The Ghost That Eats Iron (4)
“Hmm. That boy named Yohan looks oddly familiar.”
But it was probably just her imagination. Faces seen during exam evaluations were hardly limited to one or two. She must have encountered several similar people already. Among the four professors observing the duel, two were senior faculty. One of them, the female professor Casacos who had participated as an examiner, brushed the fleeting sense of déjà vu aside. What mattered far more than some vague feeling was their evaluation of the candidates.
She swept her long two-tone black-and-white hair back and asked the senior professor, “Professor Babalk, what do you think that ability is?”
The wind was strong, so her hair fluttered naturally. But the respected Professor Babalk merely rubbed his face with a dry hand. If one listened closely, he seemed to be muttering something under his breath…
“Understanding the structure of the sword, destruction of its form, absorption of the sword spirit, utilization of that technique, digestion, the threshold of its limits is unknown….”
“Professor, you’re doing it again.”
This was Babalk’s habit. Pure scholarly admiration, nothing else. Heartfelt praise whenever he witnessed something extraordinary. Whenever such a situation arose, Babalk would mutter and list the phenomena he had observed and recorded. Of course, he had never done this directly to a person before.
“This is unbelievable, Casacos. Do you realize what possibility I just witnessed?”
“…Well, you saw the phenomenon of decomposing the structure of iron weapons and stealing their abilities.”
“Azero is an officially recognized treasured sword of the Empire. It shouldn’t be something that can simply be devoured whole. Yet he swallowed it as easily as taking candy from a child. I’m curious about the limits of that ability.”
“No ability is without limits, but that doesn’t matter. Our job is to raise that threshold.”
At that, Babalk broke into a grin that bordered on madness.
“Indeed. If we can successfully analyze it and harness that power… we could easily shatter even the accursed Six Demon Swords that grant the Demon King immortality.”
“Oh, heavens.”
The Demon King had resurrected many times, yet humanity could only ever seal him away. All because of the Six Demon Swords—those accursed immortal weapons forged from the body of the Goddess of Evil that protected his heart. Unless every last one of those swords was destroyed, the Demon King could never truly die. Even the first Hero, the one who had come closest to killing him, had only managed to seal him with great difficulty.
Thus, humanity had never found any method to truly end him. Every time the seal weakened, they paid a terrible price in lives to reinforce it once more. That was precisely the part Babalk was fixated on. If that ability could be properly utilized, it might be possible to destroy all of those accursed Demon Swords. In other words, it might finally solve the impossible dilemma that had plagued humanity for so long. Whether it would succeed or not was uncertain, but the mere possibility of finding a solution was enough to leave Casacos, as a fellow scholar, utterly stunned.
“That’s not all. Roban’s speed and drawing technique were renowned for their sharpness, so I had some expectations, but the gap in skill was this vast….”
“His strength matches his fraudulent potential. Even in the latter half, when he was submerged in Azero’s lake.”
“There’s no need for a rematch with Yohan. Give him an S, Professor Casacos.”
“An S…? That’s a score only given at graduation after all evaluations are complete.”
“True, but… damn it, that’s what my heart says. I’ve never felt my chest pound like this, not even during my first love.”
“I’ll just give him an A. What about Roban?”
At Casacos’s question, Babalk’s expression hardened.
“There’s no room for sympathy. If he still had Azero it might be different, but he lost that ability through his own arrogance. His character fails as well. Accepting a student like that would only bring scandal to Sigmund.”
“Well, if you insist.”
Casacos scribbled a neat, firm annotation on the evaluation sheet clipped to her board. True to her image as a cool beauty, her handwriting was impeccably crisp.
Only her fondness for cute emoticons stood in stark contrast to her usual demeanor.
///“Yohan Kim. A-rank.”///
He had passed without question. Perhaps they had highly valued the way he had so thoroughly crushed his opponent. Whether it was just his imagination or not, once he received the A-rank and stood in the waiting line, the contemptuous gazes from those around him had vanished. When he had first stepped onto the dueling grounds, they had clearly been calling him a barbarian and worse.
Having lived his entire life in the North, he had never particularly liked the central regions to begin with. Now he found them utterly detestable.
Ah, Roban?
‘M-my treasured sword…!! Nooo!! Until I get it back… I can’t leave!!’
‘Get out.’
The boy had made a spectacle of himself, crying and screaming in front of everyone just because he had lost a single treasured weapon, and was eventually dragged away. The reason given was disruption of the proceedings. As expected, he remained true to form. For the record, Yohan had done nothing wrong. He had only intended to spar with a practice weapon. It was Roban who had gotten carried away by his own bravado, demanded a real fight, and lost his treasured sword as a result.
‘I’ll make good use of what I gained.’
After Roban was removed, the evaluations resumed without further incident. Most candidates received proper assessments, and the process was finally drawing to a close. Only a few remained undecided—well, everyone except Eclipse.
