Within less than a minute of Senare's axe flying toward me, I finally understood why Duke Patran had mentioned the Bedfer family’s banner.
This woman, Senare, isn’t some noble lady sheltered from violence.
She’s someone who’s trampled over countless battlefields, soaking her weapons in endless blood.
Crash! I gritted my teeth against the impact as her axe struck my shield.
Normally, I would have a moment to catch my breath here, but not with Senare.
She was the type who could press her assault with one axe in hand while threatening me with the other.
Even now, her second axe was aimed at my arm. I quickly dodged back to evade it, then rolled to the side as she swung at my head.
“You’re good at running. Just like the honorless little brat you are.” “Oh? And is it an honorable thing to attack a girl much younger than you?♡ When it comes to disgrace, I’d say you’re on a whole other level, Vile, Decrepit Queen.♡”
Crash! I was forced back by another blow to my shield, watching small stones tumble down the cliffside with a bitter laugh.
Even if I fall, I won’t get hurt, but my pride will shatter.
And I can’t have that. Even if she’s a difficult opponent, I won’t be satisfied until I land at least one hit.
Gripping my shield tightly, I looked forward to see Senare, wielding her axes with the ease of a jester performing a dance.
“You look more like a butcher than a queen.♡ You’ve hidden that savage nature quite well, haven’t you?♡” “That’s the world of nobility, kid. If you live as openly as you do, your head will be gone before you know it.”
The moment I deflected her axe, she moved her feet.
Is she trying to draw my attention for an attack?
As I adjusted my shield to block her descending axe, a sharp vibration spread through my body.
I’d managed to parry her blow, giving me a chance to counter, but the moment I saw the axe in Senare’s supposedly empty hand, I had to urgently raise my shield again.
Crash! The force transmitted through the shield made me clench my teeth.
She created a new axe out of mana?!
So, the throw wasn’t a distraction—it was meant to lower my guard!
“It’s cute, watching you desperately scramble with that shield.” “And the Vile, Decrepit Queen is just as despicable for attacking a young girl!♡”
Pinned against the cliff edge, I barely had a moment to breathe as I withstood her relentless strikes.
Senare’s attacks weren’t completely overwhelming.
Compared to facing Count Kent’s sword or the Duke of Burrow’s blade, this was manageable.
Yet, I was still on the defensive, and that was because of the vast difference in our combat experience.
Senare knew how to fight humans.
She knew how to cloud her opponent’s judgment.
She knew how to circumvent even the most unbreakable defenses.
She knew how to elicit curses from her enemies.
Having fought on countless battlefields,
Having severed the necks of numerous foes,
Having stained her banner with blood on victorious fields,
Her experience weighed down on me, a mere academy student.
“Oh dear. Are you alright? If you can’t break away, you’ll fall right off.”
But it wasn’t enough to bring me down.
My dress, chosen by Joy, was torn in places, and my once-fair skin was painted with red wounds.
Pain radiated from various parts of my body, but still, I stood on both legs.
Even in the midst of this intense battle, I managed a dark smile.
“Do you even have the strength to make me fall?♡”
I spread divine energy through my body, healing my wounds.
Though pain surged as my body rapidly mended itself, the grin on my face didn’t waver.
Compared to everything I’d been through, this pain was nothing.
“With all that extra weight you’ve put on from your cushy queen’s life, there’s no way you can pull it off.♡”
I smiled slyly, watching Senare through my shield.
During the barrage of attacks, I observed many things.
I took in every detail of Senare, analyzing and mapping out a path to victory.
My combat style, honed after meeting a false yet heroic skeleton, was solidified further by the experience I gained from real battles.
That knowledge spoke clearly to me now:
As long as I haven’t been forced to speak, Senare has already lost.
“Even if I’m out of practice, it’s easy to shatter a puny kid like you.” “Really?♡ Because I look far too intact for that to be true.♡ Maybe what you and I consider ‘easy’ is just very different?♡”
If Senare and I were to meet on a bare field, clashing without regard for status or allegiance,
I would lose. The realistic gap between us is just too vast.
But today’s circumstances are different.
“You wretched girl!”
The problem with Senare’s attacks was the nature of their strength.
Her axe was formidable but not powerful enough to shatter my defenses.
Not because Senare was weak.
But because no human could break the shield blessed by the gods, a shield that had held its form even against the evil god Agra.
“Damn it!”
If she couldn’t destroy my shield, then she had to target me behind it.
But here lay her limitation.
