What They Needed Was Not Honor

Shing.

What Derek had left behind was a famous sword in the shape of a gladius. Lee Han had no idea where it had come from, but there was no mistaking a master smith's work. Otherwise it would never have happened the instant his fingers closed around the hilt.

Hummm.

"What the hell did he hand me?"

There was no reason Sword Resonance should wake on its own. A sword that read its master's fighting spirit and his heart—blades a so-called master smith had hammered until a spirit settled into the steel were called famous swords, and such things were rare enough that one usually had to dig through a kingdom's treasury to find them. And now a sword fit for that treasury lay in his grip.

Lee Han did not get excited. As if he were simply taking the time to grow familiar with the blade, he swung it through empty air with a flat calm.

Whoosh. Whoooosh!

With every swing the sword grew faster, its speed climbing in a sharp, sudden rush.

Shk—!

At some point only afterimages remained, and where the edge should have been there was nothing but a faint streak of light.

Fwaaaah...!!

The dust that had billowed around him drew back in a thick haze, and Lee Han succeeded in making friends with the sword. Maximus, who had been watching, spoke.

"Impressive. Did you suppress the Sword Resonance?"

"Calling it Sword Resonance when the thing cries on its own, without my will, is just ugly."

"Exactly! Just because a weapon is fine doesn't mean you should let it drag you around!! The North and the Central Continent are both crawling with idiots who don't understand that, but of course you do, Rihan...!"

"It's Lee Han. Anyway, I'm using a blade from here on. If you've got a problem, say it now. I don't mind fighting without a sword."

"Haha, as if. It's more interesting precisely because you've picked up an edge. And more than that—"

Chk.

"All I have to do is pick up a blade of my own, and we're even."

Maximus raised his right arm and held out his hand, as if waiting for something to arrive.

"......"

"...?"

"Ah, give me a moment. The little bastard seems to have lost the way."

"...I don't know what that is, but hurry up. The tunnels are coming down."

"One minute. No—two.... Ah, there it is!"

Only after that pointless bit of comedy ended did Lee Han understand what Maximus had been waiting for.

Whooosh!

A poleaxe—better known as a battle-axe—swam through the empty air and settled into Maximus's hand.

Thud.

It was nothing like an ordinary battle-axe. Far larger, far longer, and fitted with a spearhead, the thing could serve as a spear as well. Whatever it was made of, it shed a luminous light, and it was plainly a weapon every bit as fine as the famous sword in Lee Han's own grip.

Hummm!

He had never seen a resonance that violent.

"What? Weapons from the North fly through the sky now?"

"A kind of spellcraft. They say it's bound to its master's body."

"That's a feature I'd kill for."

An automatic return. That would be ridiculously convenient. Except—

"Shame. That convenient weapon is scheduled to break today."

"Is it, now?"

Monsters of freakish, godlike strength had taken up weapons. It was like handing guns to beasts—and these particular beasts happened to be master marksmen. And as everyone knows, the moment a beast keener than a man picks up a gun....

CRACK!!

...it is simply no longer a creature made to lose.

Sword and poleaxe crossed. Common sense said a sword should fail to bear a poleaxe's weight and snap, but that common sense collapsed, and the sword shrugged the weight off with ease. The poleaxe, for its part, ought to have been sluggish under its own mass, yet it looked faster and lighter than a swinging sword—no, lighter even than a staff cut from bamboo. A festival of impossible muscle and impossible skill.

BOOM!

BOOOOM!

The shock that rang out was nothing anyone could mistake for the mere meeting of edged steel. The sword tried to cut the poleaxe. The poleaxe tried to smash the sword. And all the while each sought, with vicious precision, to pierce or split the other's throat, chest, and shoulder. Strike and cut. Smash and stab. A truly simple exchange. But who, really, could step into a fight like that?

Keee!!

Kiee!!!

Kaaa—!

Then again, perhaps there are always things that do not know their lives are precious. The mini worms, sensing the Mother Worm's death, swarmed the enemy who had killed their parent. Tens, hundreds, thousands...! Where had they been hiding? The number they boasted was a dreadful one: roughly ten thousand. Every worm had smelled its mother's blood and come running, charging in to avenge the Mother Worm, but......

