In the dining room of the duchess’s mansion, a seemingly endless sword fight continued. Ser Griffin surpassed Ryo in speed and power, but they were evenly matched in technique. In that light, Ser Griffin held an overwhelming advantage. He attacked, and Ryo defended, and that was how the duel continued, with neither fighter giving an inch.
What is with him... He isn’t going down at all.
Ser Griffin was growing more frustrated and impatient. Despite his relentless attacks, his opponent had yet to surrender. He’d never experienced this before. No, that wasn’t quite true... This had happened to him once before. Only once, but it’d been against a vampire, which was expected. But against a human? Absurd.
Ryo’s mind remained calm.
The laws of swordsmanship are the laws of the universe.
All sword movement comes from four fundamental principles: inertia, force, action, and reaction.
And nothing can ignore the laws of physics.
Take, for example, a sword striking from high to low. Consider the swing path, the origin point, the momentum, and finally the endpoint. At each position along its arc, the speed of the swing varies along with its destructive power. To parry a sword slicing down at you, its fall aided by inertia, you must apply a force in the opposite direction. You must swing your arm to make that movement, which means bracing your feet to initiate the swing and using your torso to balance your body. Practicing swordsmanship is a means to commit all of these principles to your subconscious mind.
The cornerstone of Ryo’s swordsmanship was defense, which he could solidify with dedicated effort. For example, if he focused completely on defense, even Sera, using her Wind Robe, would need more than two hours to break through.
Moreover, he was used to being on the defensive. When he’d arrived on Phi, the first person to teach him swordsmanship was the Water Fairy King in the form of a Dullahan. After that, he had sparred with Sera and her Wind Robe countless times. In short, he had always fought against stronger opponents. This had naturally improved his defense, whether Ryo had wanted it to or not.
Generally speaking, being constantly on the defensive is mentally taxing. If you make one wrong move, it’s all over. On the other hand, it also means you don’t need to take any unnecessary risks. If you considered that, then Ryo’s situation didn’t seem so bad, and that was the mindset Ryo clung to.
Ryo raised his sword and deflected Ser Griffin’s powerful downward swing before it had gathered its full force. The angle of his parry made the man’s blade slide over Murasame, then Ryo counterattacked with a diagonal slash. But his opponent was a vampire, and he used his superhuman quickness to leap backward and escape danger.
Still, Ryo didn’t panic. The counter was merely one part of his defensive strategy. It didn’t matter if it landed; his ultimate goal was to make his opponent wary of counterattacks. All he had to do was make his opponent hesitate, even if only for a moment. Ryo just needed him to take one wrong step—even half a step—and that slight miscalculation, during a crucial moment, could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
But until that moment came, he mustn’t rush. There was no need to. Ryo had only one thing to do: defend.
Their sword fight seemed to last forever, but that was only an illusion. No living thing can move forever. No, that isn’t quite right. Even robots and machines were not inexhaustible. Energy is always finite. Machines ran out of batteries, and humans ran out of stamina. Needless to say, vampires were no exception either.
For the umpteenth time, Ser Griffin swung his sword down diagonally. But this time, he lost his footing for a fraction of a second. Despite being a vampire, he was beginning to wear down.
Ryo’s steady counters had been affecting him, albeit only slightly. Ser Griffin shrank back with each one just the tiniest bit before. This time, right before Griffin swung his sword down, Ryo took a half step with his right foot, deflected the man’s sword early in its arc, and used his momentum to immediately slash at the vampire’s left shoulder.
Ryo then dispelled Murasame’s ice blade and took another half step with his right foot. In an instant, he swapped Murasame to his left hand and plunged its blade through the vampire’s throat.
The moment he did, the vampire’s body blew backward.
And then he stopped moving.
Of course, Ser Griffin hadn’t overlooked stamina. Ryo simply had an abnormal reserve of endurance, which anyone could acquire with enough effort. In a battle, the one still standing at the end is the victor. That, more than anything, demands endurance.
And it was endurance that determined the outcome of their fight. The moment Ser Griffin’s exhaustion degraded his skill, removing the gap he’d had over Ryo, the outcome became clear. It was a triumph of superhuman endurance, which had surpassed that of even a vampire.
“Ryo wins,” Agnes said with a snap of her fingers.
Instantly, the strange feeling enveloping Ryo vanished.
“The magic nullification...”
“Yes, I turned it off.”
Agnes then called for her butler and ordered him to treat Ser Griffin and prepare a carriage.
“Ummm...” Ryo tilted his head curiously, unable to figure out what she was doing.
“There may be travel restrictions within the capital. However, in my company, you can move about freely. I shall escort you to the guesthouse, Master Ryo.”
“Oh, I see... Thank you very much, then...”