The Knight's Training Sword (3)
The Knight's Training Sword (3)
An empty colosseum, with a voice echoing throughout the entire space.
[This is a training ground designed to cultivate knights among the Heroes.]
It was exactly what I had heard before.
I quickly pulled the artifacts I'd brought with me from my pocket.
I slipped the ring onto my finger, hung the necklace around my neck, and took the greatsword in my hand.
I tossed the sword issued by the Academy to one side along with the crossbow, then gripped the sword hanging from the opposite side of my waist with my other hand.
Now, I was ready to fight.
The explanation continued, and I calmly waited for the door on the opposite side to open.
I had spent over a month preparing with everything I had.
During that time, my raw skills hadn't changed drastically, but I had prepared as many ways to compensate as possible.
I intended to win. I had no intention of dying again, nor did I want to repeat that month-long period ever again.
Now was the time to show the results.
Rumble.
Once again, the sound of winding chains echoed, and the heavy iron-barred gate rose.
A knight clad in armor emerged from the dark passageway.
[The first opponent is the fifteen-year-old Carlos, who first used this training ground.]
Once again, a curse escaped my lips at his impossible build for someone his age, but he was an opponent I had already fought once before.
Hum.
The knight—no, the Hero Carlos—drew his sword.
It wasn't the black sword that had been in the royal warehouse.
'Is that the Knight's Sword, which the kings have passed down through the generations?'
One had been shoved into a warehouse, sealed away without even a name, while the other had been blessed with the name 'Knight's Sword' and become the sword symbolizing the royal family.
Well, considering it killed everyone who held it, I suppose that was only natural.
'But why did he keep challenging it even after seeing himself die the first time?'
No, why had I rushed in so unlike myself?
While the Hero approached, such thoughts briefly flashed through my mind.
Before the Hero could swing his sword,
I gathered my mana first.
Hum.
The mana inside my body began to move vigorously.
Following the circuits built into my body and the Mana Cultivation Technique taught by my inherited ability, the mana began to surge.
I channeled that mana to my chest and pushed it into the necklace.
My chest grew hot, and I felt the mana inside the necklace amplify.
The amplified mana circulated through my body once more according to the Mana Cultivation Technique, and—
Pang!
The overflowing mana erupted around my body.
Twitch.
The approaching Hero flinched and stopped in his tracks. My momentum had brought him to a halt.
It was a different sight from before.
But the Hero resumed his advance.
As expected, this alone still wasn't enough.
Since I had used the necklace, I didn't have much time left anyway.
A quick battle.
I channeled mana into both of my hands.
Hum.
An Invisible Sword Aura grew from the tip of the dagger, and a hazy shimmer wavered along the blade of the greatsword.
We moved at the same time. There was no reason to let him strike first.
Taking a giant stride forward, I swung the greatsword with all my might.
Boom!
With a deafening explosion, the greatsword was blocked.
The Hero had raised his sword to block mine.
As expected, I figured it would be blocked.
I didn't know how he managed to block the Invisible Sword Aura, but this time, too, he had swung in advance to block the greatsword.
Creak.
But unlike before, my sword wasn't deflected. The Hero and I stood in a deadlock, our blades locked against each other.
Position-wise, I had the advantage.
I was pressing down with my greatsword, and the Hero was blocking it with his longsword.
But because of the Hero's massive build, the difference wasn't significant.
'Has my strength risen to the point where we're evenly matched?'
Back then, I had been completely overwhelmed in terms of strength, so there hadn't even been room to try to counter him.
But just because our strength was equal didn't mean the outcome of the battle would change.
Rumble.
With our swords still locked, the Hero's blade slid down along my invisible edge.
His massive frame shrank in an instant. Before I knew it, the Hero had lowered his posture.
It was a technique where you lowered your body and slid your sword along your opponent's locked blade to deflect it.
This was definitely a technique listed in the Kingdom's manual.
'Carlos Hero Swordsmanship, Chapter 12.'
[Sliding Down the Blade.]
I had wondered before why the swordsmanship techniques had such cheap-sounding names.
According to the Ego Dagger, it was because the first king was a Muscle Idiot with terrible naming sense...
Right now, that Muscle Idiot was trying to kill me with terrifying skill.
Clearly, the Chapter 12 technique of Carlos Swordsmanship that I had heard about and learned wasn't like this.
The swordsmanship itself involved sliding your sword along your opponent's blade to close the distance and launch a counterattack.
But it wasn't a technique that manipulated mana like this to make the swords stick together.
In our last duel, the swordsmanship had synchronized with mana in this manner, causing me to panic and get thoroughly beaten.
Before that, I had thought mana and the Mana Cultivation Technique were merely for reinforcing the physical body and channeling mana into the sword. But after fighting the Hero, I realized that wasn't the case.
The swordsmanship left behind by the Carlos Hero was entirely synchronized with mana.
But the first king, Carlos, had stripped away the mana and left behind only the physical swordsmanship.
I think I understood why.
Moving mana in tandem with swordsmanship like this wasn't something just anyone could do.
Besides, it wasn't something that could be explained in words.
First of all, to control mana while swinging a sword like this, one needed an extraordinary sensitivity to mana.
Specifically, one needed 'Mana Resonance'.
It was the very ability that only the royal family was said to possess.
On top of that, various Mana Cultivation Techniques were required to alter the movement of mana according to the swordsmanship, and 'Physical Optimization' was needed to forge a sturdy body.
Plus several other abilities that couldn't be precisely identified.
It was a technique I could neither learn nor copy right away.
My Mana Resonance had not yet been properly unsealed.
Perhaps because of that, while my external senses were incredibly enhanced, I couldn't feel the inside of my body with that same level of delicacy.
