Chapter 05 His Battle Face is a whole Different Level of Handsome

Leon had been watching closely. His sharp hero’s eyes hadn’t missed a thing. "She’s… physically strong. To generate that much force with a training sword… you need a lot of effort. But he’s right. There was no holy power transfer. Not even the basic infusion we teach on day one. It was not a Holy Slash. It was purely a physical feat."

Yet, even as he identified the lack of holy magic, another sensation asserted itself, the same one he’d felt in the park. A subtle, almost gravitational pull when he stood near her.

"Although... I'm curious. Molly Moriana. You're nervous, yet capable of that display. And you are… surrounded by this strange allure I cannot define. I get that feeling again when I’m near her… like some power is slowly, unnoticeably pulling me toward her. It’s not hostile. It’s just… What is that feeling?"

A protective instinct rose within him. She was a new student, clearly in over her head, being unfairly targeted. 

"She’s interesting. I would like to know more about her. And right now, she’s in a difficult spot. Maybe I should help her out."

“No,” Leon stated, stepping forward. All eyes turned to him. “It wasn’t just air pressure. I saw it. A small trace of holy power. Faint, but present. She simply needs more training to bring it out fully. Like every new student here once did. I can vouch for her.”

Cedric sighed gesturing with open hands, as if appealing to the crowd’s logic.

“With all due respect, Champion Leon… are we all seeing the same thing here? I’m not trying to be the villain. I’m just stating facts. There was no holy energy. Zero. And forgive me for saying so, but should we be taking vouching lessons from you right now? You’ve challenged the Demon Lord… what, seven times now over the summer break? And you’ve returned empty-handed every single time. Some are even starting to call you the ‘Losing Hero’ behind your back.”

A horrified gasp went through the students.

Cedric continued, “If you can’t even recognize a complete lack of holy magic… maybe your judgment isn’t what it used to be. Maybe you’re not as strong as everyone thinks. Maybe you’re just pretending to be strong.”

The yard fell into a silence.

Leon’s expression didn’t change. The earnest kindness didn’t leave his eyes. He simply looked at Cedric with understanding.

“I see. You question my strength. My judgment. You believe the results of my missions, which are more complex than a tally of wins and losses, invalidate my perception here. A fair point, from a certain perspective. Fine, let's put my skills to a test then.”

He unclipped the practice longsword from his belt.

“Would you like to test if I'm worthy to judge other people's skills? We can have a spar. Right here. Right now. If my judgment is so clouded, and my strength so lacking, it should be an easy match for you. What do you say?”

Cedric’s confidents faltered for just a second. He’d wanted to expose the new girl, not pick a fight with the kingdom’s official Champion. But the gauntlet had been thrown in front of everyone. Backing down now would be worse.

He swallowed, then forced a confident nod, drawing his sword. “Fine. A spar. First touch.”

Molly watched, wide-eyed, the holy sword still planted in the dirt before her. "Oh my. I get to see hero fight. And now he’s gonna fight because of me. This is… kind of hot? NO! Bad demon! This is a crisis! A hot, sweaty, potentially violent crisis!"

Students scrambled back, forming a wide circle. Professor Hemsley looked like he was contemplating retirement on the spot. Molly stood frozen, her hand still on the hilt of her planted sword, her heart hammering.

Leon and Cedric faced each other in the center, ten paces apart. Cedric fell into a textbook-perfect dueling stance, feet shoulder-width, blade held high and forward. He looked every bit the part of a promising academy prodigy.

Leon simply stood. He held his practice sword loosely at his side, his posture relaxed. There was no flashy stance, no dramatic aura. He just waited.

“Begin!” Hemsley shouted.

Cedric exploded forward. His form was excellent, a quick, sharp lunge aimed straight for Leon’s shoulder.

Leon took a single, smooth step to the side, just enough for Cedric’s blade to whisper past his uniform. In the same motion, as Cedric’s momentum carried him forward, Leon’s own sword came up in a gentle, almost casual upward arc.

Cedric’s perfect lunge ended with him stumbling two steps past Leon, his hands empty. He stared at them, dumbfounded. His sword was still spinning through the air where Leon had been standing, before it landed point-first in the soft dirt.

The entire exchange had taken less than two seconds. Students just saw him charge, heard a clack, and now he was standing there, disarmed. Most of them were blinking, their brains trying to play catch-up. A low, confused murmur started to ripple through the crowd.

“Wait, what just happened?”
“Cedric charged… there was a sound… and now his sword is over there?”
“Did… did he parry?”
“I didn’t see anything!”
“Cedric just… dropped it?”
“No way, Leon must’ve done something…”

The exchange had been too fast, too clean for their eyes. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Leon's lips before he turned back to his opponent.

