I Possessed the Heroine’s Teacher

The swords clashed with a pure, clear sound. All around them were only frozen or charred corpses. The sword-wielding successor of the Northern Duke, Glacies Winterheart, and the black-clad Kay of the Round Table, who deflected her attacks with her rapier.

At first glance, it might seem like an evenly matched battle, but the one holding the upper hand was Kay of the Round Table.

“Hey, little miss. I don’t want to kill you, so why don’t you just go back? I don’t like killing in the first place…”

“Shut up. Aren’t you targeting Lord Werner’s life?”

“Let’s be clear. I don’t care about that guy. But my comrade wants to kill him no matter what.”

“Comrade…?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t understand, but… idiots like us tend to stick together. If a foolish friend has a wish, it’s the duty of another foolish friend to make it come true, right?”

With breathtakingly beautiful features, shining golden hair, and tight black tights clinging to her body, Glacies couldn’t understand why someone like her was involved with the Black Round Table. A woman with such beauty was like a weapon. She could live comfortably without needing to join the Black Round Table.

“Why are you involved with an organization like the Black Round Table? With your beauty and ability, you could live however you wanted in the light.”

“Hah…? The light…”

Kay scoffed at Glacies’s words and tore a small part of the tights wrapped around her arm with the tip of his rapier. Electricity crackled, emitting a blinding light. Thousands or even tens of thousands of times more electrical current than a normal person’s flowed through her body.

“Do you think someone like me could live in the light? Do you think someone abandoned by their parents could live under the sun’s light?”

“But there are many people in the world who would accept someone like you without discrimination.”

Glacies thought of her parents, Camellia, the slightly cold-hearted Iris, and, for the first time, Werner, who had looked her in the eyes and accepted her.

“There are people who live much harder and more painfully than you, but still live with their heads held high.”

“…Hah…”

“There are more people who will embrace you than attack your shortcomings. I can say this because I was born a half-vampire, half-human.”

She knew the hardships of having a unique body, born neither vampire nor human. She had despaired over this since her childhood and closed her heart. But thanks to Werner, who accepted her from the beginning, she had been able to walk this path. She learned that there were many humans and vampires who accepted her as she was.

Glacies was the most emotionally fragile of the women involved with Werner, although she pretended otherwise. Because of this, she wanted to reach out.

“Shut up!!!”

But it was Kay who rejected that outstretched hand. Even though she could walk into the light, she rejected that path. Kay shouted in a voice filled with rage.

“Really, you think there are people who live a hard life and still stand tall? I can’t! No matter how much pain those bastards went through, does that make my pain disappear? Those bastards were just lucky enough not to break! They were lucky enough to have someone to watch over them so their hearts wouldn’t break!”

Her voice was filled with pain, anger, and hatred.

“What, you think there are more people who will embrace you instead of attacking your flaws? I couldn’t do that! That’s something only the lucky ones get! You probably met someone like that, didn’t you?! The truly unlucky ones don’t even get bread when they’re starving! When their bones break, no one nurses them back to health!”

She tore at the tights she was wearing. If it weren’t for the underwear beneath, which covered roughly the same area, she would have been left exposed. The scars and surgical marks covering her body told the story of how she had lived.

“Just because you’re a half-blood, you think you can say that? Shut your filthy mouth! You’re a noble, aren’t you?! Have you ever been dragged to a brothel by the hand of your rich parents?! Have you ever killed someone because of your nature, then been thrown into a prison?! Have you ever been raped by guards?! Have you ever… been dragged like a dog to the execution block?! I don’t want to hear your lessons or moral teachings, you lucky bastard!”

At this, Glacies was left speechless. She had always received love from her parents, even though she had been looked at with discriminating eyes. She had never known the pain of someone trapped in eternal darkness since birth.

“I don’t avoid killing. It’s not that I can’t do it. If you left that guy, Werner, and ran away, You’d survive…”

“Unfortunately, that’s not possible.”

Since childhood, the person Glacies had longed for, Werner, was now by her side. She had waited with tears when he left, but for her to be the one to leave him was something she could never allow.

“Is that so? Then I’ll make sure to hurt you just enough so you don’t die.”

And it happened in an instant. Glacies couldn’t even comprehend what had occurred. All she knew was that after that brief moment passed, she was left with a wound in her side and a searing, painful current of electricity coursing through her entire body.

“Hah, you managed to avoid a fatal blow in that instant. Truly impressive.”

Kay, who was emitting electricity from her body, spoke with a voice tinged with regret as she complimented Glacies.

“You do realize the difference in skill, don’t you? I really hate killing people, you know? If I kill, I have nightmares that night. I really hate murder.”

Of course, this was a contradiction, as half of the corpses of the bandits scattered around had died from her attacks. Glacies, using her magic sword like a cane, tried to stand up.

“That’s not possible.”

“Ah, you’re stubborn, aren’t you? Is your stubbornness why you won’t draw the sword from your waist?”

Glacies swallowed a dry gulp. The sword at her waist, emitting a cold aura, was the one Werner had given her. Just looking at the aura or the design of the blade and hilt, it was clear that it was a fine sword, but for some reason, she couldn’t draw it. The scabbard seemed frozen, as if not allowing the sword to be drawn.

“By the way, there’s a big contradiction in what you’re saying.”

“Contradiction? Sorry, I don’t really understand complicated words…”

“You said you joined the Black Round Table because of your painful life, right? That you were born cursed, that no one helped you, that you experienced all sorts of misfortune.”

“…So what about it?”

“But the one who holds the title of Tristan, the master of the Earth’s Mage Tower, is different, isn’t he? He lived as a bandit but met a mentor who led him to the path of a mage. He wasn’t cursed but was instead gifted with magical talent, and wealth and fame followed him. So why… did he join the Black Round Table? Why do you call him a comrade?”

Glacies thought it was an enormous contradiction. She couldn’t understand why someone who seemed to have been born with the greatest luck would call someone like that a comrade, yet hate herself for it.

But unlike Glacies’s thoughts, Kay remained silent. In that silence, many emotions were mixed. Yet, one emotion clearly stood out, coloring her entire being.

“You… I’ll kill you.”

The intent to kill.

“You don’t even know how harsh the world has been to him, how cruel the rules of this world were to him… You’ve been spouting nonsense, so you’re going to die here.”

Kay didn’t usually harbor murderous intent. Even when people cursed her, she would simply feel anger but wouldn’t go as far as to kill them. However, when it came to her comrades, it was a different matter.

Her comrades, Tristan and Pellinore—if anyone insulted them, she would release her killing intent without hesitation. Though she was famous in the Black Round Table for not killing innocents, she had joined in the killing of Werner because of Pellinore’s death.

Now, someone was insulting her other comrade, Tristan, so it was natural that the murderous intent and anger she had been holding back would explode.

“You’re capable of feeling anger for others. Then why don’t you use that anger to help others?”

Glacies thought back to the events in the Holstead territory. She vividly remembered how someone who lost everything because of the Black Round Table had thrown away their life for revenge.

Knowing how deeply Werner had mourned after hearing about the count’s tragic end, Glacies too was filled with anger. She didn’t want to see Werner sad.

“I’m not weak enough to feel anger for people who don’t even understand the absurdity of the world.”

“Let me correct you. That’s just selfishness.”

Glacies gripped the hilt of the cold-emitting sword.

It was a sword given to her by Werner, and she hoped that by wielding it for him, it would draw with ease. Her action was born from that vague hope.

Then, a pure, clear ringing sound echoed as the sword began to smoothly slide out of its scabbard.

In that very brief moment, her consciousness was sucked into somewhere else.