The Swordsmanship Department and the Logic of Power
My ears were itching. Was someone talking shit about me?
It felt like I’d just heard the hero’s voice. Nah, had to be my imagination. Though listening to that bastard scream would be pretty entertaining. Still, I had no clue how the hell a guy like that ever became the hero. But that wasn’t important right now. The women standing in front of me were.
“Hello? Miss Olivia!”
The young lady of the Logran Marquis family stared down at me with open contempt, her golden hair styled in croissant-like curls that dangled on both sides of her head.
“What do you want?”
“What do I want? How can you strut around with that shameless face after being dumped by the Crown Prince? I’d love to know your secret!”
There wasn’t any special trick. You just possessed someone else’s body. But she’d never believe that, so I kept it simple.
“Oh, the secret? Just empty your mind and show up for classes.”
“Are you seriously answering me right now?”
She was the one who asked for the secret. Wow. She really was saint-level. And of course she had her little entourage of followers.
“Ah, is there some rule that says you can’t attend the academy after a broken engagement?”
“Have you no pride as the daughter of House Ashtar?”
Sorry, but I wasn’t the original Olivia who’d been humiliated. This young lady from the marquis family clearly wanted me to bite the bait. Normally I would’ve handled this with force, but I had to remember that this body belonged to Olivia.
“Pride doesn’t put food on the table. So the esteemed daughter of the great Logran Marquis family came all this way just to mock a defeated woman who got dumped?”
“Given your usual behavior, you deserve to be mocked, don’t you?”
The blonde croissant snapped open her fan, and she and her followers laughed as if I were pathetic. As expected, the original Olivia had made plenty of enemies. Every noble daughter competed to become the Crown Prince’s fiancée, after all. This one had lost to Olivia, and now that Olivia herself had been cast aside, she clearly wanted to rub salt in the wound. Noble ladies really were terrifying. I’d much rather settle things with a sword, a fist, or magic. Watching them twist their words with their little posses made me pity whatever poor fool ended up marrying them.
It was annoying. The words didn’t hurt me since I wasn’t the original owner, but I still wanted to shut that mouth of hers.
“And what is that hair? Going from blonde to white—you must have been truly shocked, hm?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Wait, are you even Olivia? You’re not wearing your usual heavy makeup. What is this? Trying to appeal to His Highness the Crown Prince now that it’s too late?”
So the original Olivia had worn heavy makeup. That explained all the comments about her appearance.
“I have no such plans.”
“You say that so easily. Don’t you remember everything you’ve done to us? Every time we tried to get close to His Highness, you interfered!”
How tiresome.
“So what exactly do you want from me?”
“Everyone knows you’re now a fallen woman without any backing. Apologize to us right now!”
An apology, huh. Apologies were good. An excellent way to reconnect people who’d grown apart.
-Miss Ella. Why don’t you make a proper move on the hero?
-Don’t you dare touch my hero!
The bitches from the hero’s party flashed through my mind. These noble ladies had clearly suffered plenty at Olivia’s hands and were now looking for payback. In the end, what they wanted was an apology.
“In other words, you’re upset that I interfered when you tried to throw yourselves at His Highness the Crown Prince?”
“Th-throw ourselves? Who did that!”
The way their faces flushed as they growled at me was exactly like the women from the hero’s party. The original owner probably hadn’t been any different.
“Let’s be frank. Weren’t you all desperately trying to snatch the position of Crown Princess for your family’s wealth and glory?”
“Wh-what did you just say?”
I had no intention of being cowed by their ostracism. Besides, the academy’s nature prevented nobles from wielding their usual authority here. This place—even commoners attended—officially ignored status within its walls.
“Whether I mocked the young ladies or the young ladies flirted to claim that position, when you think about it, there’s no reason for me to apologize at all.”
“Have you finished running your mouth?”
Not even close.
“Instead of harassing me, shouldn’t you be rushing off to curry favor with Lily, the new fiancée? Or are you all so pathetic that you couldn’t even take the spot of a woman who was already dumped?”
“Do you not even remember insulting our family?”
Insulting their family?
“Insulting your family?”
“Yes! You mocked the hairstyles of the women in our Logran family and said I would end up marrying a baker!”
From a noble’s perspective, that could definitely count as an insult. But the original owner hadn’t exactly been wrong. With two massive croissants dangling from her head, her assessment had been spot on.
“……If you don’t want to hear bakery jokes, maybe undo those croissants.”
“Wh-what did you say?”
“They’re really distracting, you know.”
How did anyone even walk around with that hairstyle?
“This is a tradition of our family—”
“Tradition or not, you’re a walking croissant.”
“Ugh. You really…”
Her face flushed crimson and she looked ready to kill me. That was when I realized my thinking had been off. Yeah, from her perspective it must have been upsetting. Whatever the reason, judging by Olivia’s past behavior, an apology was the right move if I wanted a smoother path forward in this new life.
Anyway, the situation called for an apology. I bowed my head deeply.
“If it upset you, then I sincerely apologize. I’m sorry, young lady of the Logran Marquis family.”
“Huh?”
“I will make sure nothing like this happens again.”
“Huh?”
Her face crumpled in utter bewilderment. Had I done something wrong?
