An Old Man from the Countryside Becomes a Swords Saint: I Was Just a Rural Sword Teacher, But My Successful Students Won’t Leave Me Alone! - Chapter 65

65 - The Old Man From The Countryside Gets Help

“… Who is it?!”

It was immediately after something disturbed my fight with the knights.

The flying objects were coming from quite a distance from us, we all turn to the source.

There was a girl in a fluttering black robe holding a sword.

“… Thyssel?!”

That must have been Thyssel Harveller, the young ace of the Magic Division. She was my ex-disciple, I didn’t notice her at first when we first reunited but I couldn’t have made that same mistake twice.

“Wh-Why are you here…?”

I can’t help but ask as she slashes at the other knights.

No matter how much I think of a reason for Thyssel to be here, I can’t find one.

The Magic Division couldn’t have participated in this case involving the Suphine Faith. It’s the same with their Head Magus, Lucy. It’s strange that the Magic Division would stick their necks into this incident. It was already nonsensical for me to move alone, after going through the trouble of accepting Ibroix’s request.

“Chance,” Thyssel replied, holding her sword ready as she glared at the knights. “I happened to pass by, there was a commotion. So I stopped and investigated. That’s it.”

Chance? I doubt it’s exactly as she says.

This is probably Lucy’s insurance.

It’s difficult for the Head Magus to move directly in the streets, no matter her reasons. So Lucy passed on the responsibility to Thyssel and had her pretend it was a coincidence. Isn’t that a reasonable thought?

“Goooh…?!” one of the knights cried in pain.

“I’m here too! By chance, too!”

It came in the direction opposite Thyssel’s entrance.

I turned around and saw a small girl holding a giant weapon in her hands, trading blows with one of the knights.

“Kuruni…!”

I couldn’t help but cry out the name of the latest unexpected appearance.

This is probably Alexia’s insurance.

But this is dangerous. If something should happen to them, it would directly damage the Knights and the Magic Division.

Even if the worst came to pass, the fallout wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just me. Honestly, this is totally unreasonable.

Or rather, if they bothered to set this up and didn’t tell me, I wanted them to put more trust in me. They didn’t have to send two of my former disciples in. This makes me wonder why I even went out alone.

As a result of all these various thoughts, my shoulders lose a bit of strength. I wonder if I was a little nervous. The tense crisis earlier was defused in a good way.

“Tch…! Reinforcements, huh?!”

I wasn’t the only one confused by the unexpected help. Rather, the crises became even worse for Lebios’s knight escort.

The knights began to leave in a hurry.

They had me surrounded a moment ago but the battle situation has changed. They’ve got a magician who can cast long-range spells and a knight who wields a giant sword that can make huge sudden thrusts. It seemed that they’d temporarily put a halt to the fighting, to decide who they would engage and how much of their energy they would devote to them.

“Watch out, you two!” I cried. “They use body strengthening magic!”

You could say the magical projectiles gave them the advantage, but it’s a basic threat for a swordsman to be attacked by an opponent that was much stronger than they looked.

This is especially true for the still-developing Kuruni. She’s one step short of the first-class knights. Maybe I want to complain that Alexia’s selection criteria are a little off but now that she’s here, there’s nothing I can do about it.

“Keep calm and respond appropriately,” said Spur, the only one remaining calm amid this turmoil. “Our advantage remains the same.”

Thyssel just shot magic slashes from a great distance, and as for Kuruni, she’s dealing with one of the enemy knights but it’s hard to say if this alone has changed the battle situation.

And to a casual observer, even though Thyssel was an unknown variable, you could read that Kuruni was rough around the edges.

However, it was a rough guess if we could manage to win if we limited our engagements to 1v1.

If Kuruni and Thyssel were able to split their attention well, I think it wouldn’t be impossible to control the battle. And a key point is that they don’t lose in the meantime.

Well, it’s okay to think about this and that later.

In any case, just thinking won’t improve the situation.

“… A chance!” I cried.

“Guh?!”

