Allen lowered his head in silence after hearing Paul's answer, repeatedly rubbing the hilt of his sword.
Paul, however, wore the expression of someone dealing with a troubled teenager. Squinting, he spoke gently to Allen.
"Besides, I think that if Philip were faced with this question, he'd make the same choice I did."
That sentence pulled Allen out of his slightly moved mood. He glanced at Paul and finally understood why Paul had not gotten angry when he asked that question, but had instead patiently explained things to him.
So this was what all that buildup was leading to?
You can't judge everyone by yourself, Paul. You may be a competent father, but that doesn't mean everyone else is.
The fundamental reason I'm not close to Philip is that I'm a transmigrator, not because I suffered some psychological trauma while growing up alone like you think. I already adapted in my previous life. Rediscovering family affection in another world? I'll pass.
Seeing Allen's indifferent expression, Paul scratched his head. He felt he had done his best to put in a good word for Philip, but Allen did not seem to appreciate it.
In the distance, Lokkishi noticed Allen leaving. During a gap in Sylphy's spellcasting, she tilted her head and looked at Allen questioningly.
Allen smiled and signaled that everything was fine.
"Hey! Sylphy, where are you looking? Your Fireball Spell burned my hair!"
"I-I'm terribly sorry! I got distracted!"
He turned his gentle gaze toward the flustered Sylphy.
"Teacher? Teacher?"
"Ah... Sorry, Rudy. I got distracted..."
At that moment, Paul's hesitant words reached his ears again.
"Allen, Philip has his difficulties too. You should know that this is the Boreas Family's tradition. If you had grown up by his side, you definitely would have understood what kind of person he is."
Allen glanced at Paul with a smile.
As expected, Paul, who values family so much, would speak well of Philip... However, Philip's ambition to meddle in the Royal Capital's power had never faded. In the original story, once he saw that Rudy possessed remarkable magical talent during the Tutoring Period, he was even willing to use his daughter as a bargaining chip to lure Rudy into marrying into the family. Unless he one day willingly gave up his obsession with power, he would never place his thoughts on so-called familial affection before then.
And this isn't just his problem. The entire Boreas Family has always had the pursuit of desire carved into its instincts.
Sauros bore a deeply rooted sense of responsibility as lord of his territory. After the Great Transfer, regardless of his descendants' wishes, he would rather squander all his wealth than abandon rebuilding the territory.
Eris developed an obsession with becoming stronger in order to protect Rudy. After leaving him a letter on their first night together, she went to train bitterly in the holy land of illiteracy, even managing to go years without contacting him.
And me.
The veins on Allen's hand bulged as he tightened his grip on the hilt.
This comes from the bloodline and the pursuit of power buried deep in my heart. It's completely different from before I transmigrated.
Allen turned to Paul.
"I have some questions about swordsmanship that I'd like to ask you, Uncle."
Paul seemed unable to process Allen's train of thought. They had just been talking about life and death, so why had the conversation suddenly become a request for swordsmanship instruction?
He blinked.
"Huh? Uh, Sword God Style again? If it's the Sword God Style, I don't have anything better to teach you."
"No, the Water God Style."
Paul's face stiffened. He pointed at himself with his index finger and spoke in astonishment.
"The Water God Style? Me? Do I look like Reida to you? Your mastery of the Water God Style is obviously far better than mine, isn't it?"
Allen shook his head.
"I need the sparks produced by clashes between vastly different fighting styles to inspire an epiphany. You know that something like a Self-created Arcanum requires constantly building your own fighting methods and theories."
The underlying logic of becoming stronger in the Jobless World lies in talent and comprehension. Whether it's Orsted, the Dragon God's child born in Rome, or Rudy, who possesses the Laplace Factor, every master has at least one of those two abilities boosted beyond reason. Now that I've obtained Dragon Saint Battle Qi in terms of talent, naturally I should use that advantage to constantly pursue epiphanies and refine my own combat theory. I can't be like Ghislaine, who relied on instinct throughout her adventurer days and lingered at Sword Saint for years before finally realizing she needed to refine her combat theory, then taking a single step into Sword King.
Speaking of epiphanies... That bastard Kino suddenly came to mind. He really had an epiphany after sleeping with his wife, then in barely a year or two, as a Sword King, beat his Sword God father-in-law so badly that the old man's sword heart shattered. Before dying, that idiot even used the Water God Style to duel Eris with swords. He really had lost his mind.
