Chapter 94: The Tin Knight and the Martial Arts Tournament (1)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 94: The Tin Knight and the Martial Arts Tournament (1)
You were incredibly excited.
The results of your training had exceeded all expectations.
Adelaide was a genius, especially when it came to her physical abilities.
Things like strength and endurance were understandable, as she seemed to have never properly trained them before meeting you. But her reflexes, rapid recovery, and keen five senses were talents she was literally born with.
They were so outstanding that her other, more than respectable, talents—like her understanding of martial arts and her decision-making skills—seemed to pale in comparison.
If her software was upper-intermediate, her hardware was top-of-the-line.
The more you pushed her, the more she grew. Her weak foundation meant she had no bad habits, and her lack of stubbornness meant she followed your lead without question.
As a teacher, you could hardly ask for a more rewarding student.
And so, you poured everything you had into teaching Adelaide.
Perhaps that was why.
“Hey, it's great that you're working hard, but you need to consider Adelaide's limits, too. You're pushing her too hard.”
When Dorothea said that, you couldn't help but tilt your head in confusion.
You possessed the discerning eye inherited from the Tin Knight.
It was a useful enough skill against new enemies, but when it came to Adelaide, whom you had personally trained and assessed, it functioned almost like a precision measuring instrument.
You had been actively utilizing this, and while you always pushed Adelaide to her absolute brink, you never once let her truly exceed her limits.
That kind of training might guarantee short-term results, but it would accumulate fatigue and damage in her body, making it a net loss in the long run.
To put it in numerical terms, out of 100 available action points, your method was to use 30 for strength training, 30 for evasion training, and 30 for swordsmanship training. Then, for the final 10 points, instead of a 30-point run, you would have her do 10-point mana training.
Taking pride in the schedule you had created, you couldn't accept Dorothea's words. You figured she must have misunderstood something and began to explain.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ insists that he is training Adelaide with full consideration of her limits!]
At your words, the witch stared at you blankly.
Then she offered a single sentence.
“This ‘limit’ you’re talking about… does it include her mental state?”
You fell silent.
Your calculations had not included such a factor.
The Tin Knight’s eye and insight didn’t extend to a person’s psychological state.
Leaning nonchalantly against the wall, the witch continued.
“That kid has a goal: to inherit the domain her father left behind. She has the will to help her mother, and the motivation to become a new, less helpless version of herself. Her personality is also quite goofy and naive, so she tends to shake things off after a while, even when she’s struggling.”
But, the witch added.
“There's a difference between enduring something and being fine with it. If you confuse the two, you'll have a real headache later on.”
With those final words, the witch left, muttering about her meddling in things that weren't her business.
Outside the monitor, you thought.
If there’s a fatigue bar, it’s only right to use it to its limit. Leaving action points unused is a waste.
Asking me to consider invisible data is an unreasonable demand.
Inside the Tin Knight, you thought.
A person cannot be understood by numbers alone. Even if she’s physically fine, there’s a good chance she’s struggling mentally.
If you truly consider Adelaide a comrade and a pupil, you should have also considered the burden she must be feeling.
You and you had different thoughts and different feelings.
But that didn't mean there were two of you. It is human nature to harbor contradictory emotions, to desire two different things at once.
You suddenly felt your body grow heavy.
It was as if you had been floating aimlessly in the air and had just planted your feet on the ground.
You, outside the monitor, looked around.
A small, enclosed room.
A disconnected space with no one but you.
A body that felt no hunger without eating, no fatigue without sleeping.
If this was a dream, there was no problem.
But what if it wasn't a dream? What if it wasn't data? What if it wasn't a game? What if it was all real? What would you be then? What are you?
It was just as you were feeling that sense of suffocation.
“Sir Tin?”
You stared at the monitor / You turned your gaze to the side.
Sophia was there.
Gazing at you with her blood-tinged pink eyes, Sophia smiled brightly and said.
“When Lady Adel wakes up, how about we have a little party to celebrate her passing the test? It would be a good way to get some nutrition in before the tournament starts.”
‘Well, since you and I are both terrible at cooking, we’ll have to ask Miss Dorothea, but don’t you think she’ll end up doing it, even while grumbling?’
You pictured the scene Sophia described.
The witch, who was merciless to her enemies but soft on her allies, would surely do just that.
You suddenly felt a sense of cheer.
