The Unbelievable Trial
Dia Grilite was the sole daughter of the Grilite ducal house, and the girl destined to one day be called the Sword Saint. Staring at the situation unfolding before her eyes, she found herself drowning in unease.
Why is Dullahan trying to join the Sword Department...? As long as that power of his is still there... there's no way he could ever spar with anyone.
She had been swallowed by a colossal light without warning or explanation. When she opened her eyes, she found a version of me far younger than before — and a calendar hanging on the wall that dated back twenty years.
Absurd as it was, Dia instinctively understood that she had been sent back to the past. For the time being, she had simply gone to the Academy the way she always had.
...Maybe I'm not the only one who came back. What if Dullahan regressed too?
And if that were true, what was she supposed to do? This life was certainly better than the last one, where she had been robbed of any chance to ever beg his forgiveness. And yet the moment she actually faced him...
The moment she met those dead eyes the Dullahan of old had carried, all she could do was bow her head, paralyzed with terror.
I'm scared... I'm sorry... Please forgive me...
Those were no longer the innocent eyes he had once possessed. They were something else entirely — something steeped in hatred, forged in the horrors of tragedy.
And when she realized that hatred was directed at her, Dia became certain. Dullahan Franz had regressed, just as she had.
Which meant he remembered every last one of the atrocities she had committed against him in the previous timeline. And she knew he would probably curse her for the rest of his life.
Dullahan was skilled enough to bring down even the Demon God. What... am I supposed to do now?
She already understood, all too well, that no matter how desperately she begged, Dullahan would never accept her apology.
As she sat lost in the conviction that she could never change things between them, the sword professor suddenly announced that Dullahan would be entering the Sword Department through a sparring match — and Dia was thrown into complete disarray.
What...? There's no way he can spar!! ...So does that mean he won't be able to join the Sword Department?
She worried that Dullahan might actually accept the challenge. And yet, at the same time, she felt a strange, unnameable relief at the thought that if he refused, their points of contact would shrink once more.
Maybe... it would be better if I just never saw him at all. Even if I apologized... nothing would change...
As a kind of self-defense, she tried to escape the guilt of everything she had done to him by simply avoiding anything to do with Dullahan.
But those hopes of hers were shattered to pieces the moment his voice reached her ears.
"Let's start the spar, then. As we are."
...What? He's actually going to spar...? Is he out of his mind?
Contrary to her expectations, Dullahan did not shy away from the match against Seybal. Sensing that something was going terribly wrong, she began watching the two of them with rapt attention.
And that was when Seybal started speaking to Dullahan.
"You're that famous piece of trash from the Franz family... the one they call their disgrace, aren't you?"
"What did you just...?"
Hearing those vile slurs spill from Seybal's mouth — words almost too ugly to repeat — Dia was first stunned. Then something suddenly occurred to her, and her expression darkened once more.
"With skill that pathetic, you still dared to want into the Academy? You ought to be ashamed of your family."
The near-slander she had blurted out on their first meeting. The one-sided beating she had given him.
"..."
Remembering that, she realized she was no different from Seybal, standing there so brazenly hurling abuse at him. No — perhaps...
Unlike Seybal, who insulted him out in the open, she had trampled Dullahan in secret, where no one would ever know. The thought struck her that, from his perspective, she might be an even more disgusting piece of trash.
Ah... no... I never meant it that way... I didn't do it because I hated Dullahan... I didn't...
Unable to answer her own question, she seized on the professor's announcement that the spar was about to begin — fleeing her own anguish to watch the match instead.
"...Huh?"
"W-what was that just now? I didn't... see anything?"
"That's... the movement of some reject dumped by a knight family? Look at that speed!! What kind of garbage is that supposed to be?!"
But in the mere instant Dia had looked away, Dullahan's wooden sword had already struck Seybal across the back — and Seybal crumpled without so much as a scream.
"He's down... Seybal went down in a single blow...!!"
