The Frog in the Well Drinks the Ocean
Alto held himself with the confidence befitting the Ripelreus ducal heir. Unlike his truly narcissistic twin sister Fria, he readily acknowledged that many people surpassed him in skill. Among his peers, only Luke stood above him, but he had already identified at least five others in this academy who were stronger. He had thoroughly investigated those who outshone him in intellect, social grace, entertainment, and countless other fields.
However.
‘Why… someone like this…’
Her speed wasn’t particularly slow. Her strength wasn’t terribly weak either. Though Alto was deliberately holding back, her strikes occasionally found sharp openings. If she had faced a lower-ranked student according to her level, she probably would have won handily.
It was just that.
“Ouch.”
“……That hairstyle. Wouldn’t it be better to tie it differently?”
Her openings were desperately numerous!
This was already the fifth time her twin-tailed hair had whipped her own face. With hair that reached all the way to her waist tied on both sides, it was only natural, but still.
‘Fria’s hair is pretty long too. Do girls calculate the movement of their flying hair while fighting…?’
Openings when attacking. Openings even when defending. Her attacks were sharp, but the perfect spots for counterattacks were so obvious that anyone with even a little sword training could easily defeat her.
That was Alto’s assessment of Eres.
“This isn’t working either. Why?”
‘I should end this soon…’
The reason he had been holding back until now wasn’t just because he was wary of Luke. It was also because crushing an opponent from the start didn’t look good. Since this was a practical evaluation, the opponent needed a chance to showcase their skills to others. Showing such consideration and tolerance was the dignity expected of a ducal heir.
But that ended now.
“Tie your hair properly. I’m going to finish this.”
“Finish? Has the time limit already run out?”
Alto’s true strength lay in dual-wielding, yet he hadn’t created a second crystal sword against Eres. There was no need to go that far when he could simply exploit her overflowing openings.
But before ending it, there was one thing he needed to ask.
“Your name is Eres, right? Could you at least tell me who taught you swordsmanship last?”
Just who had taught her that and dared to call it swordsmanship?
His pride as a swordsman and his uncontrollable noble obligation were rioting, demanding he track the bastard down and beat some sense into him. If you don’t know anything, don’t teach it. Teaching a girl combat techniques that would get her killed in real battle—
‘If he charged even a single coin for those lessons, I’ll use every means at my disposal to drag him into the abyss—’
“Me.”
“……What?”
“Um…… I’ve never learned from anyone. There wasn’t anyone to teach me.”
Then who exactly was he supposed to drag into the abyss?
If she had applied to the academy with skills like that, then scolding her would make him look like a third-rate villainous noble without any dignity!
“You learned it…… by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“There was no one to correct you?”
“There wasn’t.”
“B-but even so, if you were practicing swordsmanship with incorrect form, surely someone would have……”
It was a perfectly natural question. Even though she was a commoner rather than a noble, any village guard who saw her would have corrected her stance out of sheer pity.
“Who?”
Eres hadn’t. Not “from whom,” but “who.” The people of her hometown, Respia, lacked not only the will but also the ability to help her.
Realizing this, Alto felt a pang of pity.
The most powerful force in the world was the transmission and exchange of knowledge. No matter how outstanding an individual’s talent, it could never surpass strategies and techniques refined over hundreds or thousands of years. No matter how much one trained alone, without interaction with others, one could never recognize their own limits.
The fact that levels could only be raised through experience gained by interacting with others proved this.
The occasional sharpness she displayed and her basic stats suggested that with proper instruction, she would have possessed respectable skill. She might even have become a knight whose name was known somewhere.
But having trained in the wrong way, she would now have to spend time fixing those bad habits. Even if she accumulated experience after that, it would already be too late. Her talent had already dimmed and faded.
“I see. Understood.”
With a cracking sound, crystal grew from his hand. At the same time, cheers erupted from the previously lax stands.
It was cruel, but he decided to go all out. He judged that helping her face reality was the consideration a noble owed her.
“I’m sorry. It seems I won’t have a name to give you after all.”
“I already know your name. It’s Alto Ripelreus, isn’t it?”
Praying that this would break the heart of that airheaded girl, Alto kicked off the ground and closed the distance.
His specialty—speed—wasn’t limited to sudden strikes. He possessed speed that could torment even his sister Fria through approach and retreat alone. But the speed of his sword easily surpassed even that.
-Clang!
Eres’s sword lightly deflected both of Alto’s swift blades.
“……How…!”
“Ah, that worked.”
