Lilith Rosewood's Melancholy (2)
Harold's magic-swordsmanship sparring class itself turned out to be reasonably decent.
Granted, all that actually amounted to was clanging swords against the swordsmanship and magic department kids while grumbling through matches, but still.
With ranks one through four of the swordsmanship department excluded, the remaining students actually made for passable opponents.
Granted, part of that was simply because my opponents were from the lower tiers of the swordsmanship department in the first place.
Even though it was a joint course between the two departments, the fundamentals were swordwork, so enrollment from the magic department wasn't exactly high. Out of sixty students, only about ten were from the magic department — and there was no way a magic department student like me would be crossing blades with a swordsmanship department upperclassman on day one.
At this win rate, I might get to test myself against some higher-ranked kids in the next class.
Honestly, if it were up to me, I'd love to go a round with Ethan or Nathalie too.
Sure, it'd be a match I was destined to lose, but so what — isn't it the mark of a man to challenge a fight you know you're going to lose?
I couldn't help wondering what must have gone through the heads of the characters who had faced Nathalie's blade head-on before now. And at the very least, I wanted to experience firsthand the sword of Ethan — who had achieved explosive growth in swordsmanship thanks to my meddling with the storyline. It wasn't such a strange desire, really.
Of course, the odds of me — barely passable with a sword from the magic department — ever getting a sparring match with those inhuman monsters among the swordsmanship elite were roughly zero.
Beyond all that, though, Harold's class turned out to be genuinely useful — useful enough that even I got something out of it.
One might assume that a legendary Sword Master would teach in some stiff, rigid fashion, but Harold was instructing the students with a flexibility of thought far beyond anything I'd expected.
One of the unexpectedly interesting things I learned about Harold today was that he didn't care in the slightest what kind of sword his students wielded. On the contrary, he went out of his way to pass on as much of his knowledge as he could, even to students who didn't handle conventional blades.
"If you're going to swing that massive greatsword around, think several times more than your opponent does. And from now on, build up your abdominal muscles rather than your arms."
"Yes, Professor!"
"If you're going to use an estoc, focus your training on thrusting rather than slashing. With a blade that light, driving everything into a single point will inflict far deadlier wounds than trying to cut wide swaths."
"Understood!"
That was the advice Harold offered after observing a round of sparring between Karam and Nathalie.
The sword Harold himself used was the classic two-handed sword straight out of a standard fantasy setting, and in the game as well, he'd never been seen carrying anything besides the longsword slung at his hip. But beneath that stiff, old-fashioned exterior, his knowledge of swords was remarkably broad — and as long as the weapon retained the basic form of a blade, he shared his expertise freely, without a shred of prejudice.
He gave generous advice not only on Karam's enormous greatsword and Nathalie's estoc, but on every manner of blade the ordinary students carried as well.
And naturally, the advice eventually came around to me too, the one swinging a pair of daggers.
"Out of all these students, you alone carry daggers, Lilith Rosewood. And yet you are hardly the only magic department student enrolled in this class."
"...That's correct."
"Do you have some particular reason for insisting on daggers?"
Because daggers come with a god-tier +15 attack bonus when equipped, obviously.
I obviously couldn't say that outright, so I wrapped it up in plausible-sounding packaging and pushed forward an excuse I'd improvised on the spot.
"My biggest reason is to lure my opponent into complacency."
"...What do you mean?"
"It's true that I'm learning magic-swordsmanship built around daggers in this class, but ultimately, my greatest strength is my command of magic. The most important thing for a mage using a sword is to avoid ever creating a situation where swordsmanship is actually required. I trust you, Professor... that is, Professor, are well aware of this."
"...Continue."
"Even if a mage never wishes for it, there may come a time in life when an enemy gets in close. Suppose, Professor, that you were the enemy closing in on such a mage — and suppose that mage had a longsword hanging at her waist. What would you think?"
"...I would assume she was versed in both magic and swordsmanship, and I would keep my guard up to the very end."
"And if, instead, she had nothing at her waist — but a dagger hidden in her bodice?"
"...I would remain vigilant all the same, but I would take somewhat longer to realize that her hidden trump card was that dagger."
"That is precisely the opening I aim to exploit."
"Hmm..."
Harold stroked his chin, regarding me with a look of surprising seriousness.
Having come this far, I couldn't afford to fumble it, so I somehow managed to flesh out my improvised excuse into something resembling a complete theory.
"After all, for a mage, a sidearm is nothing more than a supplementary tool. The moment you permit an enemy to close into melee range, the fight has already tilted entirely against you. Even if I swung a longsword in that situation, I'd never manage a proper response."
"......"
"But a dagger, kept hidden until the very last moment, can be devastatingly effective for piercing the heart of a complacent enemy. At minimum, an attacker wouldn't discover that I even possess a sidearm until he'd closed to within the distance where the blade could touch him."
