The Uninvited Hero

Three days ago. The day Roxwell acknowledged him as a disciple.

"Read all of it before morning training tomorrow. Don't miss a single word. I want every last one of them memorized."

"…This entire encyclopedia of a book?"

"Don't, if you're that eager to get beaten to death."

"I think I'd like to stop being your disciple."

"Want out? I'll cut your arms and legs off for you."

"I meant I wanted to be your prized disciple, not just a regular one."

What Roxwell had brought him was a monstrously thick book — well over seven hundred pages, every one of them packed tight with text. Unwilling to get beaten to death, X cracked it open. What he found inside stopped him cold.

"A swordsmanship manual…? And a seriously high-level one at that…"

It was a treatise with stances and forms laid out in exhaustive detail. Even a cursory skim told him this was an extremely advanced sword art — the kind of signature technique a martial family of count rank or higher would pass down as its pride.

"Professor, what on earth is this?"

"A sword art some nameless swordsman supposedly created a long time ago. I'm also its only living successor."

Roxwell glanced over X's physical condition as he went on.

"I'll be blunt. You learning Protego Sword Art is a waste of time."

"I'm sorry? Why is that?"

"You already know — it's the Hero's swordsmanship. A warrior's art perfected to its absolute limit. Not something a brat who just picked up a sword can pull off. You might understand it in your head, but your body won't be able to reproduce it. Am I wrong?"

"That's… certainly true."

He was right. Hans had started teaching him properly, and X still hadn't grasped even the fundamentals of Protego Sword Art. He'd felt it himself — a wall wall his flesh simply could not keep up with.

"So from now on, you learn this. By my standards it's still too early, but given how glacial your growth is, now's about right."

"I object. I think I'm rather fast, actually."

He was riding the system's corrections for all they were worth. Fast, if anything. Slow was the last word he'd use.

Roxwell shook his head, unconvinced.

"I'm not talking about how fast you stack internal energy."

"Then what…?"

"I'm saying your combat sense itself is hopeless."

The accusation was so sweeping that X's face tightened. Roxwell cut the meaning down to a single stroke.

"You ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠think too much."

"…Isn't that a good thing?"

"I mean your head's full of junk. Pick up your sword."

X settled into a stance. Roxwell took up his own blade.

"I'm going to cut down at you. Block it."

Roxwell's sword came down in a vertical line toward X's head, a shade slower than usual.

A feint, like always. Or he might just smash it down honest. But given what he just said…

"I told you. Too many thoughts."

Clang!

"Aaagh—!"

The blade kissed his skull before the thought had even finished.

"See that? You were so busy thinking you lost the line of the cut."

"Aren't you a little too fast, Master?"

"Well. There's that too."

"…"

Roxwell withdrew his sword and kept going.

"A warrior doesn't need a lot of thoughts. The fewer, the better."

"So you're telling me to fight with my brain removed?"

"I'm telling you to fight on instinct."

Without the slightest warning, Roxwell's sword stabbed toward the right.

"Trust your intuition. Your sixth sense. Your gut."

The next thrust went left.

"React to even the smallest clue."

He spun once and drove the blade behind him.

"Don't run even the finest scrap of information through your thoughts."

Then he drew the sword back and held it out for X to see. Three leaves were transfixed on the point — a feat that would have been difficult even aiming by sight, and Roxwell had done it three times without looking at all.

"Pull that off like it's nothing," he said, "and you're a real warrior."

The sight drew a reaction out of X before he could stop it.

"…This is going to be hard."

"What, you thought this was gonna be easy?"

"I thought being a warrior just meant firing off Auror Blades and throwing sword energy around."

"If that's all it took, what'd we need warriors for? Mages'd do the fighting better."

That, X had to admit, made sense. There was a saying for a reason: in war, the mage is a god — but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in a fight, the warrior is.

X sighed and held up the manual.

"So what kind of sword art is this, then?"

