Chapter 266: The Tin Knight and The Banquet of Madness (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 266: The Tin Knight and The Banquet of Madness (6)
Hilda von Lennart was not, by nature, the type to prepare thoroughly.
She was typically impulsive and whimsical, and at times, she even showed a tendency to deliberately put herself in dangerous situations.
For Hilda, who enjoyed battle itself, finding out an opponent's methods or techniques in advance was an incredibly dull affair.
However, Hilda was a girl who, at the very least, listened to her grandfathers.
The Council of Elders had told her to investigate the Tin Knight's party as much as possible and familiarize herself with the information, and she had not refused their request.
「Adelaide von Lennart.
First, equipment.
Possesses a magic tool called ‘The Belt of Amaryllis,’ which enhances overall physical abilities.
The exact enhancement multiplier is unclear, but an investigation of past battle records confirms she once crushed metal armor with her bare grip.
Her raw strength alone is threatening, but if the belt's enhancement also affects factors like muscle and bone elasticity or reflexes, the practical power she can exert would be enough to treat even ferocious beasts as trivial.
Factoring in mana-based enhancement, it is estimated she could even overwhelm an Ogre, the strongest magic beast remaining on the continent. Extremely dangerous.
Her other armaments do not appear to possess any special magical power, but their quality as weapons is excellent.
Her greatsword, in particular, is of the highest tier for a standard product without any special fame or history.
Regarding her swordsmanship, her father, August von Lennart, held the title of ‘Kingdom’s First Sword’ and was a master who once rivaled Conrad von Lennart. However, the possibility of Adelaide von Lennart having fully inherited his techniques is extremely low.
She did not even properly complete the basic training that children of the main family are expected to undergo, and given that she was abducted by a mere bandit group immediately after the fall of Friedel, her martial prowess at the time was likely on par with that of an ordinary noble daughter.
Judging from her overwhelming physique granted by the ‘belt’ and a training period of less than a year, her tactics are likely to be impetuous and reliant on brute force. To counter this, proper baiting and countering are—(omitted) 」
KRAAANG!
As she clashed swords with Adelaide, Hilda thought.
Tch, this report is all wrong.
Tactics reliant on physical ability? Her swordsmanship itself is poor?
Both were incorrect.
Her apparent reliance on her physique in fights was because it was the easiest and fastest way to deal with multiple opponents, not because it was all she could do.
The same went for her swordsmanship.
At a glance, it seemed as if she were swinging wildly without any formalized technique, but at its core was a solid framework of fundamentals that had been relentlessly drilled into her.
It was only because the scope of those ‘fundamentals’ was so broad and their potential for application so limitless that her style appeared wild and formless.
Swinging a sword without knowing the basics, guided only by intuition and instinct, was a completely different matter from swinging it with that knowledge.
What Hilda liked most was that Adelaide's skills had been built on the premise of real combat.
Though the Lennart family held the title of the World’s Greatest Martial Family, few of its members had experienced a true life-or-death struggle.
At most, there were those like Werner who had survived the old wars, the elite soldiers on the front lines, and oddballs like Hilda herself who deliberately sought out danger.
It wasn't that the Lennart family was lazy or avoided fights, but that there were no suitable enemies to fight, even if they wanted to.
There weren't many people in the world who would charge at the young masters and ladies of the Empire's most prestigious martial family, intending to slit their throats without a care for the consequences.
While the family's endless internal competitions and brutally realistic spars prevented its members from becoming sheltered flowers in a greenhouse, an insurmountable wall still existed between ‘real combat’ and ‘realistic sparring.’
Adelaide, on the other hand?
The journey she had undertaken was a series of real battles where a single misstep meant death.
Life-or-death fights against opponents far stronger than her were nothing special; her own teacher, the Tin Knight, was the kind of man who would swing a real sword at his student's face without hesitation.
When such a girl swung her sword with the full intent to kill, the resulting ferocity was terrifying to behold.
