Sophia tossed and turned all that night, sleep eluding her.
It was because the priest's voice from the confessional had burned itself so fiercely into her mind.
- "You are not a sinner, sister."
It was the first time.
The first person who had looked at her without prejudice, even after she revealed she was the daughter of traitors.
Objectively speaking, Sophia was a sinner. She was the descendant of a family that had committed the unpardonable crime of rebellion against the kingdom. Almost no one who heard the name Aquilova failed to cast a look of contempt her way.
- "You fought? Good. You lost? That's the problem."
- "Then win next time. That's all there is to it."
The priest neither scolded her for her sins nor comforted her for her defeat.
He simply spoke of the next victory as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Sophia found herself smiling bitterly without realizing it.
"Win...?"
How? With what? How could she, the traitor's daughter, possibly win?
To Sophia, who had lived her life as a loser, it sounded like a tale from another world.
"..."
But.
Unrealistic as the priest's words were, she strangely couldn't shake them off.
In the end, Sophia barely slept a wink that night and woke up at dawn.
Her body felt heavy as lead, but for some odd reason, the world looked a little different than usual.
As she headed to class, Sophia cautiously lifted her head, which she had always kept bowed to the ground.
She looked straight ahead. She could feel the stares of the passing students.
"Eek."
She thought she heard murmurs, and without thinking, Sophia ducked her head again.
As expected.
Nothing had changed.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The Erebos Royal Academy was divided into three faculties.
The Knight Faculty, the Magic Faculty, and the Divine Faculty.
Sophia belonged to the Knight Faculty. Lacking any talent for magic or divine arts, she had aimed for the Knight Faculty, where she could at least make do with her physical body.
The main classes in the Knight Faculty were, naturally, swordsmanship, and unfortunately, today was sword training day.
Clack.
The moment she entered the training grounds, all eyes turned to her.
Most were filled with contempt or mockery.
As expected, rumors of her attacking Isabella last Sabbath must have spread far and wide. Her face burning, Sophia snapped her head down at a right angle.
"Today is free sparring. Pick an opponent you want to spar with freely, and compete in the central arena. It's recommended to incorporate sword techniques from the manual as much as possible, but if you have your family's secret arts, feel free to use those."
The Swordsmanship Instructor boisterously announced the day's training.
Free sparring.
Sophia's least favorite training. It might be called "free," but the participants had no right to refuse.
Under the guise of training, she was dragged out and tormented in front of everyone. That was the true nature of free sparring.
And today was no different.
No, it was worse.
"Traitor, long time no see. Know that I had to cut my hair short because it got covered in mud from you grabbing it?"
A shrill voice rang out.
It was Isabella. Smirking, she twirled her now-short hair around her finger.
"Come out here right now. I'm not holding back today."
Sure enough, Isabella named Sophia as her sparring partner.
Sophia could only hang her head, unable to refuse.
"Serves her right. Last time, she barely survived because a staff member showed up by luck, right?"
"I heard Isabella's been sharpening her grudge. She won't even be able to pick her bones clean today."
Whispers rose around her.
As expected, not a single soul defended Sophia. Even the Swordsmanship Instructor averted his gaze and stayed silent.
"..."
Without a word, Sophia picked up a wooden sword. But she didn't for a moment think she could beat Isabella.
And why would she? Sophia was at the bottom of the Knight Faculty. She had never properly held a sword, let alone swung one.
She had only gotten into the academy under the princess's protection. There was no way she could defeat Isabella, who had been training in swordsmanship since birth.
Just take the hits with as little pain as possible.
Sophia had already resigned herself to defeat.
"Grit your teeth. I'm not going easy on you at all today."
Isabella grinned wickedly as she picked up her wooden sword and assumed her stance, clearly relishing it already.
Sophia huddled her body, bracing for the impending impact.
As always, the moment she prepared to give up.
- "You fought? Good. You lost? That's the problem."
"..."
Suddenly, an unrelated voice flashed through her mind.
It was that calm, matter-of-fact voice from the confessional the night before.
- "Then win next time. That's all there is to it."
'...Win, how?'
She didn't know how.
She had no confidence she could win.
But strangely, as she clenched her teeth, her heart didn't grow cold—instead, it began to pound hotly.
'I... don't want to lose.'
That single thought filled Sophia's mind completely.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Pretty good offerings today too, huh? Priest Leo must just have that charm. Young men are popular after all, eh heh."
Lowen scooped up the gold coins from the offering box with a sly smile.
As long as he donated a set tithe percentage to the grand cathedral, the rest was mine.
Well, technically, I had to split it with Lowen, who turned a blind eye to it all.
"How about a drink down in the lower village today?"
