It must have been a group training camp.
They were all kids who had been called geniuses in their school fencing teams or their fencing clubs' youth divisions.
When people like that gathered from across the country, the atmosphere naturally became as sharp as drawn blades.
‘They say that guy is really good.’
‘Should I have a match with him?’
They sized one another up from head to toe.
Whenever eyes met, they flinched.
They exchanged silent challenges with snorts and clicks of their tongues.
Then the coach hosting the training called up the three loudest kids, gave them new swords, and offered them the first chance to wield them.
They were made to face the newly arrived coach one by one.
All three were skilled enough that even I thought they had earned the right to be so loud.
Not one of them scored more than three points against the coach before being swept aside.
‘Huh?’
Later, when he removed his fencing mask, we learned their opponent was the Olympic silver medalist of that era.
Our coach had expected us to act that way, so he had used his connections to invite him beforehand and crush our spirits.
I did not want to see people who were neither stronger than me nor loved fencing more than me ruin the atmosphere like that, so I thought the coach's strategy was excellent.
At the same time, another thought occurred to me.
What would have happened if I had stepped forward?
Could I have won?
How strong were the national representatives, and how exciting would a match against someone that strong be?
“Three people. Is there no one?”
Several years later, today.
I looked at the stage with that same feeling.
Could I defeat the Jack-o'-Lantern?
There was no one left among humans who could be my opponent. How excited would a fight against that monster make me?
“Five points is not a small amount. I am handing them out generously because it is the first day.”
Hunter Ji In-hwi smiled brightly at us.
No hands went up.
It looked like a light smile, but perhaps everyone felt the indescribable weight behind it. No one stepped forward recklessly.
“Me.”
At that moment, one hand rose.
It was Kim Gang-o.
“Oh, could you tell us your name and rank certificate?”
“I am Kim Gang-o, third-dan in kendo.”
“Informal speech? Ha. You are awfully friendly. Fine. Since it is kendo, you will use a curved sword, correct?”
Ji In-hwi pointed to the weapons lined up on one side.
Large and small bladed weapons were spread across a long table on the stage.
Step. Step. Step.
Kim Gang-o climbed onto the stage.
Everyone's attention fell on him.
“This one.”
Kim Gang-o picked up several Japanese swords in turn before choosing one.
“Good.”
Hunter Ji In-hwi lightly stomped his foot.
A large circle roughly thirty meters in diameter was drawn around the Jack-o'-Lantern.
“Once you enter the circle, it begins.”
“Fine.”
Kim Gang-o turned his head and glared once at the delicate-looking man beside him.
Then, as though looking for someone, he looked around here and there before spotting me. His eyes widened as he scowled.
It was extremely funny.
Not only because of the objective gap in skill between us.
Even with a person he had never met before—and a species he had never seen before—in front of him, he was still conscious of others. That attitude was pitiful.
I lightly raised my chin, telling him to look ahead instead.
“Fuck!”
His face twisted, and he looked at the Jack-o'-Lantern.
“I will take that pumpkin bastard's head off in one strike!”
Kim Gang-o rolled up both sleeves and raised his sword toward the sky.
“Whoa!”
“Go, Gang-o Hyung!”
“Poison Stinger Kim Gang-o!”
A scorpion tattoo writhed over his thick arm as his gang cheered.
The Jack-o'-Lantern turned its pumpkin-carved head and stared at him.
Kim Gang-o stepped into the ring.
“Charge (Chesto)!”
Kim Gang-o kicked off the ground with a booming battle cry.
WHOOSH!
Even to me, it was not bad speed or strength.
The distance between Kim Gang-o and the Jack-o'-Lantern rapidly closed.
SWISH!
The sword he swung upward flashed like moonlight's afterglow.
THUNK!
“Huh?”
Like an axe chopping into a thick tree, the sword cut about a third of the way through the Jack-o'-Lantern's neck.
“Huh, huh?”
The Jack-o'-Lantern neither screamed nor twisted its body.
[“---, ---!”]
It merely released a low-frequency sound from its mouth that made our muscles freeze, then raised one of its thick arms covered in thorns.
“Ghh!”
Kim Gang-o tried to pull out his Japanese sword, but it was embedded halfway into the creature and would not come out easily.
THUNK!
The Jack-o'-Lantern whipped Kim Gang-o with a thorny tentacle.
“Gahk!”
Like a bowling pin struck by a bowling ball, Kim Gang-o was sent flying and rolled across the floor.
