The Betrayal in the Moonlit Courtyard
The group had never trained in swordsmanship before, so expecting any systematic progression was unrealistic.
The training was far more primitive.
It might have been little more than children pretending to duel with sticks, but every one of them was a complete blank slate. This sparring session carried real weight.
Just as a newborn cannot run right away, it had to master crawling, standing, and the first wobbly steps before anything else.
“Hah… hah… hah…”
Tarte collapsed onto the ground, gasping for air.
She no longer cared that the dirt was caking her clothes.
She had fought until her body felt like it was about to give out against Muraebae.
Their spar was… honestly, it could have been real combat.
Children’s toy duels are play. They clash sticks and try to see who looks braver or stronger.
This was nothing like that.
Muraebae had zero interest in flashy moves. She had gone straight for the vital points and landed several solid strikes.
The neck is not quite the same as the heart, but as a weapon it still hurt like hell right up to the brink of blackout.
If these had been actual children, the injury would have been real, the feelings would have been hurt, and it would have turned into something mean.
But Tarte had welcomed every ounce of pain.
Pain like this was exactly what she wanted.
Remembering every detail would become fuel later, when she had to avoid a vital point.
“Kkuk…”
She hadn’t been the only one hit.
Muraebae was groaning too, everywhere she had been struck.
“You two really get along, huh?”
Daepokpal looked at the two of them sprawled out side by side and winced.
Tarte gave him a half-bored look. “This training is practical. In real combat, knowing your vital points is the difference between life and death.”
“That’s just common sense,” he said.
“People who’ve never been hit don’t get it.”
“Want to try?”
Sometimes you can say everything without opening your mouth.
Daepokpal stopped teasing her and went back to practicing his spells.
The rest of the party had their original bodies to move around in, but everything here—the mana, the new power—was completely foreign.
They were all still babies, crying and helpless.
But that was why growth was limitless.
Newcomers who knew nothing learned fast.
Tarte, whose breathing had finally steadied, used her Healing skill on herself and Muraebae, then thought.
The Sword Saint really is the wrong person for a sword.
Before this, she had sparred with the Sword Saint too.
It had been a straightforward, one-sided match.
While Muraebae kept trying to hit the vital points and create danger, the Sword Saint simply swapped steel with steel, honest and direct.
She wondered whether he just didn’t understand the point of sparring or simply refused to accept it.
The only fighter in the party, the nickname “Sword Saint” on his profile, the worst swordsmanship of any of the three who wielded blades.
Tarte’s eyes filled with tears—not from sadness, but from the injustice she had accidentally felt.
She didn’t point it out.
She had promised herself back then.
Just do two-thirds of the work. That’s enough.
“Then I’m going to bed. You two should rest too if you want to leave early tomorrow.”
Controlling mana wasn’t physically exhausting, but it drained focus and mental strength.
Daepokpal was the first to declare rest and head inside.
Then Muraebae disappeared.
Only Tarte and the Sword Saint remained in the courtyard.
“I’ll practice a little more,” the Sword Saint said.
They swung their blades for a long time.
The moon had moved far across the sky.
When the night was already deep and dawn was near, Tarte spoke to him.
“I’ll sleep late tonight, but the Sword Saint woke up hours ago. You should rest so you can be at your best tomorrow.”
The Sword Saint paused, looking unsure.
He understood his own shortcomings better than anyone else.
Yet he acknowledged that resting was better than risking tomorrow.
He gave a short bow and returned to his room.
Now the courtyard belonged only to Tarte.
She swung the sword again.
Modern martial arts are mostly about spiritual cultivation.
Real fights are so rare that they don’t matter.
In safe places there is no reason to fight.
In truly dangerous places, one bullet drops anyone.
So martial arts became just a shell.
The reason Tarte swung the sword now was survival.
A brutally practical reason, far from spiritual growth.
Yet she felt the blade wash away every thought.
What this tower was, who the Demon really was, how she appeared to people, the unease of becoming a woman, the unstable future, the death threat that was suddenly right in front of her—those countless worries vanished.
One swing and nothing remained.
Right now she thought only of killing the enemy.
She had slain countless foxes, toppled wolves, ripped apart tigers.
She had nearly been eaten by a bear, nearly trampled to death by a deer spirit.
The deer spirit was too huge for her to imagine defeating it, but she had decided she would have to face it sometime.
She had collected every holy relic.
No happy ending or quick resolution for her.
The final boss fight was inevitable, and facing the deer spirit was likely.
In a tower that felt like the union of magic and miracles, she had returned to her most primal state.
To survive, she had to fight.
Just like every human who had ever lived.
“You’re an idiot.”
A sudden human voice yanked Tarte out of her concentration.
She had such wide vision that people getting close usually caught her eye.
Which meant she had poured every ounce of focus into that single sword swing.
“Your stance is sloppy. Too much power is being wasted.”
The man criticizing her swordsmanship was a drunk uncle.
His head was nearly bald, his body scrawny and unremarkable.
“Do you know anything about swordsmanship?”
Tarte, a total beginner, had asked the same thing when she met a neighborhood sword dojo master.
His reply was cold.
“Cut it out. You can’t swing a sword with those huge tits. Go home, do laundry and sewing. If you still can’t let go of the blade, cut your chest off instead.”
In modern Korea, that would be grounds for a lawsuit, but it was exactly the right thing to say.
And it was exactly what people in Korea meant when they said something was wrong.
Treating a drunk seriously is the real loss.
Tarte decided to ignore him.
But the uncle kept muttering to himself.
“You’re greedy! You don’t want to cut your chest but you still want to handle the sword—it’s greed! Greed! You can’t have everything!”
“If you’re drunk, go sleep it off,” Tarte said, turning her body to face away from him and continue swinging.
She didn’t want to listen to strange noises from the front.
He kept staring at her chest.
But at some point, a feeling of danger she could no longer ignore settled over her.
Was he… perverted?
The only crime that could be imagined from the looks of this scrawny uncle was that.
Thinking that, she turned around—and froze.
A dagger flashed in her hand.
She had just seen the uncle’s face as he tried to stab her.
Murderous intent?
Her blood ran cold.
Was she supposed to scream? Would that shock him into stopping?
Those were the reactions a beautiful woman should have.
But if she did, she would die.
Tarte did the opposite of what her appearance would suggest.
She let the dagger fall and drew her own blade in one fluid motion.
Clang!
The sound of metal on metal rang out.
This was not children playing with sticks, nor a choreographed dance between two people who had agreed to spar.
The man’s sword slammed into hers, merciless and unstoppable.
The scrawny uncle’s strength was monstrous.
Steel ground against steel as Tarte was forced backward, step after step.
She had to retreat sideways when she could go no further back.
Hair she had lost reached the ground before her head did.
The next exchange was relentless.
One slip and she would be dead.
Tarte had thrown her teammates a warning more than once.
Would real death happen in the tower?
The scene of her death dancing right in front of her made the answer clear.
She still did not want to die.
She struggled desperately, but the man wielding the blade was far too experienced.
She was still a complete beginner.
No match for the sword master who had survived countless battlefields.
Even the grip on the sword was terrible, and her palms had torn raw from repeated shock.
She lost the blade because her blood-slick hands slipped.
With nothing left in her hand, the man warned her.
“You’re dead once now. So cut out the sword stuff. You’re so pretty, anyone you meet will probably spare you if you beg for your life. But you can’t hold a sword. The sword is dangerous, so anyone carrying one gets killed. Therefore, swordsmanship is pointless.”