บท 38: #38 Esdeath's past and beliefs

"Now, please go to sleep and don't cause any trouble." I said after dragging Suzuka into her tent.

"I don't need to sleep but if you want to sleep, we can!" She replied with a small "shy" smile.

"No thank you, I have my own tent but Mez can keep you company, right?" I refused with a calm expression and then looked towards Mez.

"Wha-? No! I don't want to be here with her." Mez almost immediately replied with a horrified expression.

"Do whatever you want, however, it is your duty to look after her. I don't want her to sneak attack me at night or I will have a word with Esdeath and make her send you back to the Kouken Temple." I said with a stoic face, completely ignoring Suzuka.

Hearing my words, Suzuka calmed down a bit and Mez had a serious expression on her face but that would very quickly change...

"If you don't want her to sneak attack you, you can sleep in my tent with me~! She won't dare to go there!" Mez said with a teasing smile and winked at me.

"I would actually reconsider that offer of yours if you helped me at that time when Suzuka lost it." I replied with the same teasing smile.

Hearing my reply, Mez's eyes widened and then narrowed while glaring at Suzuka in frustration.

---

'Fuck! I shouldn't have treated it as fun...Here goes my chance being with Akashi alone.' Mez thought with a frustrated expression while wanting to stomp down but she would destroy the entire tent if she were to do that.

---

I let Mez together with Suzuka inside the tent and left.

When I wanted to go for a walk outside of our temporary camp, I was stopped by one soldier.

"Esdeath-sama requires your presence in the commanding tent" The soldier said and quickly left once he left me the message.

What does she want?

I thought on my way to her tent which was much bigger than others.

"Hello?" I said when I stopped in front of the tent because I had no idea if I should just walk in because there were no guards at the entrance.

"It's you, Akashi, right? Come in." I heard Esdeath's voice almost instantly.

"I have got a message that you want to talk to me...?" I came in and asked her with a calm expression but that quickly changed to confused when I noticed her wearing "lighter" clothes that were showing off a bit more of her porcelain skin than her usual military uniform.

"Yes, I wanted to make sure that those corpses you left on your way were just bandits." She said while sitting at her table without any awkwardness.

"I asked one woman who was also the last member alive and she said that they are just bandits." Seeing how she wasn't feeling ashamed or anything, I simply recovered my calm expression and explained.

She really doesn't feel any fear to wear a nightgown in the camp full of men but I guess no one would dare to come in without an invitation.

Esdeath was currently wearing a white opened shirt, revealing her flawless pale stomach and short leggings, revealing almost her entire legs up to her thighs.

"Good, one more question. What were you doing when you took care of those bandits? You could have informed us about this but you didn't so what happened? Not to mention how that black-haired girl was strangely behaving while looking at you." Esdeath nodded with closed eyes and then she opened her narrowed eyes while looking at me, observing my expression.

"Nothing to worry about...We just went to get rid of the blood to a nearby river." I didn't bother to hide that fact and simply revealed it while shrugging my shoulders with a small smile which made her frown down.

"I don't mind this little fact but that still doesn't answer why is that girl behaving so weirdly..." She crossed her legs and said with a small smile after seeing my honesty.

"Ugh, please don't make me say it aloud. She is crazy and I had to calm her down but I don't think it helped at all. Let me give you advice if you will want to punish her without killing her one day, it's better to gently pat her on her head than torture her." I said with a forced smile.

"...I won't ask for details. Let's change the subject...when will we have our spar?" When she heard my words, her expression became slightly weird but she quickly recovered and changed subject with a smile.

"...We can actually have one right now but wouldn't our spar wake up most of the people here?" I thought for a few seconds before replying to her with a grin.

"Then let's go far enough away from the camp! I will dress up and we can go!" She answered with an excited expression and immediately got up from her seat and went to her bed where her clothes lied. She started to take off her current clothes without minding my presence.

...Are all women shameless in this world?

I thought and turned around to respect her privacy.

"I am done! Let's go." She said and grabbed my hand from behind, dragging me outside of her tent.

We easily sneaked out of the camp and entered the forest to find a suitable place for our spar.

"Akashi, who trained you?" Esdeath asked me with a curious smile while we were jumping from one branch to another, occasionally killing a few Danger beasts bold enough to attack us.

"...I was introduced to the world of fighting by a man named Arno. He also taught me a lot of things but the experience was hard-earned, he gave me just basics and threw me into a wildness." I replied with a nostalgic smile while looking at the night sky.

Esdeath looked at my nostalgic face without saying anything, just closely observing me.

"What about you? I heard that you come from Partas Clan." When I finally recovered from my nostalgic moment, I asked her with a smile.

"I was trained by my father, he was leader of the Partas Clan before our clan was massacred by one of the Northern Tribes." She said with a calm expression as if she didn't care.

"Northern Tribes, huh? Aren't you angry at them? Don't you want revenge or are you that type of person who doesn't want to spread 'chains of hatred'." I was slightly surprised by how calm she was so I asked with a slightly ridiculing tone.

"We were weak. We deserved to die." She replied shortly without getting angry at my tone.

"I see...Social Darwinism." I muttered with a thoughtful expression.

"What would you do in such a situation?" She asked me a question that I didn't expect and I suddenly stopped on one of the branches.

