Yes, It Is Swordsmanship
Even so, I could hardly go throwing my weight around. I had no idea whether I'd ever been close to these people or not.
For the time being I'd kept swinging the sword, testing whether I could actually control it. It wasn't coming easily.
That was when it happened.
Unlike the pig I'd seen before, one that looked to be on our side came barreling over, huffing and puffing. A nimble pig, was it?
"My lady! Monsters have broken through!"
"Monsters?"
"Yes! They're coming over the Eren Mountains!"
Mm. All right.
Wait. And what exactly did they expect me to do about it?
Look at that face. It wanted an answer out of me. Why are you staring at me?
"And why tell me? Isn't this something you report to the Grand Duke?"
Come to think of it, where had the Grand Duke gone?
"His Grace has gone west on alchemy business. He temporarily transferred command to you, my lady."
"Then what was the plan for while I was at the Academy?"
Did this house have no one but me to stand in as acting head?
I didn't know the circumstances, but handing the North over—even for a little while—to a young lady who couldn't hold onto so much as a political marriage? What was that man thinking?
Ah. Right. Clyde. Nomad stock to the root. Among the grand ducal houses, this place might simply live outside common sense.
"Please give the order at once!"
The Eren Mountains were the range that marked the border between the North and the demon realm. If they were crossing here, the monsters had to be fairly serious about it.
Just as well. It was about time this body got used to a fight. The frame itself had grown a little more familiar; there'd been time enough to work through the difference between a man's body and a woman's. The real problem was still the shape of it. The hips I could manage. The chest was another matter—the difference there was far too great, and I needed to adjust how I moved to match.
As for swordsmanship, so long as I didn't take the Holy Sword in hand again, a rough swing ought to be enough. No better time to try it.
"I'll go myself."
And so I set out for the Eren Mountains with the private soldiers of House Clyde.
Sure enough, animal-type monsters—magic beasts, as they were called—were pouring in by the drove. More of them than I'd expected, but hardly enough to justify a panic. For House Clyde, this sort of thing had to be an annual event.
"You're making this much fuss over that?"
I laughed, dumbfounded, and a few of the soldiers who'd followed me glanced around before laughing with me.
The problem was the girl who'd first brought me the news, and some of the retainers.
"Well, His Grace isn't here, and for the moment you're second in line in Clyde, my lady."
"And who are you, stuck to my side this whole time?"
"M-my lady! How could you forget Laura, your closest aide!"
We were close enough to talk like this?
"I told you. I lost my memory."
"Well, that would explain why you're back to your old self. And this suits you far better than the days you were buried in dresses!"
From the look of it, this young lady called Tatiana had been born with Clyde's own nature, then fallen headlong into every young lady's fad there was once she made her late entrance into noble society. Her inner circle must have hated it.
"Sharp tongue, for a woman in a maid's uniform."
"Shall we hold them, or go down and crush the lot?"
I did like the way this house of nomad stock talked, master and servant alike.
"Which does Clyde prefer?"
I could already guess, but I asked anyway. Handle this right, and I could raise my standing with them here and now. First I had to stop looking like the frail young lady of a broken engagement and start looking like a daughter of House Clyde.
"Ordinarily we prefer going down and crushing them. Those magic beasts aren't any great host, so taking them won't be hard."
"Then that's what we'll do."
Better to settle a thing like this in one stroke. The Clyde side seemed to be nothing but rough sorts. Nomads in name—von Clyde was a barbarian strain that had been civilized. They'd have a taste for the strong.
"My lady?"
"All this sword can manage is Explosive Sword."
Even that alone would make the fighting easy enough for a while. The various techniques I'd used through the Holy Sword might see almost no use from here on, but they'd still be more than enough against the Demon King's army. I'd have to widen the repertoire bit by bit. For now, Explosive Sword would do.
"Ah—my lady? You're going down alone?"
"Now that's a daughter of Clyde!"
"Hear me! The princess of Clyde has taken the field—are the soldiers just going to stand and watch? All of you, after her!"
Somehow those lunatics were following me. I told them not to come charging in like that. Why were they like this?
Soldiers of any other country wouldn't have rushed in so recklessly. When monsters invaded, the troops of every nation did the same thing and nothing else: lay a defensive line and hold it. If they attacked at all, it was to take back a lost fort and restore the old stalemate. They never opened by charging out—not unless the Hero's party was there in support, or the church knights had massed and seized an overwhelming advantage. Clyde was different.
The moment the monsters pressed in, they threw themselves forward without a moment's hesitation.
"Just ordinary magic beasts, then?"
Nothing you could call the Demon King's army, but even common magic beasts outmatched most wild predators and most men. Strong enough.
KWA-GWAAAAANG!
A tremendous shock tolled through the mountains. In a single instant a sea of light burst open, shaking the earth as it swallowed the magic beasts. Krrrrrrk—the screams of the ones devoured by the light echoed back.
Clyde's soldiers stared, struck dumb by the sight.
"Whoa. A huge shock just ran through the whole range."
"So she really is the Sword Saint's daughter?"
"No—that isn't swordsmanship."
Why did they keep muttering behind my back?
I like people who say a thing to your face. To your face. And the so-called retainers of House Clyde were doing this from the rear. Currying favor, or disappointed? Whichever it was, it seemed better than before.
