Wave Swordsmanship.
It was the family’s secret swordsmanship, created by Varlach, who had once been the captain of the Grand Blue Knights, by repeatedly refining the existing family style.
The forms and techniques handed down varied slightly depending on a knight’s level and position, but no one would deny that the Wave Swordsmanship played an important role in making the Grand Blue Knights known as the strongest in the Empire.
But…
‘Why has that swordsmanship turned into something like that?’
Deep wrinkles formed on Varlach’s brow as he walked toward the training instructor.
When he drew near the knights, Varlach let out a heavy sigh and spoke.
“Khmm! Hey, Manton… Instructor?”
“Hm?”
The caterpillar-like eyebrows, in the middle of giving instruction, paused for a moment before turning to the side.
“Young Master? What brings you here?”
For an instant, Manton looked me up and down from head to toe.
The faint irritation that surfaced on his face made it clear he wasn’t exactly pleased to see me.
Well, that wasn’t the important part right now.
Varlach scratched his head roughly, forcing a smile as he spoke.
“Hey, about the swordsmanship you’re teaching right now.”
“Yes.”
“That’s Wave Swordsmanship, right?”
“That’s correct.”
When Manton tilted his head, Varlach struggled to keep smiling and continued.
“It’s just… I don’t mean anything else. It’s that swordsmanship… it doesn’t seem like Wave Swordsmanship to me.”
“…What?”
“That trash… No, that sword technique—could you tell me where and how you learned it?”
At that, the other knights standing nearby suddenly stopped their swords and turned to look this way.
All of them looked filled with bewilderment.
“…What did that failure just say?”
“How would I know? Spouting nonsense again, as if it’s anything new.”
…Failure? Did those bastards just call me a failure?
They probably thought they were whispering, but every word pierced clearly into Varlach’s ears.
No, maybe they were deliberately saying it so I’d hear.
Which meant…
‘What sort of treatment did this guy I’ve possessed get, exactly?’
Even though he was called the Young Master, if they dared treat him openly like this… this was seriously bad.
‘It’s a total mess, a complete mess.’
Varlach let out a sigh.
Well, it was a bit irritating, but ultimately, he didn’t care.
If his subordinates’ discipline was slack, he could easily fix that with his fists.
At that moment, the training instructor Manton furrowed his brows and replied.
“Young Master. Even if you are the Young Master, shouldn’t you mind your words a bit more?”
“Mind my words? What did I say?”
Manton tapped his shoulder with the wooden sword in his hand as he spoke.
“This swordsmanship is the family’s secret technique that the Master and the Commander spent over a dozen years restoring.”
“…What?”
“No matter if you are the Young Master… belittling this sword to such a degree does not seem appropriate.”
Varlach’s body stiffened all at once.
‘That ridiculous swordsmanship… was something they restored over all those years?’
That means…
“Don’t tell me… the Wave Swordsmanship… was lost?”
“Why are you stating the obvious as if it’s something new?”
When Manton replied with an irritated face, a hollow laugh escaped from Varlach’s mouth.
“Ha… hahaha…”
The Wave Swordsmanship had been lost?
So, that was it. That was why the family had ended up in such a miserable state.
The heart he had barely calmed down began to pound, and his breathing grew ragged.
“L-let’s calm down first.”
Honestly, he felt like screaming, but for now, he decided to start with what he could do.
“It’s just… I don’t know how to explain this, but what you all are doing—it looks a bit too sloppy to call it Wave Swordsmanship.”
“Sloppy?”
“Yeah. I know this well. The original Wave Swordsmanship wasn’t like that.”
Manton’s eyebrow twitched. He let out a sigh and spoke.
“Well. I don’t really know what the ‘real’ Wave Swordsmanship is, either. But surely, I’d know better than you, Young Master, who spent years holed up in your room.”
At that moment, laughter rose among the surrounding knights.
Strength gathered in Varlach’s brow.
‘No, but I’m the one who created the Wave Swordsmanship, you know?’
But how could he possibly make those bastards understand that right now?
Should he tell them that he was actually Varlach Daphne, the ancestor of this family, who had created the Wave Swordsmanship?
‘If they don’t call me a madman, that alone would be a miracle.’
In the end, there was only one thing he could do in times like this.
To show them with his own eyes.
“Hey. Sorry, but give me a sword.”
“What for?”
“I’ll show you. The proper First Form of the Full Tide.”
“…What?”
“I’ll prove to you that the technique you’re using is a sham, so hand me a sword.”
“…”
Displeasure deepened on the faces of Manton and the other knights.
“Hurry.”
“Here.”
At Varlach’s urging, Manton brought over a wooden sword and handed it to him.
Then Varlach’s expression grew serious as he spoke.
“Your name was Manton, right?”
“Why are you asking that again?”
“…I want you to face me.”
