But at just that moment, Humbert’s expression swiftly morphed into one of rage. “Don’t get…cocky!”
His eyes and brows shot up as far as they would go, and a metallic screech escaped between his clenched, bared teeth. Suddenly, the nearly faded blue light pulsed back, dark and ugly.
This time, it was Eugeo’s blade that creaked. The weight on his right arm doubled, and fierce pain shot through his wrist and shoulder. The two cens of advantage he’d held slipped away until their positioning in the clash was where it started.
Where is this strength coming from?! Eugeo wondered, just barely holding his ground. Humbert couldn’t have this kind of physical strength, not with the way he always preened and practiced his forms without ever breaking a real sweat. So if it wasn’t physical might…it had to be the “strength of self-image” that Kirito talked about. Apparently, his point of view that he was naturally superior to others was powerful enough to overcome all of Eugeo’s steady discipline.
He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t bring himself to believe that Stacia, goddess of creation, would implement this law of the universe.
Just then, Humbert’s hair bristled, and he hissed, “Did you really think you could break me with that cheap sneak attack?”
“Ch-cheap…?”
“Of course it is. You pretended you would let yourself get hit, then pulled out that technique without any form or stance at all. If that’s not cheap, what is?”
“N-no! That’s just part and parcel of my style…the Aincrad style!” Eugeo shot back without thinking. If the High-Norkia style placed emphasis on the power and visual of the technique, then the Aincrad style was a practical one that prioritized landing the blow above all else. Of course its skills launched quicker, as it had combination attacks that the other sword schools did not.
The concept of the Aincrad style was exemplified by the life of Kirito, its only adherent. Never bragging, never for show, simply moving headlong toward the goal. Hit a wall and bounce back, again and again. If it weren’t for him, Eugeo would never have even reached Zakkaria, much less Centoria.
So Eugeo’s reaction to Humbert’s assessment of the style was instantaneous. However, the mental response rebounded into his physical body, such that his sword weakened a bit. This time, it was the pale-blue glow surrounding Eugeo’s blade that flickered. He spread his legs, bent back his upper half, and desperately stood his ground.
Humbert leered. In a voice like fingers scraping glass, he jeered, “The miserable cheapness of your style is apparent from your predicament. Perhaps you thought you’d take over Raios’s position or mine in the next testing matches…Well, think again. I’m going to shatter your shoulder so that you won’t swing a sword for a good long while.”
“Rrgh…!”
He gritted his teeth, but Humbert’s sword only got heavier. Even when it met resistance, a sword technique could hold its power for quite a while as long as it was still located in the original path, but the direct vertical pressure of Humbert’s Lightning Slash was pushing him away from the proper trajectory. One more cen—five milices, even—would spell the end of his Slant and doom him to that shoulder wound.
The Swordcraft Academy had an excellent medical facility, of course, replete with healing herbs and an attendant healer with expert knowledge of sacred arts. But there was a limit to what they could do, and unless they used a dangerous art like pouring one’s life directly into that of the injured, there was no way to instantly heal a broken bone, for example. If he suffered such a wound now, he wouldn’t be able to participate in next month’s testing match…
How stupid am I? What swordsman fears injury?!
Eugeo dismissed the fear creeping into his heart and focused his mind on his sword.
He could have chosen to ignore the taunts. It had been his idea to make it a duel. Now he was in danger of losing, rattled by the opponent’s words—how pathetic could he get? He had drawn his blade; after that, he could only use his skill and strength to his best efforts and accept the consequences. That was the mentality of the Aincrad style.
And I still haven’t given him everything I’ve got.
He focused not on Humbert’s sadistic grin but on the wooden sword gripped in his right hand. The firmness and weight of the oak, its curve and grain registered in his arm—he could even feel the faint vibration of the Slant’s dying power.
Make yourself one with the sword, his friend and teacher, Kirito, would always say.
Eugeo couldn’t manage that yet, but thanks to his everyday practice, he could on very rare occasions hear what seemed like the voice of the sword. A voice that said, Not that way, move like this instead.
