I Surrender
“Whew. That feels a little better.”
“…….”
“That place down there is basically a dungeon. Doesn’t living like that get stifling?”
Estelle, who had casually turned Carlton into a human mole without a shred of malice, was walking along behind Juhan. More precisely, she was following him to the place he had designated.
“You said you wanted to do it outside the village, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you? Doing it at Baron Anton’s manor wouldn’t be so bad either.”
“…It’s a little stuffy in there.”
“Well, if that’s how you feel.”
From the brief conversation they’d shared on the way up from underground, Estelle’s personality felt like Carius himself poured into a new body.
“What’s your main weapon? A sword, I assume?”
“…….”
“Still, once doesn’t feel like enough, does it? Maybe we should go a little longe—”
That mouth that never stopped talking. Looking at her, there was no doubt she was Carius’s descendant.
The good news is she doesn’t seem to recognize me.
That was only natural. Juhan had managed to walk around with the Saintess herself without his identity getting out.
Thinking that, he casually glanced over Estelle’s belongings.
Sword, bracelet, necklace… Nothing else looks particularly special.
Still, complacency was the enemy. Stay optimistic, but never let your guard down—that was the idea.
He reminded himself again: she was Carius’s direct descendant. The legitimate daughter of House Valter, a name that had reached even as far as remote Anton Village.
“Hm?”
Perhaps she felt his gaze.
“Why are you staring like that?”
“No reason.”
“Heh. Don’t tell me you’re nervous.”
Estelle smirked at him, looking thoroughly entertained. It wasn’t mockery—she simply seemed to be enjoying the situation for what it was.
“By the way.”
Still trailing after him, Estelle tossed out a question.
“Do you have a master?”
“No. I don’t have one. Why?”
“Just curious.”
She shrugged as if it were nothing.
“Your movements are a little weird. Or maybe ‘unusual’ is the better word.”
At that, Juhan’s steps faltered for the briefest instant.
“It’s like you’re wearing clothes that don’t fit. Hah… how do I even explain this.”
“…….”
“Your presence feels pretty strong, but you leave yourself wide open more than you’d expect. Like someone who thinks they have an extra life to spare.”
Estelle’s eyes sparkled as she described how different his movements were.
“So I figured you’d learned some special martial art. There are styles that deliberately expose openings, after all.”
But if he said he hadn’t…
With that muttered observation, Estelle fell quiet. Silence settled between them once more.
In that silence Juhan kept walking, eyes forward, looking for all the world as if nothing were wrong.
Deliberately leaving openings…
Inside, he was more than a little rattled. Because she wasn’t wrong.
Juhan had never formally studied the sword arts—or any martial discipline—of this world. What he did have was practical combat skill for survival and reaction speed backed by an exceptional body. Put harshly, he had no foundation for fighting at all.
I can see why Velkras looked at me the way he did.
Velkras, the Stigma Knight who had urged him to become a Holy Knight, had probably seen Juhan as an uncut gem dropped in the dirt—one he could shape however he pleased. Attractive enough that he’d suggested the knighthood without even exchanging names first.
Learning proper swordsmanship or hand-to-hand techniques might not be a bad idea.
With that thought, Juhan walked on. Before long they reached the sparring ground he had chosen.
“Here?”
Estelle stopped and asked if this was the place. Juhan nodded and spoke.
“This work for you? We won’t draw any unwanted eyes.”
“Looks good.”
A wide clearing atop a hill with almost no sign of people. She glanced down at the village below for a moment, then turned back to him.
“You’ll use a sword, right?”
“Yeah. Fists are fine too.”
“I like how straightforward you are. Shall we start right away?”
Shiiing.
Still watching him, Estelle drew her blade and added,
“These rules apply to every spar, but better to say them out loud.”
“Rules?”
“No fatal wounds. Don’t aim for vital points like the neck or eyes. If the other person surrenders, it’s over.”
“Got it.”
With that, Juhan drew his own sword and faced her. One hand on the hilt each, they watched each other closely.
Looking at Estelle, Juhan formed a single impression.
No openings.
The moment she took up her sword, her entire presence flipped a hundred and eighty degrees, as if she had become someone else. Like an ordinary roadside pebble transforming into a ferocious beast.
Her words might have been light and her manner casual, but she was still the descendant of a Hero.
Juhan was the one who broke the standoff.
Fwoosh!
Boom!
As he pushed off, the ground where he’d stood caved in.
“…….”
Estelle watched him carefully.
Their eyes met for an instant. Without hesitation Juhan swung his sword in a horizontal arc.
Kaaang!
Estelle caught the strike with effortless grace.
“Whoa…”
Screeeech—
Accompanied by the grinding of steel on steel, she looked at him with open curiosity.
“Even the knights of my house would have trouble stopping that.”
Her eyes glittered, as if he’d exceeded her expectations.
The words had barely left her mouth before her blade slid down the face of his sword in a flash.
Shhk!
Crap—!
Sensing the danger, Juhan instinctively pulled his sword back and sprang away, putting distance between them.
