Ch. 30

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Something she'd once told me herself, back when we were wandering the battlefield together.

When she, myself, and a handful of other elite forces had split off to conduct a guerrilla campaign, one of the men had once asked her when exactly she'd received her cursed sword.

'This sword isn't mine yet.'

'What? Not yet?'

'Right... this sword was promised by the Duke to become fully, entirely mine, along with the honor that comes with it, once I graduate from the academy and reach the very top.'

Since she'd already been a fourth-year at the time, people around her had been saying she'd soon be recognized as the sword's rightful owner.

But right now, she was only a first-year, and it was still the very beginning of the term.

Given she wasn't the type to go around telling people about this either, it seemed certain that the only ones who currently knew about this were her, her father, Duke Snowtier, and perhaps a few people deeply connected to the family.

I figured I could use this to shake Jane more easily.

"You even know that much... then what's the reason you were sent here?"

"Top rank."

"Top rank?"

"That's right. The Duke wants you to hold the top rank."

At my words, her expression, which had started softening slightly, hardened once more.

Startled for a moment, wondering if I'd touched a nerve the wrong way, I simply looked at her confidently and waited for her response.

"My father is not the type to plant someone here over something as trivial as that."

Jane's eyes had already begun to sharpen with wariness, her presence rising along with it.

Without flinching from her blazing, intense eyes, I continued speaking.

"You're right. Under normal circumstances, the Duke wouldn't have needed to make a request like this at all."

"...What?"

"The Hammered ducal house has made a move."

At my words, the presence that had been pouring off her cut off abruptly.

If Snowtier was the strongest family in the Southern continent, Hammered was the family with the broadest influence.

That was because Hammered's closest ally was none other than the head of the Elixir family, master of the continent's number one trading company.

Money, after all, could sometimes overcome just about anything.

And since they showed considerably more flexibility in many ways compared to Duke Snowtier, who was known for his uncompromising, upright nature, the Hammered family even enjoyed the Emperor's favor.

Hearing that a family like Hammered had made a move, Jane, wearing a half-suspicious expression, asked for the full context.

"Why would the Hammered family... and what does that have to do with my top rank?"

"Sounds like they want to knock you out of top rank in the Knight Department, just to put a dent in your family's reputation."

"What?"

"A family with the Sword God's name, losing top rank to a mere commoner... there's no better material for public ridicule, is there?"

"Ha, over something so trivial..."

"Would you still call it trivial? Unlike this peaceful little academy, out there, in the reality your father lives in on that continent, even the smallest details get turned into weapons and wielded against you."

"..."

"Let me ask you again. Do you honestly still think it's trivial?"

Honestly, no matter how I looked at it, "trivial" was probably the right word.

Would people fighting with pens instead of swords, at the very top of this nation, really care about children's petty ranking games?

And even if they did somehow care and made an issue out of it, all it would realistically do was get under someone's skin; it clearly couldn't have any real political impact.

The Snowtier ducal house wasn't exactly a weak enough family to be shaken by something like that either.

But the important thing here was that the person listening to me right now was a noble with intense pride.

Which made it easy for someone like her to mistakenly believe that her own personal affairs carried significant weight for her entire family.

"..."

I could tell just by looking at her troubled expression, clearly deep in thought over my words.

She was probably agonizing over this precisely because she was interpreting subjectively what should, objectively, be a fairly clear-cut matter.

Watching her expression carefully, I continued pouring lie after lie onto Jane, aiming to deliver the finishing blow.

"The Hammered family went looking for someone your age who's also a commoner, specifically to knock you out of top rank. And in the end, they found one."

"That would be... Aden, wouldn't it?"

And exactly like this, when someone was already this deep in confusion, unable to think clearly, a sufficiently convincing lie could easily clear away any lingering suspicion.

"That's right. The proof is that his guardian is connected to the Hammered family. You can confirm that yourself later, if you'd like."

"His guardian..."

This part, at least, was true.

How else would Aden, a boy from some rural backwater, have ever afforded to enroll at the academy?

He'd been able to attend the academy thanks to sponsorship from the Hammered family.

Of course, the part that diverged from the truth here was that the Hammered family hadn't sponsored him with any malicious intent, as I'd implied; it had simply been part of a broader welfare initiative meant to give commoners access to educational opportunities as well.

But for someone already caught up in suspicion, the mere fact that he was receiving support from the Hammered family was more than enough, in effect, a trap she'd already fallen straight into, leaving her with little choice but to believe everything I was telling her.

"That guy doesn't even realize he's being used politically; he seems to be working hard just to earn a scholarship. Honestly, thinking about it, he's the most pitiful one in all this. He's being used over something as petty as academy tuition money, isn't he?"

I made sure not to forget to subtly redirect her anger away from landing squarely on Aden while I was at it.

I wanted him to remain a good rival, not to turn into an outright enemy.

"...How exactly do you know all of this?"

"You're not really asking about my surface-level status, are you?"

Seizing the moment, I pulled out a square-shaped object from inside my clothes and tossed it to her.

Jane, looking bewildered, barely managed to catch the object in her hand.