This was one of those moments.
If he continued to receive the overhand swing from below, he would inevitably be overpowered. A change in technique was needed.
“…Rah!” Eugeo bellowed, a rarity for him. He flicked his wrist, catching Humbert’s sword on the right flat of his own. That action ended his Slant, giving the Lightning Slash a free path toward his right shoulder, roaring bluish-black as it descended.
In one smooth motion, Eugeo slid his sword back atop his shoulder. Immediately, that triggered the Aincrad style’s Vertical.
Humbert’s blade caught the right sleeve of the practice jacket, tearing several cens of the dark-blue fabric.
Suddenly, Eugeo’s sword flashed a brilliant blue again and rocketed back against Humbert with tremendous force.
“Nwah!”
His eyes went wide at this unexpected response. Humbert and Raios knew about the Aincrad style’s combination attacks by now, but they wouldn’t have predicted that they could chain one ultimate attack with another. Even Eugeo hadn’t known about the possibility; he simply moved as his body willed.
Humbert’s sword shot back over fifty cens, the light of the Lightning Slash fading promptly. He lost his balance, and his feet came off the floor.
But fortunately for him—and perhaps for Eugeo—by not staying firm and suffering a blow to the left shoulder, Humbert himself was launched through the air and flew over three mels backward.
A fall would certainly end the duel in Eugeo’s favor, but to Humbert’s stubborn credit, he managed to land on his feet and avoid toppling. He leaned as far as he possibly could, just to keep his balance.
Eugeo knew that if he followed up, he could easily land a blow, but before he could regain his footing, a crisp voice filled the training hall.
“That is enough. We will consider this a draw,” said Raios Antinous theatrically, a smile playing on his red lips.
Humbert stood up straight again and shouted, “B-but, Raios! I…I would never draw with this bumpkin of a—!”
“Humbert,” the first seat reprimanded softly. The other youth abruptly bowed his head. He transferred his sword to his left side and raised his right fist to his chest—the knight’s salute—then turned on his heel without waiting for Eugeo’s response.
From Humbert’s left, Raios glanced at him with that wan smile and made a show of applauding. “Your bizarre techniques were quite entertaining, Disciple Eugeo. Perhaps you should consider petitioning the Imperial Circus for a new calling after graduation.”
“…Your advice is appreciated, Disciple Antinous,” Eugeo replied, intentionally omitting the “first seat” title, but Raios merely nodded amiably and turned for the exit. Humbert followed him, glaring at Eugeo for all he was worth.
Raios’s soft leather practice shoes squeaked on the polished floor as he walked. But just as he passed Eugeo in the center of the hall, he paused and murmured, “Next time, I’ll show you the might of a noble house.”
“…Nothing stopping you from doing it now,” Eugeo retorted, but in truth, he was exhausted after his four hundred swings and the impromptu duel.
Raios merely smirked and continued walking, only to utter an even quieter, “Waving your sword around is not all there is to battle, you nameless buffoon.”
The first seat continued on
his way with a chuckle, followed by the furious Humbert, who passed without comment. Eventually, Eugeo heard the door open and close behind him.
Amid the fresh silence, Eugeo breathed long and deep.
A strength based on a noble’s regard for himself. In his first experience face-to-face with it, Eugeo found that it was much heavier than he expected. If he’d stuck to his Slant, he would have failed and ended up with a broken bone in his shoulder. Part of it was the disadvantage of blocking an overhead strike from below, but that wasn’t all of it. Humbert’s disdain and mockery of Eugeo’s class was like a curse that bound his blade and limbs.
The Aincrad style’s flexibility in producing ultimate techniques from various stances got him out of trouble this time, but tricks and sneakiness weren’t going to help him through all of the upcoming test matches throughout the year. There would come times when he needed to win head-on through sheer strength.
Eugeo had to find something by then. Something he could put into his blade that could counteract the boundless self-confidence that Humbert and Raios wielded.
