Chapter 18 — Breaking Through!

In the middle of the dueling grounds, ten youths stood, facing each other.

They were the representatives of the northern and eastern dormitories.

Amongst them, some were openly provoking their opponents, some smiled confidently, and others simply stood, calm amidst the waves. Their eyes met.

The spectators were all the platoon captains of Orstoll, all the members of the northern and eastern dormitories, and knights who had shown up on their own accord.

All of their eyes were focused on the youths in a sign of respect.

The duel was, at last, about to begin...

The very first match was between the vanguards of both teams — Fie and Luka.

Before the match began, Fie gathered up the squires of the northern dormitory once more. It was her way of acknowledging her fellow squire’s efforts.

The one who spoke, however, was Gormus, who was involved in the team’s creation from start to end, in addition to acting as its leader.

“All right! We’re going to win this duel, and make those guys in the eastern dormitory cry like they’ve never cried before!”

“YEAH!” A steady chorus of voices joined Gormus’ declaration.

Although it was simple, it fulfilled its purpose — the squires were all fired up.

On the other hand, Carnegis alone was shouting about one thing or another in the eastern dormitory’s corner.

“ALL RIGHT! Luka! You’re up! First, you will show the fools from the northern dormitory the difference between our strength and theirs! Go! GO FORTHHHHH!”

“Yes, yes. I get it, Sir Carnegis. Even if you get so fired up, this isn’t a fight won by loud noises, you know? Do calm down.”

Perhaps it was because of the direction that the eastern dormitory’s supervisor had taken — the eastern dormitory was now governed by an elitist mentality.

If anything, it could be attributed to the way Carnegis had trained his selected members, with winning the duel being the goal in mind. This was, however, not necessarily a bad thing. As the other squires had many chances to interact with talented individuals and engage with them in mock battles, their strength and skill had also increased.

However, to do that, motivation was needed.

Other than the five selected members, the other squires often felt like they were up against an insurmountable wall. To make things worse, each of those five members was primarily focused on self-improvement, and as such the eastern dormitory could hardly be described as “united.”

To be frank, other than one member, everyone in the northern dormitory had fun, argued, and grew up together. The atmospheres in both dormitories were markedly different.

However, the strength of the eastern dormitory’s members was plain for all to see. If one paid attention, the indicators were obvious.

Even with an excellent coach like Heslow, one could not deny this obvious fact.

No one cared about its shape — power was all that was sufficient.

This was the strength of the eastern dormitory’s organizational mindset.

“As long as Jerid and Kerio don’t mess up, we will end this with three straight wins. Well, just watch. I will prove my strength to you with my elegant swordplay.”

Saying so, Luka casually entered the duel arena.

“All right, the opponent has entered the arena. Go get ’em, Heath!”

With that, Heslow slapped Heath on the back, apparently a form of encouragement.

Among the various matches today, Heath vs. Luka was a particularly difficult match-up. The difference in their strength was obvious.

If anything, the northern dormitory had to bank itself on a positive outcome on Slad vs. Jerid, or Remie vs. Kerio.

Even so, there was no intention to throw the match.

The battle of the vanguards decided the overall flow of battle.

If Fie just instantly lost her match, that would be equal to handing all momentum to the enemy team, which could result in Slad and Remie’s instant losses as well.

The other three members had to somehow grasp the flow of combat until their two more skilled combatants, Gormus and Queen, could take over.

As Fie made preparations, swinging a wooden sword in her hands, Gormus shouted over the crowd.

“Heath! Fight to win!”

“Do your best!”

“We’ll cheer for you too, so do what you can, Heath!”

“I’ll cheer for you with all my might!”

Glancing at her teammates’ faces, Fie nodded, climbing down from the spectator stands to the arena.

With his eyes on her back, Gormus spoke, somewhat softly.

“Oi... That Heath. He didn’t even say anything back to us...”

“Is he nervous...?”

“This is Heath we’re talking about! He’ll be fine! W-We gotta believe in him!”

Fie’s unusual behavior worried Gormus and the other squires.

With all eyes on them, Fie and Luka faced off, standing a short distance apart from each other.

“Oh, hello. It’s been a week, hasn’t it? Did you sleep well last night?”

“...”

Luka answered Fie’s silence with a sneer.

“By the looks of it, you haven’t slept very much at all. Don’t worry. I’ll end this in a flash. After that, you can rest as long as you like.”

“...”

“Keep unnecessary banter to a minimum! Both of you, prepare and bow!” said the referee, warning Luka against chatting.

