“……You’re wagering money on a sacred duel! Can you still call yourself a knight?!”
“Then what about His Excellency?”
Ron immediately raised the ultimate shield. He looked forward to seeing whether the Old Master could turn this around.
Count Leonard had undeniably accepted the Double.
Could anyone claim that was not a wager? To anyone watching, he was a gambling addict who had lost money, gotten angry, and doubled down.
The loyal Radon could not overturn that.
“……You think you’re the Count’s equal?”
“You don’t have to, but with 100 gold, you could do quite a lot for Madam’s birthday.”
“I shall!”
Radon was a pathetic husband who had never managed to give his wife a proper present on her birthday. With 100 gold, he could buy the clothes and shoes he had only ever thought about giving her.
“The Young Lady will be disappointed.”
“……Cough! No!”
“Madam refuses no matter how often I offer to buy them for her. She tells me to save the money and treat my future bride well instead. She’s truly like a mother to me. To think an angel like Madam has to wear clothes like rags and carry a torn bag.”
Since when had clothes that were merely faded become rags?
Radon could not argue.
It was true that she had worn them for a long time. Come to think of it, he could not remember buying her any clothes since they married.
“Should I just buy them for her?”
“……Why would you buy them?!”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll wager 100 gold!”
“On the Young Lady?”
What the hell did he want Radon to do?!
Radon realized it. He should never have engaged Ron in conversation to begin with. Now that Ron had revealed his true nature, he possessed a devilish tongue that drove a person toward the edge of a cliff regardless of what they chose.
How had he hidden this disposition all this time?
In any case, luck might have favored the Young Lady once, but it would not favor her again……. Huh?
CLANG, CLANG, CLANG! SLASH—!
FWOOSH—!
An exchange of attacks and defenses was unfolding.
Not only Radon, but everyone stared with their eyes wide open.
Their expectation that the rematch would end one-sidedly once the Second Young Master stopped being careless had proven wrong.
As though to demonstrate that fact, Tailon had not yielded the initiative from the very start of the rematch. He thrust his sword toward Adelia first.
The thrust was both the foundation and the ultimate essence of the Heavenly Pole Sword.
It was close to perfect.
Yet Adelia preempted the line of attack as though she had known exactly where the blade was coming.
Tailon’s sword pierced empty air. Slipping away with half a step to spare, Adelia answered with the Dawn Sword First Form, Meteor Halberd.
WHOOSH—!
Meteor Halberd targeted the shoulder of Tailon’s outstretched right arm. A single strike could inflict a critical wound, but Tailon did not simply let it land. He changed direction and knocked the incoming Meteor Halberd upward.
CLANG—!
Under normal circumstances, Tailon would have held the advantage in strength and Aura, but he had been forced to halt his extending momentum and lift the blade. The strain traveled through the joints linking his feet, waist, shoulder, and arm, drawing a groan from him.
“Ggh!”
Because his strength and Aura were not transmitted accurately along the sword path, Tailon was instead forced backward.
STAGGER!
The greatest reason he had lost ground in the exchange, however, lay in Adelia’s achievement. Despite having trained for only a month, her sword possessed weight and destructive power.
SLICE—!
Tailon evaded by a hair’s breadth and struggled to find an opening for a counterattack, but Adelia maintained that razor-thin margin.
She responded as though she already knew his next move.
Yet there was nothing special about it.
They were the basic sword paths of cutting, thrusting, and swinging. Even so, Tailon continued to suffer wounds.
‘……How?’
Tailon found it difficult to accept the unbroken chain of exchanges. It was astonishing enough that Ria was swinging her sword without the slightest mercy, but he had never imagined the Heavenly Pole Sword could be neutralized so easily.
‘……This makes no sense!’
Tailon had spent a month in closed-door training. He had been confident that he had raised his mastery of the Heavenly Pole Sword by a full stage.
Yet he was being unilaterally overwhelmed by the Dawn Sword, its inferior derivative.
This could not continue.
He had to break this one-sided flow.
Tailon launched a counterattack, prepared to be wounded.
After defending with the Heavenly Pole Sword Fifth Form, Blood Sea of the Chaste Star, he struck at her opening with the First Form, Greedy Wolf Strikes. He had not been in a perfect position, so he could not avoid bleeding, but he was certain it was a flawless reversal.
SWISH—!
After Blood Sea of the Chaste Star, Greedy Wolf Strikes missed by the narrowest possible timing.
Once again, Adelia’s response was perfect, as though she had known he would move this way.
Tailon’s sword form wavered.