"Hm... Sure, why not."
This had become our routine after morning prayers: sharing a beer with Lowen.
It wasn't bad. Lowen was an old fogey, but not a bad one. If he wanted, he could have swiped the whole offering box, but the fact that he shared it made me grateful.
'Feels like I married a wife who lets me get beaten.'
Such impure thoughts bubbled up, but I shoved them down.
In this damn fantasy world, anyone buying the drinks was on my side.
They had to be.
"Oh, right."
Mid-sip, something occurred to me, and I brought it up.
"Priest Lowen, I've got a question."
"Hm? If it's our Priest Leo asking, I'll answer as best I can."
"By any chance... is there a student from a traitor's family at the academy?"
I lowered my voice, wondering if it was a sensitive topic.
But Lowen's reaction suggested it wasn't.
"Ah, a traitor's family... Come to think of it, I heard the merciful princess brought the traitor's daughter into the academy last year."
The princess.
In the world of Throne of the Academy, she held an unrivaled position. A prodigy in both letters and arms, with a benevolent nature and sharp insight—she embodied perfection itself.
Of course, even this perfect princess had one secret...
'Not important right now.'
I got back to the point.
First, ask about the self-proclaimed traitor's daughter who visited the confessional yesterday.
"Do you know much about that student, Priest Lowen?"
"Hm... I don't know why Priest Leo's interested in that, but..."
Lowen answered without prying further.
"From what I know, the family head joined a coup against the throne twenty years ago and assassinated the previous king. Why the sturdy shield of the northern kingdom made that choice—we can't know now that all involved were executed."
Lowen tilted his glass with a carefree smile.
"What's the family's name, by the way?"
"Aquilova."
"Aquilova?"
"Yes. Means 'eagle of the north.' Famous as the kingdom's premier swordsmanship house until they were executed for treason. She must be in the Knight Faculty, the one who enrolled last year... Name was... hm, can't recall."
Lowen shrugged it off as he drank, but I was struck by intense déjà vu.
"...Aquilova."
It wasn't unfamiliar.
Quite the opposite—it was familiar.
No gamer who played Throne of the Academy diligently could forget it.
"...Wait a minute."
And for good reason: the game featured a character with the surname Aquilova.
True to Lowen's words about a swordsmanship house, she was at the pinnacle of sword mastery.
Just like Elise de Lua, the saintess candidate I'd seen recently, one of the five core characters driving the game's story.
In other words, one of this world's protagonists.
Sophia Veronica Aquilova.
"...She's the Sword Saint."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Crack!
The wooden swords clashed with a sharp crack.
The arena fell silent.
Isabella's eyes widened.
"...What...?"
Even the Swordsmanship Instructor looked flustered.
Sophia Veronica Aquilova had deflected Isabella's strike from her huddled stance.
Normally, swinging a sword required a wind-up. But Sophia showed none of that.
As if the process had been skipped, only the result imprinted itself before everyone's eyes.
"...Huh?"
Sophia herself was equally stunned.
Isabella's sword was fast, precise, and powerful—the textbook perfect technique.
Yet somehow, to Sophia's eyes, it all looked frozen in place.
So she parried it. That was all.
"H-How...?"
Isabella glared at Sophia in confusion, then twisted her face in fury.
"Y-You bitch! How dare you! How dare you counter?!"
Isabella bared her teeth and charged.
Sophia instinctively knew she didn't need to block. She simply took half a step back. Isabella's sword sliced through the air, grazing Sophia's crimson hair by a paper's thickness.
Her body pitched forward, losing balance.
Everything was slow.
'...'
It wasn't her head.
Her body, her blood remembered.
An opening at her side came into view. Without thinking, purely on instinct, Sophia gripped her sword hilt tighter.
Thud!
"Gyaaak!"
With a dull thump, Isabella let out a dying screech, collapsed, and vomited up her breakfast.
"..."
Looking down at Isabella crawling pathetically on the arena floor, Sophia stared at her sword hand.
"...Eek."
Her hand trembled.
Not from fear or pain. From an uncontrollable thrill.
—Thump—thump.
Her heart raced wildly. The helplessness that had crushed her vanished, replaced by a scorching exhilaration she'd never felt before.
She had swung a sword for the first time.
And this ecstasy, this rush shaking her entire body...
It felt so familiar...
'So this is it.'
What the priest had told her last night.
The reason he told her to win.
Victory. It was sweet. Dizzyingly sweet, enough to erase all pain, intoxicatingly so.
"Ha, hahaha."
For the first time, Sophia laughed for real.
Looking down at Isabella flailing in her own vomit, she laughed coldly.
"Get up. It's not over yet."