Have Ambition, Young Man (2)
It had been since Ethan, with that confident look on his face, told me to look forward to today's sparring session—and then got utterly crushed.
Just as I'd predicted, instead of tidying up the training ground and heading straight back, Ethan had stayed behind alone and begun his swing drills. And I, too, had forgone the personal waiting room in favor of quietly observing Ethan as he practiced.
-Whoooosh! Whoooosh! Whoooosh!
Precise form, an unbroken arc of motion, and each strike both fast and weighty. Vertical cuts, horizontal cuts, diagonal slashes, even the stance that deflected a blade once and flowed straight into a counter. Anyone watching from the outside would have called his movements clean, stripped of every wasted motion.
It obviously wasn't at a Sword Master's level, but seeing Ethan this well-refined, he seemed like he'd rank among the genuinely skilled for nobles his age.
…Which was exactly why the more I replayed the sparring match between Ethan and Harold in my head, the more painfully wistful it became.
Honestly, if I were Ethan's father, I'd have thrown him at least one match out of respect for that wit alone. However serious you are about the sword, if you can't properly motivate your own kid—
'No, wait. What am I even thinking?'
Come to think of it, Ethan scoring a point off Harold was supposed to be a bad thing, wasn't it? The match just now had been so heartbreaking to watch that I'd momentarily forgotten what was actually riding on it.
And if he'd somehow pulled it off and won—my mind had wandered so far that I'd catch myself thinking I might as well let him cop a feel once, at minimum.
No, seriously, think about it. Whether it was simulated sparring or not, his opponent was a Sword Master. And Ethan hadn't even enrolled at the academy yet. If you counted the years his physical growth had been frozen by the curse, he wasn't even in his twenties—he was in his late teens.
It's not that I'd have no problem whatsoever with Ethan touching my chest. It's that if he truly managed to land a point under those abysmal conditions, I could swallow my shame and bear it. After all, however impure the motive, he'd grown driven by the single-minded goal of touching my chest once—so honestly speaking, you could say I'd raised him half by myself.
If only his final read of my gaze had been perfect, he really could have landed that strike. It must sting down to the bone for him. And since the fake-out gambit had already failed once, he couldn't use it again. Which meant, realistically speaking, this was probably the last chance Ethan would ever get to lay a hand on my chest.
'Which works out great for me, but….'
-Whiiiish! Whiiiish! Whiiiish!
Watching Ethan swing his sword so desperately, I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for him. That much was simply reality. Even comparing only what I'd seen with my own two eyes, his effort was on a completely different plane from that repulsive trash character in the game.
The sheer will and hunger were worlds apart from that thoughtless piglet who'd taken up dual daggers trusting nothing but his bloodline and Lilith's buffs—
'Huh? Hold on a second….'
Come to think of it, why hadn't Ethan picked up a second blade yet? The trash-tier protagonist in the game was such a deranged dual-wielding addict that there wasn't a single recorded instance of him using any other armament.
And yet I'd never once seen the current Ethan so much as toy with a sword in each hand. Even factoring in game-Ethan's actual stat spread, dual wielding should have been far more efficient than a single blade.
'Could it be… the thought of using two swords just never occurred to him?'
I had no interest in ranking styles against each other, but there was a widespread assumption that "proper," orthodox swordsmanship meant a single blade. And his own father, the Sword Master Harold, was practically the strongest one-handed swordsman alive.
Trained directly under a man like that, of course Ethan would cling to the single-blade style. It would be stranger if he didn't. In the original story, by contrast, Ethan barely learned anything from Harold in the first place—he just swung however felt natural, which was how he'd settled into dual wielding.
If the Ethan before my eyes was fundamentally the same person as that game character, then dual blades should have been dramatically more efficient for him. His body was built for it—there was a tiny discrepancy in strength between his two arms, but nothing that would stop him from swinging two swords well. After all, the mid-boss Ethan's dual blades in the game were anything but weak.
'Should I tell him?'
Granted, he was already accustomed to single-blade fencing, and there was no guarantee that taking up a second sword now would produce explosive results. But staying silent about it felt… off, somehow.
Withholding it for no reason would make it seem like I was too scared he might actually touch my chest, and was playing dirty because of it.
So I made up my mind and quietly approached Ethan mid-swing, intending to casually float the suggestion that he try dual wielding.
"Young Master Ethan."
"…Sorry, Maid. Is it boring, just watching me swing? If you're tired, you can rest until dinner."
