Ink grew embarrassed at the praise. Plain, straightforward compliments touched him more deeply than flowery rhetoric or poetic expression.
“By the way... You are one of my combat instructors, yes?”
“Of course.”
Slightly excited, the lord brought up something that felt almost too obvious in retrospect.
“In that case, I should also be able to receive instruction in your secret techniques, don’t you think?”
“A-Ah... Yes, of course.”
“Well then, without delay, tell me by what principles you were able to overwhelm them so completely.”
The lord himself had no real experience with combat, but he at least understood that a match should not be decided that easily.
There had to be some trick—so he believed.
“My lord, you wish to be able to do that yourself?”
“Well, no, I mean...”
Faced with Inke’s straightforward question, the lord grew evasive. He had not yet heard the explanation, but even he did not think it would be so simple as just telling him the secret.
So although he said he wanted to know, it seemed he sought only the revelation of the trick, not to master the skill itself.
“I see.”
Inke did not particularly want to teach him how to execute those moves himself—if anything, he’d have found it far more troublesome—so he did not press the lord about the evasive answer and simply began explaining.
“First, the first man. He underestimated both the match and me. ‘The opponent’s just a youngster—there’s no way he’s stronger than me, a seasoned fighter.’ That’s what he was thinking.”
“That does sound like something a scam master would tell himself.”
“Yes... And the fact that it was a one-on-one fight with wooden swords also made him careless. Compared to a battlefield where men in full armor slaughter one another in groups, a little mock duel must have seemed like a child’s game.”
“That may well be true, but...”
“And that’s why he couldn’t withstand my blade.”
Inke spoke matter-of-factly, but his reasoning was convincing.
“If he hadn’t let his guard down and had tried to block me with full strength, he could have stopped my attack. Or, at the very least, he wouldn’t have died.”
Precisely because he’d been able to read Inke’s movements—and because he moved exactly as his reading told him to—he failed to receive the strike properly.
“He never imagined I would kill him. It showed on his face—‘I’ll just brush him off.’ Like that.”
“I see...”
The lord nodded, but after a brief pause, he grimaced.
So Inke really broke the wooden sword with sheer physical strength. Well, obviously, since we saw it, but still...
No wonder Inke was reluctant to teach him. Teaching how to lure an opponent into carelessness was one thing, but the training required to crush a skull straight through a defensive guard was not something just anyone could endure.
I should give up on this.
The lord made a wise decision.
“As for the second opponent, he was terrified and his movements became stiff. He’d watched the first man get killed so easily and completely lost his composure. That’s why he rushed the fight.”
Sensing the lord’s thoughts, Inke continued.
“It’s true that I was exhausted after delivering that first strike. I don’t think I could have blocked a proper, full-power attack after that. If he had just fought normally, I would have been in danger.”
“And that’s why you dodged, stomped him down, then struck after regaining your breath.”
So it had not been an effortless victory—Inke had played a dangerous game. He had not merely pretended to be tired. He had truly been drained.
Yet he did not hide it; instead, he showed his weakness openly to draw the opponent in. It was a tactic one could only use with absolute confidence in one’s own skill.
“Putting your weight into a downward strike at the crown of the head—it’s a simple but powerful move. But since I already intended to evade, it actually worked to my advantage. As expected, he drove his sword into the ground, and I subdued him with nothing more than my foot.”
“You didn’t consider the possibility that he might do something else?”
“He was rushing the fight and had taken an overhead stance. From that posture, he would need to shift in order to execute any other attack. As long as I focused entirely on watching him, I could respond.”
The secret behind a magic trick was usually something simple, but that didn’t mean a novice could necessarily imitate it.
The lord felt that truth keenly.
That overwhelming victory he had witnessed moments ago had in fact been like treading on thin ice.
“As for the third man—his spirit had already broken. I intentionally stepped away from formal dueling forms and used real combat swordsmanship. He was focused on protecting his life—his head—so I struck his leg with ease.”
He felled him by striking the leg, straddled him, and delivered the finishing blow. Another simple maneuver that anyone could copy in theory, yet had been pulled off so cleanly only because circumstances aligned.
After watching two clean victories through orthodox swordsmanship, the man could no longer respond to a rough, real-combat technique.
“The foundation of the Sansui Shirokuro style—no, the Suiboku style—is to avoid monotony and maintain breadth of style. I used three different techniques on the three of them so they couldn’t read me. When you unleash entirely different strategies, the opponent can’t keep up.”
If certain people heard him call it the “Suiboku style,” they would tremble in fear.
But Inke had been acknowledged even by Suiboku himself. That was why he could invoke the name without hesitation.
“Using the same method three times in a row would actually be far more terrifying,” Inke said.
“I understand now... It means there’s definitely no hope for me.”
“If that’s enough to make you lose motivation, I’ll be the one in trouble, you know.” Inke returned the lord’s light joke with one of his own.
“Well, anyway... Those men weren’t trying to win. Their minds were filled with nothing but self-preservation, and they weren’t really watching me. They never considered actually trying to surpass me. I’m not weak enough to lose under such circumstances.”
Feeling good, Inke ended up boasting a little. But he quickly scolded himself for it and began to downplay his own ability.
“Although...if it had been Master Sansui, he would have handled it far better.”
“Better than that? I thought you were absolutely flawless.”
“If he felt like it, he could have subdued them without even using a wooden sword, or without leaving a single scratch, or made them give up before the fight had even begun.”
“The frightening thing is that I can’t say any of that is impossible, knowing the kind of man Sansui is.”
The lord had seen Sansui fight before, and he knew Inke was not exaggerating when praising his own teacher.
“Still... I can’t even begin to imagine how he would do it.”
The next day, the lord and his five combat instructors left the town to go dismantle yet another fraudulent sword school.
As fate would have it, this very town was the homeland that Lamp’s grandmother had wished to destroy, and the mayor and relatives who had been dragged off as criminals were kin to those who had driven Lamp’s grandmother out.
But the group knew nothing of this. Nor did the woman who sought revenge ever learn of it herself.