The Preparation Is Complete
After classes had ended.
In one of the sparring halls of the Training Grounds, where hardly a soul remained.
In that barren place, stripped of any ornamentation whatsoever, a man and a woman stood facing each other, each with a sword gripped in hand.
"Hah... hah..."
"......"
Yet the two of them could not have been in more contrasting states.
Bell, the black-haired man, was too busy gasping for breath—while Seras, the woman with violet hair, stood staring him down without a single drop of sweat on her.
It was proof enough of just how vast the gap remained between her, one of the stronger instructors even among the Academy's faculty, and a brand-new student who had only just enrolled as a cadet.
She's annoyingly strong.
Catching his breath, Bell clenched his teeth and quietly fixed his gaze on the opponent before him.
He had known the gap would be there.
Even so, he had started this spar in the belief that there was no point unless she turned out to be a monster beyond all normal measure.
Because Bartel, the opponent he was setting his sights on, was currently at a level where he'd fought Arden to a mutual standstill—or perhaps a hair above.
Which meant that if Bell wanted to save Rone during the exploration of the Magician's Forest three days from now, he had to build his strength up to a comparable position.
But to think that in nearly two full weeks of sparring, he hadn't landed a single clean hit even once.
At this point, it was starting to leave scratches on his pride.
He had gone into it convinced he could manage at least one blow.
And to make matters worse, while he couldn't speak to her state of mind, it was painfully obvious that Seras wasn't fighting at full strength physically. That was the most humiliating part of all.
Not bad at all.
Meanwhile, watching Bell still burning with fighting spirit, Seras clicked her tongue inwardly.
His stamina should have given out long ago, yet his eyes simply refused to die.
If anything, the more his strength drained, the more fiercely his resolve surged, tracking her every movement.
Granted, that was only possible because Seras was holding back her full power.
But even accounting for that, this determination was nothing short of astonishing.
No—at this point, it might not even belong to the realm of willpower anymore.
Seras had the feeling that some unknown presence within him was endlessly pouring strength into his body.
Paht.
Bell, who had seemed to be merely catching his breath, vanished from where he stood.
Having let her guard down for a moment, Seras's reaction was somewhat slower than usual—but even so, it wasn't slow enough to fall behind him.
Clang!
Their blades met with a shriek of grinding steel, an eerie metallic cry ringing out across the hall.
Gazing into his eyes beyond the crossed swords, Seras let a faint smile touch her lips.
She had expected him to declare surrender right then and there—who would have thought he'd still be hunting for an opening?
So he still had strength left.
Even if she wasn't using her full power, her blade had slowly begun to give ground, inch by inch.
At that, Seras let out a low sound of admiration and pressed her strength into the blade in earnest, shoving Bell's sword back.
"Kgh...!"
A low groan escaped Bell's lips.
He could feel his body being driven back step by step, and the thought struck him that this couldn't go on.
Just once. Somehow, even once.
Even the smallest scratch would do—he had to land a single blow on her.
Pouring that wish into it, he tightened his grip on the hilt.
His body, as if answering that will, gradually gathered its strength and began pushing Seras's blade back in turn.
"Hup!"
"!?"
With a short battle cry, Bell swung his sword forward with everything he had, and Seras's body tipped to one side.
The balance of force had collapsed—she simply couldn't keep pace with the sudden, explosive surge of his strength.
Still maintaining her composure, Seras began correcting her stance even from that position, preparing to meet his next attack.
It won't land like this.
Watching the scene, Bell understood it instinctively.
If things flowed on as they were, this attack too would end up null and void, no two ways about it.
Which meant he had to move even faster than this.
And the perfect model was standing right in front of him.
Hadn't she shown him that movement countless times over the past two weeks?
Recall it. Embody it.
Every joint in his body creaked and groaned, screaming that it was impossible—but Bell ignored the protest and committed to the attack.
"......!"
At that uncanny sight, Seras's eyes flew wide open.
She had begun correcting her stance first, and yet Bell, chasing after her a beat behind, had closed the distance faster than she did.
As though time itself had frozen on one side alone.
In that instant, an alarm bell rang through Seras's mind.
It was going to land.
She could not evade it like this.
Decades of experience let her grasp it on pure instinct.
Shwk.
At the same moment, a sharpness that hadn't been there until now settled into Seras's eyes.
Repositioning the blade she had swung down to her right thigh, she abandoned defense entirely and lunged forward.
Chwak.
The blades of both parties crossed, and a heavy stillness settled over the sparring hall.
The two of them turned to face each other once more.
A silence-laden standoff stretched on for several seconds—
Thud.
Then, with a weighty sound, one of the two bodies collapsed where it stood.
The owner of that body was none other than Bell.
His frame, which had charged in so boldly, was the first to cry out in defeat.
"Thank you... for the spar."
Sprawled on the floor, Bell offered his thanks for her efforts.
Like a drowning man hauled from the water, retching the lungful of liquid he'd swallowed.
But despite how comical the sight was, not even the faintest smile formed on Seras's lips.
"...Good work."
Lowering her sword, Seras looked down in silence at thecollapsed Bell, then spread open her own hand.
The hand that had been gripping her sword mere moments ago was trembling.
That was dangerous.
For a single moment, she had made a mistake and committed her full strength.
Bell's movement, which had kept pace with her own speed, had been so sharp that she had done it purely on instinct.
Had she not snapped back to her senses mid-swing and wrenched her blade off course, she would very nearly have sent one innocent student straight down the road to the underworld.
