Chapter 48

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Between the inner keep and the girls' dormitory was a clearing carved out of the woods. No one had decreed it, but only the academy's more prominent students were allowed to use it.

Boribori was crouched near a patch of thick grass there, gazing at something with an expression of utter contentment.

He had pine nuts and beans in his palm, and a squirrel was eating them. More precisely, it was storing them in its cheeks rather than eating them.

Boribori gently stroked it with his thumb alone. Building trust and forming a bond with an animal that couldn't speak was a truly moving experience.

But a sudden metallic clang startled the squirrel, sending it scurrying away.

CLANG!

Boribori flinched as well and turned around. He saw Ricard and Marie, with the other students watching them.

Ricard casually caught Marie's practice sword as it flew through the air. Holding a sword in each hand, he playfully twirled them and addressed Marie, who was clutching her aching wrist.

"Do you really have to take first place?"

They had done this more than forty times over the past month or so. He had sparred with Marie more often than he had with Ice, Volka, and all the other students combined.

He hadn't paid much attention before, but taking first place seemed to be genuinely important to her.

"Ugh... I told you. That's why I came to the academy."

"Hmm... Then do you want me to just let you have first place?"

"No."

"Then how about aiming for it after I graduate?"

"I'd hate that even more."

What on earth was he supposed to do? Ricard had no intention of losing, and deliberately throwing a match would be an even greater disservice to Marie. He was at a loss.

One thing troubled him: he wanted her to learn something, but that wasn't up to him.

Marie was easygoing and kind, but she had a strong will and knew how to stand up to unfair treatment. And when it came to swordsmanship, she had a certain pride—or stubbornness.

Should he break that stubborn streak and make her come to her senses? Ricard wondered.

"I know it isn't easy to abandon everything you've done and start something new. But it's better to make a start, however slowly. You'll never beat me with attacks that are only fast and strong. What's the hurry?"

At that last question, Marie bit down hard on her lower lip. There seemed to be some story she couldn't tell him, but Ricard had no way of knowing it.

"Again."

Marie's eyes took on their familiar sharpness.

Ricard tossed her the practice sword she had been using. She caught it easily with her uninjured hand.

She assumed her stance again, but this time Ricard took a proper stance as well. For an instant, Marie felt her heart stop.

Normally, he simply stood there awkwardly, as though he knew nothing about swords.

Now he was unmistakably different. He placed one foot ahead of the other, angled his torso toward her, and held his sword beside his face.

Above all, there seemed to be some spell in his cold eyes. Meeting them made her feel as though she might be drawn into them—or frozen where she stood.

And she sensed something like a shimmering energy along the contours of his body.

Marie bit her lip so hard it nearly bled and drew her mana to its limit. Her heart pounded powerfully, sending blood rushing through her veins, carrying strength with it.

Mana reached her fingertips, and her sword began to fill with it as well, as though it were an extension of her limbs.

But mana was a power that required careful handling. It was like rushing water, or a raging fire. Mishandling it could damage blood vessels and even internal organs.

To obtain greater power, one had to handle it forcefully; to avoid harming the body, one had to handle it carefully. Finding that balance was exceedingly difficult.

That made it all the harder to wield in real combat, with one's life on the line.

Marie pushed her power to its utmost limit, then sprang forward explosively, swinging her sword upward at Ricard. The strike was truly lightning-fast, with the weight of a boulder behind it.

But in that brief instant, Ricard shifted slightly to the side and brought his own sword crashing down on hers like a thunderbolt. There was no mana in his blade.

CLANG!

"Aah!"

Sparks flew as the swords collided, and the blunt practice sword broke in two. The shock that tore through Marie's hand was so powerful that she squeezed her eyes shut and dropped to her knees.

"Wow!"

"Hah!"

The watching students couldn't help exclaiming in admiration or drawing sharp breaths. Such a feat would have been difficult even with a sharpened weapon, yet he had broken it in two with a blunt practice sword.

Amazingly, Ricard caught the broken blade tumbling through the air without even looking at it.

Then he looked at the kneeling Marie and spoke.

"There used to be a boy here named Ice. You're like an inferior version of him, Marie. He was quick to realize that attacking as fast and hard as possible wasn't the answer. He just couldn't figure out what came next."

That wasn't what he really thought. In truth, Ricard saw little difference between Ice and Marie. But right now, she seemed to be driven by something.

Being compared to someone else wounded her pride deeply. She lowered her head, hiding her face behind her long hair.

"I don't know who that is."

