Tournament (3)
To prepare for facing Lady Seraphina, I made a brief trip to the dungeon: Pygmalion's Cloister.
The dungeon had already reset, so gathering what I needed didn't take long. Thanks to that, I made it back to the castle before the day was out—only to be greeted by news I never saw coming.
"Straight to the quarterfinals?"
My Round of 32 and Round of 16 matches in the main bracket had been canceled. I was advancing directly to the quarterfinals.
"Your Round of 32 opponent is too badly injured to compete. Your Round of 16 opponent is the man you planted into the ground with your bare hands. The moment he confirmed you were his matchup, he forfeited."
"Any chance you know who my Round of 32 opponent was supposed to be?"
"Loita Campbell."
"Loita… Campbell…"
A knight trainee of the Remington count's house. The man who had looked down on me for choosing Guardian, the first to stand against me in a fight, and the one who, after losing, admitted his mistake and bowed his head. These days we traded the occasional joke whenever we crossed paths. Not long ago he'd joked that he'd bet the independence grant money from House Campbell on my victory and told me I'd better win the whole thing.
"…I'll be right back."
A blessing was power drawn from a god's authority. Ordinary injuries healed with almost casual ease. That was why I never worried when my brother's near-real sparring left my eyes swollen shut and my body covered in cuts.
But an injury so severe he couldn't even compete in tomorrow's match? That meant a wound that had danced on the edge of life and death. The severing of a blessing. In game terms, an HP-zero judgment.
My feet picked up speed on their own. I ran for the lodging where Loita was staying.
"Loita…!"
When I threw the door open, the mingled stench of herbs and blood hit me like a slap. The cleric sitting by the bed pressed a finger to her lips.
"He's past the worst of it. Absolute rest is required, however. Please keep your voice down."
I lowered my tone.
"Why keep fighting until you ended up like this? A tournament is a place to raise each other's honor, not a battlefield for taking lives…"
"There was no chance to keep fighting."
"What?"
The cleric forced the words out.
"The moment the match began, a participant named Albert swung his weapon. A red slash bloomed and swept the entire arena."
More than a dozen people, unable to block even a single exchange, cut down to the brink of death?
I stared blankly at Loita lying on the bed.
"Ah… aah…"
A cracked voice scraped out of Loita's throat.
"You came… my underdog…"
He gave a weak little snort of a laugh, eyelids fluttering. There wasn't a drop of color in his face. Without the cleric's words, I might have felt like I was keeping deathwatch. That was how close to a living corpse Loita looked.
"Wipe that look off… We weren't… that close… Why're you acting like… your own brother got hurt… Not like you…"
We'd started as enemies, but now we traded jokes when we met. He wasn't someone whose death would leave me unmoved. And that someone had walked right up to death's door. How was I supposed to grin and laugh it off? That would be wrong as a person, long before it was wrong as a noble or a knight.
"This Albert guy. Was he that strong?"
"Yeah… ridiculous."
Loita swallowed dryly.
"Still… I blocked the first hit."
"Good work."
"Of course… Who do you think I am…"
The average level of tournament participants was fifteen. The Remington knight trainees who'd spent a month grinding dungeons were closer to eighteen. Albert had dropped those knights with a single area attack, then cut through the only one who reacted—Loita—armor and all on the second strike. Not an easy opponent.
"Win for me… I bet my independence grant…"
Loita forced his right hand up and offered a fist. No power at all radiated from the mark on the back of his hand. Severance of the blessing. In game terms, HP had hit zero. If the count's house hadn't stationed a cleric at the tournament grounds—
He would have died.
"Do I look like the kind of guy who'd throw a match?"
"…Sometimes?"
I huffed a quiet laugh and carefully bumped my fist against his.
"Just lie there and rest. I'll squeeze every last copper of consolation money out of them."
Independence grant plus consolation money. The amount I was going to collect was getting respectable.
One day of breathing room remained before the quarterfinals.
Knight or Fighter under two years, commoner, bloodless face, old cloth wrapped around the sword, bleeding, one strike…
I gathered the scattered fragments of information and sketched the outline of an enemy I hadn't yet met.
Bloodvein. Blood-sucking sword, bleed build.
A cursed blade that demanded extremely high vitality, mental power, and technique—Bloodvein. A sword that constantly drained the user's HP and MP in real time, the core item of a build Warriors mainly used from levels 40 to 70. Bloodvein absorbed the blood of enemies it cut, restoring the HP and MP it had consumed. Among weapons a knight of this level range could wield, nothing else showed that signature.
So that's why a Fighter…
Fighters could handle most weapons at above-average proficiency. Even a cursed sword that normal stats couldn't dream of touching could be forced into use if you accepted a certain penalty. Albert's pale face was the mark of the vitality Bloodvein had already drunk. The old cloth wrapped around the weapon made sense too. Bloodvein's blade bristled with saw-teeth like a beast's fangs—a grotesque shape anyone would recognize as no ordinary weapon. He'd wrapped the entire sword to hide what it was.
The clues locked together and the picture formed. Except—
Where does a commoner get something like that?
In the game, Bloodvein dropped from only three places, all of them regions you couldn't even approach until level 50 at minimum. More importantly, it didn't drop at all in the fallen kingdom of Silverion where we currently were.
