Chapter 12

Chapter 12

About as Much as a Speed Bump

Cassian stumbled backward. Watching him, I summoned Astra and gripped it in my hand.

A heavy silence briefly settled over the audience chamber.

Every tense gaze turned toward me at once. Their expressions plainly said they were worried about what kind of trouble I was about to cause.

...What? Why?

You think I'd lose all sense of propriety even in a place like this?

While glancing around at everyone's reactions, I accidentally met old Bartolomew's eyes.

The old man was trembling as he looked back and forth between the shattered floor and me.

I quickly looked away.

I'll take the lecture later.

Besides, won't the old man feel a little better once I smash Cassian to pieces?

I'm just disciplining an ill-mannered brat, after all.

“A combat evaluation against the Saintess? Did I hear that correctly?”

Cassian finally seemed to regain his senses and spoke in that same cocky tone.

“Yeah. You heard correctly.”

I nearly added, you fucking idiot, but barely swallowed the words.

This was still an official occasion. I had to restrain myself.

“Come on, how am I supposed to spar with the Saintess?”

“Hey, you motherf—”

Just as my paper-thin patience was about to snap completely, Leonid quickly squeezed himself between Cassian and me.

“All right, all right, both of you, that's enough. We need a chance to test our Hero candidate's combat ability anyway, don't we? And if the opponent is Sis— whoops.”

Halfway through, Leonid shrank slightly under the old man's murderous glare.

“If the opponent is the Saintess, I doubt anyone will object. Isn't that right?”

He quickly corrected the title and finished his sentence.

Most people nodded in agreement.

Old Bartolomew clearly didn't seem happy, but after exchanging a look with Grandpa Pope, he sighed and reluctantly nodded.

Then he looked at me with pleading eyes.

‘Please, Saintess. Don't cause an incident.’

That's what his expression said.

Uh... Sorry, but I'm going to cause a little incident.

In exchange, I'll obediently let you catch me afterward and listen to your lecture, and I'll behave better from now on, so don't get too angry.

Okay, old man?

“...?”

Seeing my expression, the old man tilted his head briefly, then his face grew anxious.

‘Good. Looks like my meaning got across perfectly.’

Satisfied, I nodded to myself before turning to Cassian.

“Red-haired knight over there. You're telling me to fight some delicate woman who looks like she couldn't even lift a stick?”

My temper flared, and I almost stabbed him with Astra on the spot.

But Leonid reached behind himself and caught my wrist, stopping me.

Tremble, tremble.

An unexpected contest of strength began.

‘Damn this bastard. Why is he so fucking strong?’

Quiet enough for only Leonid to hear, I whispered, ‘Want to die? Let go.’

Leonid whispered back, ‘Calm down just a little. Then I'll let go.’

In the end, I relaxed.

We were about to begin the combat evaluation anyway. If I lost my temper and attacked first, I might hand him an excuse to complain.

“Who exactly are you calling delicate? Did you forget who grabbed your face and dragged you into the middle of the audience chamber?”

“That was only because I let my guard down. I'd rather do something other than a combat evaluation with the Saintess, though.”

“Well, your confidence is impressive, I'll give you that. But remember, the person standing in front of you is the ‘Silver Holy Spear.’ Keep running your mouth like that and you might find yourself in a very unpleasant situation.”

“Aah? The Silver Holy Spear? Isn't that just some rumor the temple exaggerated?”

Neither Leonid nor I answered Cassian.

Probably because we both knew what had happened to people who'd said that before.

If he was deliberately provoking me, then congratulations, it was working beautifully.

If he genuinely had no idea how strong I was, then I wanted to laugh at how pathetic he was.

I was starting to get a rough idea of him, but fighting would confirm it.

“Can you let go of my wrist?”

“Ah, yes. You two, prepare for the match. Please move about ten paces apart first.”

Leonid released my wrist.

I shook my head and stepped back several paces.

“You lose if you're rendered unable to fight or declare surrender. And, of course, lethal techniques are absolutely forbidden. Forbidden.”

Leonid moved to an appropriate position and looked directly at me as he spoke.

Cassian stepped back with a deeply reluctant expression and drew his sword.

I took my stance as well.

“The match begins when I lower my hand.”

Leonid raised one hand into the air and slowly began counting down.

“Three, two... one... begin!”

The signal came.

Neither of us moved.

Were we probing each other, trying to gauge our opponent's skill?

