The Sword That Waited
"Oppa! Let's play!"
The boy fled from the girl charging straight at him. But the moment he realized those blue eyes—set in a face crowned with the same black hair as his own—were locked on his retreating back, despair settled over him.
"Aaaaah, don't be so boring! Keep running, I said!!!"
"Rebecca, stop tormenting Victor so much!"
"Father! This isn't tormenting him! I'm training him because I treasure him and love him!"
"...How is every word out of her mouth identical to her older brothers and sisters? Still, compared to the two who ran away, Victor is at least sturdy."
"Sto—"
"Sto?"
"Stop them, you crazy people!!!"
Victor's scream was swallowed by the snowfield. Before he knew it Rebecca was already above him, and her ambush sent him tumbling across the white expanse.
"Hah... hah."
"You hold up rather well."
"...Huu. I can see you."
"What?"
"I can see everything. Really... you haven't improved at all."
"You madman."
Blades clashed. Sparks flew. The exchange of blows continued unbroken, and that alone was enough to sour Ryan's mood.
What the hell? Why is some bodyguard knight matching my sword... no, wait. He's not matching it.
The balance had already tipped. He was the one scrambling to defend. He was sinking into a swamp. At this rate—
"Haaah!"
"..."
Clang!
Seizing the brief flicker of emotion, Orca's blade struck true. Ryan's sword left his hand and clattered to the floor.
"...Sharp."
"Ha... ha."
"But you dodged."
"...I can see it all."
"What?"
"Every attack is completely visible."
"...Ha."
Ryan drew the second longsword and the dagger at his waist.
"This time will be different. I'll give you credit—you forced the Meyer family dual-sword style out of me."
"..."
"With this—"
Whoosh!
A sound like wind being split, a razor-sharp sensation grazing his face, and blood beginning to trickle down his cheek—Ryan's expression froze solid.
"You bastard... when did you—"
"Oh, I missed?"
"...Fine. Come on. Even two-on-one, against the likes of you I won't lo—"
"Grand Duke Walterheim."
"Mm."
Victor nodded at Orca's call.
"Speak."
"He is my opponent."
"..."
"He is... the person I wanted to break."
"All right. But if you win, you know what comes next, right?"
"Th-that is..."
"Let's be honest. How long are you planning to just stand there and watch?"
"...Understood."
"Good. Then—"
At Orca's answer Victor simply sat down on the spot and settled in to watch the two of them fight.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Orca asked so nicely to take you one-on-one. I have to grant the request."
"Unbelievable. You're throwing away the one slim chance you had of catching me?"
"What are you talking about? If I'd stepped in, you would have lost for certain."
"..."
"And you still think you're going to win even now?"
"What did you say?"
"You think that peace-softened sword of yours can beat a blade that has spent its entire life looking at only one person?"
Whoosh!
"Tch!"
The assault began again. Ryan pressed forward, determined not to sink into the swamp a second time.
"Don't get cocky! My love! My sword! There's no way I'll lose to that guy!"
"...I will win. And then..."
The fight unfolding before my eyes between the two swordsmen wasn't a fight at all. It was a one-sided thrashing.
"Kugh..."
Ryan had swaggered in declaring he would face his opponent with the Meyer family's dual-sword style, yet now he was so hard-pressed simply defending that he could mount no offense at all.
As expected... the signs were already there back then.
Orca—the sword master who appeared in the latter half of the novel. According to my sister the author, he was a character created solely for Chloe's salvation arc. Of course, even calling it a salvation arc, the readers who watched him take a broken, body-and-soul-ruined Chloe—regressed to a childlike state after her broken engagement—and simply leave for the countryside with her had coughed blood screaming that such a slapped-together "salvation" could never be pure love.
"Originally he wasn't even supposed to be a bodyguard knight. He was meant to live as an ordinary student, forced to stand by and watch the childhood friend he loved fall apart, a pure-love character who could do nothing."
But things were different now. If he could legally beat the man who had insulted the woman he loved—
Take out everything you've been hiding.
That's...
I know. You're afraid Lady Chloe will hate you for hiding your skill, for lying to her. But Orca.
I grinned as I watched Orca's sword. The blade carving through empty air was so honest it was almost foolish. Yet that foolish swordsmanship, built by looking at only one person, was precisely the path that suited his way of living.
"What he needed was someone to push him from behind, and a stage."
And that stage had been granted by Ryan himself—how ironic.
"Climbing onto the very stage where he would be destroyed... and against—"
"Haaah!!"
—the swordsman who loved the sword he himself had thrown away.
"...Kh... kugh."
"Your sword... has broken."
"Not yet... I haven't lost yet."
The dagger in his hand had long since shattered, and his entire body was a mass of wounds, yet the last scrap of pride—the words "son of the Knight Commander" and "heir of the Meyer Count Family"—forced him back to his feet.
"The man who discarded a shining sword because he already had everything, and the man who lived looking only at the single sword beside him."
"Haaaah!!"
"I can't lose... I... I!!"
That decided the match.
"Gueh."
The finishing blow landed. Ryan's knees buckled and he collapsed where he stood.
"Stop!"
The referee rushed over to check Ryan's condition, but Ryan only shook his head violently, as if to say he still had not lost. The referee took one look at his state, rose, and declared:
"The victor of the duel is Victor Walterheim."
"No... I... still haven't lo—"
Muttering, Ryan staggered upright. The moment his eyes found the sword lying discarded on the ground, they flashed.
"I... still!!!"
