A Man's Growth Is a Sight to Behold (3)
And then, all at once, it struck him.
Ah. This is idiotic.
He was making a fool of himself.
A Mercenary Catechism, of all things... I never thought I'd be the one doing the sort of nonsense I'd only ever heard about in rumors.
In truth, the Mercenary Catechism was nothing but a pastime mercenaries had cobbled together to kill the boredom of a long contract — a crude imitation of a boxing match. By the proper form, the fists were even wrapped in something soft and bound in cloth.
Obvious enough. A mercenary's body was his fortune. Hurt yourself easing a little boredom, and the only one who lost was you, so the fighting was meant to stay as safe as it could. Gather enough hot-blooded mercenaries, though, and the bouts overheated as a matter of course. Foolish injuries piled up, and so, in the trade, the custom had died out long ago.
Even Lee Han had only ever heard of it as a rumor from some old mercenary's mouth. The first time the story reached him, he had gone so far as to declare it a truly stupid thing. And yet—
"So the idiot was me. Haa..."
The mutter came out laced with self-mockery, riding a sigh. What in the world did he think he was doing?
"Haha. Stupid? It's a culture with quite the pedigree."
"Punching a man and bleeding while you talk — what kind of culture is that? It's just ignorance."
"It can look that way at a glance. But man or woman, once bodies collide, the talk grows more honest. You can dig the truth out of someone by a method that's almost primal. How exhilarating is that? A pity it ever died out."
"Pretty-sounding bullshit."
The problem was—
"I hate that I'm the one who finds it tempting."
"Heh! So there is something we share."
Lee Han admitted it. He had a fair number of things he wanted to ask Caesar, and Caesar had things he wanted to ask him. But two men who had barely met, opening their hearts and showing their true faces — that was absurd. Neither of them owed the other the loyalty of free information.
Hence the Mercenary Catechism.
"Article One of the Mercenary Catechism. Each round, the one who stacks the most scoring blows earns the right to ask a question. That right?"
"Article Two. Refuse to answer, and for one minute of the next round you may not attack. Defense only."
"Article Three. The two rules above must be kept absolutely. ...There are only three rules. Is that really it?"
"Fitting for mercenaries, wouldn't you say?"
"Ridiculous, I'll give you that..."
"—but simple enough that I like it."
They moved as the howl rang out, both men launching themselves at once.
Lee Han's fist was the first to fly.
A jab — the little feeler everyone knew carried no real weight. And yet his jab boasted an explosive power no one could believe was meant only to test the range. He had simply extended his arm. Would you believe it sounded like a shell coming down?
Even so.
"Heavy fists, for one of the youngsters these days."
"...You're sturdier than I expected."
"Seventy is still a sturdy age. Heh."
His opponent turned the blow aside with ridiculous ease.
Lee Han threw jab after jab, as if running an experiment, and in an instant more than five strikes poured in on the sound of splitting air.
Even then—
"Magnificent! Agility like that, on a frame that size."
"......"
It was no ordinary guard. No — more precisely, what was truly impressive was the way the old man smothered every blow as if it weighed nothing.
He's reading me completely.
No surprise there. The man was called a legend, wasn't he? Honestly, it would have been stranger if he couldn't brush aside a hit of this degree.
Which meant—
"Let's see..."
It was obvious who would pay for underestimating the other.
Lee Han's head snapped aside.
It happened in an instant. A smooth weave slipped the jab he had been throwing, and an uppercut came straight up after it. He got his guard up in time.
What kind of impact—!
It felt like a sledge from a construction site, swung with everything behind it.
"You blocked that?"
As if puzzled that the blow had been stopped, Caesar slipped back into his reach on that same smooth motion. Lee Han matched him and threw a precise straight — and the situation repeated itself.
A soft U-shaped slip threaded the storm of punches Lee Han was throwing, and the body blow that followed crashed home. A liver shot, some called it. It struck him hard, and Lee Han—
"...Again?"
"Goddamn it. Why is every old man I meet stronger than I am?"
He managed, fortunately, to catch it with one hand, but his body nearly lifted clean off the ground. He hadn't crossed the line, so it wasn't a ring-out, but it had been a near thing.
Worse—
My hand's going numb.
The arm that had blocked it felt dead. The tingling was vicious, and it struck him all over again that this old man was a monster.
