He wasn’t even surprised anymore. He gave a sincere command.
“Please go away. I’m asking you earnestly.”
No, does he have nothing better to do? Why on earth is he doing this?
He was utterly fed up. He let his emotions show plainly on his face. But Leopold had become astonishingly shameless by now. He simply plopped himself down right next to Terren.
The stares of other students followed.
“You’re quite good with a sword, apparently.”
“Good or not, I told you I’m busy. Please don’t embarrass yourself by staying next to me and just go. And don’t ever talk to me again.”
“Why? No.”
This — this — absolute —
He could feel the heat rising in his face from sheer fury. Terren ground his jaw and ducked his head down. Leopold watched him intently.
“Don’t get angry, Terren.”
“……”
“I just want to have a conversation.”
“I have no desire to converse.”
“I wasn’t wrong about your skills when we caught the trolls.”
“Stop changing the subject, Leopold. I told you to go away.”
Leopold gave him that particular, dreadful look — the one that seemed to regard Terren as some unfortunate wretch — and proceeded to ignore Terren Meyer completely, pressing on.
“Come to think of it, you once took down Milo’s entire group by yourself. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner… you’re far better with a sword than I’d imagined.”
“……”
“So why is that?”
Leopold tilted his head. When his gaze fell on the book Terren had been reading, Terren snapped it shut and pulled it away. Nothing was going right today.
“Why do you always just sit around during swordsmanship class?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You have no interest in swordsmanship at all. You always head to a corner seat and just study.”
“Whatever I choose to do is my own free will. Please mind your own business and kindly get away from me.”
“To let that kind of talent go to waste — that’s truly a nonsensical thing to do.”
What a joke. The swordsmanship he knew at sixteen — all of it was skill carried over from his past life. Nothing more.
Looking purely at natural ability, Terren was not even a prodigy. Average talent. At the very most, you might call him a quick learner.
And during sparring periods like now when he had nothing to do — was he supposed to stand there looking pitiful, swinging a wooden sword on his own? Did Leopold have any idea how tedious that became when you repeated it endlessly? No — he was always surrounded by people, so of course he’d have no way of knowing.
“Can’t you at least take swordsmanship seriously? With your talent, if you just trained a little harder, you could become as strong as me.”
“That’s impossible — Leopold, I told you to get out, right now.”
“I’d rather not, Terren.”
Leopold’s eyes curved as he smiled. Terren immediately stood up to leave, but Leopold followed right after him, so he gave up and returned to his original spot. He was truly an insufferable person. That same old ailment flared up again and his stomach kept lurching.
“Want to spar again?”
“Say something that makes sense.”
“Why have you been sitting like this during swordsmanship class? I’ve been watching for a while — there aren’t many times when you actually picked up a sword seriously.”
“Is there even anyone who would cross swords with me in the first place?”
At the sharp reply, Leopold blinked for a moment before answering.
“Do it with me, from now on.”
That had clearly been a significant misstep.
“No.”
“Fine, I don’t want to either. But it’s too much of a waste. You’re already strong enough to walk straight into the royal knights right now. You’re in a league of your own within the Academy. If you add real training on top of that — you’ll grow at a pace no one has ever seen. Trust me.”
Only then did Terren realize it. From the very start, exchanging more than three words with Leopold Delua made his head burn, a headache flare, and his stomach turn.
In the end, he simply ignored Leopold entirely. He refused to respond no matter what was said.
Having talked at him endlessly with no reply, the first prince must have finally felt some shame — he fell quiet. Then he simply sat himself down beside Terren and stayed there in silence.
A cool breeze drifted through the sparring grounds. Terren opened his book again and began to read. Leopold’s gaze followed his every movement with unwavering persistence.
At first, it was uncomfortable. After a while, he simply got used to it.
It really is a strange thing — no matter how earth-shattering something is, you go numb to it if it keeps happening.
