As usual, Stella, whom I had ‘coincidentally’ run into during morning exercise, approached me that day with an unusually grave expression.
“Senior Conrad....”
Seeing a slight shadow over her face, which was normally as bright as the sun, I guessed that Stella had heard the recent news about me as well.
“What is it?”
“....I am sorry.”
“....Huh?”
I had expected her to say something worried about me, just as Lulu had.
Contrary to my expectations, however, what came from Stella’s mouth was not concern or apprehension, but an apology.
“All of a sudden?”
“I heard the news. You are going to have an evaluation match against Senior Dike Osman, a fourth-year in our department, correct?”
“Yeah, that’s how it turned out. And you don’t need to be so polite and call that guy ‘Senior.’ You can just call him a son of a bitch.”
“When I think about it, I feel this may have happened because of me.... That is why I am apologizing.”
Just as I was wondering what on earth she thought she had to apologize for,
Stella seemed to notice my expression and continued explaining on her own.
“Although I am only a freshman in the Department of Swordsmanship, I still have a general idea of the atmosphere there through my master...my father.
Senior Dike Osman...I mean, that puppy gentleman is one of Professor Oliver’s students. I also heard in passing that this match with you was arranged out of resentment over your saving me that day.”
Given that her father was a professor in the Department of Swordsmanship, even news people wanted to keep hidden seemed to find its way to Stella on its own.
Denying it any further would only make her worry more, so I had no choice but to admit it.
“That seems to be what happened.”
“If I had handled myself more decisively when the upperclassmen from the Department of Swordsmanship surrounded me, you would not have had to face that d-dog...puppy gentleman in an evaluation match.”
“....You don’t have to force yourself if you aren’t used to swearing.”
Stella was a little cute, earnestly forcing herself to obey after I told her to call Dike a son of a bitch.
“And even if you had handled it decisively, just as you said, Professor Oliver would only have shifted the target of his anger from me to you.”
“Even so, would I not have better odds against Dike than you would, Senior Conrad?”
“What, you think I’m going to lose too, Stella?”
“N-No! You are an excellent mage, Senior Conrad, so I believe you will win! ....Probably.”
“You don’t sound convincing at all.”
At my words, she avoided my gaze as though I had struck the mark.
She immediately added an explanation to excuse why she lacked confidence.
“Still, it is a swordsman against a mage.”
Just as Stella said, a duel between a swordsman and a mage came with that much of a difference.
The measure of a mage’s greatness did not lie in how quickly they could fire off many different kinds of magic.
It lay in how much destructive power the magic they cast after taking sufficient time could produce.
Even an archmage capable of using immensely powerful magic would generally find it difficult to face an opponent who specialized in close combat.
Fast spells could not inflict fatal wounds, while an enemy would close the distance before a powerful spell’s incantation could be completed.
That was why parties were formed.
Professions vulnerable in close combat, such as mages and priests, needed protection.
A ragtag band of incompetent brigands might have been one thing.
But anyone admitted to the Academy would possess at least a certain level of skill, so they should be fully capable of dealing with a fast spell like Wind Blade.
Moreover, a major reason I had won the battle in the back alley last time was that the ambush had given me time to prepare powerful magic.
The fact that none of my opponents had been wearing proper armor had played a part as well.
Conversely, Dike would appear at this evaluation match fully prepared.
Stella must have learned enough by now to understand that, so in a way, it was only natural for her to think I would lose.
“It’ll be troublesome, just as you said. There’s a fundamental difference in physical ability between a swordsman and a mage.”
“........”
“But just because mages generally lose to swordsmen doesn’t mean Conrad Ferdalos will lose to Dike Osman.”
“Pardon?”
I had fought opponents like him countless times.
I had experience fighting people so much stronger and more dangerous that someone like Dike—a frog in a well—could not even begin to compare.
Of course, compared to back then, I had far fewer Magic Circles and inferior equipment, but neither amounted to much of a handicap against someone like Dike.
Although I had been a mage in my previous life, I had not fought using magic alone.
The moment I saw Stella’s face, the secondary weapon I had used back then naturally came to mind.
“Stella, sorry, but could you do me a favor?”
“Ah, yes! Please ask me anything!”
“It’s nothing much. I’d like to borrow a sword.”
For times when my other companions could not protect me.
I had always carried a sword beneath my cloak as a secondary weapon with which I could defend myself.
“Of course! As it happens, I am wearing the best sword I own today, so....”
“I appreciate the thought, but not that sword.”
“Pardon?”
She was about to lend me the beloved sword at her waist without hesitation, so I stopped her immediately.
“What are you going to use in your own evaluation match if you lend me that?”
“........”
“Besides, it’s too heavy for me to use. How am I supposed to swing something heavier than my staff?”
“Then what kind of sword do you require?”
“Something much shorter and lighter than that.”
I added a little more explanation for Stella, who looked puzzled.
“You know, one with a blade a little longer than a forearm. Something light enough to swing quickly and easy to carry.”
“You mean a broadsword!”
“Yeah, that. Do you happen to have one?”
Stella had been adopted into the House of Arwen when she was very young.
She must have received Professor McDowell’s instruction from that time onward, so there was no way she had begun her training by swinging a longsword.
Before her body was fully grown, she would have used a somewhat shorter sword suited to her build.
Of course, I had no certainty that she had brought the sword she had used as a child to the Academy.
Still, if possible, I wanted to borrow one of the weapons Stella herself had used.
The secondary weapon I had wielded in my previous life had also been a sword I received from Stella.
It felt like a talisman from the goddess of victory.
“As it happens, I brought the sword I used as a child and left it in my dormitory!”
Fortunately, just as I had expected, Stella seemed to have enrolled with the sword she had used during childhood as well.