"Haa…"
I set the question aside for now. What mattered wasn't the sword's origin—it was how to put down the man holding it.
Against Bloodvein, even the tiniest scratch was forbidden. The bleeding curse woven into the blade wouldn't clot easily even under a blessing's recovery. The moment blood was drawn, the scales of the match would tip hard.
To face him—
This won't cut it.
Using the short-reach hatchet meant constantly diving into the enemy's range. Not a weapon for an opponent where even a graze was lethal. I stuffed the hatchet into my pack and picked up the mace I'd borrowed from Loita.
—Take it… Better than that hatchet, right?
The mace Loita had pressed on me right before I finished the sick visit.
Whoosh.
An imaginary red slash came screaming in from the front. I angled the kite shield and deflected the trajectory, then drove off the ground and swung the mace.
Whoom!
No.
The enemy didn't need to swing with the intent to kill me. From the first scratch the match already favored him, so he would likely play a game of careful probes. That meant I had to move more precisely than usual.
Keep the body movement small.
Deflecting with armor was off the table. Even a brush through a gap in the plate would turn the tide. Every attack I could stop had to be stopped with the kite shield under the force of Flesh-Carving Bone-Crushing. It was almost the same situation as facing the assassin with nothing but a shield during Cretus's trial.
………
……
…
"Huff… huff…"
How much time had passed? Only after countless imaginary duels did I finally drop the stance. Just as I broke the flow and reached for the water I'd prepared, I felt a presence a short distance away.
"Lady Ariella?"
Two women stood at the edge of the training ground. One was Lady Ariella. Beside her stood Lady Seraphina.
"Ah—um… hello?"
Lady Ariella's gaze flicked rapidly between my face, the mace, and the footprints left in the dirt.
"What brings you here?"
"Lady Seraphina said she wanted to speak with you, Edwin…"
"I apologize for watching a knight's training without permission, Sir Edwin."
Lady Seraphina stepped forward and bowed her head.
"I am Seraphina Voltain."
"Edwin Revan. I was training in a public place—there's no need for concern."
Her eyes swept the area around me.
"You were training with a fight against the man named Albert in mind, weren't you?"
Sharp eye. I gave a small nod.
"Not a single opening in your movement. It felt like facing a great wall."
"So."
I cut her off and raised mace and shield into a combat stance again.
"Is that all you came to say?"
Normally I might have bantered a little. Right now the enemy in front of me mattered more than she did.
Lady Seraphina dipped her head slightly.
"…I came, in my arrogance, to urge you to forfeit."
"Because of Albert?"
"Yes. I watched Group Eight's match to the end."
Her expression hardened.
"A blood-soaked slash swept the arena in an instant. Everyone went down spraying blood before they could even react."
Her hand tightened on her sword's pommel.
"He is no ordinary opponent. That slash came from the sword wrapped in old cloth. I judged that the only way to face him would be with an item carrying equal magical power."
"And now you think differently?"
"Yes. It seems my judgment was premature."
I nodded at her words.
"If your business is finished, please leave. This isn't the place where we are meant to meet."
Lady Seraphina blinked, then gave a small nod of her own.
"Win your way up. I will be waiting at the top."
I answered with a slight incline of the head and sank back into image training, anticipating the irregular movements a Fighter would show. Fighters with their street-style freeform had far more variables than Warriors and Knights locked into formal sword arts. Even a small wound from one of those variables could swing the match hard.
Cut the variables by even one more tenth.
That was the only thought in my head.
"Edwin."
Ah. She was still here.
"Yes?"
"You're really all right, aren't you?"
"Of course."
I settled into stance again, Albert firmly in mind.
"Normally you'd have made some weird joke by now…"
Lady Ariella's expression darkened further.
"Don't worry so much."
Whoom.
I gave the mace a light swing.
"The festival just ended a little early, that's all. Time to put a little more weight on my shoulders."
Dawn broke.
A strange tension hung over the arena that had once felt like a light festival.
"Sir Edwin. Perhaps the first knight ever to discover the hidden path of the Guardian. It is an honor to meet you."
I pressed my right fist to my chest and gave a light bow. It was the most courteous greeting I could manage, but my opponent seemed to take it as half-hearted.
"Ahem. Quieter than I expected."
"Take your stance."
"Hm?"
Looking puzzled, he still drew his sword and settled into guard.
Bwooooo—!
The trumpet sounded. I charged without hesitation.
"Ugh?!"
I slammed a shield bash into him while he scrambled to set his feet.
Thud!
"Urgh!!!"
As his feet left the ground and he skidded back, I brought the mace down on his head.
Whoosh!
"Gah!!!"
I stopped the mace a hair's breadth from impact.
"I—I yield…"
I gave him a brief nod, turned my back, and walked away.
"Th-the winner is Edwin Revan!"
It was over in a blink. The spectators in the stands barely had time to react. I felt a little sorry for the people who had made time to come watch. But I had no room for such small concerns right now.
Clack. Clack.
In the passage leading down from the arena to the waiting room, I crossed paths with the man walking up for the next match. The man carrying a weapon wrapped in old cloth. Albert.
Our steps slowed for a moment. His dull, bloodless eyes settled on my face. I met his gaze in silence.
We passed each other without a single word.
The place we would stand face to face was not here.