Staking Their Honor
“What you just said…”
“You want me to take it back?”
I cut Esther off with a mocking sneer, twisting my face into a full-blown smirk.
“Too bad. I don’t take orders from anyone weaker than me.”
I called up my mana to match her, rising to meet her head-on. After holding back for so long, realizing I no longer had to felt almost dangerously good — a rush climbing higher than it should have.
“I’ll make certain you answer for those words,” the Saintess said, settling into a combat stance as she threatened me.
I was glad for it.
“That’s exactly what I wanted. I’ve been biting my tongue this whole time so I wouldn’t wreck the party atmosphere. No need for that anymore, is there?”
“Ha. You’ve been holding back? You’ve been talking as if you’ve been some kind of martyr this entire time. You know how disgusting that sounds?”
“Decision made. Saintess or not — I’m sending you straight to that goddess of yours.”
We were a breath away from colliding when Leo shouted from the side.
“Wait, Esther!”
“But Leo, you heard what this man just spat out!”
“I know. I’ll make him answer for every last word of it. Just calm down first.”
I watched the two of them bicker in front of me with open contempt. Still, I had to admit — a flicker of interest stirred.
Just how, exactly, did Leo Epsilt intend to make me “answer” for this?
Leo stepped forward in the Saintess’s place.
“Hey. Louis Wallenstein.”
He exhaled, long and deliberate.
“I challenge you to a duel.”
“I must have misheard.”
This move from Leo Epsilt actually caught me off guard. In our last sparring match, I had thoroughly humiliated him. And now he wanted a duel?
Even if he started grinding himself into the dirt from this very day, there was no way he could beat me anytime soon.
“You’re not planning to run, are you?”
He was even goading me.
For reference, a duel at this academy was the formalization of noble duels into school regulations. When one or both parties’ honor was at stake, they fought under a professor’s supervision over apologies and whatever price had been set. The academy itself treated every cadet as equal regardless of status — but this particular rite followed the outside world’s rules. A noble could only challenge another noble.
The loser apologized to the winner and fulfilled any additional terms agreed upon in advance. Accepting a duel wasn’t mandatory; I could refuse his challenge if I wanted. Of course, turning one down dealt a serious blow to a person’s honor, which was why most cadets gritted their teeth and accepted duels they never wanted.
But the key point was this: I was stronger than Leo Epsilt. There was no chance I would run, and no chance I would refuse.
So why was he challenging me at all?
I started with the most basic question.
“On what grounds are you challenging me?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You belittled our efforts — mine and my party’s — and insulted us. On top of that, the unspeakably blasphemous things you just said to the Saintess. You’re not going to claim you didn’t, are you?”
I had plenty I could say in return. But the situation was growing more interesting by the second, so I held my tongue and listened. More importantly, the man who had been red-faced with rage when he grabbed my collar earlier was speaking calmly now. He had clearly planned this in advance.
“Originally, I was going to let you off if you withdrew that pathetic expulsion petition of yours and gave us a sincere apology.”
He said it as if he were doing me some grand favor.
“But after listening to you today, I realized that wouldn’t be nearly enough.”
He jabbed a finger at me and shouted.
“Officially acknowledge the words you just spoke, and make a public apology to the Saintess and to us. After that — withdraw from the academy!”
The party members behind him looked stunned; clearly this hadn’t been discussed beforehand. The Saintess gazed at him with open admiration, but Elin was staring as if she couldn’t believe her ears. Veronica had already gone deathly pale.
I let out a hollow laugh.
What he meant was simple: he intended to crush me so thoroughly I could never recover.
Strictly speaking, what I’d said to Esther earlier had been aimed at the corrupt priests and the Saintess herself — not the Church as a whole. Still, it was absolutely not something you said out loud in front of other people. I’d only done it because no one else was around. If I formally admitted to those words, the Church would never let it slide. In the worst case, an investigation could follow.
Demanding a public apology was meant to grind my honor into the dirt so I could never show my face in noble society again. The moment I apologized in public, the rumor would dog me for years.
And finally — withdrawing from the academy.
In this world, a noble failing to graduate from Helon Academy was a catastrophic blow. You were labeled a half-noble. Even the noble daughters whose only dream was marrying into a higher house made absolutely certain they graduated; the academy even assigned some of them to near-inactive parties for that very purpose. And for an heir like me, expected to become head of the house, failing to graduate properly meant automatic disinheritance. The empire’s entire noble society was bound together by academy connections.
Any one of those three conditions would be fatal to me.
Which only made me more curious.
If he was putting terms like that on the line, he had to stake something of comparable weight if he lost.
“And if you lose?”
I asked, testing him.
“That will never happen, of course — but if it did, then I’d apologize to you and withdraw from the academy myself!”
The other party members looked horrified. I snorted out a laugh.
Those terms were ones I could never accept in the first place.
After falling into this world, I had decided I would slay the Demon King myself in place of that worthless Hero. But to kill the Demon King completely, you still needed the Holy Sword — a weapon only a true Hero could wield. I hadn’t found a way around that yet. So Leo Epsilt still had to follow the story properly and graduate from the academy.
Even setting that aside — a Hero candidate withdrawing from the academy? Even as a dueling term, the odds of it actually happening were low. People higher up would step in to stop it and offer me some other “appropriate” compensation instead. Maybe he’d expected that and thrown out the condition on purpose.
I shook my head.
“No. Not that.”
I thought for a moment — nothing impossible, something that would actually benefit me…
“First. I staked a public apology, so you’ll give me a public apology too. Leo, you’re fighting this duel on your party members’ honor, so if you lose, every single one of you apologizes.”
I didn’t particularly want their apology. I already knew it wouldn’t be sincere. That was exactly why it had to be public. What I wanted wasn’t their remorse — it was their humiliation.
“What do you mean by—!”
The Saintess flared up again, but Leo cut her off with easy confidence.
“It’s fine, Esther. I accept.”
“That’s not the end of it, either. I staked withdrawing from the academy, remember?”
Having decided to take his conditions, I laid out my next demand.
“If you lose, you hand your sword over to me.”
The first condition had been for my personal satisfaction. This one was pure profit.
I had grown by scraping together every opportunity the game offered in place of the effort-averse Leo Epsilt — but unfortunately, this game had no hidden sword-related windfalls. When the protagonist was still a Hero candidate, he used the treasure sword he brought from his family. Once he became the Hero, he used the Church’s Holy Sword. There was no need for any other blade, so there were no secret swords for me to claim.
The sword I had just named was that treasure sword — the Epsilt Treasure Sword.
It might not come with a windfall of its own, but there was an event for awakening its hidden power. That pathetic fool still hadn’t managed it. Better that I put it to use.
Even so, it was the Epsilt family’s heirloom — a famous blade, no less — and Leo hesitated for a moment.
“I staked withdrawing from the academy,” I said.
“To a swordsman, a sword is like another limb. And a family treasure sword at that — don’t you think that makes the stakes equal?”
At that, he finally nodded.
“Ha. As if a Hero candidate like me would ever lose to the likes of you. Fine. I accept everything.”
I narrowed my eyes at that confidence. Something was definitely going on here.
“We’ll submit the duel request during the next combat training period and hold it during the one after that,” he said.
If he was plotting something, the smart move would have been to force the duel immediately before he could set anything in motion. But a duel here required a formal request, a written oath, designated witnesses, and the professors’ approval. You couldn’t just fight on the spot because you felt like it. Since an immediate duel was impossible anyway, there was no point. Better to give myself enough time to figure out what he was scheming.
I nodded.
“Fine.”