Training swords weren’t made out of durable material.

I remembered Ellen telling me that. And the constant use of this particular one made this event possible. The less probable an event, the more achievement points it would require.

Conversely, if it was highly probable it would require relatively few points.

The event of a training sword breaking after constant collisions, wasn’t that improbable. So, I was able to trigger this event using a very small amount of points.

It was definitely more probable than making someone highly trained in close combat suddenly fall over or surrender. In the end, I was able to land a blow using the methods available to me.

Knowing this pain, Art put his legs together, and the man in front of me grabbed his thing and stepped back with a painful expression on his face.

“U, urgh…. This, this dog…. This dog-like bastard…!”

Unfortunately, he didn’t fall down even though he was sweating profusely. If he recovered from his stunned state, there would be more severe consequences for me.

His sword was broken, so Mr. Epinhauser took out a new one and threw it to him.

I couldn’t give him time to pick it up.

If he recovered from his damage, I would be dead.

I rushed in while that man, who was shivering after being kicked in the crotch, clumsily tried to pick up the training sword.

-Thud!

“Aah!”

I didn’t swing my sword, I hit him with my body. As I looked at Mayarton, who was still in pain, I held my training sword upside down.

-Pow!

Then, as Ellen showed me the other day, I slapped him in the head using the cross guard.

She told me that it was used against heavily armed enemies, but now I was using this to stun that guy.

-Bang!

“Argh! Y, you son of a bitch!”

If I were able to use my full power, this would have ended in his head splitting open, but because I lost a lot of my strength it only made him feel some pain. I hoped he would at least faint.

-Thud! Pow! Pock! Bam!

While he still hadn’t recovered yet from the pain, I kicked him, trampled on him and slapped him in the face.

However, his body, which had been trained to the limit, didn’t receive any meaningful damage. He squatted and endured all my powerless attacks. It was the same for him. The fight wouldn’t end if he didn’t surrender.

He would just wait it out until he recovered.

-Thud!

“Argh!”

And that moment came pretty fast. As he pushed me away, he took a step back and got up.

I had no time to relax. This senior’s face was flushed red, probably because he got humiliated by a first-year junior.

What kind of duel was this?

It was just a dog fight.

This was just a quarrel between children with no pride, honor or respect. His eyes gleamed with life.

The expressions of the onlookers started to get weird.

I was helpless, but because I unexpectedly counterattacked, did they start to cheer for me? Did they honestly think I could win this even remotely?

“Yes, don’t ever surrender. Please.”

That wasn’t gonna happen. The senior was still waiting to recover or he was ready to stop me if I came anywhere close him. Right now, he was just watching.

I could surrender now. I paid him back after all. I could give up now. It would be my win in a sense if I surrendered now.

Something like: “I’m surrendering now to save your face”.

That would be the best way to make him angry.

That would be the case.

“Surrender? Yeah, won’t happen. I have no intentions of doing that, you bastard.”

I wanted to win.

“What?”

“I’ll, win this.”

After I gave him a kick to his damn jewels. Seeing his face distorted like that.

I tasted how sweet revenge was.

“You just managed to get in one cowardly surprise attack, and you think you’re gonna win?”

“Yeah.”

I wanted to win. I wanted to defeat this guy and grant him some behavioral training.

I wanted to make that bastard kneel in front of me and apologize.

So.

I wanted to win.

If I were to lose, I would have to kneel before that guy and Art and apologize. Getting beat up was shameful, but having to say that I was wrong when I didn’t even think that what I did was wrong was a lot worse.

I didn’t like that at all. I didn’t need some grand reason or convincing probabilities, I just didn’t want to lose. I mean, no one would want that.

I had to get beat up by this jerk in this unfair fight and then kneel to him and apologize right after that?

I wanted to see that.

I wanted to see what that guy, so convinced of his victory, who taunted me, stomped on and kicked me, looked like after he lay defeated in front of me.

I wondered what kind of miserable expression he would show me, denying his defeat and showing me an even uglier appearance.

I wanted to make this person who made me like this even worse off.

Hence.

I wanted to win.

I desperately wanted to win.

The guy came up to me. This raging attack won’t just blow away my sword, it would break everything in my body. If I allowed the next attack to hit, there would be no getting back up from that.

There was also a limit to holding out through sheer tenacity.

Breaking another training sword would be unlikely, so it would cost more points. Maybe it was impossible even.

There would be no way for me to win if I wouldn’t be able to withstand that next blow.

“How the hell do you plan on beating me, huh? Why don’t you show me?”

I didn’t have anything like that.

Still.

I wanted to win anyway. Just because there was no way for me to win, that didn’t mean I was forbidden from wanting to. I couldn’t win, but I still could have the desire to win.

I needed to see him lying under my feet no matter what.

