195: Engagent - Deros
Morning.
“Ugh, what a ss this is.”
Katrina grumbled. She lanted her appearance as she checked her equipnt one last ti before departure.
Sword? Check.
Annoying 'brown' armor? Wearing it.
Hair? Tied up.
Spare hair tie? Got it.
Ergency dical supplies and herbs from Ellen...
“Hey! Go get my dical supplies. They should be in the tent...”
“Here they are.”
Deros, who was nearby, interrupted. Already irritated, Katrina's eyes narrowed.
“Why do you have them? Did you go through my tent? Do you want to die?”
“I noticed you forgot to strap them to your horse, so I took them.”
“Oh, right?”
Katrina awkwardly accepted the dical supplies. But then she shot a glare at Deros again.
“Why do you still have them? You should have returned them earlier. Do you know how long I was looking for these?”
“If I say sothing like ‘you’re welco,’ I’m dead.” Deros thought to himself. Instead, he bowed respectfully.
“Sorry. I forgot.”
In truth, Katrina had forgotten. She had clearly overlooked them, but claiming she had been looking for them now was ridiculous. However, arguing about it would only result in a punch.
Besides, his first ntor, Katrina, was quick-tempered but not so an as to harm soone who apologized sincerely.
This was sothing Deros had learned over several months of observation.
He had discovered that this woman's irritability bypassed her brain, and the best approach was to take a step back. She reacted angrily to stimuli imdiately, but once that mont passed, she felt guilty.
As expected, Katrina coughed awkwardly.
“...Ahem! Just be more careful from now on. Stay sharp. You’re too careless even on the battlefield... From now on, don’t leave my sight. Got it? Or else you’re dead.”
Such a ridiculous ntor.
With an extra piece of jerky and a water pouch packed as ergency rations, Deros followed Katrina to the battlefield. It was his first deploynt, and he felt a bit nervous, but watching his reliable ntor’s back cald his nerves.
Soon, the ntor and ntee hid on the ridge and engaged in their first skirmish. Though it was also Katrina’s first ti on the battlefield, she urged her anxious junior to calm down and got her sword bloodied.
“Now that we’ve fought, let’s take a break. Hey, hey! Duck your head!”
Katrina grabbed Deros by the hair and yanked him into the bushes, pointing to the sky as she scolded him.
“Didn’t I tell you to watch the clouds?”
“S-sorry.”
A ssenger had escaped from the squad they had just wiped out. The centurion, alerted to the presence of knights, would have broken a signal flare, and the enemy mage might be using a 'cloud eye' spell to watch their movents.
If our side’s mage had control of that cloud fragnt, it would be less worriso, but since we couldn’t know, it was safest to assu they were being watched.
If spotted, enemy mages would co riding fast. Against a mage, cover was useless, and fighting was inevitable. And winning against a mage wasn’t always guaranteed.
Mages were formidable alone and always had knights guarding them.
Crouched in the bushes, Katrina lectured for a long ti. Deros’ eyes were welling up with tears by the ti she stopped, and she felt a pang of guilt. After all, he had chosen to follow her...
Katrina pushed down on her junior’s shoulder. Awkward tension filled the space between them, and unable to tolerate it, Katrina spoke up. Since she had already scolded him enough, she changed the subject to lighten the mood.
“Why did you follow ?”
“...Just because.”
“What do you an ‘just because’? That’s not an easy decision. Do you... like ?”
“What?”
Deros, feeling down, turned with a horrified expression. Katrina saw his shocked face through the sparse leaves and felt better, smirking.
“Sorry, but I have a boyfriend. Even if I didn’t, you’re not my type...”
“I have a girlfriend! Who said I liked you?”
“Really? You don’t have to shout.”
“...Sorry.”
As Katrina glared at him, Deros flinched and shrank back. Silence fell again, but it was less awkward this ti.
“You have a girlfriend? Since when?”
“Um... since last winter? No, late autumn, I think.”
Katrina turned over, her expression turning curious as she pressed him.
“What does she do? How did you et her? I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Oh, co on. Having a girlfriend isn’t a big deal... You’re living with your boyfriend.”
“Never mind that. Tell about her.”
“Well... I have a friend who loves theater. He bragged about seeing an incredibly beautiful actress at a certain theater. So I went along once, out of curiosity. I figured the actresses look beautiful because of the makeup, right?”
Deros continued his story.
He had followed his friend to the Orange Theater but hadn’t seen the incredibly beautiful actress.
The play that night was about the royal family fleeing to the eastern continent during the Arcaea Empire’s division.
A chaotic ti.
The powerless royals of a crumbling empire.
Possessing nothing but noble status, they arranged political marriages everywhere to attract influential figures from the east. Among them was a princess who married into the Viscount Isadora’s family, and the play depicted the tis through her story...
A girl with orange eyes. Not the princess, but the actress playing her.
She was passionate. She vividly portrayed the despair of a princess trying to move her unloving husband and the growing distance between them due to misunderstandings.
When Viscount Isadora confessed, “I’ve loved you since the mont I first saw you,” at the play’s climax, the princess’s tears were heartfelt.