“What?”
“From now on, I’ll show you the ‘real’ Wave Swordsmanship. So you try to block it with that sloppy swordsmanship of yours.”
Manton looked dumbfounded.
“What in the world is wrong with you today?”
“He’s at it again…”
The knights in the back sneered and murmured among themselves.
“Y-Young Master! What nonsense is this!”
Gadolph, who had been beside him, grabbed Varlach’s shoulder, trying to stop him.
Manton lifted the corner of his lips in a mocking smile.
“Well. If the Young Master happens to get hurt for no reason, it’ll just be a bother for me.”
“This is an order from the Young Master.”
As Varlach thrust the sword forward with a sharp gaze, Manton scratched his forehead and answered.
“All right. I suppose I’ll humor you for a bit. As long as I only defend… there shouldn’t be any big incident.”
“…Do your best, if you can.”
Crack!
Varlach clenched his hand around the sword and shut his eyes tight.
“Hoo… Let’s go.”
Slowly, he sensed the flow of mana from his abdomen.
Wooooong!
As the mana core condensed, he felt his body tingle.
“Draw the mana from the abdomen…”
Keeping his breathing steady, he moved the sword forward.
“Transfer this energy into the blade and weave it into a great flow.”
The moment Varlach slowly opened his eyes, he fixed a piercing stare on Manton.
Matching his breath and the pulsing of mana, he waited for it to settle.
“Now!”
Fwoosh!
In a flash, he thrust the wooden sword forward.
Watch carefully, you bastards. This was the true First Form of the Wave Swordsmanship.
“Sea Ray.”
Varlach’s teeth ground together as the wooden sword shot out like a bolt of lightning.
With this, that bastard wouldn’t even be able to react before he was blown away—
Thwack!
“…Huh?”
With a dull sound, something blocked the sword, and Varlach blinked blankly.
The wooden sword he had thrust with all his might had been easily intercepted by Manton’s blade.
Varlach tried pressing harder, but Manton’s sword, exuding a force like a mountain, didn’t budge in the slightest.
Manton curled his lips into a mocking smile and spoke.
“Would you like to continue?”
“Ah… it’s not over yet.”
This—this couldn’t be happening.
Fwoosh! Thud! Fwoooosh! Thud!
Varlach swung the wooden sword again and again, unleashing strikes, but each time, Manton’s blade blocked them effortlessly.
And that wasn’t all.
“Heee… heee…”
His breath was already scraping at his throat.
How many times had he repeated the same motion?
The knights watching from the side began to scoff.
“What on earth is he doing?”
“Looks like our Young Master wants to put on a dance.”
This… this situation was getting weird.
Varlach stopped moving for a moment, turned his head aside, and asked Gadolph.
“Hey… why… why am I like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why isn’t the mana coming out! Right now, there’s no mana flowing into my body or my sword!”
“…What? Young Master, you’ve never been able to use mana.”
“…What? I can’t use mana? Me?”
“Why are you acting surprised?”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Varlach’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Wait… am I… a mana cripple?”
The so-called Young Master of Daphne, at this age, couldn’t even use mana?
How… how could that be possible?
His breath grew ragged, and a flush of heat rose through his entire body.
“Crazy! This is insane!”
It didn’t make sense. He had clearly checked that there was a mana circuit in the abdomen.
As Varlach trembled all over, Manton, who had been watching in silence, let out a short laugh, sheathed his sword, and spoke.
“Let’s end this farce here. If you keep going, you’ll only interfere with the training.”
“…W-who says…”
Varlach bit down hard on his lip.
If it ended like this, he’d be left looking like a complete fool.
“That can’t happen!”
To be insulted by one of the family’s knights and just let it go? That was—no, for the sake of the family’s order alone, that was unacceptable.
No mana? If I didn’t have teeth, I’d bite with my gums instead.
I was Varlach—Varlach Daphne!
Taaah!
Varlach lunged forward roughly, thrusting his sword.
“Young Master, enough with this pointless—”
Just as Manton lifted his wooden sword leisurely, smirking—
Whoooosh!
“…Huh?”
Varlach’s thrust narrowly slipped past Manton’s wooden sword, burrowing into the tiniest gap in between.
In that instant, Manton’s eyes widened, and he reflexively shifted his body to the side.
“What was that?”
Was it a coincidence? Some movement had suddenly—
Startled, Manton retreated, widening the distance between them.
Varlach didn’t stop, continuing his assault.
“Hup! Hrrrgh!”
A thrust, a slash, a sweeping cut.
Thaaack! Thaaack!
Plain attacks without a trace of mana.
Yet somehow, those bland strikes pressed in with such sharpness that even Manton felt genuinely threatened.
“What is this—this is supposed to be that worthless Young Master?”
The mana-less shut-in who had wasted away in his room—Varlach Daphne, the disgrace of the Daphne House.