It was the same sense of déjà vu she'd felt from his very first day—yet even when she thought she'd shaken it off for a moment, it would catch right back up to her.
To Seras, it didn't feel so much like growth as it did like him absorbing the opponent standing before him and changing himself to match.
That was something a step apart from the realm of talent.
It was simply that an overwhelming fighting spirit—he had to win, he wanted to win—seemed to drive him one step further forward with each passing instant.
And layered on top of that, a body that showed no visible limit at all—a vessel without a bottom.
Getting serious against a mere student. That's a first for me.
At this rate, she hardly qualified as a professor, Seras thought, and a self-deprecating smile crossed her face.
It was only because the gap in their full strength was so extreme that things had ended like this; had it been otherwise, the one lying on the floor right now would have been her.
"I passed along the matter you asked about to those above me. For today, go back and rest."
"Yes, ma'am... thank you."
Bell, still drained of all strength, lay flat on his back and couldn't even lift himself up.
Staring blankly at the sight, Seras let the corner of her mouth curl up ever so slightly.
Then, as she turned indifferently to leave the sparring hall, her hand drifted up to her cheek.
What smeared against it was a thin streak of red.
Confirming it, her smile deepened just a little more.
Olberus Belfrik, Chancellor of Delos Academy, was one of the heroes known as the veterans of a hundred battles.
That title was no mere joke born of the fact that he had lived for over a hundred years.
It was an honor earned because he was, in truth, one of the few heroes to have survived the Great War waged thirty years ago.
With his beard and hair gone entirely white, the man bore the outward impression of nothing more than a kindly grandfather from down the lane.
Yet the warrior's presence that pressed in on anyone who approached him proved, time and again, that he was no figure to be taken lightly.
"There's a mountain of work today, it seems."
That veteran of a hundred battles stood at his desk this day, locked in a staring contest with a mountain of paperwork.
Fortunately, his body remained sturdy despite his age, so he had not yet reached the point of needing a magnifying glass.
"The new students begin their formal activities in earnest three days from now, Chancellor."
"Is that so? I suppose it is about time for them to head out on their first expeditions."
At Vanessa's remark—she served as both professor and his aide—Olberus gave a slow nod.
March had slipped toward its end before anyone noticed.
Soon the first-years, too, would shed the label of "new students" and begin moving about as proper cadets of the Academy.
And the starting point of that journey was the external exploration.
Among them, Olberus let his eyes drift over the roster of Class C, who would be departing to search the Magician's Forest.
"Is everyone listed here participating?"
On occasion, students facing their first external exploration would get cold feet and beg off on grounds of their health.
All the more so for somewhere like the Magician's Forest, which carried a somewhat infamous reputation among the new students.
Olberus knew this well enough to ask, and the answer that came back was affirmative.
"Yes. Thankfully, no student has expressed any wish to sit out this year."
"Sounds like a bold crop has come in. That's good to hear."
Opportunity always favors those who dare to challenge the new and unknown.
As he read through the roster in silence with a contented smile, a single student's name—written in blue alone among the rest—caught Olberus's eye.
"And who might this one be?"
"Ah, that student belongs to Class E. He took first place in the class during the mock exams, and it seems he's used that privilege for this excursion."
"An unusual one, indeed."
Stroking his bushy beard, Olberus murmured quietly to himself.
In the forty-odd years since he had taken up the chancellorship, he had never once seen a student use a Field Trip Pass for something like this.
To join Class C's external exploration, no less—bound for that notorious Magician's Forest.
Wondering whether the boy had some other intention, he was still following the thread of conjecture when—
Olberus's eyes went round.
"Hmm? Now that I think of it, the name sounds familiar. Bell Dinauer..."
Holding the male student's blue-inked name on his lips, Olberus combed through his memories.
He could hardly be expected to recall the names of most new students.
For one to stir this sense of déjà vu all the same could only mean the boy had recently made a name for himself among the professors, for one reason or another.
Just as Olberus was rummaging through the fragments of his memory, a helping hand was extended to him.
It came from Vanessa, who had been watching the whole exchange in silence at his side.
"He's the student Professor Seras passed at the entrance examinations. According to rumor, he's also claimed victory in a spar against a Class B student..."
"Ah, now it comes back to me. I remember telling Professor Seras she'd done well over that very matter."
Perhaps even a man who once stood among the heroes could do nothing about memory dulling with the passage of years.
With a wry smile at his own expense, Olberus finally succeeded in recalling the student named Bell.
"He was no ordinary boy from the moment he first appeared, and now his conduct proves just as unusual."
"It's almost as if one were watching Duke Shuheiser in the old days."
When Vanessa's offhand remark matched the impression he had just voiced, Olberus burst into hearty laughter.
"Ho ho, that's right. That reckless fool did drag every incident and disaster imaginable along in his wake."
And yet, for all that, he had been a singular maverick whose determination to grow stronger was second to none.
The world painted him as a hero of flawless perfection, but to Olberus, who remembered him in his student days, that image was nothing more than the embellished surface of a hero's tale, the kind that always grew in the telling.
A student with a body like his, walking a path just like his. Watching him promises to be interesting.
Giving a small nod, Olberus signed the approval documents and folded the cover over them.
And if, by some miracle, Seras's conjecture proved true—if a successor to the Sword Saint truly had appeared—
There could be no happier, no more delightful news in all the world. That was what Olberus genuinely believed.