The East Empire's Greatest Swordsman and His Last Disciple (3)

Well, now it decides to show up?

Why did this take so long?

It's been nearly two weeks since I beat Jealousy.

Status Window... you're really not doing your job, are you?

Oh... So you're saying that if I'd protected Her Highness the 1st Princess safely in that fight, Blue Dragon's Authority might have evolved again?

So the reward procedure got tangled up because I snatched the prize straight out of the pipeline, and the delay was spent preparing something to make up for it. Classic.

Then you could've given me a heads-up in advance.

Sheesh.

Leaving the apologetic Status Window behind me, I shifted my gaze to the white-haired girl charging at me with all the swagger in the world.

"Master! If you get distracted during our match—!"

Whuum!

She'd noticed me looking away, and the instant I left an opening, Sichurin pounced. While the other three Successors were still flat on their backs groaning in their beds, she had been the very first to kick off her covers and get up. Maybe that was just her youth talking — or maybe the power of the White Tiger's authority was simply that potent. Either way, watching her run around like that, she was clearly on the mend.

"If I get distracted? Then what."

Sichurin had caught me spacing out and immediately swung her dagger at me — but if that's all it takes to take me down, she should quit being a Successor. I parried the dagger sweeping toward my leg with perfect timing. Naturally, she couldn't absorb the shock of my kick; the blade flew from her right hand, leaving her with only the single dagger clenched in her left.

"Grrgh...! You were definitely distracted just now, Master...!"

"I was distracted, though?"

"...Master. If you just come right out and admit it, what does that make me?"

"Sorry... haha. It's not much of a reward, but I'll give you one full minute of my real strength. In return, if you go down, the minute's over — no extensions, got it?"

She was a girl who idolized me to the moon and back and loved watching me unleash my authority, so the moment I promised to fight her with everything I had for sixty seconds, she lit up like a festival lantern.

It was obvious at a glance. This kid was a strange one too.

"Divine Beast Incarnation."

A promise was a promise. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I had been distracted, so out of genuine apology, I decided to give her my full strength.

My black hair shifted to a black tinged with deep indigo. Dragon horns sprouted from my head, and my clothes transformed into an all-black ensemble, like traditional East Empire garb. I didn't know why, but this outfit was incredibly comfortable — more so than the pajamas I slept in, honestly.

Anyway, when I stood before Sichurin in this form—

"Whoa... Master... what exactly have you done to yourself...?"

—she simply stood there, staring at me.

"You wanted a match. We're starting. One minute of full power. There won't be a second."

"Aww... still, that's—"

"In exchange, you can use your authority freely. And I won't touch mine once the Divine Beast Incarnation ends."

"You can just steamroll me... one minute is still a little...!"

I reached her before she could even finish the sentence.

Startled, Sichurin swung her left-hand dagger wildly — but there was no plan behind it, no preparation. A blade swung in blind panic is, if anything, easier to counter, evade, or turn against you than one swung in raw rage.

"No matter how desperate the moment, always swing your blade slowly and deliberately."

Whoosh.

I seized her left wrist, spun my body, and twisted her arm behind her back, pinning it there in a lock. Her arm bound tight against her spine—

"Nnghh...!!"

Even if she used her authority on me to break free, it would do her no good.

In the end—

"Ack! I give up!!"

—at Sichurin's admission of defeat, I chuckled and released her arm. She puffed out her cheeks the instant she was free.

"...Master, you're way too strong."

"The Taotie Successor who came to attack us had at least this much strength. I don't want to lose you — or anyone else — to people like that. But I only have one body."

"..."

"So, what does that mean you have to do?"

"I have to protect my own body. Which means I can't stop here — I have to keep getting stronger."

"That's right. Exactly. But don't obsess over strength. If you grasp something through obsession, it will always come at the cost of losing one thing beside you. Take your time getting there. You have your Master standing right beside you, don't you?"

"You're right. I'll... keep pushing myself."

"Good girl."

