Chapter 4: A Sword towards Victory

Enchantment. To imbue the properties of a magical phenomenon into another object. What Isaac was out to perform wasn't to flashily make his blade set ablaze with a swing, or for the wind to dance with a stab, it wasn't any of that. It took the finest of blacksmiths a great deal of effort to make a weapon do that stuff, but it was third-rate.

In front of the natural sword Ki and the Aura that knights and sword masters used, such flimsy tricks were barely worth mentioning. Instead, what was needed was to imbue a pure attack magic in a finished blade. To make the magic one with the blade at will or desire.

Why?

Well, for starters, enchanted blades were banned in such competitions.

So was using magic.

In a competition of pure swordsmanship, Isaac had planned to ride on the pride of swordsmen and use the 'one with the sword' excuse to justify using his enchanted spells in the competition.

And at last, after an entire month of locking himself up in his personal research lab, under the glint of the dawn sun rays, Isaac wiped the sweat off his brows with one arm and raised the finished product with another.

"This… With this, I can win."

***

Joel, the personal butler attending to the third child of Count von Athenus, was again today standing outside the door of his master's personal study.

It was a study made a bit away from the count's house, erected solely from the money that the young lord had earned himself. Joel was proud to be the servant of a man being hailed as a once-in-a-millennium genius, except, his master could be quite difficult at times. Like right now, how he had locked himself inside his house for the entirety of the last month.

The last time something like this had happened was when the young lord was twenty-one.

"I thought he had matured at last, but it seems I was wrong…"

As if on cue, the doors of the study banged open. Joel leaped to the side and faced the door with widened eyes. "Y-young lord!"

"Joel, is that you?" The forever unchanging voice, there was no mistake. Joel kneeled and lowered his head. "Yes! Young lord, you have missed hundreds of calls, please, let us return to the estate—"

"Joel, I have been enlightened."

Joel froze.

Enlightened…? The great young lord, the genius taking the wizardry world by a storm… was enlightened?

What the fuck was this now?

"Young lord, what in the world are you on about?"

"Zeus, Poseidon, and Hephaestus have bestowed their blessings."

"Young lord, when was the last time you slept?"

"Go. Go, Joel. Go summon the captain of the knight order. I must battle."

The aged old butler shook his head and stood up. "Where must I summon him—"

"Zzz…"

Behold. The enlightened one had fallen asleep while standing upright. How he could fall asleep without even letting his lips loosen or his brows tighten was beyond Joel. Had he been slightly younger, though, he would have noticed that the muscles in his lord's face all relax by three millimeters when he falls asleep, though youth was a distant dream for him now.

Joel let out a deep sigh and shook his head again. No matter how old he grew, it seemed he would have to look after his young lord for a while to come. "I'll pester the count for a raise," he said to no one as he lent the sleeping Isaac his shoulder and dragged him inside the study.

He coughed as soon as he entered, the air inside was needlessly stale. With his brows furrowed, the old butler helped Isaac walk. Despite being asleep, he was strangely obedient. It was still tough to swerve around the hundreds of papers and books completely covering the red carpet on the ground, but Joel managed somehow to leave his lord on the bed in one corner of the room.

Joel waved away the dust in front of his nose and tried to hold his breath as he walked over to the windows and pushed them open, only the ones that wouldn't let the light outside hinder his lord's sleep. As he moved back to the desk to open the windows again, his eyes fell on the sword kept on the desk.

As if the devil himself had made the sword his abode, tempting every man and woman that even came close with his matchless beauty, the black blade absorbed every bit of light that came toward it. Yellow engravings like wild vines swerved around the top of the blade, followed by red embers spread over the middle of the blade. At the end came cascading down the flowing streams of blue before being shunned away by the cross-guard.

"Enchanting…" Joel muttered, leaning closer to the sword. He knew more than well to not touch anything his lord made. One time, a young maid had lightly pecked a rose in the lord's room, that rose ended up sucking away all her mana and had sent her to bed for 47 days straight!

As Joel's gaze moved from the top of the sword to its bottom over and over, the paper hidden behind finally caught his eyes.

A flyer advertising the Imperial Swordsmanship Competition, which was to take place a few weeks from now.

Joel narrowed his eyes.

On top of the flyer in the same monotonous yet beautiful writing of his young lord, the words 'Kristine Kaiser' was etched.

"Kristine Kaiser!"

Joel gasped. His mind ran in all directions at once. As the butler of the lord, knowing what his master's image was with the public remained an uncompromisable responsibility. He knew, that in recent days, people all around were talking about how the Knight of the wretched Kaiser house, Kristine et Kaiser was being rumored to be stronger than his lord.

"Surely, the young master must have heard!" Joel's eyes widened. "Our young lord, he was planning to teach those wretches how to play their own game! What an ambitious man! I was mistaken, oh Goddesses, forgive me for doubting my young lord!"

At once, Joel left everything on the ground and charged out of the study. "I must inform the Count! The young lord will show those Kaisers to not even dare imagine being on the same level as us!"

"Knight captain! The lord needs practice!! Come out, you bastard! Knight captain!!"

Screaming with vigor, the butler left the study behind.

Blinded by his bias toward the Kaisers, he didn't notice.

He did not notice, the tiny little heart drawn at the bottom of the paper with her name.