There was no ruling out the possibility that Marcus had deliberately used everyone else’s sons and daughters as stepping stones for his own kid.
The man looked like a straightforward, rugged brute—broad shoulders, thick arms, honest face—but his swordsmanship was famous for being nimble and cunning.
And really, think about where they were.
This was the Holy Land of Swords, a place that worshipped strength.
Marcus was responsible for a whole ring of outer dojos and had to receive every imaginable kind of visitor.
Some were sincere swordsmen who came seeking instruction.
Some were delusional challengers.
Others were spies planted by various powers.
How could a man doing that job actually be a simple-minded musclehead?
Gal and Timothy couldn’t shake the suspicion that Noah really might have been secretly trained by his father all along.
Marcus, meanwhile, was helpless.
His ordinary workload already drained him dry.
Most of Noah’s training had simply been handed over to instructors at the outer dojo.
Marcus had only offered occasional pointers.
If he’d known the boy’s real level, would he have reported Noah as merely Intermediate?
The only reason he’d brought Noah here at all was because one of the instructors told him, “Your son has beaten everyone in the outer dojo.
Under the Sanctum’s ranking rules, he’s eligible to advance to the main dojo as an Intermediate swordsman.”
So Marcus had brought him.
That was it.
Under the Sword God’s and Timothy’s suspicious gazes, Marcus could only shake his head earnestly.
Seeing that reaction, Gal and Timothy revised their opinion of Noah upward again.
“Well, well.
Looks like I misjudged him a little too.”
Gal looked at Noah, who had relaxed his stance, then glanced toward the other side of the floor.
Nina was still lying there.
“Take Nina away and get that arm treated.”
At Gal’s gesture, two female disciples hurried into the dueling area.
They carefully supported Nina’s injured arm and helped her to her feet.
Before leaving, Nina gave Noah one long look.
Noah saw it.
‘Oh, crap.
Did I just create a lifelong feud?’
“Noah.”
Gal’s voice brought his attention back.
“That technique just now.
What was it?”
Every ear in the hall perked up.
“Tsubame Gaeshi.”
Noah answered calmly.
“Oh?
Not only the technique, even the name sounds a bit like Light Reversal.” Gal stroked his chin with interest.
“Why call it Tsubame Gaeshi?
Swallows are usually found in the southern parts of the continent.
We get snow all year here.
You barely ever see one.”
Noah froze for half a beat.
He’d forgotten about that.
Tsubame Gaeshi had been one of his favorite techniques to drag into online power-scaling arguments in his previous life—the ultimate sword technique of a certain swordsman who had reached the level of a Noble Phantasm through pure skill alone.
And come on.
The name was cool as hell.
Peak chuuni.
The King of Showing Off among Kings of Showing Off.
A man might grow old, but the boy inside him never died.
Noah had casually stolen the name for his own move.
He hadn’t expected Gal to infer geographical information from a single word.
‘Are all old monsters this terrifying?’
“I can’t reach Light Reversal’s speed.
The fastest I can manage is probably a swallow’s speed,” Noah said with a shrug.
“At best, this sword could cut down a swallow flying past.
That’s nowhere near Light Reversal.”
The instructors had explained the principle behind Light Reversal before.
Knowing the theory and being able to perform it were two completely different things.
“As for how I know what a swallow is, I saw one in a monster encyclopedia.
Supposedly they’re very fast birds.”
Noah had only wanted a plausible excuse.
The reaction around him was not what he expected.
The Sword Saints looked at one another.
“He reads?”
“The Sword Emperor’s son can read?”
“No idea.
Nobody here can.
How do we know he isn’t making it up…?”
“No wonder his technique looks so underhanded.”
Whispers spread through the hall.
Noah slapped a hand over his forehead.
He’d forgotten.
The entire Holy Land of Swords was packed with illiterates.
“Now that really is unusual.” Gal turned toward Marcus in disbelief.
In a place where people did little besides eat, sleep, and swing swords, most couldn’t even write their own names.
“Probably learned from merchants passing through,” Marcus said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“The books were probably from them too.”
His expression looked almost ashamed that the Emiya family had somehow produced a swordsman who…
read books.
Noah no longer had the energy to complain.
From morning to night, this place offered nothing but swinging swords, sparring, healing from injuries, and then doing it again.
Day after day.
Year after year.
There was basically no entertainment.
Well…
there were a few very primitive forms of entertainment, but he wasn’t old enough for those yet.
Abort that thought.
He was a modern man who had gone from a prosperous technological society to a world whose average culture barely surpassed the Middle Ages.
When he rested, books were practically the only way to pass time and understand the outside world.
More importantly, the first four-star talent he’d ever obtained, [Heart Toward the Sword], came with a nasty side effect.
Illiteracy Rate +10%.
Was he supposed to follow Eris’s example?
She’d known a few words before reaching the Holy Land of Swords, then spent a few years here and naturally assimilated into the local illiterate ecosystem.
No.
He, Noah Emiya, would never become illiterate!
Once his training was complete, he was getting the hell out of this birthplace immediately.
Damn this place!
Everywhere he looked, intellectuals were oppressed!
Gal ignored the surrounding whispers and stroked his chin.
His philosophy had always been to let swordsmanship follow desire.
Ugly desire, beautiful emotion, dirty tricks, noble methods—it didn’t matter.
If it made the sword sharper, anything was permitted.
“Fine.
Noah’s an Advanced swordsman from today onward.”
Naturally.
Nina, whom he’d just defeated, was Advanced.
“Since you won, I’ll make an exception and let you train directly under Timothy.
Otherwise you’d need to challenge some of those Sword Saints up there first.” Gal glanced toward several disciples.
“Unless you want to challenge one of them?”
Even inside the core dojo, only a handful of people received direct guidance from a Sword Emperor.
They were all seeds with the potential to become Sword Kings.
Normally, a disciple had to rise through the rankings before joining that so-called advanced group.
It was another way the Sanctum encouraged competition.
Timothy taught public lessons most of the time, but only personally corrected and guided a few selected students.
Several Sword Saints straightened when Gal mentioned them.
They certainly weren’t afraid of Noah.
Noah thought for a moment.
“Instead of that…
could I see the Sword God’s sword?”
He figured it was worth one more experiment.
Training under a new Sword Emperor would probably let him harvest talents too, but Fate Power seemed to favor characters who played larger roles in the original story.
Messing around a little shouldn’t get him killed.
And his cheap dad was right there.
“You’ve already seen my sword,” Noah continued.
“It’s only polite that I get to see yours too, Sword God.”
“You have a death wish?!”
“There’s arrogance, and then there’s this!” someone shouted.
“Your father still hasn’t beaten me, you know,” Gal said calmly.
“You’ve got a long road ahead of you.”
“A swordsman who doesn’t want to become Sword God isn’t a good swordsman.”
Noah shamelessly adapted an old quote from his previous life.
Several people glanced at him again.
“Of course, I’d appreciate it if you left me alive.”
And just like that, everyone decided he was still the same underhanded little bastard.
“Heh.”
The moment Gal stood, Marcus nearly lost his composure.
“Fine.
Then I’ll be your opponent.”
Gal wrapped a hand around his sword and drew a real, sharpened blade.
Golden light gleamed across its surface.
It was one of the Seven Swords of the Sword God, and one of the forty-eight magic swords forged by the demon master smith Yulian Jalisco from the bones of the Dragon King Kajakut.
Magic Sword: Windpipe.