Chapter 65 - < Why Must I Do That? >

She wanted him to teach her swordsmanship.

Raikal had only just woken, but those words brought him fully alert.

Raikal had loved swords since childhood. Even before his mercenary father began teaching him, merely watching his father and his comrades swing their swords had given him a vague understanding of how to use one.

From the childhood days when he first took up a toy sword to play at sword fighting with other children, to the present, when he was known as the Sword Demon, he had loved swords more than anything in the world. Nothing pleased him more than swinging one.

“Swordsmanship... swordsmanship?”

Raikal sat up in bed and stared at the little elf.

He had picked her up at a slave market about a month ago.

He had not visited the slave market because he needed slaves.

Slave markets were fairly common in this age of war, but the one he had visited a month earlier ranked among the three largest on the continent. Ordinary humans were only the beginning. It boasted young ladies and sons of fallen noble houses, Demons from across the sea, Beastfolk and Orcs involved in liberation movements, and even rare elves.

Running a market like that took power as well as money. Its owner had once led a notorious band of brigands, and he surrounded himself with plenty of hired knights.

Raikal had gone neither to buy slaves nor to free them out of pity. He had simply heard that the man was strong and wanted to fight him.

As it turned out, he killed the owner, killed the knights guarding him, killed a great many others, and brought the market crashing down. The money he acquired was far too much to carry away, so he ended up handing it out more or less at random to the freed slaves and sending them on their way.

“Helenas.”

Scratching his head vigorously, Raikal called the little elf’s name. She had been the only elf child at the slave market.

He did not know her age. Age was a largely meaningless number to long-lived elves anyway, and he had no particular desire to confirm that this child, who looked about ten, might actually be older than he was.

“You want to learn swordsmanship? Are you serious?”

“Yes. I am serious.”

Helenas raised the sword in her hand as she spoke. It was a real sword, not a wooden one. He did not ask where she had gotten it. There were always swords lying around him.

“Why a sword? I’ve never seen an elf swordsman in my life.”

It was exceedingly rare, but he had encountered elves on the battlefield. Those he had seen had been mages or spirit practitioners, never swordsmen.

“Raikal. Just because you have never seen one does not mean elf swordsmen do not exist.”

“Hmm... You might have a point.”

Raikal nodded and got out of bed. Teach me swordsmanship. He had been hearing that a great deal lately, and he did not dislike the request. After all, he himself had learned from his father as a child, and had learned plenty on the battlefield too. Of course, those he had taken as his teachers on the battlefield had probably never considered him their pupil.

“Follow me.”

Taking Fenris from beside his bed, he left the cabin.

It was nearing twenty years since he had begun wandering the world with this one pitch-black sword. For most of that time, Raikal had lived without a fixed home, going wherever his feet took him, following rumors of battles toward places thick with the metallic reek of steel and blood.

Recently, though, he had done something resembling settling down. Too many people had started following him around. No matter how often he shook them off, they came trailing after him again. There was nothing he could do.

Having wandered for decades, he had also thought he might take it easy for a few years. The wars had dragged on for so long that even large battles had grown rare. The world was now adapting to war.

“Sir Raikal, you’re awake?”

“Boss! How about a spar to celebrate getting up?”

Raikal gave cursory replies to the voices around him, then led Helenas to a suitable clearing and stopped.

“Never thought I’d live to see the day I taught an elf swordsmanship.”

He grinned and raised Fenris. There was a novel pleasure in teaching the sword to an elf, a creature for whom a life spanning centuries was nothing unusual.

To get straight to the point, Helenas had absolutely no talent for swordsmanship.

She was so bad that she could not properly cut downward, cut upward, thrust forward, or even slash sideways.

Because she did not understand why she should.

“Why must I do that?”

Helenas asked the question with her real sword in hand.

“I do not understand. There is no need to go to such trouble. If that person is fated to die, they will die on their own. Why must I cut them with a sword?”

“Because a sword is how you kill someone now instead of waiting for them to die someday. You said you wanted to learn swordsmanship, didn’t you? Then you need to know how to end the fate of whoever stands in front of you. By cutting the bastard’s head off with your sword.”

“Why must I kill them now? Death is part of the natural order and will come in the end. What reason do I have to hasten that order by swinging this lump of metal, this sword?”

Helenas tilted her head, looking genuinely bewildered.

“You! Said! You wanted to learn swordsmanship!”

Raikal pounded his chest in frustration, but Helenas’s expression did not change.

“I want to learn swordsmanship, not killing.”

“Killing people! Is what! Swordsmanship is!”

