How long had it been since I’d used violence against another person?
Whoosh!!
Thud!
If there was a time, the last would have been during knight training, which I’d given up several years ago.
But when I’d undergone knight training, though I had swung a sword at another person, I had never felt this kind of passionate emotion.
Both I, who swung the sword, and my father, who received it, had kept our emotions restrained as much as possible while we sparred.
After all, the purpose of those bouts had only ever been training to improve my skill.
But the situation now was different.
Grab!
“Oh, it seems there’s emotion in that kick.”
“...”
“Emotion is high-quality fuel for moving the body, but it is also fuel that dulls an attack. Attack with a little more composure.”
Hwalyeong muttered as she lightly caught the foot I had kicked up toward her chin.
An arrogant tone, looking down from above.
A tone of instruction, as if a master were teaching a disciple a technique.
I don’t like it.
Whip!
I roughly twisted free the foot caught in Hwalyeong’s hand and quickly corrected my stance.
My two legs stood straight against the ground, supporting me firmly, while my hands moved lightly, ready to extend at any moment.
As I assumed the stance for barehanded combat that I had learned from my father, Hwalyeong, facing me, also took her opening stance.
She dragged her leg so it touched the ground, making it difficult for her opponent to attack.
Step!
She crossed her arms and hands, taking a stance not for a preemptive strike, but to counter any incoming attack.
Her posture carried the composure of the strong, as if saying that whatever attack I made, she could counter it at any time, so come at her.
“...”
“Why are you not coming? Then I shall come to you.”
As I stayed silent, gauging her flawless posture, Hwalyeong saw through my intentions and relaxed her arms first, charging toward me.
Swoosh!
Hwalyeong approached swiftly like a hawk cutting through the wind, then honestly thrust the fist she had pulled back behind her shoulder toward my stomach.
Paang!
Her fist came at me with a vicious sound, as though striking the air with a whip. I stared at it in silence, holding my breath.
Then.
Grab.
“Oh?”
Just before it struck my body, I lightly snatched Hwalyeong’s wrist as she relaxed her strength and stopped her arm.
It was the reverse of when Hwalyeong had grabbed my hand at the start of the first attack.
“How did you know I would relax my strength just before attacking? Was it simply a gamble?”
“...No. I just trusted the ring.”
“The ring?”
When I pointed with my gaze to the ring on the right hand that had caught Hwalyeong’s hand, she nodded as if she understood.
“Come to think of it, there was that ring. I had forgotten.”
“This time I’ll ask a question. Why did you relax your strength right before impact?”
“Hm?”
I tightened my grip on Hwalyeong’s wrist and asked her.
Squeeze.
“Are you looking down on me? Did you relax your strength because you thought I’d get hurt if your fist hit me?”
“It is merely because I know that with the durability of a human body, if my fist lands cleanly, your internal organs will rupture.”
Hwalyeong spoke to me, who was frowning, with the gaze one would give a soft, weak little animal.
“If you were to take my fist, trained over many years, while completely defenseless, your organs would not merely rupture; your spine could be shattered. I do not wish to inflict an injury on you that cannot be healed.”
“That’s what looking down on me is.”
“No, I am stating reality. The obvious reality that the human body is as fragile as a cracker compared to that of the beastmen.”
Tap!
Hwalyeong easily undid the strength of my grip, which had been firmly clutching her wrist, and freed herself.
It was a light movement, like brushing a fly off her shoulder.
“Look at that. I barely used any strength, yet the full force of your grip was undone so easily. That is the extent of the difference. Between humans and beastmen.”
“...”
“And yet, I like the look in your eyes as you face me without losing your fighting spirit. As expected, I like you, Jin Prach.”
“You hurl such abuse at someone you like?”
“Hehe.”
Hwalyeong cracked her neck a couple of times and looked down at me with a smile.
“It is because I like you that I dislike your attitude. If you were someone insignificant, I would not have sparred with you like this in the first place.”
What, was she trying to say she bullied me because she was interested in me?
That logic is sophistry.
“This fight started with your unreasonable demands from the beginning.”
“Well, the one who first swung a fist and lit my fire was you. Still, I was satisfied that you reacted like a man.”
Hwalyeong looked at me with a broad grin.