I praised her and ruffled her hair, and she ducked her head at once, apparently embarrassed by the petting.

With that, my sparring match with Sichurin concluded, and I stepped out of the second training hall.

Five days had passed since Ryu Shin accepted my proposal. Even in accepting it, he had not forgotten why he'd come here in the first place; he set about cutting down the demons pouring into the Holy Empire one after another. But his blade was suffused, somewhere deep, with regret and fury — he was carving through the demons as though projecting himself onto them with every stroke.

Even so, Ryu Shin made it clear to Yeon that he intended to take the initiative in offering his apology and his repentance alike. Watching that, anyone could see that the man called Ryu Shin possessed a heart so straight and honest that no villain could ever hope to compare.

Apparently his disciples were still dismissing Yeon with mocking smiles, cheerfully accepting her challenge to one-on-one duels. Their attitude smacked of relief — of the kind you feel when someone who should have been beaten half to death is no longer standing at my side, and so they can saunter back out into the open. To be fair, even I had acted rather hastily. In a duel this rushed, the feelings of the person actually fighting matter above all — and if Yeon had refused here, she would have faced a tremendous backlash, and an environment would have formed in which not even Ryu Shin could shield her.

Which is why, when I came back and reported the results—

Let's just say Ellie scolded me within an inch of my life. The wailing Yeon, who had cried herself to sleep, was even jolted awake by Ellie's roaring to find herself caught in the blast radius. I'll spare you the details.

Fortunately, Yeon was a master among masters — a swordswoman whose skill could leap clean over those men and grind them underfoot. She had taken her swordsmanship, re-imagined it, and rebuilt it from the ground up. And she'd done it not with her own style, but with the style her Master had passed down to her.

That meant one thing, plain as day: Hwa Yeon understood her master's swordsmanship every bit as deeply as Ryu Shin himself.

That alone would be remarkable. But the Butterfly Flower Sword Style she had founded was something that, even with my Second Awakening of the Blue Dragon's Authority, I could only just barely keep pace with — and only on the condition that I used neither Divine Beast Incarnation nor any authority. Even with the Blue Dragon's power drawn up to its Second Awakening, I had barely glimpsed the edge of her blade.

Naturally, I was confident enough now to deflect every arrow my little sister fired at me. But still.

Yet even Yeon had a flaw.

Her inner fear.

Yeons had once suffered a group lynching at their hands — her swordsmanship had dropped a whole stage because of it, and her growth had stalled ever since, as though something were blocking the way. Naturally, I worried that wound still slept deep inside her. So I apologized to her directly, with everything I had.

And her reaction was truly astonishing.

"Honestly, this wasn't something you should have handled on your own judgment."

"..."

"This was a situation where I should have been furious with you. But just this once, I'll let it go. I never told you about my own past either — how I almost became a courtesan..."

"So. It's one-on-one between us from here. I'll lay everything out in the open for you from now on... so you can't pull this again. Ever."

"...Okay. I understand. Thank you for forgiving me, Yeon."

"Not 'thank you'... something else..."

"...? Something else?"

"Yeah. It's been forever since I heard it...!"

Ah. That.

A woman with a temper like a wildfire, yet the only person she ever melted against, clinging and aching for affection, was me. How could I not adore her?

"I love you, Hwa Yeon."

"...Hehe... I'm so happy. I love you too..."

Her expression, completely unraveled in my arms, was the smile I hadn't seen from her in far too long — a gesture that radiated one hundred percent, pure, undiluted happiness.

From the moment she learned of the duels, Yeon threw herself into training the Butterfly Flower Sword Style. Sometimes we sparred; whenever a new technique came to her, she'd test it on me. And the training flowed along smoothly — until that moment.

A low voice — yet one that suddenly filled the entire training hall — rang out.

"A little more. Your strikes are drifting left, are they not?"

One day after training began. Not long into a sparring session just like the day before, Hwa Yeon's master — Ryu Shin — joined her training.

