Episode 024
“Ah…”
An unfamiliar ceiling.
No, it was the familiar ceiling of the Springfield manor, but
my mind felt as though it had wandered somewhere far, far away and only just returned.
“…Was it a nightmare?”
As soon as I opened my eyes, I stared up at the ceiling and muttered softly.
The acrid smell of ash still seemed to linger at the tip of my nose, making my brow furrow on its own.
“K-Knight…! No, Master! Have you come to your senses?!”
At the startled voice, I turned my head and saw Prisia looking at me with tears brimming in her eyes.
She wasn’t wearing her usual dress, but training clothes smeared here and there with soot.
Looks like she’d been watching over me the whole time.
“…How long was I asleep?”
“About one or two hours! You suddenly collapsed as if you were coughing up blood, so this Prisia truly thought her heart would stop…”
“……”
So it wasn’t a dream.
Along with the burnt smell drifting in on the wind, the enormous crater in the middle of the training ground was screaming at me that it had all been very much real.
The Hwasan where plum blossoms bloom is no more.
Only flame roses remain.
‘This isn’t Hwasan!!!!’
“Lady Prisia… I thought she was merely a tomboyish girl, but she’s no ordinary person.”
“Did she call it a flaming plum blossom? Plum blossom… An unfamiliar name, but it must be a flower that blooms in the spirit realm.”
“Where exactly is this place called Hwasan?”
“I don’t know, but isn’t it where fire spirits live? The Spirit King Ifrit—it just gives you that feeling, doesn’t it? That place must be Hwasan.”
“Ahh, is that so? Then it makes sense.”
The sound of people chatting below the window pierced my ears.
“……”
I clenched the blanket tightly in my trembling hands.
I shouldn’t be developing tremors at this age already.
“Master, how is your body…?”
Prisia stared at me, worry filling her eyes as she reached a hand toward my forehead.
Hoo.
Good.
I took a moment to steady my breathing and rubbed my face dry.
Hwasan (火山), where Ifrit lives.
Flaming plum blossoms.
The “Hwa” in the Hwasan Sect is written with fire (火).
I thought I heard such things in passing, but once I gathered myself,
though I could not accept it,
the time had come to acknowledge it.
“……”
I forced my trembling heart to calm and looked at Prisia before me.
++
[Prisia Springfield]
└[Plum Blossom Sword of Hwasan (火山)] New!
▷ A-rank growth-type skill
[You are currently connected to your master by an extremely strong bond. =Proficiency boost x50 in effect=]
++
A growth-type skill born at A-rank?
A proficiency boost of fifty times?
The skill multiplier increases according to instruction?
Is this for real?
“Hah…”
A hollow laugh escaped me naturally.
Authentic martial arts? The bond between master and disciple? The essence of Hwasan?
All of that had already been burned away in the explosion of flaming plum blossoms.
The cold instinct of a veteran player whispered in my head.
‘As far as firepower goes… this is insane.’
I had no choice but to admit it.
I had definitely taught her Hwasan’s Twenty-Four Hands Plum Blossom Sword Art, but what came out was a strategic weapon that devastated the terrain.
It was no different from an upper, no, a top-tier compatible version of the magic sword I had originally intended to teach Prisia.
A method of burning mana instead of inner energy to gain explosive power.
Although if the Hwasan Sect’s founding patriarch, ancestors, and sect leaders saw it, they would burst out of their coffins,
from my position, having to face the Demon King’s army, there was no more efficient companion than this.
‘The half-baked attack power that was holding Prisia back should be covered with this, shouldn’t it?’
An overpowered character who can both deal damage and tank?
“Hmph! Master, are you surprised because I’m simply too much of a genius? You didn’t know I would be able to make the flames of Hwasan bloom so perfectly, did you?”
Prisia blushed and smiled bashfully.
Looking at her innocent smile, I let out a deep sigh.
“Yeah… you’re right. Hwasan (火山) is definitely about flaming plum blossoms. It was very fiery.”
The mindset of an old martial arts geezer was surging deep in my chest, but.
Sorry, just hold it in a little longer.
“Hmph!! As expected, Master acknowledges it too!”
“Shall we spar right away?”
When I got up from the bed, she pressed down on my shoulder worriedly.
A-rank monstrous strength.
This won’t be easy.
But if I’m already being worried over by you, then I’m finished.
“Master, are you truly all right? Please don’t overdo it and just… kyaah!”
I grabbed Prisia’s slender waist as she was, sprang to my feet, and headed for the training ground.
Even though she was dangling at my side like a piece of luggage, she giggled and looked up at me.
Upon arriving at the training ground, I tossed her a wooden sword.
“Come at me with everything you have.”
“Is that truly all right?”
Without answering, I instantly closed the distance and aimed for her head.
“Eh…!”
Prisia failed to react.
I wondered if she would pass out like last time, but
++
[Hidden Attribute: Flame Guardian]
└The blessing of flame activates!
++
A small wall of fire surged up between her and me, blocking my wooden sword.
