by Virlyce
“Why couldn’t we have just teleported there?” Then I could’ve lazed around in bed and relaxed until the day before the competition started. But no, we had to take the month-long carriage ride.
“I already told you,” Ilya said with a scowl. “A teleportation on that scale requires two arrays. It’s like a tunnel, and the humans would rather die before letting us build an array into their territory.”
“Mm. I was hoping the answer would change since the last time I asked.” A person can dream, right? “But we’re almost there then, yeah?” In the past month, I’ve been sparring with Durandal and Puppers at the same time because I’m stronger than both of them. Mainly because my weapon’s a cheat while they can’t do anything with theirs. I considered getting magic tools for them to use, but they both refused them because of their pride or something. They’re very belligerent to each other at times, always trying to be better than the other. It’s funny because I should be their real goal.
And I’m also improving faster than them too! They’ll never catch up to me. Nothing can get in the way of my happiness! Durandal also felt pretty bad for only teaching me Breaking Blade and the Steady Mountain Footwork—and the Flying Qi Blade, but that one doesn’t matter anymore—so he gave me a list of other techniques to choose from, saying I should pick the ones that suited my fighting style the best. I’m still peeved that he only picked out completely ungraceful and wholly barbaric techniques. I can be graceful! Ah, I dropped my cup. Oops.
Ahem, as I was saying, I learned some new techniques. The first one is called Breaking Tail. I insert all my qi into my tail and swing it like a whip! The second one is called Breaking Fist. I insert all my qi into my fist and punch as hard as I can! The third one is called Breaking Kick. I insert all my qi into my leg and kick as hard as I can! …Dammit, Durandal! He said they were new! Mm. Well, I really did learn one that’s different from all the rest. It’s called Armor of Slaughter. I can create a shield around my body that absorbs attacks. I do it by inserting all my qi into my body and…. Okay, this sounds exactly like a Breaking technique. I demand a refund.
“Durandal!”
“Yes, Lucia?”
“Teach me a new technique! A new! New! Technique.”
“Didn’t I teach you four?” Durandal smiled at me and patted my head. I missed these head pats so much. And I guess I was too harsh on Durandal. He did teach me four techniques after all. …Wait! Don’t be tricked that easily, Lucia. He’s trying to distract you.
“No! No, you didn’t. You gave me four variations of Breaking Blade. I could’ve came up with them myself!” In fact, I did come up with the Breaking Substitute Blade by myself. That’s the one where I grab a person and use them as a sword.
“Breaking Blade is the strongest, most practical amongst strength techniques. I don’t have much else to teach you,” Durandal said. “All that I have left are graceful, feminine techniques.”
“Teach me those!”
“Mm, they don’t work really well with the Path of Slaughter,” Durandal said and played with my tail. “But you know what they say, it’s better to master one technique than to learn dozens and not know how to fully use them.”
“But I definitely mastered Breaking Blade!” I’ve used it millions or billions of times by now! I do a thousand swings a day, but not recently because I’ve been slacking.
“Really?” Durandal asked with a smile.
“Really.” If I haven’t, I’ll give up drinking hot chocolate!
“Then…, can you control the shockwave’s trajectory?”
…It’s a good thing Durandal can’t read minds.
“And have you considered the other uses for Armor of Slaughter other than defense?” Durandal asked.
No. I haven’t. If it could be used for offense, then it wouldn’t be called armor, right?
“Like I thought, you haven’t.” Durandal sighed. “If only I were stronger, then I could force you to learn properly. But I can’t beat you or simulate a dangerous environment anymore. You don’t have to surpass your limits to fight me now.” He rubbed his chin. “I should find a dragon for you to fight.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll just practice controlling the shockwaves of my Breaking Blades.”
“Oh, I have a good idea,” Durandal said, his eyes lighting up. Dammit. Something bad is going to happen to me. I just know it. Durandal reached over, grabbed the back of my dress, and … is he going to—!? He tossed me outside! What the hell!?
Durandal’s head appeared outside the carriage’s window. Were they speeding up!? “Lucia, use your Armor of Slaughter to lift yourself off the ground and chase after us. No part of your body is allowed to touch the ground. Every time you make contact with the ground, I’ll throw out a cup of hot chocolate.”
