episode_0410

-Whew! Whoosh! Whoosh!

“… … .”

As soon as I went to the personal training ground in the yard where Ethan was presumed to have gone, the first thing I saw was him swinging his sword vigorously in the air with his mouth tightly shut.

He was swinging his blackwood-patterned twin swords that he usually wielded, and was draining his stamina before dinner. Although he was swinging them in the air because he had no sparring partner, his posture itself was quite stable.

It had been quite some time since Ethan had reached the rank of Sword Expert, so it would be natural for him to have achieved this level of achievement.

“Master Ethan.”

“… Ah, release.”

“I wondered where you went, and as expected, you were here swinging your sword. Was this swordsmanship training the thing you missed today?”

“… That’s what it is. Just because my father is gone doesn’t mean I can let go of my sword.”

Ethan put down the sword he was holding for a moment, smiling awkwardly at my question.

Even though it wasn’t a ‘reward’ for me, it seemed like he had no intention of neglecting his swordsmanship. Of course, that’s to be expected, since he was the second-ranking swordsman at Luminor Academy.

‘If Ethan and Harold had fought in swordsmanship every day as originally planned, they would have been able to win a match at least once every three days.’

Of course, that didn’t mean I could say to Ethan, ‘You must have won a game against Master Harold once every three days anyway, so I’ll consider it a win and reward you.’

Not only did it ruin our relationship in such a pointless way, it also destroyed his pride.

Then, the only possibility would be to assign Ethan a swordsmanship opponent other than Harold and give him a reward for winning the duel against that opponent… .

‘The problem is that Harold is such an absurd guy that he’s one of the three swords of the empire.’

In the original, Harold was in a state of mental weakness, and it took the entire warrior party rushing in to take him down.

It’s impossible to find someone who can replace that guy and also practice swordsmanship with Ethan every day.

So, here, on the contrary, the level of skill gap is set below Ethan, not above.

Even though it was a dagger, I had fought Ethan with a sword before, and I was aware of the gap in skill between us.

… Of course, lowering the skill gap meant that the challenger would also be the opposite.

“Master Ethan. I have a suggestion for you. Would you like to hear it?”

“What suggestions, release?”

“This is a proposal regarding the ‘reward’ that Master Ethan can receive by practicing swordsmanship with Master Harold.”

“… … .”

Ethan was quietly looking at me, paying attention to the word ‘compensation’, so I saw him shaking his head and expressing his refusal as if he didn’t need to say anything more.

“It’s okay, Lilith. You don’t have to go that far.”

“Yes?”

“Well, it’s true that the ‘reward’ Lilith gives me plays a big part in my fights with my father, but these days, I don’t swing my sword with that as the sole purpose. I’ll refrain from talking about loosening the ‘reward’ standard for my sake or anything like that.”

“… … What are you thinking right now, Master Ethan?”

“Huh?”

I’m not even talking about relaxing the compensation standards. Do you think I came here to talk about that?

If we are to be exact, the criteria for providing compensation will become more difficult than before.

Considering how often Ethan has taken points against Harold so far, I’ve never taken a point against Ethan in a duel.

“The proposal I’m about to make is about the reward I’ll get if I win the duel against Master Ethan.”

“… … Huh?”

“If you think about it, isn’t it a little strange? Whenever Master Ethan wins a game against Master Harold, I reward Master Ethan, but has Master Ethan ever rewarded me?”

“… That may be true, but did you want to receive compensation for the release as well?”

“… It’s not a question of whether you wanted to receive it or not, it’s a question of fairness. Since Master Ethan has won the fight against Master Harold and received compensation from me at least dozens of times, don’t I have the right to demand compensation from Master Ethan?”

Ethan stares blankly at me as if he’s thinking about something in response to my extremely logical and obvious story.

Ethan covered his mouth with his hand and thought for a moment, then slowly nodded.

“… Yeah, now that I hear it, what Lilith said might be right.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“So, from now on, every time Lilith wins a match against her father, she’ll ask me to give her a reward? If you need something, then it doesn’t have to be like that… .”

