“Senior!!”
Dadadadak!
Yul Jevitz, her blond hair streaming behind her, shouted toward a woman who was chatting with the surrounding students in the lobby of the main building.
“It’s terrible! Terrible!”
“Yul, calm down.”
The bespectacled woman whom Yul Jevitz had called senior calmly patted her on the back as she wheezed for breath.
“The professors always tell us that we in the Faculty of Law must never lose our reason, no matter when or where. You, especially, are the representative student of the first-years, so you ought to set an example all the more in that regard.”
“I’m. Haaah. I’m sorry..!”
“N-no, there’s no need to apologize that much?”
Huff, huff.
The bespectacled senior looked flustered at the sight of Yul Jevitz sincerely apologizing while panting, and tried to calm her down.
About a minute passed like that.
“Haaah! Huuuuuu, I’m calm now, Senior.”
“Mm, as expected, you’re quick to collect your emotions. Worthy of a representative student.”
“Hehe, is that so?”
At the bespectacled senior’s praise, Yul Jevitz shyly lowered her head.
Seeing that, the other students nearby smiled as if they found her as adorable as a youngest sibling, then spoke to the bespectacled senior.
“Sern, even so, she came looking for you in this much of a fuss. Shouldn’t you ask what’s going on?”
“Ah, right.”
The bespectacled senior, called Sern by one of the students around her, nodded and asked Yul Jevitz.
“Then, Yul. What happened that made you come looking for me in such a state? It’s not that you saw another mystical animal near the dormitory and came to tell me about it, is it? I’ve told you over and over, the mystical animals raised by Academia can’t just wander around so freely—”
“A-ah, come on! It’s not that this time. It’s because of students! Students!”
“Students?”
“Yes! They say two students are fighting near the main building right now!”
A fight.
At Yul Jevitz’s words, Sern, who had been wearing a gentle expression, instantly turned cold-eyed and opened her mouth.
“A fight? What level of fight?”
“L-level?”
“From a light fistfight to a life-and-death duel. What level was the fight you heard about?”
“Well… I didn’t hear the details either, but they said one student was swinging a sword at another—”
Scrape!
At Yul Jevitz’s explanation that someone was swinging a sword, Sern and the students around her cut off Yul Jevitz’s words and quickly rose from their seats.
“Mm, this is serious, Sern.”
“A fight like that breaking out right at the start of the semester? This year’s first-years won’t be easy.”
“Still, it’ll take time before their heads get too big, so we should be able to keep them under control.”
“I hope so.”
The students standing around Sern looked at one another and each said their piece.
Sern smiled at Yul Jevitz, who was blankly staring at the faces of the friends speaking around her.
“Yul.”
“Yes!”
“Do you know exactly where the fight is taking place?”
“You’ll see it as soon as you leave the main building! The students are surrounding them and watching right now.”
At her answer, a male student standing near Sern clicked his tongue and said,
“Tsk. First-years are one thing, but you’re saying the other years are just watching without stopping it?”
“I-I suppose so?”
“Huu… If there are any of our Faculty of Law students there, I suppose I’ll have to suggest special education to the professor for the first time in a while.”
Special education!
At the words “special education” from Sern’s mouth, Yul Jevitz shivered faintly and looked at her.
Students from other faculties might not know what happened in special education unless they were the ones receiving it, but Yul Jevitz, who attended the Faculty of Law, knew in greater detail.
Especially when it came to the special education carried out by the Faculty of Law.
“Isn’t that a little too harsh?”
“Don’t worry. The first-year students, including you, will be excluded.”
“I don’t think that’s the problem…”
“Department of Interrogation. Let’s go there first.”
“Ah!”
The students of the Department of Interrogation, including Sern, strode past Yul Jevitz, who was wearing an anxious expression as if worried about what the seniors might do to her if they realized they were receiving special education because of what she had said.
“W-wait for me, seniors of the Department of Interrogation!”
Yul Jevitz quickly chased after the seniors of the Department of Interrogation, who moved together naturally, as if they were one body.
***
Swiik!!
The white sword was swung as fast as a flash of light.
It traced a perfect arc, like a compass with a pencil drawing a circle, and came down toward Hwalyeong’s shoulder.
A downward strike with perfect timing!
Ting!!
But as if she had predicted the path of the white sword descending toward her shoulder, Hwalyeong used her left hand, which she had prepared with an expressionless face, to swiftly strike the flat of the blade and deflect it.
The force of her hand, moving so quickly it left an afterimage, sent a shock into the wrist gripping the sword.
Whish!
Without resisting the force of the sword being knocked away, I quickly twisted my waist and spun once around myself.
“Eek!”
“Gasp!”
“Th-that’s dangerous!”
When I spun my body once while holding the sword, the onlookers standing nearby each cried out in fright.
But both Hwalyeong, who had deflected the sword, and I, who had swung it, ignored the noise around us and looked only into each other’s eyes.
