Lucia and the Underground Arena (2)
The carriage carrying Lucia headed toward my mansion. However, the only person who got off there was Eirin.
"Count Yulian? Weren't we supposed to spar at the mansion?"
Lucia asked, looking flustered. She'd even dozed off a bit in the carriage, so she must not have properly heard what I'd said on the way here in her half-asleep state.
"Ordinary spars like the ones you two often did at Roia Hall are fine. But today, I thought we'd try something a little more special."
Lucia gave me a puzzled look. As she'd said, I'd hired her as a swordsmanship sparring partner in Uriel's place.
In that instant, Lucia's pink pupils widened.
"I see. So... you must be dissatisfied with my skills. Of course, replacing Lady Uriel would be too much for me."
The cadets from the combat division all knew Uriel well. A genius who'd reached 5th tier aura user in her early twenties.
And as an official knight of the White Night Knights, Lucia must have admired her too.
'So she'd naturally feel burdened trying to fill Uriel's shoes.'
And true to her archetype as a tragic heroine, she was already growing anxious. Lucia and I were nothing more than fellow Pantheon cadets. Objectively speaking, we had no real connection.
What happened at the secret salon before was just a desperate act to escape an emergency.
Yet after that day, the way Lucia looked at me had clearly shifted to one of open admiration. She harbored a deep disgust toward men because of her birth father, Duke Pedro.
But conversely, when she fell for one, she became far more destructively swept up in her emotions than girls her age. That was the other side of Player Lucia.
'Which is why using Lucia as the party's main dealer requires careful handling.'
A fully grown Lucia could outdamage even Rozette and Chloe. But as her pink hair suggested, she came with a "handle with care" label.
Right now, her eyes showed fear that I might abandon her.
'Still, I'm confident I can raise her right. The first button's already fastened properly.'
I answered Lucia calmly.
"That's not it. If your skills were lacking, I'd have approached other cadets. You can have some confidence."
"Confidence... R-right!"
I calmed her down first. Fortunately, her face lit up at my words alone.
Lucia usually wore a stern, swordswoman's expression. But in front of me, she was like a puppy clinging to its owner.
And my words weren't empty flattery to soothe her.
In truth, she only lagged behind Uriel right now. Her talent with the sword was incomparable.
Lucia had the makings of this era's sword saint.
Grand Master Pedro de Orhain. Paradoxically, that birth father's talent had passed to his illegitimate daughter, Lucia. Just that blood alone was enough to stimulate my own swordsmanship.
'For the daughter abandoned by her father to have the greatest talent. Fate's cruel joke.'
And alongside the Reinhardt family, the Orhain house—heroes of the empire's founding—possessed bodies unlike ordinary folk.
So if I taught her a mana cultivation method to bolster her lacking reserves, her skills would skyrocket in no time.
Besides, Lucia was the kind of heroine who'd grow even more loyal if I revealed my identity now. If she learned I was a demonkin, she'd fall for me harder.
That worked in my favor. I, bearer of Demon King Lucifel's blood, needed reliable kin like Lucia for the post-demonkin Demon King title quest.
'And Lucia ends in tragedy with any man but me.'
In other words, we were perfect for each other.
Lucia continued.
"But you mentioned something special. What did you have in mind?"
"Sparring's good, but real combat is necessary sometimes. I figured we'd both loosen up properly."
"Real combat? Ah! You mean the imperial capital's swordsmanship guild?"
Swordsmanship guilds existed across the empire—gatherings of swordsmen. Some entered knight orders young for systematic training.
Others joined guilds to learn sword arts and mana cultivation methods.
'Rip, the combat division's cadet rep, came from a swordsmanship guild.'
The capital's guilds especially housed headquarters of famous empire-wide organizations.
Cadets unsatisfied with Pantheon's training often sought extra sessions there.
"Swordsmanship guild? Half right, half wrong."
I handed Lucia a hairpin and said,
"And it's a place you might know well too."
Once she heard my explanation, Lucia finally nodded in understanding. I added one more thing.
"It's perfect for real combat practice. And just swinging swords ordinarily would be boring."
I proposed a little bet for what we'd do tonight.
It had been weeks since I'd headed north of Darren's lectures—to the pleasure quarter.
That was our destination with Lucia. She'd been a bit anxious not knowing where we were going.
But once we entered the pleasure quarter, her expression calmed. The familiar air must have soothed her.
'A heroine more at home in back alleys and the night world...'
Which made it all the more surprising she'd guarded her purity for a year past adulthood. Well, that precious virginity diversified her tragic routes as a playable character.
Fortunately, I'd claimed it.
And since she'd chosen me as the man to give her heart to, the risk of those tragic routes had dropped a notch.