“No, the reward I want is not something material. In the first place, my opponent is not Master Harold.”

“… It’s not something material? And your father isn’t your sparring partner… .”

“Yes. Now that my master is unable to return to Blackwood Manor, I will formally request a duel with Master Ethan, and when I win even one match against Master Ethan, I would like to demand the same reward I usually give to Master Ethan.”

This was the proposal I was making to Ethan right now.

Now that Harold is gone, I propose a pretext for Ethan and I to spar and exchange rewards.

“Release, me? And if release is the reward that I usually get… .”

“Yes. I would like the right to treat Master Ethan to my heart’s content for one night in bed.”

“… … .”

Ethan, momentarily taken aback by my words, looks flustered and unable to continue speaking.

Even I think it’s a shameless suggestion. To be honest, it’s a bit inappropriate for a maid to make a suggestion to her master.

But since my relationship with Ethan was not simply that of master and maid, but also that of a temporary lover, I was qualified to make this kind of offer.

To begin with, I was a little annoyed by the fact that Ethan has been the only one taking the lead in bed lately, including what happened at Professor Mamamari’s villa and in the coastal cave a while ago.

“Isn’t that a very favorable offer for me, Lilith?”

“What are you talking about?”

“To be honest, I don’t really care if Release is the one who attacks me. If I lose just because I want to do it with you, then it doesn’t mean that Release really won against me in swordsmanship, right?”

… Anyway, I’m afraid that people will think I’m a real pervert obsessed with sexual desire, so I’m saying things like that from the beginning.

It was something that could easily have come out of Ethan’s mouth, so I just gave him the answer I had prepared.

“Of course, there is an exception if Master Ethan deliberately loses for rude reasons. Rather, I was a little disappointed by your statement just now, since you immediately thought of deliberately losing as soon as I made this suggestion.”

“… I just said that it could be exploited. I didn’t mean it seriously. ”

“I haven’t been fighting with Master Ethan for that long. Especially this semester, since there were a lot of rainy weeks, you probably had a lot of one-on-one duels with me, Master Ethan?”

“… Yeah, that’s right.”

“I can easily tell whether Master Ethan is swinging his sword seriously or is moving with a relaxed attitude to defeat me. That’s because I’ve seen Master Ethan swing his sword from the side the most.

And even if Master Ethan claims that he swung the sword seriously, if I judge that Master Ethan did not demonstrate sufficient skill, or that he did not display his usual power due to physical condition or other issues, I will return the compensation. ”

No giving favors. No claiming that you didn’t give favors after giving favors. If the circumstances are suspicious, I won’t ask for compensation even if I win.

It was a proposal that was advantageous to me in many ways, but Ethan probably wouldn’t refuse it. After all, Ethan didn’t have a good excuse to do it with me anyway.

Above all, since he had experienced the greatest sense of accomplishment from victory and reward after a serious swordsmanship duel thanks to the suggestion I had made to Ethan in the beginning, there was no way he would object to me gaining a sense of accomplishment from swordsmanship duels.

Because Ethan knew better than anyone that proper motivation was a great help in achieving swordsmanship.

“You really want to improve your swordsmanship skills, Lilith.”

“… Yes? No. I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that there needs to be an appropriate level of tempo adjustment… .”

“Okay, I get it. Since Lilith is speaking so seriously, I can’t just give in and do my best. In the future, in our swordsmanship duels with Lilith, I will never let up and will do my best, so Lilith, do your best and aim to defeat me.”

“… … .”

“If Lilith succeeds in defeating me with swordsmanship, then I will grant Lilith whatever she wants, just like she said.”

“… Thank you for your understanding, Ethan.”

I didn’t really want to deal with Ethan being this serious.

Anyway, Ethan and I created an excuse to somehow ‘compensate’ Harold during the summer vacation week when he wasn’t around.

… From now on, I have no choice but to do whatever it takes to win a game against Ethan.