Side Story: Sword Technique

“PLEASE, JUST ONE MORE ROUND.”

“…I think it’s about time we take a break.”

From afar, I saw Khamsin and Lowe facing off against each other, both shirtless and covered in sweat. Khamsin held a wooden sword wrapped in a flexible hide, and Lowe had dropped to sit on the ground. Despite the exhaustion emanating from Lowe, Khamsin was still gunning for more.

I watched, smiling, as Khamsin looked around. His gaze landed on me. “Lord Van, would you join…?”

Despite his trepidation about asking, his eyes were practically sparkling. He’d been winning against Lowe since last week, and I’d begun to wonder if he finally had the hang of combat against the young knight. Obviously, he didn’t win every match, but he was coming out victorious more frequently than before.

I had little doubt that Khamsin could sense his own growth, giving him a sense of genuine accomplishment. There were few things as satisfying as rapidly improving at something. In fact, I also got the feeling that he was getting taller; he had always been taller than me, but I thought that gap was beginning to widen.

I’d spent this entire time seated on my chair and watching the two of them spar, and now Khamsin was looking right at me and issuing me a challenge. Naturally, everyone turned to me.

Cursed Chivalric Order. Don’t think I didn’t see you all avoiding Khamsin’s gaze because you don’t want to go up against him and his limitless energy. You’ve got a lot of nerve looking at me now, jerks!

Unfortunately, although Dee had been training me personally for years, I was still weaker than Lowe. Granted, it would have been weird for me, a ten-year-old kid, to defeat a knight who was in his twenties and had plenty of real-world combat experience, but I digress.

Well, if we ignored the fact that Khamsin, who was eleven, was beating him just fine.

Okay, I can just act mature here and brush him off. I gave him a strained smile. “I doubt you have anything to gain from fighting me, Khamsin.”

For some reason this only stirred up the members of my Chivalric Order. “Ooh!”

“Look at his confidence!”

“I knew it! Lord Van is not a warrior to be trifled with!”

Are they misinterpreting my words? Or am I just imagining that? But the knights only grew louder.

“Ooooh!”

“Lord Van is provoking him!”

“That smile is filled with strength!”

Wait, no it wasn’t! I was just tilting my head! Are you guys even looking at me?!

I tried to deny all of this, but before I could, Arte said, “Huh? Really?” She sounded genuinely confused.

Till beamed, full of pride. “Lord Van is a prodigy, after all!”

I felt all my escape routes receding from my grasp. I looked over at Khamsin, who was still waiting quietly for a response with a gleam in his eye. Did he sense the same thing I did? Or was he misinterpreting my strength like everyone else?

I had to clear this up as soon as possible, and I tried to. “Wwait. Wait, wait, wait. Seriously, I…”

But Arte fixed me in her own sparkling gaze. “I want to see you fight!”

Who could say no to such a pure girl’s wish? I flashed her a thumbs-up and a dashing smile. “Ha ha! I’m on it!”

This is just how guys are. Where Arte couldn’t see me, I let out a sigh, and then I rose to my feet and headed over to where Lowe was still breathing heavily. “Can I borrow a wooden sword?” I asked, awash with despair.

Lowe shot me a knowing smile and handed me a sword. He didn’t say it aloud, but he and I both knew how strong I was, and he definitely knew how I was feeling.

Well, I’ve got two cute girls watching me, so I can’t afford to look dorky. I’ll give this my all.

Mentally putting together a strategy, I pointed the tip of my sword at Khamsin. “Come at me,” I said with a smile.

Khamsin nodded sharply. “Here I come!” In the next moment, he sprang at me with his sword.

Most of his formative experience as a swordsman involved fighting much taller adversaries, so he tended to approach his opponents from a lower stance. As always, he drew his sword from his hips, bringing it up diagonally from a low position, but because I was smaller than pretty much everyone, I had to be very tricky when I fought anybody. Trickier than Khamsin, even. If nothing else, I had plenty of experience on that front.

In this situation, it was key that I attack Khamsin immediately, while he was unguarded and riding his own momentum. I was insanely nervous, but I made it a point to move and look like none of this was any sweat off my back as I warded off Khamsin’s slash. “Hmph!” I stepped back, changing the trajectory of Khamsin’s attack by hitting the side of his sword. It was easy to do with the vector of his strength going in one direction.

