The Female Knight In My Memories Is Still Way Too Cute (1)

I found myself remembering a certain morning of training.

“—What exactly do you mean when you tell me to fight while using as little magic as possible?”

After our training ended, that was how I responded to Karen-san’s advice.

Unlike Karen-san, who fought using a body and techniques honed over many years, magic was one of the most important weapons available to someone like me, with my slender build and insufficient technique. I supplemented my lack of physical strength with enhancement spells and compensated for my lack of skill with magic.

Offensive magic and my unique skill, 《Magic Breaker》, were the main examples.

“I’m not telling you never to use it. I just think you rely on it too much right now.”

“Of course I rely on it. There have been plenty of times when it helped me resolve things before… like during that incident.”

“I won’t deny that. It’s true that it saved us, and it also allowed me to deepen my bond with you this much, Haru.”

“Then why?”

“Haru, if you fought the way you normally do using every last bit of mental strength you have, how many minutes could you keep fighting continuously? Assume you had to keep using magic powerful enough to defeat me.”

“…”

Realizing the point behind Karen-san’s question, I hesitated for a moment before answering,

“…Probably about three minutes at most.”

I forced the words out.

“Putting everything you have into the fight in front of you isn’t a bad thing. Personally, I’d even say I li-like that about you—”

When I asked, Then of course you love that about me too, right? she flicked me in the forehead. Sorry. I’ll listen seriously.

“But a battlefield is a place where you never know what might happen. Even after giving everything you have to defeat some overwhelming enemy, you could still lose your life to a single thrust from an ordinary foot soldier.”

Saying that, Karen-san threw a small stone at me. Normally I would never have been hit by something like that, but after exhausting all my stamina training against Karen-san, I didn’t have enough endurance left to dodge it.

The pebble smacked against my forehead and dropped to the ground, and Karen-san continued. “What I’m saying is that you should also gain enough strength to fight without relying on magic. If you do that, Haru—you should be able to become stronger than me, Dad… even the commander-general.”

“Wouldn’t that make me the strongest person in the royal capital…?”

I didn’t know whether I could ever become that strong, but I was still young enough to have the naïve desire to live up to the expectations of my girlfriend, Karen-san.

So I supposed I would have to train even harder in order to become stronger.

But before that, there was one thing I wanted to ask.

“I understand that I should keep my use of magic to a minimum. Then when is the right time to use magic without holding anything back?”

That was probably important too. Holding back so much that I lost a fight I could have won would defeat the entire purpose.

“I thought you might ask that too. Hmm, let’s see… this is just my personal opinion, but—”

“—What exactly did you just say to me?”

Lilia widened her grayish eyes and glared sharply down at me from the throne at the very top of the arena.

Her body was so young that it barely had any curves at all, and her speech was slightly childish—I had never actually met her in person before, but I hadn’t expected her to be this young.

She was probably even younger than Erluka-sama—around ten or eleven years old.

“Couldn’t hear me? I said stop sitting up there acting so high and mighty and get your ass down here already, you damn brat.”

“Damn…!? You dare insult the supreme me despite being a mere man…!!”

Lilia fell perfectly for my blatant provocation and immediately leaped down from her throne toward me. Ena, her attendant, gave a wry smile at her mistress charging off before anyone could stop her, while Zena lowered her head in exasperation.

Apparently, her temper really was as short as I had expected.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Haru, and I’m a knight dispatched from the Royal Capital Guard to serve as acting commander of the Republic Knight Order.”

“I have heard. Erluka spoke quite highly of you, so I had been wondering what sort of man you might be… and yet you are merely a boy as adorable as a puppy. Since when did the Royal Capital Guard start making pets into knights? Well, everyone?”

At Princess Lilia’s words, vulgar laughter and jeers erupted from the surrounding spectators. The ones shouting words like ‘×××’ and ‘●●●●’, things I could hardly bring myself to repeat aloud, were all women, and they looked to me like nothing more than a pack of badly trained monkeys.

“Hmm, looks like my first job here is going to be ‘discipline.’ The princess never assigned me to be the keeper of a monkey enclosure, though… whoa!”

I deliberately rose to the obvious provocation, and Lilia immediately sent a straight punch toward me as her greeting. Naturally, I had expected it, so it didn’t hit.

“—Oh? You dodged that. I threw it intending to shatter your neck along with the bones.”

“I’m used to fighting wild beasts on missions.”

“Impudent for one of you feeble men—very well. Your looks are to my taste, so I had intended merely to rough you up a little before making you my toy, but—”

Lilia’s face, beautiful enough to resemble a doll if she simply stayed quiet—veins bulged violently at her temples.