“Ah….”

That was when I realized.

I thought that I shouldn’t have come because I would lose anyway.

I knew I would lose, but I had to fight in the hopes of winning.

No, this wasn’t even what I wanted. It wasn’t even close to the thing I wanted.

There was no way to win, and yet I wanted to win even in this situation where I had no other choice but to lose, I wanted to grasp victory, and I wanted to be certain of my victory.

I now vividly remembered what I had to do.

I caught my breath as I watched that guy approaching.

“How the hell are you going to win?”

He was slowly approaching with a sly smile hanging on his lips.

How?

“Don’t know.”

“What?”

The answer had been decided long ago. I looked at the guy holding his sword.

“I’ll win anyway.”

I was being stubborn in this situation.

I didn’t know how I would win, but I knew that I’d win anyway.

This was just a farce.

“You’re out of your mind.”

Mayarton seemed to think that I had gone crazy because I was pushed to my limits. That was what the other’s faces also told me.

No. That wasn’t it. I realized this by rationally thinking about it, not because I was driven into some extreme state. I just realized how my powers worked.

The name of my power was Self-Suggestion, so I had to apply it to myself. I had to believe in it myself.

It’s not just about wanting to win.

It wasn’t even just a prediction of my own victory.

Even with no chance of winning, I had to constantly think that I was going to win.

I had to really believe it.

That was how it was supposed to be used.

That was the power I had. It wasn’t about what one wanted, desired or longed for. There was no reason, cause or basis for it, but you had to blindly believe that it would happen. Whining like a child, insisting like an idiot. Only if I completely and whole-heartedly believed that it was going to happen would my power awaken.

If you believed in it well enough, it would happen regardless of the cause or reason. The ability would grant myself power like that.

“Look.”

The most powerful supernatural ability that would eventually evolve into Word Magic.

“I’ll beat you anyway.”

[Awakened – Self-Suggestion]

That was my power.

– Boom!

After getting closer, as if he couldn’t stand looking at me anymore, he lowered his upper body and rushed towards me.

-Bang!

“Wuark!”

I reacted to those movements that I shouldn’t be able to react to and smacked him in the face with my sword.

-Thud!

Mayarton fell to the same part of the floor where he had started his rush.

He was down on the ground.

I couldn’t feel the pain and wounds all over my body.

I was in an extreme state of exhilaration as I grabbed this shivering bastard’s hair.

“Kuh… Urgh….”

He didn’t seem to get what happened just now. The reactions around us were the same. It would be unbelievable to see the guy who was barely able to move his body properly until just a while ago to suddenly display such power.

I grabbed his hair and slammed his head back down on the floor.

-Bam!

“Urgh!”

-Bam!

“Gaaark!”

– Boom!

“Kurgh!”

Mayarton’s body trembled after I hit his head three times against the floor of the gym. Just as Mr. Epinhauser didn’t interfere when I was getting beat up, he didn’t intervene when I was smashing Mayarton’s head against the gym floor. He was just watching. That was some scary level of composure.

No one knew what was going on.

“Surrender.”

“Huh. Hah…. Ho-how…. How….”

“You’ll lose anyway if you faint. Do you want me to smash in your head until you faint? Fine by me.”

-Bang!

“Kurgh!”

-Bang! Bang! Bang!

Amidst this complete reversal without rhyme or reason I grabbed Mayarton’s messed up hair again and made him stare straight at me.

“I told you.”

“Uuh…. Urgh….”

“I was going to beat you anyway.”

A reality forced to happen.

Self-suggestion was that kind of ability. The greater my absurd belief the stronger my power grew.

My vague belief in my own victory seemed to be just enough to win against Mayarton. The moment I realized how to use it, I managed to believe in this scenario.

Anyway, I was sure I could win.

Neither madness, nor cruelty, nor malice, nor joy could be found in his eyes.

Those eyes were only filled with fear and incomprehension at this situation.

Good.

It was good to be an object of fear.

It was even better as the one who feared me was the guy who had been holding me down and beating me up until now.

“Now, tell me, senior. You’ve been going to Temple two years more than me, you have better physical abilities and your swordsmanship is much better than mine.”

I couldn’t help laughing and shouting.

“Now how about you try telling the first-year students that you’re a fucking third year, huh!”

I could feel the people around me get frightened by my maddened roar.

“Don’t want to? Then how about I’ll make you wake up to the infirmary ceiling then?”

I lifted his head up high to slam him down against the floor again.

“I, I…. I lost.”

I was finally able to crush his pride and get him to surrender. Mr. Epinhauser bluntly announced the result.

“I declare Reinhardt as the victor.”

[Event Quest Complete – Duel with Art]

[You have earned 600 achievement points as reward for your victory.]

Then.

With the announcement of my victory everything went dark before me.