"That doesn't change anything. You're nowhere near as good as him."

Ricard deliberately spoke coldly, though inwardly he felt sorry. He only hoped that even this might temper her impatience. Only then could she improve.

He tossed the practice sword and the broken blade to the ground, turned, and walked away.

CLATTER.

"Marie..."

Once Ricard had left, Boribori approached her where she still knelt.

"Let me see your hand for a moment."

Head bowed, Marie limply entrusted her hand to him.

Boribori examined her wrist even more carefully than he had handled the squirrel. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be broken.

He took an herb good for bruises from inside his clothes, chewed it thoroughly, and gently applied it to her wrist.

Drops of water fell onto Marie's thighs. They were tears. The wound to her heart seemed to hurt worse than her wrist.

There was nothing Boribori could do about that.

"Do you really have to be first? Giving up on a hopeless dream early is an option too."

Was that supposed to be comforting, or was it his idea of practical advice? Despite her sadness, the absurdity of it made the tearful Marie burst out laughing.

"Heh, heh... Don't make me laugh, Bori."

"Hehehe."

Deciding she wasn't quite so devastated after all, Boribori left her with her female friends and followed Ricard.

Thanks to him, Marie managed to soothe her aching heart enough to get to her feet. When she looked up, the sky was full of dark gray clouds.

Spring rain fell. Marie sat by the window, chin in hand, gazing blankly at the academy's rain-soaked courtyard.

Rivulets formed and streamed into the drains, while boisterous boys ran about laughing loudly, heedless of their wet clothes.

Soon, however, even they went inside the inner keep, leaving the rainy courtyard filled with nothing but loneliness.

Some people's moods rose and fell with the weather, but Marie wasn't one of them.

Now, though, it felt as if rain were falling from an overcast sky inside her heart as well.

Old memories she didn't want to revisit crept through her mind like smoke.

["You must become someone useful. Otherwise, there is no difference to me between you and a beggar on the street."]

Her great-great-great-grandfather's cold words seemed to echo in her ears. That sort of treatment hadn't actually hurt her very much. But there were other words she truly wished she could erase from her memory.

["You're the reason I live like this. You should never have been born. Nobody wanted you."]

Her mother had said that habitually to little Marie, who had done nothing wrong. Every time she heard it, it felt like a knife stabbing her heart.

Perhaps that was why she had devoted herself so fiercely to the sword—to become useful. To become someone who was needed.

Emperor Claudis, known as "the Virile," was famous for his prodigious virility. He had many children, and many bastards as well.

No one knew exactly how many bastards there were. Some said 150, others as many as 400. Marie was one of them.

Both her father and mother were of noble blood, but theirs had been an unblessed union. Her mother had been unmarried, too. It was a birth no one had wanted.

Marie had grown up in the care of her mother's family, a house renowned for swordsmanship. Perhaps because she had sensed how precarious her position was from an early age, she worked harder than anyone, honing her skills day after day without wasting a moment.

Then one day, as she was beginning to earn some recognition for her skill, she learned that the father she had never met had formally acknowledged her. At last, she was given a name and became a member of the imperial family.

Martellia von Nibelinger. That was Marie's full and true name.

Had it made her happy? No. She was still nothing more than a tool of the family.

The higher the nobility, the more ruthlessly and methodically they treated their own family members as tools.

There was no special reason she had been acknowledged. It was simply to show that even members of the imperial family were enrolling in academies, to encourage other nobles to do the same. That was all.

Only then had a thought occurred to Marie. She wanted to escape. She wanted to escape all of this.

When she pleaded with her great-great-great-grandfather, he smiled as though amused.

["There is a prodigy at Beringen Academy. Defeat that boy and take first place, and you may do as you please. But if you cannot defeat him, you must marry him. That is how you can serve me, our house, and the Empire."]

"..."

Rain pattered down as Marie gazed at the academy through half-lidded eyes. Yet even that rain could not wash away the tangled gloom in her heart.

Ricard's cold gaze seemed to hover before her. Every time she remembered it, her heart ached.

To Marie, Ricard was a close friend, a swordsman worthy of respect, and a wall she could never surmount.

This wasn't simply a matter of talent or effort. His strength seemed beyond human limits. Defeating him looked impossible.

The fact that he couldn't even use mana shattered all her preconceptions and made her feel all the more hopeless.

Then what had all her hard work been for? She was supposed to move away from fast, powerful attacks? What did that even mean?

