.
Knight training kicked in before I consciously recognized the threat. I probably reacted to the cue of Wind mana blooming in the practice sword, betraying its secondary capacity as a magic focus before she could fire the spell off. I had instantly flooded my skin with Earth mana, using the crude skill Matthias had taught me, so I tuned it up properly by chanting, “[Body Fortification]!”
But it wasn’t needed. By the time the shot arrived, the [Shield of Oranos] had appeared in front of us on Durandal’s initiative, and Allia’s [Wind Bullet] impacted harmlessly in mid-air.
My apologies, My Lady, Durandal said. You weren’t sparring yet, so I took the liberty.
That was because I had previously told him to let me call out the shields like I had done during my duel with Mára. Under my breath, I answered, “It’s fine.”
I was annoyed. It hadn’t been a strong shot, but it would have caused an unarmored human some pain. While it’s true that she knew I wasn’t human, and she clearly had sufficient faith in herself that she wouldn’t hit my companions, considering the fact that two of them were her daughters, it had still been a reckless stunt. I’m sure she was testing my abilities, but still…
“You guys get to the sides,” I told the others, then resumed walking forward, digging out the Starfire Jade Writing Brush from my belt wallet.
You aren’t going to draw me? Durandal asked.
“A holy sword against a piece of wood?” I retorted quietly. “I have principles.”
When Talene told me to keep the brush as long-term loan, she gave me some additional instructions for it, so I knew now that the brush end was intended for its built-in attacks and the handle end was to use it as a wand. I was preparing at the moment to use one of those special attacks, one which would work well as a means to parry her, so I was holding it with the brush end forward.
I had been doing my Water coating on the way here, so I made sure to undo that as well, retracting the mana back into my core.
Allia had fallen into a middle guard stance, waiting for me. As I came closer, she asked essentially the same question Durandal asked.
“You’re a fellow magic swordsman, I understand,” she noted. “What in the world are you doing with a writing brush in your hand?”
“Staying ready to defend myself,” I replied. “I won’t draw a magic blade against a practice sword.”
She hmphed, then straightened and gave me a proper curtsey, managing to grip her Roman-legion-style leather kilt to do it without letting go of her weapon. She wasn’t de-escalating, though. All her prepared mana remained in circulation.
“My Lady Tiana.”
I responded likewise. “My Lady Allia.”
She sighed, “I have said before…”
“I’m told that the noble almanac disagrees, My Lady,” I interrupted, then smiled sweetly.
Another sigh. Then she smiled in return. “Well, then. Do I turn command over to you now, My Lady?”
It wasn’t strange for her to assume that I would demand such a thing. As a royal knight, I probably outrank a baron’s daughter who was hired as an irregular, and as a teenager, I should probably be immature enough to demand such a thing. But…
Frankly, if Owen meant for me to take command, he would have directly said so. Mother said he wanted me to ‘meet up’ with them, not lead them.
“I understand that His Majesty made you the leader of this team,” I answered.
She actually looked slightly surprised, but nodded, and that was that. She returned to her guard position, so I did likewise.
“You’re really going to use that thing?” she asked.
“If someone would loan me a practice sword, I would be happy to use that instead, but it needs to be a silverwood to be fair. Or, I can fight florentine with a normal wooden sword and my brush for a main-gauche.”
She glanced sidelong at the hero whom I had been ignoring. He was now sitting where he had fallen, watching us. “Would you lend yours to her?”
He looked really tired. I suspected they had been sparring for hours. I faced him and curtseyed. “Good day to you, Mr. Kowa.”
He pursed his lips, considering the requested, then hefted the object that had been laying on the ground next to him.
“It’s too big for her,” he stated with a shake of his head.
It might have been him being an ass, but the fact was, he was right. The thing in his hand would suit me better as a quarterstaff. Actually, that’s probably what it was. He had been using it to simulate the oversized great sword he uses.
“Ah…” quoth Allia, as if that problem hadn’t occurred to her.
He got to his feet, dusting his butt off, and told Allia, “I would rather spar with her first. I want to know if she’s still holding out on us, or if she’s bringing her real abilities, this time.”
The same old familiar irritation came right back to me. I told him, “If we meet any dragons, I won’t leave them for you. Fair enough?”
His expression soured.
Allia cleared her throat in exaggerated fashion to get our attention. She looked annoyed as well. “I’m well aware there’s some history between you two, but we have a princess to rescue, so I’m ordering you to immediately forget it.”
