Why Do You Wield a Sword When It Feels So Heavy?
Sieglinde was about to answer the question immediately. If she were being honest, it was a defense mechanism. As the leading young lady of a prestigious swordsman family and a genius hailed as the modern Sword Saint, it would be terribly embarrassing if she didn’t know the answer to such a question.
“…….”
But in the end, her lips wouldn’t open.
Not long ago, during the time she spent with Professor Joseph, Sieglinde had fallen into a contradiction she had never once felt in her entire life. And it had been in a very similar context.
‘─Even the professor says it. Why am I doing this?’
The professor, who looked unusually sorrowful. She didn’t know the true intent behind his question, but she felt like she could get through the situation if she gave a suitably rhetorical answer.
So Sieglinde didn’t drag out her silence any further. She was about to say, simply, that she wielded her sword solely for the honor of the Einhardt family.
Sniff. Sniff sniff─.
‘…That’s not it.’
But because of that very reason, the smell coming from her own hands seemed far closer to ink than to the leather of a sword grip.
When the Hero Selection drew near, she had written her academy admission essay to escape the relentless pressure from her venomous family. To observe those greater than herself. To cultivate a more excellent self─. She could spout any number of pretty words about why she had written it, but Sieglinde hated lying more than anything in the world. She would rather die than create something insincere with a lie.
When she thought about it, she had ultimately left the family because she hated them. So what honor was she even talking about?
‘Then, a little more specifically…. I can’t stand Lagrange. I reject her on a genetic level. I’m wielding the sword to surpass Lagrange.’
That wasn’t a lie, at least. She had tried to present it as a goal she could achieve when she asked the professor a question during the club’s first lesson.
But the moment that thought crossed her mind, she had the strange illusion that something brushed against her eyes and ears.
“Prepare thoroughly for the Hero Selection.”
“Report comparative grades with the Lagrange young lady.”
‘Become the strongest. Sieglinde.’
‘You can become a better person than I, can’t you?’
She had answered that she could back then. But honestly, those weren’t her original thoughts. When she reflected on it, they had been instilled in her. Just as scissors are given the property of cutting and blades the property of slicing, she had been granted those beliefs so she could function properly as a tool of the family.
It pissed her off.
‘Then, the reason is to inherit the family’s sword…. Goddammit, forget it.’
So at this point, Sieglinde admitted it. No matter what reason she tried to attach to it, the reason she wielded a sword wasn’t all that clear.
Like her professor, she might have known the reason once. But at least right now, she had nothing she could say.
In front of a question with no correct answer, every response she had ever given felt like beautiful but empty shells—pretty on the outside, hollow within.
Therefore.
Sieglinde spoke with some embarrassment.
“I don’t really know. Why I’m doing this.”
“As expected, it was too difficult and abstract a question. It’s nothing important, so you can just forget about it. It’s nothing important….”
But now, Sieglinde wanted to ask the opposite. Sir Joseph, who spoke those words, was someone whose motivation seemed perfectly clear. So why was he now saying that even he didn’t know?
This man was a hero who had saved the world. A saint who carried a curse. ─He would deny it, but that was how Sieglinde knew him. Sion Lagrange beside her probably knew it too. She might not have felt it as intensely as he had, but she would know.
“By the way, Professor. Didn’t you… actually have a very clear reason? When you were in your prime, the world was in chaos, and you began everything to quell that chaos, didn’t you?”
At that, Sir Joseph deepened the already sunken lines around his eyes and spoke with a decadent air. There was a unique atmosphere he gave off at times like these. If she had to put it into words, it was the heavy feeling of a true adult.
“It was like that back then. But now I don’t know. I’ve already rolled around in the dirt far too much. Even if the first motive was pure white, it’s now covered in so much dust you can’t even see it anymore.”
“Hmm.”
Rolled around. Rolled around…….
Those words really fit him. Sir Joseph wasn’t that much older than her, but since he had been a child soldier, the experience he had accumulated from a young age must have been immense. In terms of real social experience, the gap between them was probably at least ten years. In contrast, she was still just a student who hadn’t even properly stepped out into the world yet.
And yet she had already lost her purpose before even beginning?
‘Our situations are completely different. …At least he knows what it was like at the very beginning.’
It was a wretched state of affairs. But if that was the case, perhaps she too could find the reason by returning to the beginning?
When her thoughts reached that point, Sieglinde was surprised that she was even capable of such deep reflection. She scratched her head and thought.
Not the reason she fought, but the reason she had first taken up the sword. The origin. The very first time she had grasped a blade.
She had been incredibly young then. And since her father hadn’t forced her at that age, it must have been her own will. Why had she done it? After all, as a girl, there would have been no problem if she never picked up a sword. Why had she knowingly chosen the difficult path and put herself through all this suffering?
‘Ah, you idiot. You can’t even remember something like that….’
She couldn’t remember. The only fragment that remained was that the first sword she had ever held was incredibly heavy, but she had still lifted it with all her strength─. That was all.
However, there was another person who had been participating in this conversation the entire time.
“…….”