Acknowledging him dismissively, Luka bowed condescendingly, readying his sword. Fie, for her part, lowered her head and did the same.

Despite the considerable difference in their statures, their eyes met.

“Hey hey. Is it okay to put such a small squire out there?”

“The opponent is Luka, right? This match is already over...”

Judging by the knights’ gossip, Luka’s reputation apparently preceded him.

This was exacerbated by the fact that Fie, who was facing off against Luka, was perhaps the smallest squire in all the dormitories combined.

Rather than predicting which side would win, the knights found it difficult to believe that this would even be much of a match. Luka would probably instantly defeat his opponent immediately after the match started. Such was the prediction of the crowd.

“Heath! Do your best!” Remie said, watching over his friend with his hands clasped in prayer. Queen, too, could only watch on with a worried expression, staring at Fie.

“Begin!”

As the referee’s voice echoed throughout the dueling grounds, Luka was already closing the distance between them, his sword poised to strike.

Although he was not as fast as Queen, his attack was executed with considerable speed.

“Wow!”

“Are those guys really first years?”

The spectators found themselves filled with awe at Luka’s display.

Fie, however, held up her sword with both hands, blocking his blow. A dull sound resonated throughout the arena, and Fie’s arms bent momentarily, her body pushed backwards by the force.

Despite all that, the reality of the situation was plain for all to see — Fie had blocked Luka’s first blow.

Luka’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Huh.”

With their blades clashed, Luka moved his face close to Fie’s.

“So it seems you have something in you after all. I didn’t think that someone like you would be able to react to the speed of my attack.”

It was then that Fie struck — in the moment that Luka had moved his face close to hers and begun speaking.

An orange-colored mist filled Luka’s face.

“Eh?”

“What is that?”

Confronted by an unbelievable sight, the eyes of everyone on the grounds widened.

In the instant that Luka had flown towards Fie, clashing their blades, Fie spat out a certain orange substance — said substance became mist and covered Luka’s face.

In mere seconds, Luka, with his head clouded in orange mist, dropped his sword, screaming.

“MY EYESSSSSSS!! MY EYESSS!!” With his hands over his eyes, Luka bent over, continuing to scream.

Staring at Luka coldly, Fie stretched back as far as she could, bringing her sword behind her head. With a solid stomp, Fie brought down her sword with all her might, swinging it down onto Luka’s face.

It was perhaps worth noting that Fie’s swing was not how one would have swung a sword... but a club.

“GUH!”

The power of her swing, along with the power stored in her stretched muscles, impacted the side of Luka’s head with a solid thud. With yet another thud, Luka fell, motionless on the arena.

Unrelenting, Fie slowly walked towards the fallen Luka, before rapidly hitting his body with three solid strikes of her wooden sword.

Confirming that Luka was no longer twitching or moving, Fie raised her hand in victory, unaware of the silence in the dueling grounds.

“I win.”

“F-FOUUUUUUUUUUULLLLL! Contestant Luka wins!”

And so it came to be that the northern dormitory’s first loss was confirmed at the speed of light.

The referee had declared Fie’s actions a foul, and granted a victory to the eastern dormitory.

Hearing that, however, Fie raised an objection to the referee.

“Eh? Why?”

“Any weapons other than swords are not permitted,” the referee said, stating the painfully obvious.

However, Fie responded calmly, her expression not wavering in the slightest.

“That was orange juice from my breakfast. Orange juice is not a weapon,” Fie said, staring into the referee with her beautiful, shining blue eyes.

For all of Gormus’ efforts in drilling the rules into her, this was the result — an unpredictable outcome.

Fie, having noticed Luka’s habit of moving his face close to his opponent’s, had purposely saved orange juice from her breakfast for use as a blinding mist. After Luka was blinded and could no longer move, she would attack him with all her might.

Indeed, this was what Captain Yore had taught her — find a weakness, and exploit it with all her might.

Fie had thought that it was a perfect strategy.

The referee, in turn, panicked upon being drilled into by Fie’s unwavering gaze. However, he rapidly shook his head, regaining his composure at last.

“H-How can I accept that explanation?! To begin with, there are too many issues for me to point out here! Your previous act was not chivalrous!”

Fie’s supposedly obvious explanation was rejected by the referee.

Although it was clearly written in the rules that:

“Weapons other than swords are not permitted,” it was also written that “Unchivalrous actions are not permitted.”

Fie, however, responded to that with an unsatisfied expression.