He lifted the practice sword and traced the wood that he’d treated to such abuse.
“…Thanks. Hope you’ll help me out next time, too.”
Then he put it back on his waist and started walking, just as the bells chimed a quick count for six thirty. Kirito was bound to be getting hungry during his cram session back at the room. Eugeo crossed the pale floorboards, gave the empty training hall a brief salute, then headed for the cafeteria.
After a short hallway, he was back in the elite disciple dorm. There were no private rooms on the first floor, which was reserved for the bathing hall, the cafeteria, and meeting rooms.
In the primary trainee dorm, meals were at fixed times with preplanned daily menus, but the disciples had much more freedom in both regards. The mess hall was open from six to eight, and the cook there would prepare any of a number of rotating dishes to the students’ needs. Not only that, you could eat it there or take it back to your room if you wanted.
Fortunately, Raios and Humbert must have gone into the bath, as the cafeteria was empty. Eugeo walked up to the kitchen counter and checked the day’s menu. The choices for main dish were roast mutton, fried fish, and boiled chicken dumplings.
Let’s see…He’d want the dumplings, a big serving of cheesy vegetables, the pickled ori nuts, and some ice-cold siral water.
Disgruntled that he somehow knew his partner well enough to identify his ideal meal out of the possible choices, Eugeo leaned over the counter to shout into the back.
“Good evening! I’d like two servings to go. For the first one, I’ll have…”
2
Eugeo was prepared for any kind of petty revenge scheme, but for the next few days after the impromptu duel, Raios and Humbert stayed quiet.
When he passed them at the disciples’ dorm or the central building, Humbert would give him a hateful look, but not so much as a word otherwise. Just in case, he told Kirito about the incident at the training hall and warned him to be on guard, but the nobles hadn’t bothered him at all.
“It seems so strange…They’re not the kind of guys who would withdraw and mind their own business after that. And what Raios said sure sounded like a promise for retribution,” Eugeo muttered, leaning back into a leather couch.
Across from him, Kirito held a ceramic cup to his lips. “I don’t think they’ve had a sudden change of heart, either. But if you think about it, it’s got to be difficult to pull off their kind of trick here at this dorm.”
He sipped his cofil tea, black and unsweetened. It was nine thirty at night after a wild week, with the day of rest ahead. They’d finished with their daily practice, dinner, and bath, and at this time on a weekday, they’d be in their beds sleeping—but it had become their custom to spend this one night a week in the common room, sipping tea and talking things over.
Eugeo lifted his own cup, tasted the hot black liquid, and made a face. His partner loved this powdered tea from the southern empire and always prepared it when it was his turn to make the tea, but Eugeo found it too bitter to drink straight. He poured in a large amount of milk from the jar and stirred it in with the little spoon, glancing at Kirito.
The gesture apparently prompted Kirito to ask an unexpected question. “When you were a kid back home in Rulid, what kind of pranks would you play around the school?”
Eugeo took another sip of the cofil tea, which was no longer bitter but rich and fragrant. He shrugged. “I was usually the one on the receiving end. You remember Zink, the chief man-at-arms, who challenged me to a fight before we left? He used to harass me all the time…Hiding my shoes, putting itch-bugs in my lunch, teasing me for hanging out with Alice.”
“Ha-ha-ha, I guess kids do the same things in every world…But he didn’t hit you or anything like that. Right?”
“Of course not,” Eugeo said, wide-eyed. “He could never do such a thing. I mean—”
“The Taboo Index forbids it, exactly. ‘Thou shalt not intentionally damage the life of another without a reason listed elsewhere.’ But…is it okay to hide someone’s shoes? Isn’t stealing also a terrible taboo?”
“Stealing means to take another’s possessions and make them your own without permission. It takes twenty-four hours for the sacred text in the Stacia Window that indicates ownership to pass from person to person once the item has been moved or placed in the other’s home. That’s why, even if you have an agreement to give something to another person, you can still fairly request its return within the day. And if it’s removed without permission, you can place the item anywhere that’s not your own home, which will not overwrite the ownership and thus doesn’t count as stealing. You aren’t telling me…you’ve forgotten such a basic tenet of the law, are you?”