Having created an opening, Adelia did not let the opportunity escape and steadily seized the advantage.
CLANG, CLANG!
Every time their sword paths collided, Adelia came away with the gain.
Ah!
Everyone watching the sequence could not conceal their astonishment. The sight proved that her victory in the first duel had not been luck. The time for using Tailon’s carelessness as an excuse had passed.
‘What the hell?!’
Adelia, the very person who had left everyone around her stunned, clicked her tongue again.
There had scarcely been an exchange the first time, but now they had traded dozens of blows. Even so, not a single deviation had occurred.
‘How does this make any sense?’
Neither sibling could accept reality.
Amid the crowd’s astonishment, Ron alone watched with composure.
-Progress: -60%
-Reward: 12 Coins
The repercussions caused by the change in how everyone perceived Adelia were appearing by the moment. The more they realized this was skill rather than coincidence, the more they could not contain their shock.
‘This publicity is killer.’
Ron had provoked Count Leonard into making the duel public.
Because Progress centered on Adelia, recognition was important. Therefore, she needed to show them something that would convince them she was worthy of their trust and allegiance.
A weakling, a brainless fool, and a moron.
Count Leonard could hardly be called an exceptional lord either. The appearance of a comet-like genius could provide House Leonard with a turning point.
The change in Progress meant that even the leadership sensed the decline of House Leonard.
‘If they know and still follow him, they’re beyond saving.’
Count Leonard might lack the managerial ability to govern a territory, but the trust the leadership and the knight order placed in him was genuine. That was why Adelia had to prove herself through the sword rather than through administration or commerce.
QUIVER, QUIVER!
As Adelia drove Tailon back one-sidedly, Count Leonard’s eyes shook as though caught in a storm.
‘The Count must have noticed by now.’
Count Leonard himself had trained in the Heavenly Pole Sword for many years as an intermediate Expert.
There was no possibility that he did not recognize the sword Adelia was currently displaying.
A counter-form for the Heavenly Pole Sword.
That was why Tailon’s swordsmanship could not work. He had been pushed back from the start by responses he had never expected, but if Adelia’s swordsmanship had not been the Heavenly Pole Sword’s natural counter, the duel would have unfolded differently.
Judging only by their present achievements, Adelia lagged behind Tailon not only in strength but also in Aura.
Even so, victory had tilted overwhelmingly in Adelia’s favor.
‘But what can he do about it?’
Even if it was called a counter-form, it was ultimately no more than an application of the Dawn Sword. Count Leonard’s shock was all the greater because he had never imagined the Heavenly Pole Sword would be devoured by the Dawn Sword, its inferior derivative.
The Heavenly Pole Sword was the culmination of House Leonard.
If its counter-form leaked, it could cause an enormous aftermath in the future.
However, there was no need to worry that much.
‘It isn’t a sword art that works against everyone.’
Ron had called it a counter-form for the Heavenly Pole Sword, but to be more precise, it deserved to be called a Tailon-destruction formula.
While beating Tailon, Ron had copied not only his disposition but also his swordsmanship, techniques, ability, and variations. A month of closed-door training might have brought changes, but even at the highest estimate, Ron placed the increase in Tailon’s skill at one and a half stages or less.
Moreover, Ron had driven Adelia through training that accounted for the possibility that Tailon’s Heavenly Pole Sword might improve by more than two stages. From beginning to end, everything remained within his calculations.
‘He isn’t the only one they should be amazed by.’
Even if Ron had copied Tailon perfectly, responding identically across dozens or hundreds of exchanges was close to impossible.
Adelia was accomplishing that impossible feat. Korean rote learning might have weakened one’s ability to apply knowledge, but none of this would have been possible without memorizing the entire sequence perfectly.
‘What a shame about Quadruple!’
Had they been given more time, Quadruple might have been possible, but Adelia’s stamina had limits. If the duel dragged on any longer, her lack of endurance would make her falter.
She had to win this duel as overwhelmingly as possible. They could not be allowed even the slightest room for doubt.
She had to display talent so astonishing that it went beyond mere genius. Only then could she shatter Count Leonard’s fixed ideas and the prevailing ethos of the house.
As expected, Tailon made one final desperate struggle.
The gap widened even further.
THUD, THUD!
THUMP!
Struck in the temple and jaw, Tailon collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. His body was drenched in blood, and because he had been driven into a psychological corner, he failed to defend against Adelia’s vital-point attacks.
Ah!
WAAAAAAH!
Exclamations were followed by cheers. It was a perfect victory that left no room to deny Adelia’s achievement as a swordswoman.
Hah!
