30 Years After Reincarnating, It Turns Out This World Was A Rofan?! novel Chapter 77

"Alright, here’s how you do it."

Ihan held a dagger and gracefully swung it.

Swish.

—At the tip of the blade, flower petals bloomed in full.

The cadets gazed at the beautiful petals, wide-eyed with awe. They verified that it was just an ordinary dagger, not some enchanted item, yet the petals were blooming. It was a moment of pure, storybook-like magic.

The "chicks" looked on with wide, starry eyes like girls caught up in a fairytale, while the "teddy bears" and "young masters" recalled tales of heroic knights shared by bards in their lands, stirring a sense of longing from their childhoods.

Not only did he scatter petals with his blade, but he used them as a means of attack...

Wasn’t this a technique worthy of knights from the ballads?

The petals drifted down to the dirt floor, melting away like snowflakes. Yet, where they melted, the ground was left with petal-shaped indentations, showing not just beauty but remarkable power.

The boys and girls looked at the Plum Blossom Swordsmanship with admiration.

"Wow, how is something like that even possible?"

"It’s beautiful...!"

"Please, show us again!"

They clamored for an encore.

"...Can you guys give it a rest?"

It was the tenth encore, and Ihan was getting exhausted. As simple as it looked, the technique consumed a tremendous amount of energy. Yet the audience rarely considers how much effort the performer is putting in.

"Ah, just one more time, please?"

"...Sigh."

He couldn't bring himself to refuse the pleading eyes of these "chicks."

“Oh, what a life I have...”

Reluctantly, Ihan, now an unwilling entertainer, made the plum blossoms bloom once more with his sword.

‘Maybe I’d be a hit if I did street performances?’

It seemed Ihan was unwittingly blossoming a hidden talent for lucrative side gigs.

There was a reason Ihan was putting on this show.

"Ins-Instructor, c-could you teach us that technique?"

The cadets were eagerly pleading to learn the Plum Blossom Swordsmanship. Even the elite students, who’d claimed they only needed Aura Arts, couldn’t resist showing a bit of desire for it. The technique was just that captivating. After all,

‘Who can resist making plum blossoms bloom with a sword?’

Making flowers bloom with a sword and using it to attack? This was a swordsmanship that embodied all that was cool.

No wonder the Huashan Sect always seemed to star in his past life’s stories.

...However,

"Sorry, but I can’t teach this yet."

It wasn’t just a casual issue of traditional martial arts roots. The real problem was that this technique was incomplete; it wasn’t something he could teach yet.

An unfinished skill.

The Plum Blossom Swordsmanship was Ihan's unique, original technique, developed purely through his own senses and intuition. He hadn’t had the time to fully establish it in theory, and even he still found it far from perfect.

And beyond that...

"This thing drains too much energy when I use it."

If Loen’s swordsmanship the other day was an artistic creation formed by combining various skilled techniques, Ihan’s swordsmanship was simply a manifestation of raw sword power, fueled by his life force and weapon as collateral.

In other words, it was nothing more than a single-use skill.

Not only was it single-use, but it also came with considerable risks.

Using it meant losing the sword afterward, and everyone knew how devastating it was to lose one’s weapon in the middle of a battlefield.

And on top of that, an enormous wave of exhaustion followed every use...

‘If I’m like this, there’s no way they could handle it.’

Even he, with stamina ten times that of an average knight, found it overwhelming. If the students attempted it, who knew what kind of damage it might cause their bodies. Passing out might be the best-case scenario; it could very well threaten their lives.

So, while he was usually not stingy about teaching techniques, this time, he had no choice but to refuse.

After explaining his reasons thoroughly, the cadets seemed to understand, yet...

"Th-then! Could we at least watch it once?"

"P-please, let us see it!"

It seemed that, wherever you go, there’s always a concept of vicarious satisfaction.

Even if they couldn’t learn the Plum Blossom Swordsmanship immediately, they were desperate to see it, and Ihan couldn’t bring himself to refuse his attached students’ requests.

‘Maybe, like the old man said, I do have a soft spot?’ frёewebnoѵēl.com

And so, he put on a demonstration of the Plum Blossom Swordsmanship.

It wasn’t an all-out performance like when he fought the Demon King, so the dagger didn’t break easily, nor did he drain all his energy.

Unintentionally, it also served as a chance to practice the technique. By about the eighth demonstration, he was able to make the flowers bloom with just a light flick of his hand.

But with that newfound mastery...

"Ah, I’m dying..."

"Instructor, are you alright?! Here, please have some water and food!"

"...Thank you."

Finally exhausted, Ihan lay on the grass, recovering his strength with a drink and sandwiches brought to him by Irene Windler.

Watching Ihan like this, Irene Windler burst out,

"Wh-What are you all doing!? How could you make someone who suffered so much just yesterday go through this again?!"

"W-Well, we just..."

"Save your excuses!"

"...We haven’t even given any excuses yet."

She was a furious girl, leaving the cadets to lower their heads and sheepishly avoid her gaze.

Granted, it was Ihan who had enjoyed the practice session, leading to the current situation, but to a girl blinded by admiration, the other cadets were nothing short of villains.

The girl growled, and the cadets deflated even further.

Normally, Irene Windler’s growling was as adorable as a Pomeranian, but this time was different.

‘How can you go against someone who creates natural disasters with magic?’

‘That spell was terrifying.’

‘Better not offend her, or she might destroy our territories.’

They had all seen it.

The girl, who had seemed like nothing more than a fragile doll, had used magic to control an entire lake and even conjured a whirlwind that turned into a tornado.

Even though it was a small tornado, it had enough power to wipe out a mid-sized estate. That alone was enough reason to know not to provoke her.

They had grown close to her, but they were all suddenly reminded that Irene Windler, like Loen, was also a monstrous genius outside the norm.

"Don’t be too harsh on them. I also got a bit carried away myself with the demonstrations."

"Hmph."

However, Ihan, as if he were taming a wild creature, calmed her down as he sat up.

Though he still looked tired, he stood, determined to fulfill his role as their instructor.

"So, I assume you’ve seen enough to your heart’s content by now?"

"......"