The First Match
"Alright! Miss Lia, try hitting me this time."
"What?!" Lia asked in surprise, unable to keep up with Jing's overflowing enthusiasm.
"Use whatever means you like, just try to land a single blow on me. Fists, feet, anything goes."
Having said that, Jing even spread his arms wide, completely exposing his guard so that Lia could attack him easily.
"So suddenly? You haven't even taught me anything yet," Lia said, sounding aggrieved as she awkwardly brought her clenched fists together in front of her.
"I need to know your skill level first to decide what and how to teach you. So, straighten your posture and come at me!" Jing shouted boisterously.
But Lia still stood there blankly, unable to bring herself to attack him.
"If you're just going to stand there, I'll make the first move." It was the moment Jing, growing bored of standing still, took a step forward.
Lia's body flinched visibly. There was no way Jing hadn't noticed what I had just seen. He stopped his step immediately.
Before an awkward silence could settle between them, I spoke up.
"Lia, there's no need to worry. Even if you had ten arms, you wouldn't be able to touch a single hair on Jing's head anyway. You might as well attack quickly and get it over with."
"Te-ten arms?" My provocation seemed to have pricked her pride. After a moment's hesitation, Lia took an awkward stance.
Clenching her fists in a clumsy approximation of a boxing stance and planting her feet firmly on the ground, she hesitated briefly before throwing a punch at Jing.
Naturally, Jing dodged it with ease. And before Lia could even raise her guard, Jing's fist lightly tapped her forehead.
"Ouch!"
"How can you drop your hands right after attacking!" Jing scolded her.
Lia, who had allowed the hit in an instant, stared at him blankly before snapping out of it. Her brow furrowed slightly.
Lia lunged again. This time, she was a bit faster and more precise. Though Jing spoke with feigned severity, he looked quite amused.
He's having the time of his life. Say what you want, but Jing was someone who had spent his entire life wielding his body and a sword. Training knights as a knight commander must have been part of his job, too. It seemed he had regained his vitality by doing something familiar for the first time in a while.
"Don't lose your center of gravity! Uh-huh! When you throw a punch, use the recoil of your waist properly! Keep your feet moving!"
And in other words, his training was meant for knights.
"Huff...! Huff...!" After receiving a few of Jing's light yet heavy blows, Lia collapsed to the ground, panting heavily.
Watching Lia, I slowly peeled my back away from the tree trunk. If I stayed here like an idiot, I would undoubtedly get dragged into that heat. I had absolutely no intention of letting that happen.
My attempt to slip away quietly failed.
"Jing!!! Ran is running away!!!" It was all thanks to Lia, who, despite lying on the ground and struggling to catch her breath, diligently snitched on me.
When I glared at her, she avoided my gaze, pretending not to notice, and fully enjoyed the sweet, brief respite while Jing's attention shifted to me.
At Lia's snitching, Jing looked at me with disbelief in his eyes.
"Lord Ran... were you really trying to run away?"
"Yes." At my firm reply, Jing gasped as if shocked.
"Lord Ran, I believed you would do your absolute best to achieve your goal!"
This time, I was the one shocked by his overestimation of me. What part of me had made him think that?
"There's no way I can improve my skills that much in just two days. Besides, Jing is the only teacher we have. Rather than dividing our efforts between the two of us, focusing on one person will give us a better chance of winning."
Above all, I kept the fact that I simply didn't want to endure Jing's Spartan training buried deep in my heart, sparing him the shock.
"What are you talking about? Training is always most ideal when there are two people. You can build your skills while competing with each other!" Jing said confidently.
That only works when both sides actually feel competitive. At my lukewarm reaction, Jing also seemed to realize that the premise of competition wasn't being met. After pondering for a moment, he spoke up.
"Very well. Then I shall set a condition. By the time the Lucha Tournament ends, whoever among Lord Ran and Miss Lia succeeds in landing a hit on me, I will grant them a wish."
"Really?"
"No, thank you."
The expectant question came from Lia, while the cold, wet blanket of a response came from me.
As if he had expected my cold reaction, Jing ignored my refusal and nodded to Lia.
"I will grant anything within my power. I don't care if it costs money."
At his confirmation, Lia's eyes sparkled. She sprang up as if she had never been exhausted and collapsed on the ground.
Jing smiled with satisfaction at the sight and looked at me.
"Lord Ran, shouldn't at least one of you secure a victory? Please help out a little."
Under his gentle pressure to stay, if only for the sake of Lia who would win on my behalf, I ultimately had no choice but to stand beside her.
Lia's sweat-drenched body screamed that it couldn't take another step, but she couldn't calm her excitement. Her heart was pounding wildly, but it didn't feel bad.
Jing's training was grueling, but at the same time, highly beneficial. True to his self-introduction as a traveler with extensive mercenary experience, every single piece of feedback he gave was precise and easy to understand.
