Chapter 61 - I Forfeit

Hakan instinctively clutched his shoulder. When he pulled his hand away, it was drenched in blood.

“Ha, hah...”

He forced a laugh, but he could not entirely hide his bewilderment.

The referee, too, turned to Hakan in surprise. Hakan held up his bloodied palm to signal that he was fine.

“I've never even heard of magic like that! What trick did you use?”

Hakan shouted, but instead of answering, Laward pointed a fingertip at him.

One more shot.

SHRIEEEK!

It came hurtling toward him.

THUNK!

Hakan twisted his whole body to dodge, but it was not enough.

“Ghk...!”

The shot pierced his left thigh, throwing him off balance. Had he not braced his sword against the ground, he would have fallen outright.

“Not unique magic, but fundamentals taken to their limit.”

Two direct hits in a row.

Wary of Laward's magic, Hakan readied his stance again.

“Compressing mana into a single point like that must consume a considerable amount.”

As Hakan narrowed his eyes and muttered, Laward's halo flickered faintly. Just as Hakan suspected, Laward had poured most of his mana into those two attacks.

“Am I right?!”

His confidence restored, Hakan closed the distance.

WHOOSH!

He closed in within an instant and struck, his longsword flashing toward Laward.

CLANG!

Laward blocked with his blade pointing downward, but he could not overcome the difference in strength. Hakan's sword drove back both Laward's blade and his arms at once.

As he was pushed backward, Laward barely managed to regain his balance and straighten his grip.

They both realized it at the same time.

Blocking was no longer an option for either of them. Whether facing Hakan's terrifying strength or Laward's Divine Power Release, dodging was their best choice.

HUMMM!

Laward summoned light to his fingertip.

“Not a chance!”

Hakan charged straight at him, intent on denying him any time to gather mana.

SWISH!

As Laward dodged his swinging sword, the light at his fingertip vanished.

Hakan grinned. His expression said he had found the answer.

All he had to do was give him no time.

Hakan unleashed a barrage of strikes.

SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!

Laward dodged them well, but he was so focused on the path of Hakan's sword that...

“Right here.”

He missed the feint.

CRUNCH!

Hakan's right foot slammed into Laward's side.

“Gah!”

Laward staggered with a groan. Yet he seized Hakan's leg in a tight grip and barely managed to hold his ground.

“... What?”

“I broke something there not long ago. So I focused on toughening it up.”

Grinning like a despicable villain, Laward tightened his grip on Hakan's leg.

“There's no way that would...”

Just as Hakan shook his head in disbelief, Laward coughed up blood.

“Of course that wouldn't work...”

“You're one to talk... Standing on that leg must be hard.”

Laward lowered his gaze to the hole in Hakan's left leg.

“Isn't it?”

Forced to support his weight in that state, the left leg spurted blood as if screaming in protest. Hakan, too, would reach his limit if this standoff continued.

Just as Laward lifted a leg to stomp down on Hakan's left leg—

WHOOSH!

Hakan made a short leap, swinging his sword upward. Abandoning his balance and letting gravity take him, he slashed with all his might.

He swung as he deliberately fell.

“I knew he was crazy, but...”

At my murmur, the chairman turned to look at me.

“Pardon?”

“I didn't think Hakan would try to end it there. He certainly has a gambler's nerve, at least.”

He meant to end it. Laward must have realized that, too.

If this attack failed, Hakan would simply fall flat on his face. They had been swinging and dodging each other's swords in exchanges decided by a second, or even less. Falling to the ground in the middle of that would all but seal Laward's victory.

But Hakan and Laward were both men willing to stake everything on that single move.

“Raaah!”

Hakan roared as he drove his sword forward.

They were close enough for Laward to seize his leg, leaving Laward insufficient room to dodge.

He could only block.

Even knowing the difference in strength would overwhelm his guard, Laward put everything he had into bringing his blade against Hakan's strike.

CLAAANG!

The swords collided with an ear-splitting crash.

That final strike succeeded.

Laward blocked Hakan's attack, but the impact felt more like a hammer blow than a sword strike, and Holiday slipped from his grasp.

WHIRR!

The sword spun into the air.

Hakan, who had landed with a thud as he struck, looked up at the sword flashing in the sunlight overhead.

Then he smiled with certainty.

Hakan sprang up onto one knee. There was no time to stand.

Just as he tried to swing from that half-crouch, Laward's hands appeared before his eyes—close enough for those palms to fill his entire field of vision.

“I forgot. About thi—”

BOOOM!

Laward's stun spell struck Hakan point-blank and slammed him into the floor.

“... Gah!”

Both men groaned at once.

Hakan struck hard enough to shatter the arena floor, while the recoil dislocated Laward's right shoulder.

Despite groaning in agony, Laward stretched his remaining arm—his left—upward.

THUMP.

The sword that had flown into the air landed in his hand.

HUMMM.

He filled the blade with divine power, gathering every last drop to paint it with sunlight.

He raised that right arm overhead and concentrated.

I couldn't help chuckling at the sight.

Somehow, it overlapped with the image of me when the monastery was attacked, before my regression.

Laward had hoped to turn the magic I taught him into something uniquely his own.

Was resembling me inevitable in the end?

SWISH.

At that moment, Laward lightly swung his sword down.

From above to below.

But the divine power released from its tip was anything but light.

Sword aura as tall as a rampart.

Its immense mass surged toward Hakan like a tidal wave.

ROOOAR!

When the divine power that had split the arena in two and charged into Hakan gradually faded, he collapsed, cradling his broken sword.

061

I expected cheering to erupt immediately, but the stands were surprisingly quiet. Perhaps it hadn't sunk in yet; not a single person spoke.

