I Respect You, Teacher Carry
In the end, Dharma Protector Cheong had no choice but to lay every last fact bare.
The restoration of the nation was still an unfinished hope, and the Rounds were not yet enemies in full. If the last bloodline of Snohaim—the one disguised as a young master—was to live, there was nothing else for it. Even among the bandits, word had spread far and wide that Ekaterina was a woman who had well and truly lost her mind.
"Dharma Protector Cheong is a false name. In truth, I am the keeper of Snohaim's last music box."
He told how the two of them had barely survived Snohaim after it turned into a land of demons, then wandered the world hunting for the music box. He told how they had hidden among bandits, scraping together the funds to rebuild a nation. On it went—a story that might have sounded wretchedly tragic, in another pair of ears.
The problem was whose ears they were. She was the daughter of the priest from the old Demon King subjugation party.
"Snohaim? Could their luck be any worse?"
Ekaterina remembered with perfect clarity the tales of that party, told at her bedside when she was small. Two clones burst into being and clapped over the cross-dressed girl's ears from either side, sealing them shut as if to shut the world out.
"I'm only asking to be sure. If the Spirit King is brought down into this world, this child dies, doesn't she?"
No one answered. The question hung empty in the air.
"...Poor thing. In the end, she's nothing but fuel for a spirit."
Twenty years ago, Snohaim had stood with the Demon King and tried to sacrifice its entire people to drive Spirit King Frederica into a rampage. The plan was to turn the whole country into a frozen hell and choke off the road to the Demon King's castle. Inside the subjugation party, opinion split. The Cult Leader said there was no time—cut everyone down and open the way. Tasili and the priest said that even if it was a bother, they ought to take only the music box.
And Ekaterina?
"You, the so-called keeper of the music box—you mean to save the country and kill the child."
She followed her mother's judgment absolutely. And so, naturally, she had no choice but to stand opposite Dharma Protector Cheong.
So they smeared tracking incense on the gold token. Instinct told her at once that the music box's whereabouts now depended on Lupin. Lupin had been tearing through the bandit stronghold, and Dharma Protector Cheong had been tearing through that same stronghold. The only place their purposes crossed was a music box in the shape of a treasure chest.
"How about we make a deal?"
"A deal, you say...?"
"Tell me where the other bandits are, and I'll tell you where the music box is."
Taking people in was an art Ekaterina had mastered long ago. She would bring him to where the music box waited. She would never, under any circumstances, let Dharma Protector Cheong be the one to set it working. And that same little deceit worked perfectly well on Mom. One of her clones was already trailing Lupin in secret—if precious Mom got so much as hurt, that would be a problem, and this was insurance against the one chance in ten thousand.
"I'll hold on to this winding key until then. It'd be a shame if it got lost, wouldn't it?"
Pass the key along through a clone, and Mom would take perfectly good care of it. If it was Mom, of course she would!
Fifteen days of training had slipped by since they left Rostov.
In the end, Lupin succeeded in learning every form of Shadowless Sword Style, from the first through the ninth.
Call it Tasili's victory for the human spirit: he had started her on four forms and, somehow, dragged her all the way to nine. Or should it be called Lupin's victory—for trying, by any means she could find, to break through Tasili's weakness and land even a single blow?
She still failed to strike him cleanly with Shadowless Flash. She did, however, manage to let the blade graze his skin. Tasili saw blood running from his own neck and was impressed. That pretty much said it all.
At any rate, Lupin had learned the whole of Shadowless Sword Style in barely two weeks!
"I'll be descending the mountain now."
Her nose had climbed so high it was a wonder she could see the ground. Proud as anything, Lupin dropped into a formal bow before her master.
The answer that came back was cold.
"Descending the mountain?"
Lupin lifted her head just enough to show her eyes, testing the air.
"I've learned all of Shadowless Sword Style, so I can leave the mountain now, can't I...?"
Any martial artist of Cheonghwa would have snorted to hear it.
