The Flyswatter
Canaria stood at the edge of the cliff, gazing out over the familiar mountain panorama.
“It’s unusually noisy today.”
The whole place had the air of something that made her think of the old days.
Though “the old days” meant only one or two years ago, at most.
“Isn’t it?”
“Even after all this time, you’re still as rude as ever.”
“Why should I bother being polite to an uninvited guest?”
Snick.
A silver blade slid free of its scabbard.
It was an old, battered sword, marred by cracks in several places, but it still carried a chilling edge of killing intent.
“Or were you hoping for this sort of courtesy?”
“I wouldn’t say I was hoping for that, but if it eases your temper.”
“Tch.”
I clicked my tongue and slid the sword back in.
“What do you want? Did you kill me and then come to pay your respects because you’ve suddenly developed a conscience? Or did you come to check whether I was really dead?”
“Don’t be like that. I’m practically a shut-in now thanks to the injuries that fellow gave me.”
“Hmph. Shut-in old man, my ass.”
He had been wounded, yes, but there was no way that senile snake was really going to sit quietly in some back room.
More likely, he was hiding in the shadow of the Empire under the pretense of recovery and working from the dark.
“I came because I got a tip. An Apostle came looking and said a girl named Canaria was living on this mountain.”
“Oh?”
A tip, huh.
“So what, you came to fight?”
“Don’t test me for no reason. You and I both know that’s impossible.”
I turned my body away from the cliff edge where I’d been hanging on by a thread.
In front of the cottage, on a small clearing, a neatly dressed man who looked to be in his twenties was sitting in a chair.
“Honestly, I’d rather see you come to the Empire than see you die. Talented people are always in short supply. How about it? Will you come now? Maybe not all the way to the Emperor, but I’d treat you so well plenty of dukes would envy you.”
“No.”
“It’s not as if you had any patriotism for Grasis to begin with.”
The man tapped the crudely made chair with the staff in his hand.
“Wouldn’t it be better to live in luxury and comfort in the Empire than to keep living like this?”
“I’ll think about it if you let me give your heart a little gift in the form of a sword.”
“Hmm, living on this mountain doesn’t seem so bad after all.”
Fresh air, beautiful scenery.
The man went on with his easy banter.
I didn’t want to see his smug face, so I frowned and snapped back.
“Stop being annoying and get to the point. I’m holding back the urge to shove my sword into that disgusting face of yours right now.”
If I could, I would have done it on the spot, but the annoying part was that I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.
This was exactly why mages were such a pain in the ass.
“How violent. This is why swordsmen are all the same.”
“Amazing. I was just thinking something similar.”
The man clicked his tongue and slammed his staff down hard.
Mana surged up in an instant, roiling and taking on a complex shape.
The Oath of Existence.
It was a magic circle of oath, the kind mages used when they staked their very existence on a promise.
“I have a favor to ask of you. If you hear me out, I’ll protect this place you treasure so much.”
“Protect it? You?”
“And you still doubt me after I showed you the Oath of Existence?”
“I’d trust a Dimensional Beast before I trusted your word.”
“Fine. I’ll raise a barrier around here so no one can enter without your permission. The duration will last until I die. How about that? Is that enough?”
“…”
The man was so devious that even with an Oath of Existence, there was no telling what tricks he might pull.
Still, if the conditions were laid out that clearly, maybe it was safe to trust him for now.
“What exactly are you asking for?”
“It won’t hurt you either, so just listen.”
The man remained infuriatingly relaxed no matter how much I looked at him in annoyance with my arms crossed.
“I said earlier that an Apostle had reported you, didn’t I? Thanks to that fool running his mouth all over the place, things have become rather troublesome.”
He finally got to the point.
“As you know, your reputation is infamous. Since you vanished immediately after Grasis fell, we couldn’t find where you’d gone…”
“You mean you didn’t look because you didn’t want to die.”
“Ahem! There are still plenty of people who remember you. Plenty who bear grudges, too.”
“Of course. I still remember what you did, too.”
“Good grief, stop interrupting and listen for once. Anyway, one of the knight orders that heard the report went out on an expedition.”
“...Me? That’s strange. Anyone who’s seen me on the battlefield wouldn’t think that way.”
“It’s not that they don’t think it—it’s that they can’t. Most of them are either half-dead or already dead.”
The man gave a snort and threw my own words back at me.
“And as you guessed, they’re not veterans of the war. It’s a newly formed order. They gathered a bunch of hot-blooded youngsters, and it seems their lust for glory got the better of them. They set out under the excuse of exterminating monsters, but apparently their real target was you.”
“From your perspective, I’d be a monster, so it’s not wrong. You people go around calling me a monster all the time anyway.”
“You don’t know Arkish, but you understood that?”
“I’ve heard it so much I’d be deaf not to.”
Everything is always monster this, monster that. How could I not know?
I’d heard it enough to develop a permanent callus on my ears, so of course I understood.
Besides, when you’re learning another language, you always pick up the insults before the polite words.
