The illegitimate son of a duke grabbed the Second Prince by the wrist and threw a glove in his face.
And he threw it hard enough to make a sound.
It could not have been a more idiotic thing to do.
No matter how much Kyle was treated as the Empire’s delinquent prince.
Laying hands on royalty was an act of idiocy that amounted to challenging imperial authority—a crime for which one’s entire family could be exterminated for tarnishing the Imperial House’s dignity.
And on top of that, I had challenged a prince to a duel.
The prince was not an idiot. Would he really accept that challenge and fight me?
Especially against the idiot who had thrown a glove at his face?
The Second Prince could summon the Imperial Guard and have me executed on the spot, and I would have no grounds to complain.
That’s right. I was an idiot.
An idiot who had done something so thoroughly idiotic that there was no other way to describe it.
Even Don Quixote, drunk on knightly fantasies as he was, would not have pulled this kind of shit.
But what was I supposed to do?
The lunatics up above insisted on seeing a romance fantasy.
I could hear the sound of holes being drilled into Alfred’s head from all the way here.
The daughter of one ducal house slapped royalty.
The illegitimate son of another ducal house laid hands on royalty and even challenged him to a duel.
There was nothing to say except that the Empire’s future looked bleak indeed.
But that was reality.
And where was this?
Was this not a gentle romance-fantasy setting?
In this setting, soft to its very core, I did not need to worry too much about that.
The problem was that I was not the female protagonist beloved by romance fantasy.
I decided to believe.
Surely those voyeuristic bastards had anticipated this and told me to throw it, right?
Why the fuck was there no answer?
"I never thought the illegitimate son of Logres would be such a beast, incapable of telling right from wrong... Now I see what Logres is like."
He should have been calling the Imperial Guard to chop off my head immediately.
Yet he showed such generosity by merely responding with an insult about my parents!
His reaction earlier had been downright girlish.
But Kyle de Astoria now was the very embodiment of magnanimity.
‘Please execute me, Your Highness!’
Saying that would be the wrong move.
Because I might actually get executed.
But then, I could not exactly start throwing actual punches in the name of a duel, either.
Because then I would get utterly fucked.
[Kyle de Astoria]
◈ Level: 33
◈ The target is currently acting.
◈ The target is currently angry.
I could not let my guard down just because he was level 33.
Even if he did not use aura, once his skills, traits, and exclusive stats were added together, he vastly outclassed me.
But if I did nothing, I was fucked.
Then what did I have to do to survive?
The answer lay in the Second Prince’s route keyword.
A method that would let me survive.
That would satisfy those insane voyeuristic bastards above.
And that could not be used in a first playthrough, but could be used in a second.
That was right.
To survive, I was going to use the keyword meant for the female protagonists.
What utter bullshit.
I had to capture the prince’s heart to stay alive?
This was fucking ridiculous.
The Second Prince’s route keyword.
The method of winning over the prince that the protagonist could use on a second playthrough was...
"I wish to debate swordsmanship with Your Highness."
A sword debate.
A sword debate was exactly what it sounded like.
A common trope in martial arts stories, a spar conducted with bladed weapons—or words.
The sword debate here did not mean speaking with swords. It meant sparring with your mouths. In other words, a verbal fight.
If A said, "I’ll cut you with this sword technique,"
Then B would say, "Then I’ll block it with this sword technique." That was how they fought—with their mouths.
In the game, this was recreated as a TCG-style event.
As I recalled, you moved your character through combinations of cards.
If you asked why martial arts had been mixed into a medieval romance fantasy, I could only say I had no idea.
The author seemed to like martial arts stories a lot.
There had even been an announcement that a martial arts update was planned as DLC.
I had no idea what kind of combination medieval romance fantasy and martial arts was supposed to be.
But did that shit matter when I was about to die?
In any case, the one and only thing that could save me was...
A sword debate.
He had abandoned it long ago, but this bastard’s original hobby had been sword debates.
Of course, from the prince’s perspective, this must have been utterly absurd.
He had been about to slap me, only for the illegitimate son of Logres to lay hands on him and throw a glove at his face.
And then I came out with this bullshit about a sword debate.
Ordinarily, it was a grave crime for which I could be chopped into pieces a thousand times and three generations of my family exterminated without anyone having a word to say.
Fuck, this had to work.
I had played through sword debates with the Second Prince plenty of times in the game, and the wiki had listed all his patterns and strategies.
Among them was even a strategy for defeating him with Logres Swordsmanship, and I had won that way many times.
In short, it would not be an exaggeration to say all the information needed to clear the Second Prince was already stored in my brain.
"So... is that your last request?"
