Nate took me to a vacant lot outside the village. Fine, but I don't know what his intentions are.
Does that mean we take our time here to discuss it?
"─ So? What are you going to do, bring me here? I'm sorry, but I'm not going to listen to you if you're preaching.... I think it's a good idea to be noble."
"I can't believe it's a sermon... I'm not going to do that. As I said earlier, if you can't tell by mouth, think this is the only way."
……
Nate took the two swords tucked away in his sheath from the elongated bag he was putting on his shoulder, looking determined.
And when he threw one of them over here, he urged me to take it.
"Though you are a magician... naturally you have enough heart for a sword, don't you?
That's what he asked, and gradually understood Nate's intentions. Perhaps it means crossing swords here to fight.
I see. Before I came here, was it to go out of my way to get this sword that I went back to the Mansion once?
He was the type of guy who didn't like contention from his previous life, so he got a little fed up with unexpected behavior.
"Though you may not need a weapon because you can use magic... then think it's not fair"
Nate said so with a provocative grin and slowly pulled his sword out of the delicately decorated sheath.
If you look closely at the sheathed part of the sword you just received, the crest of the Kingdom of Edelstein is inscribed as part of the decoration.
It is a royal man or a knight serving the kingdom or a trainee in a knight training school who has a sword engraved with this crest.
Then, did he attend the Knight Training School in Wangdu before coming to the town of Reeve?
"... Hmm. Speaking of magicians, isn't it fair to challenge a duel with your bare hands...? Ning Lo, even if there was a handful here, I think you're more at an overwhelming disadvantage?
Even though I guess this, I return provocative words to Nate. I also feel a little less popular with buying words for sale, but this is true.
I don't know if I'm so confident in the arm of the sword, but I've never heard of an example of a swordsman stronger than a magician.
"I think so.... No, I'm sure he is. But I definitely don't want to just give Ceres to you without doing anything. Besides, I promised."
"Promise...?
"Oh. I promised Ceres." I'll protect you even in exchange for your life. "
Hearing that, an even stronger hatred boils down.
"I'll admit that my mind. But I'm definitely going to take Celeste back. I'm not going to cut you any slack. Though...... I hate that I'm not fair either. So let me fight with only my sword without magic"
That's what I would have given back if I realized that I was at least sorry for my former best friend. Initially, he planned to kill Nate by doing backwork so that he wouldn't be known around him, but this can't be the way it happened.
This is a time when abuse of Lian has been missed. Even if you let him suffer a major injury, it won't be a sin, so you can hurt him to the point of not dying and make him irreversible. That way you shouldn't be able to get in my way again.
With that in mind, pull the sword out of the sheath and set its tip toward Nate. Then Nate set up his sword to go with it, too.
"─ Let's go, Nate!
"Oh!"
Nate replies, no. I stepped out on my right foot and was slashed by him at full speed.
Kin...!
The moment each other's blades exchanged, the tall sound of iron bumping into each other in the wide open space where the weeds grew.
I see. Even from the point of view of being able to take this sword, I can still see that Nate is quite a sword user. Nate raised her mouth angle again as she first retreated to surprise him, who had strained against each other more than expected. It's a smile that seems somewhere delightful, much different from what I just saw earlier.
"... what are you laughing at? Another provocation?
"No, you're not! I'm glad!
He went on to say that he was surprised that Nate had uttered a word that was roughly unworthy of this situation: happy.
"'Cause you've never hit me so hard before, have you? All the time, you pushed and killed your feelings, pulled yourself back and wished your beloved sister happiness. If you really loved her, you could have taken it from me."
"─ Huh!
I thought you were going to say something unexpected, but it seemed like a continuation of earlier provocations.
Usually, I'm calmly taking the other person's words backwards and saying them down, but for me, who is so out of my ordinary mind, his words were only a factor in making me lose even more reason.
"Don't be ridiculous! You don't even know how troubled I was...! First of all, you must be the one who stabbed her with the nail saying 'Don't tell her what you think'!? If you don't want to hurt your sister who trusts you, you tell her to take that feeling to the graveyard - you said it yourself like no other!?"
With the blood on my head, I step again at full speed toward Nate, who keeps a certain distance with his sword in place.
"Those words, they chased me! At that time, all you had to do was convince me that you were for Chizuru... and inside you were mocking me, and the good guy was all over her love! I can't forgive you for that... but you kept tormenting me in this world!
"Oh, yeah! Sure enough, I did something like stab you in the nail that time! If you had ignored my advice and shared your thoughts with Chizuru, I would have been very sad as a friend. But... As I said earlier, I was more sad than anything that you didn't hit me with everything you could!
"What's 'hit me with everything you can'! You must be the one who was trying to keep me from doing that!? This is what happened to me because of you! All, all, all... because of you...! If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have to go crazy! I didn't have to hurt one of the most important women in the world!
I really knew. It's all because of my weakness that I went crazy and hurt my beloved. If my heart were strong, this tragedy wouldn't have happened. We didn't have to make Ceres unhappy.
Still, I couldn't help blaming someone for what happened to me, and I even kept blaming Nate.
Cutting into indifference, Nate opened his mouth looking tired or slightly out of breath after repeating the motion for a while that Nate would avoid it.
"All right! Listen carefully, look! At that time, I advised you, but you didn't hear the words after that!?"
……!?
Nate looked me straight in the eye as he told me something when he bounced back with a strong force to control my blade, which cut into the grump.
"At that time... shortly after I advised you, you said, 'Okay. Don't worry,' you just said one word and left the spot immediately, didn't you? But those words had a continuation!
"Continuing...?
