Swordmaster Charmmahwang

The current administration of the Karse Federation was called the Longsword Regime, for the simple reason that the sitting president was a Swordmaster.

It was not a name given in any complimentary sense. One look at the longswords hanging from the belts of the president and his inner circle was enough to leave a person wondering whether they were a political faction or a gang of unlettered thugs. In the case of the Longsword Regime, they were both.

The swordsmen who had pinned on badges or donned official caps as ardent followers of the president—Charmmahwang—took to political thuggery with genuine enthusiasm. From time to time, the president himself would personally handle similar business.

When his first six-year term as president came to an end, Charmmahwang did not bother campaigning for reelection. Instead, he sought out every viable presidential candidate, forced them into duels, and defeated them. And so he won a second term. Invoking a dusty old tradition that required the loser of a duel to leave the country far behind, he succeeded in exiling every candidate but himself.

Amazingly, this was a true story that took place in the twenty-first century. No coup could arise against this anti-democratic state of affairs, for the military held boundless goodwill toward a president who always funded them to excess.

The next president would almost certainly be Charmmahwang as well. Because no one doubted that fact, the Longsword Regime's policy continuity was equally robust. And the Longsword Regime's policy, ten years ago or today, was one and the same.

War with Earth.

Like attracts like. The dignitaries from various nations attending this tenth-anniversary celebration of the Longsword Regime's founding were, to a man, the sort who endorsed that policy.

A bunch of hardline reactionary bastards...

The journalist cursed inwardly even as he carefully surveyed the faces filling the venue. For a gathering of every hardliner on the planet, the racial diversity was impressive.

The dwarf fascists...

Those dwarves, who loathed Fordist mass production, were lunatics who still stamped out dozens of tanks and war golems every day using nothing but medieval handicraft. They had come to secure munitions contracts, no doubt.

The Wood Elf elders...

Nearly every Wood Elf had fought in the Second World War, and they had been collecting veterans' pensions for half a century ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as a result. They were a race that did not die of old age. At this rate, they would keep drawing those pensions until the country itself collapsed. They had come to pledge their participation in the war, in exchange for an unlimited extension of their pension terms.

And even General Secretary Kashad...

The journalist trembled the moment he laid eyes on General Secretary Kashad—and not solely from the awe of beholding the leader of one of As's superpowers. General Secretary Kashad was an ancient lich, was he not? Within that skull, azure eyes of light drifted, devouring the souls of the living. He had come to promise the support of a fourteen-million-strong skeleton legion, and a zombie artillery corps famous for being composed entirely of combat veterans—raised exclusively from those who had served in the Second World War.

Even with all that, the journalist had wryly assumed nothing more today could surprise him. He was wrong.

Hugin? The Hugin Republic?

That was a country with little interest in Charmmahwang's war. And they had sent guests anyway?

The journalist was stunned by what he saw.

The first thing that caught the eye was a procession of pale-skinned beauties, men and women alike. Vampires. The conglomerate lords who ruled the Hugin Republic had left their own domains to come ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠here.

That alone was rare enough. But something rarer still followed.

An elf, every bit as handsome as the vampires and paler still. The journalist could not look away from the elf's hair—that gray hair. Long gray locks swayed with a melancholy air. The color of that hair alone made identification effortless.

The Prince of Ash. The last Gray Elf.

Swordmaster Gaon had broken decades of seclusion to attend this gathering.

The journalist swung his camera toward the famous elf and found he could barely breathe. The face captured in the lens held more than elven beauty. Dark circles steeped in tragic obsession. Bloodshot eyes that held a hatred for the entire world, captured one after another by the camera.

Grasping what it meant, the journalist went white.

The invitation to the event had arrived a month ago. At the time, Gaon had been too busy with monster hunting and raids to accept. But he had reversed his refusal and attended, if only to please the Goddess.

And now, Gaon regretted attending with every fiber of his being.

