Doesn't He Have Any Weaknesses?
Doesn't that mean he has no weaknesses?
Compared to the last time I put Lucia under for two full days of deep sleep, eight hours might not seem like much.
Eight hours.
For a chronic sleep debtor, that was not true rest. There was still a balance outstanding.
Between the athletic meet at the Academy and the preliminary rounds of the Dowon Festival, there had been no chance to restore her to full condition the way I had before. Even so, for a girl who normally managed three or four hours a day—and those broken into scraps—eight solid hours was a meaningful recovery.
In truth I could have given her twelve, but—
It's not home, so I can't sleep. I worry about my little brothers and sisters. Could you please stay and put me to sleep again tonight?
—she had gone and said something like that, so eight hours had been the best I could manage.
"That student… she's even stronger than the first-year from earlier…."
Simena muttered in a voice thick with shock. Hardly surprising. Lucia's round-of-sixteen match had ended the moment it began. Five seconds, maybe.
Still, she was probably not stronger than Laward. In the game, full-condition Lucia had been written as stronger than him, but this was an eight-hour Lucia, not a forty-eight-hour one. And Laward himself had grown at a terrifying rate.
When Lucia yawned and headed back to the stands, the Academy students erupted in the usual roaring support. The louder the Academy students grew, the quieter the Military Academy and Theological School students became. Principal Simena herself fell silent in perfect solidarity with her own students. Only once—when Hakan stepped onto the field—did her expression return to the one she had worn before the first round-of-sixteen match, and she cheered again.
As expected, Hakan breezed through the round of sixteen and met Veronica in the quarterfinals.
"My lady! How delightful to meet you again like this!"
He approached Veronica with his glossy blond hair gleaming. The referee warned him not to close the distance before the match officially began. Receiving a yellow card before the bout even started—if that counted as a talent, then yes, he had one.
"What a peculiar student… That is Hakan, correct?"
When the chairman asked, Simena nodded with an expression that was simultaneously proud and embarrassed.
"I had imagined a solemn figure, given that he was once a royal knight, but he is nothing like what I expected. Ah, Principal. Will Hakan simply graduate from the Military Academy as planned? Is he headed for the army?"
"Well. That is what I hope for, but the master who held his leash is gone, is he not? I understand offers have been pouring in from every direction. His family has even hired someone whose sole job is to handle the correspondence… so we have no way of knowing."
"Enough correspondence to require a dedicated letter-handler…."
"Being a former royal guard knight is an attractive résumé, after all. Officially he ranks among the top ten in this country."
The moment Simena finished speaking, both she and the chairman turned to look at me at the same time.
"Is that not so?"
"Is that not so, Daywin?"
And they asked me simultaneously. While Kairon had been impersonating me, I too had been one of those knights, after all.
"Daywin himself is serving as the Seventh Princess's knight!"
The Seventh Princess. The chairman spoke of Amelia as if he had completely forgotten her existence, putting on an easy show. Back when she had been enrolled at the Academy she must have felt like a bomb that could detonate at any moment. Now he was drawing a clean line, as though the royal family had nothing to do with him.
"Ah, well, yes. Something like that."
"Haha, no need for modesty at a time like this."
The chairman gave my arm a friendly nudge. I gently slipped free of his touch.
And no such offers came to me. Part of it was that the royal palace was far from my lodgings and that I had only recently begun to make a name for myself—but fundamentally I had never put in the same effort Hakan did. Hakan deliberately changed residences, skipped fights he could not win, and inflated the ones he could, steadily raising his price. Watching him, he looked every bit the mercenary. He was marketing himself. As a man who lived by the sword, I could not say the method was wrong. Everyone made a living differently. Still, for someone not yet twenty, he looked cunning enough.
While I was thinking—
Boom!
Veronica detonated a gold-coin's worth of magic, announcing the start of the match.
"My lady! That fire is excellent!"
Hakan strode through the blast, laughing heartily. Watching him walk out unscathed even after she had used gold rather than silver left Veronica rattled, but she managed to pull out her next move. From the frog-shaped coin purse emerged a red jewel that floated into the air.
Ssshk—
And vanished. The instant the ruby disappeared from her hand, a rectangular red barrier snapped into place around Hakan.
"Oho, what a beautiful room. It sparkles on every side, just like… the lady herself."
"Shut up."
She drew another gold coin. So that was it—this time she meant to detonate it safely inside the barrier.
Baboom!
As if confirming my guess with fireworks, Veronica filled the barrier with explosions. Yet once again—
"Hahaha!"
—Hakan strolled out unhurriedly.
"Just what… is that?"
The chairman whipped his head around to ask. At last Simena seemed to recover some composure; she gave a light laugh.
"I am not at liberty to say."
"It looked like a direct hit… how strange."
"What is your assessment of Hakan, Daywin?"
Simena asked me, but I simply kept my mouth shut. It did not matter if Veronica failed to beat Hakan. I only wanted her to shave off a little of his stamina.
Clink-clink—
Veronica's hand rummaged through the coin purse hanging at her waist. Whether by feel alone or pure instinct, she pulled out four green jewels at once.
"My lady, what fascinating magic you use."
"I told you to shut up. And also…."
