Ambush (1)
To sum up the result first, things did not go as smoothly as I had hoped.
My prediction was that things would flow nicely right up to the point where Agnes told Prince Antonio she wanted a little more time to observe him before making up her mind, so I hadn't worried much — but unfortunately, the prince's answer that followed was far from ideal.
'So what you're saying, Miss Agnes, is that you need to get to know me a little better before you can come to a decision.'
'...Yeah.'
'...I understand. Well, in that case, I suppose there's nothing for it.'
'......'
'Since I don't think I can give up on you just yet, Miss Agnes, I'll accept your proposal.'
The moment the words nothing for it slipped out of Prince Antonio's mouth, Agnes tensed up — and then, when he finally said he would accept, her stiff shoulders quietly relaxed.
Not that she would ever show it on the surface, but Agnes was ultimately hoping for an engagement with the prince as well. Of course she couldn't help being nervous.
So I truly believed the whole affair would end in a desirable arrangement: Agnes would take her time getting to know the man instead of rushing into an engagement, and Prince Antonio, conceding a step, would do his best to win her heart.
...If only he hadn't appended one utterly unnecessary sentence at the very end.
'Then, Miss Agnes, I have just one question for you.'
'...What?'
'How many years from now do you plan on enrolling at the Academy, Miss Agnes?'
'......What? What are you talking about?'
'Someone of your ability, Miss Agnes, would surely pass the Luminor Academy entrance examination in a single try! As of today I have turned eighteen, which means I become eligible to enroll starting next year — but if it means being classmates with you, Miss Agnes, I'd be happy to postpone my enrollment by a few years!'
'......'
'At your current pace, you'd be of age to enter the Academy in about three years, I should think. A wait of that length is more than manageable for me. What do you say, Miss Agnes? If you're amenable, you could spend the time getting to know me much better, and then in two or three years' time, we could apply to the Marriage–Engagement Dormitory together—'
'...I already attend.'
'......I beg your pardon?'
'I SAID I ALREADY ATTEND! I'm a second-year! Who are you calling a kid?! Everyone treats me like some child, this one and that one...!'
'Ah— ah! I'm— I'm so sorry, Miss Agnes! It's just that you look so young— n-no, wait, so beautiful, that I made the mistake of—!'
And roughly speaking, that's how it ended: with Prince Antonio digging a full hand's depth into Agnes's sorest complex, the two of them wrapped up their engagement talks on an awkward, half-finished note.
Somehow the result felt like I had stuck my nose in for nothing and driven the pair further apart — but then again, the blunder had come out of the prince's mouth, not mine, so it wasn't really my concern to worry about.
All that was left was for Antonio to somehow salvage his mistake on his own and pray that things worked out between him and Agnes.
And so the events of Prince Antonio's birth banquet concluded with the newly minted eighteen-year-old and Agnes locked in a push-and-pull of their own.
...And I quietly hoped, deep in my heart, that it would end at exactly that.
Lilith has reached Level 17!
A full week had passed since Prince Antonio's public confession to Agnes.
With the prince's birth banquet out of the way and every event timed around the end of the Academy's midterm examinations finally behind us, the somewhat turbulent atmosphere on campus had righted itself within the week.
For one thing, the single greatest achievement of the past seven days was that, for the first time in ages, I had leveled up.
My growth had been crawling along lately for lack of any experience-granting events, but the hunting experience piled up in Practical Monster Hunting — a shared course I took with Ethan — combined with the sparring experience accumulating in Applied Magic-Swordsmanship had finally added up to a single level of growth.
'Honestly, gaining a single level is a pain in the ass.'
If only leveling up weren't such an uphill slog, I could have made far smoother progress by now. But eh — at the very least it wasn't a growth rate that left me lagging behind the rest of the second-years in the Academy's Magic Department, so I supposed I ought to be grateful.
Of course, me leveling up meant there was a good chance Ethan — who had far more avenues for grinding experience than I did — had leveled up as well. And so the two of us, having grown in lockstep, now stood glaring at each other across the training ground, a sword clutched in each of our hands.
...Both of us exhaling rough, ragged breaths in steady rhythm.
"Hahh, hahh, hahh..."
"Haa, haa, haa..."
Applied Magic-Swordsmanship — a shared course for the Magic Department and Swordsmanship Department in the first semester of second year.
Under normal circumstances, a First Division student like Ethan and a Second Division student like me would never have been paired off as sparring partners in class, but with Harold having tinkered with the second-year curriculum, Ethan and I had ended up squaring off sword-in-hand like this more or less by accident.
'And it is, without question, exhausting as hell....'
We'd already crossed blades a good dozen-odd times, and I'd burned through a serious amount of mental stamina in the process — my head was running on fumes.
There was simply no conceivable way for the current me to beat Ethan in a one-on-one sword duel, so in practice my entire approach to these bouts came down to one thing: reading Ethan's intentions and moving a half-step faster than he did.
At least I'd spent the last two years watching how he moved and in what situations, from a closer vantage than anyone else alive.
