197. What Are You Gonna Do If I Don't?
197. What Are You Gonna Do If I Don't?
It hadn't been planned like this originally.
His head had gotten hotter than necessary.
Right, the original plan was definitely....
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As soon as she heard that Carlos was coming this way over the bridge, Lucia was overcome with anxiety.
"He's coming right now?"
"Uh-uh... what do I do..?? Nothing's ready... yet...."
It was an unforeseen event.
How could anyone have imagined he would come back just two days after making such a scene?
Lucia was right.
Nothing was ready yet, so facing him again wasn't exactly a good situation.
At the very least, he had planned to meet him only after building up her confidence by breaking through the wall of the highest Expert rank.
Lucia was still afraid of her father.
'...No way, did he come to retract it already?'
It was strange that he was coming so soon after speaking so boldly.
He wasn't the type to overturn his own decisions so easily, even for the sake of face.
But the fact that he came anyway clearly meant that the other Five Pillars or the Imperial Family had put pressure on Russell.
Any of the students at the Academy could become Russell's son-in-law.
In that case, the clan chief candidates of the Beastmen Union on staff at the Academy, or the princes from the Five Kingdom Alliance, would also be candidates.
In fact, one of the princes had even stepped forward himself.
The Imperial Family probably wouldn't want Russell to be tied by blood to them.
"How much did I suffer because of that... and now he might just flip his hand and retract it?? He's so arbitrary! Father always has been...!!"
Lucia was furious at Carlos's action of arbitrarily deciding everything.
She had been through so much emotional pain because of that, and now, hearing he might come to change things again just when the situation was improving, her anger seemed to surge.
But the blazing rage subsided quickly.
It seemed her fear of Carlos was greater than her burning anger.
She had said she would somehow oppose him, but she hadn't overcome it yet.
It wasn't something so easy that saying you'd overcome it meant you'd overcome it right away.
But this actually worked out well.
I would use this opportunity to try to reduce Lucia's fear of Carlos a bit.
The reason Lucia feared Carlos was because she had never seen him lose before.
To improve this, she needed to see the figure she thought to be invincible get smashed to pieces right before her eyes.
In other words, it meant I was going to grab him by the collar and beat the shit out of him.
"That's... too dangerous. If you get hurt, I don't want that..."
Lucia strongly dissuaded me from my plan to have a fight.
Even though she had seen me fight a Demon Archbishop, either she couldn't grasp what level that was, or Carlos stood as such an overwhelmingly powerful entity in her mind.
"Then you can just step in and stop it in the middle. Don't worry, I don't plan on losing."
What was I gonna do if I got retaliated against?
Let's see a top-tier Expert try to tell the world he got beaten up by an Academy student.
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"... You bastard... what the hell are you...!"
Carlos, a fresh blue bruise on his face, shot to his feet and glared at me.
"Family Head, are you alright??!"
"You bastard!!!! What is the meaning of this!!!"
At the sound of Wajangchang shattering, the soldiers who had been waiting outside pushed their way in.
This was where the problem started.
I had already laid hands on Carlos, and there was no going back.
I had tried to talk a bit more, but this fucker suddenly brought up a person's height?
Originally, the plan was to provoke Carlos by having Lucia insist on keeping the engagement as it was, making him raise his hand first, but I had impulsively rushed in first.
The plan had gotten a little twisted, but since I'd already slugged him, I might as well do this properly.
"Everyone withdraw!"
"But Family Head..!"
"Did I not say withdraw!"
Embarrassed to be seen after getting hit, Carlos waved off all the soldiers who had approached.
We had smashed the glass window and been blown outside the building, but fortunately, the Headmaster had dismissed everyone from the annex, so it didn't turn into a major commotion.
Getting up, Carlos opened his eyes wide and spoke to me.
"You... how did you send me flying with that tiny body of yours?!"
A vein bulged on my forehead again.
"This bastard just called me tiny again...?!!!!"
Not once, but twice? I'm not letting this slide.
I'll make him a cripple to a degree that won't kill him.
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Carlos was experiencing something unbelievable.
'I got... hit and sent flying?'
He wanted to think it was a dream, but the intense pain throbbing on his face made him realize reality.
After mastering the Rock Sword, he couldn't remember how many years it had been since his feet had been lifted from the ground by another person.
The very last memory was during his school days, right before she became a Master, when he had fought and lost to Linda. That said it all.
Even that Linda had torn Carlos from the ground by force, but Atlas's attack had naturally blown Carlos away.
As if he had never been fixed in place from the beginning.
Carlos looked at the person in front of him again.
He was a student who looked so very small and slender compared to himself.
'Just a student? No... is he really a student?'
He was starting to look like something of unknown identity now.
"How did you... send me flying with that tiny body of yours?!"
"This bastard just called me tiny again...?!!!!"
The moment he heard those words, Atlas flew into a rage again and dashed toward Carlos.
