"Bang!"
What am I supposed to do now?
"Smack! Smack!"
Seriously, what should I do?
"Whoosh!"
The nonstop clashing of wooden swords and the sound of wind finally pulled Cid out of his thoughts. As he watched the wooden sword wrapped in Magical Power get closer and closer, a response instinctively surfaced in his mind.
His opponent had put full force into the attack, making it incredibly fast and hard to dodge. But compared to that speed, the power behind it was lacking. It was fast, but that was all.
Weak power meant an unstable stance. He could directly knock the strike aside, borrow the momentum, and push along the direction of the attack to throw the other person off balance. Then he could gather Magical Power into the wooden sword in his hand and use that opening to finish the opponent off in one blow.
Good. He had already figured out how to take this attack and then instantly defeat the other side.
His mind ran through all of that, but in reality not even half a second had passed.
As the tip of the wooden sword drew closer and closer to his heart, a look of triumphant scheming flashed across Cid's face. It lasted only an instant, too brief for anyone to notice. The next moment, it was replaced by a panicked expression, while Magical Power under his shoes acted as a lubricant.
The moment the wooden sword touched his chest, he let his body fall backward with the momentum, completely shedding the force behind the blow. At the same time, with speed too fast for the naked eye to catch, he pulled out a small blood pack and crushed it, then used Magical Power to splash the blood across his chest.
Perfect.
His opponent clearly hadn't been in a normal state when he launched that strike. The power was strong, and the speed was even greater, but as long as you dodged that one attack, the opening it left behind was so huge that even someone weaker could probably defeat him instantly.
To put it simply, it was a classic "trash crusher" move.
As long as you were better than the user in even one area, victory was guaranteed. If you were faster, you could dodge it. If you were stronger, you could overpower it. If your defense was high enough, one hit wouldn't kill you.
The problem was that he was exactly the kind of trash this "trash crusher" was made to crush, so he could only get through it with a coincidental trick like this.
Sigh.
So what the hell was wrong with the other guy? This was supposed to be an ordinary swordsmanship spar, yet he snuck in Magical Power and targeted a background character like him so seriously.
"Cid, are you okay? Are you hurt badly?"
After Cid fell to the ground, all the students sparring around them turned their eyes toward him. The blond handsome guy who had struck him froze for a few seconds, then hurried over and crouched in front of him. Fear, unease, worry, and guilt all showed on his face as he anxiously asked about Cid's condition.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Yuuto, you don't need to blame yourself so much. I'm not really hurt. I'll be fine after resting a bit."
The one crouching in front of him was Yuuto Kiba, an extremely popular handsome guy among the girls at school. He was one of third-year senior Rias's peerage members, and also one of the suckers Cid liked to freeload off from time to time. Cid's main impression of him was that his cooking was pretty good.
"That's not okay. Cid, you're bleeding. I'm taking you to the school infirmary right now."
Even though Cid said he was fine, Yuuto Kiba clearly didn't believe him and insisted on taking him to the infirmary.
"There's no need. Look, Yuuto, it's just a little scrape. What kind of man goes to the infirmary over something this minor?"
There was no way he could go to the infirmary. He wasn't actually injured. If he went, the act would fall apart immediately.
To convince Yuuto Kiba that he really wasn't hurt, Cid had no choice but to pull open his clothes and show him his chest.
Thank goodness Magical Power could be used for disguise. As long as no one touched him directly, nobody would notice the wound was fake.
"H-How is that possible?!
...All right, Cid. Then sit here for a while. I'll go tell the teacher and ask to switch to someone else for sparring. If anything feels wrong later, come find me. I'll make it up to you."
After checking Cid's injury and confirming that he really hadn't suffered any serious harm, Yuuto Kiba was still uneasy, but he stopped insisting. He only told Cid again and again to come find him if there were any problems later.
"Sorry, Cid. I don't know why I suddenly started going all out in the middle of it."
Yuuto Kiba apologized again, looking full of guilt. It had only been a basic swordsmanship spar, yet he had used Magical Power for a sneak attack and seriously hurt a friend. That completely went against his own code of chivalry. Fortunately, Cid didn't seem to have suffered any major injury.
