Though it was called a dojo, most of the grounds consisted of an open clearing with around fifteen wooden striking posts set up in it.
Yet that broad space felt completely full.
Simply because one person, Master, stood there.
As expected of a former Master of the renowned Leonhardt Brotherhood.
Anna and Andrea, who had come with me, were already thoroughly intimidated and frozen stiff.
In truth, I was just as scared.
Honestly, scared enough to want to run away.
At the same time, I did not want to do that.
I had run away enough over the past ten years.
I wanted to stop now.
Having steeled myself, I limped over to Master despite everything, held myself proudly, and bowed.
"I'm sorry. I'm a little late."
"It is enough that you know it. We will decide your punishment for being late later."
At the sight of me stepping forward before boisterous Andrea and strong-willed Anna, Master smiled faintly.
It appeared for only a moment before disappearing, but Master's smile held approval.
With my inborn eyes, I caught that fleeting emotion and felt relieved.
At any rate, it did not seem that I would be scolded too harshly.
Perhaps that complacency was the problem.
My relief was short-lived as Master's face hardened again.
More fearsome and colder than before.
"Johan, there is something else you need to say to me, isn't there?"
"Pardon?"
"I heard it from the others. They say you used a rather strange swordsmanship yesterday."
Learning many forms of martial arts was not forbidden. On the contrary, every school and sect encouraged it.
There was no perfect martial art in the world, and if one remained conservative about martial arts, which were matters of life and death, one would truly die.
The problem was that this was a peninsula strict about the relationship between master and disciple.
At the very least, it was proper manners to ask Master's permission before learning another martial art.
In that sense, I could be said to have been rude.
Judging only from what had been revealed.
"It... isn't strange swordsmanship."
I shrank back, but I did not keep silent and bow my head.
Instead, looking Master in the eye, I spoke carefully but firmly.
The words 'strange swordsmanship' had offended me.
It felt as though the life and effort of the Sword Saint, who had become a great martial artist despite being lame, had been denied.
With my feelings as they were, I answered a little sharply without meaning to. Master narrowed his eyes and rose to his feet.
"If it is not strange swordsmanship, then you learned proper swordsmanship without my permission."
"I did not learn it, either."
"Then are you saying you defeated Andrea without learning it? Is Andrea such a fool?"
Master asked as he approached me, and his aura became more intense with every step.
The aura of a man who had survived while walking a path of killing and being killed was frightening.
Frightening enough that strong-willed Andrea and Anna could not say a word.
Frightening enough that the other trainees backed away in hesitant steps.
I was no different.
I wanted to fall to my knees at once, admit my wrong, and beg.
But I did not.
The Johan in my heart, who had lived timidly all his life, screamed for me to do so. Instead, I bit my lip and took a step forward.
Limping, with my back straight.
I walked right up to Master and faced him.
"I made it without learning it."
I knew it was a story no one could believe, but that was what I said.
The Sword Saint's swordsmanship was his life itself, forged from frustration, anger, pain, and bitter resentment.
It was proof that a lowly lame man had fought and survived without being broken by a cruel world.
Knowing that resentment, I—at least I—could not allow him to be insulted.
That was why I stood against a master as lofty as the sky. Master spoke to me calmly, yet chillingly.
"You made it...? Prove it."
"How should I prove it?"
"Is there any other way for a swordsman to prove himself? Draw your sword."
Faced with an unbelievable claim, Master did not question it one way or the other.
He merely demanded proof.
I silently nodded, drew the wooden sword at my waist, and gripped it.
As the Sword Saint had done, I held it before my face, looked at myself, and took my stance.
It was the True Sight Stance.
Master watched me and took the Plow Stance.
It was similar to mine, but lower, with a wider stride.
It was a stance that felt aggressive, as though he might rush in at any moment.
At the suddenly tense situation, Anna, who had been frozen, stepped between us.
"D-Dad! Is someone who's a Master really going to seriously hit a trainee? Someone whose body is already impaired?"
She flusteredly tried to stop Master.
I was grateful for how desperate she sounded, but part of me felt bitter.
Had Master understood the feeling I had had?
Rather than lower his sword, Master sent Anna away in a voice as cold as his expression.
"Be quiet, Anna. In a duel between swordsmen, what do Master and Scholar matter? When you hold a sword and face each other, you are simply swordsmen."
"Step aside, Anna. Master is right."
I spoke up for my Master as well.
I tried to speak gently, but I lacked the refinement to do so.
Instead, I sounded like the Sword Saint in my memories, my voice bleak and cold.
"I'll gratefully accept your concern. And Anna, as you say, my leg is impaired. But I am still a swordsman. I decided to live as a swordsman."
Perhaps shocked by my attitude, Anna went stiff.
Fortunately, Andrea, who had followed us, caught her and pulled her away just then.
"Stop being unreasonable and come on. The two of them agreed to fight. You have no right to stop them."
"But—"
"It is Johan's decision. Stopping him because his body isn't well isn't a consideration. It's disrespectful."
Dragged away, Anna's eyes widened.
Perhaps only then did she realize that consideration could sometimes be an insult.
At that sight, Master gave a quiet sigh and apologized to me in Anna's place.
"I apologize. I thought I had raised her well, but she is still thoughtless."
"No. If Anna had not looked after me when I first came to the dojo, I would not have endured. She is kind and good."
"Then that is fortunate. Shall we begin?"
In an instant, Master returned from father to martial artist.
