The only thing breaking the silence over the dueling arena was the rough breathing of the two combatants.
Just as they were about to set aside all weapons and clash with nothing but their bare bodies, a heavy voice cut through the air and overwhelmed the entirety of Raiden Hall.
“That’s enough.”
A huge man who had been watching with his arms crossed from the upper seats.
Vars Ehrenberg had, at some point, descended to the railing of the dueling arena.
As the professor in charge of the Knight Department and a former royal knight, the uniquely cold aura he exuded slipped between the two students, and the heat that had been burning so fiercely was extinguished in an instant.
“Professor Vars? What do you think you’re doing?”
Professor Glayton, who had been presiding over the duel, pushed up his glasses and shouted in a bewildered voice.
“This is an official duel, one I have clearly permitted and am overseeing. The two students were just about to settle things, so why are you interfering?”
Vars paid no mind to Glayton’s sharp protest and slowly stepped into the arena.
His gaze passed over Chloe, who was staring hollowly at the shattered blade, then swept over Lowell’s waist and the inside of his sleeves as he stood there with his fists clenched.
“There’s no meaning in continuing any further. No— it’s dangerous.”
Professor Vars continued in a voice so low it sent a chill through those who heard it.
“Professor Glayton, I know combat better than you do. This has gone beyond the level of a simple spar between students. If they go any further, one of them will either suffer an injury they can never recover from, or a tragedy even worse than that will occur.”
“What are you talking about?”
Glayton retorted, not bothering to hide his displeasure, but Vars merely snorted and pointed at Lowell with his chin.
“Look at that brat’s eyes.”
Vars’s single eye gave off a cold gleam.
“If this had been a real battlefield instead of a training ground, Chloe would already be dead. That boy was going easy on her.”
Vars’s gaze went to Lowell’s back and the ends of his sleeves.
To Vars, who was called the incarnation of actual combat, it was clearly visible.
When Lowell had thrown the nangseon and clenched his fist, an emergency matchcord had been cleverly hidden between his fingers, and inside his leather armor, there was still a small bamboo weapon he had yet to use.
It was simply that Lowell had no intention of using them.
“Chloe, the match ended the moment your sword was shattered.”
Vars stared straight at Lowell as he continued.
“Lowell had seen through everything about you from the very beginning. The pride you hold as a knight, the limits of your sword, and even the final desperate struggle you would show at the end of despair. In the instant you charged at him barehanded, he could have fired his last bit of firepower into your face and seized certain victory.”
At Vars’s cold assessment, Chloe’s gaze came to rest on the end of Lowell’s sleeve.
Indeed, there was a matchcord stained with black ash and a small bamboo weapon that had not yet been detonated hidden there.
“But he didn’t use them. Even while holding the surest card to confirm his victory, he chose instead to raise his fists and meet your eyes. Why do you think that was?”
“That’s…”
“Because in that moment, Lowell was already standing above you. It wasn’t a matter of technique or martial strength. Even with victory right before his eyes, rather than choosing the most efficient method of breaking his opponent, he first thought of the respect owed to that opponent. The man who had prepared so thoroughly to defeat a genius like you was, in the end, willing to answer the duel in the manner you wanted.”
Vars let out a hearty laugh and thumped Lowell on the shoulder.
Each time that log-like palm struck him, Lowell’s body swayed, but Vars’s gaze was more serious than ever.
“Chloe. You worked hard, and you were excellent. But you were intoxicated by your own skill and never tried to understand what state of mind your opponent had when he stood here. You did not even seriously consider what he might have prepared. That is arrogance toward your opponent, and it is abandoning the utmost courtesy one must have as someone who enters a duel.”
Then Vars’s gaze turned to Lowell.
“But this brat was different. While he prepared thoroughly for the sole purpose of defeating you, he still acknowledged you as a fighter and tried to match fists with you. His preparations were thorough, but his heart was noble. The outcome was already decided before the duel even began.”
Chloe could not answer at all.
Like the shattered blade, her pride had been broken into pieces.
Vars’s words were cruelly accurate.