...Granted, it was only because the opponent was Ethan that I could even attempt to hang on with such a cheap trick. Against the other First Division students, sparring was nothing short of an utter one-sided slaughter.
The Hero, flawless on every front — attack, defense, you name it — goes without saying.
Nathalie's swordplay was blindingly sharp too, her thrusts coming several times a second with movements far quicker than my own dagger work.
And then there was Karaham, whose greatsword swung slow but committed, absurdly, brutally heavy — against him, blocking and parrying simply weren't options on the table. He was every bit as much a monster to deal with.
'Honestly, the Hero generation of the Swordsmanship Department is nothing but monsters wall to wall....'
Fine, the game was primarily about swords and magic — but a single department packing one heroine and two mid-bosses absolutely wrecked the power balance in a number of ways.
And of those, strictly speaking, Ethan ought to have been the worst possible matchup for me.
Dueling a man who, despite wielding a sword in each hand exactly as I did, outclassed me across the board in reach, speed, and power — such a bout could only ever produce one kind of result: a complete shutout.
The only reason I'd gotten the chance to trade a few sword blows at all was that I could stretch things out with the trick I mentioned, and that Ethan, for whatever reason, always seemed to hesitate, just slightly, whenever he was up against me.
For the record: it wasn't as though Harold was tormenting me — the student who'd humiliated him last semester — by forcing me to spar with the First Division sword students. Excluding me, there were four other students rotating on a weekly basis through mock bouts against the four First Division students, or against Harold himself.
You can probably guess: the five of us, myself included, were the students who had somehow managed to land a blow on Harold last semester and had our skill officially acknowledged for it.
Not strong enough to trade evenly with the First Division's inhuman tier — but comfortably a level or two above the ordinary Second Division students we could dispatch without breaking a sweat.
Harold had designated that handful of us as "Division 1.5," and starting from the first semester of second year, put us into a new training regimen: to serve as a bridge capable of absorbing the swordsmanship of both the First and Second Divisions, for the sake of the student body's overall growth.
'The problem being that every single bout was a handicapped match where we were guaranteed to get our teeth kicked in by one side or the other.'
There would have been no point in promoting me and the others to Division 1.5 if we simply fought at our natural strength, so the rules dictated that a 1.5 Division student fought differently depending on the opponent.
Against a Second Division student: magic forbidden — pure swordsmanship only — while the Second Division student was permitted magic strictly for defense.
Conversely, against a First Division student: the First Division student had magic forbidden, and it was the 1.5 Division student who was permitted defensive magic.
And thanks to that lopsided handicap, the 1.5 Division students — myself included — did nothing but pile up losses in sparring every single day. Against the First Division students, and against the Second Division students alike.
'Which, admittedly, is only obvious from the moment you can't tear through an Arcane Shield with swordsmanship alone.'
The First Division students, naturally, were fully capable of shredding an Arcane Shield with nothing but pure blade work. Worse, they didn't stop there — they could carve or smash their way straight through most any defensive spell while attacking.
So being allowed defensive magic offered us 1.5 Division students precisely no advantage whatsoever. Even when I wrapped myself in an Arcane Shield and went into a bout, my opponents would simply split the shield open, shatter it, and land their hits through the wreckage.
To make matters worse, none of the 1.5 Division students had yet reached the level of slicing an Arcane Shield apart with their own swordsmanship the way the First Division students could.
In my case, I could manage it if I stacked a support spell like Sharp Blade onto my daggers — but under a magic-forbidden rule, that was obviously off the table.
Which meant that even when I seized the initiative and landed the opening strike, it would bounce off the Arcane Shield, hand the momentum right back to my opponent, and the whole pattern would repeat itself. Viewed that way, I have to admit — the First Division students, who could smash an Arcane Shield with swordsmanship and nothing else, really are something else.
Anyway, Harold had surely seen this gap in ability coming from a mile away. He was almost certainly deploying this brutal training regimen precisely to push the 1.5 Division students to the achievement of breaking an Arcane Shield.
Thanks to that, with more than half the semester gone, the striking power in my sword arm had improved noticeably — I could feel it — but my mental stamina was being whittled down in equal measure. And in one momentary lapse of focus, as Ethan came rushing at me, his blade swept my dagger out of my hand without a shred of hesitation.
-CLANG!
"Ugh?!"
Before the stinging vibration in my hand had even faded, his other sword came flashing in. I scrambled to draw a second dagger from inside my coat — and the instant the first one hit the ground, Ethan's grip clamped around that wrist.
-CRAAANG!
"Aaghk!"
Then the dagger in my other hand flew loose too, and I felt his hand seize that wrist as well — and in the very next instant my whole body toppled backward onto the training ground, Ethan coming down over me, pinning me beneath him.
-THUD.
"...Care to keep going, Lilith?"
"...I concede, Young Master Ethan."
It was, in every sense of the word, a humiliating defeat — the kind of moment that left you feeling utterly, hopelessly powerless.