Whoosh!
"...Kyaaaagh!!!"
"Don't make this any uglier."
"Walterheim!!!!"
An arrow punched straight through Ryan's right arm. Eyes bloodshot, he glared at me and started charging.
"Haa. Seriously pathetic..."
"Enough."
Boom!!!
"Gueh!"
Ryan slammed into the training-ground floor as if crushed by an invisible weight and could not rise.
"The duel is over. Grand Duke Walterheim is the victor. And yet you refuse to accept it and continue rampaging."
A golden figure descended upon the training ground. At the blue glow of her eyes, every person present bowed their heads.
"Are you insulting me, Ryan von Meyer?"
"...No, Your Highness."
"Good. Withdraw."
Whoosh!
Luisilla flicked her hand and the force pinning Ryan vanished. A bodyguard knight hurried forward, supported him, and escorted him out of the training ground.
"...Huu."
"Thank you, Your Highness."
"Not at all. I failed to respond quickly to the unexpected situation and forced the Grand Duke to stain his hands with blood. I apologize."
"I'm used to it."
"I... I see."
"Yes."
"Ah... this sort of thing will not happen again. Then!!"
Watching Luisilla flee the training ground as if escaping, I allowed myself a small smile.
A little sister a thousand times better than my real older one, that's for sure.
"Grand Duke Walterheim."
Orca approached and bowed his head.
"Thank you... for giving me the opportunity."
"I have no idea what you mean."
"You told me everything. And you prepared the stage."
I shrugged, wearing an expression of complete innocence.
"Is that so? I truly have no idea what you're talking about. More importantly."
"Yes."
"You have a promise to keep."
Cecilia and Chloe had already come down into the training ground. Cecilia beamed the moment she saw me, while Chloe looked ready to burst into tears at any second.
"Chloe noona... I—"
"...Stop."
Before Orca could say another word, Chloe ran to him and threw her arms around him.
"...You foolish idiot."
"..."
"Are you actually an idiot?"
In the beginning it was longing. Watching the back of the girl who swung her sword so boldly before me, I swung my own while dreaming of the day I would stand at her side. Yes—even if she loved another man, I would still—
"You really are a foolish idiot."
"..."
The girl looking down at me as I lay across her knees had a face streaked with tears and twisted into a scowl. Anyone else would have called it an unflattering expression.
"Pretty."
"..."
Even that was lovely to me. That was why I had looked only at her my entire life. Knowing I was lacking, I swung my sword. I swore alone that even if I could not stay by her side, I would become the blade that protected her. And yet—
"I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"I got greedy."
"..."
"So I crossed the line."
I had always feared that the moment I crossed it, everything might collapse. So I had been relieved that someone else stood beside her. And I had been furious—furious at the man who had discarded and insulted a girl this beautiful.
"You really are... an idiot."
Tap.
Chloe's forehead pressed against mine. Warmth spread through me. Her golden eyes held my reflection.
"Since when?"
"...From the first time we met."
"You should have said so earlier."
"By then she was already engaged to that bastard."
"Heh... and you still liked me anyway."
"...It was a vicious first love and an unrequited one."
"..."
"I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry for?"
"Because I... because I'm not enough—"
"You!!"
Thud!
"Gueh!"
"You... you absolute idiot!!"
"What was that sudden headbutt for—"
"Did I ever say you weren't enough?!"
"Huh?"
Chloe stared down at me, eyes brimming with unshed tears.
"You said you'd swing your sword at my side, that you'd stay by my side! Then you should have been greedy enough to stand there until the very end!"
"Chloe noona..."
"Why did you step back alone, you idiot!!"
Her fists pounded against my chest. They didn't hurt in the slightest, yet the weight of the emotion packed into those fists struck straight through to my heart.
"Orca van Silin."
"..."
Her golden eyes shimmered like stars in the night sky as they fixed on me.
"I'll ask you. Chloe Rista will ask you."
"Yes, my lady."
"What are you to me?"
"I am your sword."
"And."
"I am your childhood friend."
"And."
"..."
"Say it."
She was waiting for an answer. And I knew exactly the answer she wanted right now.
"I want... to become your lover. I want to protect you... for the rest of my life."
"..."
"Will you... grant me that?"
"Idiot."
"Chloe noo—"
"Don't call me noona."
"Chlo—mph?"
Before I could finish, my lips were sealed. My eyes flew wide. A soft, yielding sensation brushed against them and vanished. For that fleeting instant I almost believed my heart had stopped.
"Chloe..."
"Hnn..."
When she lifted her head, the tear tracks from moments before were gone, and her face was flushed as red as a ripe apple.
"No more 'noona.' No more 'my lady.'"
"But..."
"From now on I am the lover you have to protect, and the woman you love. Got it?"
She was speaking in the tone of a command, yet I knew. From the trembling of her brows and the scarlet of her cheeks, I knew exactly how nervous she was—and how happy. After more than ten years of watching her, how could I not?
"Yeah."
I knew her better than anyone.
"I understand, Chloe."
At the raw sound of her name from my mouth, her shoulders gave a tiny jolt. It was so unbearably lovely that I pulled her straight into my arms, lowering my head this time to find her lips myself.
"...Hawaah..."
"...What."
The atmosphere had looked so good that I had been watching from a distance with Cecilia.
"Ch... Chloe is bold... she's using her tongue like that...?"
"What the hell... what even is this!"
What is with that high-speed pure-love development rate!!! I'm jealous, damn it!!!