A surprise takedown.
A takedown of the kind that comes up commonly in combat sports, too.
The difference, if there was one, was that he had thrown a wooden sword instead of a punch.
Ethan had never intended to trade sword blows.
He had simply conceded the fact that there was no advantage in a blade swung wildly with no mastery behind it.
The takedown had been the aim from the start.
'Never thought I'd be the one shooting a takedown.'
Ethan, no, Ryu Tae-sin, was not a wrestler.
Ryu Tae-sin had always put his opponents to sleep with strikes.
His opponents had always avoided the striking and tried to pull him into a wrestling game.
Which left Ryu Tae-sin always in the position of defending the wrestling.
But now it was reversed.
He was not fighting a lesser man, so now it was Ethan who had to attempt the wrestling game.
Nade was one of the Masters.
A powerhouse who had attained mastery of the sword.
Taking a man like that head-on with bare fists was as good as suicide.
Ethan was not stupid enough to confuse 'confidence' with 'conceit.'
Ethan was confident in his wrestling.
He did not think he would put Nade over, but he was confident he could manufacture a variable.
Ethan dove in at the legs in an instant, and Nade's eyes widened a little.
'What to do.'
It was a bewildering reversal.
If he used magic power here, he could answer it without difficulty.
That would blur the essence of the sparring.
But the feeling larger than that was curiosity.
What attack would the man make from here?
Ethan's offense had left his expectations behind, and a pure curiosity rose in him.
Nade gave up one leg willingly.
The moment Ethan had hold of Nade's left leg, he closed his body in.
Single-leg takedown.
He had his weight properly behind it and thought the timing perfect, but Nade did not go over easily.
Because Nade was holding his center of gravity exquisitely.
'Can't hold this long.'
Ethan felt it instinctively. Nade was not an opponent he could put over easily.
Nor was the man empty-handed.
With a wooden sword in Nade's hand, holding this position was dangerous.
Ethan immediately took Nade's back.
'Fast.'
Nade felt a small admiration. It was true that he was playing along out of curiosity about what the man would do.
But Ethan's movement was too systematic and too meticulous to write off as play.
Even the shifting of his center of gravity was of a very high order.
And it was startling, too, that he had sensed the danger and taken the back.
Had Ethan held so much as a blade in his hand, the situation would have run in an altogether different direction.
Ethan put force into his hips. In the instant Nade's body was about to be pulled off the ground.
Nade tore Ethan's hands away effortlessly.
A strength hard to credit as human had entered the equation.
Confirming that the man had drawn mana up, Ethan abandoned the idea of applying more force here.
The judgment was quick.
Having shaken his hands free, Ethan threw a punch at once.
With the back taken, a throw or a choke would have been orthodox, but after seeing that monstrous strength he had turned in another direction.
Once the opponent used mana, a contest of strength like wrestling was meaningless.
Nade avoided the punch as though he had eyes in the back of his head.
But Ethan did not lose his rhythm. He closed on Nade in an instant and threw a kick.
Nade caught the kick midway.
'What on earth is this movement?'
Nade kept an unruffled expression, but inwardly he was no little surprised.
Ethan's movement, and his technique.
All of it was advanced technique that could not be performed clumsily, and if his attention slackened it felt as though he would concede a blow.
Even so, of course, the gap in their capability was definite.
The blow had been fast enough, but so long as he used mana the outcome was already decided.
'He is like another man once he uses mana.'
To think he would come to have reflexes of this order.
But even this was within Ethan's range of expectation.
Ethan judged fast and coiled around the arm that held his leg, snakelike.
A flying armbar that even professionals do not escape easily.
"Your capacity to respond is good."
Nade was quite surprised.
It was not empty talk.
In practical terms, once Nade had used mana, you could call it his loss.
Ethan's attacks had found the gaps at every moment, and setting aside the uncloseable matter of mana, calling it Ethan's victory would not have been strange.
But once Nade used mana, the result was decided.
Ethan set his teeth and tried to crank the arm over, but nothing changed.
Nade smiled a little and put force into the caught arm.
"Excellent."
Crack.
The moment he used magic power, the armbar came apart in an instant.
As it came apart, Ethan's body floated up into the air.
Nade swung the wooden sword. Ethan's eyes tracked it.
WHACK!
Ethan raised an arm to block, and a numbing pain climbed up into his skull.
Tap-tap.
Ethan set his feet back on the ground.
"That's far enough."
"You have done well, young master."
"Tch. Hurts like hell."
Ethan narrowed his brow and shook the arm out. The spot the sword had struck was smarting.
He rolled the sleeve up to check, and the skin had gone black and dead.
"Isn't that a bit much against someone who can't even use mana yet?"
"That is how threatening the young master's offense was."
"Flattery."
Ethan grumbled.
But Nade had not said it as empty words.
Nade looked at Ethan with a heavy gaze.
'Astonishing movement.'
To put it precisely, what astonished Nade was Ethan's fighting art.
Knights do train in unarmed combat.
Only, the weight given to it was very low.
Knights cherished the sword like a brother, or a lover.
Even in battle they held keeping hold of the sword to be a virtue.
That was one reason the fighting arts were neglected, but the largest was the difference in utility.
