Chapter 320: Bread and Dagger (18)
Chapter 320: Bread and Dagger (18)
The girl and I stood with our backs to the night.
The midnight forest was silent. It was a place unvisited unless by lovers sharing a secret tryst. Only the occasional secretive whisper betrayed any sign of human presence.
Even those were shattered by the crying of birds.
In the end, only silence settled over the forest clearing.
It was an excellent environment to compose one's mind and focus on the sword.
I was savoring the feel of the wooden sword, which I hadn't held in a long time.
It felt cold and smooth.
I swung it a few times as a test, and a light weightiness was transmitted to my hand. It was a sensation that a real sword made of metal could never replicate.
I couldn't even remember how long it had been since I was last liberated from that heavy sense of mass.
In all the battles I had fought until now, there had been no such thing as practice.
Every struggle had been a real battle.
I hadn't had the luxury to idly hold a wooden sword.
There had always been a blade in my hand, and for months, I had seized victory while spilling blood and flesh. I had learned the weight of life through a real sword.
That was why the light, unburdened weight of the wooden sword felt particularly pleasant.
It had been a long time since I had entered a fight without carrying anything on my shoulders.
Was Professor Derek’s lecture just before the Homecoming Festival the last time I had sparred?
Even that had been training that required a level of tension equivalent to a real battle. It was incomparable in intensity to crossing swords with Seria for a change of pace.
With a faint smile, I adjusted the position of my sword's point.
My posture carried a hint of relaxed composure.
In contrast, the girl standing opposite me was visibly tense.
With every breath she took, her chest expanded and contracted. She was taking deep breaths.
It seemed she was trying to force her nerves to settle.
This was a spar to purely test our skills.
It was a fight where she didn't need to be anxious, yet Seria was burning with more fighting spirit than necessary.
I couldn't know the exact reason why.
I could only assume that her spar with the "me" from the future had influenced her.
Not long ago, Seria had challenged my future self. And without a single exception, she had suffered a miserable defeat.
It wasn't just Seria's body that had been broken then.
Seria had grown up being called a genius of the sword.
As an illegitimate daughter of the Yurdina family, she had devoted herself to the sword alone despite all the sorrow she endured. To her, the sword was more than just self-esteem.
Perhaps she wanted to use this opportunity to prove her skills once again.
Even if she only managed to fight me to a draw, her goal would be achieved. She would be able to refute the claim made by my future self.
That assessment that Seria was no longer useful.
Because of that, I sharpened my momentum even further.
This was a fight between swordsmen. If I showed unnecessary meddling or pity, it would only leave an irreversible wound on Seria's pride.
The moment Seria calmed her mind and took a proper stance—
"……Here I come."
A gray gale charged forward.
Her blue eyes flashed through the dim darkness. It was a thrust so sharp it was hard to believe it came from a wooden sword.
Clang! The swords, swung with full force, bounced off each other.
The heavy sensation felt as if metal were clashing; as long as they were in our hands, these wooden swords were not mere practice equipment.
They were lethal weapons that could take a life at any moment if we so willed.
As if to prove this, Seria’s strikes surged in rapid succession. Just as she was about to strike in a diagonal trajectory from the bottom left to the top right—
I suddenly realized that the posture was familiar.
The Yurdina family's secret art: Golden Silk Sword.
The strike that soared toward the sky instantly split into three strands and plunged down.
I let out a gasp of shock at those blue lines of light and leaped backward.
The sword grazed me, slicing slightly through the front of my clothes. A few drops of blood splattered, and I felt a stinging pain.
At this rate, the distinction between a wooden sword and a real sword was meaningless.
Having entered the spar with a light heart, I couldn't help but be flustered.
An urgent dissuasion escaped my lips.
"Seria, using a family secret art in a mere spar…!"
"……I’m coming!"
However, Seria seemed to have already made up her mind.
Biting her lip, Seria took another firm step forward. Then, with a thump, the space seemed to compress as the girl’s figure shot forward.
Only then did I realize.
Why Seria had been so tense.
From the beginning, Seria and I had approached this spar with entirely different mindsets.