Eugeo stared at Kirito, the infamous lost child of Vecta, but the other boy merely ruffled his black hair and laughed in embarrassment.
“Oh, r-right, of course. No, I haven’t forgotten. I remember…but wait. What about in that story, then? When Bercouli tried to steal the Blue Rose Sword from the dragon’s lair—wasn’t that breaking a taboo?”
“A dragon isn’t a person.”
“Ah…gotcha.”
“Back on topic, while it’s not a taboo to hide someone’s belongings for a prank, if left out in the open on nobody’s territory, the item’s life will start to dwindle, so if it’s not returned before then, that’s damage to another’s property. So no matter what, my shoes would always be back by the evening. But…what does this have to do with Raios and Humbert behaving themselves?” Eugeo wondered.
Kirito blinked, apparently forgetting that he had brought it up in the first place, then said, “Ah, r-right. Um, so my point is, this school has a bunch of its own rules in addition to the Taboo Index, right? And there’s an entry about going into the private rooms of other students or faculty without permission. That means they can’t get in here, and all our property is inside our room. We’d have to forget something important out in a public…space…”
He trailed off for some reason, but then regained his train of thought. “And we haven’t done that, of course. So it’s essentially impossible for Raios and Humbert to play pranks on us the same way that Zink picked on poor little Eugeo back in Rulid Village.”
“Don’t you ‘poor little’ me. Hmm…but now that you mention it, I guess you’re right that at the disciples’ dorm, there’s no way to harass someone worse than simple insults.”
“And if the insult crosses a line, it becomes subject to disciplinary punishment,” Kirito added, grinning.
Disciplinary punishment was a special right of the elite disciples, a kind of staff-proxy authority to uphold the rules. If a student committed some rudeness or slight that was not against the rules but deemed worthy of discipline, the elite disciple could choose to punish the student at his or her own discretion. Kirito himself had recently been the subject of this system, when he got mud on the uniform of Volo Levantein, previ
ous first seat of the academy. Volo used his disciplinary punishment privilege to challenge Kirito to a duel.
This privilege was customarily used on primary and secondary trainees, but there was no stipulation in the school rules that it couldn’t be used against another disciple. So it was theoretically possible for a disciple to punish another disciple, and this was the reason that Raios’s and Humbert’s japes and insults had decreased since the new school year started.
Kirito’s cup was empty, so Eugeo poured him some more tea. This time, his partner drizzled a little milk into it. He swirled the delicate silver spoon with his fingertips, lost in thought.
Eventually, Kirito said, “If they can’t mess with our stuff, then they’ll have to go after us. The most direct method would be starting a duel and landing a blow, but you’ve already proven you can work a draw against them. The only other thing I can imagine is…tempting me with promises of wealth and turning me against you.”
“Huh…?” Eugeo whimpered, then clamped his mouth shut.
But Kirito smirked and boasted, “Have no fear, young man. Big Bro will never abandon you.”
“I—I wasn’t worried about that! But if not money…I wonder if a big plate of Gottoro’s special meat buns would tempt you.”
“That would definitely work,” Kirito admitted, deadly serious, then laughed. “But enough jokes. I think we can rule out the likelihood that they’ll try to mess with us or our belongings.”
Then his expression got tense again. “But that does mean they could try anything that doesn’t fall under the Taboo Index or school rules. I highly doubt they have any intention of handing over the first and second seat…Let me know if there’s anything we’re overlooking, Eugeo.”
“Yeah, I’ll think about it. It’s less than a month to the first testing match, after all. We need to make sure we’re in the best possible condition to face them.”
“Right…On the other hand, maybe they were threatening us with no intent to follow up, just to keep us nervous and on edge. Don’t lose your head—stay cool!” Kirito proclaimed, draining his cup.