Chapter 260 : Chapter 260
Chapter 260. Overloading (15)
The girl with water-colored hair draped across her cheeks forced open her heavy eyelids and blinked dazedly.
The world was lying on its side. It seemed she had collapsed limply onto the ground.
Right before her sideways gaze lay her own gauntleted hand.
She hadn't let go of the sword, but that was all. She no longer had the strength to so much as twitch a finger. The weight of the silver armor she wore to protect her body felt as though it was crushing her frail frame instead.
Ah, I see.
Only then did the girl with water-colored hair open her eyes a bit wider, remembering the current situation. She had lost the public sparring match. Utterly and wretchedly.
"Well now, I trust that little exhibition made things clear?"
At the sudden haughty female voice, the girl struggled to turn her head and look.
Footsteps clicked above her motionless head, and a familiar female silhouette appeared. The breeze off the lake swept gently past her hair.
Standing with the brilliant summer sun of Rhodes at her back, treading the arena floor in high heels and a sheer dress, was Penny.
Penny swept her blonde twin buns up and strode over. Before the water-haired girl could even open her mouth, Penny brushed past her own retainer knight with a cold air.
Penny snatched the longsword the retainer knight had planted in the ground as a courtesy to his defeated sparring partner, and with a sharp ring, aimed it straight down at the fallen girl.
Startled by her impulsive action, the retainer knight reached out to stop her.
"Lady Penny. It's dangerous for someone without training to handle a sword......"
But the knight froze in his tracks. Penny's eyes, glancing back at him, were gleaming with icy intensity.
Cowed by her force of will, the Guardian Knight could only scratch the back of his helm and take a step back.
Having silenced the knight without a word, Penny dangled the sword over the girl and spoke, enunciating each syllable.
"You should understand well enough by now, I'd think."
"What do you mean?"
"You still don't see? Can you not see yourself, lying there so pathetically?"
Penny glanced at the scenery around them, sword still aimed, and added.
"Now all of Rhodes knows. That your dream is nothing but a pipe dream."
The girl looked around as well.
Above the public sparring arena of Rhodes, countless spectators murmured, gazing down at her with pity. The girl with water-colored hair could say nothing and averted her eyes from their sympathetic stares.
Looking down at her, Penny covered her mouth with one hand and let out a derisive smile.
"Oh my, too badly beaten to even speak? To think the rising star of noble society — once called a flower upon a cliff — would put on such a humiliating display."
"That's, the way it is."
"Well, I suppose it was only the natural outcome. By now, you must know where you truly belong, even without me saying it."
Penny leaned down and looked at the girl.
"You have no talent for the sword."
"......"
"If you truly had talent, you wouldn't have been humiliated this badly in front of so many people."
"Humiliation, you say — it was a perfectly fine sparring match that stoked the competitive spirit between knights, wasn't it?"
Just then, a voice from the side drew every pair of eyes toward it. The girl turned, and her eyes widened in surprise.
Framed against the entrance of the arena and the blue summer sky thick with billowing clouds stood the red-haired female knight. She strode without hesitation toward the two girls on the arena floor.
"Arranging a public sparring match between a training knight who hasn't yet become a full Guardian Knight and a retired Guardian Knight who once served as color-bearer — all to ignite the growth drive in the next generation of Guardian Knights."
The female knight added with a respectful bow.
"How very fitting of you, Lady Penny — said to be the most distinguished among the noble ladies of Rhodes."
Penny lifted her chin slightly and looked the female knight squarely in the eye, then nodded.
"Oh, so you're the assigned instructor? The current color-bearer of the Knight Order. I've heard you're the second strongest after the Knight Commander."
"I'm honored to hear such words from you, Lady Penny."
Penny seemed pleased by her courteous manner and looked the instructor up and down before remarking.
"Ah. Come to think of it, I've heard through noble society's rumor mill that you're exceptionally beautiful, even among the female knights. It would seem that's true."
"Oh? Is that so?"
"Yes. So rather than wasting your talents training that useless training knight, wouldn't your abilities be better spent elsewhere? With your outstanding looks, perhaps you'd consider making appearances in noble society alongside me?"
The instructor leisurely stroked her chin, strode right up, leaned her upper body slightly forward, and peered down at Penny from close range.
"Hmm, is that so? Personally, I think Lady Penny, who's just debuted in noble society, looks far more young and beautiful."
"R-really?"
The instructor didn't stop there. She closed the distance until they could feel each other's breath and stared at Penny for a long while.
