Getting To Know The King: Next

“Graham… for now, we have come to the training ground, but… why do we need to fight?”

“I said it earlier, didn’t I? If I can accept your strength, I will obey you. That is why I told you to show me your power.”

Graham answered my question while checking the weight of the hefty two-handed practice sword.

I see… so if I wanted to make him listen, I should beat him up and make him listen…

Why…?

“Even if I beat you up, that has nothing to do with strength as a king or strength as a nation, right? I do not think it gives you any reason to obey me.”

Was it the kind of thing where, after I defeated him, he would get back up and look at me as though he wanted to join my party?

Would his name become Grahmlin or something?

“You care about unexpectedly small details, don’t you? Since you were the kind of man who said walking yourself was better than traveling by carriage, I thought you would prefer this sort of quick and simple method.”

“I do prefer things that are easy to understand, but this flow of events is hard to accept.”

When I said that in an exasperated tone, Graham planted the two-handed sword he was holding into the ground and spoke with a broad… ferocious smile on his face.

“Well, isn’t it fine? Let’s have ourselves a bout.”

“…”

No… that was extremely troublesome for me.

“…Are you that reluctant? You do not seem like the type who cares much about a king’s dignity and such, but after coming this far, that is a bit much, isn’t it?”

This was exactly because I did care about a king’s dignity! Sorry for being a fake!

Well, that did not matter.

More importantly, what should I do about this muscle-brain?

The reason I had been so reluctant to spar with Graham was because… I was not exactly someone accustomed to combat.

Of course, I did train.

Fels’s physical abilities were, frankly speaking, overdone specs. I thought it would be extremely dangerous to move a body like that without training, so I had been training, but…

If I ran, I was about as fast as a car… no, considering my ability to run over bad roads, I was above a car.

As for strength, I had gone past gorilla and might be about at the level of Go*zilla… no, that was going too far, but in any case, if I did a wall slam, I would have enough strength to blast a large hole in a stone wall.

As for intelligence… that went without saying. My strategy score was 85.

…And so! Although Mr. Fels possessed fairly high specs, the pilot moving him was not that used to combat.

A machine above a gorilla and below Go*zilla was extremely difficult to hold back with.

I did not know how strong Graham was, but it would be bad if I accidentally failed to stop my attack and split him in two, and it would also be bad if I held back too much and he scored a point on me.

In that case… it could not be helped.

“Graham. I understand that you want to see my strength. However… I am extremely bad at holding back.”

“Oh?”

Graham gave a small response while showing a slight flash of anger at my words, which could only sound like a provocation.

Since he wanted to fight like this, he was probably confident in his skill, but this was also to avoid splitting him in two, so I wanted him to forgive me.

“Sorry, Graham. I do not mean to insult you. I am only saying that my skill is immature. That is not exactly why, but could you give me a little time to warm up?”

“…I do not mind, but what will you do?”

Without answering Graham’s question, I looked around the training ground.

“A little mock battle… Jōsen! Face me!”

“Yes, sir!”

After finding the person I was looking for, I stepped into the center of the training ground with a practice sword in one hand.

“Graham, wait a little. If you want, you can also spar with someone suitable.”

“That interests me as well, but for now, I will watch.”

Saying that, Graham folded his arms from a short distance away and entered spectator mode.

Good, just as planned… I had guessed that Graham was probably more interested in my combat ability than in sparring, and I was right.

Well, if he had said he wanted to spar with someone, I had intended to have him do it after us, so that would have been fine too.

I had told Graham that I was warming up… but my objective was to do the same thing Kiriku had done to the Lufelon Holy Kingdom last time.

In other words, Jōsen and I would show him a flashy exchange and break Graham’s will to fight… well, if he was a battle maniac, there was a possibility it would instead fire him up, but in that case, I would make a rule like having me only defend against Graham’s attacks on the grounds that I could not hold back.

While thinking about that, I moved my body to loosen up with the practice sword in one hand.

Incidentally, whenever I moved my body, I often had Lynferia or Jōsen be my opponent.

Today, I felt there would be various problems with having Lynferia, my guard, face me, so I chose Jōsen. But even in terms of making the battle look flashy, I thought Jōsen was the better choice.

