Crisis (1)

Why exactly was the Messiah Empire called an Empire? There were many reasons, but the gist of it was simple.

It held the largest stretch of land on the continent, commanded the deepest coffers, and possessed military power of truly overwhelming scale.

And since military strength inevitably hinges on the power of individuals, it mattered enormously that the Empire counted an actual Swordmaster among its assets.

Just who was the Swordmaster? The pinnacle of the sword — a monster regarded not merely as a tactical weapon, but as a strategic one.

A Swordmaster famous for splitting the earth with a single swing, and cleaving mountains with the next.

The reason no nation dared to pick a fight with the Empire was, above all else, the existence of that Swordmaster.

That was the thing, though. In truth, the realm of mastery known as Swordmaster was not exclusive to the Empire.

It was simply that the Empire's Swordmaster was the strongest. Overwhelmingly so.

The Empire's own Swordmaster, and the most celebrated swordswoman of the age — Ash Menesil.

Renowned not only for her strength but for her beauty as well: snow-white hair like freshly fallen snow and deep blue eyes. Her looks had bloomed early and brightly, stealing the hearts of countless men along the way.

It followed naturally that marriage proposals flooded in from the time she was barely more than a child.

"I will marry a man stronger than me!"

So declared a fifteen-year-old Ash, unable to watch any longer. And with those words, everyone was convinced.

If you coveted that beauty and that strength, then defeat Ash. After she comes of age, of course.

Three years passed. She came of age, suitors held their breath in anticipation — and no man ever defeated her.

Five years passed. Her marriageable years were filling up fast and she fretted over it, but she waited with patience.

Ten years passed. Her family tore the house apart begging her to just get married already. This was when something began to feel off.

Fifteen years passed from that declaration. Still, no man arose to defeat her.

Fifteen more years passed. Her skill climbed ever higher, and still the man who could defeat her failed to appear.

She had undergone Metamorphosis and retained the beauty of a woman in her twenties, but her actual age was firmly in the thirties.

Having long since blown past any reasonable marriage window, few men dared approach her anymore.

Granted, there were those who proposed, blinded by her looks. The problem was that every last one of them was weaker than Ash.

That last shred of pride, that one conviction, she refused to surrender. So she held out. And held out some more.

For their part, men found a woman stronger than themselves rather intimidating, so they at least understood where she stood.

"This can't go on."

She couldn't simply wait around daydreaming forever. So Ash took apprentices and trained them herself.

Raise the promising ones by hand. Surely one of them would land the mark.

Not a single one did. Every last apprentice was defeated by Ash and went off to marry some other woman.

People married young in those days, so most of them had bolted long before they could ever rise to the challenge.

"Then I shall teach everything I know to the Gallery."

Alarmed into action, she posted her swordsmanship know-how to the Gallery with painstaking care, hoping to set a virtuous cycle in motion.

And the cycle genuinely took hold, raising the overall skill level of the continent's population across the board.

Keep this up, and sooner or later a kingdom somewhere would produce a man stronger than Ash.

Worried about international relations? Her own marriage prospects were dead in a ditch — the rest of the world could eat dirt.

And yet, even then, no man arose to defeat Ash. Instead, mass-produced Swordmasters kept multiplying without end.

Worse still, Ash's strength quietly kept growing while she did absolutely nothing but breathe.

"Why? Why isn't there one? Why, in God's name!"

Ash could not comprehend it. How could talent be this scarce?

Despite every desperate measure she took, the man who could defeat her never showed. She picked the problem apart, and at long last arrived at a single belated realization.

"You get stronger just by breathing? You're kidding me, right?!"

Indeed. The woman the world praised as a genius was, in an entirely different sense, a natural disaster.

Mana accumulated in her body from breathing alone, and talent enough to channel it straight into her blade.

Had she not squandered her years obsessing over wedding bells and trained steadily instead, she would have reached Grand Swordmaster at a pathetically young age.

But Ash was already a fixture in any conversation about the continent's strongest; further strength was the last thing she needed.

"Life: total garbage."

Everything had become pointless. A crushing wave of existential despair washed over her.

In the end, Ash tossed every title and position aside and withdrew into seclusion.

The Emperor of the Empire begged her on his knees to stay, and she refused him flat every time.

She did grant that her name could be used freely whenever they pleased — but every great house needs its face, after all.

The Empire itself trembled at the mere thought of losing Ash, which said everything about her stature.

And so twenty years in total came and gone, and Ash, deep in her self-imposed exile…

"Ehehehehe."

…was lying in bed eating a banana. She giggled to herself like an absolute fool.

Her snow-white hair was scraped up into a sloppy bun, and she wore whatever passed for comfortable — full deadbeat-lazy attire.

Round glasses completed the ensemble. She was the very embodiment of the jobless bum.

These days she spent her time diligently lurking the Gallery, enjoying her blissful (?) days of doing nothing.

THWACK!!

"Ack!"

"Honestly, you child!! How many times have I told you to get out of the house at least once?!"

