Duel #5
“Ellen Redhood… What brings you here?”
Helena’s voice had an edge to it. The uninvited guest had barged in without warning, and her mood was clearly foul because of it. Not only her tone—her eyes had gone razor-sharp as well.
“I didn’t come for any particular reason. I just sensed a commotion behind the manor and stopped by.”
“A mercenary’s instincts are sharp, I see. Well then, now that you know it’s nothing serious, would you kindly withdraw?”
The words themselves were meticulously polite, yet thorns bristled from every syllable.
Ellen seemed to catch that too; she only gave a bitter smile and, far from retreating, closed the distance. That only made Helena’s temper flare hotter.
“I believe I asked you to leave.”
“I’d like to, but… chances to trade blows with a Swordmaster don’t come often, do they? Since things have already turned out this way, I’d appreciate it if you’d be my opponent for a round.”
Ellen fixed Helena with eyes that burned like open flame. Her whole body trembled faintly; she was clearly riding a high of pure greed—the greed of crossing blades with Helena.
The heat radiating from the dark elf under the blazing sun was as fierce as midsummer itself. She looked as earnest as someone making a passionate confession, and the air above her shimmered with heat haze that almost seemed visible.
“……”
Helena pressed her lips tight, looking thoroughly put out. The earlier edge had long since vanished; now she simply seemed at a complete loss.
“Helena.”
I jabbed her shoulder and gave a deliberate nod. If Ellen had no intention of backing down, letting her have a light spar wouldn’t be the worst idea. Besides, the training value looked promising.
“…Fine. No choice, I suppose. I’m not exactly thrilled about it, though.”
Helena nodded in acceptance and brushed the dust from her seat as she rose. A wooden practice sword was already in her hand. Ellen, as if she had been waiting for exactly that, stepped onto the training ground first.
I watched them for a moment, then forced myself upright. After lying still for a while I could at least walk, so I retreated far enough not to get in the way of the two women.
“Since it’s come to this, I’ll take it seriously. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not.”
The moment Ellen nodded cheerfully, a volcanic surge of Black Aura erupted from Helena’s wooden sword. It lasted barely a blink, yet the pressure it radiated was more than enough to cow anyone. That all-consuming aura settled almost instantly into stillness—the form Helena preferred, the one I had seen countless times: a wick of power driven straight down the blade’s core.
“Well now… looks like I might have poked a hornet’s nest for nothing…”
A bead of sweat rolled down Ellen’s brow as she muttered, sounding troubled. The shift in the air told me she had called her spirits. I still couldn’t see them, but I had felt the changes they wrought on my skin often enough to be certain.
“All right then… here I come.”
For a heartbeat she looked like a frightened puppy. Then Ellen’s eyes flashed sharp, and a sound like tearing air filled my ears.
What followed needs little description.
Helena drove in with a ferocity that made the forms she had shown me earlier look like play, while Ellen used every scrap of magic she had to block the path. Wind blades aimed at both wrists and throat at once; sheets of water slicked across the ground to steal footing. The crowning move was a blinding flare of fire—and Helena’s response was even more spectacular. Eyes shut against the flash, she still batted aside the barrage that came in the blindness, then pressed Ellen harder than ever. The loss of sight seemed no handicap at all. If anything, her bladework felt sharper and more precise than when she could see. I couldn’t swear my impression was accurate, but the tip of her sword growing keener with every exchange certainly left that feeling.
Watching them, I briefly wondered whether a Swordmaster might be weaker than expected. I soon realized the enormous error in that thought. Ellen was simply extraordinarily strong in the field of pure survival.
“Hoo…! At this level, a real duel shouldn’t be much of a problem.”
Helena steadied her slightly elevated breathing and shook her head. Her blade tip had grazed sleeves and armor edges countless times, yet she had never quite landed a finishing blow, and that left her looking thoroughly fed up.
“For my part, it’s been ages since I faced a Master’s sword… and yours was the most vicious of the lot. I feel ridiculous for ever asking for a spar. Walking into a tiger’s mouth without knowing my place, as they say.”
“Too much humility becomes poison. Judging by that skill, you have no business talking about ‘place.’ Thanks to you I got a decent sense of how to handle a mage. I’m grateful.”
Ellen’s shoulders sagged like someone who had just crawled back from the brink of death; she let out a long breath of relief. The shallow cuts still marring her skin in places were proof enough of how close she had come. If watching it made my breath catch, I could only imagine what the one living through it felt.
Helena studied her for a moment, then held out her hand. It looked casual, yet it was an act of remarkable magnanimity—especially coming from a noble born and raised in this world. No wonder Ellen’s eyes went round.
“Ah… um…”
“My hand is getting embarrassed. Do take it already.”
“R-right. Of course.”
Ellen clasped the offered hand as if she had no choice under Helena’s insistence. Whatever awkwardness she felt was secondary; refusing the handshake would only pour cold water on the newly softened mood.
“My thanks. Of all the Masters I’ve faced, you are the one whose depths I cannot fathom.”
“That’s far too generous a compliment for me.”