A hush fell. Alto had unconsciously frozen in place, while Eres simply stood there. The spectators too were stunned by this extraordinary phenomenon—Eres, who had been using clumsy swordsmanship, had blocked Alto’s full-powered attack.
Was it a fluke? Had she just gotten lucky?
If so, then why was this girl—
“Yes. Now my hair won’t fly forward anymore.”
“What…!”
She had perfectly blocked his sword yet showed no emotion whatsoever!
“How! Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding your strength this whole time…!”
“I’ve been going all out from the beginning. My hair kept getting in the way, so I was trying to figure out how to stop it from flying—”
“That’s what hiding your strength means! Are you mocking me too?!”
“Mocking?”
First Luke Colwen, and now this girl. The sense of betrayal was even greater because he had been genuinely worried about her just moments ago.
“I have one question I want to ask too.”
“I don’t need to hear it! You insolent girl—showing such pathetic swordsmanship in a place where we’re supposed to demonstrate our skills? Is that something to joke about?!”
“You’re the one who used pathetic swordsmanship.”
“You still don’t realize your own mistake…!”
Eres’s head was filled only with questions. In truth, that was always the case. But the current question was whether she had done something wrong. By her standards, she had been sincere from the beginning, and if there was a problem, it clearly lay with Alto.
“That’s enough…… If you’re going to make light of the Ripelreus name, I’ll simply prove that no one would dare do so!”
But Alto, who had been insulted yesterday and again today, had no patience left to listen to her.
“It seems…… you have no intention of listening to me.”
Similarly, Eres, who had to block the attacks, had no leeway to continue the conversation. Alto’s pattern was a continuous barrage. The damage from a single hit was small, but he compensated for the low damage with a countless number of strikes.
And the reason he had been a more difficult boss than Fria in Endless Fantasia wasn’t just his fast attack speed and frequency.
Clink!
‘The crystal broke—’
Alto’s crystal swords were much smaller and thinner than Fria’s, so the cost of recreating them was low. If an attack was parried, he would immediately shatter the sword and regenerate it, continuing the combo. Dealing with that vicious pattern was the main factor that raised the difficulty!
“Try to block them all. Every single one.”
The standard strategy was to parry all of Alto’s attacks until they ended. And before his transmigration, Luke had once broken the parry key while fighting Alto.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clink! Clang! Clink! Slice!
He unleashed a total of seven attacks, and on the final one—
Yesterday, Luke had dodged all the attacks, so the combo couldn’t continue. The attack pattern Alto was showing now hadn’t been in the information Eres possessed, but—
‘The eighth. It’s coming from there. Why?’
Nevertheless, the fact that she had blocked seven of them was the result of Eres’s solidly trained fundamentals rather than swordsmanship. Ignoring the thin cut on her side, she focused entirely on Alto.
“You still have leisure to spare. It would have been better if you had ended it with that last one.”
“Sorry. My body doesn’t fall over that easily.”
“How sad. I didn’t intend to torment you, either.”
Clang!
After their short exchange, they clashed again.
Clang! Clink! Slice! Clang! Clink! Slice!
Six times.
Clang! Slice! Clang! Stab! Clink! Clang! Slice!
Seven times. Six times. Eight times. Seventeen times. Twenty-five times.
The crystals kept shattering, and Eres’s blood sprayed over them. Regardless, Eres’s gaze remained fixed on Alto. Her eyes, the furrow between her brows, even the corners of her mouth showed no movement. She watched him with the exact same expression she had worn when the practical evaluation began.
‘He’s just repeating similar patterns with slight variations. Why?’
“You still have that much composure…!”
‘Hmm…… Why does he think that?’
In a game, all you had to do was press the button at the right timing. But in reality, she had to see the attack, calculate the timing, direction, and angle correctly, and then parry. Things that didn’t need to be seen in a game were visible. Things that couldn’t be known through a game were visible.
“Stop looking at this painful sight and just give up. Continuing will only get you hurt.”
In speed and strength, she was inferior to Alto, and without any unique magic, there was no chance for her to win. She would only continue accumulating wounds until she collapsed miserably.
But why?
‘What is this sense of unease?’
He was clearly in the advantageous position. If things continued like this, he would naturally win. Yet an unbearable sense of unease pressed down on Alto’s chest.
Why was I angry with her?
She had been hiding her strength. There was no way she could have blocked my full-powered attacks with that pathetic swordsmanship. Then what about now?
Was the girl who had blocked his attacks several times using proper, refined swordsmanship? No. Even now, her movements were pathetic and full of openings, crude and sloppy.