"Yes. It is my final request, so in your boundless generosity, please debate swordsmanship with me just once."
"You are truly rushing headlong toward death."
The Second Prince grinned at my words.
"You expect me to discuss swords with a beast incapable of distinguishing right from wrong? Do you even possess the knowledge to discuss swordsmanship, Logres?"
"Of course."
Angelica and Isabella were staring at me as if I were insane.
"If it is a sword debate, I have the advantage because I have learned Logres Swordsmanship."
But I could not back down here.
If I did, my head would immediately have to bid farewell to my body.
The most necessary thing in romance fantasy was spirit!
Unlike the Middle Ages, where lifting your chin too high would earn you a beheading to personally adjust your height, this was a romance-fantasy world where a battle of wills could end with just that.
I might not be the male protagonist.
But when it came to the sheer force of presence written on this face, I would not lose to anyone!
"Fine."
Fuck! It worked, holy fuck!
Fuck, thank you, romance fantasy!
Angelica and Isabella looked astonished at Kyle’s response.
Apparently, they had not expected him to react like this.
Neither had I.
As expected of the Second Prince!
"However, if you lose, you will be executed immediately. That is a fitting consequence for what you have done, is it not?"
"Wouldn’t I be dead even if I win?"
"Of course."
He said that, but...
There was no problem as long as I won the sword debate.
Besides, he was letting it end with execution rather than exterminating three generations of my family.
As expected of the Second Prince.
#
Under the moonlight, the phantoms of two people stood with their swords crossed.
It was an unbelievably idiotic fantasy, like some kind of air sparring.
I did not know why we had to conduct this idiotic sword debate beneath the moonlight.
Still, if I was going to be an idiot, should I not at least be an idiot who survived?
There were two spectators.
And two contestants.
"I will use Imperial Swordsmanship."
"I will use Logres Swordsmanship."
What Kyle chose was Imperial Swordsmanship, which any knight of the Empire could learn, rather than a secret art of the Imperial Family.
It had to be that way.
If you made up a style that only you knew, one your opponent had never heard of, and declared, ‘Then I suddenly win,’ you had better be prepared to hear insults about your parents.
And because the rules stated that if your opponent did not understand a technique, you had to demonstrate it in front of them, family secret arts were not brought into sword debates.
Of course, those were game rules. It was not as if they had been written into national law.
If anything, as a prince, he could force the issue and no one would say a word.
Yet the fact that he did not, despite being in that position, proved just how serious he was about sword debates.
That was why I had chosen one.
Logres Swordsmanship was not a family secret art either, so the prince knew it well enough that there was no problem using it here.
We were both Sword Users.
Our weapons were both swords as well.
The Second Prince stroked his chin as though considering it.
"I will yield you the first move."
"I will not decline."
Just as expected, he yielded the initiative to me.
In the game, Kyle had always yielded the first move to the player as well.
All right, then. Just like I had done in the game.
And if I filled in the details using Ian’s memories...
"I will brace my foot, put strength behind it, and use the Pointing Sword Form of Logres Swordsmanship."
The two phantoms had been locked in a clash of swords.
My phantom raised its sword straight and launched into a thrust.
But—
"I will brace my foot and use [Rekeso Sekare] to sweep the thrust upward, then immediately cut down."
As if he had been waiting for it, the prince’s phantom swept aside the thrust with an upward cut, breaking my stance, then brought his blade down at my phantom.
However—
"Using Your Highness’s [Rekeso Sekare] as momentum, I will spin once and use the Strong Sword Form to draw a large circle from below, knocking away Your Highness’s sword."
My phantom used the prince’s upward cut as a flow, spinning once in place and drawing a half-circle to knock away the blade descending toward it.
Now it was the prince whose stance was disrupted.
The prince frowned.
"I will block in middle guard and take two steps back."
"I will not let you go. I will brace my foot once more and use the Strong Sword Form to target the side of Your Highness’s blade."
The prince’s phantom recovered its stance, held the hilt around waist level, raised the tip diagonally, and stepped back twice.
But my phantom braced its foot and settled its form, grasping the hilt with both hands and swinging broadly across to strike the side of the prince’s sword.
The prince had intended to counterattack with a thrust when I rushed in, but if he raised his hand, his wrist would be cut clean off. He was caught between a rock and a hard place.
"With [Lego Pungo], I will clash blades with yours to block it, then immediately follow with a thrust."
The prince’s phantom chose to meet my blade.
It turned its blade ninety degrees to collide with and knock aside the incoming sword, then followed up with a thrust.
But—
"I will brace my foot so my sword is not fully knocked aside, use the Flowing Sword Form to keep following your blade, and then sweep it upward."
