The black-haired red-eyes man was only staring at me without returning my greeting, nor did he introduce himself.
I decided not to mind it and lowered the hand that I extended. I had to quickly say my objective before there’s any hindrance.
“I want you to be my opponent.”
“—Princess, but that is…”
Sure enough, Orgueil tried to stop me. However, of course I didn’t pay any attention to it.
“I also want to try. My body has gotten dull.”
“That’s why, I told you that I’d be your opponent earlier.”
“Not you. This person will do.”
…’What, is she flirting?’ I heard someone muttering.
“For some reason, it sounds indecent,” the black-haired man before my eyes also said, as he looked back at me with his sharp eyes.
A faint cynical smile formed on his face. He was also like this in the middle of the match earlier, so perhaps this was his default face. I’d like to see him stood up against my attack.
“…Alright, Princess. My body’s getting dull, too. Do let me enjoy myself to the best.”
“Really?! …Thank you!”
Hooray! It’s the same as saying he’ll go all out!
“Princess!”
Of course, Orgueil couldn’t be coaxed and his restraining voice was raised, but I ignored him. It was scary to look at his face, so I only looked at the black-haired man as I jumped in joy.
“What weapons will we use?”
“I will go with this, but it’s still daytime, though.”
The black-haired man was grinning as he pointed on his own crotch. A coarse cheer was raised, too. It reached to the point that a concrete hooting such as, “Do it until your waist is about to fall off!” but with Orgueil’s one glare (I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell from his presence), the hooting and cheers were soon ceased.
Speaking of which, I paid no mind to it at all. I didn’t care. I was aware of women’s lack of strength, that was why I shouldn’t mind it, and it wasn’t my first time experiencing this, so you could say that I was a young woman with quite a lot of knowledge about different genders. In the last few years, I had always been together with my allies from the allied forces or the mercenary soldiers, so you could say that this kind of conversation was almost an everyday occurrence.
“Please give me something that the other women usually use for my weapon, then.”
I said with a smile.
The black-haired man withdrew his grin back as his expression showed his suspiciousness again.
“Disgraceful,” Orgueil’s muttering voice could be heard.
Obviously, I didn’t mind it.
“This place is narrow, so it is unsuitable to use spears here, and the crescent sword is too stiff.”
Armors for practice and various lined-up weapons could be seen. Long spears, short spears, crescent swords, longswords, daggers, thin swords. As expected, since there was no target, there weren’t any bows nor arrows.
“I’ll go with the longsword. You were using it since before, right?”
“…Hee, you…”
The black-haired man opened his red eyes wide in surprise.
“Seriously? It seems that you’ve got some muscles in those arms of yours. Is it fine for you to use that instead of the thin sword?”
“Yeah. The longsword is the star of weapons. It’s the weapon I’m most interested in.”
“Weapon of interest?”
“—Princess!”
Orgueil’s strict voice, that was on an incomparable level with his earlier tone, could be heard.
I put on a face that showed my confidence in my abilities. But in actuality, the fact that I didn’t know how to use [this world’s] longsword contradicted my expression. But if one were to pry into this and that, in the end, it might even lead to the talk about my unclear origins.
“…I like longswords. It’s a weapon whose capacities I know the most. It’s the basic of martial arts, right?”
I said as I tried to gloss things over, and then I picked up one longsword that was lined up.
It was quite heavy.
However, its weight was still within my expectations. It was around the weight of an automatic rifle or a rocket launcher.
I said that the longsword was fine because this world’s longsword was slightly shorter than the longsword that I imagined and since I thought it was quite slender. While studying various matters of this world, I had the impression that this world’s culture and civilization were even more polished than I originally thought it was. The weaponry was one of them, and although there was no firearm, the armors and their harnesses were very light-weighted. It seemed that the knowledge of how heavy equipment would wear down humans and horses too much and that they were unsuitable for practical use was widely known. Just like what I learnt in the history of the medieval era in my original world, the chain-mailed armors and their helmets were too heavy that they caused asphyxia in the middle of the war, or in other words, they exhausted the horses.
I grabbed the longsword with both hands and tried to swing it. It was okay. Its familiarity wasn’t that bad. The handle’s thickness was just right.
The black-haired man was silently watching me. Then, a grin returned on his face.
–‘What a good face,’ so I thought.
At first, he was bewildered at the sudden appearance of a trespassing woman who challenged him to have a match with her, and he had the kind of expression that seemed to say, “Let’s entertain this woman’s silly joke”. However, there was no such kind of expression anymore. He had the face of a swordsman who appraised my ability.
I also proposed to have a wager on this match. To put it bluntly, I was confident that I was the stronger one. However, this man was quite, no, perhaps he was very strong, too. He was swinging his sword diagonally, but it was because he wasn’t being serious. If he were to do it seriously, I got the feeling that he would be much stronger.
If only he could go all out. If he were to go all out when he crossed swords with me… As I was thinking about that, I reflexively—and much to my own surprise—turned around to look at Orgueil even though I avoided looking at him until just now.
He surely had lots of things he wanted to say to me, but perhaps he might have already given up—as he was expressionless as always. The expressionless Orgueil was silently looking back at me.
“—Colonel Karnak. Please lend me some money.”
“How much?”
He didn’t waste any word. I think that Orgueil who answered quickly was really amazing.
“One gold coin.”
“Understood.”
“…Oi!”
…The surrounding just got noisy. The black-haired man opened his eyes wide.
“Are you going to bet that large amount of money?”
“I’m thinking on earning some pocket money. So I’m going to bet on myself.”
In any case, there was surely no one who’d bet on me, right?
Just when I was about to say that…
“Shall I place my wager to? On Princess.”
Orgueil said without any change in his expressions. The surrounding people and the black-haired man all gazed in wonderment.
“Don’t. I don’t want my share to decrease. The only one betting for myself will be me, and that will be fine.”
“Understood.”
“…You’re already underestimating me before it even starts, huh?”
The black-haired man squinted as he turned to look at the surrounding. For some reason, I felt like his presence turned ferocious.
“All of you, bet on me. There couldn’t be anyone foolish enough to bet on this princess, right?”
“…We understand.”
“Alright. Stop making that kind of face.”
“I’d circulate the money I just wagered earlier, then.”
Unanimous flustered voices could be heard. I see, these men were the black-haired man’s subordinates, huh?
“…Guy. Sorry for cutting the earlier match halfway. What are you going to do?”
The large-built man who was exchanging blows with him seemed to be called Guy. He had been looking at us with a half-opened mouth as if he was daydreaming, but he quickly shrugged his shoulders and nodded.
“I’m going to bet on you. I won’t say anything more than that, as I don’t feel like saying anything more.”
“I won’t let it be your loss.”
The black-haired man said as he turned around while holding a longsword.
“…The first one to say ‘I give up’ will be the losing side. In other words, the match will continue as long as nobody says that. Is that good?”
He said that as he showed a devilish smile.
I don’t mind. Fighting until one gives up is a warrior’s duty. In a probable defeat, one should surrender if one doesn’t want to get hurt.
“I don’t mind.”
I nodded as I took a distance from him.
He also fixed his eyes on me as he slowly fixed his grasp on his sword. He lightly shook his head to put his black hair behind his face.
I have to do this seriously. We’re going to face each other seriously.
The nostalgic tense atmosphere brought comfort to my heart.
Before long, Orgueil and Guy withdrew along with the surrounding men as they stared at the two of us.
