Chapter 10: Afternoon Class(3)

Whoosh—The wind blew.

As if to tell me that autumn had long since arrived, the wind blew coldly.

“……I didn’t think you would really accept it.”

Edgar Tristan was standing before my eyes.

The man who had made me a spectacle to the other students on this cold day was standing there, glaring at me with his sword in hand.

“Are you confident that you can win? Are you confident that you can beat me?”

“…”

“You, who always ignored me, wouldn’t have thoughtlessly accepted a duel.”

Edgar asked me if I was confident that I could beat him.

As I listened to him, a question suddenly occurred to me.

‘……Why did I accept this?’

What was I doing right now?

Why was I holding a sword and preparing to fight right now?

Why was I making myself a spectacle to the other students on this cold day?

Of course, I knew.

If I didn’t know this reason, no one else would.

However, I still felt strange.

It is true that I no longer need to care about what others think, but it is also true that I had decided to live comfortably from now on.

I will live comfortably.

That was the way I had decided to live after receiving a terminal diagnosis.

‘……This is not living comfortably.’

I had definitely decided that, but I couldn’t bear to endure something that I could have just endured once, and I let it escalate to this point.

That is how the current situation unfolded.

It was a very funny and strange situation where the person involved in the action did not understand his own actions.

And if you asked me again why the situation had come to this point, I still wouldn’t have been able to answer.

If I had to answer, I could have forced myself to answer.

That guy attacked me personally.

That guy was Aria Trice.

That is, he harassed my sister.

For a normal person, that would have been enough.

If that was the reason, it wouldn’t have been strange if I had already accepted the sparring three times.

The real problem was something else.

A normal person. A normal person.

Yes, a normal person.

Is Lian Trice a normal person?

No, am I really a normal person now?

It was yesterday that I gave up all the efforts I had made so far.

There was no point in trying any more.

After realizing this fact, I acknowledged that all my efforts up to that point were meaningless.

Can someone who treats all of their efforts as meaningless really be called an ordinary person?

Probably not.

No.

At least I thought, no.

A person who lacks something.

To be exact, a person who lacks something.

Wouldn’t it be more correct to say that they are not ordinary people but people who lack something?

However, there was another sentence that came to mind here.

All humans have something they lack a little bit.

I don’t remember who said it, but I sympathized with it and remembered it in my head.

I am probably a person who lacks much more than other ordinary people.

That’s all.

Although I lack more than ordinary people, I am still the same human being.

The hidden meaning of this statement was simple.

It means that I lack more than ordinary people, but in the end, I am also an ordinary person.

It means that it is perhaps natural for me to react like an ordinary person when I hear Edgar’s provocation.

“Well, if you don’t answer, I’ll attack first.”

“…”

“I’ll make it so embarrassing that you won’t even be able to show your face. Lian Trice.”

With that, I thought it was a good idea to memorize that sentence in my head.

Clank-!

I blocked Edgar’s sword that was about to fall precisely on my head with my sword.

***

Ellis Akstra was currently doubting her own eyes.

“…… How on earth did that person stop that?”

Of course, the Lian Trice she knew was someone who had never even properly held a sword.

She already knew that the person had changed.

The rascal from the past.

And the current Lian Trice.

She had realized, watching him closely, that thinking of these two as the same person was disrespectful to him.

“But I didn’t think his swordsmanship skills would change either.”

However, it was not the case.

Even if his mindset could change quickly, physical abilities like swordsmanship could never change quickly.

In particular, the difference in experience.

The difference in experience between a beginner and an expert made it absolutely impossible for a beginner to beat an expert.

There was a reason why there was a saying that it was a closed-door training.

The realm of swordsmanship was something that could only be achieved through bloody efforts.

And, the opponent was Edgar Tristan.

Although he had the image of a problem child, no one ignored him when it came to swordsmanship.

I thought it was natural that Lian Trice would lose.

Even if people changed, there was definitely a difference in experience that could not be overcome.

Everyone thought that would be the case.

She thought that it would be the case too.

“A genius?”

“…”

As the princess muttered softly, if there had been no unexpected change in a completely unexpected area.

Genius.

The word that had made her feel inferior for the first time.

That horrible word was flowing out of the mouth of Layla, the one who had instilled that feeling in her.

“I guess I underestimated people.”

“……Underestimated?”

“Yes. Let me say it again for sure. This duel will definitely be won by Lian Tris.”

Confidence.

The look of confidence she had witnessed earlier was now flowing directly through the princess’s voice.

‘… Haa. There’s one more piece of information to organize.’

Ellis had no idea how to organize this surprising fact, and just watched the two’s duel that was not over yet.

***

Swordsmanship.

A word I had never thought about in my life before being possessed.

It was obvious.

In 21st century South Korea, unless you learn kendo or fencing, you wouldn’t even have a chance to hold an object that could be called a ‘sword.’

Most citizens were like that.

It was the same for me, who lived a more ordinary life than anyone else.

However, the setting here was a novel.

A novel where a situation might arise where I would have to use a sword that I had never used before.

I guess I’ll have to use it eventually.

That was why I trained in swordsmanship without anyone knowing.

You never know when you might use it.

Since this is a novel where the main character’s greatest ability is swordsmanship, I might have to write it someday.

Preparing for a future that has not yet arrived.

It was something I had been doing for the past year while living as Lian Trice.

Clang-!

At least, swordsmanship training was not left out of that work.

“Ugh.”

As the two swords clashed once more, a groan escaped Edgar’s mouth.

His expression was one that showed he did not understand the current situation.

An expression that showed he could not accept that he was being pushed back by a mere ‘Lian Trice’ in the field of swordsmanship.

..He still did not like the expression very much.

I thought it was time to end it.

He had already shown me how much of a difference there was, and at this point, he would not bother me anymore.

Honestly, I thought Edgar would give up soon.

In the original, Edgar Tristan was a character who was acknowledged for his swordsmanship.

Isn’t that usually the case?

Rather, I think it was said that truly skilled people quickly sense the difference in skill and so surrender quickly.

I remember that was probably what the princess in the original work said.

It was something she said to comfort the protagonist who realized that she still had a long way to go.

The princess is not a normal person either.

Is it the author’s taste?

Or is it that such heroines resonate well in web novels?

Now that I think about it, there was always one part where the heroines of the main characters in the original work were loose.

“Are you going to ignore your opponent even during sparring now!”

As I thought that and stood still for a moment, I saw the trajectory of a sword rushing forward with a loud shout.

The trajectory of the sword.

The path that showed me the direction in which the sword was coming at me, and the path of the sword that enabled me to block it.

Should I call it talent?

Or should I just say that my eyesight is good?

Strangely enough, I could see the trajectory well.

The trajectory of the sword approaching me was more noticeable than anything else.

And, in a duel between swordsmen, the trajectory of this sword was visible well.

“Whisk.”

“……Dodged?”

“…”

It meant that I had a greater advantage than any advantage my opponent had.

I dodged the opponent’s sword.

Then, I stabbed him with my sword at an unexpected timing.

I moved according to this order, which is basically the basics of swordsmanship.

-Beep!

At the same time that my sword dug into Edgar’s side, a notification sound came out from the sparring suit that Edgar was wearing.

A death warning sound.

A function that Sacred Academy had put into the sparring suit for the safety of students attending the school.

This function being activated meant, in other words, this.

“……You lose. Edgar Tristan.”

“…”

The owner of the suit with this function activated lost in the duel.

Beep-!

“What the hell are you all doing?”

The sparring session that had started quite suddenly ended with the whistle blown by the afternoon class professor who had returned from the bathroom late to sort out the situation.