“Of course I trust you, Lord Ian.”
“You’d better.”
“Ian, surely you did not use Sir Tarian as the stake in a bet?”
My brother seemed to have caught the flow of the conversation, but I only smiled at his question.
As we talked, I could feel sharp gazes from all around us.
Most of them were not reacting to the conversation, but to Tarian himself.
‘He really is famous.’
He was still a relatively young knight, and he had already achieved several notable accomplishments.
Naturally, people often mentioned him as a future Sword Master candidate.
Of course, that only meant he had the potential. The general assessment was still that he had a long way to go.
“The Subjugation Festival you have all been waiting for is about to begin. I hope the future of the North will shine by its own strength.”
Like the opening address the day before, Luke Bahen kept his remarks brief before sweeping his gaze over the crowd from atop the platform.
‘Just now......’
As I watched him, I realized his gaze had lingered on me.
If our eyes had merely met for a moment, I would not have thought much of it.
But when he bared his teeth in a broad grin, a chill ran down my spine.
‘He knows.’
He clearly already knew what kind of conversation Johannes and I had had.
Well, there was no way he would be unaware of something that happened inside the Bahen Grand Ducal House.
Thinking that, I let out a small chuckle of my own.
The moment his seemingly endless gaze finally left me, I realized cold sweat was already running down the back of my neck.
“Whew.”
“......”
Apparently, Tarian and my brother felt the same way.
“Are you all right?”
“Thankfully.”
He had felt different from yesterday.
A being above ordinary knights.
I had expected the difference between us to be enormous, but I had not expected to feel this overwhelmed by nothing more than his gaze.
‘And I have to grow beyond even that.’
But I did not feel despair.
If anything, the first thing I felt was determination to surpass that level.
“It’ll start soon.”
“Please do not get hurt. And if you can raise the family’s prestige without pushing yourself too far, that would be even better.”
I nodded at the words of encouragement coming from my brother, who usually did nothing but worry.
There was still concern mixed into his voice, but the corners of my mouth twitched upward anyway.
“Just trust me.”
“I will be cheering for you from here.”
Leaving Tarian’s calm encouragement behind as well, I slipped into the crowd of dozens of young nobles.
Then I felt a gaze on me.
Johannes Bahen was staring at me with his eyes burning with competitive spirit.
I chuckled.
‘I’m going to win.’
I mouthed the words at him.
He seemed to understand, because he looked ready to explode—
BLARE—
Before he could respond, a horn rang out, announcing the start of the Subjugation Festival.
“Hurry!”
“Move! That side is mine......”
The participants apparently knew one another well enough to shout back and forth as they ran toward the forest.
I followed after them at a leisurely pace.
Soon, I watched them begin spreading out along several paths.
‘Of course.’
The Subjugation Festival normally offered three choices.
The left path, where participants faced low-level Monsters at a relatively easy difficulty.
The right path, where they fought ordinary Monsters such as Snowfield Wolfbears.
And lastly......
“So you came this way after all.”
“Look at you, not chickening out.”
The central path Johannes Bahen and I were now taking.
This was where Monsters and Magical Beasts dangerous enough to genuinely threaten one’s life roamed.
‘Cute.’
I knew he had hesitated, then followed me after seeing me take this path.
He could have gone ahead first if he wanted to, yet he was deliberately matching his pace to mine.
“Chickening out? What are you talking about?”
“Who knows? Didn’t the people around you try to stop you?”
I provoked him casually.
Johannes’s eyes sharpened the moment he understood what I meant.
‘His level isn’t bad.’
He was the son of a prestigious house, and his skill was quite respectable.
There was nothing strange about him choosing the central path.
But with him this tense......
“......”
“See? They did try to stop you.”
He was around fifteen, perhaps.
He had held a sword for years, but he did not seem to have much real combat experience.
Give him another year or two and he would probably reach knight level, but......
‘Not yet.’
-Hmph! What do you know about Johan?!
“......?”
-You think you can just claim me for yourself? Hmph! You insolent wretch!
A voice suddenly rang out as I started walking ahead.
My gaze moved on instinct.
To the sword hanging at his waist.
-You’ll never beat Johan.
-I’ll promise you this. If you beat Johan, I’ll even give you the Bahen Grand Ducal House’s mana cultivation method!
“Interesting.”
-In exchange, if you lose, you have to kneel and apologize to Johan!
“We’ll see.”
We would find out who ended up apologizing.
Still, I had not expected the sword to speak to me first even though I had not touched it.
[Achieve a better result in the Subjugation Festival than Johannes Bahen, who is using Winterbane (Rare)]
[0/1]
But those were words I could not simply ignore.
‘The Bahen Grand Ducal House’s mana cultivation method.’
My magical power efficiency had already increased.
If I could obtain a proper cultivation method on top of that, the synergy would be enormous.
A smile spread across my face at the thought that it was willing to hand something like that over so readily.
“What’s so interesting?”
“Nothing. Let’s have a good match.”
With those words, I took a large step forward.
***
SLASH—!
A massive Frost Giant split cleanly in half.
The icy petals blooming around it were stained red with blood.
‘That......?’
Shock filled Johannes Bahen’s eyes as he watched.
What kind of Monster was a Frost Giant?
