First Meeting (2)
“...Run away, commoner.”
Yuki spat the words in a voice raw and cracked. Her hands trembled as they gripped the practice iron sword.
It was a blunt, heavy chunk of metal with no edge to speak of. The thing wouldn’t leave so much as a scratch on that insane boar’s hide. Yet this stubborn young noblewoman refused to take a single step back.
“I said go! You’re a man, aren’t you? Something a woman is supposed to pro—”
“Protection? Please.”
I tapped Yuki’s shoulder lightly and stepped up beside her.
“Would you mind setting that heavy thing down first? At this rate you’ll sprain your wrist before the boar even arrives.”
“You idiot! Can’t you see what’s happening?! That’s a monster! It rips people apart!”
Ignoring her half-screamed warning, I slowly drew the dagger from my belt.
It was an old blade my father had given me to chase off mountain beasts. To everyone else, that was all it was. To me, it was the weapon I had secretly trained with in the depths of the forest until it felt like an extension of my own arm.
I felt the cold steel against my palm and steadied my breathing. My heart beat slow. My senses, however, were razor-sharp.
Thud.
The boar finally kicked off the ground and launched itself forward. Its speed was impossible for a creature of that size. A black shadow swallowed my vision as it charged. Yuki couldn’t even scream; she simply raised the sword in front of her chest and squeezed her eyes shut.
Now.
I hooked an arm around Yuki’s waist and hurled us both sideways.
Kwaaaang—!
The massive tree we had been standing under exploded into splinters. Wood fragments sprayed in every direction. Yuki clung to me, breathing hard.
“You… what the hell are you—!”
“Quiet. You’ll bite your tongue.”
I shoved her roughly into the safety of the bushes beyond the clearing.
The boar, furious at losing its target, had buried its tusks in the shattered trunk and was snorting with rage. It wrenched its head free and fixed its eyes on me once more.
I have no intention of becoming a skewer today.
“No! Run!”
Yuki’s desperate cry rang through the forest. My body, however, remained strangely calm.
The essence of combat is using the opponent’s own power and slipping through the tiniest gaps. This wasn’t the childish tantrum-swordplay Yuki had been flailing about with. It was the refined instinct I had honed in this boring village—reading books, observing animals, drawing invisible lines in the air until they became truth.
The boar charged again, faster this time, a straight-line assault.
I didn’t dodge.
Instead, I reversed my grip on the dagger and dropped my stance low. When the boar’s red eyes filled my vision and the stench of its coarse fur stung my nose—
Now.
Kwaaaang—!
The beast’s massive body slammed into the spot I had just occupied, sending up a storm of dust. But I had already slid into its blind spot, past the left hind leg.
I braced my left hand against the ground, steadied my center, and drove the reversed dagger deep into the tendon behind the boar’s knee—the thinnest, weakest point.
Crunch.
A sickening sensation traveled up my wrist.
Kiiiiieeeeeeek—!
The death shriek shook the entire forest. The boar, its hind tendon severed, lost all balance and crashed heavily to the ground. A choking cloud of dust swallowed both Yuki and me.
“Cough… hack…”
Yuki sat collapsed on the dirt, staring blankly at the scene. The boar thrashed in agony, trying to rise, but its ruined leg caused it to spin helplessly in circles before it finally limped away into the underbrush.
I calmly brushed the dust from my clothes and stood. Beads of the beast’s blood dripped from the dagger’s tip.
“It’s not dead. I only crippled one leg. If you run now, it won’t be able to follow.”
I turned to look at Yuki. She remained seated, utterly dazed, silver hair disheveled and eyes wide. The arrogant young noblewoman from moments ago had completely vanished.
“...How?”
A tiny voice slipped from between her trembling lips.
“You’re… you’re a man. How could you possibly…”
“Is there a law that says men aren’t allowed to hold blades?”
I wiped the bloodied dagger on a patch of grass and answered dryly.
