Fissure (2)
“Haaah~ Do we really have to do this spar? Nothing’s more boring than a fight whose outcome is already obvious.”
A yawn laced with open mockery.
His opponent looked down on Basil to the very end, stretching with casual arrogance.
But the moment the starting signal rang out, killing intent flashed across the face that had just swallowed its yawn.
Like a beast that would not even allow him the chance to step back, the boy closed the distance at explosive speed and brought his sword down.
Clang—!
Just as I had advised, Basil took a thoroughly defensive stance rather than an aggressive advance.
He blocked the first strike.
The second, he barely deflected.
The third.
The fourth.
The fifth.
Under the relentless flurry, Basil’s feet scraped lines across the sparring floor as he was driven backward.
“Booo! That’s all a special-admission student can do?!”
“How the hell did someone with skills like that even get in?!”
Jeers erupted from the stands.
Yet Basil never once counterattacked.
Don’t get swept up in his momentum. Endure at the start no matter what. If you do… an opening will definitely appear.
I had fought this opponent countless times in the game.
So I knew. His sword was fast and strong, but it was brutally monotonous—and it wouldn’t last long.
A nasty smile curled at the corner of the boy’s mouth, as if victory were already certain. Judging that Basil’s guard had collapsed, he raised his sword high overhead for the finishing blow.
In that exact moment when no one doubted Basil’s defeat—
when the opponent’s blade was about to come crashing down toward Basil’s head—
sound, movement,
everything slowed.
No—it felt as if it had stopped.
Every cheer in the sparring hall was wiped away, and my vision held only the blade flying in like a death scream and
Basil’s eyes, completely transformed from before.
No longer the eyes of a trembling loser,
but the eyes of a protagonist who had to bring down the enemy before him in order to survive.
Baaang—!!
Basil deflected the sword to the side and, at the same time, drove in at an unbelievable angle.
A movement that discarded every textbook form.
An efficient motion that existed only to win, nowhere in any manual.
“Guaaaagh!”
With a dull thud, Basil’s shoulder slammed straight into the opponent’s chest.
A classic shoulder check.
The kind of street-fight move that high-born nobles despised. The boy staggered, his balance gone.
Seizing that fleeting opening, Basil drove the pommel of his wooden sword precisely into the spot just below the sternum.
Thud!
With a choked sound, the boy dropped to his knees without even managing a scream.
Silence.
The jeers that had filled the hall evaporated as if they had never existed.
Hundreds of students—and even the instructor acting as referee—stood with mouths open, unable to believe what they had just witnessed.
“W-what the hell was that…?”
“Just now… what did we see?”
Murmurs broke the silence and spread through the entire sparring hall like a great wave.
“Th-this is ridiculous! That’s foul play! A dirty trick! That’s not proper swordsmanship!!”
The opponent screamed in something close to desperation.
Basil wordlessly lowered his wooden sword, quietly adjusted his stance, and bowed his head.
A disciplined, courteous motion. That calm demeanor only magnified the loser’s humiliation.
“…Winner, Basil!”
When the instructor’s trembling voice rang out across the hall, every eye present fixed on Basil as he caught his ragged breath.
And among those countless gazes, my eyes sought only one person.
Ricotta.
She had already uncrossed her arms and straightened, staring at Basil. In her ash-gray eyes, for the first time, something other than contempt or indifference had risen.
Whether it was admiration or confusion, I could not say for certain.
And I
did not miss the way her lips
moved, very small and quiet.
So tiny and low that no one but me could have heard the murmur.
“No foundation, no form, no beauty… just swinging to survive…”
And at the end,
like a conclusion,
another phrase was added.
“…Like a warrior.”
At that moment, a clear chime rang and a new system window appeared before my eyes.
Detecting emotional change in key character ‘Ricotta’.
Emotion toward ‘Basil’: <Hostility> → <Interest mixed with disgust>
Time remaining: 4 days 11 hours
Interest mixed with disgust, huh…
The “disgust” stuck in front bothered me a little, but what did that matter?
Even if she found him disgusting, he was no longer someone she could ignore. That fact alone was enough. A sigh of relief slipped out of me.
Leaving the noisy sparring hall behind, we slipped into a quiet corridor. The mixed gazes of awe, envy, and suspicion from the other students pricked hotly at our backs.
