Chapter 75 – Gap.

The sunlight tickling Usher’s eyelids made him realize he had been asleep. Even the fact that she is lying in bed. Then he remembered what happened last night when he and the girl looked at the night sky. Surprised by the sense of incongruity that suddenly intervened, Usher jumped to his feet. Yes, he remembers watching the night sky with the girl, but he has no memory of returning to his room after that. Looking around, it was the same room where he had put up with his awkwardness and slept with Rogi yesterday.

“Was that a dream too?”

The warm sunlight streaming in from outside the window, the wind blowing from beyond, and the chirping of birds seemed to be saying that, so he blinked. These were too vivid sensations for such things. The night sky I looked at with the girl was so beautiful that I thought I could understand that it was a dream. Anyway, waking up, he first checked the seat next to him. The boy, who was supposed to be sleeping there, has the blankets neatly arranged as if he had woken up first.

He clicked his tongue at the sight and got out of bed. I thought Donard would call him to train him from earlier in the morning, but I wondered how he slept soundly until quite late in the morning, and then I remembered that the man had decided to check the skills of the Donnars. Considering that it was today, I could understand not waking him up. Still, he was walking down the aisle with the thought of wanting to take a look. A voice came from somewhere.

“Isn’t that him?”
“Ah! I guess that’s right?”

Glancing at them, the maids, unlike yesterday, were whispering and whispering to each other as if they were having fun. He thought it was all right, so he started talking to them.

“Hey.”
“Ah!? Why, why?”

It didn’t seem like he was particularly surprised, but it was strange to see them flustered, but he didn’t care and asked for Donard’s location.

“Do you know where Uncle Donard is?”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to meet Belka first, but she promised me that even if it was just a dream, I would be strong.

“I don’t even know the name, but the knights from other countries are probably still eating.”

After thanking them for their kind reply, he headed to the banquet hall. But is it because he feels like he whispers to every maid passing by today every time they see him? He felt uncomfortable, but when he arrived at the banquet hall, he could see the people at the top who were eating. Among them, he approached Donnar, who was talking by Sif’s side.

“Why didn’t I wake up?”

It seemed like he vaguely knew the reason, but he was still sad that he had left him and had come to eat first.

“Oh, did you wake up?
“Kek, I should have just slept more.”
“I’m already awake, so eat and go.”

Thinking that if I had woken up later, I could have had a more comfortable breakfast, I feel like I’ve lost money. The moment you sit down next to him and start eating. There was the sound of footsteps approaching him. Looking back at that sound, Belka was there as expected.

“Usher, good morning.”
“Did Belka sleep well?”

She nodded and sat down next to him. Feeling at ease in this unfamiliar place, he wet her curled neck with her soup first, and then she pushed him with a nearby salad on a plate.

“Yeah, this too.”

Other than that, if there was anything else that caught his eye, Belka would push it. Usher took it and ate it as it was given to him, as if it wasn’t an amount he couldn’t eat even though he felt uncomfortable. Because she’s a girl, she’s going to pack everything for him. Still, she somehow always seemed to eat less than she ate, so she took a nearby salad with her fork and held it out to Belka.

“Now, Belka too. You’ve been eating only me since before.”

It wasn’t that the girl didn’t eat, but the portion was really small by comparison, which worried her. Even though she originally knew she ate less, she did if she ate more. Still, it’s fortunate that when she holds it out like this, she eats it without any objection. She noticed that she was munching on her salad, and she was when he was eating his share.

“Are you two dating?”
“Puff!”

She heard the words heard in front of him. So she gasped and looked for water, and the girl filled her cup with water and handed it to her. As she drank the water and calmed down, she saw Medea, who had been watching them with her chin resting on her chin for some time.

“You, you! Why are you here?!”
“Oh, is there any reason why I shouldn’t be here?”
“Your seat was right in front of me!”

She speaks calmly, but at least she should have been sitting in the upper seat in front of me. She was able to eat with Belka without being disturbed, thanks to her.

“I’ve been with Belka ever since she came to you? Did you think she was ignored because you didn’t notice at all?”

When she said that, Mediah’s face was smiling brightly.

“Ah! It’s common to say that only you can see this, right?”

She knew it all, yet she spoke as if she had just remembered it.

“And if you’re going to blame it, blame you for being late for breakfast. I’ve already eaten, but Belka waited until you came without taking a bite.”

That’s another thing I didn’t know. When she approached the girl she thought she had just come.

“So you two are dating?”
“Ugh! Is that the story again?”

She was annoyed by Mediah’s persistent questioning, but she didn’t deny it because she had no intention or reason to hide it.

“…But how do you know that?”

He noticed how long they had known each other and asked her, which was amazing. Then, Medea seemed rather surprised.

“Was it a secret? It was obvious like that?”
“Ugh, it’s not a secret, but how did you know?”
“Even if you don’t say that, you’re pretending when you look at it. Everyone already knows that you two are dating, right?”

When I reflexively looked around at those words, I saw people nodding their heads, no matter who they were. It was quite late for breakfast, so there weren’t many people, but everyone who was listening to this side of the story was more embarrassing. I didn’t mean to hide it, but you knew everything.