Sion Lagrange seemed to have run out of patience with the continued silence. She closed her fan with her usual habit and neatly folded her hands together. In truth, having read President Croitz’s thesis, Sion was inwardly worried about the sorrowful expression on her godfather’s face. But to Sieglinde, who already found Lagrange irritating, it only felt like she was being deliberately provocative.
Tsk. How annoying.
Still, if Sion knew that Sieglinde thought she didn’t care about her even a tiny bit, Sieglinde would probably have been even more furious.
Anyway, Professor Joseph, who had been watching everything, spoke.
“I said it was nothing important, so we can just let it pass as nothing important, right? We have training today, so let’s work up a good sweat and forget about it.”
He had spoken so kindly while observing her, precisely so as not to make her feel heavy about the fact that she still couldn’t give an answer. As expected. He was one of the few genuinely good adults she had ever met. The professor really was a good man.
“Hehe, working up a sweat sounds good.”
“That’s right. We might have been overthinking something pointless.”
“I’m glad we see eye to eye. When that happens, sweating it out is the best medicine.”
Sieglinde noticed his consideration but didn’t thank him. Not yet. It was still a little embarrassing.
The professor stood up from his chair as if his back was stiff, frowning slightly. After stretching a few times, he explained to them.
“The first principle behind the founding of the Sword of Isaac. Return to basics.”
……Basics.
“Today, we will only practice the most fundamental steps while keeping that in mind. Both Sion and Sieglinde, refrain from using any techniques today. A bat that has been sharpened ten thousand times can break anything in the world.”
Basics.
Just as he had warned them in advance, the lesson was not an easy one. It was a brutish drill in which they had to thrust with the exact same trajectory a hundred times.
Thwack─.
“Wrong. Sion, you were so wary of losing strength that you ended up putting too much into it.”
“Huh? How did you notice right away?”
“The sound was different. If I’m mistaken, feel free to object.”
“…Ugh, how could I possibly doubt the professor’s senses?”
“Then we reset at the fifty-sixth. From the first one again.”
Sieglinde thought to herself for some reason.
Returning to the basics. Knowing the beginning.
‘It’s a good lesson.’
─Yes. Let’s find the beginning.
And near the end of the training session.
Irina, still basking in the praise she had received from the professor for taking care of Usteria today, clung to the elf until the end of the school day. She was meticulously recording and inquiring about why Usteria was acting this way.
‘Stop it. This is bothersome. Why are you following me around from morning? Are you my mother or something?’
‘Hmm. Well, Usteria, I need to understand the root of your phobia if you’re going to have a proper school life, don’t I?’
‘Th-that’s my problem…. It’s not something you need to worry about.’
‘No, I am the class president. It may not seem very important to a saintess, but I have been given the role of guiding others so they can properly temper themselves through their studies. I’m simply doing my job, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t take too much offense.’
However, it seemed this was quite uncomfortable for Usteria as well. When Irina spoke so persistently and stubbornly, the elf suppressed her venomous nature and gave a detailed answer.
“─Instinctive fear. A natural reaction in front of a predator? Can we summarize it like that? How interesting.”
The direction of the reasoning branched off in many ways, but if they were to organize the root of the phobia, it seemed to come down to this. Since it was getting late, they could stop here for today. If they continued to deepen their understanding, it felt like discovering the reason wouldn’t be too far off.
So Irina wore her usual confident smile and stopped by the cafeteria on the way back to fill her empty stomach.
But there, she found the last person she wanted to see.
“Ah, Irochka.”
“…Ryef Vladimirovich.”
Her older brother. Why was he here? Had he really used the fact that she had a habit of eating her meals on time to wait for her?
“I’ve been waiting.”
“Don’t talk to me. Irina is still angry.”
“Is it still about the marriage talk? I feel like I’ve said it several times, but if I made you sufficiently uncomfortable, I apologize….”
“The problem is what comes after. Our Ryoba oppa─.”
Oops. A nickname.
“─You said you don’t think that idea was wrong, Ryef Vladimirovich.”
“……….”
“So. Until you change that thought, Irina has nothing more to say.”
Ryef opened and closed his mouth as if he had something to say, but true to his northern male nature, his pride wouldn’t allow it. He simply stood there carrying his side bag. However, it didn’t seem like he had come just to have another pointless argument.
He spoke as if he didn’t care whether Irina listened or not.
“I don’t particularly want to change that thought either, so may I say what I have to say?”
“Not interested. I’m going to eat.”
“─Professor Joseph.”
But the moment the name of the person who had recently filled Irina’s heart came up, she couldn’t help but perk up her pure white ears.
“There’s something special about him.”
“Something special?”
“You’re probably the only one I’ve seen it with. I haven’t told anyone yet, but I thought I should tell our Irochka.”
“……….”
Irina remained silent, but she didn’t move. In other words, she was telling him to continue.
“I don’t know exactly what it is either, but he possesses a terrifying aura. An intense energy that makes you feel the difference in rank…. The fact that even I could sense it is quite remarkable, don’t you think?”
And then.
Irina’s eyes widened.
Difference in rank. Instinctive fear.
─Wait.
‘The same reaction as Usteria? And even our incredibly strong older brother….’
It didn’t seem like something she could simply overlook.