The Goddess had been overjoyed that Gaon had not only gone outside but accomplished the great feat of attending a social function. She was not overjoyed now.

Gaon groaned inwardly. He had been planning to pretend he'd forgotten the promise and sneak straight home to game. The thought of wasting time that ought to have been spent productively already soured his mood.

A gloom settled over Gaon's features. For some reason, a man who had been pointing a camera at him shuddered—but that was of no importance to Gaon. He was equally uninterested in how important or how impressive the assembled dignitaries might be. The only question that mattered was when this event would end.

In the midst of it all, only one woman caught Gaon's eye.

The dragon Ataraxia. This was the dragon who had led the bombing of London during the Second World War, but it was for a reason unrelated to that history that she held Gaon's interest.

The chairwoman of the 4 Fantasy Online development company...

Ataraxia's eyes met Gaon's, and she smiled.

"I've heard much of your reputation, but this is our first meeting, is it not? Sir Gaon."

Wanting to maintain his tragic Swordmaster persona, Gaon merely nodded in silence. He decided not to complain that her company's game had killed the one he'd been playing. He liked this new game well enough, after all. Until recently it hadn't been a game he particularly enjoyed, but that was no longer the case.

"...This gathering brings together the righteous spirit of As..."

While the tedious opening remarks droned on, Gaon recalled the after-party festival he had enjoyed in-game the day before. It had been a victory celebration for a battle no one had expected to win. In that game, which astonishingly simulated even taste and smell, Gaon had gorged himself on fried chicken and beer—things he rarely ate in real life.

And sweeter still than the chicken and beer... the praise.

Throughout that celebration, Gaon had been showered with acclaim. The cheers of players who had earned handsome rewards for joining the battle, and of the townspeople who had, thanks to him, kept the property they held in the city.

To endure the tedious, stifling hours, Gaon began infinitely replaying yesterday's praise in his head. If he were logged in right now, he could be earning experience or training—making productive use of his time. I want to go back. He was repeating that to himself when—

As the host of the event, the President of Karse made his entrance.

Charmmahwang. Among the Swordmasters—most of whom were undead or elves—he was the sole human. For a short-lived human, he was well past the age at which he ought to have been dead, yet Charmmahwang still looked vigorous. A deeply regrettable fact for the people of Earth. Vitality so overflowed from his entire body that the hopes of Earthlings—that time might succeed where even a nuclear reactor meltdown had failed to kill that terrorist—seemed unlikely to be fulfilled anytime soon.

The dwarves, the Wood Elf elders, and the ancient lich of a General Secretary all bowed their heads in respect toward that human man. Charmmahwang returned their respects and ascended the dais.

He had not come to give a speech. True to his nature as a simple, brutish swordsman, Charmmahwang went straight to the point of why he had convened this gathering.

Charmmahwang's gaze turned to Gaon.

"...Sir Gaon. You actually came. You have my sincere gratitude. To think you'd spare some of that precious closed-door training time for our cause as well."

The moment he heard those words, Gaon regretted everything. When he had received the invitation, he had not known this was a gathering of warmongers. No one had told him. And so Gaon stood there feeling half ambushed. What would the news say now?

Something like that is going to be splashed across every headline, isn't it.

A few more lines would be added to his wiki page, too. And not in a good way.

As Gaon kept his mouth shut, Charmmahwang suddenly turned to the dragon.

"Chairwoman Ataraxia, that virtual reality entertainment of yours? I hear Sir Gaon appears there as well. Word is he's infamous for slaughtering more Earthlings than anyone else."

Ataraxia nodded.

"That's right. Looking at the statistics, Sir Gaon's player-kill record is what you get when you add up every other Swordmaster's and then multiply by seventeen. And as you know, our game is based on reality."

"Excellent. Truly... Sir Gaon, I'd like to see you after the event. Would that be all right?"

Gaon nodded, expressionless, and Charmmahwang smiled with satisfaction. For a human old man well past a hundred, he smiled with far too much vigor.