The suffocating pressure weighing down your body lifted, and the usual feeling of floating returned.
Lost in that sensation—like you’d pulled an all-nighter, or were pleasantly drunk, a feeling just like being in a dream—you opened your mouth.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ shamelessly exclaims that grocery shopping is one of his specialties!]
*
Normally, the lord of a large city wields immense authority and power.
The larger the domain, the wealthier its economy, the stronger its military—all of it becomes the lord’s strength.
Thracus, however, was an exception. The lord’s authority and presence were not particularly strong.
This was partly because the presence of the champion known as the strongest in history, Kalidahs, was so overwhelming that the lord was overshadowed. It was also due to the unique character of the city of Thracus itself.
If a domain was built from the ground up by a specific family, the lord and their family would have great influence. But the growth of Thracus was due less to the efforts of the lord’s family and more to the influence of outside capital.
In other words, if a sponsor said, ‘Hey, Mr. Lord. Do this for me,’ the lord couldn’t just openly ignore the request.
And so, the Lord of Thracus lamented.
“Dammit. I don’t know if I’m a lord or a salesman.”
“Still, it’s not a bad plan, is it? This year’s tournament has drawn about half again as many people as last time, so we have a good excuse to call it a commemoration.”
Despite his confidant’s consolation, the Lord of Thracus’s expression remained grim.
“It’s a problem because we have to reschedule the entire latter half of the tournament. There will be complaints from the nobles who planned their trips around the original schedule. And we’ll have to persuade the contestants.”
—Create an additional event where the winners of the individual and team matches can face off.
This demand from Franka Aglaia was the very source of the wrinkles forming on the lord's forehead.
In the Empire, those with power acquired wealth; in the Federation, the wealthy were the ones with power.
The Aglaia family was one of the wealthiest families in the Federation and also the biggest sponsor of Thracus.
And Franka was the apple of the Aglaia family’s eye.
Though her younger brother held the official rights of succession, the affection she received from the family head was in no way inferior.
“Hah, it can’t be helped. Proceed as requested.”
Thus, with a bitter expression, the lord carried out Franka’s demand.
When the very carriage he rode in and the clothes he wore to parties were all made in the Federation, he was afraid to even imagine what kind of cold wind would blow his way if he refused this request.
‘…Well, sponsors making sudden requests is a regular occurrence. It’s better than a bribe to interfere with the outcome of a match itself.’
The Lord of Thracus suddenly pressed a hand to his head.
He had just remembered a certain group that had tried to bribe him to ‘interfere with the outcome of a match itself.’
The second son of the Haidern Marquis family.
The leader of the ‘Patriotic Youth Group,’ a gathering of young Imperial nobles.
And that precious brat who ran around causing trouble everywhere, relying on the backing of his aunt, the Empress.
—What? You want me to start from the preliminaries? Are you telling me to start in the same place as the commoners? See here, Lord of Thracus. Enough of this narrow-minded talk. Put me and my compatriots straight into the main tournament. It is the perfect opportunity to prove your patriotism.
Recalling the proposal—no, the tantrum—Maximilian had thrown a while ago, a vein throbbed on the lord’s forehead.
No matter how good his bloodline was, the memory of that greenhorn, who didn’t even have a proper title yet, naturally treating him as an inferior made his blood boil.
“That little brat—no, how are Young Master Maximilian and his companions?”
“They’ve been a bit quieter lately.”
The subordinate who said this had an unconcealed look of contempt on his face.
“The protégé of the Witch of the South has arrived, you see. It seems he frequently visits her for, um, ‘personal exchange.’”
“…You chose your words well. But control your expression, too. It’s fine in front of me, but if you make that face in front of them, you could be in for a world of hurt.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
After his subordinate’s face returned to a stoic, bureaucratic mask, the lord turned his gaze back to the list of participants.
Individual Match Participants:
- Maximilian Egir Haidern
- Peter
- Mir Volberg
Team Match Participants:
- Algind Goodwitch and 2 others.
- Maris von Lennart and 2 others.
- Kumara Cent and 2 others.
“Putting the brat aside, we have a legendary adventurer, a mage from the Tower of ‘Annihilation,’ the protégé of the Witch of the South, the young blood of the Lion Duke’s bloodline, and that much-talked-about silver-rank adventurer party. Hah, what a lineup.”
This tournament was going to be quite the commotion, the lord thought, clicking his tongue.