Chapter 1.1 - 100 Million Years Button and Prison of Time [1] – part 1 (1/2)

100 Million Years Button and Prison of Time [1] – part 1

Allen Rodore. 15 years old.

I… did not have the talent for the sword. To the point where I felt pathetic.

Nevertheless, I kept swinging the sword day in and day out.

I single-mindedly kept swinging the sword many times more than anyone else, and much longer than anyone else.

Because my mother always said ーー 『Effort will surely bear fruit』.

Mother raised me all on her own.

My father seems to have died of an epidemic when I was a baby. I heard that he was a sincere and honest person, but I don’t even remember his face thus I wasn’t attached to him. It seems that I got my sharp eyes from my mother and the pitch black hair from my father.

I don’t remember much from my childhood, but I remembered that my mother worked herself to the bone everyday for my sake.

The enrollment fee and tuition fee of the Gran Swordsmanship Academy I am attending now, are the wages my mom saved and managed carefully year after year.

So even if I was scorned as the 「Failed Swordsman」 at the academy, even when I was bullied by my classmates, even when I was treated as a burden by my teacher – I kept swinging my sword every day, no matter how painful.

I will put in ten fold the amount of effort more than anyone and become a splendid swordsman.

And I will give an easy life to my mother who has struggled so far.

ーWith that in mind, I’ve been doing my best at the Swordsmanship Academy.

All that effort will be for naught come tomorrow.

The trigger was … today at dusk.

While I was swinging the sword alone in the schoolyard as usual, Dodriel Barton appeared accompanied by two girls.

Dodriel Barton.

The eldest son of the House of Baron Barton, with his conspicuous blue hair trailing behind his back.

I abhor this guy.

Because he always scorned me as 「Failed Swordsman」and bullied me.

Usually I would pretend not to hear and pass off his snide remarks.

Today however, he said something I absolutely couldn’t forgive.

「Take back your words…!」

「Oi oi… Don’t get so angry over the truth, Allen. If the child is trash, then the parent must also be trash, right? There is nothing weird about that…」

「Dodriel, you…!」

I got enraged and grabbed onto his collars.

「Tch… how dare you touch me with your filthy hands! You lowly failed swordsman!」

He kicked me in the stomach.

Despite being a child as well, I was blown away due to the difference in our strength.

I disgracefully fell on my butt, but immediately stood back up and scowled at him.

「I certainly might be a talentless trash…. But I won’t let you call my mother trash!」

Dodriel shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

The two girls laughed at me while I shouted.

「Hah… A frog’s child is called a frog, right? Of course the parent of trash like you is trash too. It has been decided so since a long ago」

Dodriel ridiculed as though feeling pity for me from the bottom of his heart.

「Y-You…!」

With the blood running to my head, I pulled out the sword fastened at my hips.

「Oi Oi, are you sure? Anymore than that would be a violation of the academy rules, you know?」

「Tch…」

Private battle using swords between students are prohibited by academy rules.

Breaking this will result in severe penalties such as suspension or expulsion.

If I, who am at the bottom of this academy were to do this … I’ll definitely be expelled.

「…Then! Dodriel Barton… I challenge you to a duel!」

「Heh… The eternal failed swordsman against the highest genius swordsman of this academy…?」

「Yeah! If I win, you will take back those words from before!」

「Aha! Amusing… how amusing, Allen! If you were to win, I will take back my words from before! I’ll even bow my head or anything else you want! ーhowever, if you were to lose-」

He cut off his words there, and his lips curled into repulsive smirk.

「…If I were to lose?」

「Let’s see… you must quit this academy on the spot」

「Wha-!?」

The condition that Dodriel proposed was preposterous.

「Obviously… In a duel, both parties have to face off on equal terms. Don’t you know that?」

「Yeah! I know! But this is unbalanced! 」

On one hand, withdrawal of remarks and on the other, dropping out of academy.

These aren’t equal terms.

「Oi oi, don’t misunderstand, Failed Swordsman-san? You dropping out of academy doesn’t hold that much value. Or more precisely, you yourself don’t hold that much value in the first place?」

「……」

It’s frustrating but… it is as he says.