Chapter 102 - Unwelcome Guests (1)

It was noon, with the sun high overhead.

Those who had finished their morning work were taking a brief rest. It was the warmest part of the day, when drowsiness settled over everyone. They arrived at what might well have been the most peaceful hour of all.

“Please identify yourselves.”

The Caravan estate had changed. Where a handful of neighbors had once kept the peace, there were now formally employed guards. Calling them knights would have been laughable, and even as swordsmen they were insignificant, but they performed their duties faithfully nonetheless. And a guard’s duty was to control the entry of anyone whose identity was uncertain.

“Please identify yourselves. Now.”

The guards were old men. Like most elderly men in Verdi, they had never received formal training with a sword. Instead of swords they could barely wield, they carried long spears. Unable even to sense Mana, the old men leveled their spearheads and issued a stern warning. Their meager skills were barely enough to hunt wild animals, yet they refused to retreat. As the elderly guards raised their spears, Haylin’s golems came over from where they had been milling about nearby. These were the legacy of the dark mage Jerry Selpit. Further improved with the witch Audrey’s help, the golems had become powerful enough to deal easily with an ordinary sword walker.

In this rural backwater, they could be considered an overwhelming force. In truth, it was not the elderly guards but the fearsome golems that kept the Caravan estate safe. To the sheltered people of Verdi, golems were no different from monsters out of legend.

But...

“Old guards who don’t even know how to hold a spear, and golems slapped together into a mess.”

The unwelcome guests were not ignorant country bumpkins from Verdi. Nor were they beggars in need of food and drink, or wandering bandits who had failed to endure the Iron Kingdom’s harsh realities.

“They’re painful to look at.”

The unwelcome guests at the entrance to the Caravan estate were an armed force of some thirty men. Knights clad in iron armor from head to foot. Men who could erase a Verdi village from the map before a single day had passed.

“Identify! Yourselves!”

Bravely, the old guard continued trying to fulfill his duty even before such men. At his raised voice, the knight at the head of the group approached without a word. The knight kicked the guard, who was still glaring at him, squarely in the chest.

THWACK!

The old guard flew back, tumbling across the dirt without even managing a scream. He struck a wall and slumped, bleeding. His head drooped. He was no longer breathing.

One man had died in an instant.

The knight who had killed the guard without a second thought spoke in a dispassionate tone.

“Does that establish our identity?”

The moment the guard lost his life, the golems milling nearby reacted. They had recognized his killers as enemies. Jerry Selpit’s spell formulas, inscribed on their stitched-together flesh, lit up in succession, along with the magical formulas Audrey had added. Their masses of muscle swelled abruptly, and they charged the enemy.

Watching the charging golem, the knight swung his sword three times.

The golem came apart into dozens of pieces and collapsed. The knight who had destroyed it remained standing exactly where he had been. Then he turned his gaze to the guard standing blankly with a spear in hand.

“Have we established our identity?”

The other elderly guard considered the knight’s question for a moment. His comrade had just died. Even the golems, monsters out of legend, had been slaughtered in an instant. What was the right answer? After a brief hesitation, he spoke.

“No. You haven’t. You are enemies...”

It was not that heroic courage had suddenly welled up inside him. He had little time left to live anyway, so he would fulfill his duty as a guard and fight to the end. To submit and survive would be shameful, but if he died fighting, he could return to the gods in glory. The unwelcome guests, however, were crueler than he imagined.

“The old man’s gone mad.”

The knight approached the guard’s leveled spear and kicked him, moderating his strength this time. He deliberately left him alive.

THUD!

The guard crumpled, coughing and choking. Red blood poured out with every cough. Pain beyond imagining assailed him. Even as he sat gasping on the ground, he refused to let go of his spear. Somehow, he thrust it forward. Its point reached the knight, but rather than sinking into flesh, it rang against metal.

CLINK!

“Ah...”

“He’s definitely mad, isn’t he?”

The spearhead, made from scrap metal, could not penetrate the knight’s armor, which was engraved with dozens of magical formulas. It did not even scratch the painted ornamentation on its surface. The knight strode over to the crumpled guard. Then he seized his head and began slapping him. His lips split open, and his teeth fell out one after another. The old guard let out an “Uh, uh—” before beginning to sob in pain. The knight did not stop. He kept striking his cheeks.

As this horror unfolded, residents who saw it from inside the estate screamed. Amid the spreading screams, the wardstones gifted by an orc shaman began to glow. Their shamanic magic barred and expelled outside enemies. As that powerful magic activated and green light illuminated the estate, those staying at its center also learned that unwelcome guests had arrived.

Thus the unwelcome guests announced their arrival with great fanfare.

To the master of the Caravan estate.

* * *

It had been a day like any other.

I was practicing my swordsmanship.

“...?”

The sky turned green. Thinking I must have seen wrong, I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but it was still green. I had no idea what was happening. I had heard that in the Sky Mountains, you could see an “aurora” that painted the sky in five colors every winter. Was this something similar? Did that mean the Caravan estate now had a new tourist attraction? While I was entertaining those silly thoughts, Haylin came running from the distance.

“Young lord! Unwelcome guests! Unwelcome guests have come!”

“What? What do you—”

“That green light over there! The wardstones the orc shaman gave us have activated!”

“The wardstones activated? But nothing like this happened when the dark mage Jerry Selpit tried to invade before...”