“Don’t lie! That footwork belongs to my family! How could you possibly know—”
“I watched and learned it.”
“What?”
“You’ve been swinging that iron sword since earlier. I simply observed your stride and the way you shifted your center of gravity. I copied it roughly, and it worked.”
I finished cleaning the blade and slowly rose, adjusting my ruined clothes. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest, but I kept my expression perfectly neutral.
“I told you. You don’t need to hold a sword to understand one.”
I walked toward the still-dazed Yuki. Her purple eyes, once full of arrogance, now swirled with emotions too complex to name.
“You… just who are you?”
She pointed at me with a shaking finger. The boy reflected in her gaze was no longer the idle countryside youth who only read books.
“Just an ordinary villager who enjoys reading. The danger has passed, so let’s go back.”
Yuki couldn’t answer. Instead, something even stronger than before kindled deep in those purple eyes.
“...Tell me your name. I must know it.”
“It’s Ian, my lady. Now please stand up before that thing comes back.”
I offered my hand. Instead of taking it, she clutched the hem of my shirt with trembling fingers.
“Ian… teach me that.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m begging you. No one my age could possibly do what you just did. So… teach me.”
For the briefest moment, I saw my own face reflected in her eyes.
This is going to be exhausting.
“I’d rather not.”
“...Huh?”
A short while later, the village chief and the townspeople who had rushed up the mountain after hearing the commotion witnessed a bizarre sight.
A giant boar lay half-dead across the path, and behind it, the silver-haired noblewoman Yuki—covered head to toe in dirt—was trotting after Ian like an obedient puppy.
Kara, the blacksmith’s daughter who claimed to have seen everything first, came running down to the villagers in excitement.
“Did you see that?! Ian’s lost his mind! He swung his knife once and the boar just collapsed! From today on, I’m calling him Brother Ian… no, wait—Sister Ian!”
“Come on, stop talking nonsense. Ian caught a boar? More like the boar caught him.”
“I’m telling the truth! The young lady was standing behind him completely stunned!”
But the blacksmith’s daughter’s cries were swallowed by the wave of common sense and vanished without a trace.
The villagers’ opinions were unanimous.
“Oh, sweetheart. Ian’s so frail—how could you say something like that? A boy who stays locked in the study all day couldn’t possibly hunt a beast.”
“Exactly. It must have been our precious young lady who defeated the monster with some secret technique.”
“No, I’m serious! Ian went whoosh and the boar went wham—!”
“Ian’s so frail—how could you say something like that? You must have been so shocked watching the young lady fight that your mind went blank.”
With the village chief’s tidy conclusion, the people nodded in relief.
The noble daughter had slain the monster with a hidden trump card, and the pitiful village boy Ian had collapsed from the sheer shock. That was the version of events the world found most comfortable.
And so the boar incident settled into the villagers’ memories in a strangely distorted shape.
Yuki’s dazed stance beside the corpse was interpreted as exhaustion after a hard-won victory. I, calmly brushing dirt from my clothes, became the pitiful boy who had hidden trembling behind the young lady in fear.
I saw no reason to correct their misunderstanding.
In fact, I welcomed it.
“Ian, you must have been terrified by that boar to end up bedridden like this. Here, drink this herbal brew.”
Under my mother’s worried gaze, I leaned back against the headboard and turned another page. In truth I wasn’t sick at all—I simply didn’t feel like going back into the forest and had used the excuse.
“How can a boy be so delicate? If the young lady hadn’t been there, who knows what might have happened.”
Mother stroked my hair with the tender look one gives a fragile child and handed me the warm cup. I deliberately kept my face pale and nodded.
“Yes, Mother. My heart is still racing a little.”
In the eyes of the villagers, I was now perfectly cemented as a pretty-faced but terribly weak boy. I made no attempt to correct them. In fact, I used the misconception to my advantage. A fake cough or the mere pretense of lifting something heavy was enough for the neighborhood women to cry, “Goodness, Ian! That’s women’s work!” and do it for me.