“Ah, I see. A sword is for killing someone. Learning swordsmanship means learning how to kill someone. I understand a little now.”

“A little...? A little? Is my explanation that hard? Is what I just said something you can understand a little or a lot?”

“By saying I understand a little, I mean I do not yet understand the rest.”

“What rest?”

“If a sword is for killing someone, is killing all there is to the sword? Do you wield your sword solely to kill?”

Raikal could not answer at once. He sank into thought.

At its core, a sword was a weapon for killing people.

‘So was killing people what I liked?’

No. When he first swung a sword, there had been no one in front of him he needed to kill.

He had simply liked swords. He had liked swinging them. That was all.

“Raikal. Why do you not answer?”

“Quiet. Let me think.”

Raikal put his sword down and plopped onto the ground. Helenas tilted her head, then knelt neatly before him.

“Raikal. Please teach me swordsmanship. You said you would.”

“I did.”

“I want to learn swordsmanship.”

“I know.”

“You are the finest swordsman I know. Yet you cannot explain to me what the sword is.”

“What do you mean, I can’t explain it? I explained. You just didn’t understand.”

“Am I stupid?”

“You’re smart rather than stupid. In a strange way. We don’t quite think along the same lines.”

Raikal scratched his head.

“Why do you want to learn swordsmanship?”

“Because I want to learn it.”

“That... what was it? Fate? Is that why?”

“Yes.”

Helenas’s clear eyes looked straight up at him.

“When I first saw your sword, fate took hold of me. As I said earlier, fate is not something elves choose. It is something that takes hold of us. Watching you wield your sword captivated me.”

“...”

“You cut down the guards beyond the bars then. But it was not their deaths that captivated me. It was your sword itself.”

Helenas tilted her head and asked,

“Raikal. You do not wield your sword solely to kill someone. Is that not so?”

Raikal looked down at Helenas for a long while. He did not wield a sword solely to kill. He wielded it because he liked swords, because they were fun.

The trouble was, swinging a sword alone was less fun. A sword was most enjoyable when used for its intended purpose. Swing it to kill someone, and that person would swing their own sword back to keep from dying.

“I don’t like murder. In fact, I hate killing weak people who aren’t armed. But I do like killing strong opponents. No, that’s not quite right either. It’s not killing them I like. I like testing myself against them. I just end up killing them in the process.”

“Then is it all right not to kill your opponent?”

“Depends on the opponent.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some people get so bitter about losing, so pissed off that they weren’t killed, that they get stronger. I’m like that too.”

“Pissed off? What does that mean?”

“It means fucking angry.”

“They ought to be grateful they survived. Why are they fucking angry?”

“Some people find it humiliating. So do I. I like people like that.”

“Hmm...”

Helenas tilted her head, and frustration welled up in Raikal’s chest once again. The elf could not understand something a human would have grasped immediately.

“Are all elves like you?”

“I do not know. I have never met an elf other than my mother.”

“Oh, um, sorry.”

Helenas’s mother had died fighting the slavers. At Raikal’s apology, Helenas gave a faint smile.

“I like that side of you.”

Elves had muted emotions.

Not nonexistent ones. Elves had their likes and dislikes. They knew joy and sorrow. To young Helenas, her mother’s murder before her eyes had been an unmistakable sorrow.

Her hatred for her mother’s killers, however, was faint. Perhaps that was why she had not shown much joy when Raikal slaughtered the slavers.

“You don’t have to force yourself to understand this. Anyway, I like testing myself against strong opponents. I don’t necessarily have to kill them.”

“I understand.”

“All of it this time, not just a little?”

“No, a little.”

“Hey... Hey!”

“A larger little than before.”

What the hell did that even mean? Raikal scratched his head vigorously, trying to settle his simmering irritation. This was his first time talking to an elf, but he decided there absolutely must not be too many of this race.

If there were as many elves in the world as humans, every human would have dropped dead from sheer frustration.

“Raikal. You said you enjoy clashing swords. You said you like it when your opponent survives because you can fight them again later.”

“I did.”

“Then, to you, is the sword a form of bond you forge with another person?”

A bond.

He had never applied that word to the sword. But looking back, he thought it fit. Losing to his father’s wooden sword. Founding the Crow Mercenaries and wandering the world with them. Fleeing after a battlefield defeat, then coming back for another fight. Conversely, sparing an opponent and having that same man return to challenge him.

All of them were bonds forged through the sword.

“You really have no talent for swordsmanship.”

“Pardon?”

“People with talent for the sword don’t think about complicated stuff like that. They grab one without thinking and start swinging. That’s what I did.”