How long did that last?

“Waaaaah!”

Cheers burst from the academy's section of the stands. The military academy and seminary sections that had supported Hakan followed suit.

Some quietly applauded or looked close to tears, but most called out their congratulations to Laward.

“Lord Daywin! Did you see that? That's Laward! That's the Laward we raised!”

Needless to say, the chairman beside me was beside himself with excitement.

“Urgh...”

Naturally, on my other side, Principal Ximena bowed her head in dejection.

“Principal, what will you do now?”

“... Pardon?”

“About the championship prize. I believe you said you were offering the military academy's treasure.”

As though only now remembering it, Ximena's expression darkened further.

“Ah, well...”

“Surely you won't go back on your word.”

I cut off her escape before she could say anything.

“Didn't you say this would be a symbolic Peach Garden Festival, passing a hero's legacy to a genius of the present generation?”

“Yes, I did... I did.”

“It seems that genius wasn't Hakan.”

“...”

Instead of answering, Ximena quietly left her seat.

“Haha! What a historic day. Now two academy students will meet in the final! We've won! Won! The academy is guaranteed the championship! Just imagine how many new students we'll get next year... Heh, hehehe...”

The chairman raised both hands as he exclaimed. When I smiled faintly, he pushed them closer to me.

“Yes?”

Ah. So that was it.

SMACK.

I lightly slapped his palms with one hand.

“Oh, the principal. She's already all the way over there.”

At the chairman's words, I looked at the arena. Ximena was already standing in it.

She bestowed blue light on Hakan, and his wounded body began to heal.

“I didn't expect the principal to heal him herself.”

“It will only... make Hakan feel all the more burdened, though.”

As he said, Hakan accepted Ximena's healing with a guilty expression. He seemed to say something to her, but she offered no reply.

Then Ximena looked up at Laward.

“Young man.”

“... Me?”

“Yes. Come sit here.”

Looking dazed, Laward sat opposite Hakan. Ximena extended a hand toward him, and his wounds, too, slowly healed.

“Oh, th-thank you.”

“Well done, figuring out Hakan's weakness. Did Lord Daywin tell you?”

“Pardon? What do you mean...?”

“No need to pretend you don't know. The match is over.”

“No, I didn't know he had a weakness in the first... place. My esteemed mentor didn't tell me anything in particular, either.”

“Then you really fought him head-on without any plan?”

“Well... yes, that's right.”

Laward's truthful answer only made Ximena look more conflicted.

The three left the arena, which was repaired in no time.

“Ah, Rebecca and Lucia's semifinal is coming up. Who do you think will win? Not that it matters anymore! Ahaha!”

“It seems you've learned all their names now.”

“Of course! Just look at who they are. Such talented students will bring glory to the academy!”

Setting aside the chairman's slippery behavior, as for who would win...

“Lucia will win.”

“Ah, of course... She was incredible earlier, too. Was her opponent a military academy student? She knocked them out before they could even exchange a blow. That student must feel terribly cheated.”

“And she'll lose in the final.”

“Pardon?”

“I can tell from her expression.”

Of all the heroines, Lucia was the one I had known longest and seen most often. By now, I could roughly gauge her condition from her expression alone, without activating the Scouter.

“She looks dead on her feet.”

Her nocturnal constitution was acting up again.

The semifinal.

As expected, Lucia overwhelmed Rebecca. But that was as far as she got.

The moment the match ended, the dark circles under her eyes deepened with cartoonish speed. Even after Ximena healed her, she staggered as she walked.

And when the final began...

“I forfeit.”

Contrary to the expectations of the students, whose excitement was at its peak, Lucia barely managed those words before collapsing.

* * *

With the final ending so anticlimactically, the Peach Garden Festival drew to a close.

Before the closing ceremony came the awards.

The academy had won the dueling event, and adding those points to its total put it proudly in first place overall.

Its first championship in thirty-three years.

The academy students were moved to be attending the same school as this newly emerged golden generation, while tears streamed down the chairman's face.

With the flower crown prepared by the military academy on his head, Laward beamed at me.

There were obvious signs that Hakan's name had been hastily removed from the crown, but Laward didn't seem to notice, so I pretended not to notice either.

BOOM!

Just as Ximena straightened after placing the crown on Laward's head, fireworks exploded overhead.

The very fireworks Veronica and I had delivered.

They were so grand and magnificent that delivering them by train felt worthwhile.

And then—

DING!

With a notification from the system window, it was time to check the reward.

The protagonist's championship victory.

The reward was a one-rank increase to a random stat.

At first, I had wanted [Stamina] or [Strength]. Just seeing Laward overpowered by Hakan, who had both at S rank, made it clear that those were abilities he needed.

Of course, with Laward's talent, they would rise naturally over time, but there was no harm in speeding things up.

Now, though, things were different.

[Intelligence]!

Please, [Intelligence]!

Clasping my hands tightly, I prayed to the Goddess for the second time in my life.

Please give Laward some intelligence.

Considering how he'd called the final the “round of two” earlier and all, I couldn't leave him an uneducated fool forever.

It was my mistake to think sending him to school would raise his [Intelligence] on its own.

He intended to keep spending his time on physical training, so if we missed this chance, there might never be another opportunity to raise his [Intelligence].

So please.

Peering through narrowed eyes, I slowly moved the palm covering the system notification.

I could see the message saying one of Laward's stats had gone up a rank. Below that was the name of the stat.

I took a deep breath, then whipped my hand away.

Your stat rank has increased as a reward for winning the Peach Garden Festival!

[Divinity] S -> [Divinity] SS

What the hell?

It could go even higher...?