She couldn’t kill me.
Nor could she inflict a grievous wound.
If she tried that, Benedict Allen, the monstrous man who would come after her, would bring disaster to her doorstep. So, despite aiming for my neck, she had to pull back her axe.
“Damn it all!”
She couldn’t afford a prolonged battle of attrition either.
Time was not on her side; it was on mine.
Before the party ended and nobles poured out,
Before Benedict Allen, the monster, was freed from his own social obligations,
Before our private duel atop the clock tower was revealed to everyone,
Senare needed to make me talk.
Otherwise, she’d lose her political leverage, and drawing her axes would have been in vain.
She wouldn’t get the answers she wanted.
“Damn it all!”
Her attacks grew faster, more intense, and the wounds on my body multiplied, but I ignored the pain.
The superficial cuts on my skin meant nothing.
As long as I held onto my shield,
As long as I didn’t allow a fatal opening,
She couldn’t break me.
<Lucy! Pull back!...>
My assessment crumbled when I noticed the smile etched on Senare’s face—the face I thought was growing desperate.
Without hesitation, she threw both of her axes and raised her hands.
In her grip appeared a massive double-headed axe, one that could probably cleave trees centuries old.
Desperately, I summoned a miracle on my shield, but it wasn’t enough to completely absorb the axe’s power.
My stance broke, and Senare’s hands were once again free.
A newly conjured hand axe slammed into the side of my shield, shattering my defense completely.
With my shield now out of the way, Senare’s cold eyes looked down on me.
It was too late to reset my guard.
All I could do was swing my mace to create an opening—
“Ugh!”
But before I could, the shaft of her axe smashed into my abdomen.
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As the pain coursed through my organs, I staggered, only for the back of her axe to strike me in the head.
The world flashed before me, and before I knew it, I was sprawled on the cold stone floor.
My shield teetered dangerously on the cliff's edge, and the mace in my hand was being crushed under Senare’s high heel, delivering nothing but agony.
“You’re really stubborn, aren’t you? How is a kid who hasn’t even completed her second year at the academy this skilled?”
Just as I was gathering divine energy to escape, an axe whizzed past my ear, embedding itself in the ground.
“I’ve figured out exactly how much I can injure you. Don’t move if you don’t want things to get ugly.”
With her words, I understood my mistake.
Just as I had been observing her, Senare had been watching me.
In her repeated strikes against my shield, she had studied my defense.
In the process of inflicting minor wounds, she’d gauged how far I could heal.
Once she was sure of her assessment, she faked a disadvantage to make me drop my guard, then overturned the situation in one fell swoop.
“Don’t worry. As long as you answer a few questions, nothing else will happen.”
An undeniable, crushing defeat.
“You know what I’m going to ask, don’t you?”
I looked at Senare’s forced smile and thought.
If I gave her everything she wanted here, she’d be satisfied.
She might resent me, but she wouldn’t push further, knowing I could join the First Prince’s faction. Maybe I could even use this to pressure her later.
“Of course.♡ How could I not know, with such a foolish expression showing exactly what’s on your mind, Vile, Decrepit Queen?♡” “Then answer me.” “Already losing your memory?♡ I already answered, didn’t I?♡ I told you, it’s such an old story I can hardly remember.♡”
But I didn’t want to tell her what she wanted.
No matter what my grandfather said, no matter what logic demanded, I refused to watch her gloat over me insulting my mother.
“Haha. You really are a cursed little brat.”
With a swift kick to my wrist, Senare knocked my mace from my hand, pressing her heel lightly onto my solar plexus as she smiled.
“Let’s see how long you can keep that attitude.”
“Gahhh!”
Her heel, enhanced with mana, broke through my divine shield and dug into my skin.
Bit by bit,
like a tool drilling into the earth,
her heel created a hole in my flesh,
as if aiming to expose my organs to the open air.
The endless pain—
“What is the meaning of this?”
—suddenly stopped.
Barely able to stay conscious, I turned my head toward a familiar pair of shoulders.
Those massive shoulders, so enormous they seemed beyond human, rumored to carry the blood of giants.
“Second Queen.”
Benedict Allen.
A name that always comes up in discussions of the continent’s greatest warriors—a knight whose very presence inspires fear on the battlefield.
“No, Senare.”
The voice that came from his lips was so chilling, I could hardly believe it was the same voice that usually carried a foolishly affectionate tone.
“You’d better have a damn good reason for hurting my daughter. Otherwise, you have no idea what I’m capable of doing.”