“That’s because these enemies are far stronger than he was. They’re so powerful that every bit of magic in the wardstones has to activate just to hold them back!”

Enemies far stronger than he was.

The words struck home. Judging by Haylin’s face, this did not seem to be a prank meant to startle me. I stopped training, took my sword, and immediately followed her toward the village entrance.

“Just when things seemed quiet for once...”

Seolyun, who had been helping me train, came along as well. The three of us ran together, with Haylin in the lead. As she ran, she explained what she had gathered of the situation.

“There are at least ten enemies. And the hostility I can sense is no ordinary hostility. Nothing around here gives off anything like it...”

“Could it be another bandit gang? Or some wild animals from nearby?”

“No. My golems would have dealt with those. But I’ve lost every response from the golems stationed near the entrance to keep watch. No bandit gang around here could destroy their cores so cleanly. Absolutely not.”

Then what kind of enemy was it?

I could not imagine.

As we ran hard, sounds reached my ears. The residents’ screams. Voices trembling with fear rang out from every direction. Amid those screams, we reached the vicinity of the entrance and saw terrified residents fleeing deeper into the estate.

“What is going on... Arhan?”

“...”

“Arhan, what’s wrong?”

The screams. The fleeing residents.

Those two things brought a scene from my past back to me.

[“This estate must be erased.”]

A terrible memory I did not want to recall.

The worst unwelcome guest of all, who had come the year I turned fifteen.

This was exactly what our estate had looked like when he arrived. From the hilltop, I had seen that day’s tragedy clearly. An overwhelmingly powerful man taking lives as though harvesting crops in autumn. The way our beloved village became a land of death. The metallic stench of blood. My mother, terrified, clutching my hand and shouting.

[“Arhan, we have to run! Arhan—”]

The moment that day replayed in my mind, burning rage filled my head. Why? Only now had this place finally begun to regain its old appearance. Only now had life returned to my precious land. Why, of all things? As my anger boiled over, my steps became astonishingly swift. I ran in the opposite direction from the fleeing residents. Seolyun called my name from behind, but I did not stop. My second heart pounded, and a 「path」 immediately extended within my body, granting me superhuman strength.

Running at superhuman speed, I reached the village entrance in an instant.

Some thirty knights stood there.

At the head of their orderly ranks was a single knight, clad from head to foot in luxurious armor. Beside him lay the collapsed remains of the golems and the corpse of an elderly guard sprawled on the ground.

“Oh? There’s a decent swordsman even in this backwater...”

The knight turned toward me the moment he noticed my presence. I did not look at him. Instead, I looked at the other elderly guard he was holding. Unlike the guard who lay cold and dead, this one was still breathing. But he had been mangled horrifically. He had been beaten so badly that his swollen features were barely distinguishable. His wrinkled face was covered in blood, and broken teeth lay scattered on the ground. Breath leaked through his split lips as he sobbed and mumbled.

“Spare me, pleash, spare me, pleash...”

As the old guard pleaded, the thirty or so knights lined up behind him snickered. Every one of them mocked the ugly, ridiculous, broken old man. Ironically, that scene brought yet another memory to mind.

[“I shall take matters into my own hands and set this sinful, wayward world right!”]

My father, who had spoken those utterly bizarre words as though his mind had emptied and he had abandoned all sanity. My father, who had rampaged about proclaiming himself an invincible knight. My beloved father, who had died with his eyes wide open. My father, of whom I had been prouder than anyone.

[“Your father looked just like that at the end. He carried on like a mad knight, but when his woman died, he sobbed like a dog and glared at me. Yet glaring was all he could do. Ridiculous, really.”]

And that bastard who had insulted my father. The end of my father’s life he had described. The moment I recalled it, uncontrollable fury surged through me.

I drew my sword.

Drawing a deep breath, I kicked off the ground and charged. At the same time, I extended a 「path」 into the world before my eyes. The moment that straight path stretched out, the knight holding the old guard’s head moved. He released the guard and drew a keen-edged sword from his waist.

The 「path」 I had extended. His path overlapped mine, which had been unobstructed.

CLANG!

When I opened my eyes, the sword I had swung was locked against the knight’s. With our two blades pressed together, I could see his gaze beyond them, through the gap in his helmet.

“Oh ho. That’s a serviceable sword.”

“...”

“I know who you are.”

Ominous words.

Immediately afterward, the knight’s sword moved along a wondrous trajectory. It seemed less like a blade than a living creature. Like a snake coiling around its prey, it targeted my wrist with extraordinary speed and precision. I released the hilt, caught the sword as it fell, and took a step back.

“...?”

After retreating, I slowly raised my head and glared at the knight again.

That swordsmanship was familiar somehow.

I had encountered that technique before. Not even very long ago. It was a recent experience. It did not take long to recall it. The Endless Duel. The man I had faced in the last of the three duels. The technique he had used.

Yes. Which meant...

“You’re the Sword Demon. Liam, the fighter from the steel city.”

「Rhapsody」.

It was the swordsmanship of the Lazy Idler, of one of the Great Families.

“I didn’t expect to meet you so soon.”

“Did you come looking for me?”

“Yes. I came looking for you.”

“Why?”

The unidentified knight answered my question.

“To hold you accountable for daring to lay a hand on the master of the six free cities.”