He picked up something else as well.
A hybrid out-boxer.
Smooth, unhurried weaving, and on top of it a fantastic duck that changed direction at will. That much was a classic out-boxer. What made it frightening was that the defense was formidable too, and the punches — loaded like a chambered round and fired — hit with appalling force. Complete as an out-boxer, and complete as an in-fighter.
Like Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier poured into one body.
He could tell because he had once gone hunting through footage of those old legends.
And so—
This is fun.
Lee Han was interested. Partly as a man who had once enjoyed watching boxing. And partly because, for the first time in a long while, he had someone to spar. Solo training never quite filled that thirst. The fact that a man stood here who could left him quietly pleased.
What kind of brat is this?
Caesar was baffled.
He's blocking all of it?
He slipped into the man's reach again, smooth as water. To anyone watching, the opponent might as well have been standing still, and only Caesar moving. His movement was that precise, and that empty of anything wasted.
A greenhorn who hasn't even entered Domain, reacting to this? What kind of marvel is that?
Between this young junior and Caesar there was a gap in caliber that could never be crossed. By all rights, this match should have been Caesar making sport of him. And yet, strangely—
The impact detonated between them.
"...?"
"...I've been thinking this for a while. Why do you look so surprised every time I block?"
"Heh. You clearly haven't reached Domain, or you'd have seen through it. And yet... remarkable."
"What are you even saying?"
The man blocked him again. Not easily — only just — but that was remarkable enough.
I never meant to drag this out.
He had used the word round, yes, but in truth Caesar had meant to give him a proper thumping and end the thing at his leisure inside the first. Contrary to that plan—
—somewhere along the way, round one had ended.
"Tch. If you've got something to ask, ask it. Round one looks like a complete loss for me."
"...Heh."
The young man stepped back without a trace of fatigue, and Caesar let out a dry laugh.
Then—
"—You. Why didn't you use Intent?"
"...?"
It was not what he had originally wanted to know. He asked to settle a doubt this first round had left him.
"No. Not only Intent. I heard from my disciple that you know a peculiar method called Diamond Body. And yet you didn't seem to use even that."
If what his disciple had told him was true, the man need not have blocked Caesar's fists at all. He could have simply endured, then looked for the counter. Tank it on toughness and shove in with a slugger's single heavy blow, and he might well have landed a hit on Caesar that mattered. Instead he had insisted on an out-boxer's style and nothing else. He was fighting while killing his own advantage.
To that doubt—
"You're saying something strange..."
Lee Han lifted one fist and tapped it, reciting the rule. Honest as a fool.
"You're the one who said it, aren't you? We do this by the Mercenary Catechism. Then of course I can't use anything else. A Mercenary Catechism is a fight with nothing but your own skill, isn't it?"
"......"
"Well, it isn't in the rules, I'll grant you. But in the Mercenary Catechism I heard about, nobody ever mentioned using Fighting Art. To me, Diamond Body is the same kind of thing, so obviously I shouldn't use it. Common sense."
"...You held back for a reason as small as that?"
"Obviously."
"...You do understand that I stand a fair ways above you?"
"I know. So what?"
The junior knight called Lee Han snorted, as if to say don't talk like a fool.
"If I had to concede defeat just because the other man was stronger, I'd have died a long time ago. Not one of the bastards I've fought was weaker than me. If anything, every last one of them was stronger. And the one who survived to the end was me. So as far as I'm concerned, whether you stand above me or not doesn't matter. It's a trivial thing."
Ordinary brown eyes were shining. Like a barley field turned to gold in the reflected light of a setting sun... Eyes in which a vast, restless vitality seemed to pulse.
And those eyes—
"If you've got it, then drop the stupid questions and ask what you actually want to know. Now..."
"...Minute's up. Come on. Round two."
"......"
"What are you doing? Get your hands up."
"...Forgive me. It's been a long time since my heart ran this hot."
"...?"
"Ahahaha! Damn it all. I came here on nothing but a light little notion, and now look at this."
Caesar took his opponent in again, a smile thick with rapture on his face.
Yes. That was no longer a greenhorn worth making use of.
The man before his eyes was simply—!
A strong enemy I have to bring down, standing right in front of me.
Let his guard slip, and this fierce warrior might tear his throat out.