From Hobby to Victory in the Duel
I chose a longsword for the duel.
Now that I had reached the weight limit, there was no need to insist on a dagger anymore.
If it was just for fun and not a life-or-death struggle, then even more so.
“Oh. You’ve got a decent stance.”
“So do you.”
Of course. I’ve been training for ten years.
Of course I couldn’t say that, so I just nodded.
What surprised me was Cecil.
Her left foot forward, right foot back. Shoulders open to the sides.
Her left arm half-extended for defense or blocking, her right arm pressed to her body like a snake hunting prey.
I’d known she had decent stamina and lean muscle, but I hadn’t expected such a natural stance.
It looked specialized for counterattacks.
3.
The duel system began its countdown.
2.
You can’t move until the countdown ends. That’s the basic rule.
1.
Conversely.
Begin!
I knew exactly when the opponent would move.
I dived in with pure speed, without using any existence to see through things.
“!”
I can see it.
Even though I hadn’t pumped mana into my left eye.
It was too sloppy, so easy it was suspicious.
Hundreds of red dots appeared in my left eye.
Among them, the most prominent was at the back of her neck.
I lowered my body and vanished from sight for a split second, then.
“Kyaa?!”
“Got you.”
Before she could react, I had already swept behind her.
With my hand on her nape, I spoke.
“You know it’s a weakness, right?”
“Ugh… I… I give up, let go!”
She jerked her arm free and stumbled back in panic.
Something. I thought I knew why Luke had beaten me black and blue when teaching me.
It wasn’t some perverted kink. Just… fun.
“How did you catch goblins that easily?”
“It was a slime. And you’re just too fast.”
…What?
I thought the biggest handicap was information imbalance,
but apparently I was also good at hide-and-seek.
“I didn’t expect you to lose so instantly…”
“Train harder.”
“It’s fine. Using your body is enough to burn calories.”
Cecil muttered as she left the arena and started tapping a dummy.
…Oh. Maybe I wasn’t perceptive?
Maybe I should have been trading energy with her instead of just winning.
When I saw Cecil start muttering and sweating, my doubts turned into certainty.
“…Hmph.”
Well, what can you do. It’s already happened.
I’ll make it up to her later.
“Judging is over!”
Now it was my turn to face Bail.
“I’ll start right away.”
“Okay.”
I activated the duel equipment, and the countdown began just like before.
3.
Bail is from the Magic department.
2.
She probably wouldn’t eat it like Cecil did.
1.
Duel begin!
2nd Realm general magic: Black Mist.
“Black Mist!”
Whoosh!
Black smoke erupted around me.
I maneuvered mana to widen the mist across the arena as much as possible.
The density was low, so you could see through it up close, but when facing mages, a wide range of activity is advantageous.
“Eek! You know magic too?”
“Of course. I’m in the Magic Engineering department?”
I clicked my tongue in the direction the voice came from.
Click.
Observation is simply observing deeply.
For me it’s not limited to what the eyes see.
Click.
I clicked my tongue again.
Close your eyes, shift the senses once assigned to vision to hearing and touch.
Click.
Anyone who knows knows this technique.
Resonance Positioning.
Recognize objects through echoes produced by sound.
One of my bread-and-butter techniques, along with existence.
These days I sell artifacts to make a living, but still.
Click.
Got it.
It took time to adapt to the new space, but I pinpointed Bail’s location.
Of course, the technique required sound on my side, so even if I moved around, I’d given her a hint.
But this side is an assassin’s origin.
Hiding presence is my specialty.
As expected.
Even at five paces away, she didn’t react.
…Maybe she never intended to find my position in the first place.
Thinking it through, I threw a knife at Bail first.
Clang!
“Ugh!”
Her barrier flickered open for a moment.
At the same time, a 2nd Realm elemental lightning spell—Bolt—shot toward me.
Zap!
But it was significantly slower than Ode’s dagger.
“Ahaha.”
If that’s the information I can gather, Bail planned to counter my ambush from the start.
Black Mist is only 2nd Realm. Because it spreads as it moves, it tends to dissipate easily against lower-level wind magic.
So why leave it behind?
If she drew her blade and charged, she must have planned to use long-range attacks there.
Now that I knew her aim, there was no mercy. I concentrated mana in my left eye and saw through the weakness of the barrier surrounding Bail.
“Here.”
Clang!
One slash shattered the barrier.
“Hiiik! The barrier… in one go?”
“Because I’m a mage. You have more weaknesses than Cecil. This time, straight to the head?”
“Uuuugh, I lost…”
Somehow.
Just like with Cecil, this was the first fight I’d won, and it felt fresh.
“…I’ll have to keep training myself.”
“What?”
Well, since I have to focus on Magic Engineering, she was letting me go. I never planned to give it up completely.
“No. Don’t you have to go to the training room too?”
“I’m fine. Mages burn calories on circuits rather than rolling around like commoners.”
“Then let’s go back with Cecil. You’re late.”
I glanced at the clock. Around 5 p.m.
We’d met at 11 a.m., so we’d had plenty of fun.
It was time to head back to the dorm for personal time.
Ah.
Of course I couldn’t.
I ate dinner, wandered around the academy, and barely made it back before curfew at midnight.
***
“Ugh, I’m so tired.”
We met at 11 a.m. and parted at noon, so we’d spent more than half a day playing around.
