The Lady Beats Me Down
The training grounds inside the Valencia Ducal Mansion.
Befitting a grand ducal house, the grounds were stocked with every kind of training apparatus and weapon one could imagine, and the clean sand that rustled softly against the soles of my feet told me without a single glance at the ledgers just how meticulously the place was maintained.
Ordinarily, this space belonged to the knights of the ducal house—and in fact,
"Let's end training here for today."
"Yes, sir!"
they were using it right up until this very moment.
"...Isn't that Lady Rebecca?"
"And beside her... looks like Lord Albert."
Today, however, two very special guests whom the knights knew all too well had come calling at the training grounds.
Honestly, I'd assumed it was a joke.
When Rebecca first told me to come out to the training grounds immediately, I simply thought she was lashing out in irritation at my teasing—spitting the words out without really meaning them. She'd often worn the expression of someone itching to land a punch on me, after all.
I figured this was just more of the same, only a bit worse than usual.
—Step outside for a moment. I need to change.
But when the lady of the house told me to leave her room so she could change her clothes, I began to slowly sense that something had gone terribly wrong.
"What are you doing, standing there like a post?"
A short while later, when Rebecca emerged from her room fully dressed in practice wear, I was forced to feel, bone-deep, that her invitation to a sparring match had been no joke at all.
And so, with my hand seized in hers and my body dragged along helplessly, I found myself standing at the Valencia Ducal training grounds before I knew it.
"...Hello, Hans."
There I was, greeting one of the ducal house's own knights by name.
Having visited the ducal mansion constantly over the past three years, I'd memorized the names of the knights I saw often, and most of them knew me in return—as the lady's fiancé, the young man who came around to see her without fail.
I'd even asked a few of them about swordsmanship from time to time.
"Lord Albert? What brings you here, of all places..."
Hans had apparently just finished a grueling training session—he was dripping with sweat as he caught his breath—but he greeted me warmly as I trudged onto the grounds.
In a sense, I was nothing more than an uninvited guest here, so his friendliness was genuinely appreciated. And yet,
"..."
Sadly, my mood at that moment was in no state to answer his question with a smile.
"Goodness, what's with that face?"
Instead of answering, I pointed a finger toward somewhere off to the side.
"...Ah. Say no more, my lord. I understand."
Hans glanced over at Rebecca, who was stretching out in the direction I was pointing, and seemed to grasp the situation at once.
"So you're finally crossing blades with our lady, are you?"
Listening to that barely suppressed glee in his voice,
"...Haaah."
a sigh escaped me.
Was this how Rebecca felt whenever I teased her?
"That's exactly why I've been advising you all this time to stop provoking the lady."
I know. I should have teased her in moderation.
But who could have guessed she'd suddenly declare a duel like this?
"Truth be told, I've been looking forward to it. Watching you torment the lady leaves me rather irritated myself."
"..."
When my expression grew even more wretched at his words, Hans finally seemed to take pity and offered some consolation.
"Don't worry too much, my lord. Who's to say you won't win?"
"...Really?"
"Of course. I'm on Lord Albert's side. And I'm sure plenty of the other knights are quietly rooting for you too."
"...And if I were to place a bet?"
"I'd put my money on the lady."
The moment I realized this consolation was, in fact, a masterclass in mockery, my face crumpled all over again.
"I hope your life falls apart someday, Hans."
"And I hope the lady beats you black and blue, my lord."
"I hope the bank you keep your savings in goes under."
"I hope the lady breaks a bone or two in your body."
While Hans and I were exchanging such heartfelt blessings (?) with one another, Rebecca—who appeared to have finished her stretching—came strolling over.
Perhaps worried her hair might get in the way during the match, she had pulled her red hair up into a ponytail instead of her usual twin braids, and she'd thrown herself into her warm-ups with such intensity that sweat was already trickling down—before the match had even begun.
And then—
...Why is she pretty?
For some unfathomable reason, my heart was pounding at the sight of her like that.
That was supposed to be not my lovely fiancée but a grim reaper, an executioner come to beat me senseless in a matter of minutes.
"The lady seems to have made up her mind for good today... You're not thinking her looks are beautiful right now, are you, my lord?"
"..."
"...You truly are a terminal case."
As much as I hated to admit it, Hans was right. For my heart to race even in a situation like this—just how far gone was I?
