Seeing Nausicaä charge, Yupa immediately dodged aside.
But Nausicaä's attack was not that simple. As soon as she passed him, she planted her foot and came charging back.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The forest floor exploded again and again. Faced with Nausicaä's slashes, Yupa did not dare meet them head-on or continue using his close-quarters fighting techniques under those circumstances.
He had no desire to find out with his own body whether Mu En's healing could treat someone being cut in half at the waist, so he could only keep dodging and weaving.
But he was not merely evading. He was looking for an opening in her sweeping attacks.
Moving at high speed, he seized the moment Nausicaä paused and struck swiftly with his sword-
Clang!
Another section was sliced off the broken sword in his hand.
After the punishment it had taken from the two of them, the damaged blade could no longer match the intact longsword in Nausicaä's hand.
By the rules of a spar, Yupa had already lost.
But the fight continued.
Nausicaä used the powerful mobility her physical abilities gave her to keep him from getting close. The air whistled around her as she moved, her short red hair and beads of sweat flying in the wind.
Yupa, meanwhile, fought on the move with ghostlike footwork, striking now and then in an attempt to interrupt her charges.
Neither master nor student showed any intention of stopping.
Nausicaä and Yupa were, at heart, the same kind of person. Both possessed the pride of a warrior.
Only when one of them completely lost the will to fight could the duel reach an end both would accept.
To the three militiamen watching, there were only two blurry shadows flickering constantly before their eyes.
The blue one shot back and forth amid the roaring, while the brown one moved unpredictably. Both had already gone beyond what the men could follow.
They felt that if they faced Princess Nausicaä or Lord Yupa themselves, they would probably be killed in an instant, even with guns.
What... terrifying stamina, Yupa sighed inwardly.
The fight had lasted nearly five minutes, and in such a high-speed exchange, he was beginning to tire. Several times, Nausicaä had nearly struck him.
Nausicaä, on the other hand, still maintained her original speed and reflexes.
Yupa had no intention of admitting defeat.
He felt it necessary to teach his student a hard lesson. She was growing increasingly reckless and had completely abandoned the sword techniques he had taught her.
He wanted Nausicaä to understand that brute force was the crudest approach when fighting an opponent of comparable strength.
Just as Nausicaä slashed at him with all her might once again, his left hand darted to his waist like lightning.
A snow-white shortsword, thin as a cicada's wing, appeared in his hand.
This time, he neither dodged nor evaded. Wielding the unremarkable shortsword, he met the formidable ceramic steel longsword head-on!
Sshhk.
With that faint sound, the two passed each other.
Nausicaä felt the weight in her hand suddenly lessen.
Looking closely, she saw that the ceramic steel sword had been split straight down the middle of the blade into two symmetrical halves, which had broken off at the base and fallen to the ground.
The cut surfaces of both the blade and its base were as smooth as mirrors.
The invisible line of the cut did not stop there. It traveled up the sleeve on her right arm, finally stopping only after it had turned the sleeve into two strips of cloth.
A slender line of blood appeared on the pale skin of the girl's exposed arm. Crimson droplets welled up and trickled down her arm.
Nausicaä gazed at the wound on her arm and spoke softly:
"I lost."
The weapon in Yupa's hand was the shortsword, one of the Ohmu Twin Swords on which his fame rested.
The two sharp weapons, one long and one short, had been fashioned from the indestructible shells of Ohmu from deep within the Sea of Corruption, polished from the hardest substance known in the world.
Their exceedingly sharp edges could cut through ceramic steel, several times harder than steel, as easily as slicing through cork.
Before an Ohmu sword, even Nausicaä's body, strengthened by the blessing, was as vulnerable as an ordinary person's.
She could not feel even a trace of pain, because the wound was so clean.
Had he harbored the slightest intent to kill, it would have been her artery and windpipe that were cut, not her arm.
"Nausicaä, do you still remember the combat techniques I taught you?"
Yupa slowly turned around. There was not a trace of blood on the shortsword in his hand.
"Yes."
The girl lowered her head. Beads of sweat slipped down her temples, whether from lingering fear or exhaustion.
"In a fight, I can't rely on brute force, and I must always watch out for methods the enemy has hidden... I was careless."
Although Yupa had used his trump-card weapon, Nausicaä understood that by the time the fight reached that point, it had gone far beyond an ordinary spar.
She accepted her defeat wholeheartedly and saw clearly that a gulf called "experience" still separated her from her teacher.
"All right. The fact that you could force me to use this sword means you're already no weaker than I am. Let's call this a draw." Yupa's tone softened.
"Yes. Thank you for your guidance, teacher."
Yupa appeared calm on the surface, but inwardly he breathed a sigh of relief.
His student had grown to the point where even he had to give his all to defeat her.
Was this so-called blessing really that powerful?
What he did not know was that Nausicaä had another prayer she had not used, one that could quickly heal physical wounds.
That was because Mu En had never told her that the ability to accelerate the growth of crops was originally meant for combat.
With the continuous healing of Erdtree's Favor, it was truly hard to say who would have won.
However, since Nausicaä had conceded of her own accord, the matter of inviting Yupa to join the Erdtree's side could only be set aside for the time being.
Although Mu En had the ability to forcibly bestow a blessing on Yupa, he was unwilling to antagonize the powerful warrior over such a small matter.
Besides, as long as the upcoming festival plan succeeded, the Valley of the Wind would have the strength to resist outside enemies even without Yupa's help.
By the time the spar ended, it was nearly noon.
The intense fight had left both master and student tired, and Nausicaä also needed to change out of her damaged clothes. The two returned to the castle.
Several elders had already arrived at the castle and prepared a banquet to welcome Yupa and the two guests.
According to the Valley of the Wind's traditions, a feast for the entire valley should have been held to celebrate Yupa's return.
But these were unusual times, and Chief Jihl was absent. Yupa had originally intended to urge Nausicaä not to be extravagant.
However, seeing that the dishes on the table were ordinary home-cooked food commonly eaten in the Valley of the Wind, he said nothing to spoil the mood.
In fact, however, Nausicaä's thoughts were entirely different from his.
She intended to combine Yupa's welcome banquet with the upcoming festival.
That was right. To deal with the coming crisis, Nausicaä had decided to follow Mu En's plan and completely break with the Valley of the Wind's traditions.
She had also asked Mito to summon the elders for a meal so they could discuss the matter.
In the castle hall, everyone took their seats in order at the long banquet table.
Nausicaä, having changed into clean clothes, sat at the head, followed by Yupa, the honored guest who had returned from afar.
Next came Mito, Gol, and Beruto, the three elders who had remained in the valley. Last were Eliana and her son, who were staying there.
Apart from one elder whose duties were special and who normally took no part in the valley's policy matters, the entire leadership of the Valley of the Wind had assembled.