“Urgh…!”

Khamsin’s posture broke down ever so slightly, but he made it a point not to swing with all his strength, so he was able to correct his stance quickly and move on to his next attack. I was still Khamsin’s lord, though, and I was confident that I knew his swordsmanship better than anyone. I knew all his quirks.

He emphasized his speed when he fought, so I knew how he would move after a slash like that. If he swung from the left to the right, then his next attack would either come down from above or up from the bottom right. Long story short, he would always end up swinging from the direction he was leaning.

My style of fighting, meanwhile, was completely different. I leaned heavily on the element of surprise. As such, I kicked the ground, then used my foot to essentially trample Khamsin’s wrist. He had anticipated me defending with my sword, so this move caused him to choke on his breath and pause momentarily in surprise.

“Ngh?!”

Keeping an eye on my stunned opponent, I swung my sword parallel to the ground. Khamsin fell back to dodge it. This was a display of incredible physical reflexes, but even more surprising was that, although he seemed to tumble to the ground, he was back on his feet in almost the same time it took me to correct my posture.

This boy had the physical abilities of a wild animal. But I was certain he had yet to regain his composure.

This was my chance. I let out a brief, pointed breath —“Hmph!”—and performed an explosive downward slash. Khamsin dodged by leaping to the side, but I stepped inward to catch him with a surprise attack.

“Ugh!” In desperation, Khamsin performed a diagonal slash. Because his opponents were normally much bigger than him, Khamsin hated having to take attacks head-on; that’s why he was countering so quickly.

Unfortunately for him, this was all according to my plan. By trying to counter or even defend against one of my attacks, he was putting himself in a position to have to engage me head-on, a scenario he had no way to win.

To that end, I took a deliberate step back. Khamsin, seeing this as his best chance, swung his sword desperately, but he only managed to hit air. He was wide open. This was my one and only opportunity to win.

“Hiyah!” I put my all into a sword thrust, an all-or-nothing strike. In kendo, this was formally known as a “tsuki,” but I gave it my own modifications. Instead of extending my elbow, I didn’t thrust all the way forward, instead leaving room for me to quickly pull my arm back in. By doing this, I limited how long I left myself open and made it possible to slide into my next attack. I’m sure some would see this move as prioritizing defense over all else, but for me, it was how I avoided an embarrassing loss.

Either way, the modifications seemed to work. While Khamsin managed to fend off the strike with the side of his sword and counter my attack, contrary to my expectations, his hand stopped. At a loss for how to continue his assault, he leapt backward a few steps.

I watched Khamsin, who was now significantly more on guard than before, and realized I had already lost. I had options available to me if he tried to attack head-on, but now that he was in defense mode, none of my attacks would reach him. In fact, attacking him could give him the chance to wipe the floor with me.

“It’s over! I lost,” I announced earnestly.

Khamsin paused, blinking in confusion. A commotion occurred as the knights-turned-spectators discussed what had transpired. “You lost?” Lowe said, surprised. “That can’t be. You were winning.” Khamsin nodded his agreement, but I waved my free hand.

“No, no. The moment my surprise attack whiffed, I was done. Man, what a shame! I better train some more so I can win next time. Time to head back to the manor before Esparda gives me an earful. See y’all later!”

I flashed the crowd a strained smile, to which they responded with confusion and praise for my performance. Turning my back to them, I returned to Arte and Till.

“Man, Khamsin sure has gotten strong. I barely stood a chance,” I said with a self-deprecating smile.

Arte and Till shook their heads. “Not at all! That was amazing!”

“I swore you were going to win!”

Thank goodness. At least I didn’t look like an idiot. With relief in my heart, I made my way back to the manor.

A short while later, rumors began to circulate that little old Van was a swordsman on par with Commander Dee. The rumors seemed to partially be in jest, but Khamsin was seriously going around telling people this. If Dee ever caught wind of it, I knew for a fact he would force me to spar with him.

In the end, I had to run around telling people that I was weaker than Khamsin: “I swear, I’m not strong at all!” Weird, right?