Chapter 46

The Imperial sword Arts

  Hans and Chris both got surprised to know that the service would cost them a hefty sum of 1 gold. With a single gold denomination, a normal person could eat to their heart's content for days in a good restaurant.

Hans asked the proctor, believing he was scamming them,

What, it comes with the price?

Proctor replied in annoyance,

Hey, they pay me for proctor work but recording the fight costs memory stones and that would be 10 gold. You should be grateful that for first-years it only costs one coin. What more do you want?

  Chris turned to Delimira and she realised what he was aiming for. She was the richest among them, she caught his intentions and with a sigh paid the money to the proctor. He accepted the coin and readied the stone. He looked at her and said,

The little lady parenting these two children can come to the side.

  Delimira chuckled at his comment and cleared the arena. The proctor asked them to pick their preferred wooden swords and after both of them got ready, the first-year duelling ground got activated. A circle around ten metres in diameter appeared encircling both of them.

The proctor said in a rough tone,

I don't want to deal with any bloodshed so the one who could disarm the other or force his opponent out of the shiny circle will win. I could decide the winner at my own discretion and you will not question my judgement.

He looked at both of them standing in front of each other and said with a nod,

So, tell me when you are ready.

  Both replied in unison and the match started with the proctor’s command. Chris had chosen a sword which was a little thicker and heavier than Hans's. On the other side, Hans was stretching his legs and started swinging his hand holding the Epee sword (Bastard sword). They both pointed the sword at each other. Chris challenged Hans to make his first move.

  After starting to learn from the Limitless Book, Rudolf stopped Hans's sword training but the boy kept practising on his own, just to keep himself physically active. Hans replied to his challenge by lunging at him and performing a forward slash which Chris blocked pretty easily.

  It was an easy-to-block attack because Hans was testing the waters first but Chris mistook it as Hans's looking down on him so he got annoyed and said to him,

Hey if you don't take this seriously you will lose pathetically, now try again.

Hans replied to him,

Why don't you attack for a change?

Fine by me, but don't whine if you lose quickly.

  Chris performed the diagonal slash with a footwork that was oddly similar to Rudolf. Both used a similar type of sword so it was bound to have a similar pattern but the moves were identical and unfortunately for Chris, Hans was adapted to handling these heavy attacks.

  This slash boosted by the heavy momentum came at him. Hans had never managed to block this whenever he practised with Rudolf. So he developed a way to tackle this attack, by just avoiding him with his own modified footwork. Apparently, learning things were tough for him than creating his own ways.

  Hans elegantly avoided the attack, by slanting his body parallel to the incoming sword. He dodged the sword narrowly but his movement contained precision like he had done these thousands of times.

Hans put his sword on his shoulder and sarcastically said to Chris,

Is this your best, my friend?

  He was using the same tactic as Delimra, when someone’s best attack fails they get flustered and their rationality gets taken over by instincts. And just what happened to Hans in his fight with her, the same thing happened to Chris.

  He still didn't know how Hans dodged his heavy slash. The attack was hard to block and with his strength boosting the momentum of the slash and it was not practical to avoid this fast attack either but Hans managed to do that.

  Hans’s quick and free movement clearly put him above others but he did not lean towards quick swordsmanship. Chris got serious and rushed at him with a volley of those diagonal slashes. Sometimes attacks came from the right and sometimes from the left without any specific pattern to confuse Hans more.

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  Hans showed his mastery of avoiding those attacks and kept dodging the sword with the same precision and when Chris finally thought that he succeeded Hans elegantly diverted the flow of the blade by using its own force. Any bystanders could easily tell that Hans was used to this swordsmanship. Chris was losing stamina fast but Hans was keeping his cool.

He mocked Chris again,

Is this your best, my friend, I didn't even break a sweat?

  Chris was looking at him while panting, it was not like he didn't have more sets of moves but this volley of diagonal slashes was the set he was most proud of, so he couldn't just accept his best attack failing to connect even once. It was his pride shackling him from using different things. Meanwhile, Hans was loving this playstyle of Delimira, it was a satisfying moment when he got into the head of his enemy. He was enjoying playing Chris more than the sword duel. He provoked him further,

Come on Chris, Sir Rudolf won't be impressed if a mage beat you here, right?