A spike of rock-hard rice snack slammed into the back of the woman who had been listlessly scrolling the Gallery.

Ash's body was tempered like raw iron, yet somehow, the blow stung.

"Look at your sister! She had another baby at thirty — that makes five ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠now, five! And you — you even used to Captain the Imperial Guard! Why won't you get married?!"

"Ah. Mom…."

That stinging was because the beating had been delivered with an abundance of love. Ash rubbed her smarting back and looked up at her mother.

The woman's face was lined with wrinkles, but her features closely resembled Ash's — the kind of beauty that must have turned heads aplenty in her prime.

Ash might already be in her thirties, but her mother had given birth to her at nineteen. By the standards of the age, that was perfectly normal.

"I can't help it if there's no man I like…."

"Then lower your standards! Where in this whole world is there a man stronger than you?!"

"……."

Her mother's rebuke left Ash with nothing to say. It was, in fact, half right.

Ash was exceptionally strong even measured against every race in existence. Stronger, even, than the elves and the demonkin.

Granted, somewhere out there a man stronger than her probably existed. They simply hadn't been found yet.

"Aigoo. This mother of yours is withering inside, withering, I tell you. Swordmaster this, Swordmaster that — what good does any of it do? Thirty-five years old and still unmarried! Listen to your mother, who's already past fifty!"

"Well… little sister married wonderfully, though, didn't she? Mom, we're nobility now. Nobility."

Ash's family had been commoners, once. Her rise to the continent's foremost swordswoman had lifted their whole status with it.

And the title she'd been granted was none other than Count! Given that a margrave outranks a marquis here, it was effectively the finest title the Emperor could bestow.

Her younger sister, blessed with beauty of her own, had made an excellent match besides.

Five children, by all accounts — proof enough that the newlyweds' hearth was a warm one.

Unlike her older sister, the sister had found her destined match. Ash was jealous.

"And whose fault is that! The eldest daughter of the house, in this state! At least go outside and get some exercise!"

"I get stronger just breathing, though…."

"And I'm supposed to believe that nonsense?! Out. Now!"

"Yes ma'am!!"

However old a child grows, they remain a child in a parent's eyes. Cowed by her mother's bellowing, Ash scurried off the bed.

She grabbed a practice sword and stepped out of the manor — or rather, stepped out just far enough to turn her back on the door.

Training was a chore. Why bother, when her constitution grew stronger on the strength of her breathing alone?

'Might as well post something.'

Back in bed, she connected to the Gallery. What she did there was simple.

Uploading swordsmanship know-how to the Gallery. It had become her daily routine.

Once upon a time she'd posted it to raise the continent's baseline strength; now it simply felt like a job.

She hadn't always been this immersed in the Gallery. She used to lurk now and then, and that was the extent of it.

But once she belatedly understood her own constitution — once the uniquely hollow despair of realizing the world had deceived her settled in — she'd fallen head over heels into it.

The occasional idiot did surface, and Ash dealt with them with impeccable courtesy.

Why would anyone bother with such manners in a Gallery where people bared their ugliest desires without shame?

'Playing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the gentleman keeps suspicion off my back.'

It came down to Ash's usual personality. She was, frankly, on the brash and shameless side.

Which was precisely how a commoner-born woman had gotten along swimmingly with the nobility — and none of it mattered anymore.

Besides, she'd been on the Gallery far too long. A newcomer by any measure compared to the lifers, but her activity history stretched back ages.

A person who had used the Gallery steadily for years on end — and when she'd started posting sword techniques, she'd even drawn suspicion.

'If the choice is dying of embarrassment or dying, I'll take dying.'

There was always the chance she might be exposed, which was why she made a point of the polite tone.

Accordingly, she never once attached photos or videos when uploading her swordsmanship manuals.

Call her a genius among geniuses — apparently she had a real gift for the written word too, because her prose was so compelling that no questions ever arose.

"Ah. I want to get married."

Ash scratched at her taut abdominal muscles as she muttered ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to herself. Even with her marriageable years long behind her, she hadn't given up.

If a challenger ever appeared, she was perfectly willing to receive him. She was in seclusion only because the Empire forbade it.

None of which she knew — the Gallery being her only window, that fact had never reached her.

'I wonder how strong this one is?'

Scrolling the Gallery long enough, you inevitably ran into people who showed promise, or who held forth on strength itself.

She'd wanted to meet a few of them in person, but her leads invariably dried up before long.

That was roughly how it went. Most of the time the theory itself was garbage — or incomplete, at best.

But not everyone was an idiot. There were, in fact, a few names that caught Ash's eye.

'Just how strong is this Heavenly Demon person?'

The Heavenly Demon, who shat out posts like they were nothing. The users treated her like just another fixture of the Gallery.

Ash had thought the same, at first. But every so often, among the Heavenly Demon's posts, there were passages with real depth on the martial arts.

Everyone else scoffed. Ash did not. If anything, she despised the Heavenly Demon several times more than they did.

