'Cowardly punk.'
Karon ground his teeth as he watched Ethan taking it easy.
'I'm not falling for it this time.'
Never in his dreams had he imagined an ambush in the very instant he moved to throw the glove.
That a man carrying the blood of a knightly clan would do what not even a lowborn mercenary would do.
Even the shred of pity that had remained was gone.
'Know that you keep your life thanks to Father.'
Had Vincent not nailed it down as a sparring match, Karon had no intention of letting it pass gently.
He would not have killed him, but he had meant to cripple him at the least.
He did not fear what would come of it.
The man was the clan's disgrace, notorious as a wastrel anyway.
If anything, was it not a service? Taking out the trash.
But the word 'sparring match' had made even that impossible.
'I'll snap one of his limbs, at least.'
Since it was a sparring match he could not cripple him, but he was of a mind to break one arm or one leg.
Nothing short of that was going to settle his anger.
"The sparring match, right now......"
"Fifteen days from now."
Ethan cut in and nailed it down.
Karon stood blank at first, not understanding, and then his face twisted up.
"On whose say-so?"
"Whose? Mine. You whined for a sparring match, and I granted even that. Still got complaints left?"
"Wh-whined?"
"Yeah. You're throwing a tantrum like a little bastard right now, too."
"Ethan. Do not tell me you have taken fright?"
Morun cut in from the side.
"Think whatever you like. That aside, isn't the eldest son meddling in every little thing a bit much?"
Ethan turned his head to look at Vincent. Vincent met Ethan's eyes without a word.
'The eyes have changed.'
Until now Ethan's eyes had been muddy.
Every kind of filthy appetite and unsorted thought used to show in that gaze.
But Ethan's eyes now were grave, and calm.
"Good. The sparring match will be in fifteen days."
Once Vincent's word fell, Morun and Karon shut their mouths like mutes who had swallowed honey.
Ethan snorted a laugh at the sight and bowed his head toward Vincent.
"Then in fifteen days I shall come to collect my reward."
"Oho. You speak like a man certain to win."
"Because I am going to win."
"However much older you may be, is that not too arrogant a thought? You have not yet awakened mana, as I understand it."
Ethan snorted a laugh at that and looked at Karon.
"He is someone I have already disciplined once. The second time, I intend to instill etiquette in him with all sincerity."
"You punk!"
Karon flared at the provocation, but he felt Vincent's gaze and shut his mouth.
"Your tongue runs like water off a green mountain, as ever. But this time you will have to show a result."
"You need not worry. I shall return now, then."
Ethan bowed his head in courtesy and left the estate.
'He truly has changed.'
From his speech to his bearing, everything had changed as though he had become another man.
'This sparring match will prove it.'
Vincent looked at Karon.
Karon was still a child, soft in temper and unable to conceal his feelings, but his talent for the sword was no lie.
It was not, however, enough to be worthy of the name Blante.
Talent at that level could be found commonly enough across the continent.
'Prove yourself.'
The weak are meat for the strong.
Only the victor devours it all.
That was Blante's creed.
***
"Huff, huff."
Back at the annex, Ethan returned to his repetitive routine.
The first thing was the run.
Cutting weight was the top priority.
Even as he ran, Ethan thought about Karon.
'An extra, sure.'
At least as he stood now, Ethan had no odds in a straight contest with Karon.
Greenhorn though he looked, Karon was a mana user.
Between him and Ethan, an ordinary person, lay a gap that could not be closed.
'Though I have no way of knowing what the difference with a mana user actually is.'
He had not witnessed it himself; he had only estimated from the descriptions in the book.
A precise grasp of it was going to take experiencing the thing directly.
'Well, that's something you say when you've got knights under you.'
Ethan was paying handsomely for the words and deeds he had committed.
'There's nobody.'
Apart from Nade, there was no one who followed Ethan.
Even the servants and maids in the annex were nothing but the minimum needed to keep it running.
'Nothing for it. Make do with what I've got.'
He felt no anxiety about the contest.
Ethan meant to use the situation he had been given to the fullest.
'Still, I need someone to spar with.'
Ethan turned his head to look at Nade.
Nade, a smile at his mouth, was watching Ethan pour sweat like a waterfall.
'Asking that old man feels wrong, though.'
Nade was one of the few Masters on the continent.
And he was one of Vincent's inner circle besides.
Ethan shook his head and put his focus back on running.
Training he had started had to be finished properly.
***
His run done, Ethan began to loosen up.
Because the heated body needed one round of cooling.
Having worked himself loose with light stretching, Ethan started on bodyweight work.
'Obscenely heavy.'
They were only push-ups, but with feeble strength and a heavy body weight added together, even light bodyweight work felt considerably hard.
But enduring pain was familiar to him.
Ethan did not complain; he kept the push-ups going calmly.
'Even one, but done right.'
In his present condition, explosive work was difficult.
Even if it was a little slow, doing it slowly and surely was what mattered.
How he did it mattered more than how much.
Sweat beading off him, Ethan went at the push-ups.
When his arms and chest began to tremble partway through he took short rests, but he kept them going without pause.
