Chapter 48

Chapter 48: Chapter 48

Between the inner castle and the girls’ dormitory was a clearing created by cutting back the forest. No one had officially designated it as such, but it was a place reserved for the Academy’s so-called elite students.

Boribori was crouched near a patch of tall grass, gazing at something with an utterly contented expression.

Pine nuts and beans rested on his palm, and a squirrel was eating them. More precisely, it was storing them in the pouches on both sides of its mouth rather than eating them.

Boribori carefully stroked the squirrel using only his thumb. Building trust and forming a bond with an animal that could not speak was a truly moving experience.

Then the sudden clang of metal startled the squirrel, sending it scurrying away.

Clang!

Boribori flinched as well and turned around.

He saw Rickart and Marie, along with a group of students watching them.

Rickart casually caught Marie’s practice sword as it spun through the air. Holding a sword in each hand, he playfully twirled them and spoke to Marie, who was clutching her wrist in pain.

"Do you absolutely have to take first place?"

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

He had not paid much attention to it before, but taking first place seemed genuinely important to Marie.

"Ugh... I told you. That’s why I came to the Academy."

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

"I don’t want that."

"Then why not wait until after I graduate?"

"I want that even less."

What exactly did she expect him to do?

Rickart had no intention of losing, and deliberately letting Marie win would be even crueler to her. He found himself at a loss.

One thing bothered him: he wanted Marie to learn something new, but that was not for Rickart to decide.

Marie was easygoing and kind, but she possessed a strong will and knew how to resist injustice. Furthermore, when it came to swordsmanship, she had her own pride—or perhaps stubbornness.

Should he crush that stubbornness?

Should he force her to come to her senses?

Those thoughts crossed Rickart’s mind.

"I know it won’t be easy to abandon everything you’ve done until now and begin something new, but it would still be better to start, even if you take it slowly. You’ll never defeat me with attacks that are merely fast and powerful. Why are you in such a hurry?"

At the question, Marie bit down hard on her lower lip.

She seemed to have a story she could not tell, but Rickart had no way of knowing what it was.

"Again."

Marie spoke with her characteristic fierce gaze.

Rickart tossed her the practice sword she had originally been using. Marie caught it lightly with her uninjured hand.

She assumed her stance again.

This time, Rickart also adopted a proper stance.

For a moment, Marie felt as though her heart had stopped.

Normally, Rickart merely stood awkwardly as though he knew nothing about swords.

Now he was unmistakably different.

He placed one leg ahead of the other, turned his upper body diagonally toward his opponent, and held his sword beside his face.

More than anything, his cold eyes seemed imbued with some strange magic. Meeting his gaze made Marie feel as though she were being drawn into them—or as though her entire body were freezing.

She could also sense something like a blazing energy following the contours of Rickart’s body.

Marie bit her lip hard enough to nearly draw blood.

Then she drew her Mana to its absolute limit.

Her heart pounded powerfully, sending blood surging through her veins and carrying strength throughout her body.

The Mana reached her fingertips, and her sword began absorbing it as though it were another limb extending from her body.

However, Mana was a power that had to be handled carefully.

It was like raging water and roaring fire.

If mishandled, it could damage the blood vessels and even injure the internal organs.

To obtain greater power, one had to handle it aggressively. To avoid damaging the body, one had to handle it cautiously.

Finding the balance between those two requirements was exceedingly difficult.

That made Mana even harder to control in a real battle, where one’s life hung in the balance.

Marie drew forth every last ounce of strength she possessed and burst forward explosively. She swung her sword upward at Rickart.

Her attack was as swift as lightning, and the power behind it was as heavy as a boulder.

Yet within that brief instant, Rickart shifted slightly to the side and brought his sword down upon Marie’s with lightning speed.

His sword contained no Mana.

Claaang!

Sparks flew when the two swords collided.

Then the blunt practice sword snapped in two.

The impact transmitted through Marie’s hand was so intense that she squeezed her eyes shut and collapsed onto her knees.

"Whoa!"

The watching students involuntarily cried out in admiration or gasped.