"...That is a rather plausible theory."
Apparently my answer hadn't been too terrible, because Harold looked at me with a peculiar smile.
Then he took the silver dagger I'd produced during my explanation and weighed it in his right hand.
"There are two ways to grip a dagger: the standard grip and the reverse grip. With the standard grip, your hand holds the blade naturally and you can swing it freely as you wish — but by the same token, your opponent can easily predict its arc. The reverse grip carries the opposite advantages and disadvantages."
"Yes, sir."
"So if you're going to handle daggers, you'd best learn at minimum how to switch between the two grips with one hand. ...Like this."
With that, Harold rolled the silver dagger around in his palm, flipping the orientation of the blade this way and that.
Watching him shift his grip so effortlessly with a live blade still in hand, an admiring gasp escaped me before I could stop it.
"Your sparring for today is finished, so practice nothing but changing your grip on that blade until class ends. Ask me anytime if something isn't clear."
"Yes, thank you, Professor."
"And — take good care of Ethan from here on as well."
"...Yes."
Leaving behind those words, which seemed to carry some strangely different meaning underneath, Harold walked off to observe another student's form.
Watching his retreating back, I did as he'd advised and practiced nothing but dagger grips for the rest of the period. By the time class was wrapping up, I'd at least grown somewhat familiar with holding the blade in the reverse orientation.
...Though the faint gloom I'd been trying to shake off by throwing myself into the lesson refused to lift, not even by the time class ended.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
After Ethan and Lilith's weekly shared course — Fundamentals of Magic-Swordsmanship — came to an end.
Lilith returned to her dormitory room for the day, and from the moment she walked through the door, she radiated gloom from every pore.
"Haaaah..."
Half-sitting on the bed, chin propped in her hand, Lilith let out sigh after sigh.
Ethan and Isabel, watching her, grasped at once that her mood was in a bad place.
She'd looked out of sorts ever since returning to the dorm, and Ethan and Isabel poured no small amount of worried attention onto her.
"Did something happen to Lilith at the Academy today, young master?"
"...Hard to say. Nothing comes to mind."
One thing at least was certain: she'd been like this ever since Fundamentals of Magic-Swordsmanship — the class taught by his father — let out. Right up until lunchtime today, there'd been nothing the least bit strange or gloomy about her, so whatever was troubling her heart had to have occurred during or after that class.
But try as he might, Ethan could not for the life of him imagine a reason for her to react this way.
Lilith had won three matches in a row in the sparring held during class.
Afterward, she'd eaten dinner at the dormitory dining hall and come straight back to the room — there was simply no opportunity for anything upsetting to have happened.
"Haaaah..."
And yet, watching her slumped precariously on the bed, moaning as though all the strength had drained out of her, it was obvious she'd been through something unpleasant.
Even if he couldn't uncover the cause, Ethan wanted, at the very least, to lift her spirits.
...The problem was that he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to do that.
"Uuuugh..."
"Lilith, does something hurt?"
"Mmn, not really..."
"Could it be you're tired from sleeping next to the young master? Want to sleep in my bed tonight, just for today?"
"No, I'm fine... Just let me think for a while..."
"Mmhm. If something's weighing on you, don't just sit there suffering alone — you have to tell me, okay? Okay?"
"Yes. Thank you..."
Even the comfort of Isabel, her closest friend in the world, didn't seem likely to cure whatever this was, and Ethan's worry only deepened.
He turned the problem over in his own way, trying to think of how he might cheer her up.
What was it Lilith liked again...?
Come to think of it, for a man so hopelessly in love with her, he knew remarkably little about what actually made her happy.
He knew she enjoyed spending time with her fellow maids like Isabel and Katarina, and that she took joy in using magic.
But Lilith had almost never shown any particular fondness for specific foods or objects, and so Ethan's deliberation over what he could possibly do for her now only grew more tangled.
He closed his eyes and tried to recall the most recent moment she'd worn a genuinely happy expression.
If he searched for the last memory of her smiling freely, without restraint, right before his eyes, then surely that moment...
'Y-young master...! Th-that place... nngh, haaah...!'
...No. No, no. Why on earth am I remembering that right now?!
He'd set out to recall Lilith's happy face, and what surfaced instead was the image of her moaning while his hands wandered over her chest.
The man's desire that had lain dormant in Ethan's heart for some time now stirred, curiously restless — but fortunately, today's Ethan did not surrender to momentary instinct and act like a beast.
A full year of discipline had forged him into a man capable of suppressing his own urges.
'...Hnngh, ah! Hahhh—!!'
"......"
But regardless of his hard-won self-restraint, Lilith's flushed face kept flickering at the edge of his mind.
And within that brief flash of imagination, Ethan stumbled upon a small hint.
Quietly, in the depths of his thoughts, he began to sketch out one possible way — just one — that he might be able to lift Lilith's spirits.