Shhk!

They had picked the wrong moment to interfere. They ought to have waited until the fight was over.

Pwaaaah!!

!!!!?

The worms began to die—no, to be slaughtered. The two knights had not killed them on purpose. From the start, neither man spared the worms a thought. They were only crossing blades with each other; where would they find the leisure to mind mere monsters? The instant either of them let his focus slip by a hair, his own body would be carved to pieces. So they deliberately refused to pay the worms any mind. They simply—

Shhk!

...k...ee......?......!

—tried to overwhelm the knights, and were caught in the fight's aftermath, bodies sheared in two or bursting apart.

Pwaaah!

The harder the two collided, the faster the worms died. Sword-waves bursting from the impacts swept them away, and sword-pressure crushed them until they ruptured.

KEEEE!!!

One worm, unusually huge, vomited its rage. It was a fierce indignation that mere inferior prey had dared to kill their siblings and their mother, and the great specimen—

Crunch. Crunch!

—ate its own siblings, and the corpse of its dead mother. Cannibalism. Winner take all. A monster was a monster: a race that would devour parent and sibling alike if that was what it took to grow strong, and take its revenge once it had. That was why they were humanity's natural enemy.

Krrk!!

And so the worm grew with terrifying speed. It was growth beyond all sense. A thing that had been a mere three meters or so swelled like a balloon, turning more savage, more loathsome. A sandworm—calamity and terror of the desert. Befitting that majesty, no, surpassing anything even the desert had ever seen, a sandworm well over a hundred meters seized, in the instant of its growth, a strength that outstripped its mother.

If it was now...!

—Fwoom!!

[[!!!?]]

"The hell is this?"

Flash!

Lee Han kicked off the ground and, in a blink, was climbing the gigantic sandworm's body.

An application of Divine Bow, Elastic Shadow.

It did more than dazzle the eyes. For toying with a gigantic monster, there was nothing better.

Thuk. Thuk-thuk. Thuuk!!

The butchery that rose as he covered a hundred meters in a single breath finally minced the sandworm's enormous body from end to end, and its life drained away at a rush. It had become an adult and gained a hide both tough and hard, yet that hide did not function in the slightest. Which was only natural. How could it have known? Its opponent was a human who had, without hesitation, carved apart even the thousand-year troll once called the king of monsters. And so the sandworm, failing to recognize the superior beast....

"—Dare to intrude on a knight's duel, and learn your place."

Maximus launched himself into the air and brought his weapon down hard on the sandworm's head.

Crackle!

What the blow held was a flashing bolt of lightning. In this moment, the strike with which Maximus had once killed a frost giant in a single blow was born again.

[[----.]]

......It should have just run. The adult sandworm, possessed now of a little intelligence, watched the pitch-black dark come crashing down along with that regret.

KRKKKKKK!!

Crunch.

"...Did we kill them all?"

"Mm. Seems so."

They hadn't meant to, but the two knights had the feeling they had annihilated every sandworm living in the tunnels. Small and weak though the things were, ten thousand monsters erased from the world in a mere ten minutes—a disaster, no, a feat! Among them had even been an adult sandworm, a monster of extraordinary size, and yet neither man looked particularly moved. Right now, monsters were not what interested them.

"Hm. One hundred and eighty-nine exchanges.... Not even the giant broke a hundred, and yet."

"You count all of that while you fight?"

"It just comes to me, naturally."

"...This is why they call them geniuses."

"Ahaha! Leave off. At my age, being called a genius is embarrassing."

One hundred and eighty-nine exchanges. That was the number of times the two knights had clashed blades. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yet, for all that clashing, no decision had come. Considering that a duel between knights was usually settled within about fifty exchanges, theirs had gone on for a very long time.

Did that mean they had fought carelessly? No. If anything, they had swung with the resolve to kill, and there was nothing careless in even a single swing. Nothing but full power. They could have sworn that every crossing blow was one in which strength, technique, and will were all invested.

...Except.

So this is what it means, facing someone whose stamina and recovery match your own.