Her evaluation had descended into complete chaos.
///“Miss Eclipse, please choose your next opponent.”///
///“Miss Eclipse… Please choose again.”///
///“…Please select a different opponent, Miss Eclipse.”///
She was a sword user like him, relying on flame magic as her foundation. This was already her fifth attempt at choosing an opponent. By now, the professors should have been able to determine whether she passed or failed, yet they kept postponing her evaluation for some reason. With no undecided candidates left, her expression was a sight to behold.
“One… more time…?”
///“Yes.”///
Her already vacant face now looked completely soulless.
“Poor thing. Are the professors bullying her?”
“They could just fail a ditzy girl like her. What are they plotting…?”
“Kihihi. I’ve never seen that sword style before. What kind of technique is that? She’s stumbling all over the place and her form is terrible—it’s hilarious. Seriously.”
Those who had already secured their passes watched her with smug amusement as she burned with anxiety, but Yohan knew better. The reason the professors were so fixated on her was because of the sword style she displayed. It was the long-lost ancient hero’s technique—the Sun-Obscuring Swordplay.
…No, calling it the same would be inaccurate. It was merely an imitation. Even he could tell how crude it was. She herself didn’t know, but she was a descendant of the ancient hero who had first sealed the Demon King. The sword style she used was something her father had taught her from oral tradition, little more than a superficial imitation, yet its distinctive movements had caught the professors’ eyes. Why? Because Babalk’s specialty was research on the ancient heroes. Above all else, he was the one most obsessed with defeating the Demon King in this world.
‘So he’s investigating the Hero—the one who came closest to killing that immortal being.’
Normally, anyone showing such a half-baked performance would have been eliminated immediately, but the protagonist was special, wasn’t she?
“Aah… That…”
The problem was that the moment she entered a duel, she would hesitate out of fear even while executing her techniques. It was because of the debuff: “U-uwu. I can’t hit them….”
Thus, whenever she stepped into a duel, she produced something far below even half her usual practiced skill—an awkward, flailing dance rather than the Sun-Obscuring Swordplay. Babalk kept doubting his own eyes and forcing her into rematches.
“I’m scared… I’m scared…. I can’t fail and disappoint everyone in the village, but I just can’t swing my sword. Help me, Mom….”
It was almost comical. She would burst into tears over a single drop of blood while sewing, yet she couldn’t bear to see others suffer. She wasn’t a typical protagonist, much less a typical Hero. But that was who she was. Her personality probably wouldn’t change until the world ended.
To overcome this hesitation, she needed only one thing: an opponent she could fight with genuine intent—someone she could kill without guilt. It seemed his prediction had been correct. Without Roban, there was no one here she could truly go all out against. If Yohan defeated Roban in her place, that outcome would no longer be possible. So he rose from the waiting bench and stretched.
Someone had to take responsibility.
“…?”
Their eyes met. A subtle exchange of glances. Then her eyes slowly widened as she spoke, as though a lifeline had been thrown to her.
“…Professor!!”
///“Have you decided on your final opponent?”///
“C-could I choose that Yohan over there, Professor?”
In an instant, every gaze turned toward Yohan at the end of Eclipse’s outstretched hand. Everyone looked puzzled that she had chosen him.
///“…Hm? You mean Yohan?”///
Eclipse spoke confidently to the professor.
“There’s no rule saying you can’t choose someone who’s already finished their exam, right? This might be my last chance to take the test. So… since it’s come to this, I want to face the strongest person I’ve seen here.”
///“Well, that’s fine, Miss Eclipse.”///
At those words, everyone watched expectantly to see how Yohan would respond. They were probably marveling at Eclipse’s audacity for picking the lone figure sitting on the bench, unaware of the conversation that had already taken place.
///“As long as Yohan is willing.”///
Willing or not, he had been the one to suggest it in the first place. He answered immediately.
“It would be embarrassing to refuse.”
///“Then please step forward.”///
“P-please take care of me!!”
To him, Eclipse spoke with a stiff, frozen expression, her face flushed with desperate hope. But what he was about to do was become the villain—the one she needed to destroy. So there wasn’t much left to say between them.
“But before that, let’s make one thing clear.”
“Y-yes…?”
“Since you chose me, there won’t be any holding back. Prepare yourself, Eclipse.”
“U-uwah?”
But he could guarantee one thing: the path he would open for her would be far wider and more comfortable than any pressure point Roban could have released.
***
A few minutes later, sand and dust whirled through the air. Fifteen practice swords had already been broken—or rather, shattered. The arena was filled with scattered footprints and heavy tension. At the center of the acrid cloud of sand…
“Kuh-heek…. Kuh-hek-!”
“Stand up, Eclipse. I’ve been telling you this whole time.”
Eclipse lay sprawled on the ground as if unconscious, her body battered and ragged from being struck repeatedly with a practice sword. Was she really this stubborn?