The greater one’s attainment in the sword, the more keenly one understood how absurd the duel had been.
Count Leonard and Crimson Rovero, the Knight Commander, could only click their tongues in astonishment.
‘Was her talent truly this extraordinary?’
Count Leonard was overcome with self-reproach at having failed to recognize Ria’s talent until now.
‘That bastard!!’
At the same time, resentment rose toward Ron for having noticed it. Her own father had failed to see it, yet some wolf-like man knew his daughter so well. That made his fury burn all the hotter.
BLAZE!
Ron wore an expression of understanding toward Count Leonard’s feelings.
‘It’s always darkest beneath the lamp.’
Not that it would erase the Count’s humiliation.
A man famous for being a fool for his daughter had known nothing about her when it mattered. He must have felt like a genuine fool now.
‘This is why the territory ended up in such a sorry state.’
In any case, Count Leonard’s feelings were unimportant. Ron’s loyalty to the Count amounted only to the duty an employee owed his employer. He would be grateful if the man stepped forward as the protagonist’s patron with a spirit of self-sacrifice. Of course, if Count Leonard could change that easily, House Leonard would never have reached this state.
DING!
-Progress: -55%
-Reward: 24 Coins
‘Shit, it keeps doubling.’
Coins were raining down the status window.
Ron finally understood why office workers spent their workdays staring only at their stock screens.
***
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!
A procession was entering Torres Territory.
The large, antique four-horse carriage and disciplined escort marked it as a noble procession.
An emblem of a black eagle with its wings spread wide was painted on both doors of the carriage.
The black eagle symbolized House Rehalt.
The carriage was heading toward House Leonard.
It carried a delegation sent to negotiate the ownership dispute over a mine discovered along the ambiguous border between the two territories.
Two men sat inside the carriage, speaking to each other.
They were Jamos Rehalt, the eldest son of Viscount Rehalt, and Owan Weyden, an administrator.
Jamos had sharp features overall and an irritable air, while Owan looked like a typical bureaucrat with no distinguishing characteristics.
“Did I really need to come personally?”
“Now that we have decided on a Territorial War, we must observe the proper forms.”
“What if that man snaps and draws his sword on us without warning?”
“Count Leonard is a typically obstinate noble. He will not draw his sword based on suspicion alone.”
“I heard he’s a fool for his daughter.”
“If a high-ranking noble allowed his emotions to rule him and swung his sword at a delegation, he would face condemnation from the entire Empire. Perhaps it would be different if we had captured the Young Lady of House Leonard, but he has no reason to take such a risk.”
A Territorial War was a war that staked the very survival of a territory.
Even if it was settled through a contest between knights during peaceful times, the formalities could not be ignored.
A higher-ranking noble could send an official to declare war, but for a lower-ranking noble to request a Territorial War, a direct blood relative of the lord had to come forward.
The lord himself did not appear because the war could end on the spot if he were killed or captured during it.
Of course, there had been quite a few cases in which the lord himself stepped forward.
Killing someone who had come to request a Territorial War was dishonorable. Given how much nobles valued the eyes of the world, it was difficult to imagine them killing a lord who had come as part of a delegation.
“Did you find out why it failed?”
“They say an apprentice knight who was recently promoted to a formal knight distinguished himself, but it would be more reasonable to assume that the Count had prepared a separate move.”
“Now that it’s turned out this way, I’d like to see his face at least once.”
“His Lordship’s orders take priority for now.”
“I was only saying it.”
Owan did not trust Jamos completely.
He was said to possess talent in swordsmanship as the First Young Master of his house, but his private life was exceedingly dissolute. If he treated the Young Lady of a count’s house the way he usually treated women, their plan could go awry.
Furthermore, Count Leonard’s attachment to his daughter was intense. He cared about honor as a high-ranking noble, but no one could know what might happen if Jamos so much as harassed her. Count Leonard was already on edge after one attempted attack, so they needed to exercise the utmost restraint.
‘We can’t leave even the smallest opening.’
Viscount Rehalt did not tolerate failure.
Although Owan ranked second only to the Chief Administrator, he knew he was a tool that could be replaced at any time.
The First Young Master was his lord’s own blood and would be granted another chance, but the responsibility would most likely be pushed onto Owan.
‘What a wretched life.’
Owan resolved not to take his eyes off Jamos for even a moment. The best course was to prevent any possible incident before it occurred.
Even so, he was not especially worried.
No matter how long they stayed, it would be only a day or two.
Surely Jamos would not cause trouble in that brief span.
‘Then what’s this uneasy feeling?’