Something Unexpected Has Happened
One day, after classes.
The training ground inside the academy's new building was unusually crowded. The reason was simple enough. Until now, no one had ever dueled outside of lecture hours—but more than that, the two people sparring today were the talk of the campus.
Glenn Bernach, the instructor with a storied past.
Adrian El Ignas, the Crown Prince of the Empire.
Word that the two of them would hold a friendly match had spread by pure rumor, without so much as a single flyer. As the old saying went, news travels fast. And given how starved the academy was for entertainment, a crowd this size was only natural.
So when Carmilla gazed out over the throng and marveled, that too felt inevitable.
"Wow... it seems like every single person in this school has shown up."
She already knew how it would end. No matter how gifted a crown prince might be, he could never defeat a mercenary who had lived through countless battles. This was essentially a forced-loss event. There was no real need to watch it unfold.
And yet... for some reason, Carmilla wanted to see that defeat with her own eyes.
"When are they starting?"
"I dunno, I kinda think the Crown Prince is gonna win~"
"What are you talking about? Instructor Glenn is a real combat veteran. Has the prince ever even killed anyone?"
The rare spectacle had the spectators buzzing. Carmilla found a decent seat and waited in silence until a familiar voice reached her.
"Carmilla, you came too?"
"Ah, I hope you've been well."
Roxanna greeted her casually and settled into the seat beside her. As the restaurant's very first regular, she was someone Carmilla could never fail to recognize. Lately they had grown a little closer, the distance between them shrinking...
Well, this isn't so bad either, I suppose.
Roxanna beamed a bright, happy-to-see-you smile, then suddenly asked,
"I thought you weren't interested in this sort of thing. This is unexpected."
"Adrian is one of my regulars. This is simply part of customer management."
She couldn't exactly admit she had come to watch him lose, so Carmilla offered a convenient excuse. Roxanna took it in stride.
"Heeh~ Is that so. Then who do you think is going to win?"
The offhand question felt oddly provocative to Carmilla—as if even considering the possibility of Glenn's defeat were somehow taboo.
"Obviously Glenn."
"Yeah, that's what everyone says. But I see it a little differently."
"Differently...?"
"Maybe our Prince Adrian will win."
Before Carmilla could even ask why, the crowd around them began to stir.
"Looks like they're starting."
It had been a perfectly polite request.
He had heard the man was skilled with a sword—would he mind offering a lesson?
That was what Adrian had said the first day he met Instructor Glenn. For all his titles, he was a martial artist at heart. The moment he encountered a teacher said to be formidable with a blade, those words had simply come out.
"I'm teaching you right now, aren't I?"
Technically true. Everyone present was drilling the most basic sword technique—the downward cut. But the reply had been drier than necessary: a bare fact, stripped of emotion or judgment.
Glenn had declared on day one that he disliked formal classroom lessons and marched the entire class straight to the training yard. From that alone, Adrian had begun to sketch the outline of the man.
"What I meant was, having long heard of your martial exploits..."
"Ah. So that's what this is about."
Glenn seemed to understand. He brought his sword down again—exactly as he had for the past thirty minutes. Not a single breath out of place, the same perfect form every time. He was a living textbook. He had simply announced that class would not end until the entire group mastered the stance, and then he had repeated the motion without pause.
"You want me to prove I'm qualified to teach, is that it?"
"I never said anything of the sort."
"You look awfully pleased for someone who claims otherwise."
Glenn's eyes never left the space in front of him as he spoke. That, more than anything, rankled.
"Tomorrow. Come to the New Building Training Ground."
And so today had arrived.
Both men held wooden practice swords—blunt things that could never cut, capable of little more than bruises. Even so, Adrian's eyes burned.
"Thank you for granting me this precious time."
"Sure."
Adrian shifted his grip and settled into stance. Glenn, watching him, looked almost sloppy by comparison.
"I'll say this up front: I'm only using the downward cut."
"The downward cut...?"
"Yeah. The one I drilled into you lot until you were sick of it yesterday."