In the brief lull created when Hwalyeong deflected the sword, she spoke first.
“Hmm. With so many onlookers around, it seems the space has narrowed.”
At her observation, I kept my head fixed toward her and only rolled my eyes to quickly scan our surroundings.
Just as she said, unlike when we first started the spar, when there had been only two or three onlookers and the space was wide, now dozens of students were watching us, making it cramped.
If I took roughly five large steps, I would probably bump into the students.
Srrng!
“Does the amount of space around us bother you? Then let’s end this quickly before more people gather.”
“Hmm. I don’t like this.”
Tap, tap!
As if she disliked that we had become a spectacle for the students around us, Hwalyeong struck the ground a couple of times with her tail.
“Jin, can you use your sword to threaten the onlookers around us? If one or two of them see blood, it seems the humans nearby will run away.”
“…That’s a request very much like you.”
“Is it? Among beastmen, if others watch a spar like this without permission, it is customary that killing them is acceptable.”
At Hwalyeong’s blood-scented words, the students around me turned pale and tried to move away from us.
It was impressive how no one seemed to think it was a joke, perhaps because they all sensed the sincerity in her words.
“This is the Empire, not the Eastern Continent where beastmen live. And I’m not a murderer who swings a blade at the powerless.”
“Hmm. Human customs are truly soft… Then it can’t be helped.”
Srrk.
Perhaps dissatisfied with my answer, Hwalyeong frowned faintly and took up a ready stance again.
But I frowned when I saw the stance she had taken.
It was not the stance she had been showing until just now, with her legs spread wide and her arms crossed.
Like a feline animal, she lowered her body to an extreme and swayed her tail.
Then, taking a posture similar to that of a sprinter before starting a race, she said,
“If we delay any longer, the space in which we can spar will grow even narrower. So, as you suggested, I will end it with this strike.”
“…”
She looked at me dangerously, her golden irises gleaming.
Her spirit, should I call it?
She glared at me, exuding a ferocious air as if the sparring until just now had been a joke.
“If you have any hidden techniques, you would do well to bring them out now, Jin. I intend to unleash this strike with the thought of killing you.”
“…Didn’t you say you didn’t want to inflict a grievous injury that couldn’t be healed?”
“I trust the skill you have shown thus far. I trust that even if I attack you with a form filled with my killing intent, you will not die.”
“…That trust is heavy.”
Step.
Among the sword stances I knew, I took one meant to defend against an opponent’s attack and looked at her.
If she charged straight at me, I assumed a posture that would let me thrust the sword directly toward her face and said,
“Come. I’ll make you bleed with this strike too.”
“Heh, I look forward to it.”
Hwalyeong looked at me with the fierce smile that only someone who made violence her trade could wear.
“Then let us meet face-to-face alive.”
Tat!
With those words, Hwalyeong launched her body high into the air, like a bird flying through the sky.
Like a huge tiger leaping over a brook.
Whoooong.
I carefully watched her as she kicked off the earth and soared upward, preparing to thrust my sword toward her vital point.
In a fight, if one’s lower body is not braced against the earth, one cannot properly transmit force.
That was obvious.
All living things are affected by gravity, and to transmit force, one must oppose gravity to a greater or lesser degree.
That was why, judging by the fighting techniques I had learned, Hwalyeong’s current posture as she leapt into the air was worth zero points.
If the lower body was not fixed, how could she properly deliver force?
However.
Shiiiiik!!
Without relaxing my guard at her appearance, I quickly swung my sword toward her as she attempted to strike down at my head.
If it was her, she definitely had something hidden.
With her arrogant personality, after laying the groundwork like that, there was no way she would make a simple downward strike and nothing more.
The white sword cut through the air with a sound like a snake as it went to slice through Hwalyeong’s lower body.
At that moment.
I felt the strange sensation of the will of myself, swinging the sword, and Hwalyeong, just before the blade touched her, being conveyed to each other.
‘You’re not going to dodge? At this rate, you’ll be cut in two.’
‘What a grand dream. Your sword will never touch me.’
‘It’s just about to cut through your legs, and yet you still show such an arrogant attitude?’
‘An arrogant attitude, you say.’
Grin.
For some reason, I had the illusion of seeing a smile on Hwalyeong’s face as she tried to bring her legs down.
How strange.
In this posture, I couldn’t see Hwalyeong’s face, so why did I think she was smiling?
‘The arrogant one is—’
Swish!!!
“…!”
Hwalyeong “stepped on empty air” and cleanly dodged my sword.
As if she had trodden on an invisible foothold, she made an abrupt change of direction in midair.
‘…Damn it!’
‘You, Jin.’
Flustered by Hwalyeong’s movement, which ignored the laws of physics, I hurriedly tried to withdraw the sword I had thrust out.
But this time, Hwalyeong’s body touched the ground faster.
Boooom!!!
Now that her foot had touched the ground and she could fully transmit her force, her leg shot toward my body like a whip.
I gritted my teeth against the impact to come.