Regrettably, they did not tire. Even in a fight to the death their stamina did not drop, and even their wounds healed in moments. Ironically, the two men were too alike. In strength, endurance, and durability, neither could be ranked above the other—an even match, with neither able to overcome. If their types had at least been different, perhaps. But they were so similar that deciding a victor was difficult. And so....

"—Shall we end it in one blow?"

A single strike to take the opponent's life. At the proposal to finish the match that way, Maximus let out a groan.

"Mm. I'd be fine continuing, though?"

Not because he feared losing his life, but because he regretted this match coming to an end. Lee Han, however, pointed upward.

Crackle... crumble....

Look—the Underground World, collapsing even faster than before.

"You don't want an ending where a pile of dirt crushes you, do you?"

"Nnnngh...!!"

Maximus poured every ounce of his regret into the answer. He did not want this match to end. If he could, he would have kept going. It was a madly seductive contest, one he wanted to continue for eternity. Even as the moment approached when this precious, thrilling time would end, Maximus was simply desolate. And so—!

"A melancholy day. To think I have to take the life of a knight I've only just come to like."

"The thought that you'll be the one to die hasn't crossed my mind at all."

"Of course. Who fights intending to die?"

"...Fair enough."

Whoosh.

Thud!

Lee Han set the point of his sword. Maximus leveled the spearhead fixed to his poleaxe.

Krrrrrk!

From the moment they took up killing intent, there was no turning back. One of them might well be living the last day of his life. And yet, though sword and spear brimmed with that intent, their faces were peaceful. They neither hated nor despised each other, so while the blades might hold killing intent, their eyes remained simply calm. And then—

"Stealing without even paying."

"Haha. My apologies."

He did not spare the rebuke. Lee Han had seen it: what his opponent, what Maximus, had stolen from him.

There's actually a bastard who picks that up by feel alone.

Gyeong. The art of Lee Han's called Muscle Arts—at some point, Maximus had begun to use it. Through their clashes, the Gyeong that had been clumsy at first grew sharper and matured in an instant. Even the trio he called geniuses, even the black-haired regressor, could never have done a thing like that.... This bastard just took the hits, lived through them, and understood. A little more proficiency, and it would only grow more natural. He had suspected as much from the moment Maximus imitated the Hundred-Pace Divine Fist—no, made it his own.

Is this what it feels like, being the villain in a murim novel? ......This is a thoroughly filthy feeling.

Among the protagonists of murim novels, there is that sort: the sort who sees a martial art and acquires it on the spot. The scene where the enemies rage, panic, and die shows up like a cliché—and it turned out there was a reason for all of it.

They died of sheer rage. That was it.

If someone else instantly understood a technique you had spent a lifetime learning and training, and then used it better than you, even he would feel like losing his mind. Truly unreasonable. So this was why talent was unreasonable, and why it made people wretched.

"Hah. Being an ordinary mortal is the crime...."

"......"

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Well, I'm not saying I was in the right. But it strikes me that you're rather lacking in conscience yourself."

"Me?"

"Yes. Looking at this, it hardly seems as if I'm the only one who stole something."

"What are you talking about?"

"What do you think I'm talking about? The technique you're preparing right now—that's my technique, isn't it?"

"Ah...... This?"

Crackle!

Lightning spat from Lee Han's sword, just like Maximus's Lightning Drop. Which was surely why such an absurd line had come out of his mouth—as if to say, I stole, but didn't you steal too? Lee Han, however, denied it. He hadn't particularly stolen the man's technique. He had merely seen Maximus's art, and a new idea had occurred to him.

"This is the principle behind your technique, isn't it? You put intense pressure on the grip to force an artificial friction, then call the lightning with Sword Resonance. ...Am I right?"

"......"

"Thought so. The principle itself is intuitive. It just takes a grip strong enough to be insane, and a bit of knack, so it's slightly fussy."

Put a little more force and ferocity into it, and Lightning Drop could be reproduced in full.

"When it's this common, it'd be a joke if you couldn't copy it."

Lee Han shrugged. Was openly being shown how a thing was done the same as stealing it when you didn't even understand the principle?

"......Ha."

At that shameless and utterly confident declaration, Maximus let out an empty laugh. For the first time, the heartiness was gone. That was how absurd it was.

No one could copy it because they couldn't grasp a principle that common?

