Chapter 181 – The Baron’S Play (8)
182. The Baron’s Play (8)
“…Swordsmanship, you say?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t you like to learn?”
I was moving luggage outside when the old butler approached me and said that.
He said that I should learn swordsmanship for self-defense, and that Belik, a knight of the Baron’s family, was giving the servants a chance to learn publicly.
Belik was the knight I saw when I met Daren at the clothing store, and to put it simply, he was Daren’s personal thug.
‘What are they up to?’
I already knew that Daren was swinging a sword in the outdoor training grounds far away.
But what kind of favor is he doing for a servant? Looking at the butler, who was pressuring me to answer as if he wanted me to say yes, I could see his intentions.
I nodded and followed him to the training grounds.
“Who is this? Raul? What brings you here? Don’t tell me you’ve come to learn from Belik?”
“Ah. Young Master. I was actually going to give lessons in my spare time…”
Sure enough, Daren and Belik were waiting for me, chuckling.
Daren pretended not to know about the situation, but how many people would be plotting something like this here?
“Heh. Don’t be nervous just because a high-ranking person is watching, here, take this wooden sword. There’s nothing better than practical training.”
The knight Belik, with his grim appearance, soon approached me and said he would give me lessons. When I received the wooden sword from him, his intentions became clear.
It seemed they were going to use me as a punching bag.
‘They’ve become more vicious than before.’
To create a plausible reason just to torment a single servant… Perhaps they thought it would be difficult to beat me up recklessly under the Baroness’s watch.
But what should I do?
An opportunity to show off my swordsmanship skills had unintentionally arrived. If I were to win and ruin the family atmosphere, wouldn’t that change the development I wanted?
For a moment, I wondered how much of my skills I should show, but then I realized how cringe-worthy that thought was and shook my head inwardly.
Those kinds of thoughts are for strong people with plenty of time.
Alright. Let’s use everything I’ve learned from McCallin.
As I swung the wooden sword around, I could see that an audience was gathering. Even the maids who were working in the distance stopped to look this way.
Above all, Stella had heard the exciting news and had entered the training grounds with her arms crossed. I had indirectly refused to become her servant not long ago, so she couldn’t be in a good mood. Looking at her sneering expression, it seemed she was here to watch me get beaten to a pulp, thinking it was a good thing.
Stella approached her brother.
“Brother. If Belik goes out right away, he’ll win too quickly and it won’t be fun, right? How about putting someone of a similar age against him first?”
“What? Heh. That sounds fun too. Belik. Give one of your apprentice knights a chance.”
“Understood. Treon! Get a wooden sword from the training rack!”
“Yes!”
At Belik’s shout, Treon, who was called his apprentice knight, picked up a wooden sword and came in front of me.
He had a youthful face, about seventeen years old, but his eyes were slanted upwards, which didn’t make him look very good-natured.
Most apprentice knights were sword users, meaning they couldn’t handle aura yet and were still practicing swordsmanship. To give an easy example of their level… most low-ranking swordsman adventurers were also sword users, so apprentice knights were roughly at that level.
Well, there might be a difference in experience.
“Then, begin!”
At Belik’s gesture, Treon bowed his head and then, in a voice too quiet for others to hear, said to me.
“Heh heh. Don’t blame me.”
I won’t, you punk.
Looking at Treon, who was looking down on me from the start, all the miscellaneous thoughts about Genie and Mane disappeared. Even the lowest of the low were looking down on me like this, so I was a little pissed off.
“Hah!”
-Clack! Clack!
Treon rushed in with textbook-like movements and slashed at me. Since this was my first sparring match since the cathedral, I didn’t let my guard down and focused on blocking his attacks, sharpening my senses.
I turned the wooden sword this way and that, blocking all of his attacks. He looked confused, with a question mark on his face.
But Treon was still the one taking the initiative in the attack.
Unable to overwhelm a servant, he bit his lip and attacked me by wildly swinging his sword.
‘He’s coming in too straightforwardly. It reminds me of when I first challenged McCallin.’
His attacks weren’t noticeably fast or powerful, and if he was drawing his trajectory so straightforwardly, there was always a way to block them. If I was afraid of his continuous rushes, I could just step back.
“Hah!”
Treon must have realized it wouldn’t work, so he tried to slam me down with a long, sweeping attack.
But because his movements became so clumsy, even for a moment, his weakness was exposed. I blocked the attack, calmly watching the situation, and then quickly dodged his downward strike.
And…
-Clack!
“Kuh…!”
I swung the wooden sword diagonally and knocked his sword away. Treon, who had focused his strength on one point, helplessly dropped his wooden sword.
With just one attack, the apprentice knight had been defeated.
“I, I won.”
At my words, Daren’s face hardened.
“You idiot… Pick up your sword and come back.”
Belik, who had been watching Treon from close by, frowned and said that.
-I, I’m sorry. I was careless.
-You moron! How dare you disgrace me and the Young Master. I’ll have to consider your expulsion.
Treon, who had turned pale, bowed his head and couldn’t lift his face.
Belik kept whispering and scolding his disciple, and then Daren gestured at him with his chin, giving him a silent signal. Belik, seeing this, exchanged glances with Daren and then walked towards me with a big smile on his face.
“Heh heh, good, good. It seems you’ve learned some swordsmanship somewhere. This time, I’ll give you direct lessons, so consider yourself lucky. Are you ready?”
