The Induction Period (4)

Having succeeded in sweet-talking Karsein into handing over one of that sucker's possessions, Bruce was in high spirits. He figured he'd butter the kid up a bit more and then be on his way.

But then—a laugh drifted over from behind him.

At that grating, insolent sound, Bruce spun around on the spot and shot back at Karsein.

"The hell? Why's this bastard laughing his ass off? My sincere advice from your senior that funny, huh?"

Karsein seemed to have lost his mind entirely.

What kind of lunatic acted like this? Bruce was already mentally preparing to administer some disciplinary punishment—when Karsein, without so much as blinking, countered instead.

"Your senior? Sincere advice? That's rich."

"What's with you, you little shit? Are you insane?"

"A guy who cheated his way into the order wants to give me advice? I might understand it if you were above me—but you're not."

"Wh-what?!"

"You drugged the people you were supposed to beat to rise through the induction period, and walked in on forfeited victories. And someone who climbed up that way wants to lecture me about fair testing?"

Bruce's eyes nearly bulged out of his skull as if lightning had struck him.

Because at this point in time, no one was supposed to know about that.

"F-fuck! What kind of bullshit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is that? I passed into the 1st Knight Order fair and square through honest competition!"

"Oh? Want me to keep going? You told the two friends you'd sworn to rise up alongside that you'd compete in good faith—then secretly slipped cold medicine into their drinks. And for the other two, you requested sparring matches and dosed their canteens with laxatives before they could expose you. Am I wrong?"

"You—this son of a bitch is spinning complete nonsense! You saw it? You weren't even there back then!"

He denied it furiously, but the accusation was true.

No one knew how Karsein had found out. In fact, no one would have believed that a person existed who knew the whole affair in such intimate detail.

And yet Karsein spoke as if he had been there in the flesh, as if he'd watched every moment of it unfold with his own eyes.

Realizing he couldn't let the kid keep dictating the tempo, Bruce abandoned all pretense and slowly began closing the distance.

"Fine then. I've had enough. How dare you insult your senior like that? You're only getting in because the First Lady is shoving you along from behind, anyway. Consider today an early lesson in discipline."

It was obvious those fists—cracking and popping as they clenched—were about to be swung.

"How dare you spew such insolent filth at a senior standing above you? Did you think I'd just roll over? You little shit."

This was nothing but one-sided violence, disciplinary hazing in all but name.

Games built with RPG Maker-type engines were, for the most part, story-driven affairs ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠built on choices and objects.

If you tried to force a versus-fighting game into a framework like that... well, it would be a struggle.

So the game had simply hard-coded a rough set of patterns and dressed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the encounter up as a minigame, letting the player dodge through it.

The UI shifted, and a tiny pixelated Karsein was meant to dodge Bruce's fists and kicks as they flew at his sprite.

Except.

I already knew.

I knew that minigame window was never going to appear here.

The Status Window, which had begun as a game, did not perfectly deliver every game system.

The Snowflower Festival had already proven that much.

That minigame had required pure, unassisted manual control, without the gauge-assist feature. There had been parts that were actually better that way, granted.

But regardless—that experience had taught me a crucial piece of information: the game systems do not always apply.

Which meant that here, facing Bruce in this very moment, the system's help would never come.

Not that I'd been sitting around with no ideas.

'Bruce is the absolute weakest of the apprentice knights. At this point in the timeline, I can beat him—just like in the game.'

Stat-wise, Bruce was genuinely trash-tier. It was no accident that Karsein had been able to close the gap with him, even briefly.

Karsein was weak, yes—but if you asked which opponent he could overcome through sheer skill despite the stat difference, Bruce was the standout choice. A perfectly suitable opponent.

Besides, the jog had left both of them winded in equal measure—the only difference being that Bruce was badly underestimating me.

In short: someone very much worth fighting.

Even with this body.

I watched Bruce approach, slow and lumbering, and kept my distance.

All the while, my eyes worked faster than they ever had.

'Left-handed.'

It wasn't just his hand—his entire frame listed to the left.

He balanced off his left foot, and his left stride was visibly wider than his right.

Even the way he wound his arm up was heavily weighted to the left side.

That information would prove very useful indeed.

As I waited for Bruce to step fully into the water station, I let this brief, flickering instant carry me back to another old memory.

—Ugh!

—That's because you've picked up a tell, Minhyuk. Your movements are being read like an open book.

—How can you possibly know that?

—You have to start with the small things. Maybe not the motion of a hand or a foot, but every fighter's odd little habits surface the moment they square off. Always.

A body that leaned heavily to one side.

That was a genuinely critical clue.

Because it let me predict, well in advance, every wide sweeping motion that would come from left to right.

"Ha! Look at this little rat scurrying around! Try dodging this one. And this. And this!"

Fists came whistling at me again and again—whoosh, whoosh.

But I'd already read them. I already knew Bruce's body was weighted to the left.

So I slipped every single one of them in advance.

Of course, this alone wouldn't be enough.

—Minhyuk. What do you do when the day comes that you have no weapon?

—Well... I'd make sure that situation never happens in the first place.

—No. That situation comes for everyone at least once. I'm asking what you'll do when it does.