'Think about it again, and the body really is a decent one.'
Not even many days had passed since he began, and yet Ethan's body was changing fast.
Ethan knew just how absurd the change he was undergoing was.
'Even on drugs this would be hard.'
Ethan knew how great the difference was between a doper who used substances and a natural who never touched the stuff.
'So this is what talent means in this world?'
Being of the bloodline of Blante, the great sword clan, meant something like this.
'To have let talent on this scale rot.'
He had not even started proper training yet, and he could already feel it.
Once he began stripping away body fat, muscle started coming on at a tremendous rate.
Ethan was enjoying that growth of his.
Ryu Tae-sin as a fighter had already been a finished article.
From a finished state he had pared and refined himself a little at a time, but it was hard to feel the pleasure of growth there.
Ethan's body, though, was an uncut stone.
Looking at all that swollen fat he had felt there was no hope, but once he began moving the body he could faintly make out how boundless its possibilities were.
"Nade."
Push-ups finished, Ethan called to Nade.
"You called, young master?"
"Get me a wooden sword."
"A wooden sword, you say?"
"That's right. Time to start getting ready."
"You mean for the sparring match?"
"Yeah."
It was about time to prepare for the match.
Seven days left.
Tight if you wanted to call it tight, but Ethan had confidence.
If things went to plan, winning the match posed no problem.
***
At Ethan's word, Nade brought a wooden sword.
An ordinary wooden sword, nothing special about it.
Ethan took hold of it and swung it through the air with a heavy whoosh.
He swung it in a perfectly ordinary fashion, and Nade's eyes widened a little.
'He does not fear the sword.'
Ethan had been afraid of the sword ever since he was badly hurt in his first sparring match.
Injuries in sparring were an everyday occurrence.
So long as a man carried the name Blante on his shoulders, growing close to the sword could be called his destiny.
To fear the friend who would be at his side all his life.
The people of the Blante clan did not understand Ethan.
After that Ethan began to go astray, and he did not take up a sword again.
But now Ethan had taken one in hand as though it were nothing.
His form was a mess, but there was not the slightest air of fear about him.
"Nade."
"Please, go ahead."
"Take a sword."
"......I am merely a butler."
"Cut the nonsense and take one."
Ethan's voice was serious.
Nade let out a small sigh at Ethan's manner and took hold of a sword.
"Hoo. I will say in advance that I cannot go half easy on you."
"Just what I wanted."
The corner of his mouth lifted on its own.
Ethan enjoyed a fight with a strong opponent.
Beginning with his own condition, not one circumstance was to his satisfaction, but Ethan did not complain.
There existed no better method of training than the real thing.
'Remarkable.'
Nade looked at the light in Ethan's eyes and tightened up his casual frame of mind.
That was not a look a day-old pup could produce.
The look of a veteran of a hundred battles.
It could be his own fancy, but what he felt now was telling him it was not.
Nade smiled a little.
His own judgment, which had taken the man for nothing but a wastrel, appeared to have been wrong.
"I shall concede you the first move."
At Nade's words Ethan snorted a laugh and shook his head.
"It stings my pride, but I won't refuse."
Ethan read the situation coldly.
As he was now, Ethan could not beat Nade by any means.
It was not surrender, and it was not resignation.
Ethan's fighting will was burning.
But he did not deny reality.
This world had mana and magic power in it, a world where cold steel ruled.
He simply knew that sometimes acknowledging a thing and accepting it was the shortcut.
'Because I'll stand on top in the end.'
He had confidence.
He knew a future no one else knew.
And he knew the figures who would change the age.
'Because I've got no plans to die an extra.'
Ethan might have been nothing but a bit-part villain.
But with Ryu Tae-sin inhabiting that body, he meant to crawl all the way to the top.
'And this is the first real fight toward it.'
Ethan gripped the wooden sword tight.
There was an awkwardness about the sword with force loaded into it.
He felt a faint tremor as well.
'The body's memory?'
Trauma from the sword.
A vague fear.
Ethan laughed and shook the petty feeling off.
The emotion of fear did not suit him.
Ethan lowered his body.
It resembled the stance of a sprinter.
As if he might launch out at any instant.
Ethan's thighs swelled.
The body was still unpolished. He did not expect it to move as he intended, but if it followed even half his intent there would be a result.
Ethan rocked his body back.
Through all of it Nade watched Ethan's movements without a word.
'What exactly will you show me?'
Interest stirred in him. What Ethan was showing now was greatly different from an ordinary knight.
FWOOSH!
In that instant, Ethan's body burst forward.
It was nimble movement.
Recalling the swollen body he had carried not long ago, it was unbelievable growth besides.
'But if that is all of it, I shall be disappointed.'
And right then, Ethan's wooden sword came flying in.
Nade's eyes widened.
He struck the incoming sword aside, and naturally it did no damage at all.
For a moment Nade was dumbfounded. Could this have been the aim?
If so, it was an even worse move. When a swordsman lets go of his sword, his end is already decided.
But as though mocking Nade's thought, Ethan dropped low and charged.
Ethan had never intended to cross swords at all.