Second Semester Classes (1)
Although Ethan and I had decided to join Seraphin's student council, it wasn't as if that decision brought any immediate, sweeping changes to our daily lives.
For one thing, the student council president election period—the window from candidate registration through the campaign season to voting day itself—spanned roughly two weeks.
Which meant that no matter how early council activities began, things wouldn't get truly hectic until about two weeks from now.
And unless some unexpected upset occurred, Seraphin winning the presidency this semester was all but guaranteed. Since I happened to know exactly what that "upset" would be, I had no particular reason to worry about the election.
When the protagonist doesn't interfere in the election, the default route ends with Seraphin's victory. Period.
In the election matching Seraphin's run, the protagonist was given a choice among three paths: cooperation, non-interference, or competition.
Cooperation meant joining the next student council cabinet that Seraphin would assemble, naturally.
Non-interference meant neither joining her cabinet nor obstructing it—simply standing aside.
And competition meant either joining a rival candidate's cabinet or throwing one's own name into the race directly.
Of the three, competition was the only route that could derail Seraphin's election.
To put it another way, unless someone with protagonist-level power and connections was actively stirring things up, the election was structurally incapable of producing anything but a Seraphin victory.
In name it was a student council president election, but at its heart it was nothing more than a census—a way of measuring what percentage of the academy's population counted themselves among your followers.
With the Fourth Prince, McHart, staying out of the race, the vast majority of votes had no choice but to flow toward Seraphin, the only imperial family member among the candidates.
Which meant Seraphin winning the presidency this year and next was the only sensible read—though the election in the second semester of third year would supposedly feature a rather more election-worthy event.
So for now, neither Ethan nor I had been dragged into campaigning on Seraphin's behalf, or into managing her internal affairs while she was busy stumping for votes. That was still to come.
Thinking of the two weeks ahead, when the council would kick into gear and bury us in work, I simply focused on my classes as usual.
For example—like today's lesson.
"……"
"……"
In a silence so thick it pressed against my lungs, a single Sword Master stood facing me, keeping a careful distance between us.
It was Harold, one hand resting on the sword at his hip, waiting for me to make the first move.
"Come at me whenever you're ready, Lilith."
"……Yes, sir."
With the start of the second semester, Harold's magic swordsmanship curriculum had shifted into something rather more structured.
And one of the new elements was the chance to cross blades directly with a Sword Master in practical sparring.
The regular duels that had once been reserved for only the top four students—from the protagonist down through Ethan, Caraham, and Nathalie—would now circle around to ordinary students about once a month.
Of course, this wasn't a duel in which my full strength and a Sword Master's full strength collided head-on. There were a few handicaps in place.
If we fought true strength against true strength, his killing intent alone would take my hand off at the wrist.
Under the new evaluation system, Professor Harold would respond with pure swordsmanship only—no mana, no spells—while the students were free to use aura, magic, or any other dirty trick in the book to land a single effective strike.
Land one clean hit on Harold by ordinary-student standards, and it was an automatic A+.
With the opportunity rolling around only once a month, every single chance had to be treated with the utmost care.
It's fine. I've watched Harold swing that sword plenty of times by now.
Not by choice, granted, but after Ethan swinging a blade, Harold's swordsmanship was the thing I'd seen most in this world.
Most of that observation had come from watching him face Ethan, true—but even that put me in a far better position than the other students walking into this test blind.
Gripping the Blackwood dagger engraved with the two-headed eagle crest in my left hand, I shook out my legs and surged toward Harold.
—Pababak!
The moment my first foot struck the ground, a shockwave fired from the tip of my toe helped accelerate my body forward.
Using it too many times would punish my ankles, so I couldn't spam it—but for covering the first few steps at speed, it made a perfectly serviceable booster.
Having closed the five-meter gap in a single burst, I immediately swung the Blackwood dagger in my left hand at Harold's face once—except that was the feint.
—Hwik!
"Dim Light!"
Deliberately pressing in to just inside the range where his blade might or might not reach, I first blocked his vision with my flash spell.
Did I look insane enough to go blade-to-blade with Harold? Absolutely not.
Honestly speaking, my current skill level struggled just to keep pace with Luke in pure close combat. As if someone who'd cleared Luminor Academy twenty-four times in my past life wouldn't know Harold's stats cold.
"Mana, pierce my enemy!"
With his vision sealed by the flash, I generated a Triple Casting of mana arrows—my closest thing to a trump card.
At my improved accuracy now, at least two of the three were bound to land cleanly.
For a fleeting moment I even allowed myself a little hope: if all three arrows happened to fly true, maybe I could draw the faintest scratch from him.
—Chang! Chang! Chang!
…Yeah. I knew, honestly. Knew full well that Harold wasn't a man to be felled by tricks like these.
Even with his sight blocked, a man who could read the flow of mana wasn't about to be caught by something as low-tier as mana arrows.
I heard the sound of a single sword swing knocking all three arrows out of the air at once, but it didn't feel particularly despairing.
After all, the mana arrows had never been anything more than a feint to me either.
—Shiiiik!
The real attack was this dagger, hidden in the space between those mana arrows.
It was the 'dagger throw' I'd learned back in Grainstone Village, facing down those demonkin—the very technique Luke used.
