1 #01. Kiriyan Masis

*𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥*

A hard stroke in my stomach made me fall on my back. My hand gripping a sword became pale. I bit off my lip.

"Stand up again, commoner?" A tall man holding a giant sword chuckled, looking down on me. 'He is the eighth out of fourteen, and if I give up here…' just at that time, his kick struck my chin again. Both my consciousness and sight became faint.

"What a damn fucking persistent commoner you are, huh?"

I heard spitting, but couldn't tell where it came from. If I lost my sense again, it would be the fourth defeat. It was a knightage training center in a palace, where no one would pay attention to a trifling commoner being beaten up. In fact, no matter when I'd had to deal with these assholes and got covered with blood on the pretext of duel, no one had tried to stop them. it was nothing more than the place to just walk by while pretending to be blind.

"Let's stop here."

A man who looked like their boss said, as always, before he squatted and looked me in the eye. I raised my head strenuously to look back at him.

"Kiriyan Masis." His voice was hollow. After entering Ensis Knights, the only knightage under the direct order of the palace, I had been granted a surname. This damn kingdom would even change a name of the person who did not want it at all, with their own standard. While glaring at him with a blurry sight, I spitted out only one piece of swear.

"Beat it, son of a bitch."

"…"

He seemed to be surprised a little bit. There had been only a few times I 'spoke', not only because I was natively quiet but because I did not want to exchange one single word with these scumbags. He lifted his hand and stopped some swearing back.

"I don`t care no matter what you say. You've lasted up until…eighth today."

The only thing I could do, without any energy to say something back, was to keep glaring at him. Up close, his face was so impressive. Not the extent of 'handsome', but of 'well-chiseled'. His burning hair was making an odd match with his fair skin. I did not know who he was, but something in my head kept needling me. It seemed to be within my grasp, but did not at the same time. I only tried to reach out to it without giving up.

'A man I saw somewhere before.'

"That might be more than your body can bear. There will be no more ganging -up like today."

"…"

He was smiling. I tried to find something hidden inside it, but there was nothing.

"A week later."

"…?"

"You will have an official duel with me a week later."

"Sir!"

Someone amongst the fourteen knights behind him spoke up in a hurry.

"What's up?"

"Ritten got seriously injured by that crap! Give me a chance to fight him!"

At the direction he was pointing was a man grabbing his bleeding arm, bewildered. He was my fifth, relied too much on his strength and ended up getting his wrist cut. Unnecessarily heavy weapons and armor only restrict your movement. He must have been injured when I had redirected his heavy downstroke and smacked his wrist with a side of my blade.

"Fights are over. Just put a bandage on his wrist."

"But…"

"I said, it's over."

I flinched from the murderous feeling squeezing my body. The origin of it was… him, squatting in front of me. Did the other guys just call him 'sir'…?

"Hey, you. Come on out."

Trying to keep myself together, I spitted out the blood in my mouth and pointed my finger. The 'sir' looked at me, but soon had to turn his head back to find the knight I was calling out. Baffled, the knight asked back with a tad stupid tone. "Did… you just say to me?"

"Are your eyes all fucked? You, come out!"

He snorted, but then rushed towards me straight away. I threw my sword to him with every ounce of my strength. But to my surprise, that attack which seemed to be hard to break got knocked off too easily.

"Are you crazy? When a knight lets go of a sword, it means a death!"

Come to think of it, I had never fought against him in any of the four rounds so far. Considering his skill that had cleared my sword in a second, there was only one chance for me.

"Hup!"

I heard a sharp intake of breath. Before he knew, I was holding him in my arms already. He must not have expected I would run into him all the sudden, unarmed. I squeezed all my remaining power again.

"Aaaagh!"

Using his running speed, I lifted him up in the air. Turning around, I slammed him onto the ground with my full body weight.

"Aargh!"

He let out a painful scream as he twisted his body. Just like they had done to me, I was going to kick in his chin and knock him out. At that moment, the man with the red burning hairs stepped in my way.

"That's enough."

In front of his vacant eyes, my action was stopped dead like magic. In deep silence, only some birds' chirping sound was ringing in my ears.