In Another World with JUST MONIKA 44 The Darkness Within the Sword

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The Viscount nodded and shifted the hold on his wooden sword to a two-handed grip. "When your father left this country, he left many magicians more humble and wiser in their ways. They, who lived always trying to draw attention to their exploits, could never imagine the darkness that could live inside the sword."

"I… do not understand."

"No one does. Not until they feel it for themselves." The viscount raised his sword high in a simple overhand strike position. Now, finally, he unsealed his aggression. We could all feel that electric feeling in the air. Or was it in our nerves, tingling in response to danger?

I frowned. What was this… pressure?

"Now! En garde!" He took just one step forward, but he closed the entire distance between him and Yae, accomplishing with the tips of his toes something that for me required a wind surge.

"Wh?!" Yae responded quickly by raising her sword to block.

And then in the next moment, she was toppling over to the side, a spatter of blood coming out her mouth.

Slam.

Yae collapsed onto the floor, sliding off to a stop a short distance way. She bent inwards into a fetal position, moaning and gingerly touching her sides.

"Yae!" Elze gasped. She ran over to Yae's side. "T-that's enough!" she screamed up at the viscount.

"Yes. It is." He looked far too relaxed, putting his wooden blade over his shoulder. "Try not to move too much. I probably broke some of your ribs," he told Yae.

Then he beckoned over to me and Linze. "You there! Come and heal her."

We rushed over. I put my hand over her midsection and muttered "[Diagnosis]" at the same time Monika said it privately.

Her ribs were broken. Had it been a real fight with real swords, Yae would now be cut in half. Yae's face was all twisted in agony.

My blood began to pound with hot rage. I looked up and glared. "You bastard!"

"Ooh? What are you trying to do, boy? Tickle me?" the viscount sneered. "Just attack if you want to attack, don't bark like a little dog."

FINE THEN.

I stomped down with one foot, the floorboards splintering under me. "Wi-"

/"Player, stop."/

"[Boost]. Playa, stop!" Elze forced down my shoulders with her enhanced strength. "Think about what you're doing!"

... Skulls for the Skull Throne?

"… tch." I forcefully unclenched my fists. Fine. There's no need to be stupid xianxia hero making unnecessary enemies. I looked at his eyes, and though there was contempt there, I could feel no malice towards Yae. An odd kindness, even.

Despite the mercilessness of his attack, he showed real concern. But not regret. Damn samurai philosophies. I growled again.

The viscount let out an amused little 'Heh'.

Oddly enough, this kingdom's defenders actually willing to be so ruthless actually made me feel a bit better about them being able to protect Sue and her family. Maybe they just had terrible OPSEC.

Beside me, Linze murmured "Come forth, Light. Soothing comfort, Priority Please, [CURE HEAL!]"

"Yae?!"

Yae let out a strangled little gasp as her injuries knit together. She opened her eyes slowly and gingerly sat up. "I… I am fine. T-thank you for your help. This unworthy one apologizes for troubling you."

"Did you see?" the viscount asked.

Yae looked up, and through the lingering echoes of pain there was only confusion.

Viscount Sordrick shook his head sadly. "An excellent sword, but there is no darkness in it. You fight with clarity and decisiveness, even if your heart wavers your grip never loses its strength."

"And because of this, you will never be able to break past the limits of your training. You swing your sword, and that's all that it is!"

What the heck even is the sword philosophy nonsense? I frowned and stood up and spat at him, "And what's wrong with that?! That's what a sword is. A sharp bit of metal to stab your enemy with!"

He just chuckled lightly at me. "Another one who fails to see. But then, someone like you never needed to, didn't you? Unlike that excellent swordswoman there, you do have some darkness in you, boy."

"… somehow your praise just pisses me off even further," I hissed out through grit teeth.

I had to remind myself that attacking the kingdom's noble law enforcement personnel in their own home would lead to a whole heap of political consequences I was not prepared to drag the girls into for my own immediate satisfaction. I was responsible for more than just my own life now.

The viscount ignored my reply and walked past us. He turned his head and spoke over his shoulder, "There are many paths to strength, and not all of them require sacrifice. Learn what you want from your sword, daughter of Jubei, and that will lead you to your true way.

"Once you find that darkness inside the blade, you may come find me again. Only then will you be able to learn why those who live in the light of magic will always fall under the shadow of that blade."

He turned away and just left us alone there in the dojo.

Yae just stared dully at his back. The confusion from before had faded into this numb disbelief.

It was a thing that many people had difficulty coming to terms with, in that in life, sometimes assholes can simply /not/ be wrong. They might actually know what they're talking about. Don't let emotions taint the facts. I exhaled slowly. He was just trying to help in his own asshole way.

"I still… I still do not understand. What am I doing wrong?" she mumbled. "I know I saw his sword… and then I was hit? If we were using the same Konokoe style, then… what I do fail to see about my father's own teachings, what is it?!"

