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"This is bad... where am I even supposed to get the money..."
Since it was an injury sustained during class, I'd tried to bill the academy for it, but apparently treatment costs were something a student had to cover personally.
One gold per round of Holy Potion IV, two gold per infusion of Holy Power.
The one saving grace was that, as an academy student, the price was a tenth of the normal rate.
Even back in my mercenary days, I'd lived with hemorrhoids that a single infusion of Holy Power could have cleared right up, simply because it was too expensive.
Even risking my life to complete a job rarely earned me more than 1 gold, so there was no way I could burn 20 gold treating hemorrhoids when my life wasn't even in danger.
Come to think of it, I hadn't had money back then either, but right now I was broke to a degree that genuinely made me question if this was even allowed.
Shake me out completely and I doubted I'd even scrape together 1 silver, let alone 1 gold.
I had to pay the Order within a week, and if I didn't, it was obvious how those priests would react.
There was even a famous saying among mercenaries: better to owe a debt to a monster than to ever owe one to the Order.
There'd actually been a case of a mercenary who got treated by the Order, ignored the priests demanding payment, and kept putting it off, only to end up having his skull cracked open by a glowing golden hammer on charges of blasphemy.
Anyway, the only person I could even think of asking to borrow money from was Luna, but I'd already received so much from her that it felt a bit awkward to ask for more.
"Hm? Benjamin?"
At the sound of my name, I turned my head, and there was the woman who'd lent me her sword during the fishman attack, staring right at me.
What was her name again? I was pretty sure she'd told me last time.
"Josephine?"
"...Lancia. Lancia Feibrin."
"So close!" I said, slapping my knee, and Lancia approached with a deepening scowl.
"You... aren't in the Knight Department."
At her words, I remembered again that I hadn't told her I was in the Magic Department when we parted ways.
"I've been looking for you for a while..."
"Me? Why?"
"..."
"Why? Did you fall for me or something?"
I asked teasingly, and her already scrunched up expression scrunched up even harder.
She could have just said no.
Ah, another wound added to the pile today.
"Benjamin, you're a first-year... and I am a second-year."
"So?"
"It's only proper for a junior to show respect to a senior."
Was this the young curmudgeon thing I'd heard about?
Saying nothing, I just looked at her, and she continued.
"So from now on, you should start using formal speech with me."
The moment she finished speaking, I immediately shifted into a lopsided stance, tilted my head 45 degrees, and scrunched my expression up mercilessly.
Caught off guard by my sudden attitude, Lancia's eyes widened for a moment in surprise.
"Ah-ang? Formal speech? You wanna hear me talk formal to you-u?"
At this full display of thuggishness, she unconsciously reached for the sword at her waist, then, trembling, slowly lowered her hand instead.
Her patience was surprisingly impressive.
Before the regression, whenever I made this face, even the neighborhood kids who used to smile brightly at me would pick up rocks and throw them.
I remembered a comrade of mine cackling once, saying that with my face already this ugly, if I added an expression like that on top, even a saint would spit before doing anything else.
Just as the memory of getting my heart broken and confessing my feelings in retaliation started to surface, she continued.
"Haah... setting aside the matter of formal speech for now... there's something I want to ask you first."
"What is it?"
"With skill like that, why are you in the Magic Department instead of the Knight Department?"
Of course, it hadn't been intentional on my part either.
If time had only rewound one day earlier, I probably would have ended up in the Knight Department.
'Even I find it a little ironic that I'm in the Magic Department.'
But now I'd seen the possibility that my mana-related stats could actually rise.
Maybe I could even end up infusing mana into my sword someday.
If I practiced more, hope had even sprung up that I might not only be able to infuse mana into my sword, but master magic freely as well.
But there was no need to explain any of that to her.
"I've got personal reasons."
"So it's a choice made for love, huh..."
At my words, Lancia muttered something incomprehensible under her breath, then nodded as if she understood.
"I see... but you have talent with the sword."
Being able to overpower the mermen was more like a kind of payoff earned from five years of taking hits with my body during mercenary work; I'd never really thought of it as talent.
Keeping a sour expression at her rather unimpressive compliment, she added further explanation.
"When I watched your sword back then, I felt a freedom unbound by any form."
I wanted to be bound by form, but I'd never actually learned any form to begin with.
The half-hearted mentor who'd once taught me swordsmanship said my sword-swinging habits had already gone to hell before he ever got to me.
So rather than teaching me the basics, all he'd really done was refine my wild, self-taught swordwork just enough that it could actually kill an enemy.
'Cockeye, why doesn't the sword you taught me have a finishing move? Make me one already, will you?'
'You son of a bitch! Get lost!'
'Ow! Why are you hitting me!'
A fond old memory of my mentor surfaced.
Actually, no matter what I thought about, all that came to mind was him whacking me with the sheath, so it wasn't really something I missed all that much.
Just as I was sinking into that memory, Lancia called out to stop me again.
"The reason I was looking for you is nothing complicated... I wanted to ask if we could cross swords."
Since she asked more seriously than I'd expected, it felt a bit rude to just brush her off.
"Fine. You want to spar, right? But I have a condition."
"A condition...? What is it? If it's something within my power, I'll grant it."
At her words, I curled one hand into a round shape and answered.
"Gimme some money."
Moving my body once and clearing my debt at the same time sounded like a pretty good deal.
"Hehihee-heehee!"