It was an extremely efficient life.
But there was one person who refused to let the peaceful charade continue.
“...I know you’re not actually sick.”
A cool voice drifted through the window. I turned my head to find Yuki perched on the windowsill, silver hair swaying. The terrified girl from days ago was gone. The arrogant glint had returned to her eyes—yet within that gaze burned a strange, fierce hunger.
“Does any etiquette book list ‘climbing into a commoner’s window’ as acceptable behavior for a noble daughter?”
“Shut up. You’re deceiving the entire village. I saw everything. The way you slipped perfectly into that boar’s blind spot… even I would have struggled with that.”
Yuki jumped down into the room and strode over. She grabbed my hand roughly and examined my palm.
“No calluses at all. How do you produce that kind of strength?”
I sighed and pulled my hand free.
“It isn’t about strength. It’s about drawing lines.”
My talent had nothing to do with heavenly gifts like immense physical power or abundant mana. Ever since I was small, the world had appeared to me as lines and surfaces—the angle of leaves trembling in the wind, the trajectory of falling droplets, the minute vibrations living creatures made when they moved. I had become obsessed with rendering all of it into clean, beautiful lines.
While other children held embroidery needles, I devoured books. While the village girls swung wooden swords, I traced invisible lines in the air with a single small blade.
To me, swordsmanship was not brute force. It was the art of transforming the most inefficient movements into the most efficient lines.
“Drawing… lines?”
“Every object has its own grain. I simply see those grains a little more clearly than others.”
Yuki’s eyes widened. She seemed to turn my words over in her mind, then spoke with firm determination.
“Teach me. The technique you used.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I’ll stand in the village square and shout that Ian is actually a supreme martial genius. That every night he goes into the mountains and splits boulders with his bare hands!”
What a low-class threat.
But an effective one. The moment such a rumor spread, my peaceful days would be over.
Yuki then pulled a pouch from her belt and held it out. Inside were several gleaming gold coins and a few rare books. Carrot and stick. She really is ruthless.
“This is payment for the information and tuition. And I promise—the things that happen in this forest will remain a secret between the two of us.”
I glanced at the titles. Ancient Empire Military Tactics. Books impossible to obtain in a rural village like this.
“...Haah. You really are persistent.”
I scratched my head, then picked up the practice sword lying on the floor.
“Fine. But I have one condition. In the village, you must treat me with the utmost contempt.”
“That won’t be difficult. It’s my natural disposition anyway.”
In the end I rose from the bed and pulled on my coat.
“...One hour only. And you must never, under any circumstances, let anyone know I’m teaching you. I intend to live quietly, get married, and enjoy a peaceful life.”
“Hmph. Don’t worry. My pride would never allow anyone to think I learned swordsmanship from someone like you. I’m simply… stealing the secret.”
Yuki pouted and marched ahead. I didn’t miss the faint blush coloring the tips of her ears.
We slipped past the villagers’ watchful eyes and made our way to a hidden clearing deep in the woods. Yuki handed me her iron sword. I picked up a thin branch that had fallen beside the path.
“All right. Swing it. The way you usually do.”
Yuki brought the blade down with vigor. Shushuk—! The wind whistled sharply, but I merely tilted my head slightly and let the strike pass.
“Your movements are too large. The contraction of your left shoulder muscle is a fraction too early. That gap is letting all your lines leak out.”
“What? What are you even—”
I tapped the underside of her wrist with the branch. It was the lightest touch, yet the sword—struck exactly where the lines converged—slipped from her grasp and clattered to the ground.
“That is my technique. Pick it up again. The night is long.”
Yuki looked back and forth between the fallen sword and me. In her purple eyes, I was no longer the frail village boy. She grasped the hilt once more as though entranced.
In the depths of that forest, the two of us faced each other.
A hopeless teacher and a greedy disciple hungry for his skill.
“Ian, don’t you ever think about becoming a knight for real?”
“Too much trouble. I prefer reading books.”