Chapter 119
Chapter 119
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 119
Chapter Title: Something's Off
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Something was strange.
Something was off.
That was the thought that crossed the mind of Rakshia, the Fourth Vice Captain of the Golden Twilight Knights, as she swung her sword.
At first, anxiety had gripped her, followed by rage, leaving no room for clear thinking. But as those emotions gradually subsided, all that remained was the sense that something was wrong.
She had attacked dozens, hundreds of times by now, yet not a single strike had even grazed the man. Not that they hadn't landed effectively—it was that her blade hadn't so much as brushed against his body.
Shaking off her unease, she swung her sword again. A textbook diagonal slash from lower right to upper left.
But the trajectory of Rakshia's blade collided with the notched, precarious edge of her opponent's sword—as if all its teeth were missing and it might snap at any moment—and veered wildly off course, ricocheting in a bizarre direction.
It made no sense. Rakshia maintained her own sword meticulously every day; it was forged from far superior metal, and it cost dozens of times more than that junk about to fall apart.
*And yet, why?!*
Gritting her teeth, Rakshia swung again. With a sharp *clang!*, the trajectory shifted once more without fail, throwing her body off balance.
She staggered back, preparing her next attack. She drew her arm back, then thrust her leg forward like a drawn bowstring. Her body launched into the air, and just before reaching the peak, she extended her blade fully.
She confirmed the direction her opponent was dodging toward, ready to twist her body midair and adjust her trajectory. She couldn't change the angle entirely, but a slight shift was feasible.
Adjusting her path while airborne was no easy feat, a testament to swordsmanship worthy of the Golden Twilight Knights' Fourth Vice Captain.
Her posture, angle, position—everything was flawless.
*Boom!*
Everything except the failure.
The man in front of her seemed to sidestep left, but the moment Rakshia adjusted toward him, he didn't pull away—instead, he rolled straight toward her aggressively.
Her blade tip missed him entirely, plunging harmlessly into the ground.
*Smack!*
“Kyaaang!”
“Ah, my mistake. I didn't mean to hit you there.”
As she corrected her stance, the broken straight sword smacked her left buttock with a sharp crack. The firm flesh jiggled. A stinging pain spread through her body.
Rakshia let out an involuntary, lewd cry. In truth, she was lucky it ended at a cry. If that had been a real combat weapon instead of a broken sword, her buttock would have been sliced open.
*If only I'd been wearing armor,* the thought flashed through her mind. It might have been better to wield a real sword and don armor. At least she wouldn't have screamed like that in humiliation.
Initially, Rakshia had no intention of fighting without armor. But fearing a total defeat, she was desperate for even one win by any means.
However, as she herself had pointed out, the opponent was just a rookie knight wielding that pathetic weapon—fighting in armor would be overkill.
*Did he deliberately choose that broken straight sword to exploit this?*
The thought hit her as she yelped again from a smack near her armpit.
The one wielding the broken sword had said armor was fine, but Rakshia's pointless pride had led her to remove it—a fact already buried in her memory.
Along with the realization that it was far too late for such pride.
“Hey! Delta! You're totally aiming for those spots on purpose, aren't you? First my butt, now my armpit!”
“No, it was an accident. In that situation, that was the only spot available. What was I supposed to do?”
“If it's the butt, you can smack mine all you want later— Mmph?!”
“Are you insane, sis? This is the training ground! There are other people around! Please stop with the vulgar talk!”
What infuriated Rakshia even more was how, while she fought desperately without a moment's respite, they chatted leisurely with the Silver Dawn Knights in the spectator seats.
The knights watching the spar murmured audibly even from here. Rakshia ground her teeth. Losing would be utter humiliation.
She had to win, no matter what.
*...Was the shock too much?*
I scratched my head awkwardly as I watched the vice captain dragged away, limbs pinned one by one, her face blank.
*That's why I told her to wear armor.*
True to its name, the broken straight sword was more like a switch than a blade. It barely drew blood but hurt like hell, judging by her nonstop screams.
Lewd screams, at that.
I had no idea what was wrong with her—each hit produced something closer to a moan than a scream, leaving the striker—me—even more flustered. It even earned me a weird misunderstanding from Lize.