Above all else, it was fun. His white hair, naturally blending with silver strands, felt like proof of the countless adventures he had survived.
If one traveled and learned about the world for that long, could they become that strong? How did he become companions with Ran and Ratel?
One imagination led to another, bringing a natural smile to her face.
Though their paths would diverge once the tournament was over, Lia climbed the stairs to the second floor, hoping she could ask Jing for a few more of his adventure stories before then.
And there, she ran right into a massive, dark silhouette standing by the second-floor window.
"Kyaaaah!"
Lia shrieked, the shock instantly blowing away her physical fatigue.
"You're loud." A vaguely familiar irritation brought her leaping heart back to its proper place.
"R-Ratel. What are you doing there?" Lia asked, startled out of her wits by Ratel, who looked as if he had become one with the shadows.
"I was getting some fresh air."
"Fresh air?" Lia's gaze naturally drifted to the tightly shut window. On a cold night like this, late at night, there was no way the innkeeper would have forgotten to lock up.
"Yes, air." But her interlocutor was shameless. There was no way Lia possessed the presence to overcome Ratel's gaze, which seemed to ask if there was a problem.
"I-I see. Come to think of it, the gap in the window does seem a bit open. On a cold day like this, a gentle breeze like this is just right." As she spoke subserviently, Ratel's gaze remained crooked.
Ratel was far more uncomfortable to be around compared to Jing or Ran. Finding nothing more to say, Lia tried to pass him and head into her room.
"Three years ago, why did you participate in the tournament?"
At the unexpected question, Lia stopped in her tracks and looked at Ratel.
"Well... because the Temple's blessing was on the line."
It was a natural enough answer, but Lia quickly realized that he didn't particularly like her response.
"Enough to not give up, even after being ridiculed by your entire village because of it?" A sneer accompanied his chilly gaze.
He wasn't wrong, but that didn't make the shame any easier to bear. Lia lowered her head, feeling her face grow hot.
"...Because with that, I could go on as many adventures as I wanted. With the prize money and the blessing, I could be free, just like you all."
She knew now that it was merely a childish dream. She wasn't strong like the heroes in books; she was just a fool who couldn't do anything without the help of others.
"Is that all?" Feeling a bit stung by his mocking tone once again, she snapped her head up.
But what awaited her was neither ridicule nor contempt. A cloud covered the moonlight just in time, casting a shadow over Ratel's expressionless face.
Ratel turned away as if he hadn't expected an answer in the first place.
Lia watched his retreating back as he left without lingering, then looked out the window from where he had been standing.
She thought it was probably no coincidence that the backyard, where Jing and Ran had been sparring just moments ago, was fully visible from here.
Those who had lost in the preliminaries were clearly pouring their unspent passion into cheers and jeers.
I waited for my turn, letting the roar of the crowd that pierced through the tent and struck my eardrums flow out of my other ear.
"Lord Ran, if you feel like you're about to get caught, just forfeit. Even Ratel will have no choice but to move if we are to find 'that'."
I wished I could let this flow out of my other ear as well. But I couldn't ignore Jing's worried voice, knowing from the hardships of the past few days that his words weren't something I could just brush off.
"Yes, that's my plan. If I feel even slightly like I'm going to get hurt, I'll call for a forfeit immediately. Didn't I give you the exact same answer earlier, word for word?"
At my irritated reply, Jing took a step back, but still unable to ease his mind, he turned his steps toward another victim of his nagging.
"Miss Lia, just do exactly as we trained. Understood?"
"Jing, you know if you say it one more time, that makes ten, right? I never thought I'd be saying this to someone else, but... please, calm down."
It seemed Jing's nagging had had some effect after all. Compared to her initial answer of doing her best, her current, rather annoyed response carried much less tension.
Seeing her look quite confident, Jing curled the corners of his mouth slightly.
"Miss Lia, you can forfeit anytime if you feel like you're going to get hurt, too."
"Pardon?" Lia asked blankly, caught off guard by his words.
"In the first place, you only entered this tournament because you got dragged into our stubbornness. The cause of our defeat won't be you, but someone else."
Jing spoke while glaring at that 'someone else,' but the person in question was staring straight ahead as if he couldn't care less.
"If you think it's even slightly dangerous, call for a forfeit. No, if it looks like you're going to get hurt, I'll call for it myself. So don't be too scared."
At Jing's reassuring words, Lia looked down at the new leather gloves wrapping her fists. Then, as if making up her mind, she raised her head.
"No, please don't."
Jing twitched an eyebrow at her response. "Are you serious?"
"Yes. Even if it looks like I'm going to lose, even if it looks like I'm going to get badly hurt, please never forfeit for me, Jing."
This time, her answer was filled with even greater conviction.
Bwooooooo—
Right on cue, a horn blew. It was the sound signaling the start of Lia's true first match.