Chapter 13
The bright sky slowly began to darken.
Before long, shadows had fallen over the mountain summit as well.
Riiip. Tighten.
Mikhail sat on the ground, wrapping a bandage around his shoulder.
Looking at his bloodstained bandage, Olivia asked carefully with a troubled expression.
“...Sir Agnes, are you all right? I'm sorry. If I had been a little more careful....”
Seeing her blame herself for not being thorough enough, Mikhail shook his head.
“No. If anything, I am the one who brought shame to Your Highness's name by failing to win. Especially at the end... I have no excuse.”
“It was not your fault, Sir Agnes. If I had not stopped things at that moment, I might not have escaped unharmed either. However....”
She trailed off for a moment.
Then she slowly turned around.
There had been a tall tree standing at the summit.
What remained in her sight now was only a barren stump.
Its surface had been cut perfectly clean.
It was not Mikhail who had done it.
It was Suhyeok.
After finishing the bandage around his shoulder, Mikhail stood up.
As he stared at the tree stump, he thought back to his battle with Suhyeok.
...There was nothing ordinary about the way our blades collided. It was hard to believe he was a Player who had only just come out of the Tutorial.
There was also that blue energy covering his blade, something similar to Aura.
It was a completely different type of power from the Mana Mikhail used.
If they were judged only by their overall strength, Mikhail could confidently say that he had been superior.
He had made no mistakes.
When it came to swordsmanship, Mikhail always fought seriously.
And yet, during his battle with Suhyeok, he could not help but be shocked.
Whoosh!
...!
He deflected it.
It was not that his body had reacted instinctively.
Suhyeok moved as if he had already known exactly how the attack would come.
That same feeling continued throughout the battle.
Mikhail slashed at him without leaving any openings.
Suhyeok's eyes remained perfectly calm.
Instead, he blocked each attack with ease.
It felt as though Mikhail were fighting an old master who had held a sword for decades.
“Ha, this is ridiculous.”
In the middle of all that, Mikhail could not hide his smile.
For once, he was not the Knight Commander carrying the heavy responsibility of protecting the princess.
He was simply a knight, focusing only on his sword and enjoying the battle.
“It doesn't seem like this will end anytime soon, so how about we settle it with one move? If you can block this, I will admit my defeat.”
“That's exactly what I wanted.”
Mikhail raised his sword high above his head.
Aura flowed from above his shoulder and wrapped around the blade.
The surroundings began to tremble.
His hand tightened firmly around the sword's handle.
Grip.
He brought the sword down with tremendous force, as though dragging the sky itself down with it.
A powerful Aura slash tore through the ground and rushed toward Suhyeok.
The result was Mikhail's defeat.
The wound on his bandaged shoulder was proof of it.
“...Would the result have been different if I had not stepped in?”
“Haha, even if we fought again, the result would be the same. Even if Your Highness had not stopped us.”
At the moment the slash was unleashed, Olivia had stepped between them.
It had been a reckless act.
She could easily have died.
Kzzzt!
......!
Yet the ones that were actually cut were Mikhail and the tree behind him.
Mikhail could only stand there with his eyes wide open.
...That final strike he showed me.
That was clearly my swordsmanship.
No, it would be more accurate to say it was similar to mine.
Unlike Mikhail's swordsmanship, which emphasized destructive power, Suhyeok's strike had been clean and adjusted for practical combat.
Because Mikhail's swordsmanship was still incomplete, there was an extremely small opening in the final technique.
Just as the attack was about to reach Olivia, Suhyeok calmly cut through the exact point where the Mana concentration was weakest.
Swish.
Mikhail looked at the split earth behind the fallen tree.
It looked as though the sea itself had been divided in two.
The difference had been so overwhelming that it almost felt absurd.
He covered his face with one hand and burst into laughter.
“Kuh, kahahaha!”
He broke down my swordsmanship in that short instant?
No wonder it feels like I was completely defeated.
It would have been understandable for him to feel frustrated or angry.
Instead, Mikhail looked refreshed.
“Sir Agnes, laughing will make your wound worse! L, let's return to the Imperial Palace and have it treated immediately...!”
Seeing Olivia's worried expression, Mikhail briefly remembered what she had been like as a child.
Mikhail had sworn loyalty to Michelle, Olivia's mother.
To him, Olivia was someone he had to protect even at the cost of his own life.
“You were injured because of me.... It will leave a scar, won't it?”
I thought I would never see this side of her again after she grew up, but some of the child she once was is still there.
“Haha, it is an honorable wound for a knight, so I will leave it as it is. In fact, if rumors spread that I was injured, that side will probably make a move.”
Seeing that she continued to feel guilty, Mikhail smiled as if telling her to hold her head high.
“Learn from what happened today. That man will become a great help to Your Highness in the future.”
“...I suppose so. If I cannot make him my subordinate, then I will build a friendly relationship with him instead. My mother taught me that if you cannot possess something, then make it stand on your side.”
“A wise decision. Since Your Highness is this determined, I suppose I must work even harder as well.”
Olivia gave a small smile.
“You firmly refused me for the past several years, yet in the end, he managed to move you. Do you truly intend to take on disciples?”
Immediately after the battle ended, Suhyeok quietly put away his dagger and made a request of Mikhail.
“I won the bet. Since I've already won, I'll ask you for one favor.”
“...A favor?”
“I think you can train them while I'm away for a while.”
Not only did he suddenly ask me to train his companions, he even told me to work them to death....
Mikhail had been dumbfounded that Suhyeok made a request instead of giving an order as the winner.
Honor was one of the beliefs that bound a knight.
Suhyeok could have used that honor to gain an enormous advantage.
...Ha, what an impossible man to understand.
“I lost the bet, so I have no choice. I'll simply have to work hard. Since these are disciples I've gained so late in life, I'll have to teach them with even greater passion. Hahaha.”
Meanwhile, the alleyways had grown dark as all the lights went out.
The only light illuminating the street came from the nearby taverns.
[ You have completely broken down the opponent's swordsmanship. You have acquired the Trait 'Agnes-Style Swordsmanship (S)'. ]
I had acquired Mikhail's swordsmanship through the Trait, Body and Sword as One.
If this had been my first time meeting Mikhail, I would never have been able to break down his swordsmanship so easily.
The only reason I had been able to see the weakness in his final technique was because he had personally told me about it in the past.
[ Trait, Agnes-Style Swordsmanship (S) ]
A swordsmanship style created by Mikhail von Agnes. It has been modified to suit Lee Suhyeok. (Completion: 56%)
You can now use Aura on your own. Mana greatly increases.
Without the breathing technique, I could not bring out its original power.
Still, I had gained the ability to use Aura.
On top of that, it even increased my lacking Mana.
The Mana Breathing Technique would not work well with the cultivation methods I planned to learn later anyway.
But that was not what mattered right now.
[ Coins Owned: 139,650 ]
A total of 55,000 Coins.
That was how much I had received in sponsorships during my battle with Mikhail.
Spending 30,000 Coins was worth it.
This should be enough.
There was something I absolutely had to obtain here on the tenth floor.
A weapon.
If I wanted to climb the next floor, I had to obtain one here.