Elze patted her shoulders. "Don't mind it too much… battles are as much about luck anyway! Well… if you lost, then that's that. So next time it's okay to cheat!"

"… Elze-dono, you are not helping… you are not," Yae remarked with a long-suffering sigh.

We decided to leave quickly, before the Viscount realized he could probably make us pay for the damage to his dojo's floor. It was the least amount of spiteful inconvenience we could do to a loyal servant of the Belfast crown.

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/"Why do you look so defeated?"/ asked Monika. /"Surely you have lost matches against stronger fighters than you before. He is a veteran of the sword, of course he would win."/

"It is not that, Moniksama. I understand … that the world is indeed a very big place. My road to becoming strong is a very long one, that is so…" Yae replied in a heavy whisper. "It is what he said. I am missing something fundamental about my own family sword style. All this time, I have believed I was growing, but have I been doing something wrong all this time?"

Elze hesitantly offered "Well, I don't understand all this talk about sword styles and such. But if your father taught you how to use a sword, then probably he didn't hold back on teaching you what you needed to know."

"Then the fault can only be mine. I have failed to learn, that is my failure, yes. I have shamed my family and wasted their teachings!"

Admitting this seemed to drain all the strength from her. Yae slumped on her seat, resting her elbows on her knees. It was not that she was weak, that alone wouldn't be enough to discourage her. 'Just swing your sword some more until you grow strong!' is what she would have said.

But to dishonor her entire martial lineage, now that was terrifying. An inherent flaw would make all effort pointless in the end, poor metal would break no matter how skilled the smith. "… truly, a disgusting sword," she mumbled to herself.

I sighed and began to rub at the bridge of my nose. This whole thing… well, it was sounding really familiar, the whole high concept swordsmanship so common in the anime I've seen before. Then again, this was a fantasy world, so a lot of those fighting spirit vs technique nonsense might actually be valid.

By the way, since the obvious answer to /"How do I reach a magician before he can kill me?"/ is /"use a gun,"/ I was certainly resolved not to introduce firearms to this fantasy world and disrupt its careful balance of power.

"What even is the darkness in the sword anyway?" I asked idly. "I mean, that didn't look all that impressive. It was just a crosscut slash."

"Did you see it?" Elze asked me. "I was there, and I didn't see him move at all! It's like I blinked, and then you were down on the ground!" she told Yae next. Her voice was far too excited for trying to help Yae make sense of it all.

My speed was not beyond Elze's ability to perceive. But if the Viscount Sordrick could do that, then none of us stood a chance.

"Or did you get it from your [Diagnosis] of her injuries?" Linze asked in a more reasonable tone.

"Mmm. It was a slash going down from the ribs through the hips, and if it were a real sword would have severed the spine and cut you in half," I told Yae.

"A fearsome strike." She nodded, and then looked down, still puzzled. "But… I was so sure… that strike makes no sense. I could see it coming down from above, and then I was hit from the side."

/"… well that's strange. I could see it was certainly just coming from the side,"/ Monika said.

"Mmm. It's no [Kuzu Ryu Sen], but impressive enough, I suppose."

That was a famed technique from Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu, of the Rurouni Kenshin anime. Nine-Headed Dragon Flash, a technique that slashed with the sword nine times at practically the same time, the godspeed blade almost impossible to defeat head-on except by the actual ultimate technique of the Hiten Mitsurugi school.

Yae looked up. She blinked at me. She looked to the side, at Monika projected onto the side of the darkened carriage. She blinked again. And one more time. And like a switch, it's like life returned back to her eyes.

"You could see it…" she whispered. She gave out a little laugh. "Of course you could see it, your eyes are a kami's eyes!"

Monika winced a bit. /"Ehh. While it is true that I can perceive things at such speed that I can see even the flapping of a housefly's wings, that's not what we're talking about."/

She reached past the edge of the carriage corner and pulled out a window from nowhere. Then, she showed her recording of the fight.

"Astounding! What- what is this magic! I can see myself, and… Viscount-dono too! Elze-dono and Linze-dono…" Yae's brows furrowed as she realized what was missing. "I don't see Playdono…"

"Ooh. So this is what you mean when you said you would always be able to recall everything you could see. I didn't realize you could also show it to others," Elze figured. "Though it's not actually you doing it, it's Miss Monika's power, so you were just lying to all of us."

"Um… I don't think that's fair," Linze demurred. "Since it is necessary for Miss Monika to allow Mister Zah to see clearly in the first place."

Yae turned to look me then back to Monika again, looking awestruck. "This is a powerful magic, it is."

I just shrugged in response. Monika drew our attention back to her window and from the start she replayed the fight. We watched silently until the end, until the part where Yae was struck down. Elze and Linze winced, and watching it again didn't help reduce any the sudden rush of anger.

Yae touched at her waist, remembering the pain of her shattered ribs. But her face, staring at the projection, held only a dispassionate curiosity.

