Chapter 85: World's Greatest Husband Contest—Main Tournament (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 85: World's Greatest Husband Contest—Main Tournament (3)
"Killing your opponent under any circumstances will result in disqualification! Everything else is permitted! Let the first match of the main tournament begin!"
Under Sreng's booming shout, Natalia and Roengram clashed.
The former husband who had trampled over her entire life, and the former wife who had dragged that husband down into the abyss.
In a way, their meeting on this stage seemed like destiny.
After all, despite being the one who orchestrated everything, I hadn't actually witnessed the moment Roengram lost it all.
'So, I really hope Natalia completely crushes him...'
Regardless, the opponent was someone who held the title of Sword Saint in the Clausewitz family, where skill determined everything.
At least, that was his reputation. Helena and I watched the match with bated breath.
Then, Valeria—a complete outsider and someone entirely ignorant of swordsmanship—suddenly turned to Helena.
"Hmm... Hey, Helena."
"...Yes?"
"I don't know much about this, but is this actually a fair fight?"
"That's... Haa, to be honest, I'm quite surprised myself..."
Valeria's gaze shifted to me next.
Her eyes were asking, 'What do you think?' but my answer was the same as Helena's.
"Just trust what you're seeing."
"Right? Gosh, I was worried for nothing."
Indeed, looking from a distance, not only Andrasta but even Sreng and Irusan looked deeply disappointed.
Quite literally, Roengram was being toyed with as if Natalia were giving him a guided sparring lesson.
For instance, take the situation unfolding right before our eyes.
"Kuh... ugh...! Aaaah!!"
Roengram, who had been repelled once again, let out a grotesque scream and charged.
On the surface, it was a perfect vertical slash—no wasted movement, full of discipline and momentum.
In reality, if one tried to block or parry it half-heartedly, they would be split in two from head to crotch. However...
—Skreeee!
The problem was that this "perfect" strike was exactly what Natalia intended.
Roengram's sword, aimed at Natalia's right shoulder, slid helplessly down her blade as she held it at a diagonal angle.
Because of this, Roengram's posture completely collapsed, and Natalia kindly pointed out his opening with her sword.
—Thwip.
The tip of Natalia's blade lightly pierced Roengram's right thigh.
If she stabbed too deep, he would bleed to death, so it was a shallow strike that only stained the very tip of her sword red... but.
"Gwaaaaah...!!"
Roengram clutched his thigh and shrieked so loudly it made me wince.
It was enough to make a spectator mutter, "Is he really making that much of a fuss over a tiny prick?"
Natalia flicked the blood off her sword with a look of disgust and glared down at Roengram with contempt.
"I knew you were like this... but at this point, it's just absurd."
"Kuh... ugh... what... did you say...?"
"Just how sheltered was your upbringing? You've never once faced an opponent stronger than yourself, have you? Have you been strutting around as the Sword Saint your whole life while only beating those weaker than you?"
Watching Roengram fall to one knee while staring blankly at Natalia, his past life seemed clear as day.
To put it simply, he was a flower in a greenhouse...
As the son of the previous Sword Saint, he likely learned the sword in an environment where he couldn't lose even if he wanted to.
In other words, Roengram was a mediocre man who had claimed the title of Sword Saint only because Natalia and Helena weren't there.
"Still, seeing as he passed the preliminaries, I suppose the Sword Saint bloodline is something else..."
As I muttered that to myself, Helena replied in a hollow voice.
"Just what did my sister and I swing our swords for all those years...?"
I silently wrapped my arm around Helena's shoulder.
Even if it was all in the past now, there was a time when Natalia and Helena chased the star that was the title of Sword Saint.
To realize that the star was nothing more than a hollow illusion that never truly existed... it must feel empty and futile.
I wanted to fill that void in her heart right now, but unfortunately, there were too many eyes on us. And we didn't have the Magic Mirror Ship.
As I took my eyes off the arena for a moment, I heard Sitri's intrigued voice.
"Hmph, he's getting back up. Though his expression looks even worse than before."
"Huh? Oh... you're right."
In fact, the thigh wasn't Roengram's only wound.
A long gash on his left cheek, his right shoulder dripping with red blood...
They were all shallow, but not injuries to be taken lightly.
A normal person would have admitted defeat before reaching this point.
