Chapter 269: Interlude – Engagement (1)
The wide training arena built for party training stretched out before us. Inside the arena, my party members, already changed into their training gear, were waiting.
I stared at them. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” Yurina nodded and extended her hand. A silver sword formed in midair and settled into her grasp.
“I’m ready too!” Berald clenched his gauntleted fist with force. “Tch. If possible, I would’ve preferred a one-on-one with you, Brother.”
“Win first, then talk,” I replied.
Grinning, Berald glanced back at the others behind him. “Heh. Even if it’s you, Brother, this won’t be easy.”
Camilla stood poised with a sword in a posture so clean and upright it looked like it had been painted. Iris chanted a prayer, her rainbow-colored eyes glowing softly. Senior Sophia stood in the rear, lifting mana with a staff longer than she was tall. The pressure they were giving off was on an entirely different level than before. Had their winter training truly made that much of a difference?
“I know,” I replied.
Cinders flared as I gripped my sword. Ashen Flames ran along the blade, and a suffocating heat blanketed the entire arena.
The party members took their stances, faces taut with tension.
“Ugh!”
“Heh! That’s our brother!”
From a distance, Laneige shouted with both fists clenched, “M-make sure no one gets h-hurt!”
She didn’t join the spar. After all, she had already spent the entire winter break with me, showing me exactly how much she had grown. Moreover, party-scale combat was still difficult for her. Even though her control over her Blessing had improved tremendously since the last incident, she still lacked experience in coordinated party battles. Frankly, the Blessing of the Frost wasn’t suited for party combat. Its vast range and destructive power made it difficult to use effectively in battles where tight coordination between members was crucial.
I looked over at my opponents as they took their positions. Yurina and Berald stood at the front. Iris and Senior Sophia held the rear. Camilla positioned herself in the middle, supporting the backline. It was a textbook formation. And the reason it had earned that title was simple—it was the most efficient structure for party combat.
“Good,” I replied, assessing their formation. Then I crooked my fingers in a blatant gesture of provocation. “Now, show me how much you’ve grown.”
“Hm. Are you provoking us?” Yurina narrowed her eyes and slowly drew up her mana, gripping the silver-stained Dawnbringer. “Fine. I’ll take the bait.”
An explosive torrent of silver light erupted from her soul stigmata. The arena shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck, purely from the discharge of her mana. I had always known Yurina possessed tremendous reserves of mana, but this wasn’t something that could be described as tremendous. This was beyond conventional limits.
What is this? Even Yuren in his prime wasn’t at this level.
Of course, in terms of overall skill, Yurina hadn’t completely caught up to the Yuren of my previous life yet, but at this rate of growth, it wouldn’t be long. No, she would even surpass him.
With a fierce shout, Yurina kicked off the ground. A deafening roar split the air as a savage wave of silver sword energy crashed toward me. Ashen Flames and silver aura collided in a chaotic storm. A dizzying shock traveled up my arm and rattled me.
“I’ll join in too!” Berald charged in right after her.
He spread out Mana Bullets into a wide, translucent membrane, then stomped on it like a foothold and launched himself through the air. With a rough shout from him, the golden patterns engraved on his gauntlets radiated brilliant light.
Yurina and Berald’s combined assault came at me mercilessly. As if they had rehearsed it, their coordination was flawless, attacking from both sides in perfect sync. Barely fending them off, I glanced toward the rear. Senior Sophia was in the middle of casting a spell. I didn’t know what magic she was preparing, but I couldn’t let her finish it.
Swinging my flame-wreathed sword violently, I tore through Yurina and Berald’s encirclement. I threw myself forward, forcing myself between blade and fist. The two of them hadn’t expected me to commit so recklessly. Exploiting that brief opening, I sprinted toward Senior Sophia.
Camilla stepped in to block my path. “Not so fast!”
Even though she had grown enough recently to earn acknowledgment from the Sword of the Holy Empire, Johan Basilio, there was still a clear gap in raw talent between her and Yurina or Berald. I thought breaking through her would be simple. But she wasn’t alone.
Iris suddenly said, “O Seven Gods! Grant your blessing to this child!”
Rainbow light enveloped Camilla, and she said, “Thank you, Saintess!”
Empowered by Iris’s blessing, Camilla swung her greatsword. It was a strike so honest and straightforward it could’ve come straight from a beginner’s swordsmanship manual. No, precisely because it was so orthodox, there was no opening to exploit.