These movements were nothing like the man Manton had known.
“Hrrrgh!”
Covered in sweat, Varlach kept driving the wooden sword forward.
Thaaack!
“Sharp!”
Manton barely managed to parry again, feeling a chill every time the attacks slipped toward the blind spots of his vision.
“Was it luck? Or…?”
Predicting his movement, stabbing the blade right into the angles he couldn’t see—more than once, it made his gut clench.
Of course…
“Hey, doesn’t it look like he’s fighting pretty well?”
“What do you mean ‘pretty well?’ Sir Manton is obviously holding back. He’s just humoring him so the Young Master’s pride isn’t hurt.”
“Ah, true… he must be just playing along.”
The other knights who didn’t understand the situation remained as carefree as ever.
The sparring continued for a while longer.
Taaah!
“Hrrrrrgh!”
For an instant, Varlach suddenly accelerated, slipping in low from the right.
“I’m—too slow.”
Realizing he was already too late to block, Manton felt his back go cold.
In that moment—
Wooooong!
His eyes turned a deep blue as he activated *Reinforcement*, an ability only mana users possessed.
Thaaaaack!
Thanks to that, he barely blocked Varlach’s sword, and at the same time thrust his own blade forward.
But Varlach easily twisted aside.
“You attacked first, didn’t you?”
He grinned, widening the distance between them.
For a moment, a lull fell over the field.
Manton tried his best to hide his confusion as he spoke.
“This should be enough. Let’s end the sparring here.”
“Who said you could end it?”
Varlach curled up his lips into a sly smile, then charged at Manton again.
“Young Master!”
Manton clenched his teeth and swung his wooden sword.
Thaaaaack!
With a crisp sound, Varlach’s wooden sword spun high into the air.
As Manton exhaled a long breath, thinking to end the match—
Varlach smiled calmly once more and spoke.
“Hey, your guard’s wide open down below.”
“…What?”
Smaaack!
In that moment, Varlach’s foot shot out and struck Manton square in his… important(?) place.
Manton’s mouth fell open in a silent scream, unable even to groan properly.
“Uh, uhhhh…?”
“Guuuuuuuu…”
The knights and even Gadolph clutched their own vital spots with pained expressions, as though they all shared in Manton’s agony.
Before long, Manton’s body began to tremble all over.
“What the hell are you doing!”
He yelled in a frenzy, spreading his palm and shoving Varlach’s shoulder.
And then—
“Gahhh!”
Varlach’s body flew back like a piece of paper, rolling and rolling across the ground.
“Y-Young Master! Are you all right?”
“Guuuuh… oh gods, I’m dying… I’m dying…”
Startled, Gadolph hurried over and shook Varlach’s shoulder where he lay collapsed.
“Uh… huh?”
Manton blinked, flustered.
‘I… I didn’t even push that hard?’
Did that really send him flying so far in one go? What the hell?
While he stood there opening and closing his mouth in confusion—
“Young Master! Are you all right, Young Master?! Please, get a hold of yourself!”
“Uuuuuh…”
Gadolph’s voice grew even more desperate.
Then—
Flop!
Varlach tilted his head back abruptly and let his body go limp.
“…Huh?”
“Don’t tell me… did he faint?”
The knights belatedly began to mutter with uneasy looks.
As the atmosphere turned increasingly serious—
“…W-What is going on here!”
“Mulgybson… Commander?”
Suddenly, from behind them, an old knight with a white beard and a face full of deep wrinkles pushed through the gathered men.
When he spotted Varlach lying on the ground, his eyes widened.
“M-Make way.”
“Ah, yes!”
He brushed the knights aside, hurried over, and shook Varlach’s shoulder.
“Young Master? Young Master? Please, wake up!”
The old knight quickly turned his head and asked urgently.
“Manton! What in the world happened to the Young Master?”
“T-that… the Young Master was sparring with me, and by accident, I…”
Manton stammered, blinking rapidly as he tried to explain, but Commander Mulgybson’s face turned red with anger.
“Sparring? You sparred with the Young Master? Have you lost your senses?”
“He insisted on it himself, and I only intended to defend…”
“Don’t spout nonsense! Everyone knows the Young Master’s condition! And you call yourself a training instructor!”
“But, that is…”
Mulgybson closed his eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them and thrust out his arm, shouting.
“Bring a physician at once! Hurry!”
“Ah… yes!”
Manton bowed his head deeply and ran off in haste…
“Young Master! Young Master! Please, open your eyes! Young Master!”
Mulgybson busied himself, shaking Varlach’s shoulder, checking his pulse, and feeling his breathing.
And then—
‘That’s what you get for messing with me.’
Sliiight!
Lying flat on his back, Varlach’s lips curved into a smile—so tiny it was nearly invisible.