"Next! Garon, ranked 251st. Aron, ranked 276th. Up on the stage."
The evaluating instructor's flat call rang through the middle of the parade ground.
Aron gave his practice sword a light flick and climbed the steps. As he stepped onto the sparring stage, heavy footsteps sounded from the other side.
THUD. THUD.
A broad-shouldered, hulking figure. It was Garon, his opponent in the second match.
He held a short spear in one hand and an iron shield large enough to cover more than half his upper body in the other.
"You beat Nail just now, I hear."
Garon gave a small jut of his chin as he pushed his shield forward.
"But that won't work on me. I don't bounce around and leave openings like he does."
"I can see that."
Aron nodded evenly.
Garon was right. He was an entirely different sort of opponent from Nail, whose stance had fallen apart as he swung his swords without pause.
A typical defensive warrior, Garon kept himself tightly concealed behind his shield, waited for his opponent to tire, then thrust with his short spear.
In some ways, he was the most troublesome opponent Aron could face right now.
"Ready!"
The instructor raised a hand high.
"Begin!"
As the hand fell, Garon immediately drew his shield close. Hard iron hid him from the tip of his chin to his thighs.
Aron held his sword at an angle and slowly closed the distance.
They came within three meters of each other, but Garon did not move. He merely held the spearpoint a little way forward and watched what Aron would do.
CLANG—!
Aron darted in and struck the rim of the shield.
Only a dull metallic sound came of it. Garon's stance did not waver in the slightest.
The recoil merely sent a sharp tingle through Aron's wrist.
"Told you it wouldn't work."
Garon grinned and jabbed with his spear.
It was a short thrust meant as a warning. Aron stepped back and evaded its path.
'Solid.'
Aron rolled his wrist lightly as he studied his opponent.
The shield was brutally sturdy. With his sorely inadequate strength and shallow reserves of magic power, he had no way to break that thick iron plate from the front.
The standoff stretched on.
Instead of forcing an attack, Aron circled Garon and kept his eyes fixed on him. He watched Garon's shoulders above the shield, the length of his strides, and the angle of his spear.
But Garon moved so little that Aron could not gather enough data to identify a physical weakness.
Then it happened.
The hazy text filling his vision began to ripple strangely.
Until now, his focus had been on his opponent's body and the movements of his muscles. This time, his gaze went somewhere else.
It fell on Garon's equipment rather than Garon himself.
Short lines of text appeared in midair.
[Shield center durability: high]
[Lower-left fastening strap: worn]
[Handle becomes unstable after two consecutive heavy impacts]
Aron's eyes narrowed slightly.
He was seeing a structural flaw in the equipment, not the man's body. The text even described the worn leather strap inside the shield that wrapped around Garon's wrist.
A frontal breakthrough was clearly impossible. The durability at the shield's center was beyond what Aron could overcome as he was now.
'Then I don't need to break through it.'
Facing his limitations squarely, Aron abandoned a frontal attack altogether.
He adjusted his grip on his sword and moved his feet.
To his right. He cut in diagonally toward the side where Garon held his shield.
Garon naturally twisted his shield and turned his body to keep the defensive angle.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Garon drove his heavy shield outward and thrust with his spear at the same time. It was a stable movement that joined offense and defense.
But Aron had been waiting for that movement.
He had already seen that every time Garon pushed his shield forward, the load briefly concentrated on the worn fastening strap at the bottom.
As the spearpoint approached, Aron bent his upper body and extended his sword. He aimed for the edge of the advancing shield, not Garon's body.
CLAAANG—!
The first glancing impact.
Garon snorted. A blow like that could not shake his shield.
"There's no strength behind it!"
"You're right."
Aron answered briefly and moved his feet again. He kept circling to the right.
As if annoyed, Garon swung his shield wide and thrust his spear once more. It was a natural response to Aron forcing him to change the angle of his shield.
The moment Garon planted his feet and put his strength behind the shield, a heavy load bore down on the wrist supporting it.
CLANG—!
The second impact.
Aron's sword struck the shield's rim precisely once more.
The blow itself was still light. But the timing was different. It landed offbeat, at the very instant Garon put his weight into pushing the shield outward.
At that moment, Garon's eyes wavered.
'Huh?'
The shield's handle rattled faintly. The sensation was strange and lasted only an instant, but the vibration traveling through his hand was unmistakable.
Flustered, Garon instinctively drew back his spear and tried to pull the shield toward his body.
'Now.'
Aron did not miss the opening.
The two impacts had already loosened the handle. Each time Garon twisted the shield to push outward, the worn lower-left fastening strap was bearing a load at its limit.
Aron kicked off the ground and sprang forward.
It was time for the third impact.
"Kh!"
