Talent and Grit
Am I seeing things?
Valentin Berce could only swallow a hollow laugh.
He believed Edric's report that his daughter possessed talent—Edric was far too earnest a man to invent such a claim—but he had never imagined it would be this extreme.
This was truly beyond all measure, was it not?
Even he, who bore the title of Swordmaster and had once commanded the Imperial Knights, had never in his life witnessed talent like this.
The forms his daughter had demonstrated still carried a faint roughness, a few unfinished edges. And that made no sense at all. His daughter had never once held a sword in her entire life. She had first taken one up only yesterday—and she was already showing this?
Even knights who had trained for more than a decade from childhood could not draw such precise flows of the blade. What was more, the technique Bellatrix had just displayed was not merely copied—she had reshaped it, adapted it perfectly to her own body. Others might not have noticed, but Valentin had. She had taken the original forms and refined them until they fit her as if they had always been hers.
How could someone who had held a sword for the first time yesterday possibly do that?
He hated the comparison, but she had already left even the talent of his second child, Ragnar, far behind. If Bellatrix had shown interest in the sword from the very beginning… history itself might have been rewritten. That was how catastrophic her gift was. The claim that the world looked different through her eyes had been no exaggeration.
Valentin felt desire rise in him. With talent of that caliber, even starting now, she might climb to great heights. No—not merely great heights. She might set foot in territory no one had ever reached.
His deliberation did not last long.
"Do you truly mean to learn the sword?"
At his question, Bellatrix met his gaze straight on, as if wondering why he would ask something so obvious.
"Yes."
Valentin nodded.
"Very well. Then steel yourself. You are already far too late in beginning your path with the blade, so we will have to build your foundations thoroughly from the ground up. It may prove rather harsh."
"I'm prepared."
Even at the mention of harsh training, Bellatrix's eyes sparkled—as if she were looking forward to it.
I opened my eyes. The feeling was strange.
I had dreamed of Bellatrix's past—not merely glimpsing her memories, but feeling the emotions she had carried then. I had expected some grand secret, some hidden truth. There wasn't one.
Bellatrix was simply Bellatrix.
A person with no interest in anything, and so forever pulled this way and that by other people. No one had ever worn the word desireless more perfectly. The Bellatrix I saw in the dream was a woman who truly cared about nothing at all.
And I knew it was no ordinary dream. Those memories had already settled into me as well. It matched what I had read in the novel. Even when Eleanor confided her troubles, Bellatrix had responded with flat indifference. Without will, without purpose, she had simply gone on living that way. Near the end of the story she became engaged to a man the heroine introduced, but even then I had wondered whether she felt any joy at all.
…A character for whom the phrase nothing to regret even if she died tomorrow fit perfectly. Perhaps the reason I had entered Bellatrix's body was that she had already abandoned her life. Pure speculation, of course—but a rather plausible one.
I rose from the bed and drew back the curtains. The sun was already climbing. Today I would begin proper training in earnest. I may have had a strange dream, but at least I had woken early. I had no intention of being late on the first day.
"You're early."
The moment I stepped into Father's private training ground, the air itself seemed to grow heavier.
"I couldn't very well be late on the first day."
"A good attitude."
Father spoke briefly, then looked at me.
"Then we begin with physical conditioning. If you truly wish to swing a sword for a long time, you must build your foundations steadily from the ground up."
He was absolutely right. In the end, the foundation of every martial art—of every form of physical discipline—was stamina. Without it, nothing was possible. Just yesterday, when I had demonstrated with a sword, a mere few minutes of swinging had left me exhausted. My goal now was to hold a blade all day long. Grasping a sword and swinging it had become the very purpose and joy of my life; I could not afford to neglect conditioning.
"Run."
"Yes."
I ran without a word of complaint.
And as I ran, I realized something. Bellatrix's physical condition was decent enough, but this was still the body of someone who had never exercised. Before long, my breath was clawing its way up to my throat. Of course it was. From birth until now, this body had done little more than dabble in a bit of dance and hole up in a room studying etiquette and common knowledge. Violent exertion like this was entirely new to it.