Elze pointed out how ready I was to charge at the viscount. I didn't even touch my sword, my first reaction was to punch out with an air hammer to open up the range.

"You would have your arms just cut off," she noted. "Well, if it was a real sword. I really thought you had a better temper than this. Whatever happened to being able to shrug off being provoked?"

"Insults to me I can deal with all day. But you can't expect me just to do nothing and watch you get hurt!"

Yae glanced to Monika standing by the side of the screen. "Could this be repeated? Could I see the moment of the strike again, if I may?"

"Of course! As many times as you like."

The Viscount started with the sword held up over his head, took a flying step forward with his arms curving down to slash at her side. It was a simple efficient move executed at speed. But it was certainly not 'too fast to perceive' speed.

"… I see." Yae muttered softly. "A shadow sword."

/"… a what now?"/

"It is a technique that turns your intense fighting spirit into a blade. As an illusion it does not have any substance, but being made of spirit it has a presence you can feel, it does. That is why, before you even realize it, you have to acknowledge its existence. The viscount set his shadow sword to attack from above while his real strike struck me into the side… clad in a distracting amount of fighting spirit, while the real one I couldn't feel came from the side!"

Yae slapped her palms together into combined clenched fists of contrition and respect. "I took the bait that he set, that I did!"

/"That's… interesting. It's not like a magic illusion that makes something to deceive your senses. It only really affects those that are looking at it directly. Now that there isn't the Viscount's sword spirit, we can all see what really happened. Player, what do you think?"/

"Huh. That's… nifty. Instead of trying to fool your enemy's senses or stop his ability to cast, you directly attack his ability to make decisions! I can see how this can screw up so many mages. You throw out your soul making him subconsciously accept /'I'm going to do this'/ and then do something else entirely."

Heck, if it affected multiple people due to crowd psychology, a single swordsman could dominate whole groups of attackers without fear. That certainly explained the usual one warrior defeating hordes of mooks problem. If you can fool sword intent, you should also be able to read sword intent.

"Did you see it?" Elze asked again.

/"Player only sees what I allow him to see,"/ Monika answered for me. /"Even if his judgement might be fooled by sword intent, I will always be able to remind him by flashing symbols of reality."/

Like some sort of flashing color overlay over the real blade, maybe. The [Quick Time Event] doesn't really care about anything other than reflex time.

Yae smiled. "My swordsmanship has no dark side, now I see what he means, yes. Sometimes you don't wait for openings in your enemy's guard, but must make them yourself, you must!"

"Well, yes? Of course? That's what I said," Elze had to point out. "Cheat."

I grinned at her. "Monika, make a note please. One of these days we should really upgrade Elze's gauntlets with an integrated boltgun or a flamethrower."

Then another thought occurred to me. I held up my hand and turned towards Yae. "Wait, so if there is a technique to make a shadow sword, then why didn't you just think the viscount was talking about it literally?"

"That is not what a shadow in the blade means, Playdono. How do you make the sword outside the blade without the shadow already inside your swordsmanship? To use your own fighting spirit as a weapon, your own spirit must be a weapon first."

"… that sounds like a tautology, but ok. I'll just be satisfied with my KE equals em vee squared."

Yae looked at me in incomprehension, then slowly her gaze turned intense.

"I am reminded of something viscount-dono said. Moniksama protects you from sword intent, that is completely to be expected, that it is. The soul of a swordsman against the soul of a kami…?" Yae shook her head, this day was showing her so much how the world was unfair and how much harder she had to work to find her real strength.

But that didn't scare her. As long as she had a goal to work hard towards, then she would never hesitate on whatever she needed to do to get there. "It is is interesting, but it is also interesting what was said about you… the viscount said that you also have darkness in you."

/"A Deep and Dark History,"/ Monika intoned ominously. /"It is made of maximum cringe."/

"… Monika, no." I turned back towards Yae, and felt a little bit creeped out by the attention. "Well, I'm an amateur at the sword compared to you, so... uh, he probably meant only a basic lack of honor in swordsmanship. My entire fighting style is based completely around attacking the enemy's weak point with all my strength."

If the viscount and I ever came to blows, of course I wouldn't match him sword to sword-spear, that would be stupid. It would be sword to sword-spear-horizontal tornado with a lightning sleeve.

A sword would have the slim cross-section to cut through air currents – but many people forget that swords are attached to arms that are attached to human torsos with a wide surface area to be pushed away by wind.

You know. Cheat in the /all the time/ with /the anything/ and /the everything/. A magic swordsman was an unfair existence. A single strike wouldn't just wreck his face but his entire dojo, then blow through all the walls of his house, and out to blast the perimeter wall.

"Playdono…" Yae whispered with a strange urgency. "Please allow me to cross swords with you!"

"… dammit."

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- end A Darkness Within the Sword end -

Chapter end