Chapter 48
The situation was evolving differently than I’d expected. I initially had no thought of winning the duel itself, but I never anticipated that a third-year student would participate.
‘How petty are these guys? They don’t have the guts to discipline anyone when the prince is around, but will shamelessly steal the place of a junior in a duel?’
The slim chance of winning seemed to have become even slimmer, and it felt like nothing much had changed.
However, the guy named Mayaton was staring at me, seemingly thinking about how he would thoroughly teach me a lesson.
My classmates were just as flustered by the sudden appearance of the third-year duelist.
Ellen would come out and stand for me if I appointed her as my champion. But no matter how outstanding she was, could she possibly beat a third-year? Regardless of her talents, this opponent had spent two more years in the Temple.
Despite this, I still believed that she could win. I didn’t know what kind of guy Mayaton was, but Ellen could surely beat someone like him.
To beat Ellen, one would have to be a superhuman or somewhere close to that level, and this third-year wouldn’t be like that. Such people would be extremely rare even within the entire cohort of the Temple, so it was highly unlikely that someone at that level would be such a jerk.
The sudden change in the situation seemed to cause a shift in another person’s emotional state as well.
Adriana.
Adriana did not just seem flustered by the situation, but also angered by it. The senior with the calm demeanor was looking at me silently.
I could see in her eyes that she was willing to fight on my behalf as well.
Adriana had always detested these inevitable traditions. It was so apparent that even her dislike for these seniors was plain to see.
Seeing a third-year stoop to fighting a first-year in a duel seemed to be the last straw.
Adriana’s eyes spoke to me. They were urging me to choose her as my champion.
I thought I was making a mess of my life at the Temple, but having two people willing to fight on my behalf gave me hope that perhaps I wasn’t doing such a bad job after all.
“If there are no objections, we will start the duel shortly. The duel will end if the outcome is clear, or if one side admits defeat.”
“Teacher, I have a proposal,” Mayaton said to Mr. Effenhauser. “Can we make it a rule that the duel ends only if one side admits defeat?”
“Why is that?”
“Because the outcome seems clear already. Therefore, I want to teach this rash junior a lesson in manners.”
He was essentially proposing that the duel would not end unless I admitted defeat myself. He was confident he would win, and so he didn’t like the idea of the duel ending as soon as the swords clashed. His goal wasn’t just to beat me. It was to trample over me completely.
“Reinhart, do you agree to these terms?”
‘That’s exactly what I wanted, you moron.’
“Yes, but I have a condition of my own.”
“What is it?”
Ellen and Adriana—they would both fight for me. The situation had changed, and it was clear that I had drawn a more vicious opponent than Ard. Perhaps Ard hadn’t planned to beat me that harshly. But this guy, he was definitely going to beat me up worse than Ard would have.
Since the situation had changed, so had the judgment.
“Mayaton is a third-year, and I am a first-year. There is a definite difference in abilities between us.”
Mr. Effenhauser nodded as if to agree.
“As is my rightful authority as the challenged...”
Whom would I call?
“I request a handicap on my opponent.”
No one. I chose not to call anyone.
***
When Ellen had told me to think about what a duel was really about, she was implying the use of a champion, hoping that I would catch on.
That’s why, when Ard chose a champion, something else came to mind instead.
A handicap.
If there was too much of a disparity in weight classes between opponents, one could ask for a handicap. That was precisely the case at the moment.
Neither Ellen nor Adriana seemed to expect that I would ask for a handicap instead of a champion. Yes, if the champions hadn’t appeared so unexpectedly, I probably wouldn’t have thought of the handicap either.
Mayaton burst into cynical laughter at my words.
“Hey junior, do you really think you can beat me?”
He was laughing, but he seemed truly furious. He clearly seemed offended that I really thought I could win against him with just a handicap.
Mr. Effenhauser, acting as the witness for this duel, nodded.
“Very well. During the duel, Mayaton is prohibited from using his left hand,” declared Mr. Effenhauser.
