Welcome to Hell
The Martial Arts Tournament concluded with Violet taking the championship.
Violet had swept through her competitors without breaking a sweat and faced Sozeta in the finals. The two clashed in a fierce, thunderous battle worthy of a true final, and Violet claimed victory with perfect composure.
Sozeta, who had lost the title last year, had now firmly etched his true strength into the hearts of everyone. Violet, who had suffered a crushing defeat against Diana, had avenged her loss and added the glory of a new championship to her name.
A male academy student strolling through the campus grounds spotted Diana and hurried over with a bright smile, only to freeze mid-step.
No one dared to underestimate Diana after the humiliating defeat she had suffered at Violet’s hands in the tournament.
She was already so well-liked that more people worried for her than teased her.
After a moment’s hesitation, the student approached her cautiously.
“Diana… how are you feeling? Are you okay?”
“Eh? I’m always at my best!”
Her tone was the same bright, cheerful one he remembered from before the match.
The student remembered the desperate, broken look on her face when she had forced herself to stand after the fight. He assumed she was just putting on a show.
Yet anyone who had shown that kind of fire could not have felt the bitter taste of defeat without it affecting them.
Diana let out a light, friendly laugh at the sympathetic eyes staring at her.
“It was a total loss, so there was no choice. I got crushed so cleanly there’s nothing left to feel bad about.”
“… … Want to head to the city after the academy? Let’s go to the Secret Garden. I’ll buy you anything you want to eat.”
“The desserts there are really delicious.”
Diana’s eyes sparkled with delight.
“But no.”
“Got some medicine to take?”
“No. I lost cleanly, so now I have to repay the favor. I’m going to train.”
Diana flashed a small smile.
The student, who found the idea of training with her utterly mismatched to her usual personality, looked briefly stunned. Then he smiled gently and nodded.
* * *
“So from today on, Diana here will be training with you.”
Rai stood beside Diana, arms crossed, and pointed as he spoke.
Abigail, who had been eating snacks before training, chewed vigorously with food still in her mouth and stared at Diana.
“Another guy who wants to kill me just showed up.”
Philia, who had been glaring at Diana’s crossed arms with deadly intent, answered.
“Lucky. I was thinking the same thing.”
When Zeroa let out a bitter laugh while watching their reactions, Diana extended her hand and drew a V-sign.
“I’m Diana~ I’m here to steal your Rai-kkang.”
“Yeah, look after this idiot for me.”
“Aaaah?! What do you mean idiot?! Who’s Rai-kkang?!”
Diana, looking annoyed, told Rai to go change his clothes and head inside the house.
“Hello, Senior Diana. Did you really come for private lessons with Instructor Rai?”
“Hi, hi. Mia. Yeah, I won’t be here every day, but I’ll be coming often. Please take care of me.”
As Mia looked at her with admiration, Diana smiled and gently ruffled her hair.
Aslan, standing nearby, gave Diana a displeased look.
“You really want to learn from Rai? I don’t recommend it.”
“What? Even you, Aslan? The hazing here is too much. Or are you just hating on me?”
“No, I… never mind. I just warned you.”
It didn’t take long for Aslan’s ominous words to sink in.
“Let’s skip the magical training and do sparring first. Warm up properly.”
“Yup~!”
Diana answered cheerfully, but the other students only nodded silently.
Especially Mia’s face had turned deathly pale.
No matter how often they sparred, she would never get used to it.
Getting beaten to a pulp was the norm in every training session.
There had even been a time when her ribs were pierced and Rai had dug open her belly right there, replaced the bones, and Abigail had miraculously healed her.
It was an experience she would never get used to.
Detecting the tension among the group, Diana sensed something was wrong and looked around, but no one offered an explanation.
“Continuous sparring starts with Diana.”
“Oho, oho. Continuous sparring? That’s pretty realistic.”
Both Zeroa and Aslan looked at Diana with pity.
“Diana’s weakness is her engagement distance. It’s a fatal flaw. The gap between what she thinks and the actual spacing…”
“Aaaah! What?! Why are you suddenly revealing my weakness?!”
“Because you came here to overcome it.”
Rai brushed off her protest with a short sentence, then detailed her weakness and explained how to counter it.
