Chapter 313: Edelweiss: Damn It, Are You Listening?!
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Bzz—!
Bzz, bzz—!
Bzzzz—!
Bzz-bzz, bzzzz—!
Bzzzz~~
Crack—!
Edelweiss crushed the cup in her hand into powder.
At this moment, she had already left the meditation room, because Luke's messing around had made it impossible for her to calm her mind and continue her meditation.
With a dark expression, Edelweiss swept the shattered pieces of the cup into the trash.
Then she stood up, walked to the side, and took out another cup, preparing to pour herself another glass of water.
However…
Bzz—!
"…#"
Looking at the hot water she had accidentally spilled onto her hand, Edelweiss had to use quite a lot of effort to finally suppress the anger in her heart.
At the very least, she managed to stop this second cup from ending up like the first one.
Bzzzz~~
Crack—!
"…###"
Logically speaking, the disturbance caused when the Rule of Grace was triggered was not actually that intense.
It should not have had such a huge impact on Edelweiss.
However, no matter how small the disturbance was, it could not withstand sheer quantity.
In just this short period of time, Luke had triggered the Rule of Grace dozens of times.
This was different from sound entering her ears from the outside world.
Edelweiss's perception of this ability came from her Device, the manifestation of her soul.
Every time the ability was touched, that sensation came directly from her mind and soul.
That made it impossible for her to ignore it. She could only passively endure it.
Of course, this was also related to Edelweiss's own lack of mastery.
As mentioned before, Edelweiss did not pay much attention to her ability as a Blazer.
She had never properly developed her "contract" ability.
All that time had been spent practicing the sword instead.
The Noble Art known as Rule of Grace was nothing more than a simple, basic application of that ability.
Because of that, she could not unilaterally block this sensation.
The foundation of the ability "contract" was fairness and justice.
Before this ability, Edelweiss, as the user, and Luke, as the recipient, were equal.
Neither side could interfere with an ability that had already begun operating.
If she wanted to unilaterally block the sensation, Edelweiss would only be able to do so after deeply developing her ability.
Edelweiss herself actually knew about this flaw.
But before this, she had never truly considered that sensation a "flaw."
Quite the opposite.
In Edelweiss's understanding, being able to sense whether the Rule of Grace had been triggered was actually quite convenient.
Who could have imagined that someone would be so bored as to use her ability to tease her for fun?
Normal people would never do something like this, all right?!
No matter how one looked at it, this was playing with his life. Could he at least take it seriously?!
Triggering the Rule of Grace was basically the same as approaching death.
Although Edelweiss rarely used this ability, she had used it before, and only after testing it in various ways had she always used it with such confidence.
This ability also worked on Edelweiss herself.
She had personally experienced that feeling of danger suddenly descending.
The feeling of unavoidable death walking toward you was, honestly, truly unpleasant.
Even Edelweiss, who did not fear death, did not want to try it a second time unless necessary.
Even Twin-Wings was like this, let alone anyone else.
There were many people who did not fear death.
There were also people who danced with death.
But what was the deal with someone actively inviting death when there was nothing going on?
Edelweiss completely could not understand Luke's thought process.
This could not really be blamed on her.
Normal people truly would not do this, because it really was courting death.
With one small mistake, his heart would be crushed by the power of causality.
No matter how powerful someone was, losing their heart meant death.
That was common sense in this world, and Edelweiss had completed this Noble Art based on that fact.
Naturally, causality-interference abilities were not limited to only crushing the heart.
However, in Edelweiss's view, crushing the heart was already more than enough as the price of breaking the restraint.
Even Luke probably would not have played around this recklessly if this ability would truly cause him unavoidable death.
But the problem was that Luke would not die even if he lost his heart.
If anyone else did this, one careless mistake would mean facing death.
But if Luke did it, one careless mistake would at most leave him heavily injured.
And training where one careless mistake could lead to heavy injuries was something Luke had experienced more than once.
Forget everything else, his previous gravity training with Nene had been exactly like that.
This kind of training was something Luke could not ask for more of.
The more dangerous the training was, the more helpful it was for his growth.
And so, Edelweiss was the one who suffered.
Being tormented by someone through her own ability was honestly a rather novel experience.
There were probably very few people in the entire world who had ever experienced something this strange.
But if possible, Edelweiss did not want this experience at all.
In the days that followed, whenever Luke had free time, he would use the Rule of Grace to tease Edelweiss's mind.
The worst part was that the timing was completely random.
Early morning…
Bzz—!
Edelweiss woke up from the sensation.
While eating…
Bzz—!
Edelweiss nearly choked mid-meal.
While practicing swordsmanship, while resting, while making desserts, while meditating, while bathing… even when she was—
In the bathroom…
Bzz—!
"######"
"L!U!K!E!"
"You just wait!!!"
Driven almost mad with rage, Edelweiss made up her mind to properly develop her ability.
If Luke continued tormenting her like this, she felt she might suffer a nervous breakdown.
Over the past few days, the only thing that could be considered good news was that Edelweiss had suddenly lost several pounds.
For a girl who cared about beauty, successfully losing weight would usually be something to be happy about.
However, at this moment, Edelweiss, who stood barefoot on the scale, had very complicated feelings.
…
Leaving Edelweiss's situation aside for now, time returned to the dinner when Luke Ashburn first met Shinomiya Amane.
Although Luke had ignored everyone else and immersed himself in teasing Edelweiss, "everyone else" had no intention of ignoring him.
Especially Shinomiya Amane.
His primary target was indeed Ikki.
The reason Ikki had gotten lost and happened to meet Amane earlier was the result of Amane activating his ability.
But there was one thing that Amane found strange.
In truth, the target of his ability had not been Ikki alone. Luke had also been included.
In his imagination, he should have coincidentally encountered both Ikki and Luke one after another.
'That's strange. Could it be that my ability doesn't work on the Falling Star Sword Emperor?'
'No… how is that possible? My ability is absolute.'
'…Maybe Ikki was just a little more important. After all, the Falling Star Sword Emperor was only included incidentally. Perhaps I'm actually not that interested in him deep down?'
…
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