A Stab Wound Is the Best Cure for a Mad Dog (2)
Once the entrance ceremony—a spectacle both brief and interminable—had finally drawn to a close, Ethan, who had ascended the stage as the second-ranking officer of the faculty, swept his gaze across the interior of the great hall with hurried urgency.
All to find Lilith, his exclusive maid, somewhere within the chaotic hall now packed with nearly four hundred new academy students.
The place where she had unmistakably been with him at the start was the front row of the auditorium. He hadn't seen her move seats at any point during the ceremony, so if she was still waiting somewhere inside the hall, she ought to be right there—but that row had already been thrown into disarray by new students pushing their way out as the ceremony ended.
Did she head outside first?
Given how chaotic everything was, she had probably reasoned that stepping outside would make her easier to find than lingering in the crowded hall.
Even so, spotting Lilith outdoors would hardly be a challenge. With that breathtaking face, that unmistakable figure, and that peculiar outfit that seemed to be a half-blend of maid uniform and formal livery, she was nearly impossible to miss.
She isn't stirring up trouble somewhere, is she?
Lilith was, by nature, someone who always made the wisest of judgments—yet she did have a tendency to turn emotional on occasion. At the very least, if such a thing were to happen, he could only hope it would unfold within his line of sight. That way, even if she did cause a scene, he could manage it while the situation was still within his power to contain.
Then again, Lilith had grown quite docile lately, without any incidents to speak of. Truth be told, most of the trouble she'd caused in the past had, on reflection, been situations where she'd had no choice but to step in. Even Lilith wouldn't pick a fight on the very first day of the entrance ceremony without reason.
"……"
Yet for some reason, an uneasy feeling crept over Ethan, and he began preparing to leave the great hall a little faster. Perhaps it was the fruit of years spent at Lilith's side—an inexplicable instinct was telling him that he needed to find her, and quickly.
Ethan, having just finished a brief exchange with Princess Seraphine, was about to hurry out of the hall alongside the other students when an unexpected grip seized his shoulder, halting him mid-step.
"Could we have a word?"
"……"
Ethan paused at the voice of the white-haired young man who had so abruptly called out to him. They had never so much as exchanged a conversation, but he already knew who the man was—he was the one who had enrolled as the top student of the Swordsmanship Department and stood beside him during the ceremony.
His name, if he recalled correctly… Gehwa-joses-gigwat Volt, was it?
And flanking him on either side, for some reason, were women who appeared to be the top students of the Theology and Archery Departments.
The approach had been discourteous, but since the man was a commoner, Ethan let it slide.
"What business do you have with me?"
"Ah, well, it's…"
At Ethan's words, Volt rolled his eyes, visibly hesitating.
It couldn't be helped. He had only impulsively grabbed the hurried Ethan in the first place, without any real plan. Convinced that any opening line would come out awkward, he had opted instead to cut straight to the point.
"It's just—I wondered if you might have something you need to tell me."
"…Something I need to tell you?"
"You know, the thing we have in common? Or whatever you'd call it. You know—secrets that are hard to share with other people."
"…I have no idea what you're talking about. Even supposing I did harbor a secret I couldn't share with others, why on earth would I discuss it with a complete stranger? Especially here, in front of your women, no less."
"Wh-what?! M-me, the Hero's woman?!"
"…Hold on, don't get any strange ideas. I'm not this man's woman or anything of the sort. We simply travel together because our interests align—"
"Silena, hang on. Don't jump into the conversation, you're just complicating things. I'm in the middle of something important here."
"…Hmph."
So he approaches wearing the expression of a man with something grave to discuss, only to bicker with his own women in front of everyone?
For some reason, Volt's deflated demeanor swiftly extinguished Ethan's interest—more than enough to turn his impatient feet back toward the door.
"It seems there's no business between us after all. My companions are waiting, so I'll take my leave."
"W-wait, Ethan!"
"…I wasn't aware we'd grown close enough for first names. Mind your manners."
"P-please, just a moment! Gehwa-joses-gigwat Volt is the Hero who received the Goddess's revelation!"
"Does the Church of Aurelia teach that a Hero need not observe courtesy? I hardly think such an arrogant doctrine would come from the mouth of a saintess."
"Th-that's…"
Volt fell silent before Ethan's reasoned logic, while Serista quietly shrank back. Amid a conversation that was going nowhere pleasant, the Hero thought quietly to himself.
…Just as I suspected. He's already been through at least one of the two—regression or possession.
The Ethan he knew from the game was neither a nobleman of such refined bearing nor a character capable of silencing an opponent through sheer reasoned argument.
There was no doubt about it—something had happened to him drastic enough to change the very person he was.
Volt himself had drifted into this world as a possessor from beyond the game's boundaries, so he couldn't rule out the possibility that the Ethan before him was a case much like his own.
If Ethan had realized his past mistakes in the future and regressed to change history, then his wariness toward Volt now was entirely understandable. And if, like Volt himself, he had possessed a character within the game, then knowing the story, he would naturally have no choice but to keep his guard up.
Either way, his own rather bold approach had clearly rubbed Ethan the wrong way, so Volt offered him a quiet apology.