Deros was deeply impressed by her performance. Despite his friend’s assertions about a blond, golden-eyed beauty, he kept returning to the theater.
One day, Deros t the actress at a flower shop. Her makeup-free face, dotted with freckles, was charming, and her abundant orange hair tied back made Deros’ heart flutter.
“Are you a stalker? This sounds dangerous.”
“I’m not! Your hair color is unique, but orange is eye-catching. It’d be strange not to recognize her. Anyway...”
Deros chattered on. Using the excuse of distributing autumn flowers, he frequently visited, later claiming he needed flowers to decorate the barren knight’s quarters.
Then the flower shop girl had smiled warmly,
“In that case, could you show the knight’s quarters? I’d like to see what flowers would suit them.”
Of course, he couldn’t bring a civilian into the knight’s quarters, so they walked around the area instead.
“I can’t sell enough flowers to fill such a large building. I’m sorry. Instead, I...”
“Stop right there. I get it. You t often and confessed. Hopefully, you confessed first, or you’d be really...”
“Of course, I confessed first.”
“Good. I’m relieved my junior isn’t an idiot. Get up. We’ve rested enough. Let’s find the enemy.”
“But you asked first...”
“Not getting up? Want to stay down forever?”
What a bully...
Deros muttered complaints as he pushed through the bushes and stood up. “You idiot!” Katrina grabbed his hair, but her grip was gentler than before.
‘Yeah. If not , who else will take care of this moron? I have to get him back to his girlfriend alive.’
While Katrina was thinking this, Deros shouted.
“What, what! Senpai!”
In the bushes he hastily cleared, there was a female knight and a large male knight. They looked formidable.
“Oh no. I told you to find soldiers, not knights. Deros! Move aside!”
Katrina drew her sword and launched an attack at the wide-eyed knight.
*
“Leo! Look out...!”
- Clang!
There was no need to worry. Leo blocked the sudden attack from the female knight with his scabbard, but Lena was the one in trouble.
The other knight nearby rushed at them. Seeing Leo seemingly hesitant to deal with the red-haired knight, Lena drew her sword.
- Clang!
He was in his late teens? Maybe early twenties at most?
He was a fairly young knight. Older than Lena, who had just co of age this year, but still, Lena thought she could handle him.
Or so she thought.
“Urgh!”
Despite getting beaten up by Katrina daily, Deros was still a knight.
Deros's upper body swelled as he forced Lena’s sword back.
“What’s this? She’s not a knight?”
Seeing that his opponent was a junior knight, Deros gained confidence.
Junior knights were often easier to handle than a group of soldiers.
After Katrina’s training sessions, Deros often sparred with junior knights, which made him feel comfortable. The junior knights he had faced were generally...
“Huh?”
With their swords locked, Deros spread his legs wide. He tried to shake the hilt to create an opening, but his opponent's sword followed smoothly.
The fundantals were solid.
Handling a two-handed sword was challenging.
Depending on the type, they varied greatly, but generally, the blade was long and heavy, and the hilt was at the bottom. anwhile, the point of contact between swords was usually at eye level.
A small movent of the hilt could create various angles.
Whether to engage directly, bait the opponent into thrusting, force a power struggle, exchange kicks, or break the clash to prepare for a swing. Shaking the contact point narrowed down these choices. The mont the swords t, the opponents read each other’s intentions.
Junior knights often lacked these fundantals. They didn’t understand that building a solid foundation was crucial for advancent and often ignored advice. It was understandable since fundantal training was tedious.
But this junior knight adhered to the basics. She didn’t miss any slight movents and stuck to him, narrowing his options while expanding hers.
‘Impressive, but still a junior knight.’
Using his wide stance, Deros lifted the hilt. He tilted his sword to lift her blade, stepped forward, and pushed with his shoulder. Sure enough, she stepped back to guard against the shoulder.
Got you!
As he lifted the hilt, Deros twisted his waist and aid a knee at her torso.
That’s the difference in power.
Deros realized the mont their swords t that she was weaker and assud she wouldn’t react well to a lifted sword. And he was right...?!
- Thud!
Knees collided.
Lena, anticipating Deros’s move, countered by loosening her grip to lure him in.
“You little...!”
Deros quickly retracted his left leg. Using the montum, he spun a third of a circle, bringing the hilt from above his head to his cheek.
- Scrape!
The clashing blades ground against each other as Lena pushed his sword towards her head. Realizing the danger, Lena used her grounded right leg to shove his sword away. However,
“Ah!”
The pressure from Deros shifted.
His right leg smoothly lifted, pushing against Lena’s abdon. As she fell, she saw his sword coming down fiercely.
She could block it with her upper body.
But if he aid for her lower body, there was no imdiate defense. Deros’s sword was coming down to split her legs.
Th-this is bad...
- Thud!
But Lena was not struck.
When she opened her eyes, Leo’s sword was embedded in the ground beside her thigh, vibrating from the force. Deros’s sword was blocked by it.
Lena’s legs were safe under Leo’s sword.
“You need to die first.”
Leo had already disard Katrina and approached Deros nacingly, staring him down with his bare hands.
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