As Aron closed in, Garon hurriedly thrust his spear again to keep him at bay.
But Aron ducked, narrowly avoiding the incoming spearpoint. His eyes were fixed entirely on the bottom of the shield.
Aron slipped inside his opponent's reach and swept his practice sword diagonally upward from below.
He aimed for the only opening beneath the shield, which it could not cover, near the wrist that held it.
CLACK—!
The tip of his sword struck the shield's lower inner edge precisely.
At the same time, the old fastening strap, stretched taut, could no longer bear the load and snapped.
SNAP.
With that ominous sound, the support came loose from Garon's left forearm.
"Damn it!"
The shield's balance collapsed in an instant. The iron plate, which should have been facing upward, tipped sharply down as though pitching forward.
An equipment failure he had not expected.
Garon flinched and hurried to step back.
But Aron moved far faster.
As though vaulting over the falling shield, he closed the distance like an arrow. The point of his sword shot forward without hesitation.
TAP.
Aron's sword touched the very center of Garon's chest protector lightly.
Even the sound of breathing stopped on the sparring stage. Garon stared down at his chest, wide-eyed and dazed.
His shield had already sagged toward the ground, and his spear pointed uselessly into empty air. Garon did not try to hold out any longer. He lowered his spear and raised his empty palm to signal surrender.
"......Winner, Aron!"
Only after the instructor's declaration did Garon let out his breath.
Looking dumbfounded, he lifted the shield hanging limply toward the ground. The snapped strap at its bottom dangled loose.
The match had ended without a single wound. He had not been overpowered or had his defense breached by technique. His equipment had simply failed him.
"Hey."
Garon looked at Aron with an incredulous laugh, his face full of astonishment.
"Don't tell me you were aiming for that too. You knew the strap on my gear was worn out, and that's why you hit it?"
It was absurd on its face. Reading an opponent's breathing amid crossing blades was hard enough. Seeing through to the condition of a leather strap hidden inside a shield was a feat only someone extraordinary could manage.
Yet the result before him proved it all.
Aron drew back his sword and answered evenly.
"The strap on your shield looked a little worn before the match."
He spoke as though it were nothing.
"I thought if I kept moving toward that side, it might come off eventually."
Garon's mouth fell open in disbelief.
"You crazy bastard. Your eye for detail is freakishly good."
He did not make excuses for his defeat. For a defensive warrior, maintaining his equipment was a matter of life and death. Neglecting it had plainly been his own fault.
Garon scratched his head and trudged down from the stage.
Aron stood where he was and caught his breath. Two wins in a row.
It had worked again: the feel of steering an opponent's movements to create a weakness, then driving into the opening.
But this time, he had taken it a step further.
He had begun to see not only a person's body, but the structural condition of the weapons and equipment they carried.
His ability to analyze was expanding in a new direction.
'I won't need to clash with opponents needlessly as often.'
Aron adjusted his grip on the hilt of his practice sword.
With so little magic power and stamina, the ability to cut down on unnecessary exchanges was an enormous weapon for him.
At the same time, a man had been watching the entire match with a hawk's eye from the second-floor terrace of the building behind the sparring ground.
It was Professor Kairon, who taught swordsmanship.
He stood with his arms crossed, watching Aron's back beyond the railing.
In the first match, against Nail and his twin swords, he had thought Aron was simply good at striking an opening. But the match against Garon was different.
Kairon could clearly see the path by which Aron had deliberately induced Garon to twist the angle of his shield.
'He does more than strike at openings.'
Kairon's gaze deepened.
In student matches, fighters generally focused only on their opponent's swordsmanship or strength. Using everything they had learned was hard enough.
But Aron's movements just now had taken in more than the man's body. He had surveyed his opponent's entire fighting method and the structure of his equipment.
He had struck intelligently, knowing where the load would fall and what would give way first.
It was a levelheaded, meticulous view of the fight, hard to believe from a student who had been called perpetually last.
'Is he beginning to see the very bones of the basics?'
Privately impressed, Kairon stepped away from the terrace railing.
Aron still had a long way to go, but at least he made Kairon feel that teaching him had been worthwhile.
It might be interesting to watch how far he would grow.
The parade ground grew ever more heated.
Aron's third opponent would be assigned at random on-site according to that day's evaluation results. He did not yet know who it would be or when his name would be called.
Aron stepped down from the stage and walked off to find an empty space.
He drank from his water bottle to moisten his dry throat, then sat down and leaned lightly against the wall. It was not time to relax yet.
He exhaled slowly, trying to recover his strength before he next stepped onto the stage. He could feel the new sense coursing through his blood: the ability to use weaknesses in equipment, beyond bodies and techniques, in real combat.
Aron ran a hand once over the sword resting on his knees and quietly waited for the next evaluation.