Nina hated Noah.
He had defeated her in front of everyone, and she’d lost without even touching the corner of his clothes.
Humiliation.
He had disgraced her, the Sword God’s daughter.
Nina had lived for the sword since birth.
Her father said she had a bright future.
Master Timothy said she was far stronger than others her age.
Almost nobody among her peers in the Holy Land of Swords could defeat her.
Now she sat beside a window, forced to maintain her beloved sword with only one hand.
It had been a birthday present from her father when she turned eight.
She stared down at her reflection in the blade.
Unwillingness twisted her expression.
Noah was arrogant.
And thoroughly underhanded.
Still, as her father said, a loss was a loss.
Nina wasn’t such a sore loser that she’d deny reality.
But losing didn’t mean she’d abandon the idea of reclaiming her dignity.
What she hadn’t expected was the news that followed.
Noah had become her father’s direct disciple.
The revelation hit Nina like a bolt from a clear sky while her arm was still being treated.
For a long time, she couldn’t process it.
She had always assumed that the person who would inherit the Holy Land of Swords’ glory in the future would naturally be her.
Everyone around her seemed to think the same.
So from the day after their duel, although her injured arm still prevented proper training, Nina began wandering around the residence Noah used and observing her new “rival.”
…
Holy Land of Swords, Sword Emperor Marcus’s residence.
Marcus’s home stood to the right of the core dojo.
Timothy’s residence occupied the corresponding position on the left, while Gal Farion’s residence stood directly behind them, forming a triangular arrangement.
Noah walked into the open courtyard with a wooden practice sword.
Nobody normally disturbed this place.
Privileges for the strong were natural in the Holy Land of Swords.
At the very least, Noah didn’t have to squeeze into a communal dormitory.
He stretched lightly.
His abdomen still hurt from the lingering injury.
Today’s training was simple.
He only wanted to stimulate his body, expend energy, and fully exploit his physique’s recovery traits to speed up healing.
Noah grimaced.
The Holy Land of Swords had no magicians providing logistical support.
If you got injured, you relied on medicine and your own body.
Otherwise, one healing spell and most of his injury would already be gone.
The prejudice here was deeply rooted.
People like Nina genuinely believed magicians were lazy people who refused to train properly and instead muttered some convenient chant before imagining themselves powerful.
Magicians were openly looked down upon and excluded in the Holy Land of Swords.
Noah vaguely remembered that the founder of the Water God Style, the first Water God, had supposedly been capable of Water God-ranked magic.
But that was Water God Style history, and their dojo wasn’t here anymore.
In Noah’s opinion, why not hire a group of healing magicians as support staff?
A disciple gets injured, gets healed immediately, and returns to training.
Wouldn’t everyone progress faster?
If people trained with real blades and somebody lost an arm or hand, prompt healing could even save the limb.
How many people were forced to leave the Sanctum with permanent injuries every year?
‘Tch.
Illiterates.
Knowledge changes destiny.’
Noah shook his head and began the simplest possible empty swings.
His abdomen produced a faint itch beneath the lingering ache, the sensation of tissue repairing itself.
Meanwhile, Mind’s Eye remained active, quietly observing his surroundings.
‘Where is she hiding this time?’
Nina was crouched behind a corridor pillar, revealing only a sliver of herself as she watched with a slight frown.
For the past three days, she’d seen Noah train like this.
His injuries weren’t healed, yet he still refused to stop practicing empty swings.
Even Nina wouldn’t torment herself with such obsessive training during recovery.
Now she was beginning to understand why someone two years younger than her had surpassed her in swordsmanship.
On this point, she admitted she was inferior.
But she still couldn’t understand why her father had made Noah a direct disciple.
She couldn’t accept it.
As she lowered her head and thought—
Whoosh!
A sudden sound of displaced air startled her.
A wooden sword entered her vision and buried its point in the snow directly before her feet.
Nina’s gaze traveled along the weapon.
Noah stood three meters away, watching her calmly.
“Nina.
You’ve been hanging around here a lot lately, haven’t you?”
