The clash between me and the mysterious girl beneath the cloak—Rose calls her Olivia.
My fight with Olivia begins.
Strike after strike crashes down, heavy and precise. Her movements are sharply trained. Whose technique is she using, really?
I evade, but my vision can't keep up forever with her relentless speed.
She's different from the man before her. His swings were wide and wasteful. This girl—Olivia—wields a blade just as massive, yet every motion is controlled. Truly mysterious.
In the middle of the exchange, Olivia sneers,
"Is all you can do dodge and run, huh?"
Her taunt cuts as sharply as her blade.
I exhale slowly and tighten my grip. My stance shifts—guided by my sight—into a posture unfamiliar even to me.
Olivia freezes for a split second after settling into her own stance. Then she slams her sword into the ground.
"What the hell…?" she mutters, before mirroring the exact same stance.
I take the stance first—because I see her doing it in the future.
The follow-up, the impact, the attack that comes after this unfamiliar form—my vision already knows it.
Seeing this far ahead is exhausting. That's why my nose bleeds so often—like with the kraken, like with the professor. The thought flickers through my mind even as the fight continues.
Now the battle, unwatched by Rose, becomes even. My sight finally finds openings, and I start to attack. A solid defense forms between us as blows are traded back and forth.
But both of us begin to tire. This fight feels like she's battling herself—because I'm fighting entirely with her own techniques.
Olivia grins.
"Incredible," she murmurs, her movements slowing.
Then she stops.
Not me—her. Exhausted. Far more exhausted than I am.
"Huff… my master's techniques," she says quietly. "They're really hard to sharpen any further…"
The fight ends.
I breathe heavily. There's no threat anymore. I open my eyes.
Olivia looks at me intently.
"It's hard to defeat you. It feels impossible. The Paragon inside your body…" She exhales. "My presence here was nothing more than to test that—with a great trial."
"Hm?" she murmurs, glancing toward Rose.
"Olivia… that really is you, right?!" Rose says as she approaches, hesitates only a moment, then wraps her in a tight embrace.
---
The tree she cut down—along with our essential travel gear near it—was fortunately not damaged, since everything lay very close to the trunk that had already been severed.
Now we sit near the campfire. It turns out the girl named Olivia is Oliver's daughter.
"I thought you were another disciple of my master," she says while chewing meat from a canned ration and taking a sip of milk. "But instead, you used my master's technique after seeing me—from the future?!"
After reaching this hill near the harbor, we had only rested and hadn't eaten dinner. Now, at last, we do—together with someone familiar to Rose.
Rose cuts in and nods. "Right?! And he did it with his eyes closed."
That's true—that's what I did. But the cost isn't equal. Inside my body, organs burn, and my whole body feels like it's on fire the more I draw on the crystal's power.
I only let out a quiet breath and don't answer.
"My master's technique—I still can't use it fully or perfectly," Olivia continues. "But you copy it after seeing me and then refine it. How does that even make sense?!"