  Chris never entertained the thought of tasting defeat by Hans before entering this duel, at least not in swordsmanship but now the thought of his defeat entered his mind and he started to get anxious. If he loses to a mage in a sword fight then it would be too shameful to hold his head high again. He lost control over his technique and let his instinct follow the movement.

  If his earlier way was calculative then this new way was like a ravaging storm. Hans provoking him was a way to get the edge over this battle but it backfired on him. Chris was slashing and stabbing the moment he showed any gap. This was getting troublesome and Hans's hands were getting sore by deflecting the incoming stabs mixed among the slashes. Chris had more strength than Hans so he just could not straightforwardly block him without receiving any recoil.

  He was thinking of an ideal way to reach victory but Chris got pretty fast as he let go of his thinking and his instincts took over. There were way too many gaps in defence but Hans was neither quick nor stronger to exploit those. Hans bide his time to wait for Chris to take a breather and when that happened, he created some distance from him, his opponent seemed to have lost his vigour and this was the perfect moment to exploit the situation.

  He took the initiative and bent his body as far as he can to decrease his height further. this act provided him with a boost and less area for Chris to target. As he rushed ahead, Chris tried to counter him with a strong thrust.

  Hans barely avoided the thrust by slightly lowering his head on left but since Chris’s muscles were sore his speed of taking back the stab was slow. Hans used this chance to strike on his grip and Chris received the first blow.

Hans smirked and said,

This is just a start brother.

  Despite his frail-looking stature, Hans was born and bred in the wilderness, since he was attuned to feeling the intent of hostility. He was also capable of letting others feel his intent too. He marked Chris as his target and Chris could feel that an overwhelming attack was coming.

  Hans started using the same move that Chris was so proud of, the volley of diagonal slashes but his were more precise and accurate in targeting Chris's gripping hand. He was aiming to disarm Chris rather than pushing him out of the circle.

  With exhausted stamina, Chris failed to dodge or block many attacks and finally, with a decisive upward slash his sword flung out and the winner was decided. Delimira, on the sidelines, couldn't believe what she witnessed, winning was a different thing but Chris never even manage to deliver a single attack and it was just humiliating for him. Hans, inconsiderate of his friend’s feelings, was jumping in joy.

  But since Chris received those volleys of diagonal slashes, he could feel, Hans was more hone to those attacks than him, he just stood there lowering his head. Hans on the other hand always felt using mind games was a sign of cowardice before but he enjoyed using it more than the sword battle. Now he understood the joy of controlling the battle at his own pace. He looked at Delimira and said,

Your fighting style is really satisfying.

  She understood why he said that, Hans imitated her tactic but she was surprised not because of that but because his swordsmanship was identical to what Chris and Bernard, his father trained in. No matter what, no one in this world was capable of deciphering that sword in a single go and it was also not something that a no-name kid like Hans, a ward of a dominion knight can learn and use.

Chris was still looking at the ground and the proctor’s voice entered his ears as he declared,

Hans Richardson, flawless victory. Here is your recording. Now get the hell out of here.

  The proctor threw the stone at Hans and disappeared. This was the first time he saw a memory stone, it was a shiny pebble, smaller than a quail’s egg. When he was busy admiring the stone, Delimra came to the defeated Chris and asked in concern,

You okay

No, I am pretty fucking far from okay, I never landed a hit, a single hit Deli.

It was because he was playing with you, psychologically, he might have caught that from me.

  Chris refused to believe that it was all psychological, of course, it played a part in his defeat but Hans’s skills were clearly shown in the fight. A part of him was relieved to know that Hans was not a knight, if he was then there will be no one capable of outshining him in this generation. This petty thought was eating him as he felt insecure for the first time in his life. He never ran away from rivalry but the gap he just saw made him waver. He said to her,

No Deli, it was not only that, he knew my every attack and a way to skillfully avoid it too. This swordsmanship is considered the best in the world and is the hardest to master. He is a mage and is two years younger than me. It is a humiliating defeat.

Delimira replied,

It is but you told me once, it's better to suck your loss and prepare to get better, right?

Chris sighed and looked at Hans who was in a very good mood, he asked him with a bittersweet expression,

Hey Hans, do you know, Imperial sword arts?

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