They had way too much energy.
Time to rest.
I burst open the door to the empty dorm and tossed my bag—
“Whoa! Danger!”
“Huh?”
Someone?
“You didn’t intend to throw it at someone, right? Nice to meet you. I’m Sion, first-year in the Swordsmanship department, Martial Arts division.”
“Ah. Roommate? Sorry. I thought no one was home. I’m Jeden, first-year in Magic Engineering, Practical Magic department.”
“Huhu. Personal reasons for not visiting the academy earlier.”
“Ahaha. So today’s the first time you came?”
“Yes. I arrived around lunchtime today.”
Ah.
I hadn’t realized because I’d been running around before lunch.
“Yeah. Looking forward to it. Ah. You can use casual speech, right?”
“Please, do. I’m comfortable with honorifics.”
“Okay.”
After a quick self-introduction, I washed up quickly and collapsed onto the bed.
I know it’s better to get close to your roommate, but today I was too exhausted.
And there was that time I rushed to be friends and accidentally upset Bail.
Of course, imagining her crying in those sly squinty eyes with her weirdly suspicious tone was impossible.
Take it slow, take it slow.
Don’t rush.
***
Sion had been gripped by a clear sense of duty since the moment he woke up in this world.
Too late to notice, but after years living here, he knew.
This world was the game he had played.
These days the isekai meta involves taking games set in original worlds and somehow porting them to another dimension… or something. He didn’t care about the details.
The tragic endings in that game had to be stopped.
His duty was to save the world. The so-called world peace.
It had nothing to do with the Demon King.
The Demon King was fine; the real hero Luke had sealed him away thousands of years ago.
If that was the goal, then what?
The game Sion played was a beautiful girls’ wholesome romance simulation, abbreviated to “Miyoushi.”
Some people asked, “If it’s a bad ending in Miyoushi, then the heroines won’t end up with you, right?”
His answer: yes, but not in this work.
This work was a pure-love story where “Well, one of you will be her type” and not the harems of “Look, she’s your girlfriend, she’s definitely your type.”
Of course there was a failure-ending route.
Where you accept each other’s differences and stay as friends, not lovers.
Important, so I’ll say it twice. It’s not the route where they fight bitterly, destroy the world, and it ends in ruin. It’s the route where you stay friends.
You stay in contact, maintain a good relationship.
Of course it’s a bad ending in Miyoushi, but it has nothing to do with the world’s fate.
Then what are they so afraid of?
The true ending.
The true ending is the perfect conclusion, treated as the canon ending of the story.
That’s why every player got it.
- Hey, you bastards!
- Get down! (┬┬﹏┬┬)
- Oh, bro. I’m still playing Black. Haven’t finished yet lol, gonna refund lol
- It’s good lol
Completely destroyed.
This game has four endings besides the true ending.
Bad ending, friends. Normal ending, “smoking.” Happy ending, lovers. Hidden ending, extreme non-consensual.
Friends is the bad ending because the relationship is solidified. “Smoking” is the normal because the relationship is ongoing. Lovers is, obviously, the happy ending.
Hidden is… um. Whatever. This game is 19+.
Anyway.
They kept rolling out those grainy, heart-piercing endings and then dropping the true ending.
“Ah… Jeden…”
“……You.”
“Huhu. Why is that, Jeden? You should be seeing off your dear friend on a long journey.”
Just the lines made me dizzy?
Yeah, it was an NTR ending.
The developers wanted to give the wholesome pure-love true ending… and then the canon NTR on top of it.
The conditions were disgusting.
No dates with the heroine Cecil. Zero acceptances of her help requests. Avoid Cecil’s main story. Enjoy NPCs as eye candy.
In other words, the more contact you have with Cecil, the more likely that ending would trigger.
An ending where you steal Cecil, who has forgotten even who you are.
Actually, no, you didn’t steal her. You never had the option to, because you took that route.
Then what happens after?
The sponsor story comes in.
Does it sound like a lie?
There’s no way a sponsor story bought for a million dollars would appear after the disgusting NTR ending?
Does it make sense that the wholesome true ending is disgusting?
The sponsor story is one that awakens Jeden’s talent, which could even rival the real hero or perhaps reach the Demon King.
In other words, it shows a young Jeden who has honed his pure craft without starting Magic Engineering.
The developers’ reply was as follows.
Jeden awakened his talent and set out on the path with the Grand Magus, the Sovereign, and the Great Warrior.
Two days later, he was offered a nice boat.
End.
Those bastards.
And why is the Great Warrior in there? He’s a man.
This wasn’t even close to 5,700-character email territory.
Police. Legal authority was needed.
My blood was boiling so hard I could barely hold the phone.
But somehow I grabbed it and managed to unlock it.
…I woke up in an alley.
So these developers were scared of the police and sent me to this world.
What is the duty to save the world?
If they were just having a lovers’ quarrel, mountains would disappear. If you stop that, you save the world.
Answer received.
As long as Jeden shows a little interest in Cecil, nothing bad will happen.
Of course, they brainwashed people with drugs, so they wouldn’t know.
Jeden is happy because he doesn’t get his girlfriend stolen.
I’m happy because I got to enjoy that grainy wholesome stuff next to him.
Cecil is happy because I help her with her love life.
Isn’t that win-win for everyone?
Everyone wins. Everyone wins.