Chapter 72: A Knight's Battle

When she slashes, she knows it will be blocked, and when she is slashed at, she knows she can block it.

Carrol was bewildered by such a strange sensation, but at the same time, she felt a sense of enjoyment.

The opponent is also from a knightly lineage. Speaking of the Blitz family in the Belfast Kingdom, they are a distinguished family that has produced generals who led armies for generations.

Perhaps because of that, there is something similar to the sword techniques Carrol learned. Therefore, she intuitively understands how to deal with them.

He must have spent his days in rigorous training to become a knight who protects his country. She can understand the strength forged from that.

Before she knew it, Carrol began to feel as if she was fighting a mirror image of herself. Because of that, the feeling that she couldn’t lose grew stronger.

“I heard from Yuna-senpai that ‘my younger brother is plain and boring’, but no, no, not at all. You’re quite interesting, aren’t you?”

『Kuh…! In our family, my sister is just too unprecedented…! I am normal!』

Perhaps he was shaken, the sword lines of Ignis piloted by Shion became slightly rough.

Certainly, his older sister and Carrol’s senior, Yuna Blitz, has a broad-minded and openhearted personality, not sweating the small stuff. She probably has no interest in things like a ‘knight’s sword’; just as her alias [Iron Hammer] indicates, her Frame Gear’s main equipment was a giant hammer.

Taking the opponent head-on and hammering in a sure-kill blow, that dynamic fighting style doesn’t resemble the younger brother in front of her in the slightest.

Having a bold older sister, he must be having a hard time too, Carrol sympathized just a little.

Come to think of it, Carrol remembered a strategy Yuna had half-jokingly proposed during a casual chat.

Feeling the urge to tease the opponent in front of her a little, she decided to try out the strategy Yuna had suggested.

“Ah, a beautiful woman in a revealing swimsuit is flying in the sky.”

『Eh?!』

Siegfried landed a good hit on the flank of the distracted Ignis.

Normally, she would follow up with another attack here, but since it was so absurd, even Carrol hesitated to do so.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, you…”

『N-No! Just now, I wasn’t reacting to the revealing swimsuit or anything; what caught my attention was the flying in the sky part! Kuh, this is my sister’s idea, isn’t it?!』

“Well, yeah, it is, but…”

Not thinking he would actually fall for it, Carrol was in a state of mind where she didn’t know whether she should laugh or be exasperated.

Originally, it should have ended without him falling for it,

『You didn’t fall for it, huh. It was a secret strategy I learned from Yuna-senpai, though.』

She had intended to make such a lighthearted remark, but to think he actually fell for it. How awkward.

However, Yuna, the person who taught her that strategy, is probably holding her stomach and laughing right about now.

Carrol didn’t have any brothers so she didn’t know, but she wondered if twelve-year-old boys were just like this, despite being the same age as her.

There were boys like that in the elementary division of the knight school she attended before entering the ‘Academy’, too. It’s probably what the older girls call ‘that age’. Though she didn’t understand it at all herself.

“My bad. I meant it as a joke, but…”

『That’s not a very funny joke!』

Perhaps to hide his embarrassment, he repeatedly launched sloppy attacks compared to earlier. I wonder if this aspect is also due to his youth.

She caught his slashing sword with her shield, and unleashed a thrust in return. The opponent nimbly dodged it and took distance.

Although she was making lighthearted remarks, Carrol’s fatigue was actually quite close to its peak.

She never thought that fighting someone of almost the same type in a situation where she couldn’t relax her guard for a single instant would be this exhausting. She made a mistake in pacing herself.

Looking back on it, she had fought opponents who used a knight’s sword like this many times, but most of them were higher-ranked individuals acting as instructors, and she felt like she always had the mindset of just treating it as a practice match. The opponents must have also been making easy-to-understand attacks and defenses from their position of guiding her. The mental fatigue was beyond comparison.

“I should have finished it off during that swimsuit moment earlier.”

『Forget about that already!』

They repeated the fierce clash of swords, but just when Carrol thought they both lacked a decisive blow, Ignis retreated backward and took distance from Siegfried.

『I didn’t want to use this, but it seems I can’t afford to say that.』

“Mu…?”

Ignis held its shield out front and moved its sword to the back of the machine.

As a result, it became hidden behind the shield and the machine, and the sword became invisible from Carrol’s position. If he slashed at her from that state, it would take her an instant to judge where the attack was coming from.

From above, from the side, or from below?

Fearing it might come from an unexpected direction, Carrol made Siegfried step back a little and readied her shield so she could react to any movement.

Suddenly, with a bot!, flames rose behind Ignis.

“!?”

『[Wind Phosphorus Fire Slash (Fuurinkazan)]』

Taking distance and without moving from that spot, the sword slashed upwards from below was clad in blazing flames.

