Leonhardt's Swordsmanship Lessons
“Yes. Her name is Aine...”
I let the words trail off.
“Aine... Aine, you say...”
She rolled the name around on her tongue.
“I’m certain I’ve heard it somewhere...”
“Ah, well...”
Before I could even begin to explain—
“Ah! Aine! Isn’t that your former party member?!”
She leapt up with a shout.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Absolutely not! Never! She’s the wench who betrayed you!”
Master, people are staring.
I first calmed her down from hopping about, then began explaining Aine’s circumstances.
She already knew we had been close—I had told her that much before. I told her everything: that Aine’s older sister was ill; that neither medicine nor doctors had done any good, so they needed treatment at a temple, which was ruinously expensive; and that Leo had threatened her with a choice between expulsion or money.
Aine’s sister’s illness was private, after all. I wondered whether I had any right to speak of it so freely. Still, if I left anything out, Master would dig in her heels and refuse to the bitter end.
After hearing the whole story, Master muttered,
“What a pitiful child...”
“So... would it be all right to let her join the party?”
“Hmm... I rather enjoyed having my disciple all to myself... but at this rate party activities are impossible, so I suppose there’s no choice...”
She muttered a great deal more under her breath in answer to my question. The problem was that I couldn’t make out a word of it.
“What was that, Master?”
“Ah, nothing! You said her name was Aine, yes?”
“Yes.”
“From what you told me before, she seemed a decent girl. And her situation is pitiful. Very well—bring her in!”
I had secured Master’s consent. With three members, we should finally be eligible for some of the available assignments.
“But that Leo cur is unforgivable. Shall this master give him a thorough thrashing?”
She had always reacted the same way whenever I mentioned Leo.
“No matter how I think on it, you were far too merciful in that last duel! Had it been this master, I would have broken an arm or two for certain!”
“Haha...”
“Do not merely laugh—will you not allow it?”
“Well... not just yet...”
“Why do you keep standing in the way... wait. Did you just say ‘not just yet’?”
I only smiled without a word.
If Master did something like that and the Epsilt family came looking for revenge, what then? The time was not yet ripe. Still, I too felt the previous duel had not been nearly enough.
While we were talking, the front door of the classroom opened and the professor entered.
Let’s see—what class was this...
“Hello, everyone! Shall we all explore some delightful history together?”
Professor Gladys walked in.
Honestly, her lectures were more entertaining than Professor Henry’s magic classes.
Yet today I could not concentrate on the lesson at all.
“Thus the Rurike family held off the first wave of the offensive while the Empire’s central army...”
Today’s topic was an interesting war story, but as her lecture continued I kept returning to what Aine had told me earlier.
Her sister is sick, she said...
I had never imagined Aine would need money because of an ailing sister. Of course I had known her sister would fall ill. The problem was that the illness had struck far earlier than I expected.
In the original game, the underworld storyline begins after the second-year summer festival. That is Aine’s event. She starts feeling unwell little by little before summer break; by the second semester the sickness is plain for anyone to see. While piecing things together she mentions that her older sister suffers from the exact same symptoms. That is all the game ever reveals.
So I had naturally assumed Aine’s sister would fall ill around the same time. I never expected it to have begun this much earlier.
Well, the game couldn’t tell you everything.
I had fallen into a world identical to the game, yet this was no longer a game—it was reality. I needed to remember once more that there would be events like this, things the game omitted or never showed, things I simply did not know. Or things I thought I knew that turned out to be wrong.
If only I had known sooner, I could have looked after Aine long before now. I had boldly promised her I would settle her sister’s matter, and she seemed to trust me completely. I was not especially worried. I already knew exactly how to cure them both. I also knew Aine’s sister would not die before then. So for now I pushed Aine’s affairs to the back of my mind and decided to focus on the practical evaluation event right in front of me.
“Then have a good night, my disciple!”
“Ah. I’d love to, but I still have training left.”
I held up the sword for Master to see and shrugged.