My body felt as heavy as lead, but I kept running. Without the will to overcome something, resolve itself grows weak. Grit. Grit was the answer. There was no royal road on the path of martial arts.
And above all… there was a greater reason I had to train my body.
Blooming.
As one tempered the flesh, there came a moment when mana settled into the body—and that was called Blooming. When it happened, a trace of mana was etched over the heart on the left side of the chest. The shape varied from person to person, but it usually resembled a flower petal, which was how the name had stuck. The instant one Bloomed, a human being earned the right to transcend their limits. In other words, Blooming alone expanded the realm of perception so vastly that pursuing the ultimate edge of the sword without it was nearly impossible.
Blooming, of course, had stages. The highest any human had ever reached was Stage 7, attained only by the first head of the Berce family. My father, Valentin Berce, was a monster of Stage 5. He had not served as the previous Imperial Knight Commander for nothing.
My goal, for now, was to reach Stage 1. Even that was far from easy. For mana to settle into the heart, the body had to be complete enough to withstand it.
So I ran. Until I collapsed.
Valentin could not help but marvel as he watched his daughter.
Even as her breath threatened to give out, she forced her feet forward with sheer stubbornness. He found himself thinking that he had seen more new sides of his daughter in these past few days than in years. The girl he had known before had seemed to want almost nothing. Every time he asked her what she desired, she would say she had no particular wish—and now that same child was running herself into the ground because she had taken an interest in the sword. He almost regretted not placing a blade in her hands far sooner.
Judging by Bellatrix's talent, if she had only begun around the age of eight, she would already have Bloomed long ago. But what use was mourning lost time? What mattered was the present—and he fully intended to push his daughter as hard as she wished to be pushed.
"Can you keep running? Overdoing it is unwise. You have only just taken your first steps; training beyond your measure will do you no good."
Bellatrix answered with eyes full of fierce resolve.
"I can still run."
"…Very well."
And so, on the first day of training, Bellatrix ran until she could no longer stand—then smiled in satisfaction and fainted. Valentin could only let out a dry laugh. She was an even more stubborn breed than Ragnar, who was already infamous for his tenacity. How a child like this had managed to hide such ferocity all these years was beyond him.
"…Do as much as you wish. Though if you push yourself too far, I will stop you."
He murmured the words to himself as he lifted his daughter into his arms.
When I woke, I was in my room.
My whole body ached. My legs felt as if they might snap. And yet the pain was satisfying—proof that I was steadily moving forward. Everything hurt, but not so badly that I couldn't move. I rose, changed my clothes, and decided that the day's end would belong to the sword. I still had strength enough to swing a blade. That was a rule I would keep no matter what.
It was only a practice sword, but the moment I took hold of it, a thrill ran through me. A faint satisfaction of longing. Even I didn't fully understand why I was like this—but simply holding a sword felt good.
I swung it slowly. The arc of the blade cutting through empty air was beautiful beyond words. And still, I felt the lack. I could not allow myself to be satisfied with this. What I wanted was perfection—a flawless sword that anyone who saw it would acknowledge without hesitation. That had been my purpose from the moment I first took up a blade.
The higher my skill climbed, the higher my realm rose, the farther the road to perfection would stretch. There was a saying that you see only as much as you know. I might have talent, but I was still a novice when it came to the sword. The more I learned, the more bottomless its depths proved to be—more than enough to pour a lifetime into.
In my previous life I had achieved nothing. This time, I would.
That night, I forced myself to swing the sword a thousand times before I sought sleep. My arms felt ready to tear free of their sockets, but I returned to my room wearing a satisfied smile. Even so, a lingering regret remained. I had wanted to swing more. But this was far enough for now. My body was still weak. I would increase the count little by little.
Every day I could feel myself advancing, and that made me look forward to tomorrow. Ending up in Bellatrix's body might not be such a bad thing after all.