"I hated you. I've always been jealous of you, Chizuru's brother, who could always be there for her. Honestly, I think that advice was mixed with jealousy. But... you were my best friend at the same time as my lover. So I was going to tell him, 'I can't support you, but I want you to rely on me whenever it gets hard'! Because, right!? If we're just lovers, we might end up in a hateful relationship, because we're best friends! Even if we couldn't be supportive, we could have bothered, cried and shared our thoughts together!
"... Huh! That's all a lie! Don't tell me what to do!
"You're lying! It's all true! After that, you started blatantly avoiding me, so I couldn't tell you!
"Shut up!"
"No, listen to me!
"Are you... listening to people!?"
"I don't want to give you Ceres! I did a terrible thing to her. I can't wait for you to hate and hate...! And yet I even want to be friends with you again in this world! I don't care what you think of me! But... I am and always have been the same, and I think I am an irreplaceable friend of yours! I forgot about that important thing until recently!
"I'm telling you to shut up! Otherwise..."
"Why, I held you in there by myself! How could you not believe me, my best friend...! There's no way I, your best friend, would look down on you!? Right!? Look!
"Shut up......! Shut up. Heh heh!
I don't have the patience for Nate's words that keep me bathed, and I squeak and scratch my head with my left hand.
─ ─ Something to be fooled. This guy is saying this because his life is in vain.
Yes, I told myself, and I managed to regain my normal mind. But for some reason, my heart is terribly upset.
"I don't think it's a good idea for bugs to be able to go back like when the three of us were laughing at each other again, more than this happened. So let's do our best to compete. Which Ceres deserves... each other's swords will decide"
With that said, Nate pointed the cutting edge of his sword this way.
……
"I just hope you don't get me wrong. I didn't admit it your way. [M] But... if you win, I'll have to admit I lost."
"... Ha!" Let's do everything we can "? A man who's been trying to outrun me in a scattered, cowardly way."
"Right. At that time, I stabbed you with a nail using the position that Chizuru and others were one another. You're right," It's for a thousand cranes, "and I think the real thing was that I wanted to have an advantage. Now that I think about it, you were really cowardly. But... as I said, I didn't look down on you, and I wanted you to talk to me. And... somewhere in my heart I had myself wanting to run into each other directly from the front with you. Seems contradictory though. So now I'm telling you to compete with honor."
"... hahahahahahahahahaha!... I've had enough of the beauty! Beyond me and Ceres being sisters and brothers, it's been 'fighting' since the beginning. … yes, this is a race to be made"
Nate couldn't seem to absorb the intent, and tilted her neck.
"You have no idea what I'm struggling with. Fighting is what humans do on the same mound. I mean, being my brother, I'm not even allowed to stand on the same mound."
……
"Besides, I've decided I'll never believe you again! That's how you've always been betrayed by believing someone! So I don't believe anyone anymore! We just have to move on! Until Ceres loves me... and he accepts my love, I just have to keep running my way!
When he roughed up his voice so, Nate had a discouraged look on his face.
Nate seemed to want me to believe in myself no matter what the win or loss was, but unfortunately, I can't afford to lend my ear to what he has to say right now.
"Get out of the way......! Death! Death, death, death, death, death, death! Die hehe!!"
Nate immediately took the attack as he shouted and shouted his sword away. A small spark scatters along with a sharp metal sound and the impact is transmitted throughout the body.
But not even frightened by such a shock, Nate pushes back the loser and the sword. After repeating it several times, I swung my sword wide, poking a flash of gaps in order to put an end to a battle that was not revealing.
"... I will never forgive you...! ─ ─ Even if you die...!!"
"─ ─... Huh!
That moment when Nate looked so sad - a sword that shook down in momentum tore his chest open and his white shirt stained with bright red blood. At the same time, a large amount of splashed returning blood falls on my body.
With the slashed impact, Nate's body turned back to the bow, retreating and falling into the grass with a slightly blunter sound on his back.
"Both of you, stop! ─ Ahhh! Oh my god...!
"Nate! Nate kun......!
When he returned to me, there was a voice from the rear. Probably Ceres and Laura. Looking back, I could see the two of them running this way.
Unexpectedly, droplets fall on my head. If I looked up over my head reflexively, the pounding and rain began to fall, and gradually the momentum grew, wet as my own clothes and swords lit with blood returned.
─ ─ It's like you're trying to wash away my sins.
I look at the rain that suddenly came out and I think that. Apparently, my heart is so sick that I feel kinder and more comfortable with natural phenomena than humans.
"If you rush to think of something...! Oh, it's really bad! Why did you do this?
When Laura blamed me, she rushed over to Nate and started checking the condition of the wound. Next door, Ceres looks worried as she joins hands.
Looking at the sight, Fufu and Ceres met each other. Ceres stood up powerless as she looked me in the eye and walked over here.
"Hey Richt......! You really wanted this!? What...! Answer me! Richt......!
…………
As she stood silently, unable to say anything, Ceres lifted her eyebrows with a kick and punched me flat in the cheek.
I stopped thinking for a moment, but as soon as I rubbed my tingly sore cheek, I gradually realized that Ceres slapped me in the cheek.
Never before have I lifted my hand to anyone else, and for the first time, she revealed her anger and raised her hand to my brother - I can't believe that fact, and I open my eyes.
Ceres burst into tears in his eyes and glanced at me for a while, his eyes fell down and returned to Nate.
"... good! He's breathing! Somehow, I don't think I need to get fatally hurt! Celeste, get people in here! Because I magically keep first aid!
"Yes!"
Laura, who was checking Nate's condition, gave Ceres instructions and told him to call people.
Ceres crossed by me, but now he left the open space at full speed, without any eye contact, to ignore my presence.