CH 304

DOOOOHNNN!

A loud noise rang out, the door was blown open, and people rushed out into the garden. The one who did the blasting was a foreign girl with a beautiful face, long blonde hair, plump breasts, a thin waist, and a wide, fluffy skirt. After that, the prince of this country, Sumeragi Subaru, kicked through another door and jumped out.

And the moment the two were both outside, the sound of metal striking metal resounded here and there.

Gin! Gakin! Kan! Dooooonnn!

And the sound keeps moving from right to left, up and down, and you can’t find out where it’s coming from.

Flora, a beautiful girl from a foreign country, tilts her sword and parries Subaru’s blows, and a terrible sound rings out each time. Subaru should have lost his balance after being swept away by Flora, but he strikes her torso as if to counter, however, Flora grins, strikes back, and catches Subaru’s blade once more.

With swords locked, Subaru pushes back, Flora backs off two or three steps. Subaru’s sword slashed across Flora’s head and ended up cutting through the air. Flora dodges the katana, somersaults behind her, then lunges back forward as soon as she lands. Her face had a wicked grin that was not the same as the beautiful girl he had seen before.

“Chii…! You’re so fast!” Subaru yelled.

“Ara… you have a lot of superhuman strength, don’t you? I only know two other people with such power,” Flora said.

Although he surpasses her in strength, he cannot catch up with her in speed. A single blow would give Subaru the victory, but each blow went too wide.

And all the blows that he thought would catch her missed. If they push each other head-on with brute force, he’ll probably win. He should be able to win. However, the opponent deflects this raw power, drops it, and deflects it. It doesn’t matter how much raw power you have if you can’t fully leverage that strength.

In the first place, just knowing that two other people have the same might as Subaru is ridiculous. The people around him may have just been coy and reserved, but even so, in this country, there had never been anyone proven to have superhuman strength that surpassed Subaru. He can’t believe that there are two more equals out there.

But… from Flora’s point of view, Subaru was still playing around. Even if Flora blocks it from the front, it is still only a force that can be endured. That’s still light compared to the two other people Flora knows with this strength, her father and mother.

Flora can’t even take a direct blow from her father and mother. She has no choice but to dodge or retreat. Compared to that, Subaru possesses just the right amount of power and is very interesting. He is different from the monsters like her father and mother and the weaker opponents she has fought so far. He was the perfect opponent to test her skills.

Subaru couldn’t believe it, however. There will be others that are stronger than himself. He doesn’t think he’s the strongest in the world. But… he’s never seen a monster that’s so small and slender, but still matches him in a sword fight.

Certainly, Subaru was slightly superior in power. He thinks it’s slightly advantageous if he can push through completely. However, to begin with, the other party does not accept such a straightforward clash. Using her speed and dexterity, she sends herself away. And sometimes, even if they lock blades and try to power through while facing each other, Subaru can’t easily push her off for her dexterity.

It’s not an overwhelming difference even if he’s stronger. It’s just that she’s somehow superior and has an advantage while pushing against each other, if at the last minute. It is not possible to cut the sword in half like the enemies so far. And in terms of speed, he’s not competitive at all and cannot catch up.

This opponent…if she attacked with the intent to kill Subaru from the beginning…then he would probably have been defeated long ago. They are only able to slash each other this much because they have no intention of inflicting fatal injuries on each other. On the battlefield, unable to keep up with this speed, Subaru has no chance of winning if they were fighting to kill.

Chills and shivers run down his neck. There is no basis for this. Just intuition. Following that instinct, Subaru turns his katana around from his shoulder toward his back instead. Then, “Gakkin!” rings out in his ear. With the sound of metal colliding on metal, he felt an impact like being struck head-on by someone coming at you with all their might, running full-tilt.

“Aah… you blocked it… aha! Motto… shall we play a bit more?”

“-!?”

With that new chill, goosebumps erupted all over Subaru’s body. It was by chance that he blocked that just now. He just had a bad feeling and turned the sword to his back.

He pushed forward, Subaru turned around and saw a monster with red cheeks and an ecstatic expression, smiling devilishly.

While casually lowering her sword, she approached carelessly with light steps as if she were taking a walk. However, contrary to her appearance, there was no opening, and Subaru could not strike her. If he plays his hand wrong, it will be turned back against him.

No matter where you hit her, no matter how you attack her, it won’t work. Such a future prediction is an illusion.

“Uuu… aa…”

“Fufu…”

Subaru cowers as the opponent approaches. And then he finally realized. That’s right. Subaru is on the back foot. For the first time in his life, he’s retreating in front of the enemy. He has never retreated in battle before.

He’s seen many people who are stronger than him. However, even in the fight against such people, Subaru has never backed down in fear of the enemy. Even if he loses, he will come forward and fight fair and square and lose honestly. That’s how he got stronger.

However… Subaru is now retreating for the first time in his life. He realized that fact and forced his failing leg to stop with the power of his mind.

He doesn’t mind losing. He never thought he was the strongest in the world.

But, he can’t afford to lose in spirit. Even if he loses the battle, losing his will to fight is more shameful than defeat.

“Nuuuu!”

With mind and spirit, he forced his bending, capitulating body to stop.

The last strike… Even if he loses, he will bet everything on the next, his final blow. He sets himself up with that in mind.

“Burning flames. Devour my enemies!”

“”-!?””

However…the final clash never happened. Flames suddenly shot towards Flora and separated the two as they pulled back.

“Don’t get in my way, Takeru!” Subaru yelled.