“The reason Diana lost to Violet was the engagement distance I just mentioned. Using last year’s experience, she dug into that weakness and won perfectly. The skill gap wasn’t actually that overwhelming.”
“That’s a truly deadly flaw.”
Philia nodded and stood up.
Diana’s first opponent would be Philia.
The two crossed blades repeatedly in a heated exchange.
Even though her flaw had been exposed and she had been utterly destroyed by Violet, Diana’s fundamentals remained strong.
Techniques like Kwang-roe and Joue en Lucette were forbidden during sparring, so Philia gradually pushed Diana into a defensive stance.
Diana’s precise swordsmanship tightened the pressure on Philia, yet she defended calmly and observed every move.
“Mmm, I understand. That’s how it is.”
Philia’s eyes lit up with realization. Diana smiled faintly and sped up her movements as if challenging her.
While barely blocking the barrage of Diana’s strikes, Philia sidestepped a blade aimed at her shoulder.
She had dodged it so dangerously close that it looked like she had missed, then swiftly lunged and swung her sword.
- Clang!
Diana desperately raised her blade, but the attack was not heavy.
Using the swing to plant her foot, Philia drove her fist into Diana’s side with savage force.
Diana twisted to avoid the straight punch aimed to pierce her body, but it still struck her ribs and sent her flying backward.
“Cough, hah… hah…”
Looking down at Diana kneeling and retching, Philia spoke.
“Swordsmanship is built on countless situations and movements, woven with exquisite precision. If the engagement distance is shorter than what sword techniques assume, your counter can be much faster. You need to read the distance, but if you can read it, you might even beat someone with a bigger skill gap.”
Rai nodded at the gaze directed at him.
“That’s right. People say one sheet of paper. Well, it’s not literally paper-thin, but that tiny gap breaks swordsmanship itself. The creator of those techniques never accounted for Diana’s short distance. Next, Abigail.”
“I didn’t hit you that much.”
“That’s because we’re not sparring to actually hurt each other.”
Philia returned to her spot with a displeased expression.
In the meantime, Diana, who had recovered her body, laughed weakly.
“Even Violet didn’t notice it on the first try. Philia is amazing.”
Diana glanced at the vomit on the ground, then embarrassedly shoveled dirt over it with her foot.
“Don’t ruin the grass.”
“That’s sensitive. You always complain about the grass.”
At Rai’s remark, Aslan added, and Diana shrugged and raised her sword toward Abigail.
“I’m not kind like that perfect young lady over there, so be careful.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Abigail warned with a dangerous aura, and Diana nodded.
Thinking about kindness, Mia looked conflicted.
Philia was kind, but asking if she was kind during sparring was ambiguous.
If she stretched the training to build experience, she could be kind, but the pain would be long.
As Philia had said earlier, she never ended a sparring session in one blow.
Having trained with many seniors, Mia preferred Aslan, who finished matches quickly.
Even though she liked Zeroa, sparring with the defense specialist always left her frustrated and annoyed.
Philia and Abigail were terrifyingly painful to fight against.
The clash of blades began as Diana and Abigail’s sparring started.
Though she had a wound on her side, Diana expertly matched Abigail. Abigail, who could not read the distance as well as Philia, fell into a defensive stance.
“Die!”
- Swoosh
Abigail’s sword sliced through empty air after Diana pulled her hand back just in time. Diana’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You were aiming to cut my hand just now, weren’t you?”
“I told you to think like in real combat. Can’t that tiny brain of yours understand? I’ll teach you. Don’t worry, just get cut.”
Diana’s sword carried heavy killing intent unlike normal sparring where you simply show off your strength and suppress your opponent.
She was startled by the blade that promised to sever her arm, but she calmed down at Abigail’s mocking tone.
“Ah, I understand now. Rai-kkang trained you like this. Everyone here is strong enough.”
Diana thought she had understood, but she had no idea.
She had never experienced real combat. She had always practiced in hiding, so she had little sparring experience.
But Abigail had grown up among mercenaries from childhood, experiencing countless real battles.
She had survived using her wits even against skill gaps, and she had escaped with severed limbs while bleeding profusely.
Diana was too fragile to endure Abigail’s fierce attacks driven by a completely different mindset.
Diana also swung her sword to suppress and cut her opponent, but to actually wound someone required experience.