"A mere pest from a collateral branch dares...! What? I've never met someone stronger than me? Of course not! Because I am the strongest!"
"...Haa."
"I was going to kill you slowly once I became the King of Erin or whatever, but I have no choice. Die with pride! I'll show you a technique a lowly girl from a collateral branch couldn't even dream of!"
Natalia simply raised her sword without a word.
Watching her, Roengram shouted even louder.
"Look closely! This is the secret technique passed down only to the Sword Saint—the Sword Saint Technique!"
Sword Saint Technique... Literally, it meant the technique of the Sword Saint, specifically the first one, but for some reason, the only image that came to my mind was a shriveled chili pepper.
Something small and wrinkly.
However, Helena's reaction was unusual.
"That technique actually existed...?"
"What, is it that impressive?"
"Yes, Young Master. It's the technique the first Sword Saint used to subjugate the Demonic Dragon Fafnir when it attacked the Imperial Capital. Both my sister and I believed it was just a legend...!"
I quickly turned my head and saw Roengram taking a new stance.
Even Natalia's eyes had sharpened.
'He's lowered his body to the extreme and shifted his entire center of gravity forward. It's a stance that screams his intention to only move forward and never retreat...'
In a way, it was a stance that only a true hero would take.
A giant, evil dragon slaughtering and trampling lives that were already struggling to survive.
The first Sword Saint, shouting with his whole body that he wouldn't take a single step back against it.
Roengram's stance for the Sword Saint Technique felt so extraordinary that it evoked a scene from such a myth.
Just as the tension reached its breaking point...
—Flash!
"...!"
Roengram lunged at Natalia with such incredible speed that it felt like he had vanished for a split second.
"Secret Sword: Soaring Dragon!"
*
An explosive force so immense that he was momentarily lost from sight.
A stance so low his knees almost touched the ground.
A strike that surged upward like a dragon taking to the skies.
The ultimate technique of the first Sword Saint, the Secret Sword: Soaring Dragon, was indeed a hero's strike worthy of its name.
However, as Natalia watched it unfold, the only thought in her mind was a deep sense of disappointment.
'If only the user weren't you.'
Roengram's Soaring Dragon, closing in by the second, was more than capable of cutting Natalia's body in two.
Assuming, of course, that the attack landed.
As if such a premise were impossible even if the heavens collapsed and the earth split, Natalia lightly parried the Sword Saint's secret blade.
With a simple defense—sliding her own sword diagonally into the trajectory of the attack to deflect the force.
—Screeeech!
"...!"
The Soaring Dragon was the hero's strike that the first Sword Saint used to sever the wings of the dragon flying through the sky and bring it crashing to the earth.
When that legend, which he had never doubted for a second, shattered before his eyes, Roengram once again wore a look of utter disbelief.
Toward the all-too-ordinary Sword Saint, Natalia spoke tonelessly.
"A hero's strike only reveals its true value when used by a hero. A mediocre man like you can't even imitate it properly."
"Me... mediocre...?!"
"That strike just now would only show its true worth if it were imbued with the resolve to sacrifice one's entire life. What did you put into that sword, into that strike? Ambition? Greed? Lust?"
"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! What do you know?! What does a lowly collateral whore like you know?!"
"I know. Because as a child, I admired the hero who threw everything away to protect the people, and I tried to become that hero."
Finishing her sentence, Natalia immediately took a stance.
A stance with her body lowered to the extreme and her center of gravity shifted entirely forward—the exact same stance as the Secret Sword: Soaring Dragon.
The moment he saw it, Roengram burst into hollow laughter.
"Ha... haha, hahaha! You're going to try and imitate it? You, a loser who failed to become the Sword Saint!"
Natalia simply looked toward a certain spot in the spectator seats without a word.
Toward the people who would be watching her from somewhere in that crowd.
Finally, Natalia's lips parted softly.
'...Secret Sword: Soaring Dragon.'
Leaving the glint of her green eyes behind like an afterimage, Natalia's body shot forward.
"Ugh...!"
In a mere heartbeat, Natalia was at Roengram's feet.
"Aaaaaah!!!"
As Natalia approached his face in an instant, Roengram thrust his sword toward the space between her brows.
Like a maddened dragon making its final desperate struggle.