Leopold kept coming up to him every swordsmanship class and whispering for them to spar. Occasionally he’d approach after class too. The topics were mostly trivial things. How was class today, what are you doing after this, I did this today and it helped, and so on…
None of it was worth the effort of responding to.
At first Terren ignored him entirely, then he started giving small nods, and as a person grows accustomed to things, he gradually began to reply once or twice.
Once or twice became three times, then ten, and Terren Meyer eventually ended up being dragged out by Leopold every swordsmanship class to receive what was, in disguise, a private lesson.
The instruction of a swordsmanship teacher — especially one directed at a sixteen-year-old — was utterly meaningless. Particularly lately, since most students were doing self-directed training in preparation for the midterm evaluation.
Terren, who would ordinarily just be reading a book, began crossing swords with Leopold at every turn.
The method was this: Terren would attack, and Leopold would show him how to move in response.
Terren, who had been indifferent at first, gradually changed his mind.
As much as he hated to admit it, Leopold was truly extraordinary with a blade.
Every movement he demonstrated carried meaning. The swordsmanship skills he had thought could no longer improve began to grow, bit by bit.
He couldn’t deny it anymore.
Swordsmanship was a field with no practical use to him — but how could the academic hunger he was born with simply disappear?
Learning had always been something that felt good to Terren. On that desire alone, he lost himself entirely, and somehow — unbelievably — he had ended up as someone who exchanged words with Leopold.
And this, in turn, was the starting point for yet another change.
Leopold was the most powerful student at the Academy.
Given that it was made up entirely of peers, the atmosphere within the Academy was relatively familiar — yet the divide of social rank remained fundamentally firm. The man who had earned not only the obedience but the genuine affection of others through his warm and easygoing nature was the first prince of Delua.
Everyone worked to earn his favor and scrambled to make a good impression.
What Leopold liked, all of the Royal Academy liked. What he disliked, the students disliked too.
With one single exception — the detestable Terren.
For the past three years, Leopold had paid no particular attention to Terren.
Even though he was a student who had entered under Leopold’s sponsorship, there had been no real connection between them beyond the obligatory minimum of care.
In his first year, Terren suffered serious bullying. The other students force-fed him rotten food and doused him with water. Then they’d sneak glances at Leopold. But from the first prince, there was no reaction whatsoever. An unspoken permission.
From that point on, Terren Meyer had been reduced to the Academy’s official outlet for cruelty. Not quite a human being. Something closer to an insect — loathsome and beneath notice.
And yet — those very people.
Had, not long ago, begun putting on a rather strange show.
The first prince spoke to the Academy’s parasite at every opportunity. During swordsmanship class, they sparred together.
From time to time, the sound of Leopold’s small laughter drifted over, and Terren Meyer’s low voice pricked at the ears around them.
The other students were bewildered.
They hadn’t known it was possible for the most exalted man in the kingdom to keep company with a pest of base blood. It was something that shouldn’t have been able to happen in one’s lifetime.
Some of the more perceptive students briefly considered whether they were still allowed to pick on Terren — but none of them thought on it seriously enough to reach a conclusion.
Not until the incident.
During swordsmanship class, Terren mainly used a wooden sword or one of the shared longswords. As Leopold saw Terren’s skill improving, his own desire grew along with it.
He knew that Terren Meyer’s primary weapon was a dagger. Since he couldn’t show off dagger techniques that fell outside the curriculum during class with a teacher watching, Leopold proposed a private meeting.
He’d give Terren’s dagger technique a proper look — just come to the pine forest for one day on a day off.
The pine forest was a deeply unsettling place, filled with traces of Terren covering bloodstains with dirt after his weekly Dark Sorcery enhancement sessions. Even so, Terren ended up accepting Leopold’s persistent request.
That was how remarkable Leopold’s swordsmanship was. Enough to make Terren wonder why he still wasn’t a Sword Master.
The day of the appointment was today.