No.

I simply felt no need to move.

And that bastard just... didn't seem like he wanted to.

“Why don't you reconsider? I don't really want to hurt a beautiful woman like you, Saintess.”

Cassian lowered the tip of his sword toward the floor.

“Hey.”

“Why don't we have a different kind of match somewhere else? If you come see me tonight wearing that incredible outfit, I think I'd be very motivated.”

“Ha, you fucking piece of shit. I've been listening to you because you have a mouth, but now you're just saying whatever the fuck you want.”

“...?”

Cassian's expression stiffened at the blatant profanity.

In the distance, I caught a glimpse of old Bartolomew pressing a hand to his forehead.

“If you don't raise that sword again in three seconds, you die.”

“What are you—”

“Three seconds are up.”

I thrust my spear.

PANG-

The sound of air being torn apart echoed through the chamber.

The spearpoint grazed Cassian's cheek, leaving a wound from which red blood slowly trickled down.

“...Huh? What?”

Cassian reflexively wiped the blood from his cheek and stared stupidly at it.

Had he failed to react?

Or had he realized I wasn't aiming for his head and deliberately stayed still?

Who knew.

There was no reason to sit here wondering. I could simply check.

“Next time, I'm really putting a hole through your skull, okay?”

“Y-You crazy...!”

Only then did Cassian raise the sword he'd been holding toward the ground.

CLAAANG-!

Sparks flew, and his sword spun out of his hand and sailed through the air.

“A swordsman shouldn't drop his sword.”

This time, I really had aimed for his head.

He hadn't actually perceived my attack, but perhaps because of my warning right before the thrust, he'd reflexively raised his sword and blocked it.

Got it.

This bastard wasn't hiding his strength.

He was genuinely trash.

He seemed to have some natural talent, but he was the type who relied solely on it and never put in the work.

My least favorite kind of person.

“Blocking wasn't the worst choice, but if you can't even read the power behind an attack, it's one of the worst responses you could make.”

You should've backed away instead.

You might've been driven onto the defensive because you couldn't break my momentum, but at least you wouldn't have dropped the sword that's practically a swordsman's lifeline.

“Combat ability: failed. If we're going to call someone like you a Hero candidate, we'd be better off grabbing any random Holy Knight from our Order and naming them Hero instead.”

There was nothing more to see.

I spoke coldly, then turned away.

“...Hey. We're not done. Again.”

Cassian's voice stopped me as I tried to leave.

I clicked my tongue and turned back.

“The result will be the same.”

“That was a surprise attack. And I haven't surrendered or been rendered unable to fight.”

“If you want to call an attack made after the duel officially started a surprise attack, fine. Let's say it was. But do you really think you'll win if we do it properly?”

“Of course.”

“Tsk.”

He couldn't even recognize the gap between us.

Maybe the shock had rattled him, because his eyes looked even duller than before.

“Fine. Let's go again. Come to think of it, I should probably see what you're hiding at the bottom too.”

I dismissed Astra, making it disappear, then rolled my shoulders to loosen up.

“...What are you doing?”

“Oh, this?”

He must've been reacting because I'd put away my spear.

“Using Astra on someone like you would be a waste.”

Cassian ground his teeth, snatched up his sword, and charged straight at me.

Decent speed.

A loose, undisciplined grip.

Unrefined movement.

Pathetic.

I lightly twisted my body aside to dodge the sword slashing down at me, then struck the flat of the blade with the back of my hand.

KAANG-

With a sharp metallic sound, the sword snapped in two.

“...What!?”

Whether from the shock of his sword breaking or something else, Cassian froze.

“You think spacing out in the middle of a fight is a good idea?”

I drove my knee straight into his abdomen.

“Gugh...!”

The hit landed cleanly.

But Cassian only lost his breath for a moment before swinging the broken blade at me.

Oh?

He had more grit than I expected.

Still, his response was terrible.

I caught his wrist, threw him over my shoulder, and slammed him into the floor.

“Gah...!”

His full body weight crashed into the marble.

His brain had probably been shaken thoroughly. He wouldn't be moving for a while.

By any normal standard, the match was over.

But I wasn't done.

The bastard I'd spent more than ten years fearing and guarding against had turned out to be this pathetic.

More than disappointment, it pissed me off.

And the filthy crap he'd said earlier while staring all over my body had only made me angrier.

“You need a beating.”