And no wonder. What other nations would call great houses or academies—the Five Great Families and the Nine Great Sects—kept their trainees drilling every single day toward an ultimate realm that was never truly finished. Any respectable Master-class martial artist knew three sword arts as a baseline, saber arts by Cheonghwa reckoning. Depending on the family or the sect, they learned fist arts and palm arts as well, and in the extreme cases even kicking arts. Even Paeng Cheon-gi alone practiced more than five sword styles—the 5th Seat of the Rounds, of the Hebei Paeng Family, that prestigious house of Beijing, which was where they were bound next.
And Lupin?
She had only just learned the nine forms of Shadowless Sword Style. Shadowless Saber Style, if one said it the Cheonghwa way. With a sword in hand she was a child who had barely graduated elementary school. Of everything Tasili could have taught her, he had not yet passed on so much as a fraction of a fraction. It was only that her body was so overwhelmingly superior that she had been crushing people with nothing but concise, foundational swordplay. Had she been an ordinary Aura User, there would have been real doubt whether she was Master-class at all.
Of course, Tasili had no intention of teaching her anything further just yet. He had already taught her plenty, and until she felt her own lack again and came clinging back, it was better to toss her a piece of homework: take what she had and survive Cheonghwa's battle maniacs with it. Lupin learned faster from real fights than from her head or from drills. Perhaps she would meet some good fate out there and receive a new teaching.
"A full departure from the mountain is out of the question. A temporary field trip, I can allow. We'll have to part ways before the tournament registration day regardless."
"Wooow— I mean, not wow. Part ways? Master, do you have to go somewhere again?"
In this world, the only person who was a parent to Lupin was Tasili. If the dad who had played with her right up through today—wooden sword going thwack-thwack—suddenly announced he was going somewhere, of course the child would sink. Lupin shot to her feet with her lip pushed out, and Tasili spoke to her.
"You know Vatslava wants to be of help to you, don't you?"
"Yeah. I'm grateful for the drinks—she makes them really well—but she keeps fretting over how weak she is. Yegor's looking after her anyway, so it doesn't really matter."
"You may see it that way, but there's nothing to be done about what she herself wants."
"That's true. It's not like I can talk her out of it."
"In any case, for someone who wants to grow stronger, there is no place better suited than Cheonghwa. So I mean to travel the regions and see for myself what kind of power fits Vatslava. It will be quite a long journey."
"Oh. If it's that, then, well..."
Lupin fidgeted with the gourd ring on the ring finger of her left hand.
"But, like. She's not going to die while she's training or anything, right? That would actually be a problem."
"I'll see to it that doesn't happen, so don't worry. Just in case, I'll take Yegor along as well."
"Yeah, no. That's not allowed. He's my external brain. I'll turn into an idiot."
Lupin stamped her feet like a child whose smartphone had been taken, and Tasili stroked her head as he answered.
"People in Cheonghwa love to meddle. Seize anyone who's well dressed and ask, and they'll explain it to you. They might even tell you before you think to ask."
Packed into that was the meaning that one look at a pink-haired swordswoman dragging Klein around would be enough to mark her as the 13th of the Rounds. Lupin did not understand it that far.
"Really? If it's not being a nuisance, then, well..."
"And Klein is sharp enough when it comes to the sword, isn't she? She'll be quite a help in that regard. And..."
The reason for keeping Klein and Lupin stuck together was simply that the two of them, side by side, had a presence unlike anyone else. In front of Lupin, and only in front of Lupin, Klein went so thoroughly meek that other people could see it at a glance. That composition itself made Lupin stand out as an immense power.
"A great many people will likely come to challenge you. The martial artists of this country do not fear fighting the strong, and they have a culture of respecting and honoring anyone stronger than themselves."
"Aha."
"So I hope this becomes a time for you to learn out in the world. Gain all sorts of experience through those many fights. Take in what you need, and shed what doesn't work."
"Mm. I kinda get what you mean. Stones from other mountains! Look at other rocks and learn!"