"Gonna skip the reading and jump straight to the results, huh?"

"Doesn't efficiency go up when the motivation is clear?"

"Tch. You've got a mouth on you, I'll give you that. Fine. It's this kind of art."

Roxwell closed his eyes and focused. A surge of auror powerful enough to prickle across X's skin burst outward in every direction. The ground around them shuddered once — and then X saw the sword art for what it truly was.

"It doesn't have a name, but for convenience I call it White Light Nine Swords."

Six blades of shining light hung in the air behind Roxwell's back. X's eyes went wide with shock.

"Six flying swords…. Is that Control Blade?"

Control Blade was this world's catch-all term for flying-sword techniques — and the proof of a 7-Star.

Roxwell shook his head at the guess.

"I'm 6-Star, that's a fact. This is a trick. Watch."

All six blades of light shot toward X at once. He flailed to block, panic spiking — but there was no blocking six swords.

"Aaaah! Ah…. Ah?"

He let out an undignified scream, then came back to himself and found all six blades of light run through his body. Not a drop of blood anywhere.

"An illusion…?"

"A more advanced form than that. They give off the exact same energy as a real sword. Even a trained warrior can't tell the difference until they actually make contact. And."

Roxwell flicked his fingers, and one of the light-blades slid back out of X's body. Then it cut down at his head.

It's an illusion anyway. What's he trying to show me?

The thought had barely settled — and he had barely started to relax — when

Crack!

"Gah!!"

Unmistakable physical force exploded against X's skull. He reeled, unable to make sense of what had just happened, and Roxwell explained.

"Concentrate your internal energy and they can cut. Only for an instant — a fraction of a second. For a warrior, that's more than enough."

"I'm sorry? That's possible?"

"That's what White Light Nine Swords is."

Roxwell said it like it was nothing. Inside X's head, the possibilities unfurled at once.

It's a pseudo-Control Blade!

In a sense, it was even a superior version of the real thing. You could swap between materialization and illusion whenever you needed to.

Unfortunately, it wasn't an unmixed blessing.

"The problem is it burns internal energy like a furnace. Even I can barely hold it for ten minutes. Use the materialization and that window gets even shorter."

"A 6-Star warrior can't even last ten minutes?"

"That's right. Ordinary sword arts hold for an hour or more. Efficiency's garbage by comparison."

Which meant one of a warrior's great strengths went out the window. If you could only fight a short battle, you were in a bad place strategically. Roxwell read the worry on his face and answered as if it were obvious.

"Look at it the other way. Just finish the fight in under ten minutes."

At my level, the moment it goes past five minutes, I lose.

And that was exactly why he had lost. Five minutes had come and gone.

One-on-one, his odds would have been good. One-on-fifteen was far too low. The longer they stalled, the more internal energy he burned — and this sword art's miserable efficiency made it that much worse.

Even so, he hadn't gone down quietly.

"Hah… hah…. You crazy bastard…. All thirteen of them…"

"We got wrecked like this by a single mage…?"

Behind X, thirteen members of Sword Rang lay sprawled across the ground. They clutched at whatever part of themselves had been broken and groaned. Every last one of them had gone down to him.

At least Master won't beat me to death for this.

He'd smashed up more of them than he'd told Roxwell he would. Right now he was barely on his feet, with neither mana nor internal energy left. He'd run dry on internal energy, started dumping magic to compensate, and gotten hit for it.

And of course the ones still standing were two 3-Star warriors. One of them was Gary, more or less their leader.

I can't win this. I need the picture of a loss here.

That was why he'd left Gary standing. Someone had to be left for the final act.

Time to scrape together the results.

X staunched the blood running down his arm and started talking.

"So this is the best you've got, I take it. Fifteen of you piled onto one person, and thirteen of you got your asses kicked. Aren't you embarrassed?"

"Shut the fuck up, you bastard!"

Thud!

"Kh—!"

