Published at 25th of August 2022 10:25 pm

Chapter 255: If You Know Your Enemy and You Know Yourself, Is It Not Kinda Dangerous to Fight One Hundred Battles? Part 1

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I take a step back. And then I take yet another step back, just to be on the safe side. The incoming attack is swept away, and the following counterattack is repelled without even breaking a sweat.

Yesterday I have come to a certain realization: trying to move away during this battle is generally a bad idea. However, even if it is a kind of a chore, it is still better than staying in place and getting myself a training dummy treatment. That way the AI can decimate me with at least minimum amount of effort.

The following observation is the result of me having faced the old man so many times in battle. The following is the result of me suffering defeat time after time. This AI old man here…… No, Ryuuguin Fugaku’s battle style is a result of combination of two distinct things.

[Go to hell, you stupid geezeeer!?]

The left bamboo sword shift sideways, aiming to the side of the incoming body. With the right bamboo sword I make a full power swing, convinced that this attack right now would be more than enough to bring me victory. However, the old man managed to avoid my attack by the teeth’s skin, and in the very next moment I was hit with the bamboo sword right in the center of the head and sank on to the floor as a result. I…… I just……

[I just can’t win at all……]

As I was saying, Ryuuguin Fugaku’s battle style was nothing overly complicated or impossible, just the combination of two distinct factors. First one was the ability of his to avoid any of the attacks that were coming his way with minimal amount of movement, by the margin so small that it would seem impossible for any layman who was watching. The second one was the way in which he was handling his own sword: it was short, precise, and devoid of any unnecessary movements, able to find its way towards the enemy’s vital points without fail. And it is so effective most probably because he managed to train those two things to their very limit thanks to rigorous training.

It is not even about raw strength. It is about the fact that even if you somehow managed to escape from one of those things, the other one would still be there to hunt you down. You could even compare that fighting style to a bomb that is going to explode no matter if you decide to cut the red cable or the blue cable. Something like that.

Therefore, what I tried to do is to see if I would be able to copy those exact moves and see if I will be able to pull off something even remotely similar. However, so far my attempts were to nothing. Faced with the pure perfection of sword-handling further enhanced by the data, my moves could not even pass up for a cheap imitation.

[That is not how a human being should move their body…… But I see that the dynamic vision and reflexes are the key elements here. Yours must have been simply monstrous……]

I could see it from all of my failed attempts at imitating it. This gimmick here was not simply about raw strength or anything like that. It was about the crystallization of pure madness, a manifestation of all the time, blood, tears and sweat that the actual sword master put into mastering those two elements and elevating them to a completely new heights.

But this is…… I don’t know why, but I don’t really like this feeling that I am getting here……

I know that some people would deny that or accept it with no complaints, but I myself really did not like it.

[…… “When I was young, my soul was like a raging fire, but right now whenever I fight, I am like a river, calm and steady”.]

Does that mean…… Oh yeah, so this means that every battle is not really a battle against your opponent, but rather a fight you wage against yourself, right?

There was one thing that my Grandfather once told to me that struck me as odd when I was younger.

[Whatever you choose to do in life, don’t ever become like me.]

And it really struck me as odd.

For the longest time I was wondering what was the meaning of his words from that time.

He was the strongest swordfighter in this entire country. No, that’s not it. For me, he seemed like the strongest swordfighter in the entire world! You are someone who every other swordsman aspire to be! So why would you ever say such a thing in the first place?

In the end, the Grandfather passed away before I was able to ask him about the meaning of his words. His was a long life, and we all wanted to believe that he lived it to the fullest, without having any regrets.

[………]

Last Boss…… Even as a creation of artificial intelligence, his strength in kendo was still the real thing, if it was not even stronger.

If it was not in the game world but in the real world, there is no way that I could adjust the work of my feet like that so fast. But inside of the game world, it was all surprisingly easy to achieve.

[Haah……]

I do not think that this Traced AI is better or stronger than the person it was based upon. In the first place, the AI was modeled after a living being, and since the AI can’t learn anything on its own, there is no way that it would be able to surpass the skills of the person it was modeled after.

But still, it is also part of the reason why my disappointment was so great here.

This “VR Kendo Classroom” was something that I happened to acquire by complete accident. My Grandmother gave it to me when she was organizing Grandfather’s belongings, and said that this was actually meant to be a birthday present for me. I played the game with my heart beating so fast and with great expectations, but in the end all that I could feel was overwhelming disappointment.

I see, this digital dojo…… I see, this is an excellent practice tool for novices. I understood that much, but why would even Grandfather let this game use his image and mind? And why would he want to give this game to me? Especially since it was supposed to be given to me by the person regarded as the “Strongest Swordmaster in Japan”?

[Why didn’t you wanted me to become like you……?]

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