At the same time, a fighting aura more savage and ferocious than anyone else’s in the arena erupted from her tiny body. Its intensity was enough to make even the spectators who were supposed to be on her side flinch.

“Draw your weapon, knight of the royal capital. I shall ask Erluka to send another replacement—you will have vanished into the sea in an unfortunate accident.”

“…That won’t be necessary.”

With that, I drew my favored magic sword and pointed its tip directly between Lilia’s eyes.

“Because you’re the one who’s going to become food for the fish.”

“—!”

At my words, Lilia made the first move.

She leaped backward, and the instant she landed, she shot toward me like a bullet with such force that the hard sandy floor of the arena cracked beneath her feet.

“Keep magic to a minimum…!”

Normally, I would have immediately boosted my reaction speed with excessive physical enhancement, but doing that consumed far too much mental strength.

Where should I deflect the attack, what stance should I move into, and how should I counterattack—I judged the absolute minimum amount of magical power needed to accomplish that and enhanced myself accordingly.

“What…!?”

Lilia’s eyes widened in surprise when I perfectly killed the momentum of the blow she had thrown with a reasonable amount of force, even if it probably wasn’t her full strength.

“All right… I think that’s about right. The adjustments are delicate, so I had trouble at first.”

But I had mostly gotten the hang of it during my mock battle with Ena.

I had been beaten up and ended up forced to carry unnecessary luggage afterward, but I supposed I would consider that a necessary expense.

“—Oh? You are unexpectedly capable. Most men are intimidated by that first blow and lose the will to fight.”

Lilia put some distance between us and rotated her arms as though to make it clear she still hadn’t gotten serious. Still, the exchange seemed to have affected her at least somewhat, because the relaxed smile she had worn until then vanished, replaced by the gaze of a beast that had locked onto its prey.

“People are expecting things from me. It would be a problem if something like this surprised you.”

“Hmph. Then I suppose I shall become a little serious as well—Ena! Bring me that!”

When Lilia gave that order to Ena, who was watching the fight from a distance, Ena pulled a large sack from behind the throne and threw it toward her.

The cord tying the sack came loose, revealing its contents—a gigantic axe more than twice Lilia’s own height.

Since it was the princess’s weapon, there was no doubt it had cost a tremendous amount of money—the pale blue glow leaking from its blade alone made it obvious that it was a masterpiece.

I probably would have struggled just to lift it, yet Lilia spun it above her head as though she were swinging a wooden stick.

“Once I wield this, do not expect me to hold back. I shall split both you and that frail magic sword matching your pathetic frame in half.”

“…You’re welcome to try.”

From this point onward, instead of focusing on deflecting her attacks, I shifted my enhancements toward my lower body and prioritized evasion.

“—Hah!”

Lilia swung the axe down diagonally with enough sharpness that it felt as though even the air pressure alone could cut me apart.

“Keep magic to a minimum…!”

I watched her eyes, her breathing, and the motion of her swing, estimated which part of me she was aiming for, then activated only the slightest defensive magic on my sword along with an enhancement to the strength of both legs.

“Nya…!?”

An odd little sound escaped Lilia when she saw me successfully evade without a scratch, sliding along the flat of the blade, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to that right now.

“—!”

Using the momentum of her own swing, I spun my body all the way around and chose not a sword strike, but a roundhouse kick. By reusing the leg enhancement I had already activated for evasion, I conserved magical power.

“Urk!”

If I had landed it on her head, the blow would almost certainly have knocked her unconscious, but she was the strongest female warrior in the Republic. She reacted at the last moment and managed to block it.

Still, I felt a solid impact against my leg. I probably hadn’t broken the bone in her arm, but I should at least have given her a bruise.

“…You fight in a remarkably practical manner. Completely different from those other fellows who fought elegantly with nothing but their swords.”

“Like I said before, I’ve been trained.”

Otherwise, there was no way I could serve as one of Black Hawk’s main combatants.

She shouldn’t underestimate the skill of the person with the highest mission-completion record.

“――――”

The spectators who had been making such a racket at first were now holding their breath as they watched every movement we made.

More than anything else, that was proof that everyone present had revised their assessment to,

‘This new man is not someone we can underestimate.’

“W-what are you doing, Lilia-sama?! Hurry up and beat the crap out of that guy already!”

Unable to shake her initial impression of me, Ena shouted encouragement toward Lilia, but her voice no longer reached her ears.

“To lose to a man… a man who is nothing more than baggage to us—nothing more than a source of seed for producing descendants… for a female warrior of my Republic to lose to such a man… impossible. It is impossible.”

I still didn’t know why Lilia was so deeply hostile toward men.

But it seemed unavoidable, for the sake of my mission, that I would have to use this battle as the opportunity to change that perception.

And if that was the case, then I absolutely could not afford to lose this fight.