Paul tilted his head as he looked at the thoughtful Allen, an interested expression appearing on his face.
"I see."
As soon as he finished speaking, he drew his sword and looked at Allen excitedly.
"An epiphany or whatever requires constant pounding, right? Perfect. Let me see your Self-created Arcanum. What do you say?"
Paul really is easy to understand.
"Although I can have epiphanies without getting pounded, since you're the intuitive type, maybe 'pounding' will be more effective. Like yesterday morning."
As Allen spoke, he slowly drew the blade from his waist.
After Allen and Paul put some distance between themselves in the courtyard, Zenith, Rudy, and the others immediately stopped testing Sylphy's mana and formed a circle around them to watch.
Lokkishi blankly sensed the tense atmosphere between the two. Covering her mouth with one hand, she secretly asked Rudy beside her.
"This morning, you said you fought Allen, but I didn't really have a sense of it. Still, he can actually spar with Master Paul? I remember Master Paul has reached Advanced rank in the Sword God Style, Water God Style, and North God Style. Allen..."
Rudy watched the two of them, a solemn expression on his young face.
"Although I don't want to say anything that undermines Father's prestige, Allen really is strong. Really strong. You heard quite a bit during the debriefing this morning, didn't you?"
Lokkishi nodded, her blue hair swaying in the air.
"To be honest, because I took that match very seriously... Um."
As he spoke, Rudy glanced at Lokkishi before continuing.
"So, over those two months, I thoroughly investigated Allen. I developed detailed countermeasures against nearly every ability he had displayed. Yet even so, he beat me twice in the match. Both times, it was because he used sword techniques I had never seen before, so I had no preparation for them and lost."
Lokkishi recalled the rapid slashes Allen had used to chop the monster into pieces two months ago and could not help nodding.
"He really can use sword techniques completely unsuited to his age. Even after all my years as an adventurer, it was the first time I'd seen a swordsman use that technique of his."
Rudy nodded.
"The first loss was because of a throwing technique from the North God Style. I had never seen him use it, so I failed to control the distance between us. Before I knew it, he had gotten close enough to kill me with a thrown blade."
"Uh, I heard about that this morning too. What about the second time?"
"The second time involved techniques from the Water God Style and Sword God Style. Damn it, just how much is this guy hiding? Why does every school have techniques he's buried that I've never seen? The second time, I used large-scale Mixed Magic to trap him in place and stop his high-speed movement. He first used a Self-created Arcanum from the Water God Style to block all my magic, then placed something beneath his feet to provide himself with a 'springboard' to escape the mud pit."
"But even then, I had considered in advance that he might use some method to escape. So I used geothermal mud pits and ice blocks created by Ice Lance to create large-scale Mixed Magic called 'Dense Fog' to obscure his senses."
By this point, Lokkishi was already sweating profusely. She had never even heard of Mixed Magic called Dense Fog, and inwardly marveled at whether this was the world of geniuses.
"Yet I thought I had prepared thoroughly, but something still went wrong. I hadn't accounted for Allen's Soundless Katana. The moment I cast Ice Lance, the ice spear dispersed the Dense Fog and revealed my position. Using the prepared 'springboard' as his foothold, he seized that fleeting opportunity. So I lost again."
Lokkishi asked in confusion.
"Oh? You didn't account for the fact that he knew Soundless Katana while preparing?"
Rudy looked at Allen in the courtyard, who was stretching his body, drawing his sword, and assuming various stances to warm up, then shook his head.
"I did account for it, but I didn't expect him to be that fast. He was almost faster than Father. You don't know this, but he actually isn't very skilled in the Sword God Style, so he spent these past two months asking Father for guidance. And on the morning of that match, I had confirmed that he couldn't comprehend Soundless Katana."
Lokkishi raised her brows.
"Then how...?"
Rudy rubbed his face dejectedly, truly feeling that even though he could use Silent Casting Magic and Lokkishi praised him every day, he still could not compare to Allen's genius.
"That's the problem, Teacher. He truly hadn't grasped the essence of the Sword God Style before I left that morning. But afterward, Father told me that he had been inspired to give Allen some guidance on how to swing and slash, and how to capture the 'feeling' of using Soundless Katana. Then, with just one experimental swing—"
Rudy turned to Lokkishi.
"He learned it."
The book title has been changed. I'm delighted.
It was mainly getting too little traffic, so I'm making one last desperate attempt before the algorithmic recommendations arrive.
Before you continue