“Eh?! That rule is too vague!”

“Vague or not, you can’t just go and do things like this! Knights are supposed to fight with valor and honor!”

Sulking, Fie retorted.

“I don’t need your narrow definitions of knightly chivalry! Chivalry is different for everyone and it takes all sorts!”

Waving her arms, a fresh chorus of objections erupted from Fie.

However, she was interrupted by someone restraining her from behind.

“Heath, come with me for a bit. I need to talk to you.”

That someone was apparently Heslow.

However, contrary to his words, Heslow firmly grasped her by the collar, pulling her away from the arena.

Fie was removed from the arena grounds by Heslow, all the while with a sulk on her face.

Upon witnessing the spectacle, the various spectating platoon captains began whispering amongst themselves.

“Wh-What is wrong with that squire...?!”

“Whose platoon did he come from?!”

“He is one of mine. Is there something wrong...?”

As those words left Yore’s lips, the spectating platoon captains collectively froze, their expressions pale.

“One of M-Master Yore’s...”

“Haha... What a spunky kid... Haha...”

Amongst them, however, Zephas started laughing, hugging his belly as he let out a thunderous peal.

“HA HA HA! You’ve picked an interesting kid, Yore! To think he’d use poison mist in a duel!”

“In an actual fight, he would have won. That would have been a victory.”

Staring at Heath, who was currently being dragged away, Yore sighed, a tinge of regret in his voice.

“You don’t say! My Coil is like that too, mischievous brat he is!”

Zephas continued laughing — he seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself.

“Wh-What was that...? Just now...?”

An uneasy mumbling rose from the eastern dormitory’s corner.

Carnegis stood, his jaw wide open, as he observed the outcome of the match.

There was no doubt that the eastern dormitory had won. Yet the eastern dormitory, which had prepared itself for a straight series of wins, had their collective mood shattered by what had just happened to Luka. If anything, they did not feel like they had won at all.

At the northern dormitory’s seats, Gormus, with his arms folded and a stunned expression on his face, could only watch as Heath was dragged off the arena.

“Ever since I met him, and even after I continued to spend time with him... Heath. That guy... He’s drifting further and further away from what it means to be a knight...”

To begin with, Fie’s dirty tactics were famous in the northern dormitory.

To make things worse, Fie had apparently learned at some point to create wooden assassination instruments, and had used them while sparring.

In said sparring matches, however, Fie would stop using them if she was told to, and the fight would be reset.

However, Gormus and a few other squires fought Heath without those rules.

Real battles were not necessarily fought between knights. In fact, the ability to fight against Fie, who often employed such instruments, was a huge merit to their actual combat experience.

Perhaps the creation of a visually identical wooden sword that could shoot out its blade was a bit too much — Fie had been reported to Heslow and had to listen to three hours’ worth of lectures as a result.

It was also worth noting that of Fie’s 2 wins, 10 losses and 33 draws, 3 losses were due to falling afoul of the rules.

It was plain for all to see that Fie was simply not suited to sword-based combat.

Specifically, with her build, there were limits to how strong she could make her techniques through training. However, to the vast majority of the squires in the northern dormitory, Fie’s hard work to close the distance between them did not go unnoticed. Most of them decided to overlook this fact — and Fie’s usage of assassination instruments was somewhat approved as a half-official fact.

So this outcome was, in some ways, unpredictably predictable.

Gormus, for his part, felt vindicated in his decision to allow Heath to stand as the team’s vanguard.

Although, his feelings about Fie memorizing the rules and coming to an unpredictable conclusion were mixed at best.

That, however, was another thing altogether.

“All right, the real fight begins now! We’re leaving that idiot behind and winning three of our four matches!”

“Yeah!”

Resolving to pretend that the rule-breaking idiot wasn’t there in the first place, Gormus and his remaining team resolved to fight with new motivation.

To begin with, he had never included the unpredictable, explosive, and at times outright silly Heath into his equations. From the eastern dormitory’s stands, a single youth alighted, stepping into the arena.

It was one of their members — Jerid. Although not as famous as Heath’s opponent, Luka, Jerid was not to be taken lightly. After all, in Slad’s generation, he was somewhat famous as a squire of considerable strength.

“All right, let’s do this!”

“Do your best, Slad!”

Finishing his preparation amidst a wave of cheers, Slad swore to win, answering the hot-blooded cheers with an equally hot-blooded vow of his own, before finally alighting from the stands into the arena.

As of now, the manly hot-blooded battle of a certain squire was about to begin.