And from the swung-through sword, only the flames flew towards her.

For an instant, Carrol tried to take it with her shield, but intuitively reconsidered that it was ‘dangerous’, and decided to evade by breaking away from the spot.

As a result, the flying flame slash hit the giant rock behind her straight on, causing a massive explosion.

“[Explosion]…! A Magic Sword?!”

『Correct. It’s a Gear Art that utilizes this sword enchanted with the Fire attribute.』

There are a fair number of knights who use magic swords that combine magic and swordplay. However, that is not as easy as it sounds.

Furthermore, reproducing it not with one’s own body but through a Frame Gear is exponentially more difficult.

To think a first-year who just entered the ‘School’ would use it…

She couldn’t do it herself. Carrol felt a little jealousy toward the opponent in front of her.

Bot!, flames harbored in Ignis’s sword once again.

“[Wind Phosphorus Fire Slash (Fuurinkazan)]”

“Kuh…! Eh?”

Carrol made Siegfried run to avoid the flying flames.

However, the flying flames exploded quite a bit in front of Siegfried. No, rather than quite a bit in front, they exploded right in front of Ignis.

Receiving the shock of the explosion, Ignis staggered and took a step back.

“Eh? An accidental discharge?”

『Kuh…! The timing is… [Wind Phosphorus Fire Sla-], guhah?!』

This time, it exploded before he could fully swing the sword. Carrol watched in dumbfoundment as Ignis, having taken the explosion head-on, dropped to one knee.

“…Wait a minute? What is the success rate of that technique…?”

『Forty percent… no, about fifty percent…』

“Yeah, I understand why you didn’t want to use it.”

Relying on a technique with a success rate of less than half is nothing but a dangerous gamble. Carrol thought it would be better not to rely on such a hit-or-miss technique.

But conversely speaking, it could also be said that she had cornered him to the point where he had no choice but to rely on such a technique.

He must be nearing his limit, too. Thinking that, a little bit of mental leeway returned to Carrol as well.

“If you mess up, you’ll self-destruct, you know? I really don’t want it to end that way, to be honest.”

『…………』

Shion, who hadn’t moved for a moment, extinguished Ignis’s flames and assumed a middle guard stance (Seigan). It seems he gave up on trying to use that technique.

If he had actually self-destructed, it might have been desirable for the ‘Academy’ side.

However, for Carrol personally, having the match settled with such an ending wouldn’t sit right with her at all.

She felt that only by fighting head-on and winning could she proudly puff out her chest and say, “I won.”

“This kind of thing is why Sherry calls me naive…”

As a ‘Commander’ who must put the ‘Academy’s’ victory first, she was a failure. Even knowing that, she couldn’t lie to her own feelings.

“As I thought, this kind of battle is the most fun!”

『…Well, I agree.』

Ignis caught Siegfried’s slashing sword head-on with its shield.

Just like that, it repelled the sword as if brushing it aside, and delivered a sharp thrust to the off-balance Siegfried.

Siegfried dodged it with a last-second movement, but the tip of the sword slightly grazed its right shoulder, blowing off the armor.

Undeterred by that, it spun using the momentum of dodging the thrust, and the sword, with added centrifugal force, attacked Ignis in a horizontal sweep.

Caught off guard by an attack from the direction without the shield, Ignis’s reaction was delayed by just an instant.

Even so, managing to duck, Ignis let Siegfried’s attack pass over, although it grazed its head.

They read each other’s attacks, dodged and defended with all their might, and tried to land a sure-kill blow when they saw an opening.

That closely-fought battle continued until, before they knew it, both of their machines were battered.

After five minutes, neither of them had their shields anymore, and almost all of their armor was damaged to the point of being meaningless.

The two glared at each other for a while, but both intuitively felt that this next attack would be their last.

To put everything into that strike betting their entire body and soul, they regulated their breathing and heightened their concentration.

One of them would fall from this attack. With that resolve, the red and blue, two Frame Gears launched a suicidal charge at their opponent.

Two swords crossed each other. The decisive move chosen by both was a sure-kill thrust to reach the opponent even a little bit faster.

Due to concentration heightened to the absolute limit, without missing their marks, it resulted in piercing the opponent’s weak point, each other’s cockpits.

Siegfried’s sword accurately pierced Ignis’s cockpit, and Ignis’s sword pierced Siegfried’s, as they both looked at their main monitors that had turned pure red.

“Next time, I’ll win.”

『Yeah, same here.』

On the red monitors they were staring at, the word ‘DRAW’ (Hikiwake) floated up.

On the Central route, right in the middle of this stage, the red and blue machines that had stopped moving were illuminated by the setting sun, simply standing silently as if boasting of their battle.