Gary, consumed by rage, kicked him. X had nothing left to guard with, and he went rolling across the ground. Even that wasn't enough to bleed off Gary's fury. He kicked and stomped the fallen X, screaming himself hoarse.

"You lowborn piece of trash who isn't even a noble! You think you can throw your weight around just because you can throw a punch?! If this weren't the Academy, you'd already be a dead man!"

"Kh, kuhh…. Trash who live licking ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠other people's boots…"

"What the hell would you know?! How much do you know about the fear in this place?! Lone-wolf types like you die without a sound — no one even notices! Do you get that?!"

"Ghhk…!"

Even under Gary's merciless beating, X slowly sorted the information. There was a lot of use in the words he was spitting out at random.

Just as I thought — they're being careful because this is the Academy. Means they haven't seized full control yet. The way he talks, their internal cohesion doesn't look great either. Sounds like they're running a reign of terror.

Then a Sword Rang member who hadn't gone down yet caught Gary from behind and tried to pull him off.

"That's enough. If he dies here, we'll have a real mess on our hands."

"Hah, hah, hah…. You miserable son of a bitch…!"

Gary rummaged through his coat and flung something down in front of X. A sheet of paper identical to the last one — a slave contract.

"If you don't sign that contract, I'll cut your arms and legs off one at a time. I can't kill you, but maiming you? That I can paper over. Sign it if you don't want to live as a cripple!"

"And here I thought you didn't have a spare…"

X reached slowly toward the contract. Gary's mouth curled into a nasty grin at the sight.

"That's it. Sign ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it already. Living as a torture doll's still better than living as a cripple, right?"

At last this godforsaken mission was over. Gary let out a breath of relief inside. He had never imagined it would be this hard.

He was wrong.

Fwoosh—

The instant X's hand touched the contract, it went up in flames and crumbled to ash. X looked up at Gary, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk.

"Oh dear. The contract burned up. Got a spare?"

That smirk snapped the last thread of Gary's reason.

"You son of a—!!"

"Hey, stop!"

Gary hoisted his sword high. The startled Sword Rang member lunged to restrain him, but he was a step too late.

Watching it all, X checked the Synopsis and let a faint smile touch his lips.

This was exactly the Synopsis X had been waiting for.

Gary's enraged blade would put his life in danger — but he had to accept that much risk if he wanted to fool Andras. In a moment Gary's sword would run him through, and they would flee trembling with fear. Andras would approach the bleeding, dying X, and this particular fishing trip would be a roaring success.

That was the plan.

From far off, something like a flash of light came streaking toward them, drawing a line through the air. It was moving at a speed X couldn't even follow, and it smashed Gary's sword clean out of his hands.

CLANG!

"Kh—! Who the hell—!"

Gary stared toward the attacker, rattled. Whoever it was, anyone who interfered was going to die. Then he saw who it was, and that resolve evaporated.

A cheerful, dashing young man. A handsome face framed by a naturally tousled light-brown wolf cut. Striking blue eyes that caught the gaze and held it. The one and only being blessed by the goddess and forged by destiny itself.

"L-Leon…?"

It was none other than the Hero, Leon.

Gary was stunned. X was even more so.

Why the hell is this bastard popping up HERE?!

Why this moment, of all moments. The fish he'd already had on the hook was about to get away.

"Leon! What are you— Kyaaah! What is going on here?!"

To make matters worse, the four members of the Hero Party arrived as well.

Frey, reincarnation of Saintess Johannes.

Diana, reincarnation of the Divine Archer Artemis.

Rosaria, reincarnation of the thief Scarlet.

"…X?"

And Circe, reincarnation of Sage Aerial.

The entire Hero Party had gathered in one place.

Leon locked eyes on Gary and declared it without a shred of hesitation.

"I will not allow you to oppress the weak any further! Drop your sword at once!"

The plan was on the verge of falling apart. Belatedly, viscerally, X felt what it meant to have a luck stat of zero.

I'm going to lose my damn mind.