I Challenge You to a Duel
I stared at the message displayed on my device, completely dumbfounded.
“This is ridiculous.”
Students at Eldron Academy could check their attendance records through their devices.
If the attendance bar was completely full, you’d receive a Perfect Attendance award. To the people here, it was probably just a symbolic gesture, but for someone like me who was bound by the game system, it carried a completely different weight.
The Perfect Attendance achievement awarded at the end of every semester gave out a massive amount of points.
But if even a single tardy or absence was marked, every last point of that achievement would vanish into thin air.
And right now, every single class from yesterday was logged as an absence.
I’d spent the entire day yesterday being interrogated by Professor Julius (the real bald one), so I couldn’t attend classes through no fault of my own. And they still marked me absent?
It was so absurd I couldn’t even laugh.
I immediately stormed over to Professor Julius to protest.
“There are no exceptions.”
“But it was because of your interrogation yesterday!”
“Even so, the rules state there are no exceptions.”
“Ugh!”
I couldn’t exactly punch a professor, so I was left seething with frustration.
In the end, I lost my sweet, juicy achievement, got kicked out of his office, and was sent on my way.
“That professor really needs to go completely bald.”
I grumbled to myself as I walked across the academy campus, when someone suddenly stepped in front of me and blocked my path.
It was a woman with a white ponytail, golden eyes, and samurai-style attire. She was a character I’d never seen before.
Since I didn’t recognize her, she probably wasn’t a major character. But what could she possibly want with me?
“What do you want?”
My mood was already terrible, so my tone came out sharp and irritated.
“Are you Lord Han Ijun?”
“Yeah, that’s me. What’s your business?”
“As I thought. This one’s name is Zen Curbis.”
Zen Curbis.
The name didn’t ring any bells.
But I knew the Curbis family name.
Just like the Kerupals Duchy that Yujin belonged to, or the Louvre Marquisate that Esil was from, the Curbis Ducal House was one of the Empire’s Five Great Families.
And among those five, three were known as the Three Stars. One was Esil’s family, the Sword Saint Louvre Marquisate. Another was the Guardian of the Court, the Pure Star Repas Count House. And the last was the ruler of the Magic Tower, the Demon Star Curbis Duke—the master of magic.
“So what does the young lady of the Curbis family want with me?”
That said, her outfit was pure samurai. That didn’t exactly match the image of a Magic Tower family, did it?
“I originally intended to deliver this yesterday, but you were nowhere to be found, so I could not.”
Zen handed me a piece of paper.
Even though this world had medieval aesthetics, they still had advanced devices. Seeing an actual paper document felt incredibly analog.
I unrolled the scroll and read the contents.
This one, Zen Curbis, hereby challenges Lord Han Ijun to a duel.
The message was simple.
It basically just said she wanted to fight me.
And at this academy, the only official duels permitted between students were ranking matches.
In other words, she was challenging me to a ranking battle.
“I decline.”
“If you are indeed Lord Han Ijun, then surely you would… What?! Why?!”
When I rejected her outright, Zen’s face filled with disbelief as she demanded an explanation.
“Why? Because I don’t want to, that’s why. Let me ask you one thing. What’s your current ranking?”
“This one is currently ranked 372nd.”
372nd was still well within the upper ranks.
And at this academy, students had the right to refuse ranking challenges from anyone ranked higher than themselves.
I was simply exercising that right.
“You already know my ranking, right? There’s no way I could win, and the outcome is obvious. Of course I’m going to refuse.”
“One cannot know the outcome without trying, can one? From what this one has observed, Lord Han Ijun is quite the formidable warrior. The aura this one senses from you is extraordinary.”
“Aura my ass… Anyway, I already refused, so shoo. Go on, get lost~!”
I waved my hand dismissively, clearly telling her to scram.
Then I turned around coolly and went on my way.
“I thought I was gonna die.”
My stomach had sent out an emergency signal, so the moment class ended I sprinted to the bathroom and enjoyed some quality heaven time.
“Lord Ijun.”
“Kyaaaah!”
When Zen suddenly popped up from under the stall door, I let out a scream that would’ve embarrassed any girl.
“What the—what are you doing?!”
“So this is where you were. Please accept this one’s request for a duel.”
“You pervert! This is the men’s bathroom!”
“What does that matter? It is of no concern. More importantly, please give this one a positive answer regarding the duel!”
What the hell was this crazy woman doing?
I immediately operated my device.