Even a man as sensitive to mana as Harold might well let his guard slip when an attack utterly unrelated to mana slipped into the mix.
The Blackwood dagger left my left hand and flew arrow-straight toward Harold's silhouette inside the glare.
—Kkagak!
…And this time too, it bounced off his sword just as dismissively as the mana arrows had.
It's fine. Still fine.
If that last attack had actually landed, it would have been the cleanest, prettiest finish possible—but hoping a Sword Master would fall for tricks of this caliber was just shameless of me.
Which left only one conclusion: I'd have to close in and end this with my own two hands. So this time I drew Seraphin's dagger from inside my jacket and lunged at Harold.
Reading the path of the sword Harold had just swung through the flashing haze of my Dim Light, I drove the dagger in my right hand down in a reverse grip toward his thigh—
—Kkaang!
"Kgh…!"
Yes—even this much. I'd predicted I could handle it up to exactly this point.
Though the moment I released my grip on the blade had come later than planned, and the loss was mine.
Parrying Harold's longsword with a dagger barely twenty centimeters long meant the shock traveling into my hand was no joke. I'd finally been forced to drop Seraphin's dagger, and my numbed arm looked like it would need a little more time before it came back to me.
Fortunately, Lizzie's silver dagger still remained tucked inside my jacket, so a last resort survived. And anyway, landing a decisive blow had never been my real goal with this attack.
Deliberately closing the distance and charging in without magical support wasn't sentimental stubbornness on my part.
It was because I had Mana Chain primed on my other hand, ready to fire the instant I needed it.
—Chwarurururuk!
"……!"
Got him…!
By every measure I could reckon, this was the moment I could guarantee—genuinely guarantee—that the blow would land.
My mana chain coiled around Harold's longsword, and in the same breath I caught the flicker of alarm that stiffened his expression.
No matter how mighty a Sword Master, fighting stripped of magic and mana alike was nothing short of hobbling yourself by choice.
A man of Harold's caliber in particular had to consciously suppress the mana constantly bleeding out of his own body—which meant that the moment his attention split in that direction, his true strength couldn't fully come out either.
I'd neutralized the Sword Master's sword. From here on, it was my turn—assuming I could slip my final silver dagger into that completely open guard, even just once.
…And then, at the very instant I believed I had Harold's sword fully under control—
—Chwarururururuk!
"…Huh?"
Contrary to my assumption that binding Harold's longsword in my mana chain had removed it from the board entirely, it was my mana chain being dragged along by brute force instead.
Swirling my chain through the air like a whirlpool, sword and all, Harold spun it around and used the very chain of mana to bind the wrist of my right hand—the one gripping the silver dagger.
"Aaagh!!"
"Lilith!!"
With my left wrist—the one holding the silver dagger—completely pinned, that was the match. Defeat.
My right hand still buzzed with pins and needles, so even switching the dagger to it wasn't an option.
Bound fast in a chain I myself had cast, I crumpled to the floor.
—Thud.
"I… I lose…."
"Good work, Lilith."
"…Thank you for the match, Master… P-Professor."
Muttering the release incantation a beat late, I dispelled the mana chain binding my arm and climbed back to my feet.
…I'd hoped, if possible, to burn every card I had and pass on the very first attempt. But then, life rarely bends to what you've set your heart on.
He really wasn't the final boss of Part Two for nothing. With skill that couldn't even beat Ethan—the mid-boss—beating Harold was, frankly, a dream one tier beyond dreaming.
"An excellent fight, Lilith."
"…Thank you, Professor."
"However, I'd advise you to learn to fight while husbanding the cards in your hand. Despite cycling through three separate daggers, the reason you lost is that you burned them away as if they'd been meant for the scrap heap from the start. Now, depending on the situation, abandoning a card without attachment and adapting to a new plan can be the wiser course—but in your case, you were so busy executing the plan you'd built in your head beforehand that it never occurred to you there might be cards you didn't need to throw away at all."
"…I see, sir."
"I'd like to see a better showing in your next duel than today's. …Otherwise I can hardly give my blessing to this arrangement between you and Ethan with a clear conscience."
"……Pardon?"
"…Next. Martin Chenverner Clinton, step forward."
Wearing my confusion at whatever that cryptic remark was supposed to mean, I picked up my fallen daggers one by one and returned to my seat beside Ethan.
The moment I slid in next to him, Ethan's eyes went straight to my left wrist, his voice thick with worry.
"Lilith, are you okay? You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"
"I'm quite all right, Young Master Ethan. There was only a bit of pressure on my arm—hardly a fight that would leave any lasting marks."
"When you fell just now, you weren't scraped or—"
"Merely a little dust that a single Clean can wash away, Young Master Ethan."
"Well then, that's a relief…."
…What on earth had Harold meant by granting his blessing to the relationship between me and Ethan?
Right now, Ethan and I were nothing more and nothing less than an exclusive maid and her master.
Could it be that if I never win a single duel, he'll make me quit being Ethan's maid…?
…No. Surely not.
Praying with all my heart that Harold wasn't the kind of man so hopelessly closed off as that, it was in that exact moment that I decided this semester's magic swordsmanship class demanded a considerably more serious effort from me.