“I didn’t hit you anywhere, did I? I didn’t expect you to be so clumsy with a sword at first, but once we started fighting, you looked pretty convincing. I got a bit too serious without realizing it…”
Seeing Lian covered in dust and dirt, Milin spoke up with a hint of embarrassment.
Her emotions during this bout had gone through quite the rollercoaster.
At first, she felt underestimated by Lian’s careless grip on the sword.
Then, just as she was about to decide the match with a finishing blow, Lian dodged it out of nowhere—at that point, Milin had ramped her guard up to the maximum.
But when she attacked with all her strength, she found that the other party seemed barely able to fend her off…
Her competitive spirit had been tossed about like this, and by the end, there was barely any of it left.
The only reason she kept going was probably because it was rare to find someone who could spar with her like this.
“It’s nothing, Milady. It’s my honor to let you enjoy the match.” Lian smiled at her.
She could, of course, feel it too—Milin had been holding back in the latter half of their bout.
This girl was just itching for a fight, longing for a good bout. And as Vera had said, she certainly knew how to control herself.
She really is an outstanding child… far stronger than I ever was at her age.
A warm feeling suddenly welled up in Lian’s heart. She had an urge to reach out and pat this girl’s head, to tell her, “You did really well.”
But words like that, Milin had probably heard so many times since childhood that she’d grown sick of them.
Thinking this, Lian, whose hand was already half-raised, slowly lowered it.
“Milin…”
“Teacher, I won!”
Just then, Vera walked over. Milin eagerly reported her victory.
Facing those bright eyes that seemed to say, “Aren’t I amazing? Hurry up and praise me!”
Vera’s expression grew complicated. She first glanced at Lian, then turned her gaze back to Milin.
She seemed to be comparing them… or perhaps confirming something. But in the end, it looked like she couldn’t reach a conclusion.
“…Yes, you fought very well.”
Finally, she closed her eyes and spoke with a sigh.
…
……
…………
“How do you think that child compares to you?”
After Lian and the Prince she brought with her had left, only Vera and Milin remained in the Training Ground.
Vera put away the extra weapons on the rack as she spoke.
“I think he’s about as strong as me, maybe? …No, my stamina is way better than his, so I must be stronger!”
Milin was still finishing the thousand practice swings against the Doll that Vera had punished her with earlier.
Not long ago, she had been gasping for breath, but after two rounds of fighting, she seemed full of energy again.
“I wasn’t talking about that Prince Nolan.”
“Ah? Teacher, are you talking about that crazy woman?” Milin paused for a second, but quickly resumed swinging her sword.
“I don’t know how she dodged my first strike… but she must’ve practiced swordsmanship before, right? Just not as much as me. And besides, wearing clothes like that—even if she’s stronger than me, I don’t think I would’ve lost to her just now.”
“…Your analysis isn’t bad.”
Vera wasn’t good at lying. But she also couldn’t just crush her hard-training disciple’s confidence with the truth—
That girl named Lian was simply too strong. So strong that even Vera couldn’t tell the full extent of her abilities.
The punch she had thrown at Milin in the garden was only thirty percent of her full strength.
Even in the High Officer Academy, where the Celendor Theocracy trained professional officers, there weren’t more than ten students who could take that punch from her.
And as for those who could detect the Invisible Sword Energy she released with Magic Power—not a single one could be found.
Let alone someone who could actually dodge it. Among everyone present at the Training Ground, only Vera had seen Lian’s movement clearly.
That was a combination of Wind Magic and Thunder Magic.
Using Thunder Magic to enhance the body’s reaction speed, then using Wind Magic to create an extremely sharp, tiny gust to push the body further, accelerating movement even more—
Accelerating from stillness to a speed undetectable by the naked eye… all of this happened in less than a split second.
And throughout the process, there was no incantation, no change in Magic Power, no gestures or magic circles—none of the things that should have appeared.
Very few people in this world could pull off such a feat, and, coincidentally, they were all people Vera knew.
And among them, she had a tangled fate with the most famous one—a tie that could never be severed.
She was almost certain that girl was that person’s daughter.
But if so, why would she hide her true strength and sneak into the Duke’s Household as a mere maid?
And judging by her attitude, she seemed to care especially for Milin…
If the two of them truly were half-sisters who had never met, then from Milin’s perspective, shouldn’t she hate the sister born to her mother’s enemy?
“You damned bastard… where on earth are you?”
No one heard her soft whisper, for her voice was swallowed by the relentless pounding of the wooden sword against the Doll—a thousand, perhaps even ten thousand strikes.
…
……
…………
“Haah~ In the end, nothing’s really changed compared to this morning.”
After returning to XÄ«long Pavilion, Lian stood like a dedicated ornament outside Nolan and his group’s suite, staying there until dusk.
At first, she felt bored, but when she recalled everything that had happened that day, she thought perhaps it was better to be stationed at the suite door like this.
No, it wasn’t as if nothing good had happened. At least seeing Milin freed from confinement had made her genuinely happy.
Even though Milin still looked at her with that same unpleasant expression… seeing her brandish her sword so valiantly, that happiness turned into pure joy—an uncontrollable one.
“Is this what it’s like to be a parent? If Meliya had been here today… would she have felt the same as me?”
Suppressing her bubbling joy, Lian murmured to herself. At that moment, the bell tower in the distance rang for the eighteenth time that day.
This signaled that Yilansiya’s state religion—the Celendor Theocracy’s Evening Prayer—would soon begin.
But for those who were not believers or followed other faiths, this chime usually meant it was time to clock out and have dinner.
The shift change at XÄ«long Pavilion was also at this time. The steward had mentioned earlier that a replacement maid would come at this hour.
So, Lian craned her neck and looked both ways down the corridor, now dyed red by the evening light.
“Huh… Why is nothing happening?”
“Were you looking for me?”
A soft, boneless hand patted Lian gently on the shoulder. She spun around, startled, to find Feiyin standing right beside her, expressionless.
“Are you a ghost?!”
Lian jumped a foot in the air—how did this woman even get here? There hadn’t even been a single footstep; not even a breath had given her away.
“How rude. I’m the Head Maid, you know? I’m your direct supervisor, and obviously human.”
“You’re definitely scaring me on purpose! I barely took my eyes off the left side of the corridor for less than ten seconds before looking to the right! To get to my side in that short a time, you must’ve used some kind of spell…”
“You’re right. So, would you like to know what spell I used?”
“…Will you actually tell me?”
Now that she’d brought it up, Lian really was curious how Feiyin kept slipping past her senses.
After all, this wasn’t the first time she’d popped up like a ghost.
“Of course not.”
“Then why bring it up?!”
Lian snapped back as Feiyin’s lips curled up in a faint smile.