Lv.? Swordmaster Hyungtun — [2]

The instant the blade-tip broke skin, Hyungtun moved.

He kicked off the earth and twisted in the same breath, a raw, urgent evasion — get out of that spot, now. It was a Swordmaster's combat sense at work, the kind that could smell death in the smallest scrap of a clue.

Gaon had expected as much. He was a Swordmaster himself.

He drove the blade in anyway.

The sword punched into Hyungtun's back.

He had been aiming for the shoulder, so it was hardly a clean result. It was not a disastrous one, either.

"The Swordmaster's bleeding!"

A small hole in that back still counted. Blood. Nothing that would kill him — but against a Swordmaster, it was an astonishing thing to have done.

Through all of it, Hyungtun showed no anger and no alarm. He was calm past composure, past expression itself, and he did the thing the moment required. First he swept the sword he had run out to eleven meters and cut down the four people still standing around him.

Only after he had cleared every nearby threat did he turn toward the one who had put a blade in his back.

Meanwhile, the Goddess spoke.

"Gaon. Was it not your intent to hone your swordsmanship by facing an equal? I fail to see how an ambush does much for that."

"Meeting him head-on is a bit of a problem, though. If I fight a Swordmaster on even terms, I'll be announcing to everyone watching that I'm a Swordmaster too…"

Gaon looked at Hyungtun. Those eyes were already locked on him. Even through the invisibility, the man seemed to have roughly placed him — which meant there was no point in hiding any longer.

Gaon dropped the vanishing spell.

And so the one who had stabbed a Swordmaster in the back was revealed. Not only Hyungtun, but the people watching from far off, saw Gaon with perfect clarity.

Hyungtun stayed silent. The players did not.

"Holy shit!"

"Kirito just stuck the Swordmaster!"

A roar of praise went up. Fair enough — they had reason to be glad. In the middle of a one-sided slaughter, this was the first time anyone had drawn blood.

Inside the cheers thrown at him, Gaon smiled where no one could see it.

Yes. This is the reaction I wanted.

Outwardly he was as blank as Hyungtun. He leveled his sword at the man, slowly, and spoke to the people.

"I'll buy you time. Grab your gear and fall back, or regroup and fight — your call."

"You'll buy us time? How…?"

"That guy's going to come after me now. I'll draw him off."

He decided not to explain that the ambush had almost certainly bumped his threat rating through the roof — that Hyungtun would now treat him as the first and only target. There was no time.

Hyungtun was already coming.

Gaon teleported, tore open the distance, and ran.

Just as he had expected, Hyungtun ran after him. The commander stared blankly after the two swordsmen receding into the dark.

He was still busy being relieved he was alive.

"What do we do, sir?"

The commander thought for a moment, then gave the order.

"Ask upstairs. A Swordmaster showed up — do we start Plan B?"

Gaon kept running until he ducked into a building.

Hyungtun came in on his heels and leveled his sword. Only then did Gaon turn around.

"No one's watching now, right?"

The kind of muttering that belonged to a man who had lived alone too long. Gaon lifted his blade and settled into a stance.

Then he caught the sword that came crashing down on him.

They met with a boom, and lightning leapt between the edges.

The shock was hideously fierce, but he could keep fighting. The monstrous strength the Ogre Potion had given him stood equal to a Swordmaster's superhuman muscle. And the blade, plated in adamantium as it was, held even against Sword Qi. The preparation had been worth it.

Hyungtun's first strike failed. He eased back a step — then lunged without warning.

Gaon meant to turn it aside at his leisure.

The building was dark, but Hyungtun's sword burned the darkness away as it shone, and reading the attack was no trouble at all. The white Sword Qi peculiar to human Swordmasters. It showed up beautifully.

What the eye seized decided the next move. A Swordmaster's combat sense named the best line.

Block this strike, then counter at once…

Damn it.

Contrary to every expectation, his guard failed to stop the cut. It punched through as if it were nothing and came for his throat.

He grasped that fact just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in time to keep his life.

Gaon twisted aside, and Hyungtun's blade whispered past his neck. He clenched his teeth.

He could not win. Not with this body. Not ever.

Until now, he had felt no real lack moving this character's body. It took an equal opponent for the shortcomings to finally sink in.

So I really can't go even with specs like these.

