The Kruel Family home.
Isolte, Nina, and Hilde sat around the sofas in the living room, chatting about what had happened to each of them lately.
"So, not long after Eris and I left, you earned the title of Sword King?"
"Yes. Although I lost to Eris back then, after I went back to training, Father decided I'd reached the standard expected of a Sword King, so he gave me the title."
"That's wonderful."
"...Well, it's nothing compared to you."
At that, Nina couldn't help sighing.
Leda Lia.
In the traditions of the Water God Style, anyone who became the Water God would abandon their original name and take the name Leda Lia.
That tradition had been passed down for thousands upon thousands of years.
Outside earlier, the knight accompanying Isolte had addressed her as "Leda."
In other words, Isolte had already become the Water God.
Meanwhile, Nina had been feeling smug about becoming a Sword King.
Compared to that, her achievement hardly amounted to anything.
Nina felt a little wistful. When Eris first came to the Sword Sanctum, she had thought she was the most gifted swordswoman there and would one day inherit the title of Sword God from her father.
She wasn't the only one who thought so. Everyone else at the dojo thought the same.
But the arrival of Eris and Isolte had made her keenly aware that there was always someone better out there.
And even swordswomen as outstanding as Eris and Isolte held Hilde in the highest regard, making it their goal to catch up to her and surpass her.
Nina hadn't been willing to believe it, so she had experienced Hilde's strength firsthand.
She hadn't just been won over.
She had been frightened.
After returning to the Sword Sanctum, Nina had repeatedly gone over