SLO Chapter 29

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[A Distant Back]

(Dan Side)

Before leaving the Marshall Duchy, I’d had no idea the world was so big.

In the Marshall Duchy, it was all about fighting for survival.

You lose, you die… even Dad, whom I respected the most in the world, had had to sacrifice his life to protect the territory because he wasn’t strong enough.

I grew up believing that strength was the sole proof of oneself. Without strength, you wouldn’t be able to protect yourself, let alone your loved ones.

Yet I had lost to that guy.

Thankfully, it was just a mock match, so I was able to keep my life and still had the chance to feel vexed over it.

So I decided to do some self-reflection.

My defeat… had been caused by my inability to gauge my opponent’s true abilities. I had judged him simply based on his looks and even thought of going easy on him.

I had been careless and conceited.

Fully believing I could defeat him without any idea of his abilities… that was really…

“Stupid of me.”

My goal was still the same: To win the Sword Emperor Cup. To that end, I needed to become stronger.

And what should I do to become stronger? The only idea this stupid brain of mine could come up with was to wake up and train earlier than the others.

After doing a light run as a warm-up, I began to swing my sword.

I performed the forms of Marshall-style swordsmanship one by one, and as I got absorbed into it, my mind became rid of needless thoughts and worries. It was the best feeling ever.

Ever since coming to the academy, I had been able to eat as much as I wanted and my body had grown slightly bigger.

I’d also chosen subjects related to combat and magic. I’d been finding them really useful in helping me become stronger faster.

One day, on my way to where I usually do my morning practice, I came across him.

The guy whom I had lost to. Ever since that day, I had been unable to take my eyes off him.

Luc Hugaro Deskustos, son of Duke Deskustos.

He was the enemy of the lady I served, Lyncean Sword Marshall, daughter of Duke Marshall, and the opponent I had to defeat someday.

It was dawn and the sun hadn’t even risen yet, but he was already out and about. I decided to stealthily follow him from a distance, suspecting he was up to something bad. Though, in the corner of my mind, I knew my suspicion was unfounded.

After a short walk, he headed to a slightly big open space and started training.

He practiced martial arts… I had heard that some adventurers referred to themselves as martial artists, practitioners of martial arts that could defeat monsters without any weapons, using only their bodies, but he was the only person I had ever seen actually practicing it.

His movements were sophisticated, I couldn’t spot any waste in them.

“How beautiful.”

Martial arts were meant for fighting. Yet the way he performed them made them look like dance moves, smooth and uninhibited. It showed his high level of mastery.

I couldn’t avert my eyes… I was fascinated… I was overwhelmed.

“I can’t defeat him.”

Heck, I couldn’t even imagine myself putting a scratch on him.

I had faulted my losing consciousness on my lack of experience with magic.

But from watching his now I understood, with his mastery of martial arts, he didn’t even need magic to knock me out cold.

“Looks, strength, magic…”

He got everything.

What about me?

My hair was short and unkempt.

My clothes were all wrinkled up since I didn’t know how to properly do the laundry, having used to rely on Mom only.

And I knew only two ways to become stronger: Marshall-style swordsmanship and magic… the latter I was having a difficult time understanding, too.

“Haha, he’s superior to me in everything.”

I understood now.

Luc was a noble scion, but that didn’t make him slack on training. He worked super hard on it, in fact.

A lower-leveled person normally couldn’t defeat a higher-leveled one because the increase in level brought about with it the increase in physical abilities.

But thanks to his training, he was strong enough to overturn that level difference.

He was more handsome than me, stronger than me, better at magic comprehension than me, and smarter than me.

He was way, way ahead of me.

“Heh, he’s so far away I can’t see his back.”

He was a big and tall wall, but I must knock him over for the Marshall House.

“I swear I will surpass you. Be it in magic, combat, or academics, just you wait!”

Having set such a big goal for myself, I began to pay attention to things I didn’t until then.

As such, I found out.

That the world was big… just martial arts alone was super difficult.

When I tried to copy Luc’s moves, they didn’t come out as beautifully as his.

I was apparently more suited to use brute force.

I couldn’t be as skillful as Luc. But that didn’t mean the efforts were fruitless.

Thanks to them, I was able to devise a fighting style that better suited me.

As for Magic, it was just as–no, even more difficult than martial arts. Through my studies, I came to realize my magic resistance was too weak.

If Luc had gone all out and used magic, I would have been defeated in an instant.

I must improve my magic resistance.

Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to resist Luc’s attribute magic. He had a huge amount of mana.

I had to work on my attribute magic, too. Up until now, I had only been using it to amplify my body strengthening.

I got to figure out more ways to use it. To that end, I had to study magic more.

I was severely lacking in my knowledge of the ways of the world, too. The more I listened to the professors in classes, the more I realized how ignorant and how much of a bumpkin I was.

“I see you’ve been studying a lot these days, Dan. You used to hate it, so why?”

Lady Lyncean, who picked mostly combat and magic classes as I did, called out to me.

“I want to become strong.”

“Hmm? You study because you want to become strong?”

“That’s right. Training your body and learning magic are important.

“But without the smarts to make the best use of them, I won’t be able to beat him.”

“Him? Oh, you mean Deskustos…. Are you going to challenge him to a Ranked Match again?”

Lady Lyncean made a worried face.

I knew it.

Even she didn’t believe I could beat Luc…

“Not now. As I’m now, I have no chance to defeat him.

“But tomorrow I’ll be stronger than I’m today.

“I’m going to catch up to him step by step and one day, I’ll defeat him.”

At my words, Lady Lyncean’s worried look disappeared, only to be replaced by a proud one.

“Yeah, I’m sure you can do it! But of course, I’m not going to let myself fall behind.”

“Sure, but my lady, did you forget? We still have scores to settle. I’m going to challenge you to a Ranked Match one of these days.”

“Mhm, I’ll take you on anytime. I’m looking forward to it.”

Lady Lyncean had a better understanding of magic than I did.

She could better use her attribute magic and had more mana than I did.

I’d say my chance of defeating her was fifty-fifty.

“The world sure is big. There’s a lot of strong guys out there.”

The combat classes not only taught various combat techniques but also tactics and strategies useful in combat. We had a mock battle in one of them, and I was paired against Ruby, an adventurer.

“You can’t defeat me-nya.”

“No, I will defeat you!”

Ruby wielded daggers. Her movements were so fast that I couldn’t keep up. No matter how many times I challenged her, I couldn’t defeat her, not even once.

I had only ever had knights as my training partners, so I had a hard time following her fighting style that didn’t follow any regular patterns.

The magic classes were not much different than the combat ones. Besides having classroom lectures, we also had a lot of practical lessons.

On an offensive magic lesson, I was pitted against the princess.

“You are quite adept at body strengthening, but you need to work harder at everything else.”

I quickly lost.

The magical barriers I had created using attributeless magic couldn’t last even a moment against her attribute magic, [Ice].

I sucked at controlling mana and my mana pool was pitiful compared to hers, so the result was only natural.

Be it Ruby or the princess, I couldn’t match up to them.

And Luc Hugaro Deskustos was way stronger than them.

Remembering his distant back, I stood up again today.

“I will definitely catch up with you and defeat you.”

In addition to receiving knighthood, surpassing him was now another goal of mine.

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