"Akashi?" She also stopped and asked with a confused expression.

---

'...I can't see his entire face. And what's up with this cold wind out of nowhere.' Esdeath thought while she was looking all around with a cautious expression.

---

When I heard her question, I immediately imagined such a situation with my current parents, Ichika, Kurome and a few other people from my old world...

"Sorry, I was too busy imagining such a situation." I finally woke up and started moving once again.

Esdeath followed right after me and caught up to me, looking at me from the side and waiting for my answer.

"My family and those close to me are the only people I care about and if I were to lose them because of some crawling insects...I would slaughter the entire so-called " Northern Tribes" without caring who is guilty or not. No one would be spared." I said resolutely while my red eyes started to glow at night.

"I see, although our beliefs slightly differ from each other, they aren't completely different. And it's not like I don't want to go on a rampage there but it simply means that I accepted my father's death as his fault for being too weak." Esdeath replied with a smile after seeing my cold demeanor.

"You can't call him weak or strong...There is always someone higher than you...does that immediately make you weak? You usually say that someone is weak or strong based on your view and not from the view of the other people. You can call someone weak yet he can be called strong by other millions of people. While someone can even call you weak." I said my thoughts on her view on this matter with a serious expression.

"But that's how survival of the fittest works...What do you believe in?" Esdeath asked with a confused expression.

"Of course I believe in my strength but even above that...I believe in my absolute and unbreakable will and resolve. Someone might be stronger than me right now...and what? I will play to be weak just to grow a thousand times stronger than that person in a few years and then squash him like a bug. You need to adapt to the situation but only those with resolve can become truly strong...like you. You don't have any Teigu to rely on, yet you are on the level where you can easily match those Teigu wielders. You believe in yourself and not in any weapon." I said with a genuine smile while looking at her surprised face.

Of course, not just anyone can wield Teigu and even that person must be strong enough but if that person succumbs to its power, they will only rely on it and stop improving themselves.

"..." Esdeath was speechless and after a while, she recovered and thoughtful expression appeared on her face.

We didn't talk any further and simply focused on finding a suitable place but Esdeath was visibly shaken by my words. It was obvious that she was thinking about something really hard.

"Finally something decent. We are already a few kilometers away from the camp if that camp gets ambushed by enemy, we will have a few problems with the Empire." I said with furrowed brows when we finally found some larger place inside the forest, suitable for our spar.

"It's fine, the camp is in a good position and there are still those 2 girls." Esdeath reassured me with a small smile as we jumped down from the branch of the tree at the open field in the middle of the forest.

"Esdeath, I can see in your eyes that you enjoy fighting strong opponents so I have one suggestion." I raised my voice a bit since we already took some distance from each other.

"Hm?" She tilted her head in confusion and gestured to me to continue with a curious face.

"How about we both turn off and go at it just with our instincts, simply said we will go crazy and we won't be using any strategy or anything like that. Just the competition of strength and agility." I said with a smile and closed eyes.

"Haha, I like it, your belief against my own belief! Let's see whose belief is stronger!" She laughed a bit to show how she appreciates my suggestion.

[Defeat Esdeath in a fight and make her doubt her own beliefs. You are prohibited to use any skills registered in the system due to this being competition of pure strength and agility.]

[Bonus: Don't use any cunning strategies to defeat your opponent]

[Reward: +5 Free Stat points]

[Bonus Reward: ???]

We both drew our weapons, my sword, and her rapier.

We stood at the same place for a few seconds, just looking at each other without any emotion in our faces.

*Crack* *Crack* Both of us bolted forward, leaving dust and a few cracks on the ground.

When we were close enough, both of us struck our weapon forward without any intention to defend, both of us wanted to be on offensive side.

"Guh" Both of us groaned lowly when our front shoulders were pierced by weapons however they weren't totally pierced through our entire body

Both of us looked at each other's face.

"Huheh" On my face immediately appeared a crazy wide smile and my eyes were also wide open which meant that my title was rendered useless but I wasn't even sure if it worked before due to restrictions.

"Heh" She also smiled crazily, similar to me.

We slowly pulled out our weapons with a crazy smile and then Esdeath tried to pierce my stomach which I blocked with my bare hand.

*Splash* My palm was pierced through but her rapier quickly stopped advancing and further and I firmly hold it which greatly surprised her as she tried to take it back but couldn't.

"Hhehe" I released a creepy laugh and she looked at me with a serious expression just to see a sword coming for her head from above.

"Tch!" She let go of her weapon and jumped away from my attack.

*crash* My sword only met ground and rubble flew everywhere and my sword was entirely buried in the ground, only the handle was visible on the surface which was enough of display how strong that attack was...strong enough to split Esdeath into two halves.

[+4 BXP to your special class] x2

Special Class: Yato (Lv. 2, +7 Str, +7 Const, +7 Agi, +2 Int) 6/20 SXP

[Strength: 40 (67)]

[Agility: 40 (63)]

[Intelligence: 32 (43)]

[Constitution: 40 (53)]

[Health: 500/560]

[Energy: 925/925]

[Insatiable Hunger - The more engrossed you are in the fight and the more you fight crazily, you fight harder. You are only becoming stronger and stronger in the course of the battle. Be careful not to let your health drop dangerously low or you might become slightly insane for exchange of enormous power.]