My Beloved Princess ~The Boy Called Incompetent Rises with Only a Sword and the Princess's Devotion~ - Chapter 122.1: Side Story: The Highest Attainment of [Ki]

Chapter 122.1: Side Story: The Highest Attainment of [Ki]

The back garden in the early morning.

Dawn had yet to fully break, and the world was still dim.

After splashing water on his face to drive off his drowsiness, Kishō shivered at the biting cold. He wiped the droplets away with a towel, then smacked both cheeks to fire himself up.

On a whim, he walked to the middle of the back garden.

This was the place where his mother had taught him martial arts ever since he was old enough to remember.

Her training had been harsh. But precisely because it had been so gruelling, those experiences had become part of his flesh and blood, until he could wield [Ki] as naturally as he breathed.

“I am who I am now because of Mom.”

He settled into the stance for the very first straight punch she had taught him.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath.

Cool air touched by morning dew filled his lungs and swept the stray thoughts from his mind.

The only thing he could hear was the chirping of little birds.

His heart was perfectly calm.

With a mind as clear as still water, he drove his right fist into the morning haze.

CRACK!

The air burst apart.

“This is probably what they call Lightning Ki.”

Back when Instructor Hyōri had thrown out the outrageous demand that he show off his Breath, Kishō had hurled a practice sword imbued with [Sword Aura] and pierced the target with it.

It had been so absurd that even Kōran had suspected him of using some kind of trick.

“I explained it by saying that if I clenched my fist tight, the order of my [Ki] was less likely to break down. If that really was a glimpse of Lightning Ki, then Lightning Ki must have a property that keeps it from dissipating even in the atmosphere.”

His mother had told him that the true essence of the lightning attribute lay in the expansion of [Ki]. If Lightning Ki was [Ki] embodied as lightning, and an attack that used Lightning Ki was Lightning Breath, Thunder Spear, then it only followed that the total amount of [Ki] in the body directly determined the power of that Breath.

He tightened his fist.

Violet lightning clung to it and crackled there.

Kishō shook his head, his expression troubled.

“But releasing [Ki] as Breath isn’t realistic.”

He had been drilled in nothing but the control of [Ki] since he was a child.

Even when he had left home for the academy, his mother had warned him over and over not to neglect his daily training. She had been that relentless about [Ki] training because she knew the expansion of [Ki] was the true essence of the lightning attribute.

But releasing the [Ki] inside one’s body was extremely dangerous. A single mistake could strip a person of all the [Ki] within them and even cost them their life.

“No matter how lethal it is, that kind of power isn’t worth the risk. Lightning Breath, Thunder Spear, is too much for me right now. In that case…”

He picked up a small branch lying nearby.

It was an utterly ordinary little branch split into a Y shape.

Adjusting his grip with both hands, he twisted his wrists slightly and pointed the branch’s sharpened tips outward. He let out a breath, then swung it down in one clean motion.

CRACK!

Violet [Sword Aura] raced over the coarse bark like electricity through a wire, and from the branch’s tip a purple flash shot into the ground.

White smoke rose from the patch of earth gouged out by the impact.

“So I was right after all. [Sword Aura] is a flame that dwells in the sword. It can’t leave the blade. But [Sword Aura] altered by Lightning Ki can race through the air as a flash of lightning. If I make use of that property, then the reach of my sword can become as flexible as I want.”

His mother had developed Lightning Breath, Thunder Spear, by combining Lightning Ki with [Fighting Ki].

If that was the case, then by combining Lightning Ki with [Sword Aura], he could follow a path of evolution different from his mother’s.

“I’m sure I don’t have as much talent as Mom. That’s exactly why I’ve put more weight on swordsmanship than martial arts. I figured that if I walked the same path as her, I’d never catch up to her.”

His Majesty Sendō, famed as the Sword Saint, was the Dragon Emperor from three generations ago who had risen to greatness with a single sword. In the legends told about him, there was no tale of Breath. In other words, he too had possessed the lightning attribute and chosen the path of mastering the sword.

[Sword Aura] and [Fighting Ki]. Though both sprang from the same [Ki], they possessed different properties. Similar, yet fundamentally different. Mastering both served as a guidepost to even greater heights. That was his family’s creed.

If Lightning Ki was one such greater height, then Kishō had already stepped into the next stage. Beyond this point lay a completely unknown realm, one his mother had never taught him.

“But Lightning Ki isn’t the goal. There’s still more beyond it.”

What was the highest attainment of [Ki]?

His mother had said it meant removing the boundary between your own [Ki] and another person’s [Ki]. If one truly mastered [Ki], then one could destroy, protect, and even heal at will.

“As long as all you can do is destroy, you’re third-rate… huh. That one stings.”

Lightning Breath, Thunder Spear, was the kind of technique that seemed like the very secret of destruction.

The image of it was already taking shape in Kishō’s mind, and the day he could use it likely was not far off. But he still could not picture the remaining two elements needed to reach the highest attainment.

What did it mean to protect?

What did it mean to heal?

Something that fulfilled both at once had to be the highest attainment of [Ki]. That was supposed to be its true nature.

