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Swordsmanship class.
In the Guynes Empire, it is common sense that a noble, be they man or woman, must be capable of properly wielding a sword. Anything less is unacceptable.
This stems from the empire’s history of leading the front lines as the alliance’s sovereign power during the war against the Demon King’s army.
In those days, high-ranking nobles themselves took charge, commanding troops and confronting the demonic forces.
Their unity was founded on the ideal of restoring peace to this world by human hands, a sentiment that also lies at the root of discrimination against demi-humans.
I don’t intend to mock that as foolish, but personally, I couldn’t care less about demi-humans or humans.
All living beings should be distinguished only by whether they are superior or inferior.
But well, everything has its uses.
What appears inferior at first glance often isn’t.
The red-haired male standing before me, Azel, is likely one such example.
「Hey, Hein! Beautiful day, isn’t it! How about sparring with me in a mock duel?」
With the same boisterous energy since morning, Azel called out to me.
In his hand, he gripped a blunted training sword.
I could sense the other inferior beings watching us from a distance.
Fine.
I needed to gauge his capabilities properly.
Our last mock duel ended in a draw, a humiliating result, as far as I’m concerned.
This time, I’ll make sure to demonstrate the clear difference in our standing.
「Very well. Try not to waste too much of my time.」
I rose to my feet and slowly drew my sword.
Azel grinned, flashing his teeth cheerfully.
「That’s more like it!」
We moved to the center of the training grounds.
The instructor, looking somewhat tense, gave the signal to begin.
「B-Begin!」
The moment the command echoed, Azel moved.
Not just fast, but silent.
He closed the distance smoothly, his footwork disrupting my sense of range.
His blade thrust straight toward my throat in a linear motion. No wasted movement. Impressive skill.
As his sword cut through the air, a faint breeze brushed my cheek,
I raised my blade to block his horizontal slash.
A plain thrust from the Rishin style.
He had anticipated my evasion, planning to follow up with a slash aimed at my throat.
Slightly unexpected. The Rishin style is a minor swordsmanship practiced mainly in the borderlands, somewhat unorthodox compared to other schools. Though labeled as swordsmanship, it’s essentially a comprehensive martial art. Unlike refined courtly styles, it incorporates strikes, kicks, grapples, anything goes.
It’s not a style one often sees among nobles who practice swordsmanship…
But Azel’s body was already flowing into his next motion.
The rotation of his hips, the shift of his shoulders, the flick of his wrist.
Everything synchronized into a fluid slash aimed at my flank, but I matched his advance by stepping in instead of back.
Before his blade could reach me, I drove the pommel of my sword into his solar plexus.
「Guh…!?」
Azel’s movement halted for an instant.
I don’t let openings go to waste.
Without pause, I unleashed a series of strikes.
Thrusts, slashes, downward cuts.
Each one aimed precisely at Azel’s vital points. Killing a living thing requires no special technique, ah, right, I’m not supposed to kill him.
Well, it should be fine.
But Azel was no ordinary inferior being, either.
Even off-balance, he parried my blows.
The sharp clang of steel against steel echoed across the training grounds.
Sparks scattered, the scent of metal filling the air.
──Interesting.
「Not bad, Hein!」
Azel laughed, seeming to enjoy himself.
「You too.」
I replied briefly. Up to now, it’s been little more than a greeting.
I raised my sword into a proper stance and focused my awareness.
Azel’s breathing, the subtle shifts in his muscles, the direction of his gaze.
I read his next move from all of it.
Azel, too, seemed to be gauging my presence.
The tension in the air thickened.
「Alright, time to pull out a little trick.」
The moment Azel murmured those words, his figure blurred.
Not a straightforward charge.
He stepped with unpredictable rhythm, his form splitting.
One step, one double. Two steps, two doubles. Until finally, six.
──Afterimages.
No, it’s more than that.
An illusion as though all six possess substance.
Visual cues alone aren’t enough to track them. Neither is instinct. Every afterimage is imbued with ‘intent’.
Then,
I quietly closed my eyes.
Abandoning sight, I read the subtle shifts in the air through sound and touch.
The whistle of his blade, his exhalations, the tremor in the atmosphere from his steps, all of it revealed his true position.
I didn’t move.
I simply waited, calmly, for him to enter my range.
And then,
From among the six phantoms, the real strike aimed for my neck.
In that instant, I moved.
With minimal motion, I deflected his blade inward, and my sword shot forward as if drawn into the opening in his torso.
But, he thrust his own blade toward me as well.
An identical trajectory to my own thrust.
Our blade tips met perfectly, edge to edge.
In that instant, both our training swords shattered into fragments.
A moment later, the instructor announced in a trembling voice.
「…A d-draw!」
I clicked my tongue and tossed the hilt aside.
◆◆◆
The swordsmanship instructor, Gilbard von Zeren, remained rooted in place long after the match had ended.
The spectacle unfolding before his eyes had far surpassed the common sense of his long career as a swordsman.
The surrounding students likely held only vague impressions like, “That was amazing”.
But to his expert eyes, every movement exchanged between them was an unbelievable display of skill.
──I’ve witnessed something monstrous.
Gilbard groaned inwardly.
──In terms of pure swordsmanship, refined to its essence… perhaps the Alphide boy held a slight edge.
The pinnacle was that footwork.
That was the Orlean ducal family’s secret technique, ‘Seven Star Step’. A fearsome art that generates phantoms through footwork alone, delivering the finishing blow on the seventh step.
I barely mastered the ‘Three Star Step’ after spitting blood in training, my limit is three phantoms…
Yet he produced six phantoms… ‘Six Stars’.
What kind of skill is that, at his age…?
In contrast, the Aster ducal heir used no flashy techniques.
The sword arts he employed, thrusts, slashes, deflections, were all fundamentals straight from the textbook.
But the precision of each was abnormal.
Not a single wasted motion.
Every strike followed the shortest path, at the highest speed, with perfect angles. Even textbook forms become an art when perfected to that degree.
──And to think they’re both still minors… unbearable…
Gilbard’s shoulders slumped inwardly. Though he himself was a considerable swordsman, given his age, he could only decline from here.
「As if they’ve devoted decades to the way of the sword…」
He muttered this and shook his head.
AN: As depicted in ‘Interlude: The Regressor ②’: “Azel, who had been greatly favored by the Sword Saint (the Duke of Orlean) in his previous world, could be called, to put it modestly, peerless in sword arts throughout history”, Azel is strong even without using the Holy Sword.
‘Young Master Hein steps on Feri’.
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