“You okay, Basil?”
At my question he managed a nod. His face was so pale it was hard to believe he was the winner. His lips were dry, his breathing rough.
“…Sorry, Saya. I… fought so ugly, didn’t I?”
“No.”
I shook my head firmly.
“It wasn’t ugly. It was the best you could do to survive. And you didn’t even use any foul that broke the rules, right?”
“Still…”
“You really did well, Basil.”
Just as he tried to offer a faint smile at my encouragement—
“Hey, commoner trash!”
A sneering voice floated from the far end of the corridor. When I turned, the noble boy who had just been thoroughly crushed by Basil was blocking our path with five or six of his friends. His face was flushed crimson with rage and shame.
“I’ll pay you back for the humiliation in the sparring hall right here. This isn’t an official match, so feel free to use as many of those dirty tricks you’re so good at.”
With nasty grins they cracked their knuckles and slowly closed the distance. A deserted side corridor with no instructors and no other students. We were isolated in an instant.
Basil reflexively stepped in front of me. His back was still trembling. He had exhausted both stamina and focus in the previous match. Facing this many people now was impossible.
“Honestly… you only ever choose the lowest things to do.”
Then an ice-cold voice rang out from behind us.
Mine, Basil’s, and even the boys threatening us—every gaze in the corridor turned toward the sound.
Ricotta.
How long had she been there?
She was looking this way with indifferent eyes.
“L-Lady Ricotta!”
The defeated noble hastily bowed. He had been caught red-handed trying to carry out a cowardly beatdown right in front of the daughter of the ducal house known as the Sword of the Empire.
Her ash-gray gaze was fixed on only one place: Basil’s back and, beyond it, me. Ricotta walked over slowly and came to stand beside us—as if she were on our side.
“You lose a one-on-one spar and now you plan to overwhelm him with numbers? Are you personally demonstrating what it means to be a disgrace to the nobility?”
The weight of the words she spat was immense. The faces of the noble group went deathly pale. After exchanging glances, they fled in utter panic.
In the blink of an eye only three people remained in the corridor: me, Basil, and Ricotta.
Silence settled. Awkward and stifling.
Why had Ricotta helped us? Because she couldn’t stand anyone else touching what was hers? Or…
“You.”
The first person Ricotta addressed was not me, but Basil.
“That movement earlier—it was not proper swordsmanship.”
“….”
“Yet you defeated proper swordsmanship with it.”
She looked straight into Basil’s eyes. There was no longer any hostility in them. Rather, a strange interest lingered.
“Th-thank you very much!!”
Startled by the unexpected words, Basil bent nearly double at the waist as he shouted.
…
…
I had expected the warm conversation to continue.
Some recognition, maybe even advice exchanged.
I had hoped for something like that…
but only awkward silence hung between the two of them.
In the end, it was Ricotta who broke it.
“Do you still have business with my helper?”
A faint irritation colored her voice.
“Huh? Ah, no, I’ll be going now.”
Understanding her meaning, Basil hurriedly bowed and fled down the corridor as if escaping.
Wait…?
Me?
Once Basil was gone, Ricotta’s ash-gray eyes turned fully on me.
“Is there… something you wish me to do, my lady?”
“Your turn is coming soon, is it not? It would be troublesome if you paid so much attention to someone else’s spar that you failed to take care of your own.”
Ah, my sparring turn…
Come to think of it, once Basil’s match ended it would soon be mine.
“Haha… thank you for your concern.”
“So, how was it?”
“Pardon? Ah, as you saw yourself, my lady, it wasn’t orthodox swordsmanship, but it pursued efficiency and strength—”
“I am not talking about him.”
Ricotta cut me off coldly.
…
Her ash-gray eyes stared straight into mine. Inside them, a clear light of expectation had risen.
What was this situation?
Was she asking me? How her own sword had looked?
A request for cold analysis? Or… did she want praise?
Based on Ricotta’s personality and the data I had faced thousands of times in the game, I had to find the optimal choice. Simple flattery would be meaningless, and a careless criticism would be dangerous.
I took a quiet breath. Then, steeling myself, I met her eyes directly.
“My lady’s swordsmanship was perfect. Except for one thing.”