He heard someone step onto the grass still wet with morning dew.

“Mother-in-law protected Father from the core’s flames with an electromagnetic barrier.”

The one who had come was Princess-sama. Her face looked as though she had only just risen, and yet there was not a trace of languor about her, nor was so much as a single strand of hair out of place. Was she simply flawless all year round, at every hour of the day?

She tilted her head in thought.

“Let us say Lightning Ki truly possesses the property of distorting space and preventing all attacks. Even then, would I be able to touch your Lightning Ki?”

“No. That’s impossible.”

As the violet glow crackling along the branch reflected in her eyes, Kishō shook his head regretfully.

“Removing the boundary… huh. Hearing that just now reminded me of something.”

His mother could place a fist against Kishō’s abdomen and shatter only the tree behind him. More precisely, she could pass [Ki] through his body without harming anything inside him, and transmit the destructive force to the tree alone. Kishō, as he was now, could not pull off a feat like that.

To destroy only the intended target without harming the person you chose not to harm.

“In the end, I guess that’s what it means to erase the boundary with others.”

You removed the boundary between yourself and someone else, assimilating them until you could share the same [Ki]. If you did the same thing with Lightning Ki, then you could protect another person with a membrane of Lightning Ki without injuring them.

This was one of the secrets that led to the highest attainment.

The power to protect.

“That makes two. So all that’s left is the power to heal.”

The power to heal. He had no idea what sort of state that referred to.

But when he became able to fulfil all three of those elements, [Ki] would reach its completed form and be perfected.

“For now, I’m going to train until I can control Lightning Ki freely.”

First, he would master the secret of destruction.

So that he could blow away every calamity likely to descend upon him from here on.

He would begin with the easiest form of power to understand.

“Mother-in-law also said this: apparently, Kishō, you are a little lacking in delicacy.”

“…I know I’m rough around the edges.”

Even in swordsmanship, his simple, meathead style of swinging with brute force instead of relying on finesse reflected Kishō’s own personality. He was bad at trickery. It was probably the same when it came to handling [Ki].

“According to Mother-in-law, in addition to training Lightning Ki, it would be good for you to master ground-running and the art of walking on water. Water-walking in particular demands delicate control of [Ki], so by the time you master it, a feel for finer control should naturally have taken root in you as well.”

The fact that she had properly drawn exactly the information he needed out of his mother truly did make her worthy of being called Princess-sama. She missed nothing.

Ground-running, incidentally, was a godspeed shrinking-earth technique that let one violate a gap of several dozen metres in an instant. At his mother’s level, the effect apparently continued for several kilometres, but that was utterly beyond Kishō as he was now. A few metres was his limit at best.

The art of walking on water was exactly what it sounded like: a technique for walking over the surface of water. It demanded delicate control of [Ki], and although he had trained at it since childhood, he had never succeeded even once. It was not the sort of thing one mastered in a day or two.

Both were techniques that had come up as a matter of course in stories of his mother’s past.

“Mom already had these mastered when she was still a student. This is probably where the gap in ability between us really shows.”

“Mother-in-law said that because human blood is mixed into you, your awakening has simply been delayed. But once you do awaken, she believes there will no longer be any handicap.”

If Kishō had been a pureblood dragonkin, then perhaps he would have awakened much earlier and mastered Breath.

If that had happened, perhaps he might have enjoyed a peaceful academy life instead of being looked down on.

But now, such assumptions no longer mattered. They meant nothing.

What mattered was the result before his eyes.

“The reason this awakening came faster, too, was because meeting you became the trigger. It started with the battle against the Tempest Turtle, then I fought you in your serious mode while Eleshia was controlling you, and it even led all the way to my duel with Unran. Going through a string of battles against absurdly strong opponents like that… yeah, I got a crazy amount of experience this past year. That’s why my level shot up all at once.”

None of those events could have happened if he had never met Princess-sama.

If Princess-sama had not transferred into the Lower House, Eleshia would never have moved, and in the same way, he would never have had the chance to duel Unran.

If he had never met Princess-sama…

Kishō would surely still be the same as he had been back then, smouldering away in the Lower House.

“I’m really glad I got to meet you.”

“It was fate. We were bound to be joined because we were meant to be joined. And you will become one of the great kings, surround yourself with many women, and leave behind excellent descendants. I am sure your name will remain in history as well.”

“I can’t agree with the harem part in the second half, though…”

It would be a problem if he went down in history as the man who had left behind the largest number of descendants.

“Still… yeah. If I have your support from here on too, I feel like I can overcome any difficult stretch.”

Because Princess-sama’s command was always so perfect it made him fall in love with her all over again.

If he stayed with Princess-sama from here on, then there was probably nothing to worry about.

Once more, he drove a straight punch into the morning dew.

CRACK!

The air burst apart. It was no fluke. He was controlling Lightning Ki consciously now.

It was a sensation he had not possessed until only a few months ago.

His strength was growing steadily, and by leaps and bounds.

When he reached the highest point of [Ki], would he gain yet another new sensation?

What kind of landscape did his mother see?

When he reached the same realm, Kishō too should be able to see it.