‘The sloppiness remains the same. She’s barely managing to block by squeezing out speed that was once decent. But……’
A chill ran down his spine, cooling the head that had been boiling with rage.
‘If she can block me when she’s neither faster nor stronger than me, then is it really sloppy…?’
Strength, speed, technique. She fell behind in everything, so there was no way she should be able to block him. Especially not the strikes he had thrust into what he thought were openings—multiple times.
‘Why…… why am I feeling anxious…?’
His mind told him to maintain composure, leave some strength in reserve, and win gracefully. But his instincts—
‘That can’t be…… There’s no reason I need to go this far against this girl…!’
—screamed at him that this wasn’t sincere. They urged him to end her with his full power.
“There’s no such thing!”
LV 8 Alto Ripelreus VS Eres LV -
“You…… just what……”
Only after all thirty-two of his relentless consecutive strikes had been completely blocked by the blood-soaked girl did Alto’s reason, not just his instincts, begin to regard her with caution.
Eres possessed no convenient talents. If the protagonist of a dark fantasy had any talent, it was one that could only bloom after undergoing a truly wretched and miserable process.
She had simply asked herself.
Why do I have to move like this?
Why does it feel more comfortable to do it this way?
Why does it feel like more power goes into it when I do it like this?
Why shouldn’t I block it this way?
Why is it difficult to attack in that direction?
Why connect the attack from here to there?
Why? Why? Why?
Questioning Ten Thousand Times
Special skill that increases skill proficiency and analytical ability through endless self-questioning.
She had never learned from anyone. She had simply done it herself. Scolding and encouraging herself, constantly asking herself questions and correcting her own movements.
She had never carved habits into her body. Because she affirmed every part of herself, she never became fixated on any single moment.
Quite No-Self
Allows complete reconstruction of one's previous self if desired.
Crackle—
A frog in the well. It doesn’t know the vastness or depth of the ocean, but because it knows nothing, it has dug its own well deeper than the sea.
And now.
Into this well made entirely of herself alone—
“Ah, it finally went up by one.”
“It went up……?”
Everyone in the training ground turned their gaze to the same spot. The letters written there left no room for disagreement—letters that should have been impossible.
Eres LV 2
---
Meanwhile, at the academy staff seats.
“Headmaster. May I now hear why you arranged the matchups for this time slot this way?”
“You mean why Luke the Count is in Training Ground 2 and Alto and Eres are in Training Ground 1?”
“That too…… but why Eres?”
It was the question everyone had held when the list was announced. And when the training grounds were assigned.
“First, the reason Count Luke is in Training Ground 2 is simple.”
“Is it because of Count Luke’s personality?”
“No. I did it because the match’s level didn’t seem like it would be very high. It would be too one-sided, wouldn’t it?”
“That is true.”
Until the day before, they had planned to put him in Training Ground 1, but after hearing that he had toyed with Alto, they had hurriedly revised it.
“But isn’t the same true for Alto? Eres’s level is……”
“Do you truly think so?”
“Are you saying there’s something about Eres?”
A once-in-several-decades mediocrity entering the academy at LV 1. To be honest, it was questionable how such a student had even been admitted.
“I guarantee it. Eres is a genius.”
“Her? What is the reason?”
“A truly excellent educator should be able to tell just by looking. Her breathing, footwork, the way she stands. At first glance it looks like a mess, but there is logic to it. Logic optimized for herself alone.”
An individual cannot surpass the accumulated knowledge of humanity over long years. The knowledge left in history is what those called geniuses gradually developed and left behind over thousands of years.
But put another way—
The world does not call those who merely follow existing knowledge geniuses.
“Learning universality and then developing it to fit oneself. That is the basics. However, for geniuses, there are times when creating their own thing comes before learning universal knowledge.”
“I know. Most such people were arrogant, and what they created on their own was usually of low quality.”
“But if they overcome that arrogance and learn, they can soar. Eres is not an arrogant person; she simply lacks experience. That is why I selected her. That is why I have expectations for her.”
“So she’s a student worth teaching. I’m looking forward to that as well. But what if it’s not talent, but simply that she learned incorrectly?”
“Hehe. Is it easy to discover one’s own logic without any foundation at all? Whether large or small, that can only be called talent.”
If she were a mere mediocrity, she would have to agonize over and correct a single movement dozens, hundreds, thousands of times before barely grasping it.
“Could a young person with not a single white hair have done that? It is undoubtedly talent.”