As the first light of Hiphus peeked over the horizon, the Ravendalls' mansion was bathed in the soft colors of dawn. Everything was quiet. It was a time when most remained in peaceful slumber, but for Alice, it marked the hour of a challenge about which she had spent a part of the night worrying. Her mind was clear, but her body felt heavy. In any case, she planned to rely mostly on her mana to make her limbs move.

She stepped onto the training ground behind the mansion with a determined stride. The crisp morning air filled her lungs, steadying her nerves as she prepared to face the battle ahead. Surely, it would determine the course of her future.

Upon reaching the training ground, Alice realized that someone was already there. Backlit by the rising Hiphus, this imposing figure seemed to dominate the scene.

(Father...)

Hearing the footsteps of his daughter, Edgar de Ravendall turned around. Their eyes met, and both of them entered a staring contest.

Without speaking, it was evident they had both come to the same unspoken agreement: this confrontation had to take place before the rest of the family awoke.

This silent standoff continued until a songbird finally pierced the silence. This announced the arrival of a new day. It was then that Edgar spoke, his voice firm yet gentle.

"Alice, I want you to know I will use magic during our duel. I am well aware that you have always been against me using it on you but, as I told you earlier, I will not hold back. If you feel like you cannot endure it, give up."

Alice's eyes narrowed, and she let out a disgruntled sigh.

"I know that. I will deal with it."

"Fine, then. Shall we commence our duel? You will find a wooden blade resting beside you."

"One touch, huh?"

"Indeed. As for me, as we agreed on, it's three."

"Alright."

The air between them seemed charged with anticipation, the tension building up as Hiphus continued its ascent.

Gripping her weapon tightly, Alice sparked her mana veins to life and propelled herself toward her father without waiting a single second.

Edgar blinked in surprise when he saw how fast his - supposedly - frail daughter was. Still, he easily managed to parry her strike and regained some distance.

"I realize that it is the first time I actually see your magic in action. Still, why would you throw yourself at me at the moment I am the most wary of you? This is not a good strategy, Alice."

"Says the one who is talking during a battle."

Edgar smiled a bit and his body seemed to ease up.

"Do not be so relaxed, Father. I am not done yet!"

The clash between the two wooden swords resumed, but the result was identical. Alice was on the offensive, while her Father merely dodged or parried her strikes.

(He's not taking me seriously, is he? Even after saying he wouldn't hold back...)

"So you are choosing speed over skill. This might work against beasts and untrained bandits, but you have no chance of defeating any trained warrior like this. It will only wear you out."

"I can do this all day. I would appreciate it if you started attacking, though."

(And get tired doing it, please.)

"As you wish."

The moment those words left Edgar's lips, his body blurred as he dashed towards Alice. Her eyes widened as she struggled to keep up with his movements.

Her father was fast and incredibly skilled. She felt like a child learning to walk as she parried and dodged his relentless assault. Every time she thought she had an opening, it would vanish in an instant, leaving her vulnerable.

(...! Those years of training with wooden sticks alongside Rachel feel so useless right now!)

Alice's strengthening spell made her body incredibly responsive, but her spatial awareness as well as her reaction time were the limiting factors. She had to focus all her attention on predicting where her father's next strike would land and then sending the order through her nerves for her body to move in consequence. Even so, she felt like he could still touch her at any moment if he wanted to.

After a minute of their intense exchange, Alice spotted what she believed to be an opportunity. She gathered her strength and aimed a powerful strike at her father's exposed side. But just as she was about to connect, her vision blurred, and a horrible sensation overtook her. Her father had vanished from her sight, and she felt the tip of his sword pressed against her back.

"One touch. Two left."

Her legs buckled, and her stomach churned. The sensation of her brain and perception being tampered with was unbearable.

(Urgh...!)

She barely kept herself from throwing up, and she slowly pushed herself back to her feet.

Seeing his daughter's legs shaking so much after he used just a bit of his magic, Edgar couldn't help but sigh.

"Are you alright, Alice? Honestly, I did not think my magic would have that effect on you. This much is just enough to entertain Alistair."

"You would not understand..."

"Whatever the reason, if you cannot bear magic that messes with the brain, then you should not be an adventurer. This kind of magic is not all that rare."

Alice had been made to see her father disappear just before she struck. Most likely, he had still been there and simply dodged her sword, before circling his daughter. She had hallucinated.

His magic type made him able to mess with an opponent's brain and manipulate their vision. Alice could guess that it was more specifically targeting the visual cortex located in the occipital lobe. Edgar's magic type belonged to a category called 'Illusion magic'.

That sensation was awfully reminiscent of the Glioblastoma that had taken her life in her former world. That brain tumor had not developed in the occipital lobe, but it still often messed with her brain and made her unable to rely on her senses.

This deep-seated trauma was the very reason why she had never wanted her father to use his magic on her.

(Pull yourself together already! ... How do I deal with it? A mana-to-light armor to catch his mana before it gets to me? Nah, that'd be stupid and unusable. Do I have to endure his magic then? But now that he has decided to go all out, I can't just rely on my vision anymore...)

She couldn't trust her eyes. What was actually projected onto her retina didn't necessarily match up with the image reconstructed in her visual cortex.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

(I just need to rely on my other senses, then. I'll go with mana perception. Three birds with one stone.)

She had plenty of mana to use. After all, the nature of this duel meant that she wouldn't have to use half of her mana to protect herself from kinetic attacks, as she didn't plan to get hit more than twice. Currently, she was only using her mana to contract explosively her muscular fibers.

