The Knights' Spring (8)

He looked, at a glance, entirely ordinary.

The pretty brown-haired boy—young enough that puberty might not even have finished with him—was smiling, bright and clear as spring water. Born into the world of Lee Han's previous life, that face alone might have made him an idol, or an actor.

But the two men had no time to study it. He gave off none of an archmage's extraordinary presence, only an air of perfect ordinariness, and both knights understood why. The mage held his own energy under complete control, and so not a thread of it leaked.

Lee Han had not gone looking, but he had seen two others who held themselves the same way. One was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an old man who amused himself playing butler. The other was a fellow who loafed through the knight order like a delinquent idler. Look at either of them and you would have sworn he was ordinary. Lee Han knew better. He knew just how monstrous those two old men were.

In the language of the murim, it was the realm called a return to primal simplicity, or the pure blue of a flame brought to perfection: men who lived with every trace of their power hidden, like spiritual beings. No—not like them. He suspected they had truly become spiritual beings. And now this boy was the same.

Because no energy could be felt at all, he was all the more frightening, and Lee Han could not even find the nerve to stand against him. A superhuman. A transcendent who had stepped past cognition itself—one in thousands, no, one in hundreds of millions. A being that had broken through some final boundary and merely happened, still, to wear a human shape.

Fight that? The notion did not even hold together.

And so Lee Han and Rak turned without a moment's hesitation and ran at everything they had. Knights who could hit two hundred kilometers an hour at a sprint vanished from the spot the instant they fled. The longer they ran, the faster they became, and the Magic Tower shrank behind them until it was nothing but a speck—proof enough of how fast they had gone, and how desperately.

"Aww, no. That won't do."

"......"

"......"

The two knights, who had put dozens of kilometers between themselves and the Magic Tower, were suddenly back where the Tower stood. As if the escape had never happened.

"...Spatial transfer?"

"Space was cut as well."

They did not panic. They worked out what had been done to them, and steadied their breathing almost at once.

"How far did we get?"

"Roughly a nine-mile radius."

"Goddamn miles!"

"...Why are you angry?"

There was a little friction in it. Even so, as they judged the distance, they looked again at the boy who had dragged them back to this spot—no. At a four-hundred-year-old aged monster.

"How far do we have to run to get clear of that spatial magic?"

"Hmm. You're asking me?"

"You don't have to answer."

"...Haha!"

Tur de Seigan laughed, bright and sudden.

"No! I'll tell you! So long as you're inside about a hundred kilometers, my spatial magic reaches anywhere. So there's no running, all right? Not unless you move at the speed of light."

"...Figures."

Lee Han nodded, as if granting that there was not a hair of a lie in it. His disgust for spell-slingers usually ran so deep that he believed nothing they said, whatever it was. This once, he believed. The bastard was no ordinary spell-slinger. He was a superhuman.

Lee Han had dealt with more than his share of that breed. He understood how their minds worked, and he knew they seldom lied. Why was he so sure? Simple.

They don't need to lie. Men who can do anything the moment they feel like it—why would they bother?

Not political power. Not money. Only strength. And yet that overwhelming strength was itself the authority, and the fortune, that proved a superhuman. Why would a man who could look down on the world whenever he pleased waste breath on a falsehood?

It was no different now.

"Hey. Let's talk. I'm just too curious about you two!"

"......"

"Right? You'd like that too, wouldn't you?"

All he delivered was a one-sided notice. Choice had never been part of it. And it was thoroughly unpleasant.

"Wait, Tower Lord! Those two must be punished at once—a conversation? What nonsense is that!"

"Have you finally gone senile, Tower Lord?!"

"This will not do!"

"Ghk—!"

The archmages spat their discontent. Of the Magic Tower's five, one was dead. Another groaned, his chest split open. A third burst with rage at having been left with a single arm.

And that was not all.

"Look at our dead comrades! Look at the state of the Magic Tower!"

Many mages had died. All of it because those intruders had torn the Tower down and attacked them. Of course, plenty of mages still lived, and the Tower could be rebuilt whenever they wished—so long as the Tower Lord remained. That was one thing. Damage was still damage. The intruders ought to be judged, and that judgment was the example the head of the Magic Tower was meant to set.

Common sense. It would have been common sense.

"............"

"Grown bold, haven't you? Showing me your complaints. Heh heh."

"...F-forgive us."

"No, no. It happens."

"......"

"Haha."

The mages heard the boy's fresh, mischievous laugh and felt nothing like fondness. Their faces went pale and sick, and they bowed their heads low. They had not seen that face in so long that they had forgotten who he was. The Tower Lord.

"...If you were going to apologize, why show me you were unhappy? Now I'm in a bad mood—"

The Tower Lord was the Magic Tower's greatest madman, a man who did exactly as he pleased. Think to kill, and they died. Think to destroy, and destruction followed. He was never to be defied. Not even by those called archmages. Never.

"Ghk—!"

"T-Tower Lord! W-we spoke empty words! P-please, spare us!"

"W-we're sorry, we're sorry..."

