Until the Heart Beats (2)
Lee Han had done his part to the very end. He had made himself a bulwark, holding Tur's attention all the way through so Lark could slip into this place unseen, and he had shown them what the greatest tank really was. What mattered now was not fretting over the tank who had carried him this far, but playing the damage dealer's role as well as it could be played.
Hwuk. Hwuk! Hwoooosh—! The spear drove in, and the thrusts only grew faster. He was plainly striking alone, and yet the eye suffered the illusion that a whole rank of men were thrusting at once—a raging torrent of spear-work. That was how fast Lark de Duron's spear was. How exact. How savage.
Alone, he fulfilled the role of an entire company of pike infantry.
Shwuk. Shwuuuk!
"…A clone?"
Lark's body began, slowly, to divide. He was moving so fast that the afterimages lingered, and those afterimages drew sharper and sharper outlines until they had multiplied into five. He had not cast clone magic. He had made clones out of nothing but speed.
"Magnificent…!"
The admiration broke out of Tur on its own. The knight who, a moment ago, had defended against everything and smashed it apart had been splendid too, but this art, touching the realm of the divine, was tremendous in its own right. Tur clapped.
"—!"
The man being praised was not glad of it in the least. Lark ground his teeth. Dozens of thrusts in the space of a second, and not one of them had pierced Tur's mana barrier. Through the Third Eye—mystery sublimated into technique—he was aiming at the gaps in that barrier without a breath's pause, and still his spear seemed only to be chasing a phantom.
…I see. The instant I pierce it, the barrier restores itself?
Even when he broke through, the restoration came so fast he could not register the breach at all. Lark judged it so, and instinct told him he needed one overwhelming blow.
Hwuk! In a fraction of a moment he drew the spear back and gathered a vast killing intent, compressing his Red Tu-gi and turning it straight into force. The whole process took less than two-tenths of a second.
An awl of crimson force, meant to pulverize everything.
Fwaaaah! The spearhead, steeped in immense power, took the shape of a gigantic awl of true force. If what Lee Han wielded was the Sword Star, this deserved to be called its crimson twin—the Red Blade Gang. A red spear-river. Lark's greatest blow slammed into Tur's barrier.
Fwaaaaaah! For an instant the strike erased the very flow of the air, and the ground around them fell into vacuum. The spearhead had pierced the atmosphere and burned away even the oxygen. It was a blow even a Superhuman would not easily witness. And yet—
Kuuung—! An uneasy resonance spread, and Lark's brow knotted without mercy. This was not the sound of striking a paper-thin barrier. It was the sound of striking a mountain of rock. And what Lark had actually struck was…
"Impressive. But you were a little slow. Not 0.2 seconds—you needed to finish preparing in 0.05. Otherwise you can't catch me."
It was, in truth, a colossal wall of ice. The great ice wall Tur's magic had raised stood thick, and it stood high—high enough that one might fairly have called it a castle wall.
Thud-ud-ud…! The wall was shattering to pieces under Lark's thrust, but he felt no pride in that at all. What he had aimed for was not some wall of ice. It was the monster's throat.
"…Memorize."
"That's right. Mages keep a spell ready at all times, you know. I don't particularly need to, but just in case, I've spread about 41,514 defensive spells around my body. Too bad. Hehe."
"……."
"I told you to give up. Whatever you're doing is nothing but a challenge thrown at the impossible."
An egg against a boulder. The result had been obvious from the start, and still they resisted—foolish beyond words. Tur shook his head.
Hwuk!
"At it again?"
It was a meaningless act.
Seuk. Close as the distance was, Perspective Manipulation could be used as much as he liked. Tur's hand moved, and he swatted Lark away.
Puk!
"…That hurts."
But perhaps he had shown too much of himself. His own hand now bore a wound even larger than the one he had taken a moment ago, and Tur's face soured. The knight who could still land a blow even while he was being blasted through the air might be the vicious one. Even so.
Seureuk.
"Not that it means much."
Tur's wound restored itself in an instant.
"A victory without a scratch."
No matter how they thrashed, it meant nothing. That was what he was showing them, and he wished they would stop this meaningless struggling.
"……."
"…You're getting up again?"
Lark was getting up, even though he had been flung far off before anyone noticed.
"Why is he like that?"
Truly a mystery. Tur tilted his head. He had seen an opponent he could not beat, and if he could not even run, wasn't giving up the obvious thing? And yet he burned with fighting spirit. Utterly useless. Anyway.
"No matter the era, I can't understand how knights think."
He shrugged, as if to say it was beyond him.
"—As if the likes of you would know."
"Hm?"
The knight who had ignored every attempt at conversation opened his mouth for the first time. Blood poured down him in a steady stream, and still his eyes were calm as he spoke, flat and even.
