Facing a real knight was never easy. Facing one after losing all the powers accumulated for four hundred years is an entirely different story.
The match against uncle was one-sided in his favor right from the get-go.
And if he didn’t hold back for my sake and instead used his powers to their greatest extents, things would have been pretty bad for me.
But not only was my body hurt physically, my pride took a huge dent too because I knew that uncle already saw me as a weakling. Winning the match, or maybe even just doing a little better, could have helped change the perspective. I hate this sluggish body! My flesh jostled with every bit of movement, and this body moved like it had a mind of its own.
‘Hundreds of years in vain…’ the simple truth that I find hard to swallow at the moment,
A quick blow knocked the wind out of my lungs even before I could get the chance to draw my sword.
“Again!” uncle was enjoying this a little too much.
I exhaled and tried to focus my mind.
‘Quad Chain…’ Uncle’s eyes were powerful and fierce, like a hurricane waiting to sweep through the land, leaving nothing but wreckage. And they resembled some of the beings I knew.
Sword Master.
A Sword Master is both feared and admired for the superhuman feats they can accomplish armed with nothing but a single sword. Uncle was like them, and yet he wasn’t. His powers stem from his four rings and not a mana heart.
“The world has definitely changed.”
The sky was still the same shade of blue I saw from four hundred years ago, and yet not much of the world under it has remained the same.
“Your Highness!” A servant rushed to me while I was deep in thought. “The queen is on her way here!”
“What? Again?!” I cursed. Perhaps the news of the battle between the fat prince and the stalwart knight has already found its way into her chambers.
She arrived not a moment too soon.
“Ian! What happened here?” She asked my escort while her eyes remained fixed on me. Her gaze and the way she acts like a doting mother to a helpless child made me uncomfortable. If I could, I would avoid her as much as possible.
“He was basically begging me for a battle,” uncle answered for my escort who was too stunned to utter even a single syllable.
“A battle?” She gasped and returned her gaze back to me. “This child? What do you mean?
“He wanted to test his skill.”
The answer was simple, and yet the queen did not seem satisfied. Everything she knows about her son tells her this should have never been a possibility. And yet she was curious, almost dying, to learn more about the situation. But it seemed uncle was not interested in giving a recap of what happened.
“I’m afraid that you might hurt my child.” The queen said.
‘Uhm, he already did.’
“He’s your blood, your own nephew.” She continued, “I hope that you will not forget that.”
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If ever there was a force in this world that could match uncle’s skill with the sword, it would be the queen’s love for her son.
Uncle simply nodded and turned to me, “back to training.”
I guess even after the queen’s request not to get her son hurt, the real training was just about to start.
***
My breathing was steadily getting worse and worse, but my uncle does not seem to have any plans of letting up. But despite the toll on my body, my pride was still burning. It gave me the will to endure the harshness of the training.
“Stand up,” uncle commanded.
I tried to run, but my legs were too weak and flabby. I wobbled with every step until I eventually ended up rolling on the floor in exhaustion. With every fall, uncle kept forcing me to stand up and continue.
“What? Are you mad at me now?” I asked, although I was almost certain anyway that our disgust for each other was mutual.
“I’m just telling you what to do,” uncle replied without hesitation.
Watching him answer rhetorical questions that didn’t need any replies made me realize that his skill in the sword is matched only by his talent at provoking me. He tries so hard to pretend to be a much bigger man than he is. Outrageous.
“You thought you would be recognized for such ingenuity.”
“Double chain? Even a single chain win would have done the job.”
“If it is hard, give up. There will be no more trouble.”
He went on with his barrage of insults to further his point that I am weak and undeserving of his time and attention. I thought it would never end, but then he finally said:
“That’s it for today.”
Those words sounded so sweet to my broken body. As soon as the training stopped, I collapsed on the floor and rolled over in exhaustion. Lying there on the ground, I saw the sky—the same blue sky of four hundred years ago.
In my peripheral vision, I could see uncle walking away without even saying any words of goodbye. I didn’t need them anyway, and I have no intention of bidding him farewell as well. I was just glad that today’s training was over, and I could finally give my body the time to rest and heal.
Rather than watching his detestable figure slowly vanish in the horizon, I forced my heavy body up.
I sat down, inhaled deeply, and held my breath. Air filled my lungs up to my chin before slowly coursing through my body. And then I exhaled all the air out before repeating the process again, this time I did it while slowly sucking the mana in the surroundings into my body.
I made my way to my quarters, thinking that my day was over, and I could finally rest in a real bed. But the day had other plans in store for me.
“Your Highness, I was waiting.” A middle-aged man with a goatee was waiting at the door.
“What do you need?” I asked.
The stranger walked towards me and said, “let the god of faith examine His Highness’ jade body.”
His words and the aura he exudes tell me that he is a wizard. Perhaps one sent by the queen herself, for she couldn’t stand to see his son beaten to a pulp.