Once he flew out of the ring, the Jack-o'-Lantern did not pursue him.
The medical team employees waiting on one side rushed over as though they had been expecting it, loaded the twitching Kim Gang-o onto a stretcher, and carried him away.
***
I knew that would happen.
Watching the Jack-o'-Lantern pull the Japanese sword from its neck, I muttered inwardly.
It was absurd to think one could take off the head of a monster over three meters tall in a single stroke.
Swordsmanship was not a system of techniques that had developed with three-meter monsters in mind.
“Fuck. How are we supposed to beat that?”
“It is not even getting cut.”
“We cannot do it even with our strength?”
The air in the gymnasium turned cold.
“Is there no one else? Do none of you need points?”
Hunter Ji In-hwi softly looked for his next sacrifice.
The Awakened around the room watched one another before lowering their gazes.
“I need points.”
At that moment, I raised my hand.
“Fencer Jeong?”
Hunter Hong Si-yu looked at me with both doubt and a sense of dismay in her eyes.
“……Oh! Fencer Jeong is here. But are you sure? As you just saw, it is not an easy opponent.”
Hunter Ji In-hwi paused for a moment, then asked in a provocative tone, as though he had reached a conclusion.
If a gold medalist like me was knocked down in one hit, he would be able to establish the mood right from the start.
I felt a little sorry for seemingly disrupting the lesson unintentionally, but.
“If I think I am going to lose, I will run away.”
More than that, my heart was racing.
As they said, five points were still five points. And when I saw the stage, the audience, and the swords, an athlete's fighting spirit began boiling inside me.
How strong was I now?
How strong was that monster?
Could I defeat that monster?
There was no one among humans who could be my opponent. How excited would a fight against that monster make me?
Those thoughts filled my head.
“Come over here and choose one. You were a fencing champion, right? But we did not prepare fencing swords.”
“That is fine.”
Step. Step. Step.
At Hunter Ji In-hwi's invitation, I climbed onto the stage.
“The gold medalist has arrived.”
“Will he catch it?”
“What martial art is fencing? I will bet your wrist that he will poke at it like a mosquito, get his ankle caught by a tentacle, and go flying.”
“Why are you betting my wrist?”
“Fuck off. Do you think an athlete is nothing?”
“When a former-athlete junior joins, you all bow your heads. Are you really going to make fun of a number-one athlete?”
The Awakened threw out all sorts of comments as they watched me.
Jealousy, envy, admiration, longing.
Those familiar emotions, familiar voices, and familiar gazes settled on my shoulders with the warmth and weight I had missed.
Shuddering at that sensation, I chose a sword from the table.
“I will use this.”
There was no fencing sword.
But there was a sword almost infinitely similar to one.
An estoc (Estoc).
A long, awl-like sword specialized for thrusting.
Unlike ordinary swords, its blade's cross section was oval or diamond-shaped, making it effectively edgeless.
Here and now, this was my hand.
“It does not even have an edge. Are you sure? I will give you a chance to change it.”
Hunter Ji In-hwi asked.
“What kind of sword is that?”
“Is that not an awl?”
“It does not look like it can cut at all.”
The Awakened stirred as well.
“Fencer Jeong, would you not rather choose a longsword?”
Hong Si-yu wore such an artificially bright smile that she seemed about to block my path.
I could feel it was goodwill.
That made it a little harder to refuse.
Swish.
I held the estoc out before me and felt its balance.
Its pleasantly familiar weight. Its hard, smooth, yet warm feel.
Without realizing it, I closed my eyes for a moment.
“Is that really all right? Should we not make him change it?”
“He looks confident. It might be fine……?”
I had missed this for a very long time.
“May we begin right away?”
“……Yes.”
When I continued to insist on the estoc, Hunter Hong Si-yu and Hunter Ji In-hwi finally moved aside.
I crossed the small raised threshold on the floor and entered the ring.
Thump, thump!
My heart pounded like a drum with tension and excitement.
I had waited four years.
I thought I would have to wait ten.
I thought I might never be able to do this again.
But the era and circumstances had returned this warmth and weight to my hand.
[“--, -!”]
The Jack-o'-Lantern raised its head and looked at me.
In an instant, a narrow bridge fourteen meters long and two meters wide was superimposed over my vision.
‘Jeong Jae-ha, Jeong Jae-ha, Jeong Jae-ha!’
Hallucinated cheers rang in my ears, and I saw the Olympic rings fluttering in the sky.
I murmured quietly.
All right. Let's have some fun.
