A Knight Speaks No Falsehood (5)

…Why did the look on his own face come to him so easily?

Stiff as a board, I'd bet.

And he was not wrong.

"A frightening face."

"Someone's threatening me. Not exactly a moment for smiles."

"That is fair. Even so, do you not hesitate far too little? There may yet be some misunderstanding."

"There might."

"And still you do not hesitate."

"Now that's the funny part."

For all that he called it funny, Lee Han did not smile at all as he lifted his sword.

"—You're gushing killing intent all over the place, and you want to talk about a misunderstanding? What kind of custom is that?"

A prickling rush crawled his skin. In all his memory, this was only the second time he had faced a killing intent so fierce.

Different in kind from the spearman's, though.

The judgment might sound like strange logic, but the killing intent of the spearman, Rak de Duron, had been pure through and through. Even when it carried the will to kill, the force of it was as clean as dawn dew, and just as heavy—nothing base, nothing that turned the stomach. This was different.

Filthy.

Rotten water. The stench of a corpse going bad. A killing intent laced with that poured off the man until Lee Han's whole body prickled with it. Skin hurting from nothing but killing intent—was there really such a thing?

"A rebrand at your age. Can't be easy."

"Haha. Is the road of challenge not open to anyone, however many years they have lived?"

"Stupid question on my part. Brilliant answer on yours."

"I have merely lived a little longer, and grown a very little wiser for it."

Iliad's manner stayed impeccably polite, and Lee Han's replies stayed as dry as ever, yet those who watched felt it all the same. One spark would set it off. A suffocating air, heavy as settled fog, had swallowed the space—the kind of air in which anything might happen, and no one would be surprised.

And into that—

"Oh, right. Almost forgot. Congratulations."

"Pardon?"

"The legs. You're standing just fine now."

So he apologized in advance.

"Let's start by cutting those off."

Lee Han kicked off as if firing the opening shot of a battle and, without a shred of hesitation, swung his sword straight at Iliad's lower body.

…Levi never saw it.

The crash came down before her eyes could catch when her master had moved, or when he had drawn. The strike was that fast, and it was almost uncanny that a body so huge could move so lightly.

And so—

Steel screamed.

"…He blocked it?!"

The ease of it felt faintly unreal: a flat calm, as if the man had foreseen exactly where the edge would come and turned it aside as a matter of course. But her master was her master, and he answered like one. He swung as if daring the other to block all he liked, and each time the air tore and a streak of light cracked across the space.

And each time—

"Goodness. How frightening."

The opponent met it, and met it again, and knocked her master's sword aside. With a rapier, of all things. Light as a reed.

…Was such a thing even possible? She knew it was not, because the rapier was her own weapon. You sought speed with it, and counters. Stopping a swordsman of a wholly different weight was no different from a fox trying to halt a bear's paw. So how…?

"…It is Father's Willow Sword."

"?"

"A method that reads the opponent's movement and stance—even the minute shifts of the body, even the flow of momentum—and sheds the force of any blow, however powerful, with ease."

"I-is such a thing possible?"

"I do not know. Only… Father could."

No matter the gap in weight, no matter how strong or how fast the opponent, he calculated everything in a single instant, slipped the force just off true, and turned the blade aside by the thickness of a sheet of paper. A sword art bordering on the divine, permitted only to Iliad, who possessed the greatest sword genius in the history of the house—no, of the kingdom. The only man who might imitate it was Duke Blake, once called the genius swordsman of his generation.

"He can only imitate it, however. His Grace Duke Blake himself declared that even he could not copy the art in full. A sword permitted to Father alone."

"……."

She swallowed.

People liked to say that a genius was one whose talent overwhelmed the multitude—a brilliance that made every soul marvel, and lose itself. …An accurate assessment. Even in a moment when her life might hang in the balance, Levi could not hide her awe, her shock, the shiver running through her. Iliad's sword was showing the summit of an art that no amount of effort could reach.

Except—

"…But to Kunta, uncle's body is strange somewhere. Joints strange. Bones look a little thicker."

"……."

"Arno…. That okay?"

"…Mm."

Arno could not hold back a groan at an observation too sharp to deny. Just as Kunta said, the Willow Sword was a great art, a tremendous technique—but it had never been great enough to shed the Instructor's strength so easily. He knew a son had no business making such a judgment. Even so, Iliad, genius though he had once been, was not a man who could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠overwhelm the Instructor. Not because Iliad was weak. Because the Instructor was absurdly strong. A cold assessment.

And yet, now—

It's like someone strapped springs and rubber cords to his joints.

Kunta was right. Iliad's body stretched a little, like rubber, and snapped back with the rebound of a spring. His frame was the same. For all his once-in-history talent, his body had belonged among ordinary men; now the bones looked as if iron pins and drugs had been driven into bone and muscle for decades, forcing a change of constitution. And the longer it went on, the clearer that change became. A creak. Louder. Plainer.

"…I have to… admit it."

Arno ground his teeth and accepted it with a heart that felt like vomiting blood.

His father, Iliad de Offen, had…

"…become a Demon Person."

