The Female Student's Request (3)
Frey stared at me, sword in hand, her eyes as blank as ever.
"I see you imagining what it would look like to fight me."
'How could you possibly know that?'
"Your body keeps flinching, does it not? One glance at that and I can take a fair guess."
So you're telling me I was shadowboxing before the fight even started?
Halbae predicted all of that just from watching my body twitch. Just what kind of person was this old man in life, anyway?
I suppose someone has to be truly monstrous to be called a hero, but from where I stand now, I can't even begin to fathom it.
Lost in that thought, I raised my shield and mace. I could conjure a shield out of divinity, sure, but honestly, nothing beats the peace of mind that comes from gripping a real, physical one.
"Both of you. Are you ready?"
'Yes.'
"Yeah. Professor Pushover."
"Yep. Me too."
Either way, it was rude vocabulary to aim at a professor, but Anton simply laughed it off.
"Then we shall begin."
The moment Anton declared the start, Frey moved. The very first thought that crossed my mind when I saw her was: fast. There had clearly been a considerable distance between us, yet the gap had closed the instant she took a single step.
Anyone else would have been run through before they could even react to that speed!
But not me!
At this level of speed, I could respond just fine. She might be the next Sword Saint or whatever, but at the end of the day she's still a first-year at the Academy!
Compared to sparring against Forsell and Carl, who work in the field, this much was nothing!
I shifted my shield and deflected the blade, but it wasn't time yet to swing my mace. Baring my teeth too early would be a mistake when the prey outside the water was moving this wildly.
"Pfft♡ Weak little swordswoman♡ Did you really think a flimsy attack like that could so much as scratch my shield?♡"
The moment I threw out the taunt, the corners of Frey's lips curled upward. Why is she smiling? Frey's supposed to be emotionally deficient, not a masochist, right?
The instant that question flooded my head, the euphoria of the Mesugaki skill gave me the answer: she wasn't actually smiling. On the surface she was, but underneath, she was angry.
What the— that actually startled me.
Watching her attacks gather momentum, I raised my shield with a smirk. Come on. Come closer. Step into the water. The moment you peer at the surface out of curiosity is the moment my teeth sink into you.
Frey felt something smoldering somewhere in her chest. What on earth was this?
Not once in her life had Frey ever felt anything like it. And so she never registered the fact that she was angry. Or that the corners of her mouth had lifted. She simply found the burning sensation fascinating.
"Weak little swordswoman♡ You seem awfully relaxed?♡"
Frey desperately knocked aside the mace hurtling toward her and took a step back.
"Hey."
"What is it? Weak little swordswoman♡ Coming to declare your defeat?♡"
"Every time I listen to you, my chest burns. What is this?"
When Frey tilted her head and asked, Lucy's eyes went wide for a moment before she dragged a hand down her face and heaved a sigh. Then she gave a light chuckle and answered the question.
"That means you're angry, weak little swordswoman."
"Angry?"
"That's right."
Angry? Me?
Frey blinked, then closed her eyes and focused on the emotion roiling inside her. Blood was rushing toward her head. Her heart was beating fast. Something hot was surging up from the base of her spine.
So this is what rage feels like.
Frey had been born incapable of feeling emotion. She couldn't understand why her brother smiled when he looked at her. She couldn't understand why her younger sister cried when their pet hamster died. She couldn't understand why her parents raised their voices at her and then left her behind—nor why, after raising those voices, they would hold her, apologize, and weep.
For her, the world was colorless. All Frey ever did was gaze at it with vacant eyes.
The first time she ever felt an emotion was when she was five. While walking down a road, she happened to be caught in a monster attack. Fortunately, her guards subdued the monster before it could harm her—but had they been even a little later, Frey would have lost her life to its fangs.
In that moment. The moment death stared her in the face.
Frey felt it.
She felt the world stain completely black. She felt as though her heart had stopped. A chill shot down her spine and her breath seized in her throat. And when the blackened world flooded back to its original colors and she registered her heart pounding violently, Frey gained a visceral sense of being alive.
Frey didn't know that this feeling was called fear. She simply assumed it was an emotion born of facing a monster. So she told her parents. She asked them how she could fight monsters.
Her parents tried to dissuade her, but once Frey made up her mind, nothing could turn her heart around. And so Frey took up the sword. Trusting only her father's words—that growing stronger would let her meet stronger opponents—she swung blindly, over and over.
Yet from that day forward, Frey never once felt that sensation again. No matter what monster she fought. No matter what person. Her world simply remained drenched in colorlessness.
Because Frey's talent was overwhelmingly vast. Because in all her headlong rush to strength, she had never once met anyone capable of threatening her with death.
That, too, was why Frey had picked a fight with Lucy in the first place. Of all the peers she'd ever met, Lucy looked like she might belong among the strong—and maybe, just maybe, she could gift Frey that same sensation.
Frey was certain her choice had been the right one. Because every single time a word left Lucy's mouth, the world was bleeding red.
If I push her harder, will this red grow even deeper?
Let's find out.
Frey didn't hesitate. Hesitation was a concept she had never known.
Opening her eyes once more, Frey gripped her sword with both hands and glared at Lucy. Her overwhelming talent laid out a few paths before her.
A contest of strength would lose. Any half-baked trickery would be seen through instantly. Her sword could not break that shield. Lucy was tricky.