At first, she had regarded the weapons Lowell had prepared as nothing more than cowardly tricks, and had failed to accept them as the sincerity Lowell had brought for her to overcome.
“The one qualified to win is the one who wins. Today, this brat swallowed whole not only your pride, but even the shallow common sense you held as a knight.”
Vars turned his huge body and swept his gaze over the stands and Professor Glayton in turn.
His voice rang throughout Raiden Hall like a wedge being driven in.
“This duel ends here. I will not tolerate any further disgrace.”
He roughly snatched Lowell’s hand and raised it into the air.
“The victor is Lowell! Chloe, top student of the Knight Department, admit your defeat and withdraw!”
An unprecedented silence fell over Raiden Hall.
No one could clap or cheer.
In the place where the academy’s common sense had crumbled, all that remained was a boy who had thrown away everything for victory, and a genius who had knelt before that desperate sincerity.
Lowell exhaled a trembling breath and looked up at his raised hand.
At last, the duel had come to an end.
###
Less than an hour after the duel ended, Lowell knocked on the door of the professor’s office located in the deepest part of the Knight Department building.
“Come in.”
A heavy voice came from inside.
When Lowell opened the door and entered, beyond a mountain of documents sat the huge man, Vars Ehrenberg.
The sharp fighting spirit he had displayed in the training hall was gone, and he was examining papers with an old pair of reading glasses on.
“Sit.”
Vars kept his eyes fixed on the documents until Lowell took his seat, then continued speaking.
“First, I’ll praise you for the changes you’ve made over the past few days. To grit your teeth and carve down your own flesh in such a short time isn’t something possible with ordinary resolve.”
“You’re too kind.”
At Lowell’s calm reply, Vars raised his head and stared at him with his single eye.
It was a persistent gaze, as if he were trying to pierce through to his soul.
“What you showed in today’s duel. It had far too much depth to call it a mere dropout’s rebellion. From the composure with which you handled weapons, to the boldness of turning your opponent’s psychology against them, and even the ease with which you hid your last card while still respecting your opponent.”
Vars took off his reading glasses, set them down on the table, and leaned forward.
The pressure of his massive frame filled the room.
“Those were the eyes of the finest elite soldiers I’ve seen in a lifetime of rolling around on battlefields. No, perhaps you were even more seasoned than they were. Looking at you gave me a strange illusion. The illusion that you weren’t some student from this academy, but a bastard who had come back after being thrown around on the front lines of the military.”
Lowell felt his heart turn cold.
The fierce eighteen months of military service he had endured in the Republic of Korea.
The countless training exercises and guard duties hidden behind the medal of an honorable discharge, and the memories of living under the discipline of obedience to one’s superiors.
This seasoned professor was instinctively sensing a secret Lowell could tell no one in this world.
“…I was just lucky.”
At Lowell’s short answer, Vars raised the corners of his mouth into a bizarre smile.
“Many men want to survive, but few know how to survive. You already know the method. Not the chivalry those academy scholars teach, but how to win even if you have to bite out someone’s throat in the mud.”
Vars took a neatly stamped sheet of paper from a drawer and pushed it toward Lowell.
“How does it feel to have revived dueling for the first time in a hundred years, Lowell? Your talent is wasted being stuck in the Elemental Department. Have you no thought of transferring to the Knight Department? No, even if it isn’t an official transfer, that’s fine. I’ll make an exception and allow you to audit my classes. I’d like to teach you every practical technique I possess.”
Vars’s eye burned with a greed that was almost ravenous.
He made no attempt to hide his desire to take the raw gemstone known as Lowell as his disciple.
Today’s duel had been the moment Lowell transformed from the academy’s troublemaker into a talent coveted by the greatest authority on practical combat in the Knight Department.
Vars’s proposal was extraordinary.
Personal instruction from a professor, something even the top student of the Knight Department would struggle to receive, was an opportunity all students aspiring to become knights yearned for.
But Lowell met Vars’s gaze without wavering.
“I am truly honored by your offer. However, I have already set my mind on the Elemental Department.”
Vars’s eyebrow twitched.
“The Elemental Department, is it? That raw instinct for struggle you showed today is far better suited to the path of a knight.”