I shook my head as a signal I’d rather be alone than deal with his spells, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Blinding white light emanated from the palms of his hands.
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“No!” I screamed, afraid of the spell he was concocting, and his still unclear intentions.
Surprised at my resistance, he took a step back. The light in his hands started to dim.
“Your Highness, you must be mistaken,” he explained, “I was sent here to help you.”
“It doesn’t matter; I don’t want it,” I replied, “just stop.”
“Perhaps His Highness still needs a bit of time to reconsider what he just said.”
“I know what I said,” I said, almost impatiently. “Just go, I don’t need your help.”
The wizard insisted that he was given direct orders by the queen to offer his assistance to me.
“I don’t care! Go!” I screamed, unfurling all the emotions I kept bottled up during the training and lashing them out at this helpless man who only wanted to help. I felt almost bad as he disappeared quickly, almost running away.
“Your Highness, why did you reject the healing magic?” Carls Ulrich, my escort, interrupted.
“Healing magic is poison to me,” I answered briefly without giving him further explanations. In truth, my overused muscles were torn and swollen. Healing magic would have completely restored them. But that would also make my hard work useless.
Carls stared at me with a look of surprise.
***
The next morning welcomed me with the site of uncle already waiting for me in the training area.
“I was told you met with the wizard of the royal palace.” He said as he eyed me from tip to toe. Confusion soon colored his face as he realized what happened during my brief encounter with the magic healer.
“Think again,” a short response to confirm what he already figured out by himself.
Uncle frowned, both at my eager response and the stupidity of my actions, at least by his standards of stupid.
“You weren’t healed.” He grunted, stating the voice.
I nodded, “receiving healing magic would have been the same as receiving poison.”
Uncle was stoic, unlike Carls, when I told him the same thing. He simply nodded.
“Like yesterday, run until I tell you to stop,” he commanded.
I gave no complaints and started running.
‘Stop. I’m going to die if this goes on’ I could already hear my beaten body begging for respite. My whole body screamed in pain with every step. Each foot that hits the ground sends pain all over my body.
But I endured. I had to be patient and strong. Or was pride the reason for not giving up? Regardless, I somehow lost weight in all of this.
“Stop,” Uncle said. This was something I had not expected to come from him so soon. I was prepared to go long lengths, knowing how much he enjoyed seeing me suffer. But he stopped the training anyway.
“I thought you would receive healing magic,” he said, too crude for an excuse and too stingy for an apology. “This is enough for today.”
He walked away after declaring the end of today’s training. The moment is figure disappeared from sight, my body, which was held up by the sheer power of my pride, collapsed into a pile of beaten flesh.
“I really am dying, am I?” I asked with my back on the ground, and my eyes fixed on the azure sky.
***
Life was the same the next day, and the day after that. I ran until uncle gave me permission to stop.
My body wasn’t given the luxury of time to heal from yesterday’s fatigue before being dumped into a new pool of stress and pain. My muscles were so bruised and sored that they throbbed with even just the tiniest of movements.
But just like yesterday and the day before that, I endured. I had not lived for four hundred years simply to submit to defeat today. After all, there wasn’t much I could do without first getting rid of this damn extra flesh.
Uncle was not much use either. He wouldn’t give me much of a break at all. He was too focused on controlling me thoroughly. Running, walking, and resting—everything began and ended at the words of the housekeeper. My life was juggled and tossed around by the mere words of another.
My diet was also significantly changed. Meat and vegetables were served with no seasoning at all.
Uncle got himself involved in my whole life under the pretext of helping me reduce weight. However, there was one thing that the outspoken man would not dare touch—mana heart.
He tried to control every fiber of my being down to even the simplest actions, such as breathing. But he didn’t care what I did with mana hearts. He simply pretended not to see.
Whether I insisted on collecting mana during the break or turning my mana back and forth to raise my worn-out body during training, he didn’t care. It’s as if the entire concept had no impact on his goals at all.
A week passed, and then a month.
“Well?” Uncle said. He was standing in the middle of the training area with something in his hand. As I got closer, I realized what it was—a wooden sword.
Only
“You must be knowledgeable about how to handle a sword,” he said as he raised the sword, his voice deeper than usual.
“The knights of the kingdom used wooden swords in the past when they lay the foundation,” he explained. “I have no intention of repeating this lesson, so watch closely and listen to my instructions.”
“Did you say that the kingdom’s knights use these swords when they lay the foundation?” I asked.
“As a training sword, it lacks power. But since it is a sword used to learn the basics, it is not too bad.” He replied.
I laughed involuntarily. He wanted to teach me, the former legendary sword of Dragon Slayer King, how to use a wooden sword.
“That’s what people say about this sword,” he said. He probably expected my reaction.
I know better than anyone about the sword they deemed trivial. It was one of the legacies I left behind a long time ago. Wooden swords that have once slain dragons are now treated as nothing more as training tools.
How funny.