She apparently had quite a bit of money, because she handed over a fat sum of 10 gold for a single sparring match.
Even after clearing my debt, I'd still have 2 gold left over.
Falling into a happy dilemma over what delicious food to buy with the leftover money, a strange laugh escaped me on its own.
And soon, we arrived at the Knight Department's sparring hall.
Wooden practice swords arranged on one side, and a wide, evenly flattened stretch of ground.
Even though it was a late hour, it was a bit surprising that not a single person was training there.
"The Knight Department bans the use of the sparring hall at night."
"Then what about you?"
At my pointed stare, she cleared her throat a few times, turned her head away, and began mumbling out an excuse.
"As a member of the Student Council... I'm in a position to manage this place..."
"Ah, abuse of power... that sort of thing, huh?"
"It's not like that!"
Shaking my head, I picked up a wooden sword set out to the side.
Being reserved for the academy where excellent students gathered, even the sparring swords had their weight nicely balanced and carried a satisfying heft.
"I'm really not in much of a position to teach you anything, but... since you've already paid up front, I'll do my best to match your rhythm."
"That's more than enough. Experiencing your sword was my goal to begin with."
"Then come at me."
At my words, her stance began to lower more and more.
Huh, that stance looked oddly familiar.
"Wait... don't tell me?"
She was mimicking the stance I'd used to attack the mermen's weak points.
But if that was the case, then what she was aiming for was...
I struck away the sword thrusting toward my groin and shouted in a panic.
"Oh come on!"
"So you do block it."
Having barely managed to block the attack, cold sweat trickled down my back.
Because of my low Body score, I'd fought the mermen as underhandedly as possible.
I'd targeted eyes, joints, and, in the worst cases, even a man's most sensitive area or the anus.
What if she tried to copy every single move I'd made?
"Hiik!"
Dodging the sword that came for my eye by moving my head, she practically drove her foot into the ground, using the force to shift her axis of movement and pull her extended sword straight into a slashing motion.
It was a movement that already accounted for the possibility that stabbing at the eye would fail.
Hastily blocking the sword now heading for my throat, she lowered her body as if collapsing to the ground, aiming for my fingers hidden behind the guard.
She seemed to be imitating the way I'd let my sword slide down along the mermen's harpoons to cut their fingers off.
The only difference was that, unlike a harpoon where you just had to follow the shaft down, a wooden sword had a hand guard attached, so it required the added motion of lowering her body.
"Argh!"
But bringing her center of gravity down like that also meant she'd end up in a posture pressing downward from above.
Which meant that if her opponent didn't dodge and instead pressed back down, it could actually put her at greater risk.
Just as expected, when I didn't pull my sword away from the contact but simply pushed it forward instead, it ended up in a position where I was receiving her sword from below.
"Good attempt, but a method like that can be blocked, just like I did, by anyone with plenty of real combat experience, even if they're only as strong as you or weaker."
Speaking with a smile, I saw her grit her teeth in frustration.
Then letters began to appear on her sword.
[Sword Infused with Mana]
Since I couldn't infuse mana into a sword myself, I pulled my sword back and stepped back a few paces.
'She's finally using mana... actually, this works out perfectly.'
[Sword Aimed at the Heart]
Dodging the thrusting sword by putting as much distance behind me as possible, the letters quickly changed.
[Sword that Cuts the Throat]
Keeping the same stance she'd used for the heart thrust, she closed the distance and swung the sword in a wide arc, from inside to outside.
I swung my own sword to match, as if trying to block this attack, but just before our swords made contact, I dropped my stance low as if collapsing.
My sword grazed past hers on the way down, and since her powerfully swung blade struck nothing at all, it kept swinging outward, leaving an opening.
And in that opening, I straightened my bent knee, channeling the momentum into the tip of my sword, and successfully thrust it right up to her throat.
"Going for the fingers of someone holding a weapon with a hand guard carries a huge risk. Baiting out a big motion like that is actually the cheaper option."
I continued, tapping her throat lightly with my sword.
"It looked like you were copying the moves I used to take down the mermen, but suddenly shifting your body's center of gravity like that, well, you just felt it firsthand, so you know: it's all or nothing. Basically a double-edged sword, you could say."
If you want to reduce that risk, you'd have to build your Body score up to 300 like I did before the regression.
Meanwhile, having a wooden sword touch her throat, even a practice one, apparently didn't sit well with her, because she stepped back with a scowl, rubbed her throat a few times, and took up her stance again.
"Once more, if you would."
Instead of answering, I simply nodded without a word.
Up to this point, it might have looked like I'd overpowered her with ease, but she was absolutely not someone to take lightly.
It was only because the broad framework of the movements she'd shown had originated from me that I could read her sword path and anticipate her next move so easily, which was the only reason I could handle her like this.
If anything, the fact that she could imitate all this from having watched it just once was genuinely impressive.
That said, since I couldn't handle mana myself, dodging mana-infused attacks and targeting hard to protect spots like fingers or eyes had been the right approach for me, but for her, someone who could actually infuse mana into a sword, there was no real need to move the way I did.
'Well, I suppose I'll just have to hope she figures it out naturally.'
In any case, I needed to figure out whether my newly gained Talent, Editor, applied to swords too.
Startled by the sword aiming at a man's most sensitive symbol earlier, I'd reacted instinctively without thinking, but this time, I planned to actually try using this ability.
Watching the sword thrust toward me in the same stance as before, my eyes flashed sharply.