The Game Difficulty
Is
Crazy
The large training hall of the Warsworth Estate.
At its center, Glen and Tris were repeatedly clashing swords, separating and engaging again.
Chaeng—clang!
The sharp bursting sound of metal striking metal.
In each of their right hands, they held a real blade.
The trainee knights gathered on one side all watched the spar with their mouths wide open.
“Does this even make sense?”
Beryl, one of the trainee knights watching the spar, clicked his tongue.
“Even if it’s just a spar, how can he exchange swords so evenly with Lady Tris, a 5-star holy knight?”
Beryl threw the question out and looked around at the other trainees, but no one answered.
“Tasha, what do you think?”
“……”
“Can you see it?”
“……”
“Hah, forget it. I’m an idiot for asking someone as quiet as you.”
Beryl clicked his tongue and turned his head away.
Tasha silently engraved the spar into her eyes and mind.
She had no room to answer Beryl’s question right now.
“If I lose focus even for a moment, I feel like I’ll miss the movement.”
The movements that blocked the opponent’s sword with minimal motion were precise.
At the same time, the sharp gaze that constantly searched for openings was keen.
The spar between Glen and Tris was, to Tasha, a better textbook and lesson than anything else.
“Lady Tris is impressive, but Young Master Glen is……”
Tasha’s gaze shifted to Glen.
It had only been half a month since Glen came to the training hall, but he was growing faster than anyone there.
Of course, even when he first arrived, Glen had been strong enough to easily defeat Bataille, the strongest among the trainees.
But the Glen from back then and the Glen of now were different.
“Back then, he felt like someone I could eventually catch up to. Now, all I can do is barely follow his movements with my eyes.”
Watching Glen block Tris’s sword and slip in counterattacks between exchanges made her emotions complicated.
“How in the world is he becoming strong so fast?”
A faint doubt appeared on Tasha’s usually expressionless face.
Meanwhile, the spar between Glen and Tris was racing toward its climax.
And Tris was having thoughts similar to Tasha’s.
“I didn’t think he’d keep up this far. I wonder if he can keep up with this too?”
With an interested look, Tris increased her speed.
Taat—
Tris kicked off the ground and charged at Glen.
Then she swung her sword.
Clang—!
Tris’s attack failed.
It was a sharp thrust that aimed for a gap in his movement, but Glen blocked it.
And immediately, a counterattack followed.
Kang—
“Wow, look at this kid.”
A flash of surprise passed through Tris’s eyes.
“It hasn’t even been many days since he sparred with Sir Robert, and he’s already grown again in such a short time. Did he gain some kind of insight from that last spar?”
At the point where he could maintain such a tight spar against a 5-star holy knight, Glen was already an unprecedented genius trainee.
On the other hand, unlike the interested Tris, Glen had no room to spare.
“As expected of noona.”
Usually, knights who quickly formed holy rings tended to have sloppy swordsmanship, but Tris was nothing like that.
Her precise control of holy power while maintaining the strength of a single ring, and her solid swordsmanship without a single opening.
She was nearly perfect.
But even the gap between him and such a perfect Tris was slowly narrowing.
With each passing day, and with every new power he gained.
“One latent ability really makes a huge difference. I’ve managed to spar with Noona Tris for over twenty minutes.”
Glen’s current swordsmanship had surpassed its previous limits thanks to the latent ability “Ringless Knight.”
“Where the opponent’s sword starts, where it comes from, and where my sword needs to go.”
The flow of swords that he couldn’t see before was now becoming visible.
It made him doubt whether this was truly a late-game-oriented latent ability.
“Even now, when I’m lacking in swordsmanship, holy power, and demonic energy, it’s this useful. What if I become even stronger?”
At that point, the true performance of the Ringless Knight would shine, and a second Gerbein would be born.
Of course, by then his holy power and demonic energy would also be at a high level, making him an even greater monster than Gerbein.
A being who freely controlled holy power and demonic energy, with swordsmanship that was also the strongest.
Thinking about that brilliant future made a natural smile bloom on his lips.
* * * *
The spar between Glen and Robert became quite a big issue even among the estate’s employees.
The knights who watched the spar gathered in small groups to discuss the reasons behind Glen’s victory.
And the servants and maids, who loved to exaggerate stories, went around the estate adding their own embellishments to the spar.
Over the course of three days, the story snowballed.
Young Master Glen was actually a 3-star holy knight with three holy rings.
But he had hidden the truth to avoid provoking the jealousy of his older brother, Edgar.
His years of acting like an executioner were merely a disguise to avoid a power struggle between brothers.
They turned into rumors so absurd that not even a passing dog would believe them.
Naturally, aside from a few ignorant servants and maids, no one in the estate believed these rumors.
But belief aside,
The fact was that such rumors were circulating throughout the Warsworth Estate.
Crash—!
A thrown glass hit the wall and shattered.
Knight Robert Gentricks maintained a rigid posture with a tense expression.
Cold sweat soaked his forehead.
“I thought there were more bugs buzzing in the halls lately, so I looked into it… turns out some lowly trash have been wagging their tongues.”
“……”
Robert swallowed his dry saliva.
The man who had thrown the glass, Edgar Warsworth, slowly rose from his chair.
“How do you feel right now, Sir Robert?”
“……!”
A sharp pain made Robert grimace.
Edgar was pressing the scabbard of his sword firmly into Robert’s side.
It was the exact spot Glen’s sword had pierced during their spar days ago.
“Answer me. How does it feel to turn the master you serve into a petty man who’s jealous of his own younger brother?”
“I-it’s just groundless rumors, Young Master. There’s no need for you to care abo—ugh!”
“Do you think I’m asking because I don’t know that?”
A voice that had gone cold.
Within it boiled anger that seemed ready to overflow at any moment.
“Fine. As you say, they’re just rumors. Let’s say lowly fools are running their mouths without knowing anything. Then what about Ensir, which was taken by that good-for-nothing?”
The servants’ rumors had no basis and no believers—nothing more than empty wind.
Even the blow to his pride from losing to his younger brother could be overlooked with enough generosity.
After all, though he had arranged the spar, it wasn’t Edgar himself who lost, but his incompetent escort knight.
But Ensir was different.