Glenn held his sword like a club, resting it casually on his shoulder, standing at a lazy angle. He flicked his fingers in a beckoning gesture.
"If you got it, come on."
Adrian's eyes widened. The words might as well have been the starting signal. He stepped in and swung.
Tak!
"Again."
He didn't understand at first. He hadn't even seen the movement. Only after the sound registered did he realize his attack had been blocked. The order of perception was completely reversed.
...Fast.
He raised his sword—now hanging far too low—back into a middle guard and carefully began searching for an opening. Or rather, that wasn't quite right. From Adrian's perspective, the posture Glenn had adopted was nothing but openings. Resting a wooden sword on one's shoulder appeared in no fencing manual. He looked like a bandit brandishing a club—as if proper form were unnecessary.
Adrian's jaw tightened. A strange anger rose with the thought.
"Ha!"
With a sharp shout he cut down again—
Tak.
The familiar crack of wood on wood, and a crushing weight against his wrist.
"Again."
Staring at his sword driven into the ground, Adrian felt it instinctively: attacks did not work on this man.
Why?
He reset his stance and wondered. Two strikes had been batted aside—so fast he couldn't even track them.
Admit it. He's faster than I am.
Speed was the problem. How did one beat an opponent who was simply quicker?
After a moment's thought, Adrian found his answer.
"Here I come."
He declared it and swung. This time he chose a downward cut—the same technique Glenn had said he would use. Glenn stepped back and met the descending arc with his own. But this time there was no sound of impact.
"...!"
The blade that had slipped free of the original path found a new one. Or rather, it had never been free; it had simply followed the line Adrian had drawn from the start. The second strike slid through the air in a graceful arc, a horizontal slash racing toward Glenn's waist.
Whoosh—!
A cross-cut, completed.
"Mixing in a feint, are we? Interesting little trick."
But he had been one step short. Glenn had simply taken two more steps back in time with the two strikes, and the blade never reached him. Another attack reduced to nothing.
Still, Glenn asked,
"Tell me. Why choose that move?"
Both cuts had only carved empty air—yet after just three exchanges, Glenn had chosen to evade rather than block. Calculation or coincidence? He needed to know which.
"I thought about why my attacks were being stopped."
Intent. Every attacker swings with the intention of striking a particular place. The moment that intention is read, defense becomes trivial—so every swordsman works to conceal it. Adrian had been clumsy in that regard. His first two attacks had been blocked because his intent had been written all over them. He had diagnosed his own flaw.
"So... I twisted the intent."
From high to low. He had deliberately fed Glenn a path he expected the man to react to, then—without even watching the response—slipped the flow and cut along a different line. The cross-cut combination itself was common enough, but using the first strike as pure feint was Adrian's own invention.
Glenn murmured in quiet admiration,
"Excellent."
He adjusted his grip—properly this time, tip leveled at his opponent in a true middle guard.
"Then I'll give you a reward."
Tadat—
With that sound, Adrian's sword left his hand. He only understood what had happened when he felt the cool wood of the practice blade resting against his throat. In a real fight, his head would already be gone.
"...I lose."
He admitted defeat and, body still rigid with shock, offered a formal bow. Only then did Glenn withdraw the wooden sword. He laid a hand on Adrian's shoulder and spoke quietly.
"Next time, try breaking this. Someone like you should find the answer soon enough."
Only when Glenn stepped down from the platform did the deathly silence that had blanketed the stands finally shatter.
"Did you see that just now...?"
"For a second there, wasn't he fighting that instructor on equal footing?"
"Amazing... Crown Prince Adrian is..."
Among the whispering spectators sat a pair of girls side by side.
"I knew it, I just knew it—His Highness Adrian! To show such a splendid performance! Hey, did you see that?"
The voice, trembling with excitement and pride, belonged to Roxanna. Adrian had lost, yes—but she had witnessed Glenn's skill firsthand, far beyond anything she had imagined. And for Adrian to earn recognition from such an opponent... that was as good as victory.
Beside the beaming Roxanna sat Carmilla, her face drained of color for reasons of her own.
"I think we're completely fucked..."