Seria was dead serious.
And only sincerity could face sincerity.
I grit my teeth and circulated mana throughout my body.
As I did, my dormant senses awakened, and my vision began to chart the space. Seria was swinging her sword down with perfect form.
I can see it.
A virtual trajectory predicted Seria's next move. My extremely heightened senses were no different from a limited ability of foresight.
She was truly the orthodox of the orthodox.
The chain attacks that flowed like water seemed to have not a single opening. If it had been the old me, I would have been helpless.
Yes, if it were the me of the past.
But I was not that person anymore.
My hand crushed the threads of spacetime. A strange sense of lethargy arose as the mana in my body was consumed, but it was an action worth the cost.
Seria's strikes continued to draw bizarre trajectories.
Within the distorted space, the wooden sword could not reach me. My sword, bursting through that gap, unleashed a flurry of strikes like a beast.
Clang, clang, clang!
Seria hastily shifted to a defensive posture. It was a quick response, but she couldn't cover the inevitable gaps that appeared in the process.
Just as I seemed to be swinging downward, our swords clashed, and I took another step forward at the same time.
Forced into an unreasonable proximity, Seria faltered and retreated. Driven into a defensive position, she couldn't offer an active response.
And then, a driving kick slammed home.
Because she was on guard, my strike was blocked by Seria's sword. But it didn't matter. All I was aiming for was time.
Once again, I struck down with all my might, hitting the blade of Seria's sword.
Seria let out a faint groan and stumbled back.
It was a result I could never have achieved a few months ago. Back then, the gap between Seria and me had been vast.
But now, I had a strange intuition.
A certainty that I could defeat Seria.
While Seria wavered and retreated a couple of steps, my sword dropped to the lower left.
A large movement usually entails a corresponding opening.
As if determined not to miss this chance, Seria rushed at me again.
That was her mistake.
The sword that had dropped to the lower left soared toward the sky.
Only then did Seria's eyes widen. It was a reversal of the exchange we had at the beginning.
No, there was a difference.
Even if she tried to dodge, Seria was already too late.
From the zenith, five strands of silver flash poured down.
Seria tried to block it by turning her sword flat. However, there was no way she could block every single one of the sword lights falling like rain.
A sharp cracking sound erupted.
It was the sound of a wooden sword shattering. Unable to withstand my decisive blow, Seria had to stumble back several steps.
Then, falling to her knees, she coughed up a mouthful of blood.
It seemed she had used the mana in her body to minimize the impact.
The conclusion was that in the process, her mana had become oversaturated, causing the wooden sword to crumble and her blood points to fall into disarray, leading her to spit blood.
The winner was clear.
I composed my breath, which was about to turn ragged, and sheathed my sword.
Immediately after, words of faint concern escaped me.
"Seria, are you okay?"
It was a rather brazen thing to say for someone who had used Aura to snatch the victory.
But what else could I do? If Seria was going all-out, I had to meet her with the same.
As I tried to step closer, a pale hand stopped me.
Seria tapped her chest a few times, then pulled a healing potion from her robe and gulped it down. Only then did she seem to regain some stability.
Her complexion had turned somewhat pale.
Seria stood up unsteadily, a self-deprecating smile on her lips.
"It's a complete defeat, Senior Ian… I'm no match for you anymore."
"I was lucky."
At my humility, the arc of Seria's lips grew even more bitter.
I didn't say anything until Seria spoke again. I didn't even offer a common word of comfort.
Accepting the defeat was entirely Seria's burden.
I only hoped that, in the long run, it would help her grow. Seria was not a swordsman weak enough to be broken by this; she would surely overcome the pain and rise again.
As if answering that wish, Seria let out a heavy breath, as if feeling refreshed.
The corners of the girl's eyes curved into a soft line.
"You're amazing, Senior Ian… How did you grow so much in such a short time?"
Finally, it felt as if my growth had been validated.
And it was an acknowledgment from the very person I had been miserably defeated by months ago, unable to even put up a proper resistance.
There was no way I wouldn't be happy.
I had already surpassed Seria.
Enough to seize victory with a fair amount of composure.