"I wouldn't say I found it boring… but would you permit me to offer you one piece of advice, Young Master?"
"…Advice? From my maid?"
"The wooden sword you're swinging now—would you try holding and swinging it with just one hand, as an experiment?"
"…Just one hand?"
"Yes, Young Master."
"……"
Wearing a slightly puzzled expression at my words, Ethan nonetheless obediently did as he was told and gripped the wooden sword in his right hand alone. Then, from that stance, he began swinging it in the same variety of directions as before.
"Is this what you meant, Maid?"
"Yes. Now, would you try gripping the sword in the other hand and swinging it?"
"…The other hand too?"
"Yes, Young Master."
"……"
Still looking only half-convinced, Ethan this time swung the wooden sword held in his left hand in several directions. His form was a touch better on the right, but the left-handed swings weren't far behind. If anything, while his posture was a little awkward, the raw power itself felt even stronger coming from his left.
Nearly identical striking power with either hand, each side carrying its own subtle strengths. A truly exceptional physical trait. So Ethan really did have the constitution perfectly suited to learning dual-blade swordsmanship.
"Your power is nearly the same whether you swing with your right hand or your left, Young Master."
"…I suppose there is that tendency. I am ambidextrous, after all."
"Most swordsmen swing with only one hand for two main reasons. Either one arm lacks the strength, throwing off their balance with a two-handed grip—or one hand's strikes are so much stronger than the other's that there'd be no point gripping a sword with the weaker one."
"…Where is this coming from, all of a sudden?"
"You, Young Master Ethan… appear to have no reason whatsoever not to wield two swords."
"……Huh?"
"Of course, I am but a humble maid with no great knowledge of the sword. If you choose to dismiss this as the idle chatter of a servant who doesn't know her place, I shall take no offense."
"……"
"I just remembered a task I need to attend to, so I'll head up ahead of you."
"…Yeah. Go on, Maid."
"Do work hard at your training, Young Master."
Having capped things off with that conveniently face-saving remark, I quietly withdrew from the scene. If that didn't tip him off, nothing would.
It had been fairly direct advice, so he'd surely understood. If he still failed to grasp it and kept swinging one blade, well, that was on him. I didn't want him awkwardly forcing himself to pick up a second sword just for my sake—which was exactly why I'd excused myself under the pretense of having something to do.
After slipping briefly behind a corner of the estate, I turned a quiet ear toward the sound of Ethan's training.
-Whiing! Whiing! Whiing!
-Whiish! Whiish! Whiish!
Slightly out of rhythm, but unmistakably the sound of two swords cleaving through the air. So he was at least giving my suggestion a trial run.
Would Ethan truly carry the training forward from here, exactly as I'd advised? For just a moment—the future felt worth looking forward to.
Time passed, and it was the morning, two weeks later.
"Young Master Ethan, it's morning."
"Ah… yeah. Morning, Maid…."
A greeting like any other, answered with a response like any other. Perhaps fatigue had been building these past few days—there was a strange darkness under his eyes that seemed deeper than usual. Was he not sleeping properly at night lately? It worried me a little.
For the record, my advice about dual wielding was ultimately not accepted. Maybe he'd simply grown too accustomed to fighting with a single blade, or maybe—just maybe—it felt somehow wrong to draw two swords against his father. My suggestion did amount to "try a different style of swordsmanship to counter the one your father teaches you," after all.
I didn't feel particularly hurt or disappointed about it. Given the path Ethan had walked so far, his choice was the natural one. Being told to throw away everything he'd learned and adopt a new style overnight must have stung his pride. Besides, why would Ethan take a maid's word seriously, when that maid had hardly any real knowledge of the sword to begin with?
Let me state this clearly: I was not the least bit hurt that Ethan had ignored my advice. Not hurt at all. Truly.
With those thoughts in mind, I laid out his change of clothes at the foot of the bed as always and drew the curtains, letting the morning light spill into the room. The plan was to wait by the door for a moment so I could tidy the bedroom once he'd dressed and stepped out—
—when Ethan, having only just woken, called to me in a careful voice.
"Maid."
"Yes, Young Master."
"…Today's the day of my sparring match with Father—you know that, right?"
"Of course. It's the sixth day of the week, is it not?"
"…Come watch again today, no matter what. I think today I might actually manage to land a clean hit on Father."
Ah.
There he goes, planting another flag.