However, Hilda was also a girl far from normal.
“Hahaha! What's this, did you cast a spell in that short time? You're like a completely different person!”
KAKAKAKANG!
The two swords clashed violently, creating a dazzling shower of sword energy.
Faced with a chaotic battle where a single misstep would lead to a fatal wound, Hilda wasn't frightened in the least. Instead, she let out a maniacal laugh, as if she couldn't help but enjoy the situation.
“—!”
Adelaide didn't speak.
She simply glared at her enemy with murderous eyes and brought her greatsword down like an axe.
The attack, which would have created a massive crater had it hit the ground, was blocked with a surprisingly light thud.
And in return, Hilda's sword struck like a snake, aiming for Adelaide's neck.
A reflexive dodge saved her from being decapitated, but a lock of her hair was sliced off instead.
Adelaide spun to cut Hilda down, but Hilda countered by rotating her own body in sync with Adelaide's strike, like interlocking gears.
Clang!
It was a sequence that had already repeated several times.
While the heat of her boiling rage remained in her chest, Adelaide's eyes were as calm as her reason.
Adelaide's gaze fell upon Hilda's sword.
That's no ordinary sword.
She had predicted it would be something special from the moment Hilda, who normally used a one-handed sword, deliberately brought out a two-handed one, but this was beyond her expectations.
In the first place, the fact that they were evenly matched despite Adelaide being faster and stronger was not normal.
She's letting the sword take the shock of the attacks.
A sword is a weapon that protects its wielder, but at the same time, once a swordsman reaches a certain level, they must also protect their sword.
For swordsmen who could generate power like cannonballs with their bare bodies, it was common for their weapons to fail to withstand the impact and shatter.
Therefore, it was necessary to always envelop the sword in sword energy and handle it delicately so it wouldn't break under the strain. But Hilda showed no signs of doing so.
No, she wasn't even coating her sword in sword energy to begin with.
Adelaide didn't know that Hilda's sword was a relic of the Lion Duke, passed down through the Lennart family for generations, but she had already guessed its effect.
Indestructibility.
Even against sword energy that could slice through metal like tofu, it wasn't just uncut—its blade didn't even dull. It was an extraordinary level of durability.
It lacked flashy abilities like breathing fire or moving on its own, but it was an extremely useful power that was true to the fundamentals of a sword.
It might have a few other abilities, but Adelaide had no intention of checking them one by one.
Crackle!
Violet lightning surged from Adelaide's body.
Hilda, a crazed delight in her eyes, also cloaked herself in violet lightning.
The two shadows crossed once more.
KRAAANG!
Hilda was superior in pure technique, but Adelaide had the upper hand in sensing and evading attacks.
Both were moving at speeds difficult to even perceive. If an ordinary person were to witness this, it would look like nothing more than flashes of gold and violet light crossing paths wildly.
It was a beautiful sight, but its reality was utterly brutal.
Hilda's sword gouged Adelaide's left shoulder.
Adelaide's sword crushed Hilda's right thigh.
Before the spilled blood could even touch the floor, new wounds opened, blooming like red flowers.
They enhanced their bodies with mana, ignoring any wounds that weren't fatal and investing that spare capacity into cutting down their foe.
Their forms were as ferocious as wild beasts, yet simultaneously alien to them.
In the wild, where even a small wound could be a death sentence, attacking so recklessly was tantamount to suicide.
That was why they were human.
And, human-like, they were cunning.
Thwip.
Adelaide's waist suddenly felt light.
Hilda had unfastened the clasp holding her belt in place.
To prevent such a thing, Adelaide's clothing had extra straps and covers to secure the belt, but they had already been damaged beyond function in the chaos of the fight.
And that was proof that the delicate balance between the two had been broken.
Training with the 'game book' was useful for building mental fortitude, but it had the limitation of not applying to physical abilities.