“Urusai! This wasn’t for you! That is a walking disaster! I’ll burn it down here and now!”

It was Sumeragi Takeru who cast magic toward Flora. He was the second prince, Subaru’s younger brother, and Mikoto’s second brother. His face was full of impatience and fear, he started shooting magical spells at Flora with the intent to kill.

Subaru was careful not to kill her. Of course, his opponent knew he was of higher rank, so she was the one who was holding back, and there was no doubt that Subaru himself was fighting with all his might. Even so, he wasn’t doing it with the intent to kill from the start, it was just a test of strength.

In contrast, Takeru suddenly cut in and is seriously trying to kill Flora from the beginning. That was incomprehensible to Subaru.

Takeru and Flora will meet for the first time. He himself also just met Flora. And yet, what is with Takeru’s impatience? He doesn’t know why he has to do this all of a sudden.

“So you’re next… are you going to play, too?”

With a grin, Flora smiled like a demon once more… and did something unbelievable.

With her bare hands, she grabbed the spell Takeru shot, one that would have turned an ordinary person to charcoal, and crushed it in her palms. And she offsets Takeru’s magic by releasing magic herself. Subaru couldn’t believe it.

It’s not limited to any country, it’s common knowledge in the entire world that those who excel in magic ignore their physical strengthening. Also, those who excel in strengthening their bodies can hardly use magic. That’s the norm in this world. If you try to do both, both will be half-baked and you will not be successful. That kind of thing is common sense among all the common senses…

Even though that should be the case…… Flora had shown her incredible physical ability to fight Subaru with a sword and yet is now fighting Takeru with magic.

Subaru doesn’t like Takeru very much, but he still gives credit to his magic skills. He thinks he’s a mage with significant power. He overwhelms his opponent as if he were twisting a baby’s arm. A swordsman who until just a while ago had a decent trade-off with blades, was now overwhelming even a first-class magician in a spell showdown.

He can’t understand what this all means. He can’t wrap his mind around it. This existence is just unreasonable… her expression was that of a demon.

“-!”

In that situation, Subaru couldn’t move or try to help Takeru, as he had to do something about that demon. Because Flora had already broken him…

Flora is inviting him. Watching Subaru move… she is waiting because she sensed that presence. Just waiting. If Subaru jumped in now, he would be sliced in half. Seeing this, Subaru froze, unable to move.

“Wait, Floto! You’re going to start a fire! It’s over! Takeru-onii-sama, stop!” Mikoto yelled, her fury resounding on the walls.

“Chie… ha~i… and just as it was starting to get fun…” Flora said, the devilish smile disappearing as she relaxed her shoulders.

Subaru collapsed where he stood. There are monsters in the world that he couldn’t even have imagined.

He certainly thought he was stronger. But… is that really the case? Wasn’t that demon not at full power yet?

If they had been going with all their might from the beginning, he might have been defeated without having a single trade of blows. He seriously thinks that.

Of course, there is no basis for that. He just felt that way. Maybe the opponent was already at full power.

However, Flora possessed something that made Subaru think so. If she had kept fighting like that, he would surely have lost. It was deeply engraved in Subaru’s heart.

Subaru acknowledged Flora’s power and decided to calmly listen to her offer.

It’s not that he didn’t intend to listen to her from the beginning, or that he wanted to interfere, or that he couldn’t trust her.

He just wanted to see the power that was handed down like a legend because a person related to House Carruthers had come, and he had heard all the rumors about them. Rather than as a prince, as a warrior Subaru wanted to confirm the power of the legendary House Carruthers. And the power was real. You could say it was just like the legend, no, even better than the stories said.

He was able to experience a part of the legendary strength of House Carruthers, who fought against their country many times and waged ferocious battles. It was also because he was shown something out of the ordinary, such as possessing outstanding abilities in both sword and magic.

Subaru just wanted to see that power as a warrior, but Takeru’s actions alone were incomprehensible. Subaru also recognizes Takeru’s ability as a mage but Takeru is the type that makes full use of conspiracy and intrigue behind the scenes and does not have the personality to fight by himself like this time.

Nevertheless, this time he intervened personally in a battle between Subaru and Flora. It wasn’t because he wanted to test Flora’s ability as Subaru did, but from the beginning, he was trying to kill Flora with all his might. Not knowing the reason, Subaru was alarmed.

“I know it was an unexpected commotion… but can we continue the discussion now?” Emperor Sumeragi said.

“E~tto… I’m sorry for breaking so many things…” Flora said, bowing her head shyly.

It’s hard to believe that she’s the same person as the one rampaging with the demonic smile just now.

If you look around, you will find that the sliding doors and shutters have been kicked down and blown open, the plants in the garden have been cut down, small fires are burning, and there’s gouged-out dirt here and there. Both the garden and the buildings were in a terrible state of disarray.

However, it was Takeru who fired the spell, and Subaru who destroyed the buildings and plants. In the first place, if Subaru hadn’t challenged Flora to battle, this wouldn’t have happened.

The strange thing is Takeru, and it’s not like Takeru helped Subaru because he was outclassed. Originally, they were brothers who were fighting over the succession to the throne. Even if Subaru were to be killed, Takeru would happily stand by and watch it happen. Takeru is supposed to be that kind of person. And yet, why did he rush so frantically into the fight with Flora?

“I understood what you were thinking, Subaru, but… Takeru… what do you mean by all this?” Emperor Sumeragi said, turning to his son.

Takeru tried to dodge the conversation, his eyes swimming.