Earth's SSS Pornstar to SSS Combat God in Another World-Chapter 4: The Burdens Left by the Original Joji

Joji took a single gulp straight from the pitcher. Water sloshed down his throat and sat cold in his belly.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, set the pitcher down, and reached for another practice sword.

Head knight Gregorius watched him with cold eyes and motioned the next man forward.

"Gawain of Everhart. No surname," the man said impatiently.

"Sir Joji of..." Joji began.

Gawain did not let Joji finish. He lunged so fast it looked like he vanished in thin air.

In the space of a blink, the blunt tip training sword was pressed to Joji’s chest.

Joji’s breath caught. His arms were still moving into guard when the strike landed.

Joji’s boots left the ground. The impact threw him backward. He flew a dozen meters before he hit, then rolled half a dozen more.

His shoulder and hip scraping dirt, until the momentum bled out and left him sprawled.

"Missed start," Gregorius said flatly.

Joji sucked air like he had been punched by a rushing bison.

His head still rattled, and the soldiers around him seemed to come in twos and threes.

He clawed at the air, wanting to see if at least that still counted.

{Measure of Completion: 2 of 100}

A sound burst out of him before he could stop it. A snort that nearly became laughter.

That was all it took. The knights stiffened, faces darkening.

"Audacious. You presume to laugh."

"He spits upon our honor."

"End this farce. He makes spectacle of us."

Gregorius did not move with them. His eyes narrowed, studying Joji without giving out impulsive judgement.

He knew men with swords. He knew men with magic. He also knew men who used frowns and smiles as weapons.

That squint in Joji’s eyes held no mockery. It held something else. Triumph.

Gregorius had watched Joji grow. The boy had never been one to laugh at the weak.

He had fought for them, even when it earned him bruises and scolding.

He watched his own gestures, as if reading something in the air. He might be visualizing a technique, turning over his mistake. He was certain that was what it was.

So the Head Knight raised his hands, making the knights wonder what had changed his mind.

Joji lay there for a few breaths, then he pushed himself up. He raised a hand and pointed toward the edge of the platform.

"Yeah, this one’s yours, Sir Gawain. Take the win."

Gregorius drew breath to speak, but Joji lifted his hand again, cutting him off with the confidence.

"In a real fight, do you even get a breath before you’re jumped and you gotta draw steel? Sir Gawain, your feel for it, yeah, that’s real. Appreciate you setting me straight."

Joji looked at Gregorius, and something passed in that glance. Gregorius understood the intention and called the next man at once.

"Next. Alaric. Come forth."

He did not let the yard answer him. He did not let anyone start the gossip that would sour morale into spite.

Even if the system only told him to fight the knights, Joji knew these were real people, not NPCs in a game he could assess with numbers alone.

A knight stepped forward and gave his name.

"Alaric of Sins Crossroads."

The words stung Joji’s chest. Not the bruise. Something deeper.

A buried ache that was not his. Fire. Screams. Men and women running through smoke.

Above it all, a father standing tall with a wild grin, facing stones falling from the sky.

"Father. Father! Father..."

Joji blinked and the yard returned. Dust. Steel. Sunlight. The ring of armor. The taste of blood in his mouth.

His determination braided itself with the original Joji’s in a tight hard cord.

"Joji of Sins Crossroads," he said, and the name came out with more honor than he had given it before.

Alaric’s aura rose, pale green, like a gale wound tight. The Everhart Wings of Wind Arts, the same arts that made the Everhart knights well known.

Joji felt a sharp twist of shame. The old Joji did not disdain the art. He had been rather fond of it even.

Seeing his childhood friend wield the Arts of another made him feel he had failed as a Sins.

It was not the way of the Sins Family. An art both of them should have shared.

’What’s going on with me? Is this, like, the original Joji’s regret hitting me?’

"Joji. Focus," Alaric snapped.

The call yanked Joji back into his body.

Alaric struck. Slower than Gawain, kinder in intent, but still hard enough to drive Joji three steps back.

Their blades met. Iron sang its tune. Aura hissed along the edges.

They exchanged blows without rushing for decisive strikes.

It was a fight meant to teach, not end. Around them, the other knights began to see it.

Crispin and Gawain stood with tight faces. Shame showed in their eyes now, not because they had won, but because they had robbed Joji of the chance to learn in the first two bouts.

As the sparring intensified, Joji tried to push the aura blade harder, but faltered. It shivered at the wrong moment.

Alaric swept. Joji’s practice blade flew and clanged on the stone floor. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Joji braced with his forearms. Something cracked.

He went flying into the sword racks. Wood cracked. Practice blades clattered down like rain.

Joji winced with pain, but he did not curse. He did not glare.

He rose, bowed, and kept his voice steady.

"Thank you for your guidance, Sir Alaric."

Joji knelt and began to set the fallen swords back in order, arms working through pain, stacking the weapons neat.

When the rack looked right again, he took a fresh practice sword and stood tall.

The bouts did not stop. By afternoon, he had fought more than thirty knights.

His body paid for each one. His face swelled in places. His left eye purpled shut halfway. His right cheek turned maroon with the print of a fist.

His palms rubbed raw from grips and sweat, and the sword handles took on a rusty stain where his blood mixed with dust.

Above the yard, Duchess Rosalind Everhart watched from the shade for a long while, her expression unreadable.

Daisy stood beside her, eyes wet, hands clutching her mother’s sleeve like a child holding the edge of a cliff.

"Mother," Daisy whispered, "please... let us end this madness, now, before it goes any further."

Rosalind did not look away from the yard. Not from Joji. Not from the way he kept rising.

"Tell me, Daisy," she said softly. "If the thing you wanted most were set before you, near enough to touch, would you let it go?"

Daisy opened her mouth, then closed it. She wanted to protest. She wanted to run down and drag Joji out of the training grounds. She wanted to stop watching him suffer.

She could not. Not with her mother’s eyes on her.

Joji, on the practice arena below, felt like he might die.

At the end of the day, he was still human. Bone bruised. Lungs burning. Vision swimming whenever he turned too fast.

Yet the system kept ticking, inhuman and calm, and he did not dare slow.

Not when he still needed time to recover before facing Daisy, and even that felt like a gamble.

{Measure of Completion: 38 of 100}

{Time’s bound: Two sunrises and three nights.}