"Aaaagh!"

Like prey before a natural predator, the mages dropped their eyes. They were too afraid to meet his.

"Pathetic. Honestly."

Ha! The boy laughed as if he had never been angry at all, bright and fresh once more. Then his eyes sparkled toward the knights.

"And that makes you two really something!"

Toward the two knights who stood perfectly intact, even after being laid bare to his Intent. The two who had become the object of that interest, however, only stared.

"What's that little bastard saying?"

"Couldn't tell you. He's lived so long his brain must have broken."

"Oh. That it?"

They looked at him with open, blasphemous eyes. Will you look at this lunatic.

"Puhahaha!"

The boy laughed, loud enough to split ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his stomach. He even rolled through the empty air as naturally as if he were swimming, and their insults did not seem to offend him. A screw had come loose somewhere—or, just as the spear-bearing knight had said, something in him was plainly broken.

But the boy, Tur de Seigan, would have put it differently. He was not mad. His curiosity was simply too vigorous, and so he was only absorbed in the freshness of something new.

"Hey. You know something?"

At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠some point the laughter stopped, and he talked at them whether they listened or not.

"Your strength isn't any different from those old kids over there. No—if you look only at total energy, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the old kids probably have more."

Old kids. That was what he called the archmages, and with those words Tur de Seigan set the knights and the archmages side by side, neat as a ledger.

"I've seen strong warriors like you now and then. The ones people usually call a Hero, or a Demon Person. Every so often a useful one turns up. About as strong as you, or stronger."

Yes. Now and then there were people whose energy rivaled an archmage's. He did not mean mana. He meant aura, invisible to ordinary eyes—or the power called life force. Knights insisted on names like fighting energy, but aura sat more comfortably in his mouth. By that measure, the two knights' aura fell a little short of the archmages'. And why wouldn't it? How were young men to compare with those who had lived a hundred years at the least? One had to compare what deserved comparing.

And yet, though the sum of their aura was lesser, they possessed a certain specialness even an archmage did not. A specialness that, even among Heroes and Demon Persons, belonged only now and then to those who left their names in history. Namely—

"But listen. Heroes who've trained all the way down to the soul, like the two of you... those are rare."

The strength of the soul.

"People who survive battles and training where they lay their lives down again and again, or some enormous ordeal. Fellows like that can meet a Hero or a Demon Person of the same level and still open a serious gap and take the win. The way you overwhelmed those old kids, and the Magic Tower."

Let it be said plainly: the Magic Tower was not weak. Quite the opposite. As he had said, there were a fair number there whose total energy stood near the knights'—and he was not speaking only of the twelve Bronze Giants and the five archmages. There were six more besides.

Even so.

"Those hidden six could step in, and they still wouldn't beat you. Your strength isn't something energy decides by itself. You know how to overcome. You know how to win. So it can't be helped that our kids lose to you."

The boy admitted it without resistance. The Magic Tower could not defeat them. Nor did he look particularly unhappy about it. He paid no mind to the mages dying in front of him. The ruined Tower did not seem to displease him. To him, all of it was a trifle—a natural step along the way.

There was only one thing the boy could not endure. It was an incurable illness he had carried for a very long time, and it was because of that illness that he had been able to climb to so great a realm. He turned the full force of that curiosity upon the two knights, the ones whose strong souls had caught his interest, and asked.

"Hey... I want to dissect your bodies and your souls. So, will you let me?"

The illness of being unable to restrain desire. That was the name of Tur de Seigan's incurable sickness.

"Oh, of course it doesn't matter if you don't. I'm going to do it anyway, so I'll apologize in advance."

"......"

"Ahaha!"

The boy laughed, bright with pleasure, as if nothing in the world delighted him more than finding an interesting rare material—

"—You done talking?"

"...Huh?"

"I asked if you're done running your mouth, you piece-of-shit bastard."

"......"

"Hell of a lot of talking to yourself."

Crack. Pop. Lee Han loosened his body. Thanks to the bastard talking on alone, he had started to recover—and not only him. The spearman, Rak, was the same.

Even so.

"You got anything?"

"...A classical method."

"Oh."

What wouldn't a man do, if it meant winning a fight with his life on the line?

Gulp. Rak took out something like pills and swallowed them. Five, all at once.

"...That's a dangerous thing you're doing."

"Think you're the only one?"

They looked like pills that would be dangerous one at a time, and he was stuffing down five. This one hated losing, too. Lee Han liked that.

Right. This isn't a sport.

Doping was illegal in sports. It violated sportsmanship. But what they meant to do was no sport, with its rules and its unspoken code. It was nothing but a fight in which people killed and died, until only the living and the dead remained. So there was no cowardice in it, and no such thing as a foul.

And so—

"Let's see which of us gets dissected, you goddamn spell-slinger."

In that instant, the two knights joined their strength. Human history had already proved it: the orthodox way to face the strong was to mob them. Fail, and it was death. Succeed, and it was survival.

And in the knights' minds, failure had never existed in the first place.