Unable to endure the sudden proximity of the female knight gazing at her so intently, Penny's expression turned flustered, her face went scarlet, and she backed away.
"Ugh. Wait, you're too close!"
"Oh, your face has gone completely red. Is something wrong?"
"Th-this is going to get me slandered! If someone sees this and spreads a rumor that my tastes lean toward women, that kind of embarrassment would be......"
But the instructor shook her head.
"Hmm, if we're talking embarrassment, someone wearing a dress like that in this arena would be far more susceptible. You might end up publicly embarrassed just like the training knight you just mentioned, Lady Penny."
"What? Me, embarrassed? Wh-what do you mean?"
Penny glanced down at the girl with water-colored hair and exclaimed.
"What does clothing have to do with it? Are you saying I'd be more embarrassed than a training knight who lost a match everyone was watching? That's absurd!"
The red-haired female knight let a faint, amused smile play across her lips as she spread both arms wide and added.
"Did you know? Unlike a ballroom, this arena is the place where many Guardian Knights normally sweat and spar together. As such, it was built in the windiest spot in all of Rhodes — where the most refreshing breeze blows."
"Wh-what? I see. And?"
"Well, it just so happens that right about now is when the most refreshing breeze picks up."
At that very moment, a whooshing gust blew through. Penny's short dress with its deep side slit rippled once — then was swept upward entirely.
Penny appeared to realize what had happened a beat too late. With a "KYAAA!" she shrieked and slammed her skirt down with both hands.
At the same time, quite an enthusiastic cheer erupted from the spectator stands.
Hearing the crowd's reaction, the instructor grinned as if to say: told you so.
"So you see. When someone in a short dress rather than armor visits the arena, these things happen."
With the noble lady still pressing down her skirt before her, the red-haired female knight dropped to a crouch, knelt right down, and casually peeked under the hem. "I see, so this is what undergarments designed for such dresses look like — quite a daring design," she murmured, nodding with interest.
"KYAAA, what are you DOING?!"
Penny, utterly flustered and flushed with mortification, swatted at the knight's head with her hands, but the female knight paid it no mind and simply grinned.
"Well, what's the harm? Lady Penny is normally an unapproachable noble lady of high standing, and an alluring beauty to boot. I'm sure many people of Rhodes would enjoy this kind of fan service."
"Are you insane?! Wh-who said anything about fan service?!"
The female knight slowly rose to her feet. In her hand, she had already smoothly relieved Penny of the longsword she had been holding.
"Oh, my. When did you take the sword......"
"What elegant hands, as expected."
As Penny wore a look of shock, the female knight — still in the fluid motion of having taken the sword — naturally grasped Penny's immaculate hand and looked down at it.
"But there is a beauty that hands like these — hands that know only nobility and softness — could never understand."
"Hands? What do you......"
The instructor wordlessly gestured toward the girl with water-colored hair, who was rising behind her.
Only then did Penny see the girl's delicate hands, stained red with bruises, blood, and wounds. She lowered her gaze, folded her arms, and turned her head aside.
"H-hmph. Even so. If nothing can come of such brutal effort in the end, what meaning or answer could possibly be found in that?"
"Who knows. But at the end of that effort, something that might change the world may yet be born."
The instructor gazed steadily at the girl who had just risen to her feet, her expression earnest, and added.
"At the very least, that is what I believe."
***
The lake's water reflected the sparkling sunlight, forming clear ripples as it flowed.
The summer of Rhodes flowed too, giving way to winter.
Even as the seasons of the past shifted before Enoch's eyes, there remained something in Rhodes that never changed.
Before he knew it, the girl with water-colored hair had become a Guardian Knight, clad in silver armor with a blue cloak draped over her shoulders.
But still, her muscle would not build.
Even during regular training, wearing a helm was such a struggle that all she could manage was a sleek, silver tiara-shaped ornament with wing-like extensions on either side.
The image was beautiful and elegant, but at the same time, there was a fragility to it unbefitting of a knight.
Ceaselessly swinging her two-handed sword, dripping with sweat from exhaustion yet bracing the sword against the ground to stand again — an endless cycle. Days of suffering and endurance flowed on.
Enoch quietly watched the Sword Saint, whose skill refused to grow no matter how much she polished her swordsmanship.
"......"
There was something about that sight he could strangely relate to.
Hadn't Enoch himself shut himself away in the training ground, swinging his sword alone in solitude to change the fate determined for his future?