Watching her examine it blankly, I spoke confidently.

"Where do you think oversees and supervises absolutely everything at this academy?"

What I'd just handed her was none other than the Tower Master's token.

Even Jane seemed to recognize it as the Tower Master's token, swallowing back a gasp inwardly.

Of course, that token had really only ever been used to guarantee my academy expenses, but Jane apparently didn't know that.

"Everything I've told you was confirmed under direct orders from the Tower Master. It's not like I ended up in the Magic Department for no reason at all. Well, if your eyes are working properly, you probably already know exactly whose token that is, even without me having to say it."

The token had ancient magic applied to it specifically to prevent forgery, so verifying its authenticity wasn't difficult at all.

If you simply overlapped it with another token and let mana flow through both, a resonance phenomenon would occur, turning both tokens blue.

Just as expected, she pulled out a token of her own from her clothes and began letting mana flow through it, apparently trying to confirm whether the one I'd handed her was genuine.

The name written on the token she'd pulled out was Rain Bright.

I had no idea who that was, but given she carried it close to her body like this, I figured it had to belong to someone fairly special.

Buzzzz!

Soon, both tokens turned blue and vibrated, leaving her with no choice but to believe that the token I'd handed her was genuine.

"Alright, give that back now."

Since it was my precious, limitless treasure.

Swallowing back that last part, I simply gestured with my hand, and Jane, having confirmed everything, tossed the token back to me, still looking utterly confused.

"What exactly does the Tower want? Why would it approach me so suddenly, going so far as to reveal your true identity like this?"

"Do you really think the match between you and Aden happened for absolutely no reason at all?"

There had, in fact, been a mastermind behind that match.

None other than myself.

But she'll never know that, not for as long as she lives.

"What we want is just one thing: a balance that doesn't tip too far toward either side. Which is why the Tower agreed to the Duke's request, and that's how I ended up here. So I've been watching this whole time, and while I hoped you'd win, you lost instead. Which means, in the end, everything went exactly the way the Hammered family wanted."

She stayed silent, her expression tense.

She now seemed to understand, as if the pieces of the situation were finally falling into place.

"Under normal circumstances, I probably should have personally killed the one who might disrupt the balance. But I changed my mind. I ended up liking that guy just as much as I like you."

I gave her, still thoroughly tense, a small smirk.

Okay, she's pretty much fully on the hook now.

"So thinking it over, it occurred to me that if you simply don't let him steal your top rank, no one needs to die at all."

At my words, she hesitated for a moment before speaking.

"But... the gap between him and me wasn't small."

"Not small" was probably a significant understatement, honestly.

Having read through his life, I already knew that his Body score had already exceeded 50 by the time he'd enrolled at the academy.

On top of that, he currently had swordsmanship equivalent to what he'd have five years down the line, thanks to his regression.

That alone would create a serious gap in skill level, but what made him different from me was that, unlike my own self-taught, haphazard swordplay, he'd been trained properly from the very foundations, an elite among elites.

The very assumption that she could hope to face him on equal footing was, in itself, mistaken.

Just managing to leave a deep wound on his arm was already something worth applauding.

"The gap? I can help you close that."

But that was, ultimately, only a problem for right now.

The woman I'd seen in my past life had been, quite literally, a monster.

And I was confident I could turn her into that same monster, even faster than she'd become one the first time around.

What she lacked was simply an opponent she'd had to face by giving absolutely everything she had.

In other words, all she lacked was experience, and my erratic, unpredictable swordplay was surely the perfect medicine for someone like her, so committed to a rigid, textbook style of swordsmanship.

"I'll make you top rank."

At my words, she stared at me blankly.

Well, it probably wasn't easy to believe right away.

Which meant I needed to lay it on just a little thicker here.

"I'm affiliated with the Tower, but... actually, I use a sword. And a rather special cursed sword, at that."

"..."

"And the cursed sword I used in our sparring match belonged to Obierd Tollek, the supreme commander from the war against the Northern continent."

Out of everything I'd said so far, this was apparently the most shocking thing yet, because Jane's eyes widened like saucers.

"Why do you think I'd be using his sword?"

By the nuance of it, I'd essentially implied that I'd somehow inherited his very swordsmanship itself.

Because later on, once she learned the whole truth, I'd need to be able to shrug it off with something like, "I just got it as a gift, why'd you go and assume all that on your own?"

And to begin with, since his swordsmanship had only ever been passed down through word of mouth, it wasn't something easily verifiable anyway.

Almost everyone who might have known was already dead.

"Then that means... you're... a descendant of the Conquering King?"

"That's up to you to figure out on your own. Anyway, here's the deal I actually want: you becoming top rank... if you accept this, I'll do everything in my power to help you get there."

If she grew stronger, it also meant a good asset for me later on, when it came time to face Silver Ring, which made it a good thing for me too.

Win-win, all around.

Killing two birds with one stone.

Regardless of the actual intent behind it, a deal like this really did seem like a wonderful arrangement where both sides had nothing to lose.

"So? Want in?"

I smiled and held out my hand to her, and she, having fallen into a trap she had no way of escaping, ultimately had no choice but to take it.