“Good instincts. Reaction speed’s excellent too. The more I look…”
Estelle murmured to herself as she watched.
“My turn?”
KRAAASH!
With that, she kicked off hard and charged straight at him.
Fast.
Juhan’s eyes went wide.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t see the afterimages at all. The problem was that she was fast enough to deny him the time to react to them.
Kaaang!
Her sword crashed down onto the blade he had raised on pure instinct.
What kind of strength is—
“Wow, you blocked that too?”
A short note of admiration. She recovered her sword at once and swept it toward his side.
Kaaang!
Kh—!
There was no room to answer. Estelle’s assault was only beginning.
Kang!
From below to above.
Chaaang!
From above to below again.
A storm of linked strikes. All Juhan could do was grit his teeth and meet them with his own blade.
Kaaang!
Kang!
Perhaps she was delighted that he kept stopping her attacks. A bright, thoroughly entertained smile had already settled on Estelle’s lips.
Juhan, of course, was losing his mind. And something else made the situation even more awkward.
This isn’t even her full strength?
No matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t shake the suspicion that this was not Estelle at her limit. The way she moved right now looked far more like she was simply having fun.
“I like this. I really do.”
Kaaang!
In that moment Estelle withdrew her sword and lightly stepped back.
“I think I finally understand why you caught my attention.”
Her eyes settled into something far more serious.
Fwoosh!
She leapt at him again.
And in that instant, Juhan knew.
Now.
A gap—tiny, fleeting—had shown itself in Estelle’s form. Spotting that opening in a fraction of a second, he decided there would not be another chance.
Boom!
His body shot forward to meet her.
“Hm?”
Perhaps she hadn’t expected him to come at her head-on. Estelle watched with mild surprise for a beat, then swung as if to say, suit yourself.
But it had all been a feint.
Kaaang!
The instant their blades met, Juhan twisted his sword and bled off the impact. Then he spun his body hard.
Shhk!
The tip of his blade lightly sliced across Estelle’s waist.
Too shallow.
It wasn’t a clean hit. In that same split second she had seen the motion and twisted away. His sword had only nicked her clothes.
Even so, it seemed to land as a genuine shock.
“…….”
For the first time, the ease vanished from Estelle’s face. She simply stared at the cut fabric in silence.
Whooosh—
Stillness settled over the hilltop.
Within it, Juhan lowered his sword and dragged in rough breaths.
I can’t keep this up…
He was done. If the fight went any further, he was liable to call out Number Six without meaning to.
Estelle, however, seemed to feel otherwise.
Huh?
Swaaaa—
Before he knew it, an unidentified whirlwind was gathering around her. Grass at her feet lifted into the air; even the small stones began to tremble. Anyone watching would have known something serious was about to happen.
“…….”
Estelle simply stared at him without a word.
Hold on.
Seeing her like that, Juhan decided that taking a direct hit from whatever was coming would not end at a few broken bones.
So he shouted the only words that could stop her rampage.
“I surrender.”
Deep beneath Anton Village, in Carlton’s workshop.
“Damn that bastard… shit…”
Carlton was pouring a stream of curses into empty air while fiddling with the metal plates.
He looked like he had all the time in the world. Couldn’t he have just let me fix the bracelet first?
He grumbled inwardly, but his hands moved busier than anyone’s.
Click. Click.
He’d been irritated at first, yet once he started examining the other plates and confirming their contents, nothing could have been more fascinating.
“…….”
At some point Carlton had fallen silent. The only sounds filling the workshop were those of something being assembled.
About five minutes later—
Snap.
Shhhh—
“I knew it!”
Having successfully joined the edges of the plates, Carlton thrust his arms high and cheered. Exactly as he’d predicted.
The tiny mechanisms on the plates had clearly been made for connecting them to one another.
No one would ever notice this unless they were the original craftsman—or someone with a deep understanding of magic engineering.
After a brief moment of self-congratulation, Carlton turned the fitted plates this way and that.
He had gotten them together, but he had no plan for what came next.
Then, at that exact moment—
Ziiing—
“W-whoa!”
A faint light began to spill from the seams where the plates met.
“Huh?”
To Carlton’s eyes it was unmistakably a mana reaction—and an extremely powerful one.
Zing!
That wasn’t the end of it. One by one, the patterns etched into the plates began to glow… and then rose into the air.
Countless particles of light. It looked as if stars were being scattered across the room.
Carlton stared blankly at the sight.
And then, right in front of him, an unexpected scene began to take shape.
Chzzzt—
Chzzt—
The light particles in the air started forming shapes. They looked unmistakably human.
And there wasn’t just one. A male figure and a female figure—two in total.
What startled Carlton even more, though, was something else entirely.
“……….”
“Huh?”
The phantoms seemed to be speaking to each other, as if holding a conversation.
What are they saying?
Carlton leaned in to listen. What reached him was—
“Carius… must you truly go through with this?”
A woman’s voice, low and heavy with sorrow.