Yet that despair made her strangely happy, set her heart fluttering, and plunged her into boundless melancholy all at once. Because she didn't want to be bound to him that way. Not that way...

Her pride in her swordsmanship, her desire to escape her fate, and her feelings for Ricard each became a chain that bound her.

The weight of the truth she couldn't reveal pressed down on her. Perhaps that was why she even felt hurt and resentful toward Ricard, who had done nothing wrong.

Not even her unhappy past could bring her to tears, yet merely thinking of him made her chest tighten and ache until she felt she might cry. But Marie didn't know what those feelings meant.

The overcast sky brought an early dusk. The dormitory room quickly grew dark, and the other girls began lighting lanterns one by one.

Marie was about to leave the window and head to bed when something caught the corner of her eye.

Two figures were entering the academy through the gate. Who could it be at this hour?

Their cloaks reached their feet and their hoods were pulled low, making them difficult to recognize. But they were a man and a woman, and judging by their height and build, both seemed to be adults.

Standing in the rain in their cloaks, they glanced around the academy courtyard, then headed toward the inner keep.

At that moment, Ricard was on his bed, joking with Boribori and the other boys as they prepared to sleep. Suddenly, someone pounded on the keep's door.

He heard a student from another room running barefoot to answer it. Then the door opened, and he heard outsiders entering.

One of them shouted loudly.

"Riki! Riki!"

All the boys gathered on Ricard's bed turned to look at him at once. Another shout followed.

"Riki! Get out here, you bastard!"

Who on earth was that? Bewildered, Ricard went out in his light clothes. Two people stood in the central hall, soaking wet.

They turned toward him, and when one lowered his hood, a broad smile spread across Ricard's face.

"Volka!"

At his cry, Boribori rushed out, followed by a whole crowd of students who knew Volka. Those who didn't could only look on in bewilderment.

Ricard ran barefoot to embrace him, not caring that he was getting wet.

Volka laughed loudly. He had always been big, but he had grown so much since they last met that he seemed to dwarf most adults.

"Hahaha! Hey, you're not a little kid. What's with jumping on me?"

"Hasn't Riki gotten a little taller?"

The person beside him was Delphi. She was unmistakably a young woman now, with an ease that seemed born of experience.

"What brings you here? Aren't you busy these days?"

Ricard was still smiling broadly as he asked. But Volka looked uncomfortable at the question.

"Well, we're in the same clan, aren't we?"

"Right."

"I'm afraid we need your help. They might start drafting academy students soon, too. We wanted to get you before that."

"... Oh."

It seemed to be because of the guild war. The guild was hardly going to leave a fighting force like Ricard idle. But the Viola clan desperately needed him as well.

Volka and Delphi alone were nowhere near enough to accomplish anything in the war. They couldn't simply tag along with another clan and let themselves be pushed around.

"Sorry it isn't good news. I should've waited until tomorrow to tell you. No, actually, it's pretty urgent. I know it's raining and it's night, but I think we have to go."

"No, it's fine. Just give me a moment. Bori, let's pack."

"Okay."

There was nothing more to say. Ricard went straight to his room and gathered his things. He donned his red cloak and slung his meteoric-iron sword over his shoulder.

Then he and Boribori followed Volka and Delphi outside. The other students simply stood watching, not understanding what was going on.

Ricard had crossed the courtyard and nearly reached the gate when someone called from behind him.

"Riki!"

He turned and, sure enough, there was Marie in her nightclothes, standing in the pattering spring rain.

"Marie?"

"Where are you going?!"

"Uh... Looks like I'll need to use my sword. Sorry about today. I'll go easier next time. Sorry."

"..."

His casual apology made Marie feel as though everything weighing on her heart had been washed clean away. A single look from him had wounded her; a single word felt as though it had cured a terrible illness.

Without realizing it, she stood there dazed in the rain. Then she suddenly came to her senses and shouted.

"Wait a moment! I'm coming too!"

With that, she went back into the girls' dormitory.

"Who's that?"

Volka asked, puzzled.

"Oh, she's a new student. She's decent with a sword, but in actual combat... I'm not sure."

"I can tell just by looking," Delphi said.

"Huh? Tell what?"

"Never mind. It's not my place to say. You really are a heartbreaker, Riki."

"Huh? Me?"

Ricard was dumbfounded by the unexpected accusation. In any case, Marie soon returned with her things.

Whether bringing her along was a good idea or not, the five of them left the academy together.

Spring rain fell. Rain fell in their hearts as well. But the world gave them no time to be gloomy or sad.