The Flame Fire Brigade (1)
"—and so, for the time being, I have already selected personnel to gather intelligence."
Whoosh—
"Is that… sooo!!!"
Kang—!
"To my eyes they appear little more than wet-behind-the-ears pups… yet they seem reluctant to leave Your Lordship and Madam's side. Still, compared to myself—your shoulders have dropped. Ahem. They are inferior to me, of course, but they do appear to possess a certain measure of skill."
"How very impressive of you, huh!!"
Chae-chaeng—! Chaeng—!
Even as steel crashed against steel in a shower of sparks, Gordon continued his report with perfect composure, not a single bead of sweat on his brow.
Darian, by contrast, was soaked through. No matter how hard he swung his axe, he couldn't land a single clean hit. His hands tingled from the endless swings, and his legs trembled beneath him.
It had been two weeks since Gordon had volunteered to become Darian's sword instructor—though calling it swordsmanship was generous, given that Darian had never once held a sword hilt in his life.
Before anyone quite noticed, morning spars in the training yard had become routine.
Rosaria, who had been dragged along on the first day, was still stuck in the running-and-basic-conditioning phase; the moment her laps and strength drills ended, she staggered off on shaky legs. Darian, still full of fire, charged in determined to land a real blow today—
"That will be all for today."
"Hoo…. Damn it! Not a single hit again!!"
Every attack cleanly blocked, Darian collapsed onto the ground the instant Gordon declared the spar over and bellowed his frustration at the sky.
"Even so, Your Lordship has improved remarkably in such a short time. I myself can no longer manage bare-handed and must now spar with daggers."
"Yeah, well, other than blocking, nothing else has changed…"
Gordon held up the practice dagger in his hand as if to offer encouragement, but it did little to soothe Darian's mood.
"Heh heh…"
It will be some time yet before he understands what it means that I have drawn a dagger at all.
Gordon was entirely sincere.
Against most mediocre opponents, Gordon could subdue them bare-handed in an instant. That he had taken up a weapon—even a blunted practice dagger—was either a declaration of intent to kill, or a mark of genuine recognition.
Over the past two weeks of spars, Gordon had said nothing of it, but every single day had been a string of astonishments.
On the first day, Darian had charged like an unrefined beast. Now he was a beast that had honed its blunt fangs and claws to a razor edge, lunging straight for the vital points of its prey.
His once-clumsy movements had become dazzlingly fast and ruthlessly efficient. As long as his stamina held, he adjusted his grip on the axe handle with perfect timing, lengthening and shortening his reach with practiced ease.
At this level, he could comfortably handle two of the thugs who had once surrounded Gordon at the Red Fang hideout—men who now served as soldiers under the Red Fang banner—if they came at him together.
In a pure one-on-one, short of the man who had once been Fenril's right hand—the one who had so boldly threatened Gordon at the Red Fang hideout—there was no one left who could stand in Darian's way.
"If I've gotten that good, then when the hell am I going to start lighting that blue flame?"
Darian's goal was not simply to beat people with an axe. It was Sword Aura—the art of raising blade energy with mana.
"Hmm… To be frank, Sword Aura is only possible once the user has awakened their mana."
"And how do I do that?"
"A mage's magic and a swordsman's Sword Aura are fundamentally the same. Both involve storing mana in the heart and putting it to use."
"The difference is whether one draws that mana outward to cast spells, or circulates it within to strengthen the body."
"Which is why, at the most basic level, one must first awaken mana before either magic or Sword Aura becomes possible."
"So I just do what my kid did—blow up a bunch of mana stones or whatever?"
"…That only works as an explanation if one assumes Young Master Felix is special. That method is extraordinarily dangerous and almost never succeeds."
When Darian brought up Felix as an example while discussing how to awaken mana, Gordon wiped a cold bead of sweat from his brow and answered carefully.
What Felix had done in the name of awakening mana was no different from leaping into a bonfire to gain immunity to burns.
Anyone with sense knew most people would end up as ash without even trying. Felix, somehow, had jumped into the fire and walked out unscathed—and even Gordon struggled to explain it.
"So basically I just can't use it?"
"The most stable and effective method of awakening mana remains the usual one: meditation, seeking out the root of one's mana."
"Cut me some slack. Meditation? I don't know the first thing about that crap."
"As for other methods… there are those who first sense mana when their life is threatened, or in a moment of absolute desperation. That is why so many Sword Aura users come from mercenary or military backgrounds."
"…Complicated."
"Most people, through meditation and training, gradually come to understand the structure of their own bodies, and from there take the further step of awakening mana. That is the method most widely practiced."
"And how long does that usually take?"
"Well… typically it takes years, so—"
"Argh!"
In short, awakening mana meant faithfully repeating days like this for years at minimum. Gordon's words finally shattered Darian's patience.
"…Sigh. Getting mad doesn't change a damn thing, does it."
"Learning the sword means building from the foundation up, Your Lordship. Only then does the core become solid."
"Tch. Whatever. So today's lesson is over, right?"
"It is. Though, if I may ask—will you be going again today…?"
"Keep it secret from her. Just heading out to clear my head."
Darian, who had been rolling around on the dirt, suddenly pushed himself up and pressed a finger to his lips in a gesture for secrecy.
"Barkeep! One cold one over here!"