Without ever looking away from the sword approaching her forehead, without ever blinking, Natalia surged straight upward.
—Clang!
If Roengram was the dragon trampling innocent lives, Natalia was the human leaping toward him.
A human who gave everything for the people watching her from behind.
Against Roengram's sword descending from above, Natalia's sword rising from below was truly a dragon soaring into the sky.
—Clatter...
Roengram's sword—the blade with which the first Sword Saint had slain the dragon—was split in half and tumbled to the ground.
Broken by a nameless sword that had been hidden in the shadows and lost its light.
"Impossible... Balmung is..."
Leaving Roengram kneeling before his broken sword, Natalia turned around without a word.
She sheathed her sword, which didn't have a single nick, let alone a scratch.
Only then did the crowd, who had forgotten to breathe, erupt into cheers and applause.
"Waaaaaaaah!!!"
It was a cliché expression, but it was truly a thunderous roar.
Welcoming back the Sword Princess who had returned from the darkness, and shouting the name of the Sword Saint who had finally found its rightful owner, the entire audience chanted Natalia's name repeatedly.
"Long live Sword Saint Natalia!"
"May the Sword of the Empire last forever!"
A hero isn't someone who becomes one just because they want to; it's someone who is recognized as one.
Recognized as the Sword Saint of the current era, Natalia bowed slightly toward the crowd and waved her hand.
Because of that, no one—except for one person—noticed.
The sight of Roengram grasping his broken blade.
*
Watching the crowd cheer for Natalia as the Sword Saint, I felt a lump in my throat.
Helena... well, she was grinning ear to ear while crying buckets.
Even Valeria's eyes were starting to get misty... but.
"Fufu, the title of Sword Saint has finally found its proper place."
Sitri, as usual, had a strangely detached reaction.
"That's a shame. I thought you might cry this time too."
The moment I said that, Sitri looked at me with a faint smile.
"The only person who can make me cry is you."
"Haha."
"However... it seems there is one person who cannot accept defeat."
"Huh? What do you mean... You crazy...!"
Following Sitri's gaze, I saw Roengram approaching Natalia.
Blood dripped from the hand holding the broken sword, his eyes and gait completely vacant.
The problem was that Natalia was busy greeting the crowd and hadn't noticed.
'Andrasta is... damn it, of course she would.'
Andrasta was just silently watching the arena.
Technically, Roengram hadn't admitted defeat yet.
Therefore, Sreng and the rest of the warrior band remained silent as well.
Furthermore...
"Waaaaah!! Lady Natalia! Lady Natalia!!"
"She looked this way! Waaaaah!"
"Look over here too!"
Every time Natalia waved and smiled, the cheers grew even louder.
At this rate, no matter how much I yelled, she wouldn't hear me.
I'd be buried among the ecstatic spectators and wouldn't even be seen.
"Damn it, I have no choice. Helena!"
"Yes!"
Of course, even if Natalia were hit by Roengram's broken sword, the chances of her losing her life were slim.
Natalia was a vassal of the Great Demon Sitri.
As long as she was periodically supplied with magic power, Natalia wouldn't die.
Unless her head was severed, her heart pulled out, or her body pulverized.
'But if she's stabbed in the heart, I can't be sure!'
Helena and I sprinted down from the spectator seats.
Please don't be late, or please notice him now... I repeated those desperate prayers in my head.
"?!"
Did my prayer reach her?
Or did she notice Helena and me frantically running toward her?
Natalia hurriedly turned around.
However, Roengram was already thrusting the broken sword toward her.
"Kyaaaaah!!"
A piercing scream erupted from the audience.
On the stone floor of the arena, which had been like a white canvas, a flower of crimson blood bloomed.
"Ha..."
Fortunately, Roengram's sword didn't pierce Natalia's heart.
In fact, it hadn't pierced her anywhere; Natalia looked just as uninjured as she had at the start.
The problem was that the sword Natalia had instinctively thrust out was now impaling Roengram's throat.
"Gurgle... kack..."
Finally, Roengram collapsed to the floor, spitting up bloody foam.
Only then... did Sreng's roar explode.
"The death of challenger Roengram Clausewitz has been confirmed! Therefore, Natalia Clausewitz, who violated the regulations, is also disqualified!"