Her system-recorded fate grade remained A+, unchanged from D or Y like before.
'But that could be temporary.'
In front of Lucia, I was playing the gentle, serious northern sweet guy—kind to women.
The antithesis of the flighty southern men she despised. So her growing affection for me could suppress those negative emotions...
But the key was the root of her tragedy. I had to free her from that source.
'Lucia's birth mother was discarded after a one-night fling with Duke Pedro.'
Lucia's mother wasn't some streetwalker or commoner. She was the daughter of a venerable southern count's family.
But Duke Pedro sated his lust for one night and abandoned her when she got pregnant with his child.
He was already married, after all.
Unlike the capital, the south was conservative. This was before Medica's potions existed. Naturally, Lucia's mother became her family's shame. Her father, the count, demanded she kill herself.
But unwilling to abandon the child in her womb, Lucia's mother fled the count's house. Yet she'd never lifted a finger in her life as a noble lady.
Her life afterward was pure tragedy.
Eventually, mother and daughter ended up in the slums. Only when her mother died of illness did Lucia learn the truth about her birth father.
And from then on, Lucia came to hate Duke Pedro to her bones.
'Her drive to live afterward was pure revenge against Pedro.'
So our interests aligned. I'd give her the power for revenge, and she'd become my blade.
Besides, Duke Pedro was our common enemy.
In Demon King Slayer Part 2, he'd lead the empire and Essemont's greatest foes: the Centriac Knights and the Virea Mercenaries.
He was their master. And a Grand Master at that.
'That's why Lucia needs to be my sparring partner.'
Duke Pedro had become Grand Master after Margrave Wilhelm thanks to his unbeatable fastest first strike and perfect counters.
Meaning Lucia, whose talent surpassed her father's, could serve as the perfect manual for facing him.
"Shall we head in?"
Lucia nodded. We'd stopped in front of a building in the pleasure quarter.
And oddly for such a place, its sign bore the name of a swordsmanship guild.
[Niorungen Swordsmanship Guild Social Club]
A building disguised as an ordinary social club. But given its location, it was anything but ordinary.
The two of us descended to the basement.
A guard blocked us at the underground entrance.
"This isn't a place just anyone can enter. It's a members-only social club, so no entry without a pass."
Lucia and I showed him our passes. I'd gotten them through Fabian, a pleasure quarter regular from the south—Golden Sun.
"Well, look at that—you've got passes. Hold on. You're entering as fighters, not spectators? Never seen your faces before."
The guard eyed us suspiciously and checked the guild name on the passes.
"And Schuderborn Swordsmanship Guild? Never heard of that one either."
"It's from Essemont, in Reinhyme. It's new, so it might sound unfamiliar."
"Hmph. Northern hicks, huh? Figures."
His reaction was natural. Schuderborn Swordsmanship Guild was a fake I'd fabricated on the spot—no such thing existed. No one in Iseland would've heard of it.
We were also disguised. I'd used dream demon traits to blur my features into a vague man.
Lucia had changed her hair to blonde via the magic hairpin I'd given her.
'Pink hair's too distinctive.'
What we were about to do was forbidden for cadets. Disguises were essential. The guard finally opened the door.
"Fine. We need cannon fodder for the tournament's lower brackets anyway. Go on in."
A dark, long corridor stretched beyond the door. In that brief moment, Lucia turned to me.
"I've been here a few times helping Madam Carmen from the secret salon. I even recognize that guard, but he didn't know me at all."
With her current blonde hair and blue eyes, hiding her striking pink locks and pupils made her look like a completely different person.
"The hairpin I gave you is a magic tool—top quality. You should wear it for jobs from now on."
"Such a... fine hairpin. It must be expensive, and you give it to me? Thank you, Count Yulian."
It was to keep her pleasure quarter visits from getting her expelled. But Lucia seemed thrilled with the gift, fiddling endlessly with the butterfly-shaped pin.
"Blonde hair and blue eyes... Um, does my face look strange?"
She blushed anew and asked me.
She hadn't seen a mirror yet—just glimpsed her hair color change—so she couldn't check her full transformation.
"A sword's worth doesn't change with a new sheath. You look fine."
It wasn't the mood to outright call her pretty. But Lucia took it as praise and blushed deeper.
"The new hair color... blonde, just like yours. And the blue eyes too..."
Realizing we matched, she seemed even happier.
Soon, we reached the underground social club's interior—a surprisingly spacious basement with a ring-like stage at its center.
"The underground arena's as popular as ever. Even on a weekday, it's packed."
As Lucia said. This was the swordsmanship guild's underground fighting pit, made for extra revenue.
"I've heard it's quite popular. So the opponents should be worth it."
And tonight, the two of us planned to step into that ring as fighters.