In terms of pure base ability, without the belt, Hilda still had the upper hand.
And now, there was the difference in their weapons.
CRACK!
Hilda's and Adelaide's swords clashed, and Adelaide's sword shattered.
CRUNCH!
Hilda's sword struck Adelaide's shoulder, the blade cleaving deep into her torso.
The moment Hilda was certain of her victory.
Adelaide's hand shot out and grabbed Hilda's arm.
In the next instant, Hilda's vision flipped upside down.
Huh?
Hilda did not know.
That Adelaide had experienced dying and coming back to life over and over and over again through the game book.
That she had brutally carved into her very being the knowledge of how much damage would result in a 'Game Over,' and how much she could endure to 'Continue.'
That the entire flow of events—losing the belt and being struck by Hilda—had been orchestrated by Adelaide.
KWAAAAANG!
The loudest sound yet in their battle exploded forth.
Despite having her head slammed into the ground by the unexpected ambush, Hilda reflexively suppressed the impact, but she couldn't stop her head from rattling, momentarily dulling her reaction.
In terms of time, it was a brief moment, less than a second.
But for Adelaide, that was enough.
CRACKLE!
An all-out enhancement that gave no consideration to a prolonged fight.
An output so excessive it was almost forced, to the point where her own body began to break down.
Adelaide, with all her might, slammed her fist into Hilda's abdomen.
KWAAANG!
Blood spurted from Hilda's mouth, and blood gushed from Adelaide's upper body.
In fact, if one were to judge by the bleeding alone, Adelaide's was worse.
Yet she did not stop.
KWJIIJIK!
The sensation of bone shattering returned from the fist that landed slightly higher than before, crushing the bones protecting her organs in a single blow.
This time, it seemed even Hilda could no longer endure it, as the Lion Duke's sword fell from her hand.
Adelaide grabbed it, replacing her own broken sword.
“Cough...! Gack!”
Adelaide looked down with impassive eyes at Hilda, who lay collapsed on the ground, vomiting blood.
Hilda tried to get up, but her limbs only convulsed, seemingly unable to move any further.
But even in this situation, her eyes were still far from despair.
“Ha, haha, amazing... to think you'd go this far, cough! You... did well.”
Even as she sprayed blood and what looked like bits of flesh from her mouth, Hilda didn't stop talking.
An ordinary person would have died from such wounds long ago, but the tough body of the Lion Duke's bloodline made it possible.
“A shame, such a shame. I wanted to beat you, improve my skills, and, cough! challenge that knight, too.”
At those words, Adelaide's eyebrow twitched slightly.
Having remained silent the entire time, she finally opened her mouth.
“You can't beat Sir Knight.”
“Not now, but who knows about later?”
“Later will be the same. Because I'll defeat you before you ever get the chance to fight him.”
A look of confusion crossed Hilda's eyes.
Adelaide's words sounded as if there would be a 'next time' for Hilda.
Hilda tilted her head. In reality, it was just a slight twitch of her neck.
She had heard that there were saints or suckers in the world who would forgive even their parents' murderers, and she wondered if this girl was one of them.
“No, that won't do.”
But with Adelaide's next words, Hilda realized she was mistaken.
“At first, I was just going to end you, but then you'd feel satisfied, thinking, 'I died in an interesting fight.' I can't possibly accept that.”
Adelaide's expression was calm.
But her eyes burned like hellfire.
“So, I'm going to beat you down, over and over and over again. Until you're so sick of fighting that the very thought of it makes you shudder. Until you cry and scream that you hate the pain. Until you beg me to stop. Or even after that, I'll keep going. Again, and again, and again.”
“I'll say it Sir Knight's way,” Adelaide added.
“—Don't think you can escape by dying.”
Hilda's mouth fell shut.
Seeing the faint glimmer of fear in her eyes, like that of a cornered animal, Adelaide leaned her body against the corner of the room.
I can't let Sir Knight see me like this, she thought.