“Yes?”
“Did the daughter of House Ashtar just apologize to us?”
“Yes.”
“Hah, the woman who used to look down on us so arrogantly isn’t above this kind of humiliation?”
Humiliation? I’d thrown that away long ago while traveling with the hero’s party. Besides, this body wasn’t even mine.
“If you’ve done something wrong, apologizing is simply the duty of any decent person. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to study. A student should focus on learning if they want to become someone worthwhile.”
I had to raise my grades and prove my worth.
“Wait a moment. What do you people think you’re doing? Must you gang up on a frail woman like this?”
Just when things were about to end on a relatively warm note, a man around the hero’s age appeared. Short-cropped hair, impressive build—he was probably a second-year in the swordsmanship department. Or a third-year knight-course student.
“Young master of House Plant, this is a matter between the young ladies. Please stay out of it.”
The blonde croissant seemed to know him.
“Our Plant family cannot stand by in the face of injustice. A knight never ignores a woman in distress!”
Oh, it had been a while since I’d seen this type of character. The knight commander back in the kingdom had been the same. He’d died after getting caught up in political fights, though.
“No, we’re the victims here.”
“In this situation, who exactly is the victim and who is the perpetrator?”
“Uh. Ah. Anyway, we’ll settle this later!”
The croissant and her croissant-loving followers fled. It was the same line the smarter ones in the Demon King’s army always used. “We’ll settle this later.” Those guys usually came back later just to get beaten again.
“Hmm, young lady. Did you have some quarrel with the daughter of the Logran Marquis family?”
Why was this guy still butting in?
“No. I simply apologized because it was my fault. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
There was no point getting tangled up with a man. I turned away first.
“Ah, y-young lady! May I at least know your name?”
I needed to hurry to attendance, but he was being difficult.
“Olivia Lapa Ashtar. Satisfied? Then I’m leaving.”
“What? O-Olivia?”
As expected, the original owner had been something else. I had no idea what she’d done, but simply giving my name made him scream behind me. I decided to ignore it.
Yeah. I thought that would be the end of it—that I wouldn’t have to deal with that strange young master again. But of all places, we met in the swordsmanship department.
“I never imagined you were Lady Ashtar.”
The guy standing before me was the same one from earlier. Unlike before, he was glaring at me now. That was much more preferable. I’d grown used to it and even found myself thinking of the original owner as a bitch.
“Is that important?”
“I am aware of the unsavory incident within the Ashtar family. However, that does not erase the wicked deeds you have committed.”
Of course. It seemed the original owner had done something seriously wrong to this righteous fool as well.
“What exactly did I do to you?”
“His Highness the Crown Prince is a man who will shoulder great responsibilities for the empire. You disturbed his heart and looked down on other nobles, sowing discord wherever you went.”
She really had been something else! Olivia!
“So what exactly did I do to you?”
“Didn’t you harass not only me but many others? I even heard you enrolled in every single major course.”
Becoming independent from House Ashtar required it.
“So what?”
“Do you find the swordsmanship department amusing?”
“Not at all.”
My title was Sword Saint, after all. Why would I look down on swordsmanship? I had no idea how long I’d have to keep cleaning up the original owner’s messes.
“Then why has the young lady come here?”
His gaze was openly hostile. That expression that seemed to say he was only going easy on me because I was a woman—if the original owner had been male, a fist would have flown without question.
But choosing a major was free.
“Are you saying I’m not qualified? Any student enrolled in this academy should be free to choose their major, shouldn’t they?”
The academy officially promoted freedom of learning, after all.
“There’s no way Lady Ashtar chose it with any seriousness. Don’t you remember what happened the first time you came to the swordsmanship department?”
Ah, yeah. I had no memory of it.
“What did I say?”
“In front of Ryler Plant of a knight family, you swung your sword carelessly, then threw it aside while declaring that swords were something only meat shields used!”
Well, that wasn’t exactly wrong. In the kingdom, most infantry had used swords. Saving iron for spears would have been more efficient, but the kingdom had developed further in swordsmanship. Naturally, those men had been used as meat shields against the Demon King’s army until the hero arrived. They could only push the demons back if they got lucky.
“I’m sorry. I don’t remember any of that.”
“You forgot that memory?”
Hmm. This was tricky. His hostility toward me seemed even stronger now. Why did I have to work so hard to clean up after the original owner? I had no excuse ready.
-It’s amnesia. I really don’t remember anything.
-So you’re trying to run away like that again!
That wouldn’t work. Should I tell the truth, then?
-When I woke up, I was Olivia Lapa Ashtar.
-How much further do you intend to insult House Plant?
That wouldn’t work either. This was no good. It would have been easier if I had even a fraction of Olivia’s memories. In times like this, there was only one option: brazen it out.
Dealing with that troublemaker Eugene had made me quite shameless. In the swordsmanship department, the sword was everything. Only the logic of power applied. Chivalry and all that nonsense ultimately came down to strength. No matter how shameless the opponent’s definition of justice was, the one who won with shameless strength became justice.
So I decided to crush the swordsmanship department with power.
“Originally, perpetrators tend to forget what they did—unlike their victims.”
I grinned as I said it. Even I had to admit it was a really shitty thing to say.