Naturally, the wooden sword blazed up and turned to ash, disappearing.
“Mm.”
Good. It’s working now.
There was quite a bit I couldn’t accept, but in any case, after I passed on the Twenty-Four Hands Plum Blossom Sword,
Prisia was growing stronger by the day, so it was a good thing for me.
“This time, you come at me.”
“Understood! Eiiit!!”
And from that day on, we devoted ourselves to training.
******
“…Insane.”
Since I was the one teaching her, it was only natural, but
Prisia’s talent truly lived up to that of a hidden overpowered character.
No matter how much of a proficiency boost she had,
with only a few corrections, the Twenty-Four Hands… no, the flaming plum blossoms had reached four stars of proficiency.
It was a truly absurd speed.
“Master, one more time!”
Prisia smiled brightly and charged at me.
Kwaaaaaang!!
Every time she swung her sword, flaming plum blossoms bloomed.
The training ground was no longer a training ground, but practically a small volcanic zone.
As Prisia thrust in, the crimson mana flowing along her blade exploded and made flaming plum blossoms bloom in the shape of a fan.
Heat reaching several thousand degrees burned the air as it swept toward me.
“……”
But I lightly pivoted on the tips of my toes, twisted my body, and slipped aside.
Swoosh—
The enormous heat brushed past my face. The timing was so perfect that there wasn’t even the smell of my bangs being singed.
As if flustered, Prisia immediately swung her sword horizontally, attempting a sideways slash.
“Haaaah! Don’t run away!”
Along the trajectory of her sword strike, afterimages of flame curved like sickles and rushed in.
It was an area attack with no space to dodge.
But instead of retreating, I stepped one pace further into Prisia’s embrace and swung my wooden sword.
My wooden sword lightly tapped the side of Prisia’s wooden sword.
“Eh!”
It wasn’t simply force pushing it away.
I had merely used the flow of the explosive power she had poured out in reverse and twisted its trajectory ever so slightly upward.
A storm of flames surged over my head, and in that gap, I brought my wooden sword to Prisia’s neck.
“…Master! You truly have no openings at all! Even when I pour all my mana into the Twenty-Four Hands Plum Blossom Sword, it doesn’t touch you even once…”
“Of course. I’m your master.”
Prisia made a dejected little noise and lowered her wooden sword.
Her face was covered in soot and dotted with beads of sweat, but her eyes alone were filled with awe.
“What sword art is that? It doesn’t seem to be the Twenty-Four Hands Plum Blossom Sword Art… My Plum Blossom Sword can’t reach it at all.”
Honestly, the sword art Prisia was using could no longer really be called the Plum Blossom Sword either, but…
I composed myself and answered her curiosity.
“This is the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven.”
“Thirty-Six… Swords Under Heaven?”
“That’s right. Centered around myself, I divide the world into thirty-six directions. Up, down, left, and right, of course, as well as the diagonals and blind spots between them.”
“And then?”
“No matter how fierce your attack is, in the end, it will come in through one of those thirty-six directions, won’t it? Then I simply read the direction you chose and respond along that trajectory.”
“That’s absurd…”
Prisia groaned and sank down onto the floor as if exhausted.
“Then please teach me the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven as well! That thing where no matter how much I attack, I can’t hit you—I want to learn it too!”
I quietly shook my head.
The Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven?
Absolutely not.
Thirty-six directions and whatnot… blocking and dodging everything?
As if that would be possible.
It sounded plausible, but in the end, it depended on the user’s ability.
From what I’d observed, Prisia would never understand the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven.
If Prisia, who brute-forced things with firepower, tried to force herself to learn this sword art, she would obviously trip over her own feet while calculating directions.
Honestly, the fact that I was already cramming the Twenty-Four Hands Plum Blossom Sword into her through an accelerated rote lesson said enough.
“Prisia, listen carefully. The Twenty-Four Hands Plum Blossom Sword Art you are learning right now is a secret among secrets, passed down for a long time by the lofty Hwasan Sect. It is not inferior to the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven. From the Hwasan Sect’s founding patriarch, the blood, sweat, and tears of countless ancestors are contained in each and every one of these forms…”
I opened my mouth thinking that if she understood the depth of martial arts, she might take even greater pride in it and train more actively.
Just as I was about to explain the noble meaning and orthodoxy contained in Hwasan’s sword,
“Yes…… haaaam…”
Perhaps because she was tired, Prisia let out a small yawn, and I could see her eyelids gradually growing heavy.
“Zzz… zzz…”
“…Are you sleeping?”
“…Haaam…! Ah! I was not dozing! It’s just… Master’s words were so dull and pedantic, like a lecture on mana theory by renowned mages…”
Looking at her rubbing her eyes sleepily, I realized something.
Right.
What use would the founding patriarch’s spirit be to Prisia?
“The Twenty-Four Hands Plum Blossom Sword Art is.”
“The Plum Blossom Sword is?”
“An S-rank sword art.”
No sooner had those words fallen than Prisia’s eyes snapped wide open.
##