I let out a stifled scream while stretching and yawning.

No matter how much studying is a student’s duty, it has been dreadfully boring in both my past and present life. With a dazed and sluggish gaze looking out the window, I found myself thinking.

‘Ah, it would be nice to swing a sword and sweat profusely.’

I, who have reached the level of a sword saint… no, a sword genius, now instinctively think about swinging a sword.

I don’t know for sure, but don’t sword saints also think about exercise when they’re not thinking about anything else? A strange sense of kinship arose within me.

The blackboard is the sword, and the white is the letters.

As I watched the professor diligently write the educational content on the blackboard, chin in hand, I suddenly thought to myself.

… Shouldn’t good things be shared?

Just as my skills improve through sword training and hard work, anything clearly good should be shared with others. Judging by how hard they don’t train, they haven’t realized this joy yet!

How lamentable.

The aching and sore muscles in the morning are evidence of the previous day’s grueling training…!

The feeling of muscles twitching with each swing of the sword!!

I must inform everyone.

‘…Stay calm.’

I calmed my mind. It was clear that indiscriminately spreading it to anyone wouldn’t work. After all, isn’t that a heresy?

First, I should start by persuading those close to me.

Someone who uses swords as their main weapon, is interested in them, and is close to me.
I slowly turned my head and looked at the blue-haired girl.

“…Why?”

Helena, the diligent model student concentrating on the professor’s words, blushed slightly when she received my gaze and asked.

My first target has been decided.

***

Helena couldn’t hide her excited feelings.

‘Want to train together after this?’

That oblivious Felix had said such a thing to her!

It wasn’t about going out to the village together or taking a stroll around the academy, but Helena was overwhelmed with happiness.

For the past 16 years, Felix had never once suggested going somewhere or doing something together, just the two of them.

Trying to calm her excited feelings, Helena began choosing her clothes.

‘Since he said training, I should wear workout clothes?’

But she didn’t want to wear anything plain or strange. The training uniform provided by the academy was…too familiar.

Even though it had only been a little over two weeks, she wore her training uniform as often as her school uniform.

This wouldn’t do.

‘I need to show him a different side…’

Helena had overheard somewhere that men get excited when they see a new look in the opposite sex, so she carefully chose her outfit.

But no matter how much she thought about it, Helena’s choice of clothes was limited. Because she had little interest in clothes.

“…Haa.”

Letting out a deep sigh as she looked at her meager wardrobe, Helena took out her best clothes and checked the time.

“I’m late…!”

Helena hurriedly changed clothes and rushed out of her room.

She had wasted too much time due to her excitement. It may not be a date… but there was nothing more disappointing than breaking a time commitment.

Helena ran quickly down the hallway towards the training grounds.

“You can’t run in the hallways…!”

The dorm mistress’s scolding could be heard, but Helena was out of there in an instant.

‘I’m sorry…!’

Leaving a silent apology behind, Helena headed for the training grounds, where she could see him standing in the center.

It seemed he had arrived long before her as Felix was immersed in his world, steadily swinging his sword. Helena couldn’t help but stop in her tracks upon finding him.

It has always been the case that a man focused on his work is attractive.

It goes without saying that a handsome man is attractive.

But what if a handsome man is focused on his work? And if that person is someone you like?

Helena couldn’t help but blush deeply as she absentmindedly watched Felix, placing her cold hand on her flushed cheek.

He’s attractive. If it were anyone else, she wouldn’t feel this way. Aware that it was only possible because it was Felix, Helena tried to calm her pounding heart as she entered the training grounds.

She wanted nothing more than to stand there and keep watching him, but the promised time was almost up.

At the same time, she looked forward to how happy she would be to spend time with him there, and Helena opened her mouth.

“Felix…!”

At Helena’s voice, his concentration broke.

But he didn’t seem to mind, smiling at her.

For some reason, seeing Felix’s happy expression made her heart swell as she smiled back at him.

“Ah, hello.”

Felix’s voice sounded particularly affectionate today.

It couldn’t be Helena’s imagination that his every smile and every word made her heart flutter.

She shyly nodded her head, trying to hide her soaring feelings.

Felix slowly raised his hand as he looked at her.

What is it?

Is he going to pat my head? Or touch my shoulder? Why is he doing that here and now… No, how should I react?

His every action, smile, and word filled her heart to the brim with happiness. As Helena raised her hand, Felix handed her something.

“Eh…?”

It was a practice iron sword.

In a daze, Helena stared back and forth between it and Felix’s face. Seeing the smile on his face, she unconsciously swallowed hard.

“Welcome.”

Felix’s expression seemed to be saying that.

…They were actually going to train?

***

In a dark room.

The room was quiet, and not a single ray of light filtered in. The luxurious furniture lay smashed on the floor here and there, and the expensive decorations that had adorned the room were in the same state.

Only the faint muttering and breathing sounds coming from within the dark, wrecked room indicated the presence of someone.

“…Shit.”

Blue eyes. Dull, clouded, and unfocused.

With a swaying, drunken appearance, Leonhardt sat slumped on the bed, raising the bottle to drink from it as he stared blankly at the ceiling of his room.

“Shit.”

With each word that left his mouth came the heavy breath of alcohol and curses.

His dazed, hazy eyes seemed to recount the past as if it were yesterday.

How much time had passed since he had locked himself in this room? The pitch-black room made even the concept of time ambiguous.

He would simply sleep when tired and drunk and, upon waking, drink to forget reality.

Drink, sleep, wake up drunk, then drink again.

That was Leonhardt’s daily routine.

Leonhardt stared at the ceiling blankly, then returned the bottle to his lips. But the bottle he had already finished drinking from was empty.

“Shit!!”

Crash!

Unable to contain his rising anger, Leonhardt hurled the bottle at the floor. Unconcerned that the bottle had shattered, Leonhardt stood up from the bed with bleary eyes.

He walked to get another bottle of alcohol, stepping on the broken glass shards without a care as if he couldn’t feel the pain.

After taking out a new bottle, he drank it down his throat once more.

…When did it become like this, and why?

For a brief moment, that question crossed his mind.

“…Sylvia.”

A word other than a curse left his lips for the first time in days. Realizing it was the name of the woman he desired, Leonhardt remembered another name.

“Felix.”

An important factor in his own downfall.

“Ha.”

That mere second son of some Earl’s family.

“Made me…”

Like this?

Leonhardt tightly gripped the bottle in his hand as if he might shatter it.

It was humiliating. The fact that he couldn’t become the Crown Prince, the fact that that whore-like woman became the Crown Princess.

The fact that he couldn’t have the commoner woman he so desired because of a mere second son of an Earl.

Felix.

He was the problem. If only he didn’t exist… Sylvia would have been his. At the same time, he could have become the Crown Prince.

“Everything.”

“It’s all your fault.”

Then what should he do about it?

“The obvious.”

He has to set things right, even now.

As Leonhardt muttered those words, his eyes were dazed yet shone with an eerily blue light.

***

“No, that’s not how you do it. This precious sword might break if you do that again.”

“Ah…? Um…okay…”

Helena looked into Felix’s eyes and swallowed hard.

Felix was currently standing behind Helena, correcting her sword movements. It would have been an unremarkable situation if it were normal, but Helena couldn’t think that way.

Suddenly, a sense of crisis welled up in her mind.

The most dangerous thing wasn’t that beautiful Sylvia… nor that handsome and charming Ashillya.

The most dangerous thing she had to be most wary of was…

‘A sword…?’

That she could be overshadowed by a mere sword!!