Angelina and I are standing in the middle of the arena facing each other holding our wooden long swords.

The ladies who were previously around Angelina, are now sitting on the seats inside the arena watching us.

After they found out that I was a bastard, they laughed awkwardly and changed the topic as if the previous conversation about marriage and such did not happen. And I completely understand their reactions because they were daughters of Marquesses and Earls. No way their families would let them marry a man who could not have children.

Yes, a bastard could not have children of his own in this kingdom no matter what. And to ensure there were no accidents, bastards are made to drink a certain medicine from a young age that prevents them from making women pregnant.

As they were leaving to sit on the seats, I did hear some whispers like, “such a pity” and “so much wasted beauty” but I kept on smiling.

Holding the sword inside right, I am standing in a wide stance with my back foot raised and my weight on the front foot.

The reason for this stance was so I could jump backwards when Angelina came in for a wide swing.

How did I know that she will come in swinging wide?

Because for as long as I can remember, whenever we spared, she had always come swinging for the fences.

Not once did she do a different move.

And just as expected, she came with a wide sword swing. I was about to jump backwards when I feel that I could not move my front foot.

‘That bitch is here again’, I think to myself.

As I could not evade the hit, due to a certain someone, I chose to block it.

But that was also not a perfect solution.

Although Angelina had no talent or technique with the sword, the thing she did have was overwhelming brute strength. And the reason for her strength was the large mana pool that she possessed since her birth.

No one knows why or how this phenomenon happens but in this world, there are rare cases where a child is born with an absurd amount of mana. That mana then causes the child to grow with superhuman physical and magical abilities.

Angelina was one of those people.

Her mother did try to assign mages who could teach her, but she only wanted to learn the sword even though she had no talent for it.

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It was not that you could not learn magic and sword at the same time. It was more about Angelina not wanting to do anything related to magic.

For mana training, you needed focus and patience. Both qualities she did not possess.

The duke did not interfere with her choice and just left everything to her wife who was a doting parent and just let her do what she wanted.

When her swing connects with my sword, I am launched backward.

'aargh, fucking gorilla', I think to myself with a painful expression.

“Oh my!”

“What amazing strength”

“She really is talented”, Her friends say in amazement

“Hehehe, get ready Sage”, says Angelina and runs towards me.

I recover my stance and hold my sword over my head hanging right. She comes and does a vertical slash down on my head.

There was no way for me to block her hit so I use a technique that I learned recently from one of the prostitutes in my establishments who use to be an adventurer.

When I saw that our swords were about to connect, I bend my sword a little down and let her sword slide across mine towards the ground.

Her strike had so much force that the ground where she struck cracked which made me glad I got the timing right.

When I was about to attack her, I felt that now I could not move my hands.

Angelina recovers her stance and slashed my chest and I was launched yet again.

This was a direct hit and even though I was wearing armor, it hurt a lot.

"Lady Angelina is amazing"

"She looks just like a knight"

"I would love to see her in tournaments"

“Hahaha, Sage your so weak”, says Angelina with mocking laughter.

I am crouching on the ground and holding my chest with a painful expression.

‘Hope my ribs are fine’, I think to myself.

I look at the arena’s seating area towards a woman in navy blue robes who was sitting holding a staff with a smirk on her face

That person was Isla Winston, House Blackburn's personal sorceress.

I don’t know what problem she has with me but one day, she just started interfering with my spars.

It started when I was good enough to start dodging Angelina's strike and maybe even counter her sometimes.

Then suddenly, she appeared and started casting some spells to stop my movements.

At first, I had no idea about what was going on but one time I coincidentally saw her mutter something and then my body stopped moving.

So I concluded that she was the one messing with me.

Now normally, you would consider this type of thing as some light bullying. But when the person swinging the sword was Angelina, then this was not funny anymore.

Each of her swings was lethal for someone like me.

It was lethal because I had no mana in my body. Or rather someone made it so that I have no mana in my body.

I had asked Morgana if she could fix me but she said that my body was beyond repair. She said that it was like someone had been breaking all my mana channels for a long time. But I don’t remember anyone doing anything like that.

So it remains a mystery how my body got messed up.

I confronted Isla about this 'bullying' but she denied my claim and said that she did not do anything. Then she proceeded to call me a sore loser for blaming my loss on her in a loud voice. I was a little confused but when I saw the servants watching us I understood what she was doing.

The servants who were near at the time, heard what she had said and my already bad reputation got worse.

I was very pissed and tried to find dirt on her so I could blackmail her like the others. But she was clean.

I even tried asking the servants, who I have blackmailed into signing contracts with me, to get me something on her but there were no results.

So I could do nothing but wait for something to turn up.

“Get up Sage we are just getting started”, says Angelina with a wide smile.

‘Just remember the plan, Sage. Remember the plan’, I say inwardly and get up with shaky legs to continue this unfair sparring.