With that, all my preparations to hunt the Mad Dog of the Department of Swordsmanship were complete.
***
A training ground in the Academy’s Department of Swordsmanship.
“Huff, huff....”
A hulking man’s ragged breathing.
And the explosive cracks produced each time he swung his sword had filled the Department of Swordsmanship’s training ground for over two hours.
CRASH—!
Another Stone Golem shattered as the violent impact rang out once more.
There were already so many fragments of stone piled beneath the man’s feet that it was impossible even to guess how many golems he had destroyed.
“That little bastard.... He’s got some fucking nerve....”
A black-haired mage with a navy cloak draped over his shoulders.
At the thought of that man’s face, a curse as rough as Dike’s own body burst from his mouth.
“He must’ve come at me without fear because he knew he was going to die anyway, huh?”
Originally, he had planned to beat Conrad just enough and leave it at that.
Whether his juniors had been hurt or not was nothing more than a pretext.
The thought of getting to beat a mage instead of a swordsman for once had been enough to intoxicate him with pleasure.
However, the junior from the Department of Magic whom he had met merely to get a look at his face had been far more insolent than he had imagined.
He had even made Dike pour effort into training for an evaluation match he normally would never have bothered with.
Strictly speaking, however, what he was doing was closer to a different kind of task than training.
“....This should be just right.”
Dike placed a finger against the blade he held and smiled in satisfaction.
The edge had already been dulled from cutting through dozens of Stone Golems.
It had become so far removed from a lethal weapon that it was closer to a club than a sword.
“He probably figured it would all end with Death-Prevention Magic the moment he got cut.”
Originally, Dike had intended to torment Conrad only ‘until he died.’
He planned to beat him just enough to relieve his stress, then finish by cutting him with his sword and sending him to the church.
Dike Osman considered that mercy.
The insolent junior he had met a few days earlier had erased even that last shred of mercy from him.
“If you run your mouth, you pay the price.”
Dike’s objective had now changed considerably from what it had been at first.
He intended to use every method that head of his could devise to torment Conrad Ferdalos.
Dulling the blade to remove its lethality was another part of the plan he had prepared.
“I’ll make you beg and beg for me to just kill you.”
Imagining Conrad’s face as he was cut countless times by a sword that could not kill him,
Dike Osman burst into uproarious laughter, his mouth looking ready to split open.
***
As I waited for my turn and watched the evaluation stage, Stella finally appeared upon it.
Understandably tense for her first evaluation match, she gripped her sword and assumed a ready stance.
She prepared to face another second-year student from the Department of Swordsmanship on the opposite side.
“........”
Only two matches remained, including Stella’s.
Two matches before I would step onto that same stage.
“A-Are you okay? Don’t get nervous.... O-Of course, you said you’d win because you’ve prepared something, but still, whatever you do, don’t let your guard down....”
“Why are you shaking more than I am?”
“I-I don’t know, you idiot....”
The closer my turn came, the more violently Lulu’s body trembled beside me.
For someone who had stuck beside me claiming she would cheer me on, it looked as though all she could do was barely hold herself together through the tension.
Still, it was better than having no one beside me.
“I’ll win, so don’t worry.”
“W-Who said otherwise? I believe you too, you know?”
“For someone who believes me, your whole body’s shaking like a sewing machine.”
“....I’m just a little cold, that’s all.”
It was already April, and even the last cold snap of early spring had long since passed.
As I traded idle remarks with Lulu to kill time, Stella’s first evaluation match since enrolling came to an end.
After defeating the male student opposing her, Stella found my gaze and waved with all her might.
I gave her a light wave in return and prepared for my own approaching evaluation match.
“I’m off.”
“No one will blame you if you lose, but still, win if you can.”
“You’re stating the obvious.”
“I honestly don’t want to watch you get beaten around by a bastard like Dike.”
Her encouragement was sincere.
I nodded silently to Lulu and walked toward the area beneath the spectator stands.
***
The moment I entered the arena, hundreds of gazes shifted toward me at once.
This was the true highlight of today’s evaluation matches.
And since the venue itself was the Department of Swordsmanship’s arena, it was only natural that attention would gather on me, someone who was practically an outsider.
I was also the only student from the Department of Magic to appear in the Department of Swordsmanship’s arena.
“What? Isn’t he from the Department of Magic?”
“I thought he’d forfeit, but he really showed up.”
“Doesn’t he value his life?”
The students each muttered as they watched me, creating a restless atmosphere.
“Been a while, Conrad.”
Dike approached from the opposite side with a sneer, his ugly mug as revolting as ever.
“You all ready to get the shit beaten out of you?”
“........”
“I’ll give you credit for showing up instead of running away. I didn’t know you were that desperate to fucking die.”
“........”
“Are you so scared you’ve become as mute as if you’d swallowed honey? Where’d that insolent attitude go?”
He was not worth answering, so I let him babble.
Watching him spread the wings of his imagination all by himself was amusing.
“Senior Mad Dog, I think a priest would suit you better than a swordsman.”
“What bullshit are you talking about?”
“Seeing how you never stop moving your mouth, I thought you might have far more talent for reciting prayers.”
Dike’s mouth, which had seemed as though it would never stop, closed after one final sentence.
“You’re fucking dead.”
As if he had not planned to kill me from the start.
The fact that he reacted to every childish provocation meant his mental age was ten at best.
“Both sides, prepare!”
The supervising professor’s voice rang out from outside the arena.
After moving to our starting positions and putting sufficient distance between us,
I silently prepared the first chantless spell I would use.
“Begin!”
At the voice announcing the start of the evaluation match, the two-meter giant charged toward me.
Come at me, you overgrown ten-year-old.