Two were enough to take on a squad of soldiers.
Five together could ravage an entire village.
“One more down.”
Yet Ian cut through one of those Frost Giants with ease.
To Johannes, the sight was almost impossible to believe.
‘How did this happen?’
When he had first approached Ian, it had only been because seeing a swordsman his own age was a novelty.
Johannes’s siblings in the Bahen Grand Ducal House were all far above him in level, while the children of other houses were not in the same league.
So when he saw Ian carrying an unusual presence, he thought he might finally have found a worthy rival.
But after hearing that Ian had lived as an insignificant shut-in even within the Rashid Family, Johannes had been disappointed.
‘He isn’t worthy of Tarian.’
That was why he had readily accepted the bet.
He did not believe Ian was someone worthy of being Tarian’s lord.
‘I can’t just hand him over to someone like that.’
Tarian had taught him swordsmanship when he was young.
Johannes’s childish desire to learn that swordsmanship had only grown stronger after he realized Tarian had the potential to become a Sword Master.
Of course, Tarian had left the moment his contract as a swordsmanship instructor ended.
But Johannes had always believed he would be able to find him again someday.
Then they reunited, only for Tarian to be serving someone else as his lord.
The worst possible situation.
WHOOSH—
While Johannes was lost in thought, a Frost Giant that had already approached swung its enormous club.
It looked as though it were swinging an entire tree.
Johannes immediately circulated his mana and reinforced his body.
SLASH—
He cut through the tree.
But the recoil was tremendous.
A Frost Giant was one of the Monsters that inflicted major damage across the North through sheer physical ability alone.
It was not an opponent that would meekly fall to a counterattack made in panic.
‘Danger......’
The Frost Giant bared its teeth in a grin as it approached Johannes.
Johannes backed away without realizing it, tripped, and squeezed his eyes shut.
SLASH—
By then, Ian had already leapt into the air and severed the Frost Giant’s neck.
Still grinning, the Frost Giant’s head went flying through the air and dropped right in front of Johannes.
“Eek!”
Johannes recoiled and hurriedly turned his gaze away.
What he saw instead were the corpses of every Frost Giant that had surrounded them.
“Hey. You okay?”
Johannes had frozen after being caught off guard by a single attack.
Ian, on the other hand, had practically slaughtered the Frost Giants.
The difference was obvious.
“I thought you’d at least manage to kill one.”
“I-I was caught off guard.”
“Something to be proud of, huh?”
Ian looked as though he might start clapping sarcastically.
Johannes could not think of anything to say back.
In truth, the difference in skill was too great for him to argue.
“Kh. You’re right. I was lacking.”
“At least you know how to admit when you messed up.”
“I knew it was reckless. I just didn’t want to give up.”
Ian chuckled at how readily Johannes admitted it.
He truly was not a bad person by nature.
He was simply much younger than the version Ian knew from the game.
“Just get up.”
Ian held out a hand and pulled him to his feet.
‘He really is someone worth bringing onto my side.’
Johannes was better suited to being a supporter than a party member.
With the Bahen name behind him as well, there was nothing bad about establishing an alliance with him.
Ian smiled as his thoughts reached that point.
“Stop letting your guard down and focus on the match. Don’t ruin things by paying attention to someone else.”
“......”
“Do your best. It won’t be any fun if I win too easily, right?”
Several emotions flickered through Johannes’s eyes.
He had rudely demanded that Ian hand over Tarian, a man who already belonged to another house.
Yet Ian was being kind to him instead.
On top of that, Ian’s skill was enough to put admiration into Johannes’s eyes.
‘Another teacher......!’
Anyone who had something to teach him could become his teacher.
With that thought, Johannes eagerly held out his hand.
“Understood. I will live up to your expectations.”
‘He seems to have misunderstood something.’
Ian wondered for a moment whether Johannes had somehow misread the simple advice to do his best.
Then he decided that all was well if the result was good, smiled, and accepted the handshake.
-J-Johan? What about me?!
Ian barely suppressed his laughter at the flustered voice and moved forward.
‘My skill really is on a completely different level from before.’
Frost Giants.
Back when he had cleared the Dungeon, they would have been difficult opponents.
Their physical capabilities alone were on roughly the same level as the ancient Great Warrior he had fought back then.
They had almost no technique to speak of, so individually they might seem easy.
But the fact that they moved in groups made them troublesome Monsters to fight.
‘And I beat them easily.’
He had played the game for such a long time that he already understood things like Frost Giant movement patterns.
That information was part of why he had been able to make the bet so confidently.
Even so, he had not expected it to be this easy.
‘My growth really is fast.’
On top of that, he had Frost’s Blessing and Frost Fang.
Even Frost Giants, which possessed resistance to cold, were writhing from frostbite.
Ian immediately drew up his mana and crossed the central path.
The corpses of Frost Giants began piling up in no time.
A considerable amount of time passed.
It was only as the sun began sinking toward the horizon that the Subjugation Festival finally came to an end.
The event held on the second day was for promising young talents.
Even among those who stood out, the most anyone had managed was cutting down four or five Frost Giants.
And among them—
THUD—!
A massive sack was dropped onto the ground with a heavy crash.
It was filled to the brim with Frost Giant heads.