An enemy of all humankind. A monster in the shape of a man, one that had to be killed, no matter what.

"Damn it…."

Faced with the reality that his own father had to die, Arno retched, and the tears came. It was a reality cruel enough to damn.

Some people said it. If one could gain power like that, was a Demon Person not a rather convenient means? Use it properly, and would it not help humanity?

…Impossible.

Say it outright. From the moment a person became a Demon Person, that human was humanity's mortal enemy.

The reason?

The loss of humanity.

They came to delight in devouring their own kind and in slaughtering them, and a human made into a Demon Person would turn even on the family that had once been everything, and savor the eating. Memory remained intact. They knew moral law. And they broke it as easily as sitting down to a meal. So a Demon Person was, in truth, classed as a monster. No longer human. They had crossed a river from which there was no return.

And therefore—

"Father must be killed. …Is that not so, Grandmother?"

Arno wiped his tears as if barely gathering himself, and looked to his side. Not because he had sensed anyone. Simply because he had assumed she would be there. And sure enough—

"……."

At some moment he had not marked, she was there, her gaze sunk low and still, nothing like her usual self.

And she spoke.

"What possessed you to come here? You ought to have trusted this old woman and remained with the house."

She rebuked her grandson with cold precision. From a mouth that, on any other day, would have begun with an apology, a rebuttal came instead.

"Forgive me for saying so, but you are indeed a great swordswoman, Grandmother. As a person, however, you are disqualified on far too many counts. Leave this in your hands, and it would take a year and more."

"You… those are cruel words."

"I admit they are cruel. Are they wrong?"

"……."

…Even if she wished to make excuses, she had none. If she, Sword Duke Felicia, had only set her mind to it, Iliad ought to have died long ago. That he still lived, even so, meant—

"Grandmother… you meant to subdue Father."

She had chosen, deliberately, not to kill him.

At those words—

"……."

…she gave a wordless assent, and her eyes held nothing but a forlorn sorrow.

"—I am sorry."

Felicia's apology held many things at once. An apology for failing to help when the house must have been in ruins. An apology of gratitude, that he had set the house to rights and come, though she herself had not been there. And—

"I was so wretched that it came to this…."

…an apology for her own incompetence.

She offered it that way, and Arno shook his head.

"It is not a matter for apology. You did not intend this, did you?"

"……."

"And as for Father…."

"…When I first found him, he was already that way."

"……."

Felicia spoke as if it were nothing, but he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could tell how much she was holding down.

"Yes. When I first found him, that child was already deep in demon-humanization, and I had to choose. To subdue him, or else…."

Or kill him.

But her choice, foolishly, had been—

"I chose the former…."

People liked to say that once one stood at the level of an Aura User, subduing someone was no great difficulty. They were not wrong. Putting down a single person was easy enough.

…Except—

"I had forgotten that my child was once called the Sword Saint."

Iliad was not a swordsman one could subdue by half measures. In his twenties he had already been a swordsman who could scarcely find an equal even in Pendragon, and that child had gained the power of a Demon Person on top of it. Talent bestowed by heaven, and a body mighty enough to shake the earth. From the moment those two joined as they were, subdual was no longer a subject worth discussing.

……Killing was the only answer.

"Of course, given four days or so, I might have managed to subdue him somehow. But… what meaning is there in subduing him now?"

"Grandmother…."

"…When he is already no longer human."

Whether her grandson's arrival had hardened her heart, the sword no longer held any hesitation. Because they were family. Because he was her only son….

"Better that I soil my own hands than let another's be dirtied."

Felicia set her resolve. She would send her child on. Humanity lost, he would harm people in the end, and a day might come when he laid hands even upon his grandson. That was never what her son would have wanted, and for her son's sake Felicia steeled herself, hard—

"—Please, just stay out of it. You step in, and even the things that would work won't."

The impact cracked the air.

"????"

A fist-force had dropped dead in front of her.

Felicia's face opened in pure bewilderment—what absurdity was this?—while the knight who had unleashed it upon the Sword Duke of the age stood soaked through with sweat, eyes still fixed only ahead.

And then—

"Demon Person, my ass. How is that a Demon Person?"

Even in the middle of the fight he must have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠caught the talk between grandmother and grandson. The knight let out a hollow laugh, irritation plain on his face, as if he simply could not stand to listen any longer.

"Ah… child?"

"That's a Heart Demon. Not a Demon Person."

"??"

"Another name for it is qi deviation."

"What…."

"And qi deviation is a sickness you can cure."

Which meant what?

Beat it out of him long enough, and it gets fixed. That's all.

As the old saying had it, a club was medicine for a mad dog. By the same law, a fist was medicine for a madman.

In that sense—

"I'm the specialist."

The medieval knight, who prided himself on a certain knack for reforming beast-bastards worse than people, took up an axe in place of his sword. A pity. Beating a man all refined, with a sword, didn't look as if it would do the job.

"Guess I'll have to fight like a bandit. Or a beggar."

Within himself, the knight woke the outlaws of the greenwood, and the Beggars' Sect.