I filed a report to the Law Enforcement Department with the message “There’s a pervert in the bathroom,” and before long, disciplinary officers from the department rushed in and dragged Zen away.
Even as she was being hauled off, she still called out that she would wait for a positive answer to her duel request. It was honestly creepy as hell.
A week passed after that.
Lina had fully recovered and returned to the academy.
Now that she could live normally again, she had—for some reason—started sticking to me like glue during school hours.
“Leech.”
“L-Leech?”
“Yeah. And a particularly nasty one at that.”
Even after receiving a warning from the Law Enforcement Department, Zen continued to stalk me like some obsessive shadow.
Yesterday she’d even popped out of the water while I was bathing in the dormitory hot spring, forcing me to report her again for trespassing and violating public decency.
But even that wasn’t enough to shake off the leech named Zen.
“Haaa…”
I let out a deep sigh, stood up from my seat, and walked over to her.
When I stopped in front of her, Zen’s face brightened with joy.
Yeah… I give up.
I’ll admit it. Your persistence is impressive.
“Fine. I’ll accept your duel request.”
“You have finally accepted. Then when would be a good time?”
“Right now. Right this second!”
Since things had come to this, I needed to repaint the picture.
I decided I would thoroughly cement the image of myself as the weakest, most pathetic loser in the minds of every academy student by getting completely crushed.
“Extra! Extra!”
Lata had been unusually busy lately, and she was loving every second of it.
It was all thanks to that walking jackpot named Ijun.
‘Ijun is a walking scoop! I’m going to milk him dry until there’s nothing left.’
With that ambitious declaration, Lata spread the news of Han Ijun and Zen Curbis’s upcoming ranking match across the entire academy.
Second Training Grounds
There, the academy’s lowest-ranked student, Ijun, stood facing off against the high-ranked Zen.
“You both understand the rules of a ranking match, correct?”
The one officiating this particular ranking match was Professor Master Blade Marcia.
‘Is this academy so short on people that she’s the only one who can officiate these?’
I’d seen quite a few ranking matches since starting my life at the academy, and there was one person who never failed to appear.
It was none other than Professor Marcia standing before us right now.
‘She really is superhuman.’
Ranking matches could happen as many as a hundred times a day.
And about half of them were officiated by Professor Marcia. Even though she was a Master Blade, I couldn’t help but think she was truly incredible.
“Then begin.”
The moment Professor Marcia announced the start of the match, a blade of sword energy brushed past my cheek.
It was a draw-slash technique.
I felt blood trickle down my cheek and thought to myself,
‘She’s not even using aura, yet she can release sword energy like this?’
Aura.
Just as mages converted mana into magic power, swordsmen converted mana into an energy called aura.
While mages built up circles in their hearts, swordsmen built up stars in their dantian. That dantian was what converted mana into aura.
Yet even though Zen was clearly a swordswoman, I couldn’t sense any aura from her at all.
‘And she doesn’t have any circles either.’
I began analyzing Zen.
There were no circles near her heart, and her dantian wasn’t developed either.
But something was strange.
‘She’s from the Curbis Ducal House, so using a sword is one thing, but she hasn’t formed a single circle?’
The Curbis Ducal House was led by the Demon Star, the master of the Magic Tower.
So how could the young lady of that family have zero circles?
It was beyond strange.
‘Are her meridians blocked?’
Thanks to the Clairvoyant Eye I obtained from clearing a hidden scenario quest, I could now see through people and perceive their energy flow.
In my eyes, Zen’s nine mana pathways—the meridians that led from her heart down to the area below her abdomen where the dantian would form—were all completely blocked.
‘Is this Nine Yin Blocked Meridians?’
Nine Yin Blocked Meridians.
It was one of the rare constitutions.
A condition where all nine mana pathways were blocked, preventing the person from forming either circles or a dantian.
And most importantly, they couldn’t live very long.
‘She’s lived to this age and can still release sword energy of this level…’
I realized Zen must be an incredibly hard worker.
In this world, those who couldn’t handle mana were treated like burdens.
And yet someone born with Nine Yin Blocked Meridians—who should have been completely unable to handle mana—had reached this level of sword energy and even climbed this high in the rankings?
There was no way she could have done that without carving away at her own bones through sheer effort.
‘I can imagine how the Curbis family must have treated her.’
In a family of mages, the treatment of someone who couldn’t use magic was painfully obvious.
‘Can’t be helped. I’ll have to lose while showing her proper respect.’
I decided to change my plan.
Instead of losing after half-assing it, I would lose after giving her my full respect.