It was Mr. Effenhauser who chose the handicap, not Mayaton himself. Mayaton sneered and hid his left hand behind his back as if the handicap was of no effect to him.
I might not have considered it a significant handicap before, but since my recent sparring with Ellen, I learned how vital the role of the off-hand could be. Sealing away one arm was a tremendous disadvantage. Of course, even so, the likelihood of overcoming the difference in our classes was still very slim.
All eyes were on us when Mr. Effenhauser announced, “Begin the duel.”
Mayaton didn’t rush in immediately. Holding the practice sword in his right hand, he slowly approached me with his left hand hidden. I had no strategy in mind. Would any of the numerous techniques I’d learned from Ellen even work against him? Superior technique might overcome the disparity in class, but I had only crammed my techniques in a short period of time.
I still didn’t know swordsmanship. To think I did after that little bit of training would be pure arrogance.
Mayaton approached me without any sign of wariness, as if he were just out for a walk.
“Are you frozen or something?”
As he came within range with his sword pointed forward, I tried to push aside his sword and advance.
-Clang!
“Argh!”
As if he could see such a move coming, he struck down the sword I was holding with both my hands using just one of his. The shock forced me to retreat several steps backward. Even though I was holding the sword with both hands, my palms felt like they were about to rip open.
“You’re too weak.”
Mayaton stared at me intently after I was pushed back several steps.
He was confident that he could subdue me at any moment, but he was toying with me instead. It was as if he intended to trample on my pride and make me realize that I was nothing.
Mayaton slightly leaned his body forward, then immediately charged at me.
Clang!
He began his attack.
Clang!
“Argh!”
Clang!
More specifically, he was attacking the sword in my hands, not me.
His moves were deliberate.
Clang!
“Ugh!”
Clang!
As soon as I lost my grip on the sword, he aimed a swift kick at my abdomen.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
As I followed my sword and rolled along the ground, I realized something. This would continue until I surrendered. Until I crushed my own pride and admitted defeat with my own lips.
Until then, this bastard was going to keep going.
“Junior, you know you can’t drop your sword in a duel.”
He kicked the practice sword that had flown from my hands back toward me.
“Pick it up.”
Clang!
As soon as I picked up the sword, Mayaton charged at me again and once more struck the side of my practice sword.
The sword I just barely grasped slipped from my grip and tumbled across the floor.
Mayaton looked at me and laughed.
“Pick it up.”
I was beginning to understand why Ellen had trained me not to let go of the sword.
She knew I would endure this kind of humiliation.
***
Clang!
The strength in my grip was weakening.
“I just don’t get it.”
Thwack!
“Ugh!”
Every time I dropped the sword, he punished me, hitting me with his elbow, kicking me, slamming a knee into me—each blow landing heavily.
“Someone like you, with no skills, nor a single thing to rely on,” he mocked.
Thump!
“Argh!”
“Why does someone like you choose to act up?”
He had no intention of completely knocking me out. Rather, he would repeat the process of looking down at my crumpled body, kicking the practice sword next to my head, then knocking my sword away, and watching me pick it up again.
The humiliation that came from the very act of the sword slipping from my grip and having to retrieve it was no joke when I actually experienced it.
I felt a weight of misery and self-loathing hanging over me, realizing I was nothing more than a toy to my opponent, even though he was a piece of trash beating up someone two years younger than him.
I knew I was going to lose, and that I would continue to be humiliated like this. And not just that, I knew I was going to continue being subjected to this physical abuse, which was incredibly painful.
As I gripped the sword again, he approached and once more struck my blade.
Clang!
My palm was torn open, and blood began to flow out.
This was no longer a duel. It hadn’t been a duel from the start.
His steps were not those of someone approaching their opponent for a duel.
He simply strolled over, and with a casual swing, my sword was knocked away. Then he assaulted my defenseless body with kicks and blows, toying with me as if I were merely there for his amusement.
He looked down at me as I struggled to get up from the ground, sneering at how pathetic I looked to him.
“I like how, even though you’re nothing but trash, you have the eyes of a swordmaster.”
Thump!
“Ugh!”