As though it had expected even that, my phantom braced its foot and anchored its stance.
As a result, the prince’s sword and mine did not separate completely, and I gently swept upward the prince’s thrusting blade with the Flowing Sword Form.
The prince’s phantom’s stance crumbled in an instant.
"I will protect my body in high guard."
"I will disrupt your stance with the Illusory Sword Form."
"I cannot find every phantom, so with [Kaedo Ardor], I will strike away every blade I see."
I unleashed the Illusory Sword Form on the prince’s phantom as it tried to recover high guard, and instead of choosing one blade, the prince’s phantom struck away all the swords that looked like a chain of attacks.
After that fierce exchange, both phantoms breathed heavily.
"I will take two steps back and catch my breath."
"I will take one step back and catch my breath as well."
We even gave the phantoms a rest period.
Anyone watching would probably wonder what kind of idiots we were.
But rest was a matter of grave importance in a sword debate.
"This time, I will go first."
"Come at me."
From there, the two phantoms exchanged attacks and defenses.
In truth, it was merely a ridiculous festival of mouth-fighters fighting with their mouths.
But the prince’s pattern was exactly the same as it had been in the game.
When I followed the patterns from the game, every one of the prince’s moves was cleanly blocked.
One would think he would grow irritated at being blocked over and over.
He was a prince, too. He did not have to follow the rules of a sword debate. He could have simply declared that he cut me down and won.
But Kyle never did that.
Instead, as though he were enjoying himself.
And as though determined to break through my moves, he focused seriously, adding one move to another.
When a move was blocked, he immediately prepared the next.
Naturally, that move was blocked too.
This was a game Kyle was destined to lose.
No matter what move he used, I had seen these formulaic patterns in the game until I was sick of them.
All I had to do was counter according to his patterns.
Even so, I was fucking tense.
My hands were soaked with sweat.
My mouth was so dry I could not even swallow.
If I made even the slightest mistake, I would immediately become a star in the sky too.
After several more exchanges...
"You have fallen over. There is no need for swordsmanship now. I will simply stab you as you are."
"I will evade with a side roll."
"Do you have no noble dignity at all?"
"When facing Your Highness, I must cast aside something as trivial as dignity."
The once-elegant sword debate had gradually turned into a complete mess.
It could not be helped.
I had to win somehow. Otherwise, I would die.
It was a battle between one person trying to break through and one person who absolutely could not let himself be broken through.
The two phantoms continued to clash their swords.
And then.
The more his sword was blocked.
The more the logic of his sword failed to advance.
The more Kyle’s mask came off instead.
It was not an actual battlefield where swords collided.
It was no more than a verbal battle, where we poured logic at each other through our mouths.
Yet Kyle used every move as though he were having fun.
And I dismantled every one of those moves, one by one.
Like a child, he gathered snow from the ground and threw it at me.
I caught his snow, gathered more, and threw it back.
A childish sword debate, and therefore an enjoyable one.
A ridiculous argument, and therefore strangely refreshing.
That was apparently how the prince felt.
Me?
I was fucking—
My hands were so drenched that I wondered, ‘Did I have hyperhidrosis?’
The endlessly clashing exchanges were already racing toward their end.
And then.
My phantom’s arm was severed by Kyle’s sword.
And using the sacrifice of flesh to sever bone, Kyle’s phantom had its chest pierced by my sword.
"I expected you to sacrifice flesh to sever bone, but at the level of Sword Aura, I see no way to knock away this sword."
At last, Kyle’s phantom released its sword.
"To think I would say this with my own mouth—your victory, Ian de Logres."
Though he had lost, Kyle’s face seemed at ease.
It was the face of someone who had had fun for the first time in a long while.
"I have learned a move from you, Your Highness Kyle de Astoria."
[Insight Eye has activated.]
[You have observed Kyle’s narrative, ‘Imperial Swordsmanship.’]
[You are learning ‘Imperial Swordsmanship’...]
[You have learned ‘Imperial Swordsmanship’!]
[‘Imperial Swordsmanship’ is absorbed into ‘Logres Swordsmanship’!]
[‘Logres Swordsmanship’ has increased in proficiency through the sword debate!]
[‘Logres Swordsmanship’ has reached Level 3!]
Notifications continued to ring before my eyes.
But none of that registered.
Fuck yes!
I had won that long, lonely battle—!!
I felt like throwing my hands high into the air and cheering.
But then—
Ding!
[The Oath of Chivalry has not been completely fulfilled.]
[Numerous Stars of Knights express dissatisfaction with your chivalry.]
You sons of—!
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