Ssssshk—
The four emeralds vanished together; green lines of light traced across her skin. With markedly faster movements she lashed out with a kick.
"Get lost!"
Hakan raised both arms and blocked Veronica's high kick. Even with her body reinforced, she could not match his reaction speed. But that defense just now… something about it was odd.
"Principal."
"Yes?"
She turned to me with a pleased look.
"He takes magical explosions head-on without flinching, yet he bothers to block a kick with his arms."
"Uh…."
Apparently she had expected praise for Hakan; her expression hardened in an instant.
"I-it was reflexive."
"Well, that is possible, of course."
I smiled faintly. Simena looked away as though something had pricked her conscience.
"It simply struck me as strange."
"Have you… noticed?"
"Noticed what? What on earth are the two of you talking about? Daywin, please tell me as well!"
"To be precise, I do not know either. But I think I have a fair idea why Hakan keeps changing residences. He may not have had a choice…."
"Ugh…."
Simena let out a stifled groan, so my guess was probably close.
"Will you… tell Laward? Of course you will—you said he is your disciple."
"I wonder. It would be best if Laward figured it out on his own. Even if he is my disciple, I cannot spoon-feed him everything from one to ten. That would only spoil him."
"So what have the two of you been saying this whole time…."
"Chairman, have you ever been hit?"
"Pardon…? Ah, no! Why suddenly—"
The chairman raised both hands protectively in front of himself.
"Hakan's ability seems related to that."
"To being hit…?"
"Yes. Is that not so?"
I looked at Simena; she merely nodded, as if in surrender. It was similar to the twins I had met before. Yet it was different from their immunity to physical or magical attacks. I could be certain of that because I was a transmigrator. This was a game. They would never create another named character with the exact same ability.
"Anyone can use martial arts, but only Veronica can offer gold coins as sacrifice and convert them into magical explosions."
"…So the ability only works against rare magic?"
The chairman asked, but this time Simena truly clamped her mouth shut, as if she could say no more.
"I do not know the exact criteria, but…."
I watched Hakan quietly.
"Hakan has probably had to choose his enemies carefully. Looking at it that way, his past makes sense as well."
"Principal, is what Daywin says truly…."
"I can tell you no more. But Hakan's ability is not limited to that alone."
The instant Simena finished speaking—
Thok—
—Hakan's hand-blade stopped at Veronica's throat. Had it been a sword blade instead of a hand, and had Hakan not stopped, Veronica's head would have left her shoulders a moment earlier.
"Hakan's strength does not come from magic, after all."
Just as she said, even in pure physical ability he overwhelmed Veronica with room to spare.
"Hahaha! That is enough! My lady, I do not wish to hurt you any further!"
Veronica's face crumpled in pure disgust. Even so, she seemed to accept the inevitable; she shook out the frog-shaped purse until nothing remained but dust.
"Fine."
Every last coin and jewel spilled out, leaving only a flutter of dust.
"I was over budget anyway."
She said it while glancing sideways at me. When I nodded, she declared her surrender to the referee. Draining Hakan's stamina had clearly failed, but at least I now had a rough grasp of his ability. A satisfactory result.
There was a little free time while the semifinal brackets were being drawn.
"If you will excuse me for a moment…."
I rose from my seat and went to Laward. Simena watched me with a suspicious look the whole way, but I paid her no mind.
"Laward."
"Eunsanim!"
He had been sitting with his eyes closed; the moment I approached he sprang to his feet.
"What brings you here?"
"Did you watch Hakan's match?"
"Ah, yes! I watched it carefully!"
"Did you notice anything?"
"He was truly impressive. There seemed to be so much I could learn from him!"
This idiot… had not thought about it at all.
"…Is that so."
"But why do you ask…."
"It is nothing. If you felt nothing, that is fine."
"Haha… I see. I want to advance quickly to the finals of two and show you a championship performance."
"Finals of two?"
"Yes, after the semifinals of four comes the finals of two, does it not?"
"……."
"Why that look? I know how to do division at least, Eunsanim. Sixteen, eight, four, two. That is the order, is it not?"
"…I see."
And people usually call that the finals.
"Well… what does it matter if he is a little short on brains. As long as he is healthy… no, he has already become far too healthy."
The time for "as long as he is healthy" was probably past. I silently prayed that one of the Dowon Festival championship rewards—the random rank-up of a single stat—would land on Intelligence. I understood he had no time to study while training day and night, but if I left him like this, something truly disastrous was going to happen. The day would come when I would be ashamed to call him my disciple in public. That much was certain.
"Laward, Hakan will be weak in fundamentals and pure hand-to-hand technique. The problem is that he knows his own weakness perfectly well and has polished only that."
"Then doesn't that mean he has no weaknesses?"
"Against ordinary opponents, yes. You need not worry about it. Just charge him head-on the way you always do."
In the end I had taught Laward nothing but the basics. Against Hakan, whose defense rose abnormally high only against unusual magic, that would serve as a perfect counter.
"Ah."
At that moment Laward pointed toward the arena floor. The bracket results had just been posted.
Semifinals.
There would be no dramatic final between the two geniuses. Amid the cheers of the stands, Laward's match against Hakan was decided.