The difference between an unarmed opponent and one holding a sword was large.
Killing a man barehanded required many steps.
But hold even a small blade and the story changes.
Even a child gains lethality enough to kill a person.
Because of that fundamental difference in utility, knights neglected the fighting arts.
They spent the hours honing swordsmanship instead, and carried a dagger against emergencies.
Blante was a great sword clan.
It would be no exaggeration to say they knew every one of the countless sword arts that existed across the whole continent.
The fighting arts derived from them were no exception.
Fighting arts that had existed since antiquity. Hand-to-hand arts.
They were not without utility, but they did not bear comparison with swordsmanship.
Nade recognized that too.
On the basis of the movement Ethan had shown earlier, he had gone so far as to search out the clan's books on the fighting arts and the hand-to-hand arts.
But Ethan's movement was something he had never seen.
Movement chasing extreme efficiency. A creativity that manufactured variables.
Nade thought it close to an assassin's martial art, and then shook his head.
Because there was no reason at all for Ethan to have learned an assassin's art.
"Young master, where did you learn that hand-to-hand art?"
"Huh? Uh...... I made it, though?"
"......You are saying you created all of it yourself?"
"Well, it's not all original. I strung a few books together and made it. Using my body just suits me better than a blade."
Nade's mouth fell open.
He made all of that himself?
This went beyond the domain of a genius. Ethan was still only in his teens.
"......Is what you say true?"
As Nade kept pressing, Ethan felt the weight of it and made a subtle face.
"Yeah. I'm going to go wash up now."
With that, Ethan left the training ground.
'Digging into every little thing.'
Ethan had not lied.
Because the foundation of modern MMA was, in the end, an assembly of every martial art there was.
MMA had been built by condensing the strengths of many arts.
Of course, along the way, the ones that carried a high risk of injury were banned as foul techniques.
'Not in a position to be picky now.'
This was an age of swords and spears.
And not only that; it was a fantasy setting where even magic power was used.
'Use everything I can use.'
He intended to use a sword too, if the need arose. He had simply judged that at his present level of skill it held little meaning.
Given time, he meant to absorb all of it.
'And I'm curious how far MMA technique carries here.'
Ethan thought of Karon.
'I don't think I'll lose.'
But he could not guarantee the result.
Had he not just felt it for himself?
The gap between an opponent who used mana and one who did not was wide.
He needed another method.
'Though I don't have the pretext to go there yet......'
One of the windfalls the protagonist would go on to collect.
He would have liked to go and find it, but it was still premature.
As far as the outside world knew, Ethan was presently under confinement in the annex.
His earlier trip to the main house had been due to the clan head's summons, not an action of Ethan's own.
Now was the time to keep his head down.
He must not manufacture anything that could be picked at.
'Beat that one and the pretext comes.'
Ethan felt no impatience.
It was a thing he could do slowly.
"Astonishing every time I look."
Before getting into the bath, Ethan looked at his body and could not hold back his admiration.
The change achieved in so short a time was startling, and since the body's outline was different every time he looked, it was a wonder each time.
'Truly tremendous.'
Thinking of the body it would become, he lowered himself into the tub.
***
"What's that one doing now?"
"Judging by the fact that he does not come out of the annex, it appears he has taken fright."
Ardman, Karon's escort knight, answered with a bow of his head.
Ardman was Karon's escort knight and his teacher both.
"Hmph. I expected it from the moment he put on airs after winning by a fluke. That wastrel bastard dared......"
Recalling it, anger surged again and his teeth ground together.
"Do restrain yourself. There is not much time left now."
"Right...... that's right. A lucky one. He kept his life thanks to Father."
"Will you be all right without training?"
"Hmph. I'd have no trouble handling a wastrel bastard like that without any training...... still, I suppose I should prepare."
Karon took up a wooden sword. He settled into stance, and Ardman lifted his own lightly.
Tap-tap.
Karon rushed Ardman with a brisk draw.
WHOOM!
Karon's sword went for the back of Ardman's neck, a considerably sharp blow.
'There is feeling loaded into it.'
He had talent on the whole, but he had not yet shed his childishness.
He was still unable to gather himself over the other day's affair, and because of it anger bled into his swordsmanship.
It was a bad habit, but Ardman did not point it out.
Because anger, too, could sometimes serve as good nourishment.
'And if the opponent is that wastrel.'
There was a difference in age, but defeat seemed like something he need not keep in mind.
Ardman knew Ethan well.
Because in the past, when Ethan was small, he had served as an apprentice knight at his side.
'That one is unworthy of the name Blante.'
Arrogant, haughty, and vicious.
And ask whether he was fearless, and he was not that either.
Ethan was a coward.
A son of a great sword clan who could not shake off his terror of the sword.
Ardman despised that Ethan in his heart.
So when Karon was born afterward, Ardman attached himself to Karon without a moment's deliberation.
And he instructed Karon with all sincerity.
Ardman could not become an outstanding knight, but he did become a good instructor.
Vincent, too, was glad to have Ardman instructing Karon.
'The time to prove it draws near.'
If Karon smashed Ethan handsomely, Ardman's standing would rise along with it.
Thinking of what would follow the sparring match, a smile formed at Ardman's mouth.