The battle went to Eris.
While Nina sobbed, Eris was made a Sword King. Gino felt something strange as he watched her cry. Before he knew it, his fists were clenched and his mouth tightened into a thin line. He didn’t recognize this emotion. He didn’t know why he was feeling it. Nerves? Disappointment? He wondered why it wasn’t him standing out there. Why hadn’t he even been granted the right to fight the other two? What would happen to him if he carried on like this?
Gino didn’t know what to do with these new feelings, but he did realize something. When he’d heard the Sword God Gall ask Nina, “If I told you that you have to choose between marrying Gino and becoming a Sword King, which would you pick?” Gino had felt his face grow hot—that there was nothing he could pipe up with in denial.
He’d fallen for her.
Gino was a little different after that. He didn’t start acting like a new man, and he continued to do the practice his father and the Sword God assigned him as well as the intensive training with Nina. On the outside, Eris’s departure from the Sword Sanctum changed nothing for Gino. His bouts with Nina grew more advanced, but that was all. The change was internal; how he thought about these things was new. He became much more motivated. He gave serious consideration to the point of their regular practice, as well as each individual technique, and began to experiment.
The results were dramatic. In no time at all, he was on an equal footing with Nina. That wasn’t surprising. Gino had always had a gift, and his daily drills had given him a strong foundation. Nina changed too. After Eris departed the Sword Sanctum, Nina, now a Sword King herself, started to frequent the nearby villages and towns. Rather than simply improving her own sword skills, she applied herself to hunting monsters and teaching at the training halls in the larger towns.
Gino, meanwhile, stayed shut up in the Sword Sanctum. The outside world didn’t scare him anymore, but he still had no interest in leaving. He couldn’t say why. Did he need a reason to stay when there was no reason for him to leave? When Nina wasn’t around, he devoted himself to practice, sometimes training by sparring with his Sword Emperor father. Despite his increased interest in training, he was no match for his father. Sword God Gall told him that he would be recognized as a Sword King soon, but that was all. In terms of technique, he had already caught up with his father—the same was true of Nina, and probably Eris and Ghislaine, who were also sword kings—but he couldn’t beat them. He was convinced he was missing some final step.
Though he knew what he needed to do in order to win, he didn’t act on it. For all that he’d become more proactive, he still balked at throwing himself into unpleasant situations.
He had tried to put himself in such situations in the past, but every time, he’d thought, Why is this important enough to suffer for?
No answer ever volunteered itself.
During that time, Nina, who had gone to see the coronation in the Asura Kingdom, came back to the Sword Sanctum.
“Hey, Gino,” she said. “What do you say we get married?”
Without thinking much about it, Gino accepted. He’d just had the feeling that this would happen one day. After all, he had feelings for Nina, and there’d never been any sign that she was involved with any other man.
With her usual impetuousness, Nina took him back to her room, where they immediately went to bed. It was the first time for both of them, so the experience left a lot to be desired, but they were compatible enough to keep each other preoccupied the whole night.
In a daze of giddy pleasure, Gino thought, I want more of this.
That might have been the first time he’d wanted anything so badly.
The next day, Gino took Nina with him to see the Sword God. He took Nina, not the other way around. It was a rare occurrence for Gino to take the initiative like that, but he wanted to marry her.
“No,” the Sword God immediately said.
The Sword God had never interfered with his daughter’s upbringing before, but here, for the first time, he said no. The reason was simple to him: Gino had no attractive qualities. Not a scrap of independence, adventurous spirit, or ambition. He was a doormat who did what he was told. The Sword God didn’t know that they’d already spent the night together, but he figured it had been Nina who brought up the idea of marriage as well. Gino had no desires of his own, nothing he was striving for—and he “wanted” to be married? Absurd.
Still, it occurred to Gall that this might be a good turn of events.
“You want to marry her? Defeat me. Do that, and I’ll give you permission.”
The Sword God was trying to light a fire under Gino. He thought that throwing an obstacle in his path might motivate the boy a little.
Ah, that’s what it was, Gino thought. All along, it was this. It was that simple.
It all made sense—what the Sword God was always saying, what he was missing, and the source of his many doubts. The fog lifted, and he had it, the final step he’d been missing—he had a purpose.
“I accept!” he said.
The rest was easy.
Gino changed completely. He was a new man. He stopped doing the practice that he’d always been ordered to do. He even stopped doing his intensive training with Nina. Was he slacking off? Not a chance. No, Gino had started training on his own. For what he was doing, he didn’t need a partner. Thanks to his intensive training with Nina, his practice with his father, and the many other mock battles he’d fought, he already had all the sparring practice he needed.
Gino had theorized a way to win; he had a vision of a sure path to victory against the Sword God. In order to realize that vision, he would have to work unbelievably hard, overcoming hardship and pain in the days ahead. That’s why he hadn’t done it before. There’d been no reason to. The frustration and impatience for no reason would have been unbearable. But now, he had a purpose—he wanted Nina. Wanted her more than anything. He wanted her even if he had to suffer. Purpose transformed the hardship and pain into pleasure and anticipation.
All that remained was to hone himself. In order to prove his theory, he had to condition his body to increase the speed and weight of his sword swing. They had so many words for it—drills, intensive training, practice—and yet none of those fit what Gino was doing. If he’d had to choose a word, he would have called it “work.”