If that instability arose from the shortness of time he had spent as a knight, it wouldn’t had been strange if Eugeo, for whom it had only been an hour since, exhibited more severe «symptoms» than Eldrie had, at the sight of Alice. And yet, Eugeo’s heart remained completely shut away before my eyes. If it wasn’t the memories of Alice that were pilfered, just who or what had Administrator removed from his— The sword skills’ luster vanished from the two crossed swords the moment I thought that far. Losing the momentum from the system assist, the white and black blades firmly rebounded from the recoil. Both Eugeo, with his facial expression still static, and I, with my teeth clenched tight, raised our swords high while the orange sparks still lingered. “Ooohh!” “…!” Our battle cries, both loud and silent, surged forth as we swung our swords diagonally down from the right in an utterly identical motion. Clashing, the repelled blades were next drawn into horizontal slashes from the right. Sliding the blade away when they entwined, I swung it diagonally down from the left. This, too, was met with firm resistance. Surprise overwhelmed me yet again even as we proceeded onto our second confrontation. The swords were of the same grade, but the wielders weren’t of the same condition. In contrast to the light clothing I wore, top and bottom, Eugeo was in thick plate armor. Despite being clad in equipment weighing several times mine, his slashes weren’t even a tenth of a second slower. Did becoming an integrity knight improve his strength or was it that «incarnation» thing at work, that which Alice spoke of right before the fight?