“Through today’s duel, I fully realized how noble the path of a knight is. But Professor, is there not already someone in the Knight Department far more suited to that path than someone like me?”
At Lowell’s words, Vars’s brow narrowed.
“Are you talking about Chloe? That brat’s talent is certain, but ever since losing to Celestia, she has shut herself away in seclusion.”
Lowell looked for a moment at Raiden Hall in the distance beyond the window, then turned back to Vars with a faint smile.
“Is that what you think? Then I would like to ask you in return, Professor. In the final moments of today’s duel, in your eyes, did Miss Chloe not seem… happy?”
Vars’s expression stiffened for an instant.
He recalled Chloe’s face at the moment the duel was interrupted, her fists clenched as she looked at Lowell.
There had been no fear of defeat, no pressure that she had to win—only those blue eyes immersed in the pure joy of facing the enemy before her.
Those eyes, which had lost their light after crashing against the immense wall called Celestia, had once again been spewing a fierce, blue flame during today’s fight with Lowell.
Vars remained silent for a moment, then sank deep into the back of his chair and burst into laughter.
“Hahaha! She looked happy, did she… Yes, she did. When her sword broke, she had more of a knight’s eyes than when she held it.”
Vars waved his hand at Lowell.
“Fine. Seems I won’t be able to break your stubbornness. To refuse the Knight Department and instead ask me to look after your opponent’s future—you have quite the sly side to you.”
Vars took back the transfer offer lying on the desk and put it into the drawer.
“Go on, then. But know this: if you stay in the Elemental Department and let that sense of yours grow rusty, I’ll drag you over myself and throw you into the training hall.”
“I will keep that in mind, Professor.”
Lowell gave a respectful bow and left the professor’s office.
With the sound of the door closing, Vars lowered his head back into the pile of documents, but on his lips hung a satisfied smile rarely seen there.
At that same time, while Lowell was speaking privately with Vars about his future, in the silent dormitory of the Knight Department—
Chloe sat on her bed, unable even to tidy her disheveled hair.
On her knees lay something wrapped in a towel.
When she carefully drew the towel away, the broken blade of her beloved sword, Artemis, appeared, sharply severed.
“…I lost again.”
A low murmur slipped through her lips.
The fact of defeat was the same as when she had lost to Celestia, but the sensation digging into her chest was entirely different.
That day’s defeat had felt like sinking into a bottomless deep sea.
A vast wall she could not reach no matter how far she stretched out her hand.
Before that overwhelming talent, there had been only humiliation and helplessness, as though all her efforts had been denied.
That was why she had secluded herself as if fleeing, and had become afraid even to hold a sword.
But now, it was different.
Her fingertips were trembling faintly.
It was not because of fear.
The moment she had knocked aside the nangseon Lowell threw, broken through the exploding flames, and thrust her blade toward him.
And that instant when, even after her sword broke, she clenched her fists without hesitation and faced him at a distance where their breaths could touch.
That strange pulse that had flowed through her entire body.
“The fight was… enjoyable?”
Startled by the words that escaped without her realizing, Chloe covered her mouth.
For the top knight, who bore chivalry, etiquette, and the honor of her family, to say she had enjoyed a mud-slinging fight with a dropout.
It was impossible.
And yet she could not deny it.
He had not been cowardly.
Rather, he had used every means he possessed to offer the strongest opponent called Chloe the utmost courtesy.
She saw her own eyes reflected in the shard of broken blade.
In the eyes that had lost all vitality and died, a fierce blue flame was flickering once again.
“Lowell…”
When she softly repeated his name, her heart began to pound fiercely once more.
What surged up before resentment was a strange sense of anticipation.
If she could meet that man once again, if she could once more throw herself into that vicious design and those irregular attacks…
Then perhaps she could break through this tiresome stagnation and burn hot as a knight once more.
Chloe dearly grasped the hilt of her broken sword.
Not the wound of defeat, but the conviction that she could begin again spread through her chest as a pleasant ache.
For Chloe, it was the first time in her life that she had felt such intense interest toward an opponent.