—Hmm...

I don't know.

I think that was the answer I gave back then.

But now, I might actually know.

—Your empty hands will look like a weakness. So if your opponent underestimates you—let them. Nothing on earth is better bait for an unexpected, decisive strike than overconfidence.

Her voice echoed through my mind, clear as day.

I don't know why—but that was how it all came together.

"Ooh, dodging, are we? Dodging?"

The moment my movements shifted from simple evasion toward deflecting and slipping past him, Bruce grew certain his killing blow was coming—and pressed in even harder.

Naturally, he was a completely different animal from the noble boys I'd seen at the imperial audience hall.

When a fist makes that kind of whooshing sound, a clean hit does serious damage. I'd been able to watch the induction trials myself, so I knew exactly how different he was from those greenhorns. The essence of my approach was simple: deflect, sidestep, and give ground inch by inch.

But that was how it ends.

Certain he had cornered me with nowhere left to run, Bruce threw his whole weight behind one last punch.

Except it wasn't the confident left arm he trusted—it was the right arm, drunk on carelessness and arrogance, that came swinging in.

Slow.

Weak. Sloppy.

I did not miss that opening. I threw myself into it.

The fist that should have crushed into me grazed past my collar instead.

The momentum of his massive swing slammed the brakes on his own body.

And that was what decided it.

His wrecked posture tore open an enormous gap.

I dove for that gap like an arrow.

Unable to arrest his own forward force, Bruce kept hurtling straight ahead.

Against someone driving in close, he was already—too late.

Thud.

The force pitching him forward shattered his balance entirely.

His leg barely caught against mine, and his body tipped, tilted, and folded with almost insulting ease.

"Ah—aaah?!"

In that instant, Bruce's body went sailing into the air.

I shifted my stance.

Back pressed to his chest, the way one carries a person on one's back—I lowered my upper body and offered him a nice, round launchpad.

His body, already hurtling through empty air with its center of gravity gone, had one arm locked tight in my grip.

Totally untethered now, he soared over my back and shoulder and plunged straight down.

SLAM.

The heavy body spiked into the ground.

"Gghk...!"

Bruce, who had charged at me so confidently, collapsed with a strangled groan in place of his bluster, and crawled across the dirt in a crumpled heap.

Clutching the spot where he'd landed, he writhed and moaned.

The choice window that appeared after clearing the minigame.

Any of the three would have worked fine.

But right now, this one was the best way to twist the knife.

"There you go again, running your mouth."

"You—you little...!"

Bruce glared daggers at me as I casually dusted off my hands.

He must have had plenty he wanted to say. But this was a flawless defeat—a humiliating loss in which he'd failed to win despite the obvious gap in their build.

Just as the choices had promised, Bruce could not bring himself to lunge at me again, with fists or with words.

'That's probably enough.'

I'd laid the groundwork long enough.

The confusion and pain currently weighing Bruce down wouldn't last forever. I could keep provoking him, could press the retaliation further—but that would be a poor choice.

Then I'd only get to screw over one person.

I gave my hands one last shake, made sure nothing more would come of it, and walked away.

But as I strolled out of the water station, something caught my eye—the fine towel Arina had given me, sitting right there inside Bruce's pouch.

"..."

Back in the game, too, anything the eldest sister gave you never came back.

Same now. I couldn't see any reason I'd need to reclaim it.

Still, an old memory wound its way through my mind, unbidden.

The dojo I'd sought out to learn how to protect myself. The techniques I'd picked up there.

The past in which I'd knocked down a punk who looked exactly like this guy—knocked him down with my own two hands.

And the one person who had been watching from the shadows then, too.

It was, honestly, so identical it was almost laughable.

'I couldn't say it back then. But this time, I'll say it to your face.'

That because of you, I ended up like this.

"..."

At that same moment.

Arina, who had slipped out of the training grounds and was making her way back toward the ducal residence, stopped dead in her tracks.

She'd expected him to push himself through reckless training.

That was why she'd told him to stop halfway through—but Karsein hadn't so much as acknowledged her words.

He's a stubborn one. It figures. So she'd thought, letting it go.

And yet—surely this kind of training couldn't be allowed to continue. She had meant to gently take him in hand.

Instead, he'd suddenly taken to addressing her as the "First Lady" in that polite, distant tone, and when she tried to put a stop to it, he'd told her that she was the one making things harder for him.

She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had only been trying to show good faith.

She had only meant to give him a small piece of what he wanted.

Hearing that in return, there was no way her feelings wouldn't sour.

...Yes. She had been upset.

Upset enough that she'd wanted to watch him roll around that training field and suffer for it, with a cold smile on her face.

And yet.

—Arima. Arina. If you meet Karsein today, do not lash out, even if you hear things that wound you.

—That child had every right to be angry, too. Let him do as he wishes, for now. That is the right thing to do. Do you understand, my daughter?

Her mother's voice, heavy with sorrow, kept echoing in her ears—and her footsteps kept slowing despite herself.

"Hoo... Right. Mother is correct. I came here to mend things with Karsein, not to quarrel."

Arina turned herself around and set her course back toward the training grounds.