How to Live as a Martial Arts Writer in a Fantasy World

33 – 33. Inter-year Confrontation

33.

“Allen Mueller, I can’t stand to see you tarnishing the pride of the knights of the Empire by staying by the princess’s side. It’s a duel!!”

“Declined.”

“You have no right to! According to the sacred rules of dueling, you must accept my duel request!”

“I regret to inform you, I have no intentions of accepting your request.”

Allen nonchalantly wiped his face, having carelessly thrown to the ground the glove that had smacked him square in the face.

He could feel the icy stares coming from behind him, from Meia.

“You pathetic excuse of a knight! Don’t tarnish the name of the Mueller family! How embarrassing it is to have a son like you protecting the empire, Sword King!”

“Embarrassing? From the moment I joined the humanities department, I intended not to be a knight. Sorry to disappoint you.”

He did not realize the consequences of Volume 3 of the ‘Schuren Chronicle’ would be this intense. Surely enough, the guys who challenged Allen to a duel came forward.

Allen chuckled to himself, watching the knight training students scolding him.

“But I can’t allow an insult like a glove in the face. Meia, fetch me my sword.”

“Master, allow me to…”

“No, it’s fine. They want to fight, so I’ll oblige.”

“…Understood.”

Despite wishing to intervene, she obeyed her master’s command.

A maid must follow her master’s orders.

So, Meia fetched the sword.

“I may not swing the sword often, but accepting any form of insult like this would tarnish my family name. So I was taught.”

“Agh!”

Thanks to Meia’s meticulous upkeep, the sword Allen received from his father didn’t have a hint of rust, even though he rarely used it.

With the sword on his side, Allen looked at the knight training student who threw the glove.

“You’re the one who challenged me to a duel. Come on, I’ll fight you.”

“Do you think I will run away in fear? From a coward who gave up the path of the sword!”

“What a nuisance.”

Allen ambly extended his drawn sword.

“Do you duel with your mouth only?”

A violet energy coiled around Allen’s sword.

“Do you really think I’m such a failure that I can’t even unsheath a sword?”

“Master, mind your language.”

“That’s irritating.”

Alan showed a slightly hysterical reaction.

Mia did not misunderstand, either. Ever since the third volume came out, the number of Arts undergraduates picking fights with him had noticeably increased.

It was closer to ignoring Alan than not being afraid of Albert.

After all, it was true that they said Alan was the least talented in the Müller family.

“Even if I’ve been called a dropout and hate swordsmanship.”

A blue aura instantly turned white.

It was the manifestation of aura.

Annoyance deepened in Alan’s eyes.

“That doesn’t mean I’m weak enough to be ignored, okay?”

Alan took a step forward.

Alan, left hand raised, snapped his fingers.

“Come here, one by one. The ones with complaints first.”

“I…”

“No need to give your name, just shut up and charge.”

Alan’s sword drew a pure white trace.

Thud!

***

“That’s reckless. You dueled fifteen people consecutively? What were you going to do if you got hurt so badly that you could’ve died?!”

It was in the infirmary of the Academy Shrine.

Alan gave an awkward smile, looking at Felicia who was angrily sitting next to his bed.

“They just kept picking fights that it got annoying. I thought I should put them in their place at least once…”

“You didn’t have to handle it yourself.”

The words of Mia, who came to change his bandage.

With her help, each time Alan, who had just gotten up, removed the bandage from his body, he frowned.

“Suddenly I’m thinking how extraordinary my brother is. If it was him, he’d have easily beaten all fifteen.”

“I have no disagreement regarding Master’s talent, but when it comes to recklessness, you seem to have outshone him.”

“Reckless, huh? It was something I had to do once.”

“Thanks to that, you’re in this state now. If Madam saw you, you’d be scolded.”

At Mia’s cool words, Alan flinched.

He remembered the times he was hit on the backside or back when he was scolded as a child.

Felicia sighs next to him.

“What if volume 4 of Shuren Chronicles can’t get published! You’re saying as Allen gets hurt, the release of volume 4 gets delayed?”

“If you came because of that reason, that’s a tad disappointing.”

“You couldn’t have come in anger because of that reason, could you? You came out of worry for Allen, naturally. And why won’t you call him by his first name?”

“…It doesn’t feel familiar.”

Felicia crossed her arms with an air of discontent as she glanced at Allen.

There was a tinge of resentment in her gaze.

“Anyway, can’t you take a joke, Allen?”

“Was it supposed to be a joke?”