Splitting a weapon in two was difficult even with a sharpened blade, yet Rickart had done it with a blunt practice sword.

Even more astonishingly, Rickart casually caught the broken blade as it spun through the air without even looking at it.

Then he looked down at the kneeling Marie.

"There used to be a student here named Ice. Marie, you seem like an inferior version of her. Ice quickly realized that attacking with nothing but speed and strength wasn’t enough. She simply failed to find the answer afterward."

Despite what he said, Rickart did not truly believe it.

In his eyes, there was little difference between Ice and Marie.

However, Marie currently seemed as though something were chasing her.

Being compared to someone else wounded Marie’s pride deeply. She lowered her head, concealing her face behind her long hair.

"I don’t know who she is."

"That doesn’t matter. You’re still far inferior to her."

Rickart deliberately spoke coldly.

He felt sorry inside.

Still, even if he had to do it this way, he hoped to ease some of her impatience.

Only then would she be able to improve.

Rickart threw the practice sword and the broken blade onto the ground before turning and walking away.

Clatter.

"Marie..."

After Rickart left, Boribori approached Marie, who was still kneeling.

"Let me see your hand for a moment."

With her head lowered, Marie weakly entrusted her hand to Boribori.

Boribori examined her wrist even more carefully than he had handled the squirrel.

Fortunately, nothing appeared to be broken.

He took an herb used to treat bruises from inside his clothes and chewed it thoroughly. Then he carefully applied it to Marie’s wrist.

But drops of water began falling onto Marie’s thigh.

They were tears.

It seemed that the wound to her heart hurt more than the pain in her wrist.

That was not something Boribori could treat.

"Do you really have to take first place? Giving up on a futile dream early is also an option."

Whether he meant it as consolation or practical advice, Marie found his words so absurd that she burst out laughing despite her sadness.

"Hehehe... Don’t make me laugh, Bori."

"Hehehe."

Boribori decided that Marie was not quite as devastated as she appeared. He left her with her female friends and followed Rickart.

Thanks to him, Marie managed to collect herself and rise to her feet.

When she looked up, the sky was filled with gray clouds.

Spring rain began to fall.

Marie sat beside the window with her chin resting on her hand, staring blankly at the rain falling across the Academy courtyard.

Puddles formed and overflowed into the drainage channels. Energetic boys ran around laughing loudly, unconcerned about their clothes becoming soaked.

Soon, however, even they entered the inner castle.

The rain-soaked courtyard was left filled with nothing but loneliness.

Some people’s moods rose and fell with the weather, but Marie was not normally like that.

At that moment, however, it felt as though rain were falling beneath the cloudy sky of her heart as well.

Old memories she did not want to recall began rising through her mind like creeping smoke.

You must become someone useful. Otherwise, there is no difference to me between you and a beggar lying in the street.

The cold words of her great-great-great-grandfather seemed to echo in her ears.

Being treated that way had not wounded her particularly deeply.

But there were other words she truly wished she could erase from her memory.

You’re the reason I have to live like this. You should never have been born. No one in this world wanted you.

Her mother had habitually said such things to the young Marie, even though Marie had done nothing wrong.

Every time she heard those words, it felt as though a blade were piercing her chest.

Perhaps that was why she had devoted herself so desperately to the sword—to become useful and to become someone others needed.

Claudius, known as the "Virile Emperor," was famous for his prodigious sexual appetite. He had many legitimate children and numerous illegitimate children as well.

No one knew exactly how many illegitimate children he had. Some claimed there were one hundred and fifty, while others said there were as many as four hundred.

Marie was one of them.

Both her father and mother possessed noble blood, but their union had not been blessed. Her mother had also been unmarried.

Marie’s was a birth no one had wanted.

She had been raised under the protection of her maternal family, a renowned house of swordsmanship.

Perhaps because she had sensed the precariousness of her position from an early age, Marie worked harder than anyone else. She never wasted a moment and honed her skills day after day.

Then, just as her abilities were beginning to receive recognition, she heard that the father she had never met had formally acknowledged her.

Only then did she receive a proper name and become a member of the Imperial Family.