A handful of gifted students who had managed, however faintly, to catch that fleeting moment stared at the aftermath with eyes wide in shock, and then they cried out.
"That's impossible... Even the captain of our family's knight order couldn't do that. That speed, that power behind the blade... what the hell just happened?!"
Most of the students had no idea what had actually happened in that split second. Even the skilled ones who had glimpsed a fraction of the truth could only grasp a few facts with any certainty.
"So, does that make me a student of the Sword Department now? The spar's over, after all."
The lone figure standing before their eyes — the one who had dropped Seybal in a single strike. Dullahan Franz was nowhere near weak enough to have been discarded by his family.
And if they made the mistake of crossing him, they would meet the same end as that foolish marquis's heir lying unconscious at their feet.
Dullahan Franz was about to send a storm of change tearing through their lives at the Academy. That much, at least, they understood.
"Y-Young Master Seybal!! Are you all right?! Snap out of it!!"
The brief silence that followed was shattered by the shouts of several students who came rushing toward the fallen Seybal, their faces pale with shock.
"..."
Dullahan merely watched them with a vacant, emotionless expression. Sensing his gaze, Seybal's companions — no, his lackeys — soon began shouting at him.
"This was supposed to be nothing more than a simple exam!! And you dare... attack our Young Master Seybal this mercilessly!! How can you still call yourself a righteous student of the Academy after that?!"
"I'm not a righteous student."
He answered them again in that same emotionless voice. Before the startled lackeys could even form a question, I began walking slowly toward them.
Once I was close enough that a whisper would reach them, I stopped. Then, wearing an expression steeped in hatred, I whispered.
"Did you think I wouldn't notice that bastard was trying to beat me to death... you fucking pieces of shit."
"W-what did you just say? This bastard's got a mouth on him that just won't quit...!!"
"So shut up and take this fat pig somewhere to recover. Not that he'll ever hold a sword again in his life... but hey, if you want him to even get his mind back, you'd better put him in rehab, right?"
"...What?"
Seybal's followers, hearing those words, cautiously looked down at their fallen leader. Then, with a roar of rage, they drew the real swords at their hips and charged at me.
"You son of a bitch... what the hell did you do to Young Master Seybaaaal!!"
"W-what?! Th-that guy just drew a real sword?!"
"Are you insane?! Have you forgotten the law that forbids drawing a real blade inside the Academy except during promotion exams?! Th-this is dangerous!!"
The moment Seybal's companions — his subordinates — charged at me with live steel, cries of shock erupted all around, and Professor Erina herself came running toward me in a panic.
"Dullahan Franz, fall back!! You can't face that with a wooden sword!! Run as far back as you— ...huh?"
Erina had drawn the sword at her waist, intending to intercept the ones coming at me — but then she witnessed what happened next, and the words died in her throat. She froze where she stood.
"..."
Even the hundreds of students watching the scene couldn't utter a word. They could only stare, faces locked in stunned horror, at what had just unfolded before their eyes.
And they had every reason to.
Pelican, unable to stand by any longer, had finally intervened. Every last one of the bastards charging at me was engulfed in black flame and died on the spot.
8th-Circle Magic
⟨ Hellfire ⟩
"...Hellfire."
Aside from someone murmuring the name of the spell Pelican had just used, not a single person in that vast training hall made a sound.
Because the absurdity unfolding before their eyes was simply beyond comprehension.
Seybal, a fighter of the upper ranks, had suddenly gone down in a single blow. His companions had drawn live steel and tried to kill Dullahan. And then...
Why an 8th-Circle spell — Hellfire — had been unleashed in a knight department's training hall. Why people had just died right in front of them.
None of it made any sense.
And so, amid the shock and silence of countless students, Dullahan Franz's entrance exam for the Sword Department came to an end.
The Sword Department students who had witnessed the entire sequence of events had the rest of the day's classes cancelled, and word of what had happened that day spread through the entire Academy in no time.
Along with the name of the figure standing at the center of it all: Dullahan Franz.