The trio's panting continued for a minute before an answer could be given.
"You're a monster…" Ethan groaned from the floor. He had tried to pull himself up but had failed numerous times.
The floor was littered with broken metal rods and small craters from what had been a couple of magic spells.
Alphonse decided to give his theory a trial run after trying relentlessly to assure Jessica that he would be fine but to no avail. She simply wouldn't be convinced, so Alphonse ended up doing it the hard way.
He invited the three of them to a gentle sparring session to show them what he had in store for the Halstein brothers this evening.
First, he created metal rods about the length of a sword and gave each of his friends one. He then proceeded to absolutely decimate them in a three on one sparring session.
It started with his friends swinging gently and without the intent to actually hit him, but that soon changed as he effortlessly disarmed them with his own metal rod.
His 'blade' would weave first to one of their vital points before immediately weaving back to the underside of their wrist for a quick disarm by knocking the rod out of their hands. They would then scramble for their rod while Alphonse engaged the next target.
The trio slowly realized that they had been severely underestimating Alphonse, as no matter how hard they tried, they were unable to land a single strike.
But as minutes passed, Alphonse increased the pace. Instead of simply gesturing towards their vitals, he would threaten to strike at two or three of them before knocking their rods asides.
While he engaged one of them, he would use well-timed precise spells to guide the movement of his friends, greatly limiting their mobility. They would have a hard time approaching if Alphonse did not permit it.
But then as soon as they thought that they had seen it all, Alphonse allowed two of them to attack at the same time, and simply fought off the two of them before disarming one of them and moving on to the next one.
And then two became three. Although he kept casting spells to limit their area of movement, he disarmed all three of them over and over without missing a beat.
From threatening a vital point to parrying a strike to disarming a sparring partner, to casting a couple of spells to keep them within his field of view, Alphonse easily led the pace of the session without slipping up once.
These were the theoretical situations that his old fencing teacher back on earth would constantly talk about. Although he had put the theory into practice once before coming to this world, he had unfortunately been stabbed in his back before being able to analyze the entire encounter.
However, after crossing over, Alphonse had plenty of time to analyze and develop even better tactics with the use of spells to assist his martial arts.
By using one technique to compliment the other and vice versa, Alphonse was able to essentially establish the pace of the battle through relentless attacks. Not only were his strikes well placed, but he also had the awareness to know in which order to engage the next opponent.
However, Alphonse knew his technique wasn't perfect. Although he had performed spectacularly well in the eyes of his friends, he knew he had many wasted movements.
He also had to tone the spells down by quite a bit from what he originally wanted to do since he couldn't keep up with the mental images required to cast the spells while engaged in combat. He could only cast the spells in between strikes and parries, but not during. In addition to that, some of the spells that he would want to cast simply failed and required a second casting due to a lack of concentration.
Such mistakes were simply unforgivable in Alphonse's eyes, but to deal with opponents who didn't have much experience in physical combat, this level would be more than enough.
"Al… Where did you learn to fight like this?" Jessica asked, "You've never even held a sword, even when you were young…"
"That's right, not only did you have a weak constitution, you also had no experience when it came to hunting either." Ethan found Alphonse's sudden improvement in his swordsmanship skill extremely suspicious.
However, Alphonse had already prepared an excuse for this. Since he decided to show them what he could do, Alphonse made sure to concoct a story to make up for this.
"Well, it wasn't that I couldn't do it… I used to watch Mom when she would practice in the courtyard and that try to copy what she would do," Alphonse explained. "Then after practicing it for a bit, I tried to make it my own."
"Uhuh…" Ethan and Jessica looked lost in thought.
However, Jessica was more relieved than anything. "At least we don't have to worry about Alphonse now! Even if they gang up on him or bring weapons or both, he'll do just fine!"
"That's true," Ethan agreed in defeat. During this session, Alphonse had targetted him the most, and so Ethan felt that he understood how strong Alphonse was the most. "Hey Al, to be honest, I've never seen a combat style like that before."
"Right?!" Sasha chimed in, excited, "Even when we watched the opening duels before we applied for Academy, neither the Knights nor the Mages present at the opening duels fought in such a unique way!"
"Well, it's more or less just a theory of mine," Alphonse explained, "After losing to the Halstein twins originally, I tried to come up with a way for me to fight multiple people at once. It just turns out that combining magic with my swordsmanship was the right call."