Cedric was still staring at his empty hands, his face pale with shock.

Leon walked over, bent down, and pulled Cedric’s practice sword from the ground. He offered it back, hilt-first.

“Your form is excellent. Your lunge was fast and direct. A commendable attack.”

Molly's jaw went slack. Her sparkling, glossed lips formed a perfect, shocked ‘O.’ Her hands, which had been wringing the hem of her uniform, flew up to cover her mouth.

“Whoa… he just… he flicked it. He didn’t even swing. He just, like, flicked his wrist and popped the sword right out of his hands. That’s so… crazy.”

Every head, including Leon’s, turned towards Molly.

"What? I may have held back but I moved way past what could a beginner see. But she was able to see my moves. Miss Molly Moriana, you're more capable than I gave credit. Interesting, maybe I should try something." 

“Now that the serious duel is over, I find I still have time for one more. How about it, Miss Molly Moriana? Would you grant me the honor of a friendly duel? A simple training session between… acquaintances.”

He gave her that small, charming, reassuring smile. “Be assured, I will not go all out as the situation required with Mister Cedric. Just light sparring. A workout, nothing more.”

The student body held its collective breath. Professor Hemsley looked like he was about to have a holy stroke.

Molly's mouth moved before her sense of self-preservation could engage.

“Y-Yeah! Sure! Totally! A light workout! Let’s do it!” she said, pulling the holy sword from the dirt.

  “Oh, my dark lords, what am I DOING?! I just agreed to fight the HERO! In front of everyone! This is like totally bad; this is a tragedy waiting to happen! Kyaaaaa!”

“Excellent,” Leon thought, “she accepted my challenge. Now, I can get a proper sense of her. Her strange strength, that peculiar magnetic feeling when I’m near her… a friendly spar is the perfect way to observe without raising suspicion. I can guide her, see where her true capabilities lie. And perhaps… understand why I can’t seem to stop thinking about her.”

She fell into what she hoped was a passable stance. Leon was looking directly at her, his practice sword held lightly at his side, a gentle smile on his lips.

The stage was set. Not for a battle of good and evil, but for something far more dangerous: a demon lord’s daughter trying to impress her crush without revealing she could probably bench-press the castle he kept trying to storm.

Leon’s eyes, trained by years of life-or-death battles, looked over Molly’s stance the moment she raised her sword. His warm, encouraging smile remained, but internally, his focus was all on her.

"Her stance is… off. Nothing like any knight I know. She’s holding the longsword like a standard grip, but her center of gravity is lower and more rooted than a novice’s should be. There’s a slight, aggressive forward lean in her posture, as if she’s bracing to receive or deliver a much heavier impact. Her foot placement isn’t the balanced, mobile triangle we teach; it’s a wider, more stable stance, almost like… it's the stance of someone used to wielding a weapon with immense mass. A great axe. A maul. Or…"

The memory flashed. The towering silhouette of the Demon Lord in the gloom of his throne room, holding his infamous weapon, the 'Worldender', a colossal slab of dark-forged mithril. Almost the same power stance. 

"Okay, focus, Molly! You can do this! Just… need to act like novice. Be totally on defense. Basic stuff!" She gave the holy longsword an experimental little wiggle. "You know… for a holy sword, this thing is actually kinda nice to hold. So light! And the handle is, like, the perfect size for my hand. Isn't that's crazy? It’s actually totally cute!"

Her mind flashed to her 'training' back home. "Ugh, nothing like swinging around those gloomy, ugly slabs of spiky obsidian-and-mithril. They were bigger than me! And so not cute, totally not cute. All they did was mess up my nails and give me muscles in places a gyaru should not have muscles! This is way better. It’s like holding a fancy metal straw compared to a whole tree trunk."

Leon saw her little wiggle. He misinterpreted it completely.

"She’s nervous. The sword is trembling. She must be intimidated. I should be gentle and encouraging."

“Relax, Lady Moriana. There’s no pressure. This is just practice. Let’s begin with a simple exchange. I’ll execute a slow, diagonal cut from your right. Please try to parry it. Ready?”

His expression shifted. The gentle, encouraging smile smoothed away. His azure eyes focused taking in every detail. It was the face of Luminere’s Champion, the Hero who faced the Demon Lord.

"Whoa. Hold on. KYAAAAA! His… his battle face! It’s… it’s a whole different level of handsome! It’s all serious and... and… and super-hot! This is what Dad gets to see every week?! This is the view from across the battlefield?! All this time?! 

I’ve been such an idiot! All these years, whenever the castle alarms went off and Dad grumbled about the hero, I just rolled my eyes, put on my noise-cancelling cuteness headphones, and stayed in my room doing my makeup when I could have been watching this!? I could have had a front-row seat to this!?"