In his hand was a long sword with a jet-black blade.
Carlos also drew the sword fastened at his waist.
Thinking about getting hit just moments ago, he couldn't afford to be careless.
Right, his opponent was not a student.
He was similar to himself, or stronger and faster.
'If that's the case..!'
The space around the sword Carlos had drawn warped.
It was a characteristic of the Rock Sword, which seized control of the surrounding space centered on the blade.
No matter how fast the opponent was, if it was a sword that dominated the entire space, he could respond.
In that instant, Carlos was appalled.
'Space is..?!'
Atlas's sword was also warping the space around it.
'How can he use that? No way... did Lucia teach him?'
The distortion of space around the sword was a trait shown by swordsmen who had mastered the Rock Sword.
The question of how the outsider Atlas could use that shook Carlos.
Even if Lucia had taught him, it made no sense.
Not everyone who learned the Rock Sword entered that realm.
It was a technique that could only be used after realizing the principle of unifying oneself with the Earth Veins on one's own.
It was no easy technique that could be mastered in just a few months.
'There's no way... Right, it's a trick. You could easily imitate it using an artifact or other magic. He's clearly trying to confuse me. But if it's a cheap trick... I'll blow it all away!'
Besides that, there was one more way to use a sword of that form, but since that also lacked realism, he dismissed the possibility entirely.
No, before it lacked realism, it just couldn't be that.
Carlos shook off his confusion and created a purer sword than ever before.
Immediately after, the two swords clashed.
To be precise, the blades of the two swords never actually struck each other.
The swords stopped just before the blades collided.
As if an invisible repulsive force was acting between the two swords.
And the 200-year-old reception room located on the 1st floor of the Academy annex vanished into the pages of history.
-Kwa-kwa-kwang!!!
As the formless Aura surrounding the two swords collided, a beat late, it unleashed a shockwave as if it had been hit by bombardment.
The walls of the reception room, which had been protected by security magic, all burst open, punching a massive hole in the annex and shaking the entire building.
The two men hadn't moved a single step from their spots, but Carlos's arm, which had withstood Atlas's attack, was trembling.
'A heavy... sword..!'
Atlas's sword was no mere imitation of the form.
The formless Auras around the sword precisely dominated the space, and it was incredibly heavy.
He had firmly grasped the principle of the 'Greatsword'.
And that realm was deep enough to feel it wasn't something acquired in a day or two.
Carlos's sword was pushed back by Atlas's.
So utterly confused, Carlos felt like he had been smacked hard on the back of the head.
A swordsman using the Rock Sword with a realm higher than his own?
How could such a person possibly be just an Academy student?
"That's... the Rock Sword. How... how can you use that!!"
"I'd prefer you didn't compare it to something like the Rock Sword."
"Something like?"
Atlas, showing a displeased expression as if being compared to the Rock Sword was an insult, adjusted his grip on his sword.
"!!"
Atlas raised the long sword he held with both hands high into the sky, taking an overhead stance.
Just raising his sword to the sky, a suffocating pressure filled the air.
From Atlas, who was much shorter than himself, Carlos sensed a giant.
'Have I been overwhelmed??'
For a brief moment, he was overwhelmed by the overhead stance unfolded by that small body.
Normally, taking such a posture with that height wouldn't even pose a significant threat to the much taller Carlos.
At best, it should have been a posture meant to respond to Carlos's attacks.
But what he felt right now was the complete opposite.
'Impossible. Something like that is just!!'
Writing off the feeling swirling in his heart as confusion, Carlos erased it and raised his sword high into the sky just like Atlas.
The gripping method and other aspects of his stance were different, but it was also unmistakably an overhead stance.
Just as with Atlas, a suffocating pressure emanated from around Carlos as well.
He drew up his Aura even further to hide the fear budding in his chest.
The sight of someone under 150cm tall and a 2m giant standing side-by-side with their swords raised was incredibly comical.
The Rock Sword's 'Gyeong-cheon-dong-ji'.
Along with the trajectory of Carlos's sword, an Aura the size of a building moved.
The extreme of the Rock Sword, which flips heaven and earth with a single stroke, engulfed Atlas.
Seeing Carlos's Gyeong-cheon-dong-ji fill his vision, Atlas moved 'one beat later'.
As if taking a deep breath, after sucking in all the mana and Earth Veins that filled the surroundings in a single breath, Atlas swung his sword down.
Right before it was swung, Atlas's Aura was smaller than Carlos's Gyeong-cheon-dong-ji.
But the moment it was swung, the explosively increased Aura tore Carlos's Aura to shreds.
The technique Atlas used was a strike employing the Taishan Sword, the secret swordsmanship of Titan, but it hadn't been given a name as a technique.
If you had mastered the Taishan Sword, it was an utterly natural swing,
When outsiders insisted on giving a name to this single strike, they said this.
They called it the Giant's Strike.