"Sorry, Blackwood. Thinking it over, ambushing you out of nowhere with no courtesy probably rubbed you the wrong way, given your position."
"……"
"But my desire to speak with you, Blackwood, was genuine. I didn't ask with any strange intent—it's an offer that can only benefit you."
"…You've already soured my mood quite enough."
"That wasn't my intention. I just wanted us top swordsmanship students to get to know each other. Top of the class and second of the class—we'd have plenty to talk about, just the two of us."
"……"
His wariness softened somewhat, naturally enough, at this shift in tone from the rudeness of moments before.
And sensing that opening, Volt was about to press his advantage with a little more persuasion—
—when the two men's conversation was forcibly cut short by the commotion erupting from outside the great hall.
-CLANG! Clang! KRRANGG!!
"…What is that noise?"
"Wh-what could it be…? Could someone be having a sparring match outside the hall…?"
At the words of the elf archer and the saintess—the first to notice the disturbance—both Ethan's and the Hero's attention turned outward. And the words that drifted in next were more than enough to make young Lord Blackwood react.
"Whoa! The maid! The maid's winning!!"
"No, seriously—how does a guy swinging a sword around like that lose to a mere dagger?"
"……!!!"
The instant those words left the mouths of the students gathered to watch the fight, Ethan abandoned the conversation entirely and bolted from the great hall.
Because the moment he heard those words—a maid fighting with a dagger—only one person existed in his mind.
Lilith…!
So that was why she'd seemed a little too quiet lately.
The duel between me and Reidenhart ended far more anticlimactically than I'd anticipated.
Truthfully, I'd had a fair idea from the moment our blades first crossed.
His movements were so pathetic it was an insult to call them swordsmanship, and even his downward strikes carried no weight whatsoever. It was the clumsy flailing of a man who could think of nothing beyond cutting down the person in front of him.
Perhaps because I'd spent weeks watching Ethan and Harold spar twice a week, his blade traced trajectories so simplistic that my body reacted before my eyes could even process them. Parrying his sword with nothing but a single silver dagger in my hand was no great feat either.
Blocking such an ignorant, telegraphed sword required no particular technique at all.
-KRRANGG!
"Ghhk…!"
Simply timing my Shockwave to the instant our blades met made facing a longsword with a silver dagger hardly difficult at all. Within mere minutes of the duel beginning, the advantage had tilted entirely to my side.
A fight between dagger and longsword is, generally speaking, a losing proposition for the dagger. Its shorter reach forces the wielder to expose more of the body to danger, and the lighter blade means each strike lands with correspondingly less force.
But in this particular duel, against this opponent, those penalties meant nothing. There was no reason my body would be endangered merely by evading such simple, predictable strikes, and the shortfall in power could be made up with a Shockwave at the moment of impact.
With both weaknesses patched over, it was finally time for the dagger's lone strength to shine—an attack speed several times faster than any longsword could manage.
-CLANG! Clang! KRRANGG!!
"Ngh, hk…! GWAAAAH!!"
Reidenhart flailed in ever-more-desperate attempts to land even a single strike on me, but his sword failed to touch so much as the hem of my uniform, let alone my body. In the end, our contest was decided when one of the widening gaps between his swings finally allowed me a single strike of my own.
-Shnk!
"AAAAAAGH!!"
With a scream of agony, Reidenhart clutched the wrist my silver dagger had pierced, and the longsword tumbled from his hand to the ground.
The duel between us concluded with the ringing of steel against stone.
-Claaatter….
"Agh, aaaagh…!"
…Well. Less fun than I expected.
He was the one who came over and picked the fight, to be fair, but fighting person against person really is an unpleasant business.
Even in a world where a severed arm or leg could be reattached with a trip to the church.
"Now do you understand the difference in our skill?"
"Y-you damned wench…!!"
Reidenhart glared at me with murder in his eyes, clutching his wound with his remaining hand. You'd think he'd behave himself after all that, but apparently his pride had been wounded far deeper than his wrist.
"GRAAAH! Shibal!! Damn it all…!!"
"Accept your defeat. If you wish to preserve what little honor you have left, that is."
"I'll kill you! You lowborn wench of unknown origin! In the name of House Reidenhart, I'll slaughter your entire family, and you—I'll cut off your limbs and that tongue of yours and make you a plaything-slave for my soldiers—"
"…What. Did you just say?"
"…Huh?"
A familiar figure materialized before the man who had been cursing me with third-rate villain dialogue.
Ethan appeared in a cloak emblazoned with the Blackwood family crest, and before I could offer a single word of explanation, he drew the sword at his left hip. His blade swept through the air once at a speed too fast for the eye to follow.
-Swish!
Blood spattered.
A scream of pure agony rang out.
Both of Reidenhart's wrists—still pressed together—shot up into the air as one.
"AAAGH! AAAAAAAAAGH!!"
"Say it again. Exactly the same words. This time, this blade will come out the back of your skull."
Ethan leveled his other blade at the man writhing and screaming on the ground.
And his eyes—sharpened into a cold, cruel glint that even I had never seen before.