What did Father say to do in times like this again?
"Weak little swordswoman♡ Can't even move your feet because you're scared of me?♡ What a coward♡"
The instant she heard those words, Frey watched the world drown in crimson.
Right. Stop thinking. Just attack. Shatter that smile of hers.
Perfect plan.
Trusting her instincts, Frey swung her sword wildly. A berserk offensive with defense so far from her mind it might as well not exist. But the turtle's shell was hard. Even under her relentless barrage, Lucy showed not the smallest opening.
As expected, I can't break the shi—
"Is that all you've got?♡ I'm yawning over here?♡ Are you trying to put me to sleep?♡"
Break it.
I can do it.
Frey raised her sword high. Of all the sword strikes she had displayed so far, this was the one with the largest wind-up. The Kent family's inherited finisher. A secret technique whose enormous preparation demanded an equally enormous payoff.
The moment Frey began her stance, Lucy moved. The instant Frey glimpsed those insufferable eyes beyond the shield, she realized she had blundered.
Lucy didn't swing her mace. She didn't shove her away with the shield either. Instead, she grabbed Frey by the waist, hoisted her overhead, and slammed her straight into the ground.
The impact whited out Frey's mind. When she opened her eyes again through the pain, Lucy was straddling her. Seeing the edge of a shield halted a hair's breadth from caving in her face, Frey understood: she had lost.
If only the world hadn't been dyed red, the outcome might have been differ—
If only? Me?
The moment she caught herself thinking that, Frey found herself laughing without meaning to. I really did pick the right person to pick a fight with.
Why is this kid smiling after getting pinned? I genuinely don't get it.
I knew Frey had trouble feeling emotions. But in the game, the first time she felt anger, she gritted her teeth and hurled herself at her enemies like a complete lunatic. Not smiling like she is now.
Come to think of it, her smiling is an incredibly rare event in the first place.
"That's enough."
At Anton's words, I got to my feet. Ah, this is such a pain in the ass. Soul Academy's strongest melee character really is on another level.
"A child of remarkable talent, she is."
'Right?'
"Though it seems she has not yet fully bloomed."
'...That's not bloomed?'
She's already absurdly strong as it is!
I only barely won with the Iron Wall skill, Divinity buffs, the Mesugaki skill debuff stacking against me, AND Halbae's help—and she still hasn't fully bloomed?
"The day she crosses that wall, she will grow strong beyond all reason."
Now that I think about it, during Frey's personal quest, if you helped her attain her enlightenment of the sword, she grew at a breakneck pace.
Halbae. You read all of that just from watching one fight?!
A true hero really is something else.
I was marveling at Halbae's eye for talent when Anton's voice snapped me back to reality.
"Thank you both for a magnificent display. Everyone, a round of applause!"
As the students who'd watched our fight broke into applause, there was exactly one exception—a boy slumped face-first onto his desk. He looked like he was friends with that little shrimp. Was he just really tired?
"Go, go!"
Harry was screaming his support for Frey at the top of his lungs.
The exchange between Lucy and Frey had been one-sided. Frey unleashed a storm of attacks while Lucy did nothing but defend. Ask anyone which of the two held the advantage in that fight, and the answer would be Frey every time.
Jacob had been certain Lucy couldn't lose, but watching the bout unfold, an uneasiness had crept up on him all the same. Could even the Lady of House Alrn not defeat the Lady of House Kent?
And then it happened.
Frey abruptly raised her sword high, and Lucy did not let the opening slip. Dropping her weapon entirely, she lunged at Frey, lifted her clean off the ground, and drove her body straight down into the floor.
BOOM!
In a scene that made anyone wince just from hearing the sound, Lucy immediately pinned Frey down and brought her shield hurtling toward the girl's small face. The shield stopped just short—but the outcome was obvious to anyone watching.
Lucy had won. A flawless comeback victory.
At a sight no one had predicted, silence fell over the students who'd been watching her.
"Thank you both for a magnificent display! Everyone, a round of applause!"
Anton's shout shattered the silence—yet one person alone remained trapped in shock, unable to escape it.
"Impossible. This is rigged."
It was Harry. Forehead pressed against his desk, he kept muttering the same words over and over.
One student had fallen into despair, but that was none of Anton's concern. Whatever lingering amusement the high-level fight had given him kept pulling laughter out of him.
"Now then, everyone! What did that fight just now look like to you?!"
"A one-hit comeback?"
One of the students answered, but Anton shook his head.
"It may have looked that way, but it was not. This was a victory designed to perfection!"
So saying, Anton explained exactly how it had been engineered. Since Lucy was the slower of the two, attacking recklessly would only put her at a disadvantage. So she dug in on defense and baited her opponent into a mistake. And the instant her opponent misjudged, she seized them.
Listening to Anton's explanation, Jacob couldn't help but be awestruck. As expected of the Lady of Alrn. What she showed in that dungeon was no fluke.
Jacob gazed at Lucy, sitting in the front row listening to Anton's lecture, with eyes full of admiration.
Frey, apparently utterly undaunted by her single loss, came straight to find me the moment class ended and asked me to spar with her. I refused flatly. Sure, sparring with you would help me improve, but I've got things to do?
When I told her next time, Frey walked off somewhere with a perfectly blank expression.
Well then. Nuisance shaken off, today's classes all done—time to grab Carl and go knock out some quests!