“W-Wait, I surr—”

I loaded my fist with divine power and punched him in the face before he could finish speaking.

CRAAACK-!

“Ghk...!”

With an eardrum-rending impact, Cassian's head sank halfway into the marble floor of the audience chamber.

Oh?

Tougher than I thought.

I had hit him with enough force to shatter a skull in one blow.

Maybe he really was a Hero candidate after all.

Fsssssh—

Black haze rose from his half-crushed face.

I frowned and stared at it.

This was unmistakably demonic energy.

So this is what you've been hiding, Cassian?

“Demonic energy? Are you a servant of demons?”

He couldn't answer.

He was already unconscious, with only the ends of his limbs twitching like an insect.

CRACK—

I grabbed him by the collar, lifted him slightly, and drove my fist down again.

Once more, black energy rose from his body like smoke.

“Wow, impressive. Demonic energy comes pouring out every time I hit you. Have you been colluding with demons or something?”

CRACK—

I punched his face again.

Cassian's head sank halfway into the floor once more.

And the demonic energy was still rising.

“At this point, maybe you aren't colluding with demons. Maybe you're just a demon yourself, huh?”

I pressed divine power into his chest.

Divine power was the force of destroying evil and revealing righteousness.

It was the perfect opposite of demonic energy, so merely injecting it would burn and force the demonic energy out.

“Gh... GAAAAH...!”

The moment divine power entered his body, Cassian convulsed wildly.

Black smoke billowed from him, and with a sizzling hiss, the demonic energy began burning away.

“Wow, what a ridiculous bastard. Just how much demonic energy do you have inside you? Fine, I'll be nice and squeeze it all out for you.”

I raised my fist and hammered his head again.

CRACK-

CRAAACK-

CRAAACK-

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Every time my fist smashed into his skull, a brutal sound echoed through the audience chamber.

By now, Cassian's entire head was buried in the floor and couldn't even be seen.

But I had no particular intention of stopping.

Shouldn't I keep beating him until the demonic energy stopped coming out?

CRACK-

BOOM-

“Oh, it's stopped now? Well, you can still take a few more.”

I raised my hand once again.

“S-Saintess, please stop. He'll actually die.”

Leonid caught my wrist, preventing me from bringing my fist down.

“Didn't you see the demonic energy coming out of him? This isn't a Hero candidate. He's someone colluding with demons. Anyone caught working with demons can be summarily executed and no one would complain.”

“Calm down. This guy has records of entering the Demon Realm frequently. It's not strange for demonic energy to accumulate in the body of someone who goes there often. Though, admittedly, the amount was rather excessive.”

“Hey, you...”

“If you kill him here like this, Sis, you're going to get into a huge amount of trouble.”

Leonid whispered the last part.

He wasn't wrong.

If I kept punching until I killed the bastard, all sorts of annoying problems would definitely follow.

Whatever else he was, he still held the position of Hero candidate.

If rumors spread that the Saintess beat a Hero candidate to death, that would be terrible for our Order.

“Tch...”

In the end, I stopped.

I wiped the blood off my fist on Cassian's clothes and stood up.

“Anyway, he's failed. Calling this level of skill Hero-candidate worthy is enough to make a stray dog laugh. Investigate thoroughly whether he's colluding with demons. If he is, cut off his head and hang it from the city wall. If he isn't, give him a few coins and dump him in a back-alley trash heap.”

“...Looking at him, I'm wondering if he's already dead.”

“Then you should've stopped me sooner.”

“Watching him get beaten was so satisfying that I accidentally missed the timing.”

“...”

I stared at Leonid in disbelief.

He shrugged.

I turned toward Grandpa Pope.

“I don't think there's any way to continue the evaluation now. I'm still not feeling well, so I'd like to excuse myself early. Is that all right?”

Grandpa Pope nodded.

I bowed lightly, opened the audience chamber doors, and stepped outside.

“Something about this feels fucking awful.”

I should've felt relieved.

I'd learned Cassian wasn't actually any threat at all.

I should've been reassured.

But more than that, I felt strangely hollow.

Still, I couldn't stop here.

‘Prevent the Empire from being destroyed by demons.’

That remained my ultimate goal.

Cassian had simply been one large mountain I needed to overcome along the way.

Ah.

He definitely wasn't a large mountain.

Let's revise that.

He was about as much as a speed bump.

“Damn, the weather's nice.”

I muttered blankly while staring up at the sky.