I nodded at his question and answered, pulling the Sword Saint's mask over the face of a trembling boy.
"Yes."
With my answer came a silence taut with tension.
The empty space before a fierce clash slowly heated up.
Then a cherry blossom petal, blown in from somewhere, fell between the two wooden swords aimed at one another.
The master took a large step forward and lightly tapped my wooden sword with his own.
It was a simple movement to draw out a reaction.
A novice would take the bait here and move rashly in one way or another.
I did not waver.
I simply met Master's wooden sword with a clean strike of my own, which I gripped firmly.
Keeping my centerline thoroughly guarded, so that I could prepare for any attack that followed.
Perhaps he felt some depth even in that brief clash.
The master smiled faintly.
"You certainly did not learn that from just anyone."
"I did not learn it. I made it."
"We will have to see more to know that!"
Ending the brief exchange, the Master strongly struck my wooden sword sideways.
At the same time, he closed another step toward me.
As before, I tried to preserve my centerline by forcefully knocking Master's wooden sword away.
But he used even the force of my strike, turning his wrist as smoothly as water and sending the back edge of his sword toward my head.
It was the orthodox form of Imperial Swordsmanship, which valued initiative yet shifted endlessly.
My response was an attack.
Taking a step forward, I set the lower part of my wooden sword around the middle of Master's and knocked it aside at an angle.
As a result, Master's wooden sword could not reach me, while mine threatened Master's throat.
Moreover, Master's attack was a back-edge cut, which could not help but carry less force.
With my stable stance driving forward, I had the advantage in a contest of strength.
Had it been unexpected?
Master frowned and swiftly retreated.
"More solid than I thought... Did you expect that?"
"Yes. I have been learning from you all along, Master."
The eyes Heaven had given me and the insight the Sword Saint had developed through hard-won experience in countless battles.
The combination of those two elements worked even against an exceptional swordsman like Master.
Read the attack from the opponent's movements, then respond in advance.
This simple yet difficult tactic was more remarkable than it seemed.
It let even me, who lacked strength and stamina and had an impaired leg, grasp a clue to victory.
Master grinned as though pleased by this new side of me that he had never seen before.
"That is not all, is it? Those are remarkable eyes and an idea. You have worked hard."
It would have been nice if it ended there, but Master rushed at me again at once.
"Show me more! What kind of swordsmanship you made!"
Had this not been a spar to verify whether I had truly created my swordsmanship?
For some reason, Master acknowledged that fact yet did not stop the spar.
In truth, that was only natural.
A martial artist's battle ended only when one of the two became a corpse.
Though it was a spar, swordsmen were facing each other with their pride on the line.
There could be no halfhearted finish.
Having already understood that principle, I anticipated and deflected the Master's attack.
But I could not smile.
'Light.'
Master's sword was stronger than mine.
Even so, his diagonal cut, his strongest cut, was far too light.
Master really was different from Andrea.
After being countered by a technique he had seen only once, he did not let his sword be driven back. He recovered it at once and aimed at my sword again. The difference in our levels was palpable.
Startled by the unexpected fierce counterattack, I barely blocked the blow.
I wanted to turn it into a counterattack as well, but that was impossible.
Once I had surrendered the momentum, there was no opportunity.
Unable to do anything else, I gritted my teeth and prepared for the next attack.
As if he had been waiting for that, Master, who had narrowed the distance in the first clash, pressed me hard.
Dazzling footwork that supported a variety of cuts patterned the dojo floor.
Attacks swept over me from the front edge and back edge, from above, below, left, and right.
Their purpose was to kill my sword and create an opening.
All I could do in response was guard my centerline.
The insight that had read my opponent and predicted moments ahead had fallen into a desperate response, barely able to see and react.
Only when the rapid exchange had left me unable even to recall the Sword Saint's memories did I realize it again.
'I... I am not the Sword Saint yet.'
The Sword Saint's memories were only memories. They were not my experience.
And I was, in the end, a novice who had held a sword for only two months.
Of course, though I was being driven back one-sidedly, I did not go down easily.
Even if I could not draw on memories that were not my own to make the best response,
the sole talent Heaven had given me, my eyes, caught every one of Master's attacks perfectly.
At least I could meet his attacks with my sword.
I could keep him in check so that he could not consume my space.
But that was all.
My body, which I had not trained diligently all that time, quickly grew exhausted.
At last, when my grip weakened and my breathing turned rough,
The wooden sword in my hand was struck by the Master's wooden sword and flew into the sky.
As I watched it spin and slowly fall, I was about to acknowledge my defeat despite the ache in my heart.
It was a spar I had been bound to lose.
Master was an exceptional swordsman, and I was a greenhorn.
I was not particularly large, and my leg was impaired.
Thinking of one reason after another, I bit my lip.
I was bound to lose?
'What nonsense!'
I had said it myself.
That I was a swordsman.
That I had decided to live as a swordsman.
And now I would give up this easily?
I was going to roam a continent full of every danger and search for a way to fix my leg?
How could that be possible?
If I was going to give up this easily, then I ought to throw my sword away right now.
I should simply inherit my parents' store as a pitiful lame man.
Of course, I could not do that.
I would fix this cursed leg. I would become a great swordsman too.
So I could not retreat.
With the taste of blood and iron filling my mouth, I lunged forward.
Into the Master's wooden sword, which had been descending to finish me.
Feeling the dull pain as it struck my shoulder, I looked into Master's widened eyes.
"I haven't lost yet."
With that declaration, which changed the nature of the spar.