A hooded man flung open the door of a tavern still preparing for business in broad daylight—the sun not yet set—and bellowed for an early drink.
"…Honestly. The pot water hasn't even boiled yet. What are you doing here at this hour?"
"What else? Came for a drink."
"Good grief… Hang on."
Sen, the proprietor of the Gryphon's Claw, had been wiping down wooden tables with a cloth when he looked up at the man and let out a disbelieving little laugh—then immediately ducked inside and returned with a cold ale.
"Here you go. Next time, come at night. At this hour most of us are prepping lunch, so putting together any real snacks is tough."
"Eh, cold booze is enough. And nights are a bit… awkward for me to be out."
Sen set the full mug of ale on the hooded man's table and aired his grievances, but the man only chuckled and shrugged.
That passage really does get put to ingenious use.
The secret passage they had once used to track down Curmon when he tried to sneak away.
Lately, whenever Darian got the chance, he would pull a hood over his face, slip out into the territory, and nurse a drink. It had become something of a hobby.
He still used the secret passage to dodge Freya's lectures—that anything could happen, that this wasn't the modern world, that he always had to be careful—but he had to be home by nightfall.
"Aigoo… She nags from morning to night. Feels like it's gotten worse than before."
"Maybe you're the one who needs to grow up? If you were my husband, I'd have kicked you out of the house already."
"Aigoo…"
In an ordinary household, it was the father who got nagged by the mother. In theirs, it was the other way around—the mother nagging the father was simply daily life.
She had always been meticulous and devoted to household matters, and even back when she was a housewife in the modern world, her scolding had been relentless.
A man ought to be allowed to knock back a few drinks with his buddies after rough work, shouldn't he?
But the moment he tried to argue, she dismantled him point by point with airtight logic until he had nothing left to say.
Back then, if the mood was right, a good hard kiss could get him off the hook more often than not. These days, that method was… harder to deploy.
I got plenty of confessions from women, but I never once felt attracted to them…
His husband, now a woman. Himself, now a man.
Their genders had flipped, but their souls were still husband and wife, so they managed to live together somehow. Still, since arriving in this world, they had not once shared a bed.
Even as a student, Darian—then a woman who carried herself like one of the boys—had received more than a few confessions from girls her age. She had turned them all down without a second thought, because she had never felt the slightest pull toward her own sex.
But now, after landing in this body, things had gotten complicated.
You really only understand once you've got one. The damn thing moves on its own, no kidding.
He had clearly been a woman, and yet somehow, every time he looked at Freya, a heavy heat stirred below—more and more often these days.
It wasn't as if he felt anything toward the other women, the maids. It was only Freya, his spouse, who set him off.
But his male body still felt alien, and the thought of sharing a bed with the husband who was now a woman made him freeze solid every time.
Should I just go for it once? But what if she gets pregnant… That'd mean my husband is carrying my kid. Wow. Absolute comedy.
"Ugh, I'm starving!"
"Barkeep! Two of whatever's fastest!"
"Rye bread and stew! Quick!"
While Darian nursed his drink and let those tangled thoughts circle through his head, the tavern that had been empty save for him began to fill. Men streaming in one by one, dripping with sweat, and the place grew noisy in a hurry.
Ever since Freya's purge of the underground alleys, the old buildings too far gone to salvage had been torn down and new ones raised in their place. Lately nearly every resident of the territory had been drafted into the construction work and was laboring hard.
"Aigoo… I'm dying here."
"Still, the pay comes regular, so it's doable, right?"
"True enough. Harvest season isn't even here yet, and I was so broke I ate nothing but oat porridge for days. Yesterday I brought home some meat and my wife's eyes nearly popped out of her head."
"Food prices have dropped a lot too, my wife says. Money goes further."
"You're telling me. Feels like the high-and-mighty ones have actually changed."
"About those new buildings going up—once they're finished, they're going to rent them cheap to the locals so people can open shops, I heard."
"What? Is that true?"
"Unlike this tavern or the smithy over there, you'd still pay monthly rent, but it still sounds pretty good, doesn't it?"
"No kidding. This territory might actually turn around for real."
They shoveled the cheapest food available into empty stomachs after a long morning of sweat, but their faces were full of smiles lit by something that looked a lot like hope.
"…Heh."
Darian still lacked much sense of himself as a noble, or as the lord of this land. But listening in, identity hidden, to the chatter of his people, he found himself smiling without meaning to.
Watching hard lives take a turn for the better always felt good.
In truth, Darian had done almost nothing to bring any of this about—nearly all of it was Freya's work. But husband and wife were one body, and Darian felt a swell of pride as if Freya's accomplishments were his own.
He was still quietly sipping his ale alone in the now-bustling tavern when—
Bang—!
The front door rattled open once more.
He thought it was just another laborer coming in for lunch. It wasn't.
Wildly darting pupils. A face flooded with panic.
"F-fi… fire…!"
Urgent, but the words wouldn't come. His lips trembled.
"…..?"
The noisy crowd turned toward the man, wondering what the fuss was. Darian did the same.
And then—
"Fire—!!!! There's a fire!!!!"
The first words out of the man's unstuck mouth were terrible.
Fire.
The cry rang through the tavern, and before he knew it, Darian had shoved back his chair and was already running.