Technically, Noah had entered the main dojo later and was two years younger, so he ought to call her senior sister.
But mentally he was an adult.
He simply couldn’t bring himself to call a ten-year-old girl “Senior Sister.”
Their families were also long-time acquaintances, so using her name directly was perfectly reasonable.
Nina stared at him in shock at being discovered.
As long as she paid attention to hiding herself, very few people ever noticed her.
How had he spotted her so directly?
“W-Who said I’ve been hanging around here?
I just happened to be taking a walk.”
Her mouth moved before her brain found a better excuse.
“A walk?”
Noah walked over and pulled the wooden sword from the snow.
“That’s a very consistent walking route.
And schedule.
Somehow you show up every time I’m practicing.”
Nina choked.
She instinctively lifted a hand to protest, pulled on her injured arm, and winced.
The pain cleared away her panic.
She had originally intended to turn around and leave, but pride wouldn’t allow her to keep lying so shamelessly.
Nina bit her lip and looked up at Noah.
“Fine.
I’m not here to walk.”
“Ohhh?
Not walking?”
Noah blinked and deliberately stretched the words until Nina decided his face was becoming increasingly punchable.
“Then you’re here to watch me practice?
Trying to figure out why you lost?
Maybe study Tsubame Gaeshi?”
“…Yes.
I—”
Nina expected him to use the opportunity to mock her.
Instead, Noah abruptly changed direction.
“Want to learn it?
I’ll teach you.”
“What?”
Nina had absolutely come to spy on his training and understand her opponent.
She had never imagined he’d simply offer to teach her openly.
For a moment, she froze.
“For Tsubame Gaeshi, the hilt needs to be raised toward the chest.
That shortens the distance of the draw, but it doesn’t generate force as efficiently as a standard drawing motion, so it places higher demands on wrist strength…”
“The standard Sword God Style stance taught by dojo instructors has a longer path, but it’s better for power.
The whole point of the Sword God Style is maximum straight-line speed and a one-hit kill, which is why it becomes difficult to change direction afterward…”
“Then there’s the first swing.
The ankle is important too…”
Noah just kept explaining.
He even revealed several details that could easily have been treated as secret points of his technique.
Nina listened in a daze until she finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“You’re really telling me all this?”
“Hm?”
“I said…
you’re really going to tell me everything?”
She stared at him, speaking more urgently now.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll learn it and use it to beat you?”
Noah looked at her for a moment.
He appeared to think seriously before his brows drew together slightly.
“Isn’t the Holy Land of Swords supposed to be a place where everyone exchanges swordsmanship and spars with one another?”
“If someone learns my technique and beats me with it, that only means I wasn’t good enough.”
“Besides…”
Noah rested the wooden sword casually across his shoulder.
“All I have to do is be faster than everyone else.”
Nina opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
This person in front of her genuinely seemed to care only about pursuing the sword and becoming stronger.
He was still arrogant.
Extremely arrogant.
But suddenly…
he didn’t seem quite so hateful.
As for why Noah was willing to teach her, the truth was less romantic.
The technique he’d named Tsubame Gaeshi wasn’t actually as miraculous as it sounded.
It was something he’d improvised by combining [Flash of Insight ★★★] with knowledge from his previous life.
Its current power was only around Advanced rank.
The original Tsubame Gaeshi could distort dimensions and create three blades in the same instant of spacetime.
Noah’s bootleg copy obviously wasn’t doing that.
Maybe once his rank rose and his overall strength improved, he could refine it further.
For now, using it to repair his relationship with Nina cost him nothing.
He gave away no tangible resource.
And Nina’s father was his cheap master.
As a warrior of talent-sharing ideology, Noah understood the sacred principle of sharing.
Since both of them were still injured, there was no way to demonstrate the technique properly that day.
They agreed to meet again after recovering and exchange swordsmanship in person.
[Affection: Nina Farion -10 → 35]
[Bond relationship has advanced to Friendly.]
[One Shared Talent draw obtained.]
Noah raised an eyebrow.
This was exactly why swordsmanship needed to be shared.
Sharing was wonderful.