“Get down, you bastard.”
Thump!
“Ugh!”
“Wouldn’t it have been so much better if you just accepted the situation like a nice kid?”
Thwack!
“Huuk!”
“You’ve lost. You know you’ve lost. Just say it. It’ll be easier for you.”
Thwack!
“Krgh!”
“Say it.”
Thwack!
“Uugh...”
“Are you not going to say it?”
Thwack!
“If you won’t, that’s your loss.”
He showed not the slightest bit of pity as he watched me, still attempting to rise even while I fumbled around on the ground.
I might have a bad temper, but this guy was on a different level.
He was beyond having a bad temper; he was cruel.
Just as I had tried to make up for my lack of skills with cruelty, he was also that kind of person.
And he was clearly, incomparably stronger than me.
The more I tried to rise and resist, the more he seemed to enjoy it, not out of admiration, but out of delight. It was as if he was watching a worm that would eventually be crushed wriggling beneath his feet.
As I gripped the practice sword once more, I sensed the atmosphere around me.
Mr. Effenhauser’s face and eyes were devoid of emotion.
However, the faces of most of my classmates were distorted.
There is a phenomenon in any kind of match that occurs when one side starts to lose miserably. The spectators often find themselves unknowingly rooting for them out of pity, wishing they could do just a bit better and not lose so deplorably.
Right then, I was the one who was being dreadfully beaten.
Even Harriet de Saint-Ouen, who had been gleeful at the thought of me getting taught a “lesson,” was now looking pale and bewildered, not knowing what to do. She kept looking back and forth between me and Mr. Effenhauser, her eyes clearly wondering why the match wasn’t being stopped when the outcome was so clear.
She must have imagined me getting beaten up, but she couldn’t have envisioned it being this pathetic and brutal.
Meanwhile, others still managed to remain calm.
Ellen was looking at me quietly, and so was Charlotte.
It was the ones who used to hate and dislike me that were actually paralyzed with fear. They were probably worried that I might actually die.
Although duels at the Temple were different from real battles and could be considered child’s play, in the end, they were still called “duels.”
It wasn’t just a simple fistfight.
The duel wouldn’t end as long as one side didn’t admit defeat. Mr. Effenhauser also wouldn’t intervene unless my life was in danger. Besides, I didn’t even want such an intervention.
As I stubbornly kept getting to my feet, it was not Mayaton’s expression that began to twist, but the expressions of the other students.
It seemed they now wished that I would just surrender.
They hoped that I would accept defeat and back down. They probably didn’t understand why I was pushing myself like this.
In my battered state, my grip weakening and my entire body creaking, I looked at Mayaton.
I wouldn’t be able to win.
Yet, I found a desire rising within me.
I knew I couldn’t win, but against that detestable, cruel, despicable bastard like him...
“Just take one hit from me.”
“What?”
Even if I was beaten down and trampled, just one decisive hit would do.
“Just take one hit, you piece of shit!”
I was determined to land at least one blow.
Due to my immense rage, all plans of awakening my supernatural power by being placed in a psychologically-extreme situation were forgotten.
I had simply been hit too many times.
I had been hit so many times that my anger surged to the very top of my head.
If I couldn’t manage to land a solid hit on that bastard’s thick skull, I’d be haunted by it, unable to sleep for a month.
I charged at him with all the strength of my youth, and he, as if questioning my audacity, prepared to deflect my blow. He was ready to kick or strike me with the flat of his sword.
I hadn’t intended to use “it” for such trivial situations.
But I was too infuriated to hold back.
[Activating ‘Revise’]
[You need 20 achievement points to activate the incident.]
As I brought my sword down from above, aiming for the sword blocking my path...
I manifested “what normally wouldn’t happen” into reality.
The moment my sword collided with his, his sword shattered into pieces.
Clang!
The practice sword that Mayaton used to block mine crumbled, and his face was quickly filled with astonishment.
Thwack!
“Kuhuk!”
My practice sword struck his head from above, and simultaneously, I drove my knee upward, targeting his nether regions, which had been the cause of this duel.
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