“I didn’t think you’d easily start calling me by my first name, given your personality, Allen. You’re still sticking to formalities, aren’t you?”

Felicia appeared to dislike the subtle barrier between her and Allen.

Allen rubbed his cheek.

“Of course, it’s not like I don’t understand the feelings of the knight cadets. However, you were too reckless. What would have happened if you got seriously injured?”

“Isn’t it enough that I did get seriously injured?”

“It was something I could have stepped in for, sir. Dueling as a knight is not illegal.”

At Mia’s words, Allen laughed bitterly.

“Then I’d just have been called a coward that hides behind a maid. Ouch!”

“I request that you adhere to some decorum in your choice of words, sir.”

Mia, who gave retribution to Allen by smacking his hand after he used obscene language, bandaged his wounds.

Felicia spoke.

“You must have a reason for refusing the healing holy magic, Allen?”

“I was just thinking of taking it easy in the infirmary for a while.”

“You really like to slack off, Allen. What if you don’t get all the necessary credits?”

“Then I’ll just have to retake the class.”

“Duke Muller would be furious if he heard about this.”

“hahahaha.”

Allen stopped laughing and grimaced sharply, feeling a strong twinge of pain from his wound.

Mia paused in her bandaging.

“Sir?”

“Ah, I’m fine. It just hurts a little.”

“You should get the divine healing, Alan.”

“I just figured I seem less interesting holed up in the infirmary.”

With Alan’s response, Felicia sighed.

“At any rate, there will be fewer people flocking to Alan after this incident.”

“Well, there will still be those who want to corner me. That’s when I’ll need Maya’s help.”

“Of course. I’m just a tool meant to serve you.”

“Don’t call yourself a tool! That’s easily misunderstood!”

Alan made a stern face and gestured with his hand.

Felicia’s gaze had a strangely tingly sensation upon hearing Maya’s reaction, as if her body was tingling with electricity.

Maya, on the other hand, wore a nonchalant expression.

“One of a maid’s duties is to attend to the night…”

“No! Stop it, stop talking, Maya! Please!”

Felicia’s gaze felt hotter than it was sharp, or so Alan thought.

“Alan! What exactly are you doing at night in the dorm with the maid?! Last time Stella mentioned something, but what on earth are you doing?!”

“I’ve never done anything like that! Eek?!”

In the end, Alan was lashed by Felicia and let out a high-pitched scream like a girl.

***

“Hmm, Alan is such a fool.”

Although she hit Alan in a fit of anger, watching him in pain, Felicia eventually used a lower-ranking healing spell and returned to the dorm.

“I shouldn’t have hit him.”

Why did my hand react that way without thinking? Felicia thought.

She momentarily forgot that Alan had been admitted to the temple infirmary due to his injuries.

Unable to bear the sight of Alan in pain, she cast a healing spell and watched over him until he calmed down before returning.

Felicia reopened the third volume of the Shuren Chronicles, a book she has read countless times, resting her head in her hand.

“I want to reduce the distance between us, but it feels like he’s pushing me away…”

Alan seemed to be drawing a clear line between him and everyone else, save for Maya.

Even when Felicia tried to cross that line, Alan seemed to distance himself further, causing immense frustration for Felicia.

“Is it because I’m a member of the royal family?”

Felicia pondered in earnest.

She’d always wanted to be close with Alan ever since she was young.

The youngest son of the Geomwang family, fond of books enough to carry them even at parties.

His behavior had sparked curiosity in her.

However, since that time, Allen had always been avoiding her. Although the physical distance between them had lessened, it was apparent that the emotional distance still remained.

Felicia had been constantly grappling with the question: how she could bridge this gap?

“Sigh….”

Lost in thoughts of Allen, Felicia closed the covered volume of Shureoniki 3 that refused to enter her mind and rose from her seat.

“I can’t figure out what the problem is.”

Instead of the Shureoniki, she picked up a book titled ‘365 pieces of advice on romance.’

“I will make you take an interest in me somehow, Allen…!”

***

“Damn.”

While Allen was in the temple office, a shadow had slipped into his quarters.

Clothed in black robes, the shadow sprang out from the shadows, frowning under its hood at Allen’s door, which was magically sealed.

“Well, I have no other choice. The inter-year showdown is fast approaching. I’ll have to take advantage of that.”

As the robe vanished into the shadow, moonlight fell on its back.

The wind that held the moonlight, as though waiting, then left that spot.

The wind, onto which the moonlight had descended, was heading towards the central library at the Academy.