No matter how he taught the knights of the North, they could not even imitate it, and when he explained the principle they only got angry—Don't mock me! or Are you toying with me!!—and yet this man said it was easy. But what was more absurd still....

Whoooong!!

"Still, thanks. Because of you, I think I can actually do it."

"......"

His technique.... No. That was no longer his technique. It looked, rather, like clothes cut exactly to Lee Han. What Maximus lacked, and Lee Han had, was freedom of thought—flexibility of conception.

Crackle!

The lightning spread wide. A blue-spreading force of the sword lit the dark of the Underground World.

Fwaaah!

Fighting the Ghost King, he had awakened the plum blossom. In Tristan, the knight Vale had cut him with Sword Thread. In the fight against the marquis, he had realized the Arhat. And now, by striking on a new idea—spreading a new force through the sword—he gathered every one of those realizations and unfolded them as one. What he displayed was the sword art of the Namgung clan, hegemons of Anhui, famous for the Sword of Chivalric Righteousness. But he had no love for grandiose, muddled titles—Emperor this, Heavenly Thunder that. And so the sword art he chose, and the name....

Having performed a miracle that should have been impossible, Lee Han asked:

"Well? Not bad, right?"

"......W-who is calling whom a genius...."

Maximus was said to possess a heart of iron that flinched at nothing, yet in this moment even his words stumbled. It was surely the first time. The first time he had felt, toward anyone other than his elder brother, something beyond astonishment—awe.

......Was this how other people felt when they looked at him?

"Kh...! Khahahahaha!!"

But soon a booming, mad laugh burst from Maximus's mouth. He was terrified. The fear that he might die if he took that blow swept over his body. That was how far the sight, and the power, exceeded imagination. And so Maximus...!

Ah, I'm happy! I really am a happy bastard!!

He felt a thrill that swallowed even his terror. He was grateful for everything. Happy to have been born with talent this excessive, because thanks to it he could fight a man like that. Happy that a man like that stood before him. And so he could fight with everything on the line, couldn't he!!

GOOOOO!!

An ominous energy coiled around the spearhead of Maximus's weapon. If Lee Han had taken a hint from Maximus's technique and founded a new art on this very spot, Maximus was the opposite. By stealing the art called Gyeong, he had at last learned how to make his body sturdier still, and how to bring the strength of his entire body to bear with all his heart and power. A man who had seized the name of great warrior through a heaven-given body, heaven-given talent, and endless struggle had finally obtained the means to wring the strength from his whole frame. There was a risk that his body might fail to endure the force and collapse, but......

Does that matter right now?

It did not.

Krrrk!

The spearhead screamed. The Gyeong of the man called Maximus, formidable beyond measure—

CRACKLE-CRACK!!

Lightning Drop, which had killed the frost giant. That technique changed into something still more destructive, transforming into a kind of horn. If one were to name it—

"Let's call it Sky Break."

"...I'm in no position to talk about other people, but you really have no sense for names."

"It's intuitive and simple. What's not to like!"

"How about Heaven-Rending, then?"

"...That's even stranger, though."

"......Sounds like a demonic cultist in nothing but the pattern."

"?"

The two of them wanted to watch a little longer, to study the techniques each had raised on the other's foundation, but regrettably....

RUMMMBLE!

Whether because of the way they had rampaged, the Underground World would collapse if even ten more seconds passed. So the two of them ended the conversation. No—even without a conversation.

Uuuuung—!

GOOOOO—!

It would be enough to hold their last exchange in the meeting of blade and spearhead.

......Some would ask it. Why stake your life on a duel that would win no fame, no glory, no praise? But they would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠probably answer in much the same way. That it was meaningless. That such things were nothing but illusions, scattered the moment other people's rumors felt like scattering them. And so what they needed was now. This present—rewarding and precious, the moment in which each of them felt that he was alive in the world—was more precious still.

"────."

And so the two men simply lived the present, fleeting as an instant, without regret and with everything they had, so as to leave no lingering attachment in this moment. Perhaps that was it.

FWAAAAH────!

The reason they could smile no matter the moment. Amid a waterfall of collapsing earth and stone, blade and spearhead met, and a clear blue sky that had no business existing in the Underground World—