The sound of a foot stamping down tore roughly through the air of the training ground.
The starting signal had not even finished. Bran Kessler sprang forward ferociously, as though he had been waiting for it.
"Tch."
With that click of his tongue, his wooden sword flew in and washed Aron's vision white.
CLANG—!
A dull sound of friction rang out.
Aron knocked the incoming sword aside at an angle, but he could not erase the sharp pain shooting up his wrist.
Raw strength and speed. Bran did not wear his admission rank of 219th for show. With the stats of an ordinary first-year student at the bottom, even taking his blows head-on was difficult.
'Heavy.'
But Aron's gaze did not waver in the slightest.
Instead of panicking and forcing out more strength, he slid his feet backward. He had chosen to let Bran's attacks pass with as little movement as possible.
"Where do you think you're running?"
Bran pressed forward savagely, veins standing out.
From above, then diagonally.
Under the barrage of strikes that left no time to breathe, Aron's guard finally faltered for an instant. The tip of Bran's wooden sword struck the guard on Aron's left shoulder hard.
THWACK—!
"Valid hit. One point to Bran Kessler."
The dry voice of the teaching assistant serving as referee rang across the training ground.
A murmur like a sigh of relief spread through the students surrounding them.
"There we go. A fluke wasn't going to keep working."
"The difference in strength was too big from the start. Is he actually going to get a bone broken?"
The students looked as though they had expected nothing else.
Bran rested his wooden sword on his shoulder and smiled derisively.
"See that? That's a real skill. Don't get arrogant over a few points you picked up by luck."
Aron did not answer.
He silently shook out his tingling wrist and took his stance again.
He had given up a point, but his mind was focused on only one thing.
The three weaknesses the information window had shown him whenever Bran's sword cut through the air.
In that last exchange, Bran had made three consecutive attacks in all.
Aron's breathing settled into a calm rhythm.
***
"Resume!"
As soon as the teaching assistant lowered his hand, Bran closed the distance again.
Certain he had seized the advantage, he moved with even broader, fiercer strokes than before.
'One.'
Aron counted inwardly as he redirected the first blow.
'Two.'
He brushed aside the next horizontal slash with the flat of his sword. The impact felt as though it sent sparks flying, but his feet had already retreated in anticipation of the next attack.
'Three.'
Bran's breathing began to grow rough.
"You bXstard, scurrying around like a rXt!"
Bran's fourth and fifth attacks, edged with irritation, lashed sharply toward Aron's chin and waist.
Aron twisted just enough to avoid the sword's tip. At that moment, he lowered his stance and made as if to thrust at Bran's lower body.
A feint lasting only an instant.
But just as Aron had observed over the past several days, Bran had a compulsion to defend against strong low attacks. His gaze and sword reflexively dropped.
'Now.'
Bran mistakenly believed he had blocked the low attack and secured a clear opening.
Certain of a satisfying victory, he put his greatest force into the sixth blow as he brought it down. Aron shifted half a step to the side and let the sword slide past.
That was the moment.
Immediately after the six consecutive attacks, the space between Bran's right shoulder and neck lay wide open.
It was an opening left by his faltering fundamentals. An ordinary eye would have struggled to catch that fleeting instant, but to Aron it already looked like an enormous target.
Aron's foot drove hard against the ground.
The body that had only retreated until now sprang forward.
The shortest distance, the cleanest path.
THWAACK—!
Aron's wooden sword thrust precisely into the guard on Bran's right shoulder.
"Ngh!"
A suppressed groan escaped Bran. The momentum of his wide swing combined with the impact of the thrust, making him stagger badly.
"Valid hit. One point to Aron."
The training ground went quiet as though cold water had been thrown over it.
Bran stared at his shoulder in disbelief. A moment ago, he had thought he was driving Aron back single-handedly. When he came to his senses, he was the one who had taken a hit.
"You... You bastard……!"
More than the tied score, the instinctive knowledge that the attack had not been an accident scraped mercilessly at Bran's pride.
"Again! Do it again, right now!"
Bran shouted, his eyes bloodshot.
Aron withdrew his sword without a word and returned to his starting place. His dry gaze showed no trace of agitation.
***
The third exchange began.
Bran's stance had visibly changed after the strike to his right shoulder. He closed the distance with his sword held compulsively close to his body, determined not to leave that side open again.