The two women stood hand in hand, busy exchanging praise. I watched the shower of compliments and felt a fresh chill. “Depths I cannot fathom” also meant there was still enormous room left for growth. How could I not shiver?
“I’ll head back to my room first, then. Late as it is, thank you for preparing such fine quarters.”
“Of course. Take care.”
Ellen turned without lingering and vanished, leaving the training ground emptier for her absence. Only Helena and I remained. The sunlight that had glittered like gold thread earlier had already dyed itself crimson with sunset, proof of how long the bout had lasted.
“When did it become afternoon…?”
It had been a stretch so dense that both participants and spectator felt their souls sucked dry. I had lost all sense of time until Helena’s low murmur finally snapped me back.
“You’re telling me. Time really flies.”
“Means we were that focused. Calling it a spar when we were half trying to kill each other probably helped. Anyway… I’ve never faced anyone like her.”
Helena grabbed a towel hanging in the corner of the yard and wiped the sweat from her face while grumbling. For someone who had never truly been hard-pressed in battle to speak that way, she must have felt thoroughly pushed.
“She was that strong?”
“You saw it yourself, Zion. I’ve never crossed blades with anyone of that caliber. Makes all the talk about how dangerous a duel with a Sword Expert would be sound like pure lies.”
She added that Ellen’s magic was unusually specialized for one-on-one combat. Helena had never fought a mage before, but she was certain Ellen could have expanded the scale of her spells if she had chosen to.
I accepted the assessment without question. When someone as skilled at gauging strength as Helena declared it, it had to be true. And of course I already knew exactly how dangerous Ellen could be—she was a woman who, once she obtained the Heritage, would become one of the pillars capable of collapsing the world.
“Anyway, good work today. Looking forward to tomorrow too.”
“Mm. I’ll do my best. Since it’s your request, Zion, I won’t slacken even a little. In return, though…”
Helena trailed off and closed the distance until our hands nearly brushed. Her face had gone pink; she clearly had something she wanted to say quietly. I waited in silence—only for a thoroughly anticlimactic sound to deflate the tension completely.
Helena’s stomach gave a loud, unmistakable growl.
“Tonight’s dinner… make it a little heartier, please.”
Yes. I’ll do just that.
Even after the mildly chaotic day before, Helena’s training continued without pause. Balancing it with the rest of my daily work was draining, yet after a short breather I always managed to scrape up enough energy to move again. If anything, the harder she pushed me, the more my stamina seemed to climb.
On top of that I was also preparing meals for the dark elves, which kept me busier than ever. They were Helena’s guests, true, but the servants still found dark elves unsettling. I had decided to handle the cooking myself to spare both sides any awkwardness. Helena had looked reluctant when she first heard, yet she understood how uncomfortable the servants forced to wait on them would be and had no choice but to accept. Even if she herself harbored unusually little prejudice against dark elves, the rest of the household did not.
“Haa…!”
“Zion…! That was excellent! A little shallow, but you hit my stomach dead-on!”
“R-right…”
A few days before the duel, late afternoon, I lay sprawled on the ground as usual, catching my ragged breath. The strike hadn’t been strong enough to truly affect Helena, yet delivering even that small jolt to her midsection filled me with fierce pride. In a word, I felt a sense of achievement.
Helena smiled down at me—then immediately flushed and rubbed her belly, leaving me with the strangest feeling. Should I be happy that she seemed ready to accept even violence with joy if it came from me? A woman who gets delighted by a belly punch. How rare.
“Yeah! At this level you could hold your own against an Expert-class knight. Especially since you can use aura too, Zion.”
“Even with aura of my level? Give me an objective answer.”
“From what I can see, it’s possible.”
I had been uneasy about clashing aura-to-aura with an Expert, but Helena’s words let me relax. She was in a position where she had to evaluate me objectively regardless of personal feelings, so it had to be the truth. If she had inflated my level out of consideration, I might find myself in real danger during the duel.
“That’s a relief. Looks like all that hard driving wasn’t wasted, even if the time was short.”
“Working this hard, there’s no way it could be meaningless.”
Helena gave a wry smile and settled down beside me. There was still time before lunch, so more rest wouldn’t have hurt, but from a cook’s standpoint the hour was awkward for simply lying still. I focused on steadying my breathing, trying to gather enough strength to move. After all, I could hardly walk into the kitchen coated in dust. A full bath was out of the question, but I at least needed to splash water over myself and rinse the grime away.
“Nngh…”
Right. Time to get up. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to wash and start on lunch.
I forced my still-trembling arms to push my upper body off the ground. I would have preferred to tense my core and rise in one clean motion, but I simply lacked the strength, which was a shame.
“Zion! Rest a little more! You still look exhausted…”
“Training is training, but I still have my own work. Once the duel’s over I won’t have to train this hard, so I just need to hold on a little longer.”
I politely declined Helena’s consideration and planted my feet on the ground. Until the duel was finished I couldn’t afford to slack off. Especially if I started using training as an excuse to skip chores, I was afraid I’d turn lazy in an instant. Helena would no doubt accept even that side of me gladly, but no matter how I looked at it, this was not the time.