There appeared to be two people outside.

They wore cloaks as they crossed the Academy courtyard through the rain and headed toward the inner castle.

At that moment, Rickart was sitting on his bed with Boribori and the other boys, joking around as they prepared to sleep.

Suddenly, someone pounded heavily on the inner castle door.

Rickart heard a student from another room running barefoot down the corridor.

The door soon opened, followed by the sounds of outsiders entering.

Then one of them shouted loudly,

"Ricky! Ricky!"

Every boy gathered around Rickart’s bed turned toward him at once.

The voice rang out again.

"Ricky! Get out here, you bastard!"

Who in the world was that?

Bewildered, Rickart went outside in light clothing.

There, in the central hall, he saw two people standing completely drenched.

They turned toward Rickart.

When one of them removed his hood, a broad smile spread across Rickart’s face.

"Volka!"

At the sound of that name, Boribori immediately rushed outside. The other students who knew Volka also came pouring out, while those who did not know him could only stare in confusion.

Rickart ran over barefoot and embraced him, not caring that his own clothes were getting wet.

Volka laughed loudly.

He had always been large, but during the time they had been apart, he had grown so much that he seemed capable of overwhelming an average adult.

"Hahaha! Hey, you’re not a little kid anymore. Why are you throwing yourself at me?"

"Doesn’t Ricky look a little taller?"

The person beside him was Delphy.

She had now unmistakably grown into a young lady, and she carried herself with the relaxed confidence of experience.

"What brings you here? Haven’t you been busy lately?"

Rickart asked, still smiling broadly.

At the question, however, Volka made an awkward expression.

"Well, we’re members of the same clan."

"That’s right."

"It looks like we need your help. The Academy students might be mobilized soon anyway, so we came to take you with us before that happens."

"...Ah."

It seemed to be because of the guild war.

From the guild’s perspective, there was no chance they would allow a force like Rickart to remain idle.

However, the Viola Clan was also in desperate need of Rickart.

Volka and Delphy alone were nowhere near enough to accomplish anything in a war.

They could not merely attach themselves to another clan and allow themselves to be pushed around.

"Sorry I didn’t bring good news. I should’ve told you tomorrow. No, actually, this is urgent. Even though it’s raining and already nighttime, I think we need to leave now."

"No, it’s fine. Wait here for a moment. Bori, let’s pack."

"Okay."

There was no need for further discussion.

Rickart immediately returned to his room and packed his belongings. He put on his red cloak and slung his meteorite-iron sword over his shoulder.

Then he and Boribori followed Volka and Delphy outside.

The students had no idea what was happening and could only stand there watching in confusion.

Rickart had crossed the courtyard and nearly reached the castle gate when someone called out behind him.

"Ricky!"

Rickart turned around.

Sure enough, it was Marie, dressed in her pajamas and standing beneath the pattering spring rain.

"Marie?"

"Where are you going?"

"Uh... It looks like I’ll have to use my sword. I’m sorry about today. I’ll go easier on you next time. Sorry."

"..."

It was a casual apology without any deeper meaning.

Yet Marie felt as though the frustration weighing upon her heart had been washed clean.

A single look from him had made her heart ache, and one sentence from him now felt as though it had cured a terrible illness.

Without realizing it, Marie stood blankly in the rain.

Then she suddenly came to her senses and shouted,

"Wait for me! I’m coming too!"

She immediately ran back into the girls’ dormitory.

"Who was that?"

Volka asked in confusion.

"Oh, she’s a new student. Her swordsmanship is decent, but I’m not sure how useful she’ll be in a real battle."

"I could tell at a glance."

Delphy spoke.

"Hm? Tell what?"

"Never mind. This isn’t something I should say aloud. You really are a bad boy, Ricky."

"Huh? Me?"

Rickart was utterly bewildered at being called a bad boy out of nowhere.

In any case, Marie soon returned with her belongings packed.

They did not know whether they were allowed to do this, but with Marie joining them, the five left the Academy together.

Spring rain fell.

Rain fell within their hearts as well.

But the world gave them no time to feel gloomy or sad.