But Aron was not foolish enough to repeat the same attack twice.
If his opponent had recognized a weakness and adjusted his guard, there was no need to force his way through it.
SWISH—!
Bran's sharp slash cut through empty air.
Rather than clash swords, Aron leaned his upper body back slightly and avoided it. Bran's brow tightened when the blow missed.
"Why carry a sword if all you're going to do is dodge?"
"……."
Aron moved his feet without answering. Each time Bran swung, Aron kept a distance that seemed close enough to reach and drew out another miss.
Bran's patience was rapidly running out.
As his attacks repeatedly struck nothing but air, the anger he had held back crossed its limit.
"Die!"
Bran lost his reason, screamed, and began swinging his sword with reckless force.
The third weakness appeared before Aron's eyes.
'Interval between attacks decreases when angry.'
Bran's attacks had certainly sped up. The sound of his sword cutting the wind had grown sharper, too.
But that was all.
With his breathing tangled and the intervals between attacks abnormally short, Bran poured far too much unnecessary force into the path of his sword. All his strength went into his upper body, and his lower-body balance collapsed helplessly.
He was digging his own grave.
Aron did not miss the sloppy movement.
When Bran's sword went wide and dipped toward the floor, Aron slipped in and struck his wrist.
TAP—!
"Urgh!"
Bran's wrist buckled, sending his sword completely off course. At the same time, Aron's wooden sword landed lightly against his chest.
"Valid hit. Two points to Aron."
"Raaagh!"
The teaching assistant separated them and signaled the match to resume. Having given up another point, Bran rushed in as if he had been waiting for the signal and slammed his sword downward. It was a reckless attack made without a thought for defense.
His center of gravity had already tipped entirely forward.
Aron twisted half a step and let the savage slash pass. As Bran's sword struck the empty ground, the tip of Aron's sword hit the guard on Bran's back cleanly.
THWACK—!
A heavy, dull sound echoed across the sparring ground.
"……Valid hit. Three points to Aron. Match over. Winner, Aron."
The teaching assistant raised his flag.
***
Only ragged breathing lingered in the training ground.
Bran knelt with one hand braced against the floor. Sweat slid down his chin and dampened the sparring ground.
Bewilderment and emptiness lay more heavily on his face than anger.
His opponent had been more than sixty places below him on the ranking board. Yet apart from one proper scoring blow, Bran had not even managed to touch Aron.
Whenever he lost his temper and exposed an opening, Aron had moved in and struck with unerring precision, without the slightest hesitation.
It was neither luck nor a trick.
Aron had seen straight through his weaknesses, waited until he could exploit them, then bitten down at exactly the right moment.
Bran bit his lip hard.
His pride was wounded, but he had no excuse. His defeat was clear.
Aron looked down at the fallen Bran.
He did not cheer in triumph or throw a mocking remark at him. Despite all Bran had said to belittle him, Aron's expression remained impassive.
He quietly raised his old wooden sword and slipped it into his belt.
Then he gave Bran a brief nod and turned toward the exit of the sparring ground.
Dozens of students in the spectator seats watched him go in silence.
"He really…… won."
Someone's mutter, no louder than a mosquito, broke the stillness.
"Did you see how he moved? Once Bran got angry, Aron made a fool of him even more easily."
"He wasn't just dodging. He was drawing Bran out until an opening appeared……."
The students' gazes began to waver.
When Aron beat Derek, and again when he beat Peln, they had dismissed it as luck. They believed the higher-ranked students had let their guard down and allowed a single hit.
But today they had seen Bran Kessler fall in this public free sparring match with their own eyes.
Luck alone could never have produced such a result.
That guy really had changed.
The name they had mocked as the perennial last-place student now lodged deep in their minds with a strange new weight.
Aron did not bother looking back at the complicated gazes falling on him.
He was looking toward an empty space in a corner of the training ground.
Bran knew Aron had discovered his weaknesses and would surely avoid making the same mistakes next time. The others would be wary of Aron, too, and prepare new ways to beat him.
If his opponents corrected their weaknesses and grew stronger, he had to strengthen his fundamentals even further.
Aron picked up his towel and walked on calmly.
"My lower-body weight shifts still need work. I'll have to train more."
With that quiet murmur, he headed toward the empty sparring ground.