I suppress a nearby knight who hadn’t fully wrapped his head around the situation.

It would be a bit of a terrible thing to kill him, so I slashed while adjusting the depth and the force of the cut.

The sharpness of this sword made it easier to slice through armor, but even then, I’m not used to this sort of power. What I’m teaching is swordsmanship centered on self-defense, not killing your opponent.

One of the knights is laid out on the ground by my strike.

Perhaps Thyssel saw it as an opportunity, she slammed magical restraints on him and closed the distance to another of the knights at once.

Indeed, this was a chance.

The number of enemy knights is still large. I want to reduce their numbers as much as possible before they have a chance to recover from the shock.

“Take this…!”

One person slashes from the thinned formation.

“Shi!”

I block the estoc coming at my side. The high-pitched sound of metal striking metal rang out in the dark knight. At the same time as the sound echoed, I felt the impact run up my arm.

Yeah, I can’t afford to spend too much time here.

Their sword attacks were magically strengthened compared to before, so if I continue to block them normally, my body wouldn’t be able to keep up. There should be no problem with my weapon but I’m an old man. Unfortunately, my physical strength is limited.

“Hoh!”

I swap wrists from my blocking stance and strike out with my sword.

A line was cut from the shoulder to his torso through the chest plate, and at the same time, a not-insignificant amount of fresh blood splattered in the dark night.

Uh oh, did I cut a little too deep? The knight who just tried to slash me moaned and collapsed, limp.

It’s the perfect strength to tear through metal armor like cheese but it’s difficult to adjust the force. I just pray that he hasn’t stopped breathing.

The feelings of guilt are gradually rising, but they’re the ones who escalated this situation so far in the first place. I had no choice but to remind myself of that and to cut them down. If we held back too much, we’d be the ones dying.

""

“Now then, those two are…!”

The knight in front of me struck out. I still have some physical strength.

What concerns me about this battle is Kuruni and Thyssel. If they were outnumbered, I had to join them as soon as possible. I don’t want to see my former disciples cut down before my eyes.

“Fuh!”

“Kuh… here!”

After looking around, I can see Thyssel fighting a knight.

It seems she’s already disabled a handful. As expected of the Magic Division’s ace. She’s young but already incredibly skilled.

Looking at her, she fights with spells to keep a good distance between them, and once she sees an opportunity, she closes the distance and starts slashing them directly with her sword, a unique way of fighting that’s different from simple hit-and-run techniques. 1

I had been training Thyssel at the dojo but she’s got a wide field of vision. Her fighting style was based on a firm understanding of her strengths.

It seems that she’s still able to dominate from start to finish. I wonder if I even need to help her.

Now that it’s come to this, I need to worry about Kuruni.

“Doorrrryaaaa…!”

“Yo-You…!”

It seems she’s doing well over on her side. No, it’s still too early to leave her be.

Kuruni seems to be fighting a lethal battle with one of the first knights to have surrounded me.

She’s still rough around the edges. She’s got long reach with her zweihander and although it certainly looked overwhelmingly powerful, the gaps in her sword-handling are letting her opponents close in.

Her opponent certainly wasn’t weak, either, but the estoc and the zweihander seem to have a good match-up. With the situation going to neither side, I breathe a sigh of relief for the moment.

Kuruni and Thyssel. If I need to help anyone, it’s clearly the former.

I put my strength into my legs and rush to help.

“I beseech your blessing, Great One. With the power of your calm and serenity, grant your people the pulse of life.”

It’s not Spur, the leader. It’s not another knight, either.

It’s a prayer with a different voice and tone, echoing softly in the dark of the night amid the echoing of swords clashing.

Was that Bishop Lebios?

He knelt in front of one of the wooden boxes left by his knights and seemed to be putting all his heart into his prayers.

There were a few moments as the wooden box is surrounded by pale light.

Then, it rattles.

The box sways by itself, and the true nature of its purpose slowly emerges.

“…!”

It was a person getting up from the wooden box.