I only had two Mana Cultivation Techniques: the one obtained from the unsealed ability, and my family's method, which I had acquired from training with knights since childhood.
At least I seemed to have developed Physical Optimization to some extent, but even with the abilities I had yet to acquire factored in, I possessed less than half the capabilities of the Carlos Hero.
I had learned this all too well in our first fight, and that was why I had prepared the swordsmanship of the Tsar Empire.
For some unknown reason, the Empire's swordsmanship contained several techniques designed to counter the Kingdom's swordsmanship.
Though these techniques were largely ineffective against the current Kingdom's swordsmanship, which no longer moved in tandem with mana, they were of immense help now that I had to fight the Hero.
While his sword slid down toward my hilt along my invisible mana blade, I let go of the greatsword and took a step back.
Even though I let go, the greatsword didn't fall to the ground, bound as it was to the opponent's sword.
At the same time, the dagger in my other hand moved toward the Hero, who was approaching in a lowered posture.
Flinching, the Hero halted his advance and swung his sword.
Clang!
The Invisible Sword Aura collided with his sword, and I stepped to the side, catching the greatsword only as it finally began to fall.
Since I couldn't block another sword while dragging the greatsword along, I had let go of the greatsword bound by mana.
It was slightly different from the Empire's swordsmanship Joachim had shown me, but there was no way I could execute it exactly the same way with different weapons. As long as the principle was similar, that was enough.
'Good, it's working!'
The things I had prepared all this time hadn't been useless.
Even after that, incomprehensible swordsmanship continued—thrusts suddenly accelerating mid-strike, the sword becoming several times heavier—but using the Empire's swordsmanship and my past experience, I somehow managed to block his attacks.
But I was barely managing to block them. Of course, this alone was a massive improvement, but there was no way I could win like this.
Besides, my mana was draining at an insane rate.
In the end, I was blown back by that heavy sword.
Boom!
With such a difference in body weight, there was nothing I could do.
Thud.
After rolling across the floor several times, I raised my head only to find his sword already closing in on my eyes.
"You monster! Don't you even take a breath?!"
They said this was an exact replica of the real Hero's skills, but it felt like total bullshit.
There was no way a fifteen-year-old boy would charge like that without a single moment's rest.
If I got blown back like this, it was only normal for him to wait a bit.
There was no way the founding king of this country would rush in so relentlessly to swing his sword!
No matter how much I cursed inwardly, nothing changed.
Besides, this time, I had actually wanted the Hero to charge at me.
Though I was startled because he was much faster than I expected.
Still, my Mana Resonance functioned properly even though its seal wasn't fully released.
Whoom.
The moment I sensed danger, mana flowed into my fingers, and a translucent barrier formed around me.
Crunch!
The barrier shattered the instant it was created, but it succeeded in halting the Hero's sword.
The moment his sword was deflected and the startled Hero stared at the shattering barrier,
I raised the crossbow I had picked up while rolling on the floor.
When I had tossed it onto the floor, the black bolt was already loaded.
Even now, I kept the crossbow concealed by my hunched body, with only the tip of the bolt peeking out from under my armpit.
This was my one and only chance. I pulled the trigger right then.
The bolt made neither a sound nor a sign.
With the Hero's Mana Resonance, he might have been able to sense it, but at this close range, unless he had something like my ring, there was no way he could block it.
It was a pity I couldn't kill him properly with swordsmanship, but at this rate, there was no telling how many times I would end up dying.
This was a place for training, anyway. Learning the sword was a problem I could worry about after I won.
'Die!'
I shouted inwardly as I watched the bolt fly.
Thump.
Just as I expected, the Hero failed to block the bolt.
The black bolt sank deep into the Hero's chest. It wasn't an arrow that could be stopped by leather armor.
"Don't tell me your heart is on the opposite side or something?"
"Ugh."
For the first time, I heard the Hero groan.
Gulp, gulp.
Seeing blood gush from where the bolt had struck, it seemed that, fortunately, his heart was in the same place as anyone else's.
But the Hero didn't die immediately.
The Hero raised his sword once more and swung it toward me.
Clang!
"Ugh. Damn it, you still have strength left?!"
I hurriedly raised my dagger to block his sword.
Just as I grumbled, the Hero's strength didn't seem to have changed at all.
Don't tell me he's like a game character from my past life whose stats remain exactly the same until he's completely dead?
I swung my sword while harboring such worries, but fortunately, that wasn't the case.
I blocked the Hero's sword while running away as much as possible, and the Hero gradually slowed down.
Blood spread over his armor, and a pool of blood formed with every step the Hero took.
Eventually, the pursuing Hero stopped in his tracks.
I held my sword and watched the Hero.
I watched to see if he would say something, but he didn't say anything in particular.
He simply collapsed onto the floor, his breathing coming to a halt.
I watched the breathless Hero and let out a sigh.
It was a strange feeling.
It wasn't that I didn't feel the joy of winning, but seeing the Hero and first king die by my hand wasn't particularly pleasant.
As I stared at the first king's corpse, the body gradually began to fade away.
No matter how realistic it felt, this was indeed the Mental World.
Once the corpse vanished, my mood improved a bit.
I won!
I finished it in one go!
While I was celebrating like that, the familiar voice rang out.
[Congratulations. You have defeated the first opponent. Next, the second opponent will appear.]
"No, what the fuck?!"
Rumble.
Without caring how much I cursed, the iron-barred gate on the opposite side rose once again.
From within, a knight clad in leather armor emerged. It was the Hero I had just fought.
No, was it really the Hero? His build seemed to have gotten even larger.
The newly emerged knight looked to be at least two meters tall.
[The second opponent is the twenty-year-old Carlos.]
I didn't even have the energy to curse.
I could only stare blankly at the Hero who had stepped out of the gate.