"Let us continue the fight, Father."

With a determined look, Alice put her hand on her pendant. As she did so, a small burst of mana was felt in the vicinity.

"Oh... Are you about to show me what you are truly capable of?"

"Just mimicking strengthening magic would be boring, right? 'Spread'."

With a snap of her fingers, Alice sent the orb of mana pulsating before her into the surrounding air, causing it to scatter.

As the foreign mana made contact with him, Edgar gritted his teeth. He tried moving sideways to leave the area, but it did nothing. It was as if the entire field was filled by an invisible mist.

"...! What are you up to, Alice? Resorting on mental warfare? Just so you know, I will not give up the fight just because of this. You are wasting a great deal of mana."

"... Am I, though?"

With that, Alice gently smiled with her eyes closed. A fraction of a second later, Edgar realized she was dashing towards him, with her eyes still closed.

This action was so unexpected that Edgar evaded her sword a moment later than he normally would. This dodging was made even more difficult because, somehow, his momentum was thrown off when he moved through this mana-charged air.

Edgar stuttered, struggling to find his footing.

"W-what is happening here? My movements... are sluggish. Is that your doing, Alice?"

"You speak too much during a battle, Father."

This alteration was unsettling, leaving him off-balance. The worst part was that the effects varied depending on the area. It wasn't much, but the accuracy of Edgar's strikes was reduced.

Alice, who still had her eyes closed for some reason, didn't seem bothered at all. She was in her element, and quite literally. If a spectator was seeing this battle through a vision-enhancing artifact, they would have realized Alice and her sword were enveloped by a thin layer of mana that was interacting in some way with the sparse mana in the air.

Before he knew it, Edgar was once again on the defensive. Even without looking in his direction, she knew where to strike and where to parry her father's sword.

"You leave me no choice!"

Edgar decided to use magic once again. She wasn't using her eyes, but she would still be affected. And, indeed, Alice paused and frowned immediately after.

Even though no light was passing through her cornea, she was seeing a moving image of her father on a black background.

(W-weird... But at least I know this one's a fake!)

Alice ignored this illusion dashing towards her as well as the disturbing feeling of her brain being manipulated, and she focused her attention on the mana everywhere else.

(Where is he?!)

And immediately after, the false image of her father touched her.

"One touch remaining."

"E-eh? How...?"

"Illusions are not necessarily fakes. Or rather, in this case, I was hiding within the illusion."

"Uh..."

(Gaaah! I indirectly relied on my vision once again!)

"This time I am giving everything I have, Father."

"Good. I will do everything I can to keep you safe in our mansion."

(Hmpf. Let's change the field.)

Once more, Alice touched her pendant, her fingers tracing its contours. As she snapped her fingers, the paralyzing effects suddenly became even more important.

"Ngh...! You were not using all your remaining mana? How much do you have?!"

"I told you that I could do this all day, did I not? You can give up if you want."

"As if!"

Edgar tried to run but found his efforts thwarted by the invisible resistance enveloping him. A mosaic of differing effects painted the field, making it a somewhat unpredictable terrain. In some places, his movements were slowed down, while they were disturbingly sped up in others. Some regions were completely devoid of mana. These zones were so close together that Edgar could easily have his left leg frozen in place while his right leg would continue its trajectory with even more momentum than initially.

As he circled Alice, however, Edgar began to see some kind of pattern in the disposition of the mana, its density, and its effects.

Thus, he activated his magic for the third time and dashed toward his daughter. As he expected, her legs weakened a bit, which would surely make her too late in evading his strike.

(T-there are multiple Fathers! Are they shadow clones?!)

Edgar was sure he could get her in time. If he was right about the pattern, he was currently in a zone where his movements were only slightly slowed down. He would then enter a very restrained area where they would be greatly accelerated, and they would get immediately counterbalanced by passing through a region that was greatly reducing his momentum.

Sure enough, he felt his speed going up and then down again. He was only two meters away from Alice, who looked like she was waiting for him with a smile.

"'Converge'."

"W-wha-?"

For the third time in their clash, Alice's fingers clicked. Most of the densest clumps of mana, which were all for some reason encircling Edgar, moved towards him, and almost entirely stopped his course. In the next second, all the mana in the field had reached him to stop him completely. Alice moved the mana in such a way that her father's head was freed, and that his diaphragm would still have room to fill and empty his lungs.

For every other part, though, the more he strained against those invisible restraints, the more they powered the effect. I was almost like moving in a non-Newtonian fluid.

"Ngh! What did you do?!"

"I gave everything I had, just like I said."

"This... This is nothing like strengthening magic."

Alice glanced at her immobilized father, a glimmer of satisfaction in her eyes.

"You could say I used some sort of motion magic. Your movements, your every step... I monitored and manipulated them so that I could limit your avenues of attack. Anyway, I win."

Alice gently approach the tip of her wooden sword toward her father's torso, and it was halted about half a meter away from him.

"Ah."

(Dammit, it's stuck!)

Still perplexed about his defeat, Edgar was forced to watch his daughter struggling to free her sword from the grip of her own mana. He couldn't help but sigh.

"... What are you doing? End the fight, already."

"I-I am trying, okay?! That last move seems to have taken away the mana around me and my sword too! Ah. I guess I just have to put new mana onto it..."

Alice regained her calm, breathed in and out, and passed her hand across the wooden blade stuck. By doing so, it was able to move normally again. At last, the sword finally made contact.

"I win, Father."