I knew Durandal didn’t have kind intentions when he asked to hold onto my interspacial ring! But I was tricked by stupid head pats! Armor of Slaughter! My qi surged around my body, and a faint layer of red light appeared on my skin. This should be enough to keep me off the ground, right? But Durandal seriously underestimated me. I could run faster than two horses pulling a carriage with my eyes closed and on one leg while moving backwards. …Not that I’m going to do that to myself.
“You’re not high enough off the ground,” Durandal said from up ahead. A splash of brown liquid flew out of the window. No! My chocolate! Dammit, Durandal! I’m not going to take it easy on you during our next spar! I transferred some of the qi armor from my arms to my legs. The red light grew thicker around my feet, and I was even higher up. Was I running faster too?
“Higher.”
This isn’t enough? Then I’ll use all my qi! The Armor of Slaughter crawled down my body, merging with the qi by my feet. I should rename this to Boots of Slaughter. And now I’ll just grab onto this part of the carriage here and hitch a ride…? It slipped away! Why’s it going so fast!?
“How long will you be able to maintain this speed?” Durandal asked, his voice coming from inside the carriage.
“Until we arrive at our destination,” Ilya’s dad said. “They’re simple eighth-circle, speed-boosting spells.”
Gah! Don’t mess with me! Faster legs, faster! If this much qi can’t keep up with a stupid carriage, then I’ll put all my qi into one foot at a time. But constantly switching is tiring.
“If you don’t keep up, I’ll toss out more chocolate,” Durandal said, his head popping out of the window again. I was very tempted to throw mini-DalDal at him, but I had to concentrate on shifting my qi. “Oh, you’re getting the hang of it. Good job.” That’s right, praise me! And let me back onto the carriage while you’re at it. “Can you make the carriage go any faster?”
“She’s keeping up?” Ilya’s dad asked and popped his head out of the window as well. He flinched and slipped back into the carriage when I met his eyes. “Yeah, I can make it go faster.”
“Don’t you dare!” This is almost my limit! Why did I throw away my haste dress? Right, because Ilya could cast haste. “Ilya! Buff me!”
Ilya’s head popped out of the carriage. A second later, she yelped as she was pulled back inside by Durandal. “Sorry, Lucia! I tried!”
A green light covered the carriage, and it sped up even more. Stop doing that! I’m really going to be left behind at this rate. How do I increase my speed? Think, Lucia, think. Aha! Speed is relative. To increase my speed, I just have to decrease theirs! Alright, mini-DalDal, let’s do this. “Breaking—”
“Hot chocolate shield!” Durandal shouted and placed three barrels of hot chocolate on the carriage’s rear.
…Drat. Then I’ll destroy the road! “Breaking Blade!” A beam of red light flew out of my sword, creating a massive fissure that ran diagonally across the carriage’s path. The horses neighed and stopped…? Why aren’t they stopping!? Steam puffed out of their nostrils as they charged forwards and walked on air, easily passing over the fissure I created. The carriage rolled along as if the road was completely flat. That’s not fair! I was t
he one who complained about the bumpy carriage ride, and now that I’m gone, the carriage isn’t bumping anymore? Like I thought, there is no god.
“At the pace we’re going, we’ll only need a few hours before we arrive,” Ilya’s dad said from within the carriage. “I believe in you, Lucia.”
Wait! I’ll really be left behind! And I have no sense of direction; what if I get lost!? Ah, I’m speeding up? “P-Puppers?”
From my socks, Puppers let out a sigh. “Apparently, I’m the only one who thinks it’s a stupid idea to antagonize a divine warrior. And you’re my master after all; I have to help you.”
…Maybe I’ve treated Puppers too poorly in the past. He’s a good person. In my time of need, he’s the only one who offered a hand. Well, Ilya tried, but Durandal blocked her. “I’ve wronged you, Puppers.”
“If you really felt that way, you would call me by my actual name, Gae Bulg,” Puppers said. “Don’t I deserve at least some respect for being a divine warrior?”