'I got stronger because of this bastard….'

Genius recognizes genius: the Heavenly Demon's writings had influenced Ash more than she cared to admit.

Forced enlightenment by injection, you could call it. Every time she read one of those posts, the mana within her body swelled noticeably.

Not just once or twice, either. At first she'd brushed it off — coincidence, surely — but after it happened a handful of times, the truth dawned on her.

This Heavenly Demon bastard was carelessly scattering her own hard-won insights to the wind. The funny part? Most users had no idea what they were even looking at.

'Going by how she talks, she's definitely a woman….'

Had it been a man, Ash would have hunted her down in person no matter what it took.

Anyone who'd gleaned insights like those had to possess real power.

But the woman called herself Bon-nyeo — This Lady — and her manner of speech marked her unmistakably as a woman.

An older woman, at that. Quite a bit older. One thing was certain: she was older than Ash herself.

'…Not that I'm one to talk.'

Ash, after all, had dumped her swordsmanship know-how into the Gallery without reserve. Swordsmanship was, by nature, a jealously guarded, closed-door art.

Yet because she'd scattered techniques anyone could learn, strong and weak alike had seen their skills climb.

The nation that benefited most of all was the Empire's eternal, undying rival — the Iris Kingdom.

Iris had always been a country where mages outshone knights, but thanks to Ash's magnificent trolling, its average had caught clean up.

"Bring me this SwordTasteStar at once!!"

"Your Majesty. The personal identity of Gallery users cannot be verified."

"Th-th-this…! Urk…! Gah!"

"Y-Your Majesty!"

Needless to say, the Emperor of the Empire had exploded with fury — but there was nothing to be done about a user he couldn't catch.

That was one of the reasons Ash had stepped down as Captain of the Imperial Guard. Who could keep working with the Emperor shooting looks like that?

If a real crisis ever befell the Empire, the Emperor would simply have to come to her — so Ash got to savor a life of perfect ease.

"Hm?"

She'd been diligently browsing the Gallery under her mother's radar when a fixed-nick user caught her interest.

The man who claimed he'd opened his eyes in a forest one day, out of nowhere. She'd written him off as just another shitposter.

But then he'd gotten his hands on some medicinal herb called the Crescent Moon Spirit Grass, and the Gallery erupted into an uproar.

From that point on, a flicker of interest took root. What on earth was this human about?

'Is the Crescent Moon Spirit Grass really that good?'

For the record, Ash had no idea what the herb was. Her body had no need of elixirs of any kind.

Afterward, he'd run into a Mad Dog the size of a cow and everyone had wondered how it would end — and then he'd killed two of them.

'The cross-sections are… remarkably clean?'

A look of genuine surprise crossed Ash's face. Behind her round glasses, her blue eyes lit up with interest.

Even in a photo, the cuts were immaculately smooth.

Most people couldn't slice tofu without leaving a ragged edge, no matter how fine their blade.

Not a hint of wobble anywhere. The man claimed to be an ordinary civilian — which only made her curiosity burn hotter.

And above all…

The Heavenly Demon was showing interest. That Heavenly Demon, who could barely be bothered to post anything but shitposts!

Now she was fawning all over him like a child guarding a spot she'd marked as hers — hands off, I called it first.

Totally oblivious to the fact that it only made him more intriguing.

'Well, look at this one?'

Ash broke into a toothy grin. This just made her want to poke at it more.

The Heavenly Demon, famous for her my-way-or-the-highway attitude, reacting like this? Now she simply had to stir the pot.

She might as well learn a thing or two about WildGrylls while she was at it. Ash settled in to wait for his next post.

She'd assumed it was a bit at first, but apparently he was a man genuinely living out in the wild.

Adventurers presumed lost to the wilds sometimes did post from time to time. But none of them had been as naked and unprepared as WildGrylls.

Five minutes passed.

One way or another, the man had secured himself a cave fit for a day or two. Ash snorted a quiet laugh.

Strangely entertaining. After a steady diet of shitposters, it was a genuinely novel flavor of fun.

Though it would all mean nothing if he died. She'd have to make him read her old posts later.

'What would a person need to survive out there, I wonder.'

Hard to say. If WildGrylls ever turned out to need something, she'd send it then.

After that — whether he'd truly fallen asleep or not — nothing more came from WildGrylls. Ash kept scrolling the Gallery, steady as clockwork.

Even when it was the dead of night in WildGrylls's corner of the world, it was broad daylight in the Empire. Prime hours, in other words.

Then the sun had slouched low and dusk was settling in.

"Huh?"

A post from WildGrylls. The title alone was ominous.

Ash pulled up the thread pinned at the very top of the board. What on earth could have happened?

"Hhk?!"

And she could only recoil in shock.

WildGrylls's right arm had been wrecked. Badly.

This was no mere pair of through-and-through holes; the torn flesh had peeled back to expose bone. Infection was the least of it — the real worry was bleeding out.

An emergency had erupted.