In any case, the lady approached me step by unhurried step, like a goddess—or like a death god.
"Here you go."
"..."
A wooden practice sword clasped in each of her hands.
Something told me that once I accepted one, there would be no turning back. The instant I took it, my duel with Rebecca would be set in stone.
"...Do we really have to do this?"
Believing this to be my last chance, I put on the most pitiful, forlorn expression I could muster and tried my best to convey my reluctance.
"Yes, we do. They say you trained hard enough to stop coming to see me. Time to put that to the test, don't you think?"
"..."
Not a chance.
In fact, I suspect the phrase not a chance was invented precisely for moments like this one.
It was, quite literally, not a chance.
And so the duel between Rebecca and me—begun under the old maxim of swallowing tears and eating mustard—
"...The lady seems to be in quite a mood."
"Is Lord Albert going to die today?"
"Oh, come now. She wouldn't kill her own fiancé. Surely."
could be judged by the knights' murmurs alone. This was no duel. It was a one-sided beating—outright assault.
And naturally, the one taking the beating was me.
***
THWACK! CRACK!
It hurt.
Every time Rebecca's wooden sword connected, a wave of pain crashed over me—enough to make me doubt whether the blade at my hip was even a real sword.
"A whole week and a day of diligent training, and this is all you have to show for it?"
"..."
On top of that, the lady's verbal assault was landing direct hits on my ears. I understood now, completely, what it meant for one's mind to grow hazy.
THWACK!
"Lord Albert! Hang in there!"
Perhaps they pitied me, taking blow after blow without landing a single one, the ducal knights began to cheer me on.
Bolstered by their voices, I somehow managed to look for an opening to counterattack—but—
"Too slow."
Rebecca evaded my counter with a contemptuous little smile and brought her wooden sword down on my head.
THWACK!
"Slow as you are, I'd hesitate to call you a swordsman anywhere."
"..."
"If this is all it was going to be, you should have just kept coming to visit."
The pain radiating from my skull, followed by Rebecca's relentless taunts, set a blazing competitive fire in me—a desperate, maddening urge to win—but the world, alas, contains impossible things.
Did she think I was getting beaten up because I wanted to be?
Of course I wanted to block Rebecca's attacks and counter them like some hero from a fantasy novel.
I wanted to fight beautifully, like a proper fictional protagonist—drop lines like "No flower blooms for ten days," or "This ends now."
...But what can I do if I can't?
The world I'd transmigrated into might be a fantasy novel, but I myself was not one of its characters.
So there I stood, helplessly absorbing Rebecca's wooden sword, blow after blow.
"...My lady, I've just had a splendid idea."
Unable to bear the sight of this carnage, one of the ducal knights spoke up to Rebecca, who was still methodically beating me into the ground.
"The gap between your skill and the young lord's is far too great for a duel to mean anything—so why not turn it into a wager instead?"
"...A wager?"
At the word wager, Rebecca's eyes went round at once.
And watching her, I understood something with absolute certainty.
...She's still holding that against me.
She was still stewing over the kiss she'd had to give me after losing our chess bet the other day.
I wanted to shout absolutely not on the spot, but I'd taken so many blows from that wooden sword that my mouth refused to obey my brain, and the knight who had raised the proposal, oblivious to my inner turmoil, continued laying out his wager.
"Here's my suggestion: if Lord Albert manages to land even a single touch on the lady with his wooden sword, it's his victory. If he fails to touch her at all, it's hers. How does that sound?"
"Ooh..."
Rebecca let out an admiring breath, as if this were a rather good idea.
Even that admiring reaction scratched at my pride.
Didn't finding such a proposal reasonable mean she was confident she wouldn't be touched even once? But the duel had just made it abundantly clear that I couldn't so much as brush a single strand of the lady's hair.
No matter how wounded my pride, I had no ground to stand on for arguing.
"Sounds good. Let's do it that way."
Rebecca looked at me, her expression saying, You have no objections, do you?
"I object—"
Having grievances aplenty even now, I tried to refuse.
"Did you say no? Then we'll simply continue the duel as before."
"...I have no objections."
With zero desire to further savor the lady's merciless wooden-sword violence, I was forced to swallow my tears and accept the proposal.
Three years had passed since I transmigrated into The Crown Prince Wields a Sword.
And I had learned that the weak suffer a hard life in this world, too.