“Mm, but Gae Bulg was a spear spirit. It’d be too confusing to call you that.” People would definitely look at me strangely if I had the prince’s, err, rare special monkey’s weapon spirit. “You’re a sock spirit now. New spirits should get new names, yeah? How about Mr. Puppers? I’m willing to give you that.”
Puppers fell silent. “I think I’ll stick with Puppers,” he said after a while.
Well, I tried.
***
“Ah, it looks like we’re here,” my father said as the spells increasing the carriage’s speed and the horses’ stamina dispersed. “Pretty big place, huh? It didn’t look like this thirty years ago. They’ve done some major construction works.”
I followed my father and Durandal out of the carriage. In front of me, towering above, there was a transparent wall with thousands of patterns scrawled upon it. The mana radiating off the structure made my stomach churn. Were the humans trying to show off their empire’s might? If a group of seventh-circle magicians operated the spell formations on the walls, they could easily repel a couple of ninth-circle magicians.
A massive crowd of people were gathered around the walls, camping in tents and other shoddy shelters. A few looked homeless, but the majority of them were demons and beastkin. There were one or two clusters of elves and dwarves, but they were by far the minority. Hundreds of stalls were set up along the road leading to the wall where a relatively tiny gate waited.
“I finally caught you bastards!” a voice shouted. Footsteps that sounded like thunder echoed throughout the area as Lucia ran towards us, the ground cracking and fracturing underneath her feet. The next set of travelers were going to have a tough time traversing through those broken roads. I pitied them. Lucia ran up to Durandal and raised her sword over her head. “You! How could you….” She froze as the mob of people turned their heads to stare at her. “The heck is this? Why’s it so crowded!? You told me there were 60 competitors!”
“Mm, no,” my father said and smiled. “There’s 20 guaranteed competitors from each empire, but anyone, as long as they’re under 30 years of age, can compete. After all, Cain is hunting for talent. Though rare, there are some talented commoners out there.”
Yeah, Lucia was one of them. I didn’t tell my father about Lucia’s past. I figured it wasn’t my place to tell.
“So I have to compete against all these people here? They’re all kind of weak, don’t you think?” Lucia asked and tilted her head. The glares coming from the surroundings intensified. Lucia snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “What? Got a problem? Fight me.”
“Lucia…, I don’t think you should provoke this many people.” What happened to Lucia? I thought she got nervous around crowds. “Aren’t you nervous?”
Lucia slapped Durandal’s back, causing him to stumble forward. “With him here, what do I have to fear?” She stuck her chest out and smiled while staring up at the sky, striking a heroic pose while her tail twitched a few times. So it was Durandal. Again. The instant he came back, Lucia’s and Puppers’ personalities changed. I don’t like him. All I did was make him apologize for his master’s misdeeds. He didn’t have to, to..., I don’t want to talk about it.
“Mm, well, we’re not here to mingle with the commoners,” my father said and walked forward along the road. It was surprisingly clear given the amount of people nearby. A few discontent beastkin and humans approached us, but my father let his mana out in a massive surge, knocking them off their feet and throwing them back dozens of meters. My father tilted his head up and swept his gaze over the crowd before letting out a snort. Everyone averted their eyes, and even the merchants manning the stalls stopped shouting. How could my father, the duke of the Tristam Empire, allow random rabble to approach him? It wasn’t often I got to see my father’s domineering side. I know he always dotes on me.
“Whoa, what was that?” Lucia asked, her eyes glistening. She poked Durandal’s back with her sword. “Why couldn’t you teach me something useful like that? Ah! I’m supposed to still be mad at you for making me run that whole way!”
“Oh, what’s that over there?” Durandal asked and pointed behind Lucia. She turned her head around, and Durandal pulled out a steaming cup of hot chocolate.
“I don’t see anything strange?” Lucia asked. She turned back around and blinked as the steaming mug was forced into her hands. “Ooh! Thanks! You’re the best.”