Alphonse felt a little bit of guilt taking credit for his old fencing teacher's ideas but he had no choice but to do so. Only by relieving his friends of their worries could they rest easy and go with the plan.
The four of them chatted away happily as they cleaned up the yard. Alphonse, however, was looking forwards to the duel he was headed to tonight. At last, he would be able to settle this for good.
---
"So, what did he say?" Lars asked as his brother entered the room.
"He agreed," Otto answered, still shaken.
"He did? Did you tell him the details?" Lars was shocked that Alphonse would have agreed to a second duel. Especially one that would not be mediated by a Professor.
"Yeah, I told him that we'd duel tonight in the gymnasium, as soon as the sun starts to set. I also told him to bring a second."
"And he still accepted? How arrogant! This time, we'll have to put him in his place."
"Are we going with the same plan?" Otto asked anxiously.
"Yeah, we bring our swords and the anti-magic amulet that Dad gave us. It should block up to five spells, so we should be fine even if he starts by casting magic."
"I guess we should wear the training armor that we wore back in combat training with dad. That way, even if he throws a rock at us, we won't be injured."
"Worse comes to worst, we'll attack him together, right?" Lars asked, a little hesitant. Clearly, he was still reeling from the shock after his defeat that afternoon.
"Right. Let's go, the sun will set in about an hour."
The two put on their armor and equipped their swords and amulets. The two of them used arming swords, which were about seventy centimeters in length. They were a bit broader and one-handed, which would let them hold a shield in their off-hand.
However, their father had forbidden them from bringing their training equipment to the Academy. Their father, Marcus Halstein, had trained them from the age of 6 in the official swordsmanship of the Royal Knights of Aaro, the Silver Lion's Sword.
As their father was a Royal Knight, he wanted to avoid his children using their previous training in Mage school that might bring trouble to his family. He knew that the two were mischievous, and therefore, he had confiscated their training equipment before their enrollment.
Unfortunately, the two of them had slipped past the guards and managed to sneak out their swords with their luggage as they moved out.
They had placed their swords in a carrying case so that any students that saw them would just think they were carrying an important case, but not a weapon.
Upon arriving at the gymnasium, the two discovered that they were not the first ones there.
Alphonse and his friends were already in the gymnasium's entrance, chatting happily.
"I said you could bring a second, not a third or fourth." Otto raised an eyebrow, slightly anxious that they weren't the only ones playing dirty.
"Oh, don't worry about them, they're just here to spectate tonight," Alphonse reassured him, "Tonight, my second will be Jessica here."
"Huh?" Both of the twins were shocked, and after a moment, they had a sudden realization! This filthy peasant was definitely looking down on them! To have chosen a peasant girl as his second, who did that scum think he was?
"Let's go, then," Lars growled through his gritted teeth.
"Sure!" Alphonse agreed happily.
The group entered the gymnasium together. The twins anxiously looked around to check for professors or other students that may be present. Thankfully, no one was willing to stay longer on the first day of school.
"We'll watch from over here, Al!" Ethan said as he dragged Sasha up into the bleachers, "It'll be a better view!"
"Good luck, Alphonse! Don't beat them too hard, okay?" Sasha added as he allowed himself to be dragged by Ethan.
The Halstein twins could feel themselves seething with anger. Not only was the peasant looking down on him, but so were his other lowlife friends! How dare they insult nobility to such a degree!
"Alright Al, I'll be right here if you need me, alright?" Jessica reassured him from the sidelines. She was trying to reassure herself as much as she was trying to reassure him.
"Don't worry about it. I'll be fine!" Alphonse said in a loud enough voice for the twins to hear, "In fact, I'll finish this in less than five minutes. You won't even need to take a step from where you are now."
*SHIIING* *SHIIIIING*
The two twins drew their swords.
"Enough with the chit-chat. Let's get started!" Otto was fuming in rage. Since his birth, he had never been belittled in such a way, not even by his seniors during swordsmanship training.
"Alrighty then," Alphonse turned around to join Otto in the center of the gymnasium.
'Huh? He isn't even showing a reaction to our swords?' Otto was bewildered. He was prepared to argue that they hadn't said that Alphonse himself couldn't bring a sword or any other weapons, but they weren't expecting Alphonse to completely disregard the extremely sharp sword pointing right at him.
"Hmm?" Alphonse first looked at Otto, then glanced at Lars, and then back at Otto, "Huh… Is your brother Lars not going to join?"