Even now, Yuuto Kiba still couldn't understand why he had misjudged things and ended up fighting his friend with full force.
At first, it had only happened because he had coincidentally been paired up in class with his Devil contract partner and friend. So he had merely used swordsmanship a little better than what Cid usually showed and exchanged blows with him.
But then he discovered that Cid had actually blocked every single one of his sword strikes.
There were even faint signs that he himself was starting to be suppressed instead.
Yuuto Kiba had thought his friend's swordsmanship had improved quite a bit, and he was naturally happy about that progress. But if he ended up being suppressed by Cid instead, then the sparring would lose its purpose as training.
To properly judge his friend's current level, he closed his eyes. As a swordsman, he intended to rely on his intuition to sense Cid's swordsmanship and then adjust his own strength accordingly, holding back enough to match Cid's level.
But the instant he immersed his mind and body into that perception, something unexpected happened.
Danger. Danger. Danger.
The Devil blood within his body screamed in despair, urging him to kill himself immediately. His soul trembled violently, and an inexplicable sense of guilt welled up from nowhere, making him feel like he deserved death. In his perception, every direction was a dead end. Above, below, front, back, left, right. There was no escape.
Endless terror flooded his heart, as if a God of the Biblical pantheon stood before him, ready to judge him, a traitor who had fallen and become a Devil.
Driven by both the fear gripping his heart and the pride he held as a swordsman, he swung his sword with all his strength, prepared to die.
When he finally snapped out of that death-accepting state, the scene before him was Cid lying on the ground and the surrounding classmates staring in shock because he had injured Cid with Magical Power.
His brain, slowed by lingering fear, took several seconds to catch up.
Only then did he realize that, out of sheer terror, he had used Magical Power during a simple swordsmanship practice and injured his friend.
He hurried over to support Cid, intending to take him to the infirmary, but discovered that despite taking his full-powered strike, Cid didn't seem seriously injured.
Unable to understand what had happened, he could only conclude that he had performed poorly due to fear, and that Cid's fall had avoided most of the damage, leaving only a superficial wound.
Even so, he still felt uneasy, wondering whether Cid might have some hidden injury he hadn't noticed. But after Cid repeatedly insisted he was fine and after checking several times himself, Yuuto Kiba eventually gave up on forcing him to go to the infirmary.
As for that moment of overwhelming despair, he wanted to believe it had been an illusion.
But rationally, he knew that was impossible.
Once he returned to his club, he would report this matter to his master.
...
Sitting in his chair, Cid met Yuuto Kiba's worried gaze, gave him a thumbs up, and showed a gentle smile to reassure him that everything was fine.
After that, he returned to thinking about the matter from earlier.
His Nee-san was coming.
After Asagi Aiba's accidental reminder earlier, he had checked his messages and found several new ones.
He had been wondering why his Nee-san suddenly decided to come here. Now those messages gave him the answer.
It turned out she had already said three weeks ago that she would be coming back.
The purpose of her visit was to choose an adventure squad for him.
According to her explanation, those squads were basically structured like a king and his chess pieces. She planned to put him into one of the squads, then use that opportunity to have him show his face in front of a major faction, build up some achievements, and help him secure a good job in the future.
Ideally, he might even become a new noble.
His Nee-san had revealed quite a lot of information. This included the purpose behind forming adventure squads, the time they were established, the typical composition of the squads, and the attitudes various factions had toward them.
Of course, none of that really mattered.
Whether he ended up becoming a gate guard after graduation or went to work under Gamma as a parasitic background character, it made no real difference to him.
What really caught his attention was something else.
His Nee-san had mentioned that she was now A+ rank.
Did his Nee-san activate some kind of cheat?
Her strength had grown absurdly fast.
To be precise, her power had started growing like she was using cheats more than a year ago.
During the Bushin Festival, she should have been around B+ rank. But after she returned from the Lawless City, her strength began skyrocketing.
Now she had already reached A+ rank.
She had even surpassed Princess Iris, the strongest fighter in their kingdom.
Wow.
For a moment, he genuinely didn't know what to say.