“Besides, even the most insensitive person can’t help but know if he saw the two of you this morning?”
“This morning? If it’s this morning, I’ll be in my room…”
“Oh wow! Who doesn’t know that the two of you were sleeping side by side in the main aisle?”
“…Wasn’t it a dream?”

Usher belatedly grasped the situation. Was it because I was so distracted yesterday that I thought it was all a dream? The shock seemed to hit the back of the head.

“Wait! Then why am I waking up in my room?”
“I thought I’d catch a cold if I stayed there. I took you there.”

It was Donard who answered his question.

“Huh, there’s probably news about the two of you dating all over this castle.”

If so, all the uncomfortable feelings I was feeling up to now were understandable. Not remembering that he had gone back to his room, and the maids whispering to him. I couldn’t be more ashamed of this when I found out the identity of the lukewarm eyes looking at the girl and myself. In the morning, after breakfast, the cool air still lingers. People all flocked to the large gymnasium.

“Looks like we’re all together now.”

There, a silver-haired man was sitting on a chair watching the gymnasium. The prickly dwarf next to him nodded and muttered, and the man nodded.

“Then let’s start without further discussion. Weapons are mainly swords. Based on the knight test, 1:1 match is simple. It’s not that I don’t want to try other things, but there’s no time left.”

The condition the man presented was literally simple. It was just a story that the coachman of the upper ranks, including Donnar, had to compete with the male knights and win. Usher swallowed a gulp at the first sight of Donnar confronting the knight who was on the other side. Originally, he did not intend to attend this match to train alone, but he heard that Donnar could learn something by watching the battles of advanced players, so he and the girl attended.

There was no guarantee that Donar would win, but I still waited for the sparring to begin, hoping that he would win as much as I had become friendly while eating one pot rice all the way here. First, Donar and his opponent knights, who drew their swords at the signal of the prickly dwarf, each took a ready posture. Donar was in a posture like hugging his sword with his feet wide apart and the tip of his sword facing his opponent, while the opposing knight had his sword raised over his shoulder and pointed the tip of his sword at Donar.

Both of them point their sharp swords at each other in a dangerous and dangerous state. At least it was a bladeless bladed sword made for sparring, but it was still made of iron, and the weight of the experience exuding from the two’s posture made it colorless. Is this what the knights encountered on the battlefield look like? While the tension was rising, the picky dwarf’s start signal was dropped and swords flashed. It was so fast that it could only be called that, so I couldn’t follow its speed with my eyes.

If the swords collide, they do not fall. The swords did not fall apart and rubbed along the blades, as if each other had attached glue to each other’s swords. From that appearance, Usher vaguely saw the figure of Rogi he had dealt with yesterday. However, the speed and reaction were different. I could see it moving slowly with standardized movements enough to follow with his black eyes. The movements of the two passed by for a moment, so I didn’t even notice what kind of posture they were taking.

In the end, the moment Usher lost the movement of the sword, the match was already decided. The tip of Donard’s sword stopped in front of the gap of the opponent’s helmet, and the opponent’s sword appeared to be blocked by the cross guard. The winner of the tense battle that lasted less than 10 seconds was Donar. The middle process was not visible at all, but the result was similar to Usher’s defeat to Rogi. It was the first time that a man who had always been cold-hearted had shown a surprised look.

“So what do you think you know?”
“It was so fast I couldn’t even see what was what.”

When he returned from the sparring, he replied sullenly. I don’t know what to look right, so I’m going to have a good time The two of them were so fast and it was over in an instant, so I didn’t have time to notice something.

“Uh, I deliberately grabbed the longsword, but didn’t see anything?”
“Yes, nothing.”
“At all?”
“Not at all.”

Is it because of Usher’s determined answer? Donnar scratched his head, puzzled. And then he sighs.

“It’s my first time teaching, so I don’t know how to teach you.

Usher couldn’t stop his distorted expression when he said that the only answer was to sparring with Rogi. He didn’t know the details, but he could tell that swordsmanship wasn’t as fancy as he thought, rather it was more complicated than he thought. They say that you need to gain experience to learn such swordsmanship, but that meant that you had to be beaten by Rogi before you gained experience. Still, he asked with a curious mind.

“Then how did you learn, uncle?”
“…I don’t recommend it. Once you’ve been beaten, you desperately learn your posture and senses, even if you don’t want to be beaten.”
“…”

Usher quietly decided to learn what he taught. It was true that he wanted to be strong, but he didn’t want to train with the kind of training that Donnar feared to the point of shivering. It seems to be correct, but at least I can read Logi’s movements, can’t I? The subsequent sparring of the other knights felt similar to Donar’s case. But more than that, the strange thing is that the winners were in common with Donard, even if there was a difference in time.

The one-sided result was so surprising that the knights who came out against it were whispering that they did not know what had happened, and even the man said in surprise.

“It’s at this point that the story that the knights of Pasifenia are excellent is not false, so I have no choice but to admit it. Let’s finish first and see you again at luncheon.”

It is colorless to say that I was looking at my skills, and most of the sparring was 5 seconds at the shortest and 30 seconds at the longest, so it ended in the morning.