"To you, the whole world looks like a toy. You, who hold even life to be worthless—what could you possibly know?"
"??"
"Even now, you don't understand at all. Why we fight. Why we despise you."
"…There's a reason?"
Tur showed his curiosity in earnest, as if he truly could not fathom it, and Lark looked at him with the extremity of contempt and disgust. A truly horrific creature. How could there not be a shred of guilt in him? Lark pressed down a small surge of feeling and put into words Tur's crime—no. The Magic Tower's crime.
"—I heard that you people are maintaining this Ten-Year Winter on purpose."
The fairy's wrath. It was known that the Magic Tower and the Empire had earned a fairy's anger, and that this was why the horrific season of death had held for more than ten years. The truth was nothing like that. And how could it be?
"The fairy never laid a curse. Isn't that right?"
Because the fairy had never cursed anyone at all. Which meant the one maintaining this winter was none other than—!
"Oh, that? Well, it's nothing special. But who'd you hear it from? There aren't many who know."
It had been their doing. He had brought the Ten-Year Winter down on them, and a third of the Empire's people had died of freezing and of hunger, and Tur did not look the least bit bothered. The other mages were the same. If anything, their faces said they could not see what was wrong with it.
"That's why we made the Colony, isn't it? So we're good!"
Tur laughed without a trace of hesitation.
"……."
Lark felt he understood at last—why that scoundrel called mages spell-slingers, and why he loathed them.
Of course he hates them.
Horrific people. No—horrific living things. Not a scrap of guilt, and they believed everything they did was right.
These things are monsters!
Humanity's natural enemy. Monsters with whom coexistence was impossible. And a knight was the one who killed such monsters, and protected those without strength. And he— …no.
"We are knights. Are we not?"
Those who take up arms for the weak.
Kuuuung—! The ground heaved. The sound grew ever greater, and the heaving of the earth only grew with it. Then, at a certain moment—
Fwahk! A human hand thrust up out of the earth.
"Haa…!"
He had been buried underground, and yet he had dug that earth back open and emerged—a beast that hardly seemed human, panting as if in a roar.
"Almost croaked…"
"You're late."
"…I'm the one who nearly died. Why do you look like you're the one dying?"
"I am unharmed. Pay it no mind."
"…R-right."
"Doesn't look like nothing…."
Muttering low, Lee Han pushed himself upright by degrees and took in the situation.
"…Still the worst."
The piece-of-shit spell-slinger was still perfectly intact, and now that Lee Han had clawed his way out of the ground, the man wore a faintly startled look. Funny bastard.
As if I'd die from something this small.
How many times did I spar that old man?
He had sparred a Superhuman more than a hundred times. Not once had he won, and yet he had lived. Set beside those spars, this fight was a light one. And with good reason. That spell-slinging bastard was, at the very least…
"Hey. You catch that?"
"…More or less."
"Right? So it wasn't just me."
A conversation without any clear meaning. Even so, the meaning got through.
"That guy's weaker than the monster geezers of our kingdom."
Because he fell one step short of the Superhumans they knew.
"…Is Her Highness counted among those geezers?"
"Obviously."
"…Irreverent bastard."
"Says the man agreeing with me."
"……."
Yes. That spell-slinger was certainly strong, but something was missing. Overwhelming, a transcendent monster—that much was true. How to put it… Exactly as strong as one would imagine? Neither overflowing nor falling short. Precisely the average of a Superhuman. Of course even that much made him a monster, but the two knights knew how immense a gap that difference made. And so.
"Meaning we can kill him."
Well. To manage that—
"We don't need little hits, one peck at a time. We need one big hit."
"…A difficult matter."
Only a moment ago, a great blow of Lark's had been turned aside with ease. However strong a single strike they prepared, it was useless if it could not pierce the barrier and the defensive magic spread around that monster. They needed, at the least, a power fierce enough to run through all of it, and unfortunately they had few techniques capable of such force. Even if they had, there was no leisure in which to prepare one.
"…So. While I was digging through the dirt like a human mole, I got to thinking."
"About what."
"How to beat him."
"…Was there a way."
"Nothing certain. Still… we can try."
"……What do I have to do."
Talking to a man who caught on quickly was good for exactly this. Lark understood at once that Lee Han had said it because he needed his help, and he asked what he was supposed to do. And so.
"How far can you go."
He asked it back. How far could he go.
"—All the way."
To that question, Lark answered without a hair of hesitation.
"…Romantic bastard."
A pity—it was the start of the year, and a perfect moment to light a smoke—but unfortunately both men were nonsmokers, and there was no time to put tobacco to their lips besides. Instead they took up sword and axe, and spear, with plain faces, and stepped forward. Their condition could not have been worse, and the wounds ran deep. Even so, what carried them onward was a heart beating hot—thump, thump—reading its master's will more keenly than ever, surging hard, and speaking.