If she'd worn armor, she wouldn't have made those embarrassing noises or ended up in such a pathetic state, dragged off like that.
I couldn't fathom why she'd let pointless pride make things awkward for both the hitter and the hit.
“......”
The faces of the Golden Twilight Knights staring at me were filled with shock. Especially the other vice captain who had entered mid-spar, wondering what was happening—hers was the most stunned.
It was understandable. A so-called rookie had toyed with and defeated their vice captain. How could they not be shocked? They must have taken a huge blow.
But what caught my attention was something else.
*Their uniforms are really...*
If the Silver Dawn Knights' uniforms were tight white sleeveless tops with dolphin shorts, the Golden Twilight Knights' were sports bras and leggings that clung perfectly, outlining every curve.
And for some reason, even with sports bras—which I thought were meant to prevent jiggling—their breasts bounced wildly.
No panty lines either, despite the leggings hugging their lower bodies like vacuum-sealed packaging. Obviously going commando.
“You did great, Delta. See their faces? Totally lost it.”
I returned the broken sword to its place and headed back to the spectator seats, where Claudia greeted me with a gleeful cackle. She looked thrilled, as if venting a lot of pent-up grudges.
“That good, huh?”
“Of course. She won't be able to show her face now. Oh, wait—no, their captain got wrecked by you too, so maybe it doesn't matter.”
Her booming voice echoed across the training ground, freezing the entire Golden Twilight Knights like they'd been struck by lightning. Looks like they hadn't told anyone about getting beaten by me.
Seeing that, Claudia looked utterly satisfied. Iris gave a slight smile and nod, and Erica was no different.
“Fun smacking other girls' butts and toying with them, huh?”
Only Lize puffed her cheek, sulking. Though the absurd reason was that I'd smacked another woman's butt instead of hers.
“It was an accident. People might misunderstand.”
“You looked pretty pleased while 'accidentally' doing it. Want me to stick mine out now so you can feel even better?”
“......That really would be a misunderstanding.”
The reason I'd ended the spar with the vice captain smiling was simple: it was a rare chance for a relaxed fight.
After facing brutal DLC bosses like that low-rank boss Luciana and the forsaken creation from the previous one, this was healing for body and soul.
Sure, compared to vanilla, it was a huge difficulty spike—but irrelevant now. All difficulties are relative.
For me, whether DLC final boss or the mid-boss I just faced, a graze meant death either way.
*...Is this because of that black magic on my head too?*
Once the suspicion started, any lessened fear felt like the black magic's fault. I needed to find that witch ASAP and get the truth.
“So? Gonna go another round?”
“......”
At Iris's question, the entire Golden Twilight Knights averted their eyes. They flinched wherever my gaze landed, dropping their eyes or turning away awkwardly.
They'd completely lost the will to fight. Their vice captain had been overwhelmingly crushed, and now they'd heard even their captain lost to me. Of course.
Watching them, a sudden curiosity struck me, and I turned.
“Erica.”
“Yes, Delta? What's up?”
Addressing Erica, who beamed with a wide smile, she replied in an unusually cheerful tone.
“They picked the fight first, right? What did they say?”
“That vice captain—the one you beat before—asked what riffraff like us, banished to the outskirts, were doing in this noble space. The other knights were in a similar mood.”
Ah, so she was the culprit.
No wonder the captains kept pushing for spars. She started it and wanted payback.
Her fidgeting made sense too— she'd provoked the fight but couldn't win once, making damage control impossible.
*But where did she get the confidence to challenge the captains with that lineup?*
Their forces here were just her, vice-captain level, and the rest regular members. Bold to pick a fight with that.
I wondered what gave her that confidence.
“If you're not coming at me anymore, we're leaving. We're done here.”
Iris stood. She was right. Our business here was over. The knights left the training ground, striding purposefully somewhere.
Everyone except me—including Lize—seemed to know the destination.
Lize had started with the same puzzled look as me but quickly figured it out from the others' expressions.
“Where to now, Iris? Any more stops?”
“Yeah. More like where we should have gone first. We checked the training ground in case they were here, and got dragged into this mess.”
“Where we should have gone?”
Iris paused briefly, then continued walking.
“Where the knights under our command... no, formerly under us, are.”