I frowned and blocked the descending greatsword. The arena floor, protected by a barrier, shrieked under the force as I was driven backward. Just then, blue fissures split open in the air.
Senior Sophia pointed the tip of her staff toward me and murmured a low incantation, “Collapse.”
The air warped as if someone had taken a hammer to a pane of glass. Suddenly, I felt myself grow heavy, like iron weights had been strapped to every limb. It felt like gravity magic. That had always been Senior Sophia’s specialty, even in my previous life. But this felt different from the gravity magic she had used in my previous life. Geometric patterns formed at the tip of her staff, intricate and precise. They looked strikingly similar to the magic Professor Bastion used before.
“Invert,” she muttered.
Senior Sophia slammed her staff down hard. The geometric patterns spread outward, seeping into the blue cracks in the air. It looked as if someone had smashed a mirror and scattered the shards in every direction. Distorted space rippled as waves of mana surged through it.
Just moments ago, I had felt that my body was as heavy as iron, but now it became feather-light instead. My feet barely touched the ground before I floated upward, my vision flipping upside down.
Yurina seized the opening and swung her sword. I twisted frantically in the air, barely managing to block the streaking arc of silver sword energy.
“Not yet!”
But I couldn’t stop Berald’s follow-up punch. His fist struck me cleanly, sending me bouncing like a pebble before it slammed into the arena wall. He then stared in my direction. “Haha! Well, Brother?”
How does it feel, he asks? What’s the point in saying it out loud?
A faint laugh slipped from me as I looked at my party members. “You could take on an Archbishop right now.”
Back in my previous life, whenever I mastered a new sword technique or martial art, they’d get so happy. I never understood why. I did now. Watching someone else grow was quite gratifying. I had always known Yurina, Iris, Berald, Camilla, and Senior Sophia were talented. Unlike me, who had once been at the bottom, they were heroes who had been the objects of everyone’s expectations and recognition.
But reaching this level of growth took more than talent alone. Some would say that sounded arrogant. But the reason my party members had grown this much was that they met me. It was because I had changed them. Why was it? That thought made my chest ache with joy and gratitude.
“Heh.”
Berald laughed heartily, hands on his hips. “Ahahaha! To hear such praise from you, Brother, saying I could fight an Archbishop! I never imagined I’d live to see the day!”
Looking at him, I curled my lips into a grin and gripped my sword once more. “But you’re not done yet, are you?”
Ashen Flames poured from my soul stigmata, wrapping around me. Gray smoke seeped from my pores, spreading like thick fog. “Surely this isn’t the end.”
They had grown tremendously over winter break, but they weren’t the only ones who had. With a savage smirk, I kicked off the ground, engulfed in Ashen Flames. “Alright. Round two.”
* * *
Berald collapsed flat onto the ground, scorched and reduced to rags. “Gah! Enough, enough, Brother! At this rate, we’re all going to die!”
The others, too, sat slumped on the floor, gasping for breath.
“Haa! Haa!”
“Just what are you, Dale?”
“I knew you were strong, but not like this.”
I walked toward them. “Are you all okay?”
“Ugh, Dale, my head’s spinning.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I grabbed a water flask and approached Iris. “Want some water?”
“If you’re feeding it to me with your mouth, then yes.”
I held out the chilled flask to the sprawled Iris. “Since you are joking like that, it means you’re fine.”
Pouting, she took the flask from my hand. “Hmph, I’m not joking.”
“Yurina, you okay?”
“You beat us senseless, and now you’re asking if we’re okay?” Yurina glared at me and let out a sigh. “I thought I’d gotten a lot stronger, but I’m still no match for you.”
“No need to be disappointed.”
Honestly, for cadets, myself included, to already be approaching Master-level strength was an absurd rate of growth.
“You’re a monster. Seriously,” Senior Sophia remarked.
“I heard someone say the same about your magic, Senior.”
Senior Sophia shook her head with a weary expression. “Quiet.”
Smirking, I grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet. That was when I noticed something. A ring I had never seen before rested on the ring finger of her left hand. “Hm! What’s this ring?”
“Oh. I forgot to mention it.” With a faint smile, Senior Sophia turned toward Berald.
Berald scrambled upright in alarm. “W-wait!”
But Senior Sophia spoke before he could stop her. “I got engaged to Berald.”
“What?”
Engaged?