The sense of it got across, more or less. The accuracy did not. Even so, his disciple was improving by leaps and bounds as a person, and Tasili could not have been happier.
She had always been a sweet, pretty child. But look at her now.
"You have to stay healthy until we meet again, all right? Vatslava is Vatslava, but if Master suddenly got sick, I think my heart might hurt a little."
The more she adapted to human courtesy and human society, the lovelier she became. When the day came to send her off to stand on her own, would he end up red around the eyes for no good reason, like a man marrying off his granddaughter? Tasili's worries piled up like a mountain.
...Of course, no one could swear that those pretty words held not the slightest pang over treasure chests.
"Damn it..."
Klein had thought she would be glad to be left alone with her. Instead she looked ready to cry.
"This is insane. How do they dump Lupin on Klein and all just take off?"
"Why? Isn't it nice and easy, just the two of us?"
"Uuuugh. That's only because Lupin doesn't know anything! Do you even realize how much I have to do, starting right now?"
The road-guiding Yegor had done. Managing meals. Finding lodgings. Filling in the gaps in what she knew. The drinks Vatslava had poured. Helping her dress and groom. Attending her at the bath. Scouting their surroundings. All of it was Klein's now, because Lupin did not know how to do a single one of those things. It was like having a five-year-old dropped on her out of nowhere—a five-year-old who ate enough for five wrestlers.
"Haa... That old geezer, I swear. Next time we meet, I'm picking a fight even if my head splits open..."
"So what are we supposed to do now? Do we head straight for the capital, Nanjing? We should at least get the application in, right?"
Lupin could babble on without a clue in her head. Klein squeezed her eyes shut and sank into thought.
Word that Lupin had been assigned as the 13th Seat of the Rounds was slowly spreading, centered on the imperial house, the Sub-Rounds, and Rostov. Nothing had come of it only because the two of them had been slamming drinks and snoring their heads off—but even on the train ride here, several people had already recognized Lupin and come over to pay their respects. Step into Cheonghwa looking like this, and everyone would know. How common were a pink-haired woman and a light-green-haired one in Cheonghwa? An envoy visiting from abroad, at the very most. So the moment Lupin settled anywhere, it would begin.
"The 13th Seat of the Rounds—the swordswoman who flattened Klein—is here!"
"Challenge her to a spar! Learn by getting wrecked!"
"Isn't that Klein beside her?"
"Challenge her to a spar!"
Why had the Cult, scattered all across the continent, all but gone extinct in Cheonghwa? Because everyone they dispatched got sick of it and ran. In any ordinary country, those without the standing grovel of their own accord. Cheonghwa had no such thing. Why? Because everyone here was mad for a fight—and inside Cheonghwa, they were fanatical about generational rank, that hierarchy born not of blood but of who had taught whom. The whole nation might as well have been Confucian boys and Confucian girls.
A martial artist of disciple standing could not simply lunge at one of grandmaster standing and say let's fight. Nor, the other way around, could a grandmaster seize a disciple by the collar and say fight me, you little newborn. But Lupin was an outsider, with no generational rank to worry about. On top of that, her clothes were perfectly made to catch every eye. They were not Cheonghwa dress, they showed far too much skin, and they traced her figure much too clearly.
"First, we'd better do something about these clothes."
So they needed to disguise themselves as people of Cheonghwa. A true master who saw through even that disguise could not be helped—but at the very least, she could shake off every nobody who charged in without knowing their place.
Lupin, who had no idea why, asked with her eyes shining bright.
"Why the clothes?"
The worry was that Lupin ran rather hot, and this particular disguise—a bamboo hat, a face veil, and a wrap of gauze—was pure poison to anyone who overheated. But Klein could now say with some pride that she knew Lupin better than other people did. So if she meant to persuade her here...
"If you're fine spending all night, for days on end, dealing with people charging at you, then you don't have to change."
Sure enough, the answer came at once.
"That's a no. I have treasure chests to find. Let's change right now."