And yet, the path toward the Sword Saint had not opened for him either.
"Ngh."
When the past Sword Saint once again braced her sword against the ground and fell to her knees, Enoch saw a reflection of his own present self in her. Without meaning to, he turned his head away to avoid looking.
And right then, the familiar female knight's voice rang across the terrace where the girl had been training.
"That's enough. Stop there."
On the terrace overlooking the lake of Rhodes, where autumn leaves drifted on the wind.
The instructor, who had been sitting at the chess table watching the girl collapse and rise and swing her sword for dozens of hours without stopping, spoke indifferently.
"At this rate you'll train yourself to death. That kind of self-punishment is certainly not something just anyone can do, but if you don't ease up, you'll die."
"......Was I, that absorbed?"
"Very. Why don't you go play in the lake for a bit? Cool your head. Then let's play a game of chess. You've pushed too hard."
But the girl, still sitting on the ground with her sword braced, quietly shook her head at those words.
"I'm fine. The lake is...... not really."
"Why? Bad memories?"
"It's......"
The girl quietly lowered her head. She hesitated multiple times, swallowing her words, then slowly began to speak of the past.
The day of Suleiman's 0th Unit's attack. How her Nanny — as good as a mother to her — had pushed her into the lake to save her.
Even as she spoke, the painful memory surfacing made her bite her lip softly.
It was still so vivid. The deep lake, pulling her under. No matter how much she struggled, everything simply flowed away — the terror of the water filling every direction, carrying her off.
"Ever since then, I've been afraid of Rhodes' lake. Of water."
"Hmm. A Guardian Knight of Rhodes afraid of the lake. The irony couldn't be more complete."
The instructor tilted her head with an indifferent expression.
"But from what I can see, what you're really afraid of isn't quite that."
"What do you mean?"
"You've been anxious ever since hearing about Suleiman's Mages. You're consumed by the thought that you need to grow stronger before the enemy invades, aren't you?"
"That's not wrong."
The girl with water-colored hair nodded faintly.
"In truth, there's no telling when Suleiman, with their powerful Mages, might attack. If I don't grow stronger faster, Rhodes itself could be in danger."
"True. And they'll only keep getting stronger."
The instructor spun the chess piece between her slender fingers and let out a small sigh.
"On top of that, from what I've heard about magic, it's closer to a systematized discipline that most people can learn. That's what's most frightening about it."
"What do you mean?"
"It means that most people in the world will have an easy means of gaining powerful strength — of realizing their ideals and desires."
"Is that fundamentally different from the sword? Simply obtaining power is the same for the sword as well."
"It's very different."
The instructor lifted the sword she had propped beside her chair onto her knees and drew it partway.
"For someone alive today, the sword might be a dream and an ideal. Like you right now, my lady, seeking to achieve your goal by becoming a Sword Saint."
Gazing at her own eyes reflected in the silver-white blade, the red-haired female knight murmured quietly.
"But the dream and ideal of the Sword Saint is like the stars in the night sky — reaching out to claim them as your own is endlessly close to impossible."
"And magic?"
"Magic is different. Magic can pull the stars of the heavens down to the lowest place and put them within reach."
"That's rather abstract. Is it just idealism?"
"I'm talking about what lies beyond that, my lady."
The instructor smiled, slid her half-drawn sword back into its scabbard with a sharp click, and braced it against the ground.
Her gaze grew distant, as if peering into a far-off future, and she stared out the window at the vivid blue summer sky. Arms crossed, she murmured in a fleeting voice.
"In just a few decades, an age of magic may dawn. A civilization of magic built upon the transcendence of human strength and the laws of nature."
"An age of magic......"
The girl, who had been imagining the distant future carried in the instructor's words, slowly lowered her lashes.
"If such days truly come."
The girl glanced up at the longsword she had been bracing against the ground from her kneeling position.
"The sword will ultimately become a relic of the old world."
"Well, I do wonder whether even a 1st Rank Mage could defeat someone who has reached the Sword Saint's realm."
"I know that. But at this rate, just vaguely putting in effort — I'm no longer certain it will ever bring me even one step closer to the Sword Saint's realm."
The instructor watched her for a moment, then shifted her gaze to the chessboard and picked up a Pawn.
"My lady, did you know that the most essential thing for reaching the Sword Saint's realm is to hold an ideal?"
"......An ideal."