What had that girl Tatiana even been doing? Swing a sword a few times and the reputation on the name Tatiana would rewrite itself. I'd be entering the Academy soon enough, but if I wanted the house's backing, I needed to show these people who I was.
"Kieeeek!"
"My lady! Look out!"
A few of the magic beasts ambushed me from behind. While I'd been hitting the front, some of them must have climbed up ahead. Even so, I had a Hero's seasoning in me. I had no intention of going down to the likes of magic beasts.
Close quarters had its own measure, when the range was awkward for Explosive Sword. I clenched my right fist and drove it into a beast's brow.
"Kyaaaaak!"
Holy power packed the blow, and the crown of its head tore clean off. In the same breath I beat the startled ones down one after another.
"What kind of brawling is that? That's not how Clyde fights."
"Hm. Something the young lady devised herself?"
"There it is. Dress her up for those capital brats all you like—Clyde blood is Clyde blood."
What were they, proctors?
Annoyed for no good reason, I swept the beasts aside and loosed Explosive Sword a few more times, wiping the invasion clean.
"Do the magic beasts invade often?"
"Yes. They come over quite frequently. Every time we put them down, that Abyss thins a little—but it restores itself in no time, and they come charging again."
A soldier pointed at the darkness beyond the mountains.
That thing, called by every word there was for darkness. The Night. The Abyss.
The Night itself did people no harm so long as you didn't linger in it, but the creatures of malice born from the Abyss did. Born without end inside it, they had invaded humanity's domain, and one of the passages they used was the Eren Mountains of the Clyde lands, in the Empire's north. There were barbarians, too, who circled the range to slip in.
"So Clyde really is a breakwater."
The emperor of that time had settled the nomadic von family on Clyde land and set them to holding the enemy back. And so it had continued to the present. Guardian house of the North. House von Clyde. That was why they'd been granted a grand ducal seat. Plausible enough at a glance—but on the day the Abyss ended, would von Clyde's role end with it? Not while the barbarians remained, at least.
"Because House Clyde is the guardian deity of the North."
Laura was carrying on like that, but in any case Clyde had been fighting the Abyss that pressed down on them without end. Far better than Carn.
"Have we ever taken heavy losses?"
"This is a mountain range. Even if the enemy isn't human, getting over it is hard. So we use the terrain to hit the monsters and the barbarians, then push straight through. We do take losses, but deaths from the magic beasts are almost none."
"Figures. You'd pick up the knack, fighting them."
If the damage from magic beasts had piled up, there wouldn't be a living soldier left in the North.
"So is that the end of it?"
"Yes. You got them all."
Laura grumbled, sword still in hand.
It felt easier than when I'd been the Hero. Part of it was the enemy being magic beasts, and part of it was the terrain—but in the Hero's party we were always attacking, or watching for a raid out of the Night, and we never slept properly. This side might actually be the better of the two. If Carn would just handle his end properly, that ought to be enough.
That night, Evan returned safely to the manor and summoned me. My return to the Academy wasn't far off, so it was only natural.
"I hear you stepped out in front yourself this time."
"What? Ah. Yes."
What had he heard that called for a face like that? I might not look it, but I was confident in my own strength.
"And they say you used some peculiar ability. Strike a target with the sword, and it explodes."
"What? Ah."
Holy Sword arts. This was the sword Tatiana's mother had carried, at that.
"I can see why you chose the sword. But that isn't swordsmanship."
"It is, though."
"No. Give it every benefit of the doubt and it's still just a kind of magic."
"It is."
Not this man too. Just how far did Clyde go in refusing to call a thing swordsmanship? I wanted to sit him down and argue, in all seriousness, that Holy Sword arts were swordsmanship. I held it in.
"All right, I get it, so stop glaring like you mean to eat me. More to the point, I hear you took magic beasts with your bare fists?"
That was a form of Holy Sword arts as well, though reinforcing the body would have been enough on its own. I'd assumed beasts from beyond the mountains would be stronger for it. They'd turned out thoroughly useless.
"Oh, that was easy. I hit one and it went ugh and died."
"Like mother, like daughter. Hm."
After that, a careful mutter. "Using swordsmanship like that..."
"Can you do it too, Your Grace?"
"No. I take more after my father. So then—when you go to the Academy, would it be enough to attach only Laura to you?"
"Were you planning to attach soldiers as well?"
It wasn't as if I'd be fighting a war at the Academy. No need for that.
"Well, there is the matter of the broken engagement."
"Even so. Do I need that just to attend the Academy? A broken engagement doesn't mean we'll be killing each other."
The Academy wasn't a dungeon, or the Abyss. The way I saw it, it was nothing but a place to play at connections. Nothing more, nothing less. I had no thought of marrying, so after graduation, was I just going to bury myself in the North and live by hunting magic beasts?
Even so. The Demon King was the catch.
Even if Carn managed to hold the line. Thinking of the future—I had lived until now for the sole purpose of taking the Demon King. I didn't know what a life as a young lady would come to, but my hands itched. A life spent only on the Demon King didn't grow familiar just because I'd suddenly been handed work like this. Hunting magic beasts in the mountains, at least, had been fun.
"Take this."
"What is it?"
What Evan handed me was a badge engraved with a crescent moon, the crest of House von Clyde.
And what, exactly, was I supposed to do with this?