The man who came in carrying a sword gave a faint laugh when he saw my stance.
“I heard you were an impressive soldier, but as expected, you’re just a guy who’s good with a gun.”
I wanted to retort, but even to me, someone who knew nothing about swords, the man had taken a stylish stance.
He held the sword in one hand, the other hand leisurely extended toward me—the kind of posture I’d seen in martial arts films.
Relaxing his tense shoulders, he said,
“I was worried, but this will be easier than I thought. I’ll have to worry about what comes after.”
Well, I had only learned how to use a spear for one week before coming to this planet.
Even after that, I had never properly practiced with one. I had only thrown it and thrust with it as the situation demanded.
There was no way a proper stance would come out under those circumstances.
Even then, he didn’t charge in right away, but continued spouting nonsense.
“I’ve trained in wushu my whole life, but I never believed qi or sword qi really existed.”
He raised his sword. A faint light flowed from the blade.
“But it turns out qi really does exist. And sword qi, too.”
He swung the sword sideways.
Slice!
He had clearly swung it through empty air, yet the metal wall was cut apart.
Was that real sword qi?
[Primitive magic again. It seems you Earthlings, once you can feel energy, each end up learning at least one primitive spell.
In any case, he merely sent out energy transformed into cutting magic. It may not be visible, but to you, who can sense energy, it’s nothing more than a shoddy spell.]
Apparently, it wasn’t sword qi. He was also mistaking energy for qi.
But if you got down to it, dark energy and qi weren’t all that different.
In any case, I didn’t think there was any need to listen anymore.
“You talk too much.”
At my words, the man grinned.
“Didn’t you know? I was buying time to get used to the qi.”
I smiled back at that.
“I knew. I just needed time too.”
I also needed to check whether what I had learned and mastered within the magic could be used in reality as well.
While my opponent was talking, I checked each thing one by one.
Fortunately, the energy flowing inside my body, the sensations I felt around me, and my body and muscles were all no different.
“Then I’ll think about what comes after later, and start with avenging my comrades.”
Standing in place, he swung his sword.
Whoosh.
This time, the sword was swung precisely toward me.
It was a sword swung through empty air, but I could feel it.
The transformed energy that shot out from the sword flew toward me.
It was the magic Soph had spoken of.
I threw myself aside to avoid the energy.
Slice.
The bed behind me was cut in half.
“Ah!”
I was startled.
That bed was something I had been determined to take with me.
It was the first proper bed I’d seen on this planet.
Destroying a bed like that was unforgivable.
Filled with rage, I threw my spear.
Shuaaak!
Seeing the spear flying toward him, he hurriedly lowered his head.
Thud!
The spear cut off his hair and lodged itself in the wall.
“To throw your weapon from the start. Unexpected, but what were you planning to do if it failed?”
Ignoring the hair falling around him, he tried to swing his sword again.
But this time, I was faster.
“You really do talk too much.”
I called the spear back again.
Whoosh.
Hearing the spear flying in from behind, he threw himself to the side.
I caught the returning spear, and the man, springing to his feet, frowned as he looked at it.
“So you did have a trick after all. As expected, it’s best to stick to what you’re good at—”
I thought he was a quiet guy, but he was noisier than expected.
On top of that, he charged at me in the middle of speaking.
Pat!
As he rushed forward, he swung his sword.
Whoosh!
“Damn!”
I frantically lowered my head.
The blade passed over my head and cut all the way into the wall behind me.
If my senses hadn’t been sharpened to the limit, my neck would have been sliced clean off.
His attack didn’t end there.
The sword he had swung came back again.
Whirrr!
This time the blade aimed for my legs, and when I hastily dodged, the sword continued following me.
“It’s like the sword is alive!”
It felt as if the person and the sword were moving separately.
His claim that he had learned wushu was not a lie.
Even the orthodox martial arts instructors who had taught me for a week had not been at this level.
The reason the sword felt alive was because his arms and legs continued moving in bizarre ways.
I frantically dodged the sword.
Rolling across the floor and throwing my body aside, I escaped the danger of being cut apart several times.
Did I look pitiful?
Soph asked,
[He uses energy in a fascinating way. It’s similar to Givro’s method, but different as well. More importantly, you seem to be struggling. Do you need help?]
Magic had already been laid throughout this room.
It was the spell I had asked Soph to prepare in advance before I put on the helmet.
There was no way I would lure an enemy in without any trap at all.
But a moment ago, I had stopped myself from using that magic.
Because I wanted to face the enemy without magic.
And that thought had not changed even now.
[No need.]
From the outside, it looked dangerous, but in truth, it wasn’t that dangerous.
Even if he had grown stronger through dark energy, my opponent was human.
A human’s attacks were not a problem. I had dodged an Akzar scout’s tentacle attacks for quite some time too.
The problem was my own attacks.
Attacking the enemy while dodging wasn’t easy, but more than that, it was difficult to make a proper attack.
“An opening!”
Seeing the sword turn behind him, I thrust my spear with all my might.
Clang!
But the spear I thrust was deflected by the sword that had already returned.
“You dodge well, like a rat, but your attacks are child’s play.”
And on top of that came my opponent’s mocking words.
Even hearing that, I had nothing to say.
The reason I had been fine when fighting monsters was because my opponents had been simple monsters.
Even with the Akzar scout, it had been huge, so all I’d needed to do was stab it.