Today's opponent was the Jack-o'-Lantern.
It was a powerful opponent, with four thorn-covered blades and a height of three meters.
I could feel it from long experience.
The distance between us was about ten meters.
Normally, it was a distance I could reach in one or two large advancing steps.
And now, it was a distance I could reach with a basic charge step alone.
Lunge (a forward step).
With my right foot forward, I pushed off the ground with my left foot and charged.
WHOOSH!
I flew in, closing the distance of over ten meters as though folding the ground.
“Huh?”
“Whoa!”
“He flew?!”
THRUST!
I loaded all of that speed into the tip of my sword and drove it toward the Jack-o'-Lantern's eye socket.
THUNK!
[“-----!?”]
Its pumpkin head snapped far backward.
The three-meter giant staggered violently.
A pleasant recoil ran up my wrist along the blade that had pierced its pumpkin head.
It worked.
The fact that my technique worked against it filled my mind with the joy of fireworks bursting.
Nothing I had honed was useless.
Of course, I did not expect it to fall from something like this.
It was a creature that had immediately recovered even after its neck was cut nearly a third of the way through.
WHOOSH!
Retreat (a backward step).
So I immediately stepped backward.
It was the technique paired with Advance (a forward step), the step I had used after standing from my wheelchair to move toward Medical Officer Kim that day.
I pulled my body back by exactly the distance I had charged forward.
[“-, --!”]
SHRAAAK!
Immediately afterward, four thorny whips swung through the place where I had just stood, as though carving it apart.
I was not surprised.
I was a fencing athlete, not a soldier using bayonet techniques. I was used to situations in which an opponent was not incapacitated after being struck by my attack.
Only the satisfaction that my prediction had been right fizzed inside me like sparkling wine.
My sword was about one meter long, while that creature's thorny whips were over three meters long.
It was an extremely unfair set of rules, but I had no complaints.
I was too excited to complain, and coming up here while knowing that meant I had agreed to a penalty match.
Besides, regardless of what weapon my opponent possessed, my attacks could still land. At the very least, it was fairer than my final match before retirement.
Then it did not matter what weapon my opponent had. I only had to thrust faster.
WHOOSH!
Advance (a forward step).
Leaping forward once more, I drove the estoc into the opposite eye of that pumpkin bastard.
THUNK!
The Jack-o'-Lantern's head snapped backward in exactly the same way as before.
***
Advance (a forward step).
Retreat (a backward step).
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Lunge (a forward step).
Retreat (a backward step).
THRUST! THRUST! THRUST!
Repeating advances and retreats, I repeatedly drove my sword deep into the Jack-o'-Lantern's head and neck, then pulled it free.
“Ha!”
The facial muscles that had not smiled in so long pulled taut, making the corners of my mouth tremble.
The feeling of sweat flowing down from my forehead and brushing past my eyes was painfully clear.
The thought that I might have lived my entire life unable to do this again sent chills through me.
This was what it meant to live.
[“-----!?”]
Whenever I kicked off the ground, bark flew from the Jack-o'-Lantern's body and green fluid poured down.
The more often swords pierced its neck, the slower its movements became.
“Whoa.”
“See? What did I tell you? It is not even a match!”
“That is insane.”
I could feel their gazes.
That intangible pressure—itchy, sticky, and sweet.
The Awakened below the stage were looking up at me with admiration.
Even Kim Gang-o's gang and that delicate-looking man stared up at me as though enchanted.
“Is he deliberately moving slowly right now?”
“No way. Why would he do that?”
Hunter Hong Si-yu and Hunter Ji In-hwi whispered as they watched me.
Their stunned expressions made me proud, just like the vacant expressions of an opposing coach.
I was an athlete who inspired admiration even in my opponents.
It seemed I had become that again.
Of course, it was too early to let down my guard, and I had no intention of doing so.
An athlete focused on their opponent until the end.
WOOOOOSH!
The Jack-o'-Lantern's thorny whips were extremely powerful.
Balestra (a leaping step).
I lightly dodged sideways with the technique and prepared a counterattack.
SWISH!
The sharp sensation of thorns brushing my cheek.
Being a foil fencer helped here too.
Unlike épée or sabre, foil allowed you to target only the torso.
From the beginning, I saw those thorny whips as blades to knock aside, not torsos to target.
That allowed for a more realistic assessment.
Right.
Now.
Its chest was open again.
WHOOSH!
Lunge (a forward step).
I leapt forward, aiming the estoc at the Jack-o'-Lantern's neck.
THRUST!