In my mind, Ryuu was saying something sarcastic back at her. In my reality, his brow had bunched into an angry scowl, and he looked ready to snap back at her, but he held his tongue.
“You’re not ready to face her at full strength, Ryuu” Allia continued, “And you’re tired. You failed to maintain your [Persistence] skill yet again. Go to the side and rest.”
He twisted his lips but kept them clamped shut. What the hell had this woman done to him?!
“Here’s the one I’ve been using, Mom,” Ceria said as she came up from behind me. She was carrying a wooden sword similar to Allia’s, but of ironwood.
I gave her a puzzled look. She does carry a shortsword for emergencies, but she’s a combat mage. Plus, this weapon was clearly longsword length.
“Whenever I’m around Mom, she makes me fence with her,” she explained as she handed it to me.
While I was taking a few practice swings, Graham and Brigitte had come closer as well, to encourage Ryuu to go back to the side to rest. Graham slapped Ryuu on the back as he got to his feet. “Don’t fight the wrong foe. She came here to help us.”
I looked over at him and corrected, “I came here to rescue Her Highness, Mr. Graham. I’ll give everything I have for that, and I’ll work together with anyone who can focus on rescuing her.”
Ryuu stared at me, looking like he was analyzing what I was saying, so I went ahead and analyzed it for him, as bluntly as I could.
“If you’re fighting me while I do it, then you’re taking the side of my enemies, Mr. Kowa. Is that understood?”
Allia looked like she was ready to step in, but stopped.
Brigitte made a slight sound like something had occurred to her. She asked, “My Lady, you’re a royal knight, right?”
I nodded. “That’s correct.”
She turned to Ryuu. “What you said to her before about not bringing her full strength was a serious insult, Ryuu. She’s sworn to protect the King and his children with her life. You implied she might break her oath.”
I forcibly kept the surprise off my face. I never expected an illiterate huntress from the countryside to parse something like that. I wondered whether maybe I had been looking down on her.
With a nod, I agreed, “That’s exactly right.”
“Are you gonna expect him to apologize?” she asked me.
I stared him in the eye. “Until he shows me more than he has shown in the past, I really don’t have any expectations of Mr. Kowa at all.”
I expected another retort, but Allia cleared her throat again. He glowered at her, then trudged off with the others.
I could see in her eyes she was just as annoyed at me as she was at Ryuu. Well, it was true that she had just told us to ‘forget the past’, but she was going to have to realize that some requests are not possible.
I really haven’t described in detail the aggravatingly stupid ways that Ryuu had failed my expectations in the past. I can now look past biggest disappointment in the old Tiana’s eyes, since he had every reason to be such an incompetent warrior at the beginning. That one was 100% not his fault. As the title of the book had stated, he was a NEET when he got here, specializing in home security, as the Japanese say. He had no physical skills beyond operating a game console controller and eating cup noodles with chopsticks.
But once he did have his act together, at least as swordsman, he had still repeatedly failed as a team player, and as a leader. He had nearly gotten us all killed by charging into an orc band solo and forcing us to rescue him, on multiple occasions he had ignored Brigitte’s warnings about monsters she had detected and stumble right into them, he had even left Tiana to defend an entire village on her own due to his insistence on ignoring her concerns and charging off elsewhere with the party.
Tiana had pulled him out of fights such as one he started with Braysian sailors, and had paid for destroyed property out of her own funds multiple times after damage due to his reckless use of mana, and had taken collateral damage herself from those same dangerous antics and his foolish battle plans. That had continued right up until the plan that had gotten her killed when it went sour and she had to fly up to rescue the situation, once that dragon took to the air in an enraged state and became an immediate, critical threat to the local villagers.
“Are we going to have a problem?” Allia asked me.
I smiled at her, curtseyed again, and took up a middle guard stance one-handed, with the writing brush at ready in my left hand. Then I answered, “If you’re strong enough to let me go all out, then I can show him just what sort of dangerous being he’s been pissing off all this time. After that, I hope to have no problem at all with anybody.”
Her eyebrows rose. I could see the thoughts playing in her expression. Should she rebuke my arrogance, be amused at my proposal, or just find out what I had to offer?
She chose the third choice. She turned and walked five paces farther way, turned, and, after another curtsey, matched my stance. Raising her voice to be heard, she stated, “My Lady, if you can back up what you just said, he should get an eyeful.”
“I’m an actual fairy knight, you know,” I noted.
A mirthless smile spread on her face. “And you are not the first one I’ve fought, My Lady.”
