NOVEL NEXT Chapter 8: Good answer
"Again!"
…
"Again!"
…
"Again!"
…
'Again, again, and, just to be sure, again!'
Theo gritted his teeth.
There was nothing wrong with his senior beating the crap out of him, ensuring that after every short bout, Theo would have a new bruise to remember this day by. And yet… no matter how hard he tried, Theo simply couldn't find the answer that would satisfy his opponent.
'I know of a thousand small mistakes I make with every move, but…' Theo spat out some blood from his swollen mouth before using his sword as a crutch to pick himself up from the ground. Against all the odds of the bets openly circulating among the few spectators, he stood up yet again.
'I know of a thousand small mistakes, but how many of those could someone on my level realistically notice?'
With Theo's SSS-ranked ability still falling just outside his grasp, he was a weakling. An extremely experienced and overqualified weakling, but still a weakling. The very fact that, despite his honest attempts, he couldn't overcome Gracian's sword was the best proof of that.
His body wasn't honed enough. His instincts were too dull, and his reaction time was too slow.
'Heck, I don't think I could fight him even back when I was at my peak strength, not without resorting to quite a few different tricks, at the very least!'
Amidst the answers Theo could pour out just off the top of his head, none of the ones he could normally notice appeared to satisfy his senior.
'And with so many people around…' Theo threw a glance around the excited crowd, watching with exhaustion as more and more money continued to change hands as his resilience shattered all but some of the most hyper-optimistic bets on how many bouts he could endure.
"Again!"
Not stopping even for a moment, Gracian called out.
After roughly an hour of sparring again and again, merely a single drop of sweat trickled down his forehead, sliding down the curvature of his amused eyes, crossing his cheek, and dropping off his straight-cut jaw.
"Yes, senior!"
Losing nothing of his temperament, Theo raised his sword again, standing in the exact same stance as he had so many times before.
Sure, he could alter it to make all sorts of movements easier and faster… but the very moment he would do so, Gracian would account for the change and attack from yet another angle, one that would instantly punish the adjustment to Theo's basic stance.
The young man tried it all.
During his best attempt thus far, four bouts ago, he managed to block two strikes and then push Gracian's blade away with a counter. Still, before he could exploit it, the damned swordmaster had already recovered from the rebound, easily deconstructing his entire attack only to slam the face of his blade right into Theo's exposed side.
In the rest of his attempts, he would only average a single block before the bout was decided.
Still, Theo refused to give up.
'This is my best shot not only to practice real swordsmanship but to potentially plunder his potential, whatever it might actually be,' he thought, gritting his teeth as he took a deep breath, readying himself for yet another of his senior's assaults…
This time, however, the attack didn't come. Instead, Gracian just stood in his spot, staring daggers right into Theo's face.
"Why do you keep losing?" Gracian asked, opting to lower his sword and press it into the ground rather than charge Theo down for the nth time.
"Because I'm too slow to react, too slow to move my blade, too slow to process the fine details I can observe…" Theo began listing all the things he'd said thus far.
Ultimately, all his supposed faults boiled down to the fact that he was fighting someone he had no practical right to ever defeat.
"That's not it," Gracian stated, only to sigh and shake his head. He closed his eyes and stayed silent for a moment, then opened them again and looked at Theo with renewed determination. "But I think I know why you can't find the correct answer," he stated, shaking his head once more before locking his gaze on the crowd excitedly watching the proceedings from beyond the sparring grounds.
"All of you, scram!" Out of seemingly nowhere, Gracian screamed with an intensity he hadn't shown during any of his bouts with Theo.
And just like puppets suspended on thin strings of reason, the spectators first froze… only to quickly start leaving the place.
'Those kids,' Theo thought, looking at the cadets not even halfway past the next dueling ring before they started arguing over how to split the money from the ultimately undecided bets.
Still, while the small crowd was leaving, both Theo and Gracian remained perfectly silent, waiting for the moment they could talk without anyone listening in.
"Listen, kid, I know you are not pushing yourself anywhere near your limits, be it during our bouts or when I'm asking why you lost," Gracian claimed, letting go of his sword and crossing his arms over his chest. "So I will ask again: why do you keep losing?"
Theo looked at his senior, took a shallow breath, and then sighed it all away.
"I'm losing because I'm only using what little ability to wield the sword I have," he now stated more openly, revealing one of the biggest points he couldn't bring up with so many fellow cadets watching. Theo then cleared his throat with a cough before adding, "I'm losing because I'm fighting fair."
Finally, as if it were some sort of miracle, Gracian smiled.
"There's no such thing as fighting fair or unfair," he stated, shaking his head while keeping the small, satisfied smile. "In a fight, there's only winning and losing. So this time, my question is different," he claimed before going silent, plucking his sword out of the ground, and aiming its tip right at Theo's face. "Why do you insist on learning swordsmanship when it's clearly not your forte?"
'I didn't expect him to catch on to that,' the young man thought, struggling to decide his next step… or rather, his next words.
For a moment, Theo weighed his options, torn between having a constructive conversation with an actual master swordsman and the idea of keeping the true extent of his awareness hidden from someone as pivotal to the greater story of this world as this would-be heretic.
"I do that because only by pushing myself beyond what I'm aware I'm capable of, I can match those who can easily overcome a modest yet moderate effort with nothing but the talents, the potential they were born with."
This was the truth not only in Theo's past life but in his current attempt at it as well.
'Whatever this plunder ability is, it's not convenient enough to just make my life a smooth ride. And if it works somewhat close to how I imagine it does… I'm only going to need even more effort to make proper use of all the talents I will plunder in the future.'
This answer, however, also appeared to be the breaking point for the conversational stalemate the two men found themselves in. A breaking point that only elevated Gracian's smile and allowed him to adopt a somewhat softer look on his face as he dropped the flat of his sword onto his shoulder and raised his chin.
"Finally, a good answer." Gracian smiled… only to lower his sword and sheath it at his hip. "Same time tomorrow?"
For a moment, Theo stared at the man with disbelief.
'He's letting me off THAT easy?'
According to Theo's mental calculations, it would take at least an hour, likely two, of bullying before Gracian would let him go.
'Well, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth, do you?' he thought, sighing as he finally allowed himself to relax a bit.
"Same time tomorrow it is."