Agnes wanted Ryo to stay, but she didn’t want to lie. If she deceived him into staying there, her intuition told her that everyone involved would suffer a terrible fate if he ever discovered the truth.
“In that case, I have no choice but to leave.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Agnes gently shook her head.
A moment later, all of the dining room’s walls and windows were replaced with stone. Then a man appeared by the door.
“I’m sorry, but you’ve forced my hand, Master Ryo,” she said. “If you continue to press, I may have to take your life...”
“You have your duty, and I have mine.”
“Don’t you understand that you can’t use magic?” Agnes said. “And even if you’re proficient with a sword, how do you expect to fight vampires who are superior in both speed and strength? But I see my words fall on deaf ears. At the very least, let’s end this quickly. He’s—” She paused, pointing to the man by the door. “He’s one of our best swordsmen. Allow me to introduce Ser Griffin. Master Ryo, your chances of winning are slim to none.”
“Be that as it may, there are some battles you simply can’t run away from. For me, this is one of those.”
Ryo knew he couldn’t win, but he had no choice but to fight...because he also knew that Abel and the others were counting on him.
Ryo took out Murasame’s hilt and conjured its icy blade. Agnes sucked in a sharp breath at the sight, but Ser Griffin stood undeterred.
The two men inched closer, closing the gap between them little by little.
Ser Griffin was the first to strike. He slashed diagonally, his body moving with terrifying speed. Rather than parry, Ryo evaded the blow and countered with a horizontal slice of his own.
Ser Griffin evaded by stepping back with incredible speed.
Though this exchange was short, even Agnes could tell how extraordinary their swordsmanship was.
While Duchess Agnes Alba was one of the most famous and powerful magicians in Twilightland, she was also known as an elite talent with a sword. She wouldn’t have been opposed to facing Ryo herself after nullifying his magic, but she’d devised this contingency plan in case Ryo turned out to be as extraordinary a swordsman as he was a water magician. That was why she’d summoned Ser Griffin, one of the best vampire swordsmen.
She’d assumed Ryo would want to rejoin his friends, and while she’d hoped that this exact scenario wouldn’t come to pass, she’d been destined for disappointment from the start. If she had to kill him, she at least wanted to ensure his death was painless.
Agnes had taken a liking to Ryo. She’d thought of him merely as a powerful water magician at first, but now she liked him as a person and found his mannerisms endearing. Of course, she didn’t view him in a romantic light. Vampires saw humans like pets, and she thought he was a decent enough sort.
Still, she liked him. Having to let go of something she liked roused a host of emotions in her: regret, sadness, and the desire to make his end as painless as possible. With this jumble of thoughts in her mind, Agnes watched the two prepare to fight.
But the first blow revealed that her prediction had been way off. Ryo wasn’t merely an extraordinary swordsman—he was so far beyond that.
I knew his robe belonged to the Fairy King, but his sword does too? Does this mean the Water Fairy King trained him...? Never in all my years could I have imagined a magician like him existed...
With a shake of her head, Agnes continued to watch.
This is bad.
Just like Agnes had said, Ser Griffin definitely outranked him in both speed and strength.
This is bad, Ryo thought as he dodged another attack.
If he couldn’t win using agility and power, perhaps Ryo could best him using superior technique, just as Abel and Hugh had when they faced Roman the Hero... That was unlikely.
The more I think about it, the more I see that there’s no way to win.
The gulf between Ryo and Ser Griffin felt just as wide as the one he’d faced when fighting Sera in her Wind Robe... And Ryo still hadn’t managed to defeat her. So with no solution in sight, he kept fighting.
Of the three, Ser Griffin was probably the most surprised.
Yesterday, the duchess had asked him to face a human magician with a sword. At first, he’d been confused. Humans were so fragile that no vampire would bother taking a fight with one seriously.
While Ser Griffin could admit some humans had an admirable level of learning ability, work ethic, or creativity, humans were simply no match for vampires in combat, neither with magic nor the blade.
Having said that, he couldn’t very well have refused a request from Duchess Alba, arguably the pinnacle of power in Twilightland, regardless of how pointless the whole exercise would likely be. Moreover, she’d said the battle would take place after she’d activated the mansion’s magic nullification. With the battle now reduced to a pure sword fight, Ser Griffin hadn’t thought it would last long. Even the human Hero and A-rank adventurer visiting Twilight would’ve been lucky to last ten strikes. Ser Griffin had told Duchess Alba all of this.
She’d laughed in response. “I think so too. Truly, but...you never know what will happen. That is the sort of opponent you’ll be facing.”
How could a human magician have made Duchess Alba say such a thing? Ser Griffin had finally been intrigued.
Fast forward to the present, where Ser Griffin had already clashed swords with his opponent twenty times. He was superior in both speed and strength, but it was difficult to say who was better in terms of skill. Still, he couldn’t break through the other man’s defenses.
Is he actually a magician?
Ryo was more dangerous than a pure swordsman. While Griffin didn’t think he’d lose, he no longer expected this fight to be an easy win.
And so, the seemingly endless battle continued.