“Ah, that’s right. That sword is fascinating no matter how many times I look at it.”
I had already explained everything about the sword to her—everything except how I had known about it in the first place.
She said,
“Yaaawn... Then I shall wait until you return!”
Even as she spoke through a long yawn, sleep was already dripping from her eyes.
“It will take quite a while. Go to sleep first.”
“I cannot simply—nyaah!”
I suddenly scooped her up; Master let out a short scream.
“What are you—”
I laid her on the bed and carefully pulled the blanket up over her.
“Your face is writing ‘I’m sleepy’ all over itself. Go to sleep first.”
“Ah... very well...”
For some reason her face was a little red as she answered. Was she hot? I briefly considered pulling the blanket off again, then simply picked up the sword.
“I’ll be back, then.”
I turned off the light in the dorm room and began slowly channeling mana into the Epsilt Treasure Sword, following the path engraved within it. The moment my mana filled the path as neatly as a key sliding into a lock, a strange sensation took hold and my body began to move somewhere else.
“Swing harder! Harder still!”
“Ah, would you be quiet?!”
I shouted at Leonhardt Epsilt, who kept chattering away right beside me.
One thing I had learned while receiving sword instruction from him: this man was a master on a level I could not even begin to approach. Well, that was only natural. People often say true geniuses make poor teachers—yet that did not apply to him either. While learning the secret sword arts of the Epsilt family from him, I could feel my own skill improving by leaps and bounds.
That did not mean he was without flaws. The biggest one, if I had to pick one...
“The Epsilt sword style is a tyrannical style! Swing with the force to smash everything that stands in your way!”
This man was extremely loud.
“Throw that elegant rubbish to the dogs! Swing with ferocity! Your blade looks like something a Wallenstein would use!”
I flinched.
Whoa. Sharp eye.
At any rate, he was right—the Wallenstein and Epsilt styles were utterly different. The Wallenstein sword I had learned was flexible, beautiful to watch. The Epsilt sword was straight and overpowering, its very momentum crushing everything around it. If I could master both, my swordsmanship would advance still further. I would be able to wield both grace and raw power at once.
But still...
“Hah... hah... Ancestor?”
“You’re already gasping after only this much? Speak, then.”
“Exactly when will I finish learning everything? I’d like to receive that power of yours sooner rather than later...”
The reason I came here every day and trained so hard was simple: the practical evaluation during midterms. I wanted my strength firmly established before then. That event was anything but easy.
Learning the Epsilt family’s secret sword arts directly from their founder was impressive enough, yet the true value of this opportunity was the portion of Leonhardt’s own power he would eventually pass on to me. With that alone I should be able to clear the practical evaluation safely.
At my question Leonhardt exploded.
“It’s because of you, you fool! Teaching a brat who knows only a single form of the family style is hard enough as it is!”
“Why is that my fault?! The family arts were lost ages ago—what am I supposed to do about it?!”
“Urgh—my neck... these pathetic descendants...”
Leonhardt clutched the back of his neck again today.
For reference, I had casually told him that the Epsilt secret sword arts had been lost. Of course I didn’t know them myself. But it would have been absurd for the heir who inherited the family treasure sword not to know them. So I simply lied and said the style had been lost to time. Since I was the first person in centuries to awaken the sword’s power, the lie held. When he asked the sharp follow-up—how, then, did I know the first form?—I answered that only that single form had been passed down.
Anyway, I voiced the idea I had been turning over for the past few days to the man still holding his neck.
“Ancestor.”
“...What now.”
“That power you said I could receive once I finished learning the sword arts.”
“Yes.”
“Could I get it in advance? You know, like taking an advance on my salary.”
“Wha—you insane little—an advance on my power—”
I knew that expression. It was the look of a man so dumbfounded he was about to lose his mind. Before his fist could fly I hurriedly shouted,
“No, I just thought receiving the power early would help with sword practice—agh! I’m sorry! Aack! Wait! My bones! You hit the bone!”
“Just die already, you brat!”