“Must everyone with talent for the sword be like you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met anyone in the world more talented with a sword than me.”

Raikal gazed quietly into Helenas’s eyes. Her clear green eyes reflected him exactly as he was. There was no killing intent, no fighting spirit, no desire to win in them. Only a quiet yearning to understand something.

“But you know...”

Raikal tapped Helenas on the forehead with a finger.

“What you said. Bonds, was it? That was something I didn’t know either. I’ve swung a sword for decades, but I never once thought about it that way.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. So you have no talent for swordsmanship, but you do have an eye for understanding the sword that’s different from mine... A strange one, mind you.”

“Is strange a compliment?”

“Yeah.”

Raikal sprang to his feet and drew his sword. Then, without adding any technique, he simply swung it from high to low, making sure the maddening little elf could see.

SWISH.

The wind the blade cut was nothing remarkable. It was merely a sword, carrying no aura at all.

“Cut downward.”

“May I ask why I must do that?”

“Ask.”

“Why do you cut downward?”

“Because it feels good.”

Raikal grinned.

“When you raise a sword and bring it down, it splits the air. I like that feeling. It’s fun. That’s the whole reason.”

“Does it feel good even without killing someone?”

“Yeah. What I like... is bringing the sword down. If there’s air in its path, that’s good. If there’s a person, that has its own kind of fun. But the best, most enjoyable part is when it clashes with another sword.”

Helenas stared at Raikal’s sword for a long time. Nothing remained along the path it had traced. No one had died, nor had any killing intent lingered there.

Yet Raikal was smiling happily. Helenas rose and lifted her sword. Then, just as Raikal had done, she swung it downward.

It was clumsy. Her arms wavered, the path of her blade went crooked, and there was no satisfying sound of air being cleaved.

“It does not feel good. It is not fun either.”

“Of course it doesn’t. That was fucking awful.”

“Were you like this at first too?”

“No? I was good from the start.”

“Then was it fun from the start?”

“Yeah.”

Grinning, Raikal stepped behind Helenas. He took hold of her arms himself and corrected her stance, just as his father had done when he was young.

“Once more.”

Helenas swung down again. Despite his corrections, it was scarcely any different from the first time. This damned elf really did not have a shred of talent for the sword.

“Once more.”

She swung again. Still clumsy.

“Do it a thousand... No, ten thousand times.”

“Ten thousand?”

“Elves live a long time, right? You’ve got time to spare, so do it ten thousand times. If that’s not enough, do it a hundred thousand times. If that still doesn’t work, do it a million times.”

“What if a million times is not enough?”

“Ten million...? What comes after that?”

“I do not know.”

“Neither do I. Anyway, do it a lot. Until you find it fun.”

Helenas nodded.

* * *

The memory brought a smile to Kyle’s face before he realized it.

‘Helenas did do it ten thousand times in the end.’

Naturally, ten thousand had not been enough. She had done it a hundred thousand times too.

After that, he did not know. Raikal had given up counting, and so had Helenas. Even so, she had not stopped. When he asked if it was fun, she said no. Yet every morning she came to him with a sword.

[“If it’s not fun, you can quit.”]

[“Fun and fate are different things.”]

[“Can’t you change that fate?”]

[“If I encounter a fate greater than the one that has taken hold of me now, it will change.”]

Not long afterward, the struggle for the imperial throne ended, and Raikal died at Ruin Alastor’s hands.

‘Five hundred years have passed, and you’re still holding a sword. You even founded a group called the Sword Cult.’

Kyle strode toward the Fourth Training Ground.

‘It isn’t Fenris you’re obsessed with. Fenris isn’t your fate. You’re... probably seeing my swordsmanship in Fenris, the swordsmanship of a dead man.’

To be honest, he still had absolutely no idea how Helenas would react to hearing that Fenris had a master. Would she be angry? Would she come looking for him in her anger? Or would she ignore it and concern herself with her own fate?

“What a shame. A real shame.”

Kyle meant the words he muttered.

‘Before being reincarnated like this, I wish I’d become a ghost or something the moment I died. Then I could have seen how Helenas reacted to my death, couldn’t I?’

Kyle knew a little of what Helenas had done five hundred years ago. Before the Sword Cult existed, before she became its leader, she had challenged Ruin Alastor to reclaim Fenris, then retreated in defeat.

But that was not what Kyle wanted to know.

He wanted to know what expression Helenas had worn.

‘I really can’t imagine you looking angry or crying.’

Had he become a ghost, he could have seen her expression as it happened.

Kyle smacked his lips in regret.