“We are speaking too much. The weak cannot dare to object to the actions of the strong. Now, let us continue the spar.”
“...”
“I am curious, no matter what, why you look at the world with that attitude. I will win this spar and hear from your own mouth why you look at the world with the eyes of an outsider.”
Even as Hwalyeong spoke, she stretched out her legs and arms again, taking the same opening stance as before.
Scrape.
Hwalyeong’s feet rubbed against the floor with a noisy friction as she once again prepared to charge at me.
I kept my mouth shut at her actions, twitching my hands as my gaze moved.
If I at least had a stick, it would be easier to respond to her attacks.
Grabbing her wrist just now had been partly a gamble, but more than that, it was a shallow trick that would only work the first time.
For this next attack, she knew I was wearing the ring, so she would probably throw her fist or foot with all her strength.
Was there no way I could counterattack?
“You seem to be thinking a great deal. If you turn your head like that during a spar, your body’s reactions become half a beat slow... er!”
Swoosh!!
This time as well, she hurled a fist at me with tremendous force, like a bird of prey crossing the open sky.
Paang!!
Once again, Hwalyeong’s fist tore through the air with a terrifying sound as it drove toward my face.
A fist as hard as rock was about to collide with my face at high speed.
“...!”
I quickly and instinctively tried to turn my head to avoid her fist, but as she had said, my timing was half a beat slow.
The point of impact merely changed from the front to my right cheek; in this posture, I couldn’t deflect the blow.
And this time, unlike before, she wasn’t relaxing her strength, so I couldn’t knock her attack away.
What do I do?
If only I had a sword in my hand right now...!
Paang!!
“Ugh!”
“...”
Just before Hwalyeong’s hand touched my face, it was flung away by an external force.
Perhaps the impact was stronger than expected, because she, who had not made a sound even once while attacking, let out a noise and put distance between us.
“...What is that you are holding in your hand, Jin Prach?”
“...”
I had no time to answer her question and simply stared blankly at the white sword in my hand.
This sword had sprung out of my hand, which had definitely been empty until just now.
The sensation was as if...
“That’s right. It feels similar to what I felt in the space of the grimoire where the demon was.”
“...What?”
“I told you, didn’t I? That inside the grimoire, I could create objects with imagination alone.”
Whoosh!
Listening to the pleasant sound produced when swinging a flexible sword, I pointed the sword in my hand at her.
“I don’t really know how I’m able to use it in reality, but what I need to do right now is clear. Isn’t it?”
“...You have grown arrogant.”
Hwalyeong glared at me, who was holding the white sword, with a ferocious smile.
“Do you think you can defeat me in a spar just because you are holding a long stick?”
“I do.”
“Ha! How ridiculous.”
“Sorry, but.”
Step!
I took the family’s opening stance I had learned from my father and faced her.
My feet firm as the earth.
My arms free as the wind.
No matter how lightly I swung it, with the killing power of a sword, disabling an opponent would be nothing.
I slightly relaxed my strength, maintaining a fixed distance between myself and the sword.
“You’re wearing a ring too, right? I don’t want to become a dismemberment murderer.”
“...Do not worry.”
After saying that, Hwalyeong put the ring she had been wearing into the pocket of her school uniform.
“No matter how you bring that sword down, you will not be able to cut even a single hair on my body.”
“Then.”
I didn’t know how it had happened, but with the sword in my hand, my trembling heart calmed and grew still.
Even though I had quit knight training halfway because it was too hard, my father, the head of a knightly family, had evaluated my skill like this:
If I met a master swordsman, I would slowly be driven back and self-destruct, but I had the basics.
What would it mean when a man who had spent his entire life gripping and swinging a sword said I had the basics?
It meant I was damn good.
I have confidence in my skill.
“If blood flows from your body, you lose.”
When I said that and placed the ring on my finger into my pocket, she also opened her mouth.
“Very well. Conversely, if you can no longer move your body or if any part of you breaks, you lose.”
As if neither of us had any objections to the conditions for victory in this spar, we nodded and agreed.
“...Um, there are more and more people gathering around.”
The moment Isil muttered and spoke to us,
Whoosh!!
Paang!!
Using her words as the signal, we clashed.