan’s reddish eyes cooled to ice.
I will win. Absolutely.
Lena began the countdown.
“Three! Two! One!”
Her twin daggers clashed hard in the open air of the training hall.
Clang!
“Begin the spar!”
In truth, the situation was badly stacked against Ethan.
Professor Lena Croix must have been deeply impressed by the free-for-all. She had overestimated him by roughly three whole ranks.
No other reason she’d pit me against Caion…
It was the equivalent of mistaking a Rank 9 rookie for someone with the skill of a Rank 6 officer.
Just because I scored well in a free-for-all doesn’t mean I can actually handle a blade.
But the water was already spilled. No time to practice—she’d thrown them straight into the spar. Somehow, he had to claim that victory prize.
“Hah… not a single opening.”
Caion held a textbook knife-fighting stance. Reverse grip on the dagger in his left hand; right arm locked across to guard his left shoulder and the vital line of his neck.
But this is Caion’s first real dagger spar too.
With nothing but longsword habits behind him, his distance control was bound to be—
Fwit.
Something flashed past Ethan’s eyes.
Beep-beep-beep.
The health bar floating above the training hall for Ethan dropped by half.
A stinging gash bloomed across his right collarbone. Hot pain flooded his whole body—yet he wasn’t actually injured.
“So this is the Academy’s tech?”
“Whoa, it really feels like I got hit! So realistic…”
“I heard the Magus School just rolled out new combat simulation gear. Must be that.”
Imperial script bloomed across the training-hall wall.
Ethan Cass: Critical hit — right clavicle
HP-50
Ethan looked up.
Caion was already five paces closer.
“Pathetic, Ethan Cass.”
He’d been standing far away a heartbeat ago. When had he—
“From the day I lost to you in the free-for-all, I haven’t rested a single day. I’ve drilled nothing but dagger arts.”
Why, though. Seriously, why.
“A dagger’s approach is similar to the rapier—my second most familiar blade.”
Shhk!
Three lightning thrusts lanced toward Ethan’s left shoulder in a perfect slash. So fast it looked like a single stab and recovery.
“Kh—!”
He barely slipped free. The next exchange would not be so kind.
“I’ve long since grasped the essence of the point.”
“….”
“You haven’t.”
Ethan steadied his breathing, trying to blunt the pain.
“Keep thrashing like an insect. You’ll never beat me with a blade in this lifetime.”
The Valterr family of the North. From ages past they had been judged to possess monstrous talent with the sword.
Ethan pressed his left hand to his right shoulder.
“Ghh…”
The pain of a vital strike felt exactly as real as the real thing.
“He’s actually trying to kill me.”
If there had been fog, he might at least have seen the movements in advance.
Too clear.
No cheats of that kind available.
“Eyes front!”
Clang!
Kang!
Whoosh!
Caion’s dagger kept coming. A feint thrust to the right that became a downward slash from upper left. A vertical recovery cut that suddenly targeted the wrist.
Clang!
Ethan defended just well enough not to die. Even so, it was a remarkable showing—his past life’s special forces training had included basic dagger work, after all. But the man in front of him still felt like an enormous wall.
“Too slow!”
Thud!
Caion’s spinning back-kick detonated into Ethan’s gut.
“Urgh!”
Ethan staggered back, clutching the vital point. Caion launched himself into the air and drove a knee into Ethan’s forehead.
“Kh—!”
Blood streamed down Ethan’s face, but he refused to lose track of Caion.
Close my eyes and I’m dead!
Beep-beep-beep.
Ethan’s health bar plummeted again.
“Try blocking this one too.”
A rushing slash. Nothing more than a simple diagonal cut—yet to Ethan it felt like a life-or-death duel.
He rolled across the floor, putting distance between them.
“Hah… hah…”
Caion wiped a fleck of Ethan’s blood from his own cheek. Then he walked forward, step by measured step. The eyes of a lion that had driven its prey into a corner.
“Haa…”
Ethan muttered under his breath.
“You give me a blessing and then leave me on abandon-mode… Miss Vespera, you Dongtan-era goddess…”
The instant the irreverent line left his lips, thick fog billowed up from beneath his feet.
Oh, for—
I have to shout the skill name to activate it?
The corner of Ethan’s mouth curved up.
There you are, Ahn Taesik.
He lifted his head. The fog parted and the world snapped into new focus.
Caion, dagger lowered, still walking toward him.
“I can see it.”
Caion’s next attack layered over him like a hologram through the mist.
“Eat this!”
From upper left down through mid-right.
“Slash.”
Ethan twisted his body hard and slipped clear.
“What?”
Caion hadn’t expected the dodge. He scrambled to reset his grip.
“Lucky…!”
From upper right across to upper left.
“Rapid.”
This time Ethan simply dipped his head and let the dagger sail past with room to spare. He stepped in.
“Offense and defense swap.”
“What?”
Ethan exploded forward. His dagger lanced straight for Caion’s wrist.
Clang!
Caion knocked the strike aside at the last instant.
What was that?
Ethan didn’t press the attack—but the momentum had shifted. Caion retreated a long step, wariness sharp in his eyes.
Until now Ethan had only defended like an amateur, scrambling just to stay alive. This was his first real counter.
Caion flicked a glance upward. Ethan’s health bar was nearly gone. His own remained full.
In the end he’s just some borderland viscount’s son who’s never even held a real sword.
Caion’s mouth twisted on a diagonal.
No one who endured the North’s pain can be beaten by the likes of him.
Ethan checked his own bar as well.
“A quarter left…”
Hah.
“Can I actually win this?”
He’d grazed Caion once, but the gulf between them still looked as wide as the years Caion had spent with a blade.
Ethan glanced once at Sera in the stands, both fists clenched tight—then once at the interspatial pouch hanging from Lena’s belt where she stood with arms crossed. The sky-blue ornament dangling from it like a keychain filled his vision.
“A Piece of the World…”
Ethan’s eyes ignited.
“I’ll win even if I die.”
That was the special forces spirit. Time to show them what the Republic of Korea Army’s bootleg Krav Maga looked like.
With that faintly absurd thought, Ethan raised his dagger—and then:
“…Huh?”
A soft pale-green light had begun to fill the tattoo on the back of his right hand. Like a battery gauge partially charged—just a little color pooling in the upper-left circle of the mark.
And the fog had already climbed as high as his ankles.