Lynferia fought in a more defense-oriented way, so rather than a back-and-forth exchange of offense and defense, it tended to become me attacking continuously and Lynferia blocking until she won… would that not make Lynferia’s greatness stand out more?

Well, Jōsen was Jōsen, so his sword skill was outrageous, and it felt like I would be toyed with however he pleased… but for a short time, we should be able to show off the intensity of the exchange and various other things.

I hoped my immaturity would not be exposed… but Jōsen should be able to handle that balance well! He was a pretty caring guy, after all!

“For now, Jōsen, let us decide it with one point today. Once we exchange five blows, I will increase the speed, so be ready for that.”

“Understood. I have not exchanged blows with you recently, my lord, so I am somewhat looking forward to this.”

“Go easy on me, all right? I am still in the middle of official duties today.”

“Ha ha ha! Leave it to me!”

As Jōsen and I faced each other with our weapons ready, every sound around us disappeared.

This was not because I had concentrated deeply and could no longer hear the sounds around me… it was simply because everyone in the training ground had focused on the fact that I was swinging a sword and had fallen completely silent.

Now then, I intended to make this a flashy fight to show Graham… but apart from that, I had to properly concentrate.

I slowly took a deep breath, then stepped lightly forward and lightly swung the sword I was holding down toward Jōsen.

Naturally, Jōsen received it with an easy air, then cut his sword upward in a reverse diagonal slash.

I knocked that aside, and this time I swung horizontally… Jōsen received that and changed to a two-handed grip before swinging straight down.

After receiving the blow, which had a little more force than before, by also switching to a two-handed grip, I abruptly launched a front kick.

“My lord!?”

Although we had not yet exchanged five blows, Jōsen raised a protesting voice as I suddenly changed my attack and avoided the kick.

As I watched him, I put a smile on my lips and returned to a one-handed grip, then raised my speed slightly and swept my sword across.

That said, it was not that fast a movement, and although I had caught him somewhat off guard, Jōsen had not lost his stance, so he easily parried it.

“My lord, is that not somewhat unfair?”

Even as he said that in a reproachful tone, Jōsen’s mouth softened slightly as he swung his sword down in a diagonal cut. Matching it, I also released a diagonal slash and brought us into a sword lock.

“Oh, sorry about that. It seems I miscounted.”

While our swords were locked, I put strength into mine, and Jōsen also put strength into his as if to push me back.

“My lord, if I recall correctly, you were supposed to be good at arithmetic.”

This was the fifth exchange. From here, our movements accelerated all at once!

Incidentally, I was not as good at calculation as that made it sound, you know?

As I retorted that in my heart, Jōsen stepped in from the sword lock as if to knock me away! Without resisting that movement, I leapt backward, and Jōsen closed the distance all at once while unleashing a horizontal sweep!

I swung my sword as if to scoop up that blow and deflected it, then turned my wrist over and immediately slashed downward.

It was like an inverted V-shaped slash, but after having his sword knocked away, Jōsen dodged it by spinning around, and using the momentum of that rotation, he swept at me again.

Unlike before, this time I received that horizontal sweep with my sword and pushed it back, then once again launched a kick, but an instant before that, Jōsen entered my chest and slammed his shoulder into me.

Because I had launched a kick and had one leg raised in the air, I lost my balance from Jōsen’s tackle and nearly fell backward. With his body twisted for the tackle and his dominant hand drawn back, Jōsen released a thrust that seemed to say it was certain death, aiming it at my face while I had lost my stance!

“Damn it!”

I put strength into my supporting leg, which was still barely touching the ground, and forcibly jumped backward on one leg to dodge that thrust, while at the same time spreading a barrage with “Flame Arrow”!

After stopping him for an instant with magic, I immediately corrected my stance and readied my sword again.

After cutting down the magic I had fired as though it were nothing, Jōsen quietly readied his sword on the spot.

I had completely lost that exchange just now… if Jōsen had followed up while cutting down the magic, it would have been over before I could fix my stance.

I apparently had a bad habit with my feet and immediately launched kicks… but basically, there had never been a time when that worked on Jōsen.

But for some reason, I ended up kicking, you know… was Jōsen luring me into it?

Well, there was also the feeling that since there was no way I could beat Jōsen in pure sword technique, I ended up fighting dirty… but this much probably would not satisfy Graham yet, so I would go even harder!