“Are you warning me? Telling me to be careful? Or asking me to spare their lives and send them back?”
“No. The opposite.”
The man leaned on his staff and got to his feet.
As he straightened the back that had been bent just a moment ago, his shadow stretched long across the ground.
Like a snake.
“A sword is meant to be used according to its master’s will. A sword that breaks free of its master and runs wild is of no use to the Empire.”
“Oh?”
I tilted my head slightly.
“Isn’t that something you could do yourself?”
“Like I said earlier, I’m a shut-in old man now. If I carelessly use my power and get caught, it’d be troublesome.”
“I don’t know how long you’re going to keep spouting ridiculous nonsense, but fine, let’s say that’s true. Even so, this feels like an oath that’s overwhelmingly in my favor.”
“Think of it as my own little sign of respect to a worthy rival. I’d hate to see my rival’s death tarnished. And you’d do well not to underestimate me too much. Even if I am a sword that runs wild on its own, I’m still rather sharp.”
“A sword is a sword, no matter how sharp it is.”
“Then we have an agreement?”
“Hmm…”
I dragged the word out.
If you asked whether there was something suspicious about it, the answer was obviously yes.
In fact, there were suspicious things everywhere.
And yet, even considering that, his oath still seemed useful to me.
If this had been before, I would have refused without even listening. But now I had something I wanted to check.
I’d been bothered by leaving Garid’s grave unattended, but even if the man in front of me was one of the most disgusting people alive, he was still a Master Mage in name. That meant I could at least stop worrying about the grave being ruined.
It was almost too perfectly timed, which made me suspicious.
After hesitating a while longer, I slowly nodded.
“Fine.”
“Good. Then give me the hand I’m to etch the oath onto. ...The other hand.”
“You’re a pain in the ass.”
I withdrew my right hand, ring and all, and held out my left.
“I’ll take the oath.”
The man muttered a simple incantation, and the floating magic circle melted back into mana.
The drifting mana wrapped around me, then glowed brightly before being absorbed into my hand.
For a spell that could ruin a person’s life, it was surprisingly docile.
When the mana disappeared completely, the man made a show of wiping away sweat that hadn’t even formed.
“Phew, done. As you already know, the barrier’s in place, so you can relax.”
“If you’re done, then get lost already.”
“You really are impatient. I was going to leave anyway. I’ll trust you’ll handle it well, Canaria.”
“...Don’t call me by name.”
“Then what should I call you? Crimson Reaper? Death Bird? Or maybe Canaria…”
Whoosh!
The sword that had lunged forward at speed tore the man’s form to shreds.
Ripped into pieces, the man didn’t even finish speaking before scattering into mana.
...If only that had been the original, not a clone.
Of course, if it had been the original, that senile snake wouldn’t have been standing in front of me in the first place, but I couldn’t help feeling disappointed.
He really did know exactly how to get under someone’s skin.
“I don’t know what you’re scheming, but…”
He said he’d learned about me through a tip?
With the Empire’s intelligence network and that crafty snake’s abilities, he would already have had a rough idea of where I was.
And then he made an oath that only hurt him and left me completely unharmed.
He even sent a knight order after me on purpose.
The snake claimed he hadn’t known, but there was no way he truly didn’t know.
Maybe even the knight order’s expedition had been touched by his hand from the beginning.
Everything about it was suspicious as hell, but...
“I’ll let myself be fooled for now.”
After all, I was already planning to head down because the place had become too noisy.
I’d thought I was finally escaping that endless war, but maybe living a peaceful life really wasn’t in my fate after all.
Standing before the Crimson Aegis, I ran my hand over its hilt.
The familiar feel of it answered my touch, almost as if it were asking to be used.
A sword made by pouring in a priceless Dragon Orb and begging and pleading with that arrogant dwarf until he finally gave in.
Named with the single-minded resolve to protect Grasis: Crimson Aegis.
A sword named after a shield.
It was such a contradiction, and so utterly like Garid, that I’d laughed more than once over it.
After Garid, its original owner, died, the sword became mine, but...
“I don’t have the right to use this sword.”
The senile snake had said it himself. Why was I living here when I’d had no patriotism anyway?
And he wasn’t wrong. I didn’t really have any lingering attachment to the fall of Grasis itself.
What weighed on me was only that I had failed to uphold Garid’s will.
When you haven’t protected what you were supposed to protect, what face do you have to wield a sword made for that very purpose?
With my eyes closed, feeling the warmth of the blade, I finally forced my hand free, even though it lingered stubbornly, reluctant to let go.
I had another fine sword, after all. That was enough.
As I stared down at the old blade, it occurred to me that I had never given it a name.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t expected to keep using it this long.
I’d meant to use it until it broke, then toss it aside, but who could have guessed it would last this long?
Since a good name had just come to mind, I gave the sword one.
“Yeah. Your name is Flyswatter from now on.”
A sword so cherished that it was worth naming.
If the blacksmith who made it ever heard that, he’d probably be overjoyed.
Yeah, he definitely would.