Stabbing the stomach or chopping off the head was an experience too terrifying for someone with normal thinking.
And as if reflecting the fear of the unknown, Diana’s sword felt dull.
As her precise swordsmanship broke down, her entire fighting style collapsed.
At first she had clearly been pressing Abigail, but now it was even.
“Is that all you can do? Calling yourself a house cat raised comfortably in someone else’s hand while mocking the wild!”
“Gotcha.”
Diana laughed at Abigail’s rough attack and stabbed back with her sword.
- Puchi
The sensation of her blade sinking into flesh traveled up the handle. Diana frowned slightly, but she had clearly struck Abigail.
Her arm was pierced, so it was over.
“Caught.”
Abigail’s smile was chilling as her arm stiffened around the blade.
Startled by the inability to pull the sword free, Diana’s face twisted as Abigail slammed her fist into her nose.
- Plak!
Diana recoiled, blood spraying from her nose, and tried to stand up with a scowl. What she saw instead was Abigail’s knee.
- Thud!
Her face slammed straight into Abigail’s knee, knocking her unconscious and sending her sprawling backward.
Mia, watching, made a disgusted face, feeling the pain.
Anyone who had taken a knee to the face would sympathize. Even Zeroa and Aslan wore the same expression.
After a while, as Diana regained consciousness, she looked around with dazed eyes.
“You awake? Wipe the dirt off your face, but there’s dried blood inside your nose, so rinse with water.”
Aslan poured water from a large bowl, but Diana stared blankly, not knowing what to do.
“Like this.”
Zeroa demonstrated beside her.
Even during unconsciousness, the sparring had continued, and his state was no better.
Zeroa scooped water into his bowl, drank it, then coughed and frowned.
Water ran down his nose from his raised head.
After a moment, he lowered his head to spit out the water, then wiped his nose with a thin cloth.
Diana could never have imagined this method.
“I use it a lot on the battlefield. It says if you overuse it, your nose gets ruined, so use it moderately, but it feels good and makes breathing easier.”
Aslan spoke casually.
Diana stared at the bowl, then sniffed.
Bubbles rose from her nose. She drew in the water and gagged as she lifted her head.
Zeroa had helped remove the blood, and Diana leaned against the fence with a tired face.
“This is terrifying.”
“Kukuku, I felt the same the first time.”
Aslan’s eyes were bruised as he laughed heartily.
Not because he had been especially rough on her, but because Diana had finally realized this was daily life. She let out a bitter laugh.
“So this is how harsh training really is. First day and I’m already unconscious, vomiting, I can’t even lift my face.”
“Vomiting happens often, so don’t be embarrassed. Mia got it in her pants last time and…”
“Aaaah! Aaaah! Senior! You said that was a secret! Aaaah!”
Mia’s face flushed red as she screamed and covered Aslan’s mouth.
Her left hand was dangling limply, likely broken.
No one here was normal.
Diana, who had never experienced anything like this, still felt the throbbing pain as terrifying, but at the same time she felt excitement and a strange thrill.
Diana shot up and shouted with energy.
“Good. Who’s next?”
She spoke brightly, but Mia, Aslan, and Zeroa all looked at her with sympathetic eyes.
In the distance, Rai watched her and wagged a finger.
“Ah… I have to spar with Rai-kkang too?”
“You have to fight after sparring with everyone else, so it’s even more ruthless.”
“The Demon King’s appearance.”
Diana forced a laugh and approached Rai.
“Rai-kkang! Let’s have fun together.”
- Thud
Without any warning, Diana’s jaw snapped from the fist that came out of nowhere.
Her body went limp and she collapsed in the field. Rai squatted in front of her and smiled cheerfully.
“Tired? You’ve only trained indoors, so your stamina is lacking.”
Diana frowned at the taunt and summoned all her strength to stand.
“Where did yesterday’s sweet Rai-kkang go?”
“I don’t give food to meat I’ve already caught.”
Philia glanced at her, but no one noticed.
“Bad guy.”
Diana grinned and stood on shaky legs, swinging her sword.
On that day, Diana had been knocked unconscious three times and spun around so many times that she lost count of the world spinning.
Diana, covered head to toe in blood and dirt, looked miserable, but the expression on her face when she was unconscious was strangely peaceful.