My lord. I knew Durandal wasn’t a good person. Watching Lucia fall for something that even a child could see through was painful. It really makes me wonder if there’s a god in this world. How can someone like Lucia become a divine warrior while people like the Godking couldn’t? Lucia hummed as she followed after Durandal, sipping on her cup with her tail swishing from side to side. I sighed and followed after them.
As one of the nobles with a guaranteed spot, my father was allowed to enter the city with his entourage, us, before the day of the competition. Of course, that also meant everyone else who had a spot could enter it as well. We passed through the gate without any issues. The buildings were to be expected of the humans. Their designs were a bit lacking, trying to emulate the sharp, crisp edges of demon architecture while trying to mimic the gracefulness of the fae at the same time. Unfortunately, it failed at both, becoming some sort of odd mishmash between the two cultures. The Godking really was a good human, or maybe the humans took after the Godking—appropriating other cultures and claiming it as their own invention. It’s an open secret amongst nobility that the Godking claimed credit for hundreds of things he didn’t do, including inventing the new magic system of circles and creating the world’s strongest weapons and enchantments.
The streets were empty, which wasn’t a surprise. We came here extra early after all. The trip should’ve taken a much longer amount of time, but Durandal decided to have that impromptu training session with Lucia. Well, it was almost empty. A human with curly blond hair and green eyes approached us. Behind him, there were three women around Lucia’s age and one old man who was wearing a suit. One of his eyes was closed with a jagged scar crossing over it. They were wearing clothes that I recognized as the robes of nobility. It was in one of my father’s books on etiquette. The man with the curly hair stopped in front of my father. He jutted his chest out and stared him in the eyes before saying, “Crown Prince Algar greets Duke Pentorn.”
My father raised an eyebrow. “You know me?” he asked. “Then I greet the crown prince in return. Do you have some business with me?”
Algar shook his head before staring at Lucia who was blowing on her hot chocolate. She dipped her fingertip into her cup and flinched, bringing her finger back and sucking on it. The prince’s eyes changed from narrowed to widened, and he cleared his throat. “I have business with Durandal’s owner,” he said with hints of hesitation in his voice. “That’s her…, right?”
Lucia raised her head and blinked. “Huh? How’d you know?” she asked and tilted her head. She brought her cup to her lips and blew on it again before taking a sip
. Halfway through swallowing, she froze. “I mean! No! Wrong person.”
Algar pointed behind us. I turned my head. There was a piece of paper on the wall of a nearby building, and I squinted at it. …It was a full-body portrait of Lucia with large text beneath it. I read it out loud, since I knew Lucia couldn’t read, “Lucia Fluffytail. Owner of Durandal. Slayer of princes. Betrayer of the fae. During an expedition with Prince Bryant, she obtained Durandal and slew everyone who accompanied her before crossing the border and entering the Tristam Empire. She now works under Duke Pentorn as a representative to attend the Godking’s Brawl. This informational flyer has been brought to you by the Flopsy Gang. This mark, as many magicians will know, is a brand of truth, guaranteeing nothing on this document has been falsified.” Next to the text, there was an array that I recognized as a truth brand that pulsated with mana.
“Gah!” Lucia shouted and ran up to the poster. She tore it down, ripped it to shreds, and stuffed the remains into her mouth before swallowing. She coughed a few times before drinking her hot chocolate in one gulp, clearing her inner passageways. “Fucking Snow!”
Algar stared at Lucia as if she were a strange creature with thirty legs and twenty eyes. “There’s, uh, thousands of those flyers everywhere, including the capital and some port towns…. You, you’re not going to eat them all, are you?”
Lucia sighed and hung her head. She raised it and placed her hands on her hips. “Alright then,” she said. “What do you want from me?”
“I’m willing to buy Durandal from you,” Algar said. “Gold, property—”
“Impossible!” Lucia said, shaking her head. “Demand something else.”
Algar furrowed his brow. While he was hesitating, one of the girls behind him asked, “Excuse me, Miss Fluffytail, do you know anything about my brother Lan? The last time I saw him, he was chasing after Durandal.”
“Ah! You’re Evelyn the Witch!” Lucia said, pointing at the girl who just spoke. “Are the rumors true? Did you really poison your husband on your wedding night?”