A spirited cry burst out of Lily’s mouth as her blade swung downwards, and Dia intercepted it with a casual flick of her own sword. Gliding to her right a moment later, a current of air skimmed past her left as Schwarz tried to stab her from a blind spot. Smiling gently, her right leg swept upwards in a fan kick, striking the bartender’s weapon hand with a force that belied the kick’s low speed.

The sword fell with a clatter, and Schwarz let out a grunt. Without missing a beat, Dia exploited his little opening and slammed her left elbow into his chest. She followed up by sweeping his legs out from under him, and then poked his exposed throat with the training sword in her hand, before turning to look at Lily, who had just recovered from the recoil of Dia’s casual flick.

“One down.” Dia smiled. The meeting she and the others had with Holy Daughter Clarissa and Caroline Lostfon had stressed her out, which was why she had enthusiastically agreed to this little spar the two neophytes had requested. It was good stress relief for her — this was one of her favourite pastimes as a child, other than reading novels, sneaking out for sweet treats and playing with her…

She shook her head, and then focused on Lily, who was watching her intently. Like Schwarz, who had grown up on barfights and street brawls despite his occasionally elegant manners, Lily was no stranger to unfair fights. Her fighting style was rather interesting, however. Dia could sense that she had a solid foundation of duels, but like water exposed to some food dye, Lily’s approach to battling had grown less formal and more…pragmatic.

Especially after that expedition with Claud.

She gritted her teeth. That fellow had undone all her hard work in trying to teach her about formal combat theories. Sure, she only had time for a session, but Lily was a fast learner. If she had spent a few more days to teach Lily, this promising student would have made even more progress, but that punk just had to teach her all kinds of tricks.

His worst sin, however, was how he had influenced Lily down onto the path of defence and evasion. For some reason, Lily was now a staunch believer in wearing the opponent out, instead of going for a quick kill. In fact, Dia had a feeling that Lily’s purpose in asking for a spar was to train her footwork, not her bladework.

“How scary,” Lily muttered. “A single mistake, and Schwarz’s been taken out.”

“That’s a sword master for you,” said a voice from above.

The two looked up, where Risti and Farah were looking down on them.

“Oh, you two actually took a break from your work,” Dia commented. “Good thinking. If you sit at a desk the whole day, you’ll get rusty and slow.”

“And whose fault was that?” Farah tutted. “Well, I can’t blame you, though. Doubles don’t really get a chance to formulate policy…well, you do whatever you’re best at, okay?”

Dia rolled her eyes at Farah. She could do some paper-pushing, but whatever work Farah and Risti were doing wasn’t anything she could handle. The countess had busied herself with economic sabotage on the eastern territories of the Istrel Dukedom, to weaken the forces that were gathering to march on Lustre. As for Risti, she was doing things that Dia couldn’t even comprehend.

“Alright, Farah, stop talking.” Claud’s voice came from a window adjacent to theirs. “Or else they won’t be able to fight. The sun’s rising, and breakfast is nearly done, so let them do their thing.”

He paused. “Do your best, Lily!”

“Are you assuming that I’ll lose?” Lily pouted. “I’ll show you!”

“Fight, then!”

Dia glared at Claud, who was the reason why she had such a headache. Her sparring partner had changed into a target dummy, and the cause of that change was yelling and encouraging Lily even more.

Claud met her eyes for a moment, and then coughed pretentiously. “Sorry.”

“You better well be,” Dia muttered under her breath. Turning to Lily, she pointed her sword at her. “I’m attacking, then. Prepare yourself.”

Sword Sense was already activated, as was Sword Dance, but against the scrub that was Schwarz, she hadn’t actually used their effects much. Against Lily, however, that was a different question. She had picked up some bad habits from that punk, and Dia was going to teach her that defending was never the way to go.

Her vision sharpened as she flickered forward.

Lily’s form glowed with a weak, faint blue, one that was barely visible to the eyes, before turning into a blur. Dia’s sword, which had missed its target, turned at an impossible angle and swept out again. Once more, Lily dodged that sudden attack, and the same cycle repeated over and over again, until a sharp crack filled the air.

This was something she’d come up with after so many dreams of the murderer at Nachtville. The way he had managed to kick so many spears at her was contingent on his ability to forcibly return a moving body part to its original position with a preternatural ease. She couldn’t quite do the same for her basic slashes and stabs, but layering her strikes over and over was quite doable, if somewhat tiring.

The faint blue shimmer around Lily had vanished, which meant that she was no longer fast enough to dodge Dia’s strike. The clash lasted for a second or so, before Dia pumped some mana into her arms, and a second crack echoed out as Lily skidded backwards.

Dia didn’t give her any time to react, however. Her legs glowed with blue light, and she slid into melee range once more, before sweeping Lily’s feet out from underneath her, like what she had down to Schwarz earlier.

“Match’s over,” Dia replied, before extending a hand out. “Good try.”

“How can you even move your sword like that so many times without using much mana or getting tired?” Lily complained. “That’s plain cheating.”

“When you’re on the defence,” said Dia, “you spend more mana and stamina than me, the attacker. It makes sense when you think about it — I move my arm, but you move your whole body. Sure, I’m swinging a weapon, but that’s nothing compared to moving an entire body, right?”

Lily glanced at her sword, and then at her feet. “Good point.”

“Right?” The sword in Dia’s hand danced around for a few seconds, before she lowered it. “You can’t win fights, and being on the defensive is simply giving the enemy unlimited attempts at breaking your defence. You just need to slip up once, and that’s it.”

“Oh.” Lily had a contemplative look on her face.

“Of course,” said an annoying voice, “that only holds true if you’re fighting in a formal duel. However, formal duels aren’t things people get into every single day, right?”

Restraining an urge to beat up Lily’s corrupting influence, Dia turned to Claud, who had gone down for some reason. “Doesn’t mean it’s wholly false either. If you’re attacked by a single person, going on the offensive would be for the best, right?”

“Depends,” Claud replied. “But unless you are absolutely certain that you can get away scot-free with murder or grievous hurt, running is always the best option. Killing someone who accosted you might feel great, but there’s always some risk attached.”

Dia wanted to ask what kinds of risk were attached, but on second thought, it was obvious. If a commoner were to kill someone important, or if a one-folder were to kill another one-folder with some backing, bad things were bound to follow, right?

“You…have a point,” Dia replied, conceding grudgingly. It was probably this sort of logic that had corrupted Lily, but unless she found a way to counter this argument, Dia had a feeling that she wouldn’t be able to convince Lily much. After all, she had indeed heard of cases in which some noble made use of light injuries to enact revenge.

In that sense, by simply not fighting back—

“Hold on,” said Dia. “We were having a spar earlier, and Lily was more than happy to take the initiative, though!”

“Well, you said it. It’s a spar,” Claud replied. “Our argument was in the real world. In a spar or a battle like this, I don’t really have an opinion. After all, only fools seek out battles. Where possible, it’s more desirable to either be the mastermind behind the battle for concrete gain, or be a hermit and avoid the troublesome issues.”

“Alright, enough. The two of you are never going to stop arguing at this rate.” Schwarz cut into the conversation. “Harmony, okay?”

“We aren’t kids that will argue at the drop of a hat,” Dia replied. “But okay. I’ve worked up an appetite now, so let’s go get some breakfast instead.”

“Good idea,” said Schwarz, glancing up at the now-empty windows. “We should start planning the ambush on the murderer too.”

“After breakfast,” Claud replied.

Dia eyed the gluttonous fellow for a few seconds, and then reluctantly conceded when her tummy rumbled.