"Yes. To possess an ideal that shines like the stars in the night sky, and to project it onto the sword."
The instructor wedged the Pawn between her fingers and pointed it straight at the girl.
"That's why you're trying to become a Sword Saint, isn't it? Because you have an ideal. Even though you're still a fledgling Guardian Knight, like this Pawn."
"......I don't know about that. I simply hold on to hope. Because I have a reason why I must become a Sword Saint."
"That's exactly it. A reason that simple is enough."
The instructor smiled and leaned back against her chair.
"They say the most important thing for reaching the Sword Saint's realm is knowing who you are and what you hold as your ideal."
The instructor looked the girl straight in the eye.
"Remember this. The power of the human spirit is the possibility of a new world."
"......"
The instructor rose from her seat, walked to the girl, and tapped her chest with her fist.
"In the end, to realize your ideal — make it clear who you are and what you want."
"I — the ideal I wish to achieve with my sword is——"
The moment the girl with water-colored hair spoke those words and opened her mouth to continue, a bead of clear sweat that had trailed down her cheek gathered and fell to the floor.
A cold drop landed on Enoch's cheek.
That brought his consciousness back a little.
Sirocco was frantically shaking his body. Her wide, round eyes spilled tears ceaselessly as she shouted something at Enoch.
Unlike her usually bright and cheerful self, Sirocco's crimson eyes had lost their spark, dulled by shock.
Then a dark shadow fell over Sirocco's head. The Master Class Magical Beast leveled the sharp tip of its Carapace Lance at the back of Sirocco's neck, as if refusing to let her escape.
It was going to harm Sirocco. Even though she had already lost her will to fight.
Sirocco reached out toward Enoch without a single thought for her own body.
A pain like something gouging out his chest descended upon him.
"———!"
He couldn't hear. Sirocco's voice grew more and more distant, as if submerging into water. He felt the icy hand of a reaper burrowing into the nape of his neck.
As if sinking beneath the water. As the girl with water-colored hair had once sunk into the deep lake of Rhodes in the distant past, so too did his consciousness drown.
"———!"
His consciousness dissolved and sank into deep darkness. His eyelids grew unbearably heavy.
Just then, he felt a small impact against his chest. He clung to consciousness on the very brink of extinction and cracked his eyes open.
Within his sinking, settling consciousness, a girl with red hair was burying her face into Enoch's chest. Clinging desperately to his consciousness as it plummeted into the abyss, she screamed something.
Sirocco's voice, choked with sobs, suddenly rang in his eardrums as if pouring directly in.
"Don't you die! You haven't even started anything yet! So! Don't you dare leave me alone!"
His heart gave a single THUMP. His eyes flew open. Desperately grinding his bleeding teeth, he reached out, seized the axe that had fallen to the ground, and swung it forward like a bolt of lightning.
With a creaking groan, Enoch's body screamed. Every bone in his body howled with unnatural sounds. A person in this state should not have been able to move. There was no way.
And yet he moved. He had to.
The voice from moments ago echoed through his mind.
[I — the ideal I wish to achieve with my sword is——]
My ideal is——
The next instant, an intense metallic crash erupted. Everything in the world seemed to freeze for a single moment.
"Ah, you......"
Sirocco stared at him and slowly shook her head, as if she couldn't believe it.
Then, as if realizing something, her eyes flew wide.
Enoch had pulled the prone Sirocco's head tight against him with his left arm, shielding her, while his other arm had swung the axe to deflect the enemy's lance at a precise angle.
Sirocco, now close, stared up at him with enormous eyes. Her face flushed — whether from excitement or shock, he couldn't tell — her lips parted slightly as she gazed up at Enoch and murmured.
"How......?"
Instead of answering, Enoch tightened the arm holding Sirocco.
An ideal. Yes, that's what it was. The reason he had swung the sword all this time was never just to survive. Enoch whispered softly into Sirocco's ear.
"Because I have to protect you."
Sirocco's eyes went round with surprise, her ears perking straight up. The warmth of her soft body pressed close against his added a faint measure of heat to his blood-chilled frame. That alone returned some strength to his body.
The situation was still dire.
All he had done was block the enemy's attack while lying on the ground. Death was close, and using the sword was still impossible. The desperation of the situation had not changed.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Enoch gazed up at the artificial angel, wings of despair spread wide, with eyes that shone a vivid, clear dark blue.
Because right now, in this very moment, the hope he had prepared as a final card in the depths of despair was about to reveal itself.