And Hyungtun was no soft target, either. The man was famous for butchering civilians — a reputation not unlike Gaon's own — so Gaon had assumed his swordsmanship would not be anything special.

Now that they were actually crossing blades, he felt he would lose even in his real body.

He set the frustration aside and backpedaled.

Then he spun on his heel and ran. He still had Hyungtun to draw off.

If he could not win, he could at least be useful to the people behind him. Buy them time, and they would heap praise on him for it.

How sweet those cheers had tasted today.

That was why he had lain down early and still been unable to sleep. He had kept replaying the praise in his head. When he could no longer hold the smile down, he had gone outside just to savor the memory.

There was no room to smile now. The most famous sword in history was coming for him.

Hyungtun's blade was called the Demon-Slaying Sword — a name born in the days when Earthlings, who belched black fumes and spread plague, had been called demonfolk.

The Demon-Slaying Sword's signature trick, the extending blade, did not help much in a duel between Swordmasters. Against a target far off, though — against someone running away — there was no sword more generous.

Gaon felt the elongated cut reaching for his back. He twisted out of it in a hurry, but he could not get clear of the blade's reach.

Ghk—

Revenge or accident, he could not tell. The sword took him in the back. Blood started, and Gaon teleported to get out from under the killing line.

Lee Mi-ri was in a foul mood. People who tried to scrape a living off a game instead of doing honest work always looked like trash to her — and they looked even trashier when they poured abuse on her head.

And through all this wretchedness, she still had not accomplished what she had come for.

Night had fallen, and no kind-hearted commander had offered her a billet. So she had slipped into a vacant building and was waiting out the dark.

She had work in the morning. The reason she still had not logged out was obsession — obsession with ambushing that swordsman from As. She had meant to strike at night, but the patrols and sentries were working harder than she had expected, and she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had not even managed an attempt.

She was sighing over another night wasted when the city suddenly erupted into noise.

Not that it was any of her business. She sat there, staring at nothing.

Something was coming.

The chase went on. Every heartbeat brought him closer to dying.

The enemy was faster than he was, and stronger. Worse, a Swordmaster's combat sense had already locked onto him as its target, and Gaon knew — as only another Swordmaster could know — that there was no slipping that lock.

Even so, he was reasonably sure he could keep running.

Being hunted by something that could kill him was a very familiar situation.

For some two hundred years, Gaon had lived in another world with other boys.

When he opened the gate, the Archmage had told them it was an empty world. A world where nothing existed but time, racing by.

It had been a lie. It was a world thick with every kind of malice that wanted them dead.

There were monsters — ancient, sacred things the gods had abandoned.

There were ancient gods themselves, defeated in an old war and banished, crushed under something close to eternity until they had lost their very selves.

Days of clawing to survive among those horrors. Saving his own life had not been enough. Gaon had been the group's only priest. He had had to look after the others, even sit and take their troubles. Young as he had been — a boy — he had been the leader of a band that included several adults.

Those days still came back as nightmares sometimes. They had been hard enough to kill him, and yet every day had been full.

Sometimes he found himself wanting to go back.

And now it felt as if he had. It was almost enjoyable.

Hyungtun closed the gap at his heels.

The sound of air splitting. When a blade sheathed in Sword Qi occupied a certain range, something remarkable happened.

A vacuum bloomed in empty space and tried to drag Gaon in. He could not move — and the next stroke was already coming.

Ngh…

Gaon rolled across the ground and came up with nothing but his life.

He cleared another killing line and teleported into a building.

He had not chosen it. There had simply been nowhere else to go.

He locked the door in a hurry and ran deeper in. And of course the Swordmaster made a passage through the wall, stepped inside, and kept coming.

Gaon teleported again.

In a single jump he skipped a whole floor's height and came out on the third. Following that would cost Hyungtun a little time.

He had bought himself a breath.

On a sudden impulse he looked out the window, wondering how things stood outside.

They still haven't all gotten away. Everyone rushed the gate with their vehicles and jammed themselves up — it's made the retreat even slower…

He would have to keep running a while longer. He would do so gladly.

He was still running when he reached the fourth floor.

In the dark ahead of him, someone was there.

A hostile NPC?

No. Impossible. This was a player-occupied zone. He knew that perfectly well — he had taken this place himself today.

He drew closer, and there was light.

A woman had been spending the night in this building, it seemed. She had already drawn a sword.

"Lee Mi-ri?"

"Hey hey!"