“Ah, yes.”
The situation was quite unsightly… but they were going to beat me up anyway, right?
An unexpected match with an expert.
It wasn’t common to fight a formal knight like this.
I was thinking, ‘Can I win this?’ In the past, I was small and dodged around, but now I had proper muscles and my power had increased significantly.
“Come at me first.”
Belik told me to attack first, as if he didn’t need to worry. He seemed to want to be relaxed, so as he wished, I swung my wooden sword and rushed at him.
Was he really an expert? Belik’s swordsmanship had a certain system to it. He rolled his eyes, deflecting my attacks one by one, and then quickly thrust forward, keeping the tempo.
Swish!
“…This guy, look at him?”
Belik made an absurd expression.
If I hadn’t sparred with the paladins so much, I wouldn’t have been able to block that thrust and would have felt immense pain in my shoulder.
But through repeated practice, his attack patterns felt familiar.
Unless there was a significant difference in skill, a fight would rarely end in one blow.
Usually, if the opponents were evenly matched, they would quickly identify weaknesses or exploit psychological gaps while exchanging blows… If there was a difference in physique like me and Belik, the superior basic skills would be used to overwhelm the opponent.
But I was putting up an equal fight against Belik.
Of course, I was focusing on blocking from the middle, but I could feel his attacks becoming simpler.
-Clack. Clack! Clack!
“This, shit…”
Belik, who was very displeased with the situation, tried to quickly finish me off using brute force, but I didn’t give in to his strength either. I gripped the handle of the wooden sword tightly with both hands and calmly received all of his fierce attacks.
I was using one of the basic techniques that McCallin had taught me to use against monsters, quickly placing my weapon in the path of the expected impact to reduce the recoil.
If you defend against a powerful attack from a passive position, the wrist holding the weapon could be crushed, so it was best to avoid it, but if you couldn’t, it was a useful technique.
I didn’t know about monsters, but this technique was also good at tiring people out.
“…Hoo. Hoo…”
He was breathing heavily, and his face had turned almost red. He occasionally abandoned his pride and tried to exploit openings, but since I was blocking everything, he couldn’t help but get angry.
More than that, this guy was a pushover?
I seriously started to wonder if I would win if I attacked him with all my might.
“………Heh. Not bad…”
Stella was watching me from afar, her eyes shining brightly.
The eyes of the others were the same.
The servant who had run away had learned swordsmanship somewhere and was putting on an amazing performance against an expert. Everyone was focused on us with interest.
Except for Daren.
“………………….”
Daren watched the sparring match with a displeased expression, then turned his cold gaze to Belik. It was as if he was asking what he was doing.
Belik, noticing his gaze, gritted his teeth so slightly that others could barely notice.
Who was paying his salary and giving him a life of luxury?
Just a moment ago, he had talked about expelling the apprentice knight, but now he was in danger of facing the same fate.
“You blocked well, but this is the end.”
Belik, sensing the danger in the current situation, slowly began to infuse mana into his wooden sword.
He had created a slight aura on his sword.
“Ugh…!”
Thwack!
And his attack, which rushed in again, had a different level of destructive power than the attacks I had blocked so far. The pressure was so different that my fingers were numb.
He was cheating cowardly…!
In fact, if I strengthened my body with the divine power manipulation method I learned from the saintess, I might be able to beat him. But I had already shown a lot, and I thought this was enough.
Above all, there were many spectators, and I noticed that someone was watching me among them.
“Agh!”
“Heh heh. Yes, you need to concentrate more! Hold your sword tightly like that…! That’s how you learn swordsmanship.”
Thwack thwack thwack…!
In the end, I was beaten badly by Belik with the wooden sword. Countless sword strikes tore through my body, scraping away flesh.
It was nothing short of torture.
Thud!
“Oh… Was that too much?”
“No, it’s not. Sometimes these things happen when you spar… Heh heh.”
“I guess so, right?”
Belik glanced at his master, and then Daren, finally satisfied, smiled at me, who had collapsed in a mess. And then…
“……Everyone. What are you doing right now?”
A voluptuous woman in a noble dress.
Baroness Trisha entered the training grounds with her maids.
“Ugh… M, Madam…”
Trisha looked back and forth between me, who was lying tattered on the sand, and Belik, and her lips trembled. She glared directly at Daren with her sharp eyes. Stella had already slipped away when she entered the training grounds.
“Daren. What is going on here? Why is my servant lying here?”
“Ah, Mother. This is…”
Daren shrugged and gave her a plausible excuse.
“I was just watching Belik spar with this guy. But my knight… Hmm, it seems he was a bit rough. I was about to stop them anyway. Belik!”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“I’ll punish you separately. Go and wait. Mother, is everything alright now?”
Trisha looked at Daren, who was trying to slip away like an eel, with an absurd expression. This time, she looked at the old butler, who also cautiously bowed his head, saying, ‘It’s true that this child wanted to learn self-defense and asked to learn first…’
In other words, there was a justification.
“Hoo… Alright. Daren, we’ll continue this conversation at dinner later.”
Since the main figures of the Baron’s family were defending Daren, she couldn’t help but look tired. The Baroness glared at Daren slightly, then opened her lips to the servants.
“Move this child first.”
“Yes, Madam.”