I couldn’t fight the same way against another person.
Because I knew that, I had tried to fight from as far away as possible.
But now was different.
I awakened my senses.
I focused all of those senses on my opponent.
The man’s movements came into view all at once.
All kinds of information poured into my head.
The movement of the sword, the movement of his limbs, the direction of his eyes, even the contraction of his muscles.
Countless pieces of information appeared, vanished, and changed.
Naturally, there was no time to analyze it all.
Before, I would have given up and retreated, but now, instead, I took one step forward.
Clack.
Was it because I had gotten too close?
The sword that had gone behind him could not return.
An opponent stuck close.
I clenched my fist and thrust it out with force.
Boom!
With an explosive sound, my opponent was shoved far backward.
The man, who stopped only after hitting the wall, knelt and looked at me.
“Cough. Your movements suddenly changed?”
Even now, I couldn’t analyze all that information.
What had changed was only that I trusted the path my senses showed me.
Even if a place felt dangerous rationally, I believed what my senses told me was the truth and headed down that path.
That was the method the instructor inside the helmet had taught me.
This time, I moved first.
After reaching him in a single step, I swung my spear with all my might.
The startled opponent swung his sword, but the sword merely struck the spear shaft and bounced away.
[It is sturdy, right?]
[It is not an object meant to be swung around like this, but it is not a staff that would be damaged by some mass-produced item like that. Swing it as much as you like.]
Trusting Soph’s words, I continued swinging the spear.
I trusted the path my senses showed me and drove my spear into that path.
“Impossible!”
The shocked opponent swung his sword like mad.
But the spear I swung continued knocking the sword away, and it wounded his body as well.
It was a spear I was swinging, but the spear’s movements were truly strange.
It felt as if I had thrust into empty air, yet my opponent was there. I aimed at a place he was defending, but when I actually stabbed, he was dropping his guard.
It looked almost as if he were deliberately letting my spear hit him.
Puaaaak!
In an instant, my opponent was covered in blood.
The man retreated and let out a scream-like shout.
“This can’t be! I really felt qi, I achieved my dream. My sword qi can’t end like this!”
With those words, the man pulled his sword back.
Energy gathered in the blade.
The sword shone brightly enough to be visible.
[His final struggle. He is gathering all the energy left in his body. Even if you merely dodge, he will collapse from energy depletion.]
It was as Soph said.
He was so focused on gathering energy that he was paying attention to nothing else.
It seemed I could just rush in and stab him with my spear.
But I didn’t.
Because my senses showed me something strange.
At any other time, I would have ignored it, but now I had decided to trust those senses.
I waited for my opponent to swing his sword.
“Die!”
The man swung his sword at me with all his strength.
Boooom.
From the grandly swung sword, a white line shot out.
He must have gathered so much energy that the sword qi was visible to the eye.
The sword qi, stretched long horizontally, was so long and fast that it was difficult to dodge.
Instead of avoiding it, I pushed my spear into the incoming line.
Pat!
The moment I thrust the spear in, magic circles and formulas appeared in my mind.
They were all magic circles and formulas I had never seen before.
I didn’t understand the magic circles or the formulas, but I felt like I knew what they were.
They were magic meant to break the sword qi my opponent had unleashed.
I poured the magic I had created into the spear and pushed it straight into the flying sword qi.
That was the path my senses had shown me.
Wooooong.
The moment the sword qi touched the spearhead, it was caught by my magic.
The sword qi that had tried to cut through my body circled widely around me along the spear.
The white line wrapped around me, then unwound again.
The sword qi returned to the place it had come from.
The destination of the sword qi was the man who had fired it.
He opened his mouth wide as he watched the sword qi fly toward him.
Slice.
Blood sprayed, and the man fell backward.
My opponent had collapsed, but I was looking at the spear.
I had moved according to my senses, but I had no idea how I had done what I had just done.
Even Soph, who would never stay quiet when it came to magic, said nothing.
As always, I decided to set aside what I didn’t know.
I shrugged and walked over to the man lying on the floor.
Still barely breathing, the man looked at me with hollow eyes.
“Cough. You suddenly used a sense-path, and even sent sword qi back? Did you attain some kind of enlightenment?”
I had read martial arts novels before, so I felt like I understood what he meant.
But all of it was just a wild misunderstanding.
Instead of answering that, I asked something else.
“Didn’t you come to avenge your comrades?”
At my words, his eyes widened, then he gave a faint laugh.
“Ah, that. There was that too, wasn’t there. Well, that’s already over now.”
True enough, it was nothing more than a meaningless story now.
As he coughed up blood, he seemed to think of the person left behind.
“Cough. I did this alone. Secretary Li knows nothing about it, so I’d prefer you not touch him.”
At his words, I shrugged.
“Who knows.”
The man smiled bitterly at my reply.
“Well, I suppose that isn’t something I have the right to say. What a shame. It felt like my childhood dream had come true…”
With those words, he stopped breathing.
I put every part of his corpse, cut in half, into a box.
After that, I took the sword and returned to where my companions were.
The people who had been resting, and the Chinese man with them, looked at me.
When he saw the sword in my hand, he threw both hands into the air.
“I surrender. Please just spare my life.”
He had said he didn’t know, but this Chinese man knew very well.
I looked at the Chinese man with his hands raised and stroked the sword.