The reason was simple: Yeon had forgiven Ryu Shin far more quickly than anyone expected. He was her one and only father, friend, and master. Given everything she had endured, forgiveness was the only place she could stand. Yet the answer Ryu Shin gave her had been astonishing in its own right.

'If you do not wish to forgive, then you may cast this Master aside. I have seen with my own eyes that you now live happily, woven together with those who are precious to you.'

'If I stand in the way of that, then I am prepared to vanish at any moment. So tell me, Yeon. Speak your heart.'

Not the master casting out the disciple — but the disciple given leave to cast out the master. An extraordinary measure. From his position, it must have been one of the hardest decisions anyone could make, and yet he chose it. To him, Yeon was his youngest daughter.

What kind of parent casts out their youngest daughter?

And Yeon's reaction was exactly as I'd predicted.

'Master... why would you say that! Do you know how precious Hyeon is to me? He was the light I found again — the next light after you...'

'I am sorry, child.'

'So please — teach me as you did before. So that I can walk the right path. So that I can stand beside Hyeon and light the road ahead of us... Help me, Master.'

She forgave him — and instead of casting him out, she asked for his teaching.

And so, now—

Kaang!

"Put more strength into your stance."

"Yes, Master!"

Ryu Shin and Yeon were crossing blades in the training hall. His sword drove toward her right side as he opened his mouth to impart what he saw.

"You lean too far to the side. Do that, and attacks from your right will only come at you that much faster."

"No — that's when I do this."

She raised her blade in a vertical guard to catch the incoming strike, then exploited the instant her opponent's eyes locked onto the steel to strike at the openings in his body. Anyone watching would have recognized it immediately. Of course they would — that was the technique I used against demons all the time.

A style that baited the enemy's gaze, manufactured an opening, and struck through it.

How did Yeon look, right now, in Ryu Shin's eyes?

When I'd met and spoken with him, seeing the boundless trust he showed for Yeon, he had told me in detail what happened after he first brought her in.

The day she first became his disciple, he told her frankly that she was a mess. Unlike his other disciples, each with their own accomplished blade, Yeon was a shambling wreck from the very start. But her eyes — her eyes alone were the finest he had ever seen in any disciple he'd ever taken.

That hungry gaze, that obsession bordering on obsession — the iron will to grind and polish anything and everything until it shone. It was firewood enough to keep alive the flame of his teaching, his pride, his everything as a master, forever.

So then — the Yeon reflected in his eyes now... what did she look like to him?

Where has she gone — that little girl who used to swing a wooden sword across the snowfields, wild and formless, over and over, taking my scolding again and again?

"Get up. Did I not tell you expressly never to swing it that way?"

"...I'm sorry."

"Louder!"

"I'm sorry, Master!!"

Standing back up through her tears, stubbornly, on her own two legs — how could I ever forget that girl?

And yet somewhere along the way, she drank in my teaching like water... and grew into one true, proper swordswoman I could hold up with pride anywhere in this world.

"Master. What if I swung it from this side instead?"

"Better than swinging with pure honesty... if you fixate on making your enemy misread you, then you too will lose track of where your own blade is falling."

"Would it not be wiser to simply cut them down, honestly and cleanly?"

"Thank you!"

The trembling little girl who once shivered in the snow, receiving my instruction, is gone. In her place stands a swordswoman, a proud ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and proper woman — and this old Master could not be gladder.

But to lay this feeling before you would be nothing but my own greed.

I have done nothing but wrong you. How could I dare bring this feeling out into the open?

Forgiven or not, I find I cannot forgive myself.

I can only tell myself that I am repaying a debt — atoning, bit by bit, as I go.

So walk on, into the bright places, happily, at the Successor's side.

He, too, once taught this Master — when I had lost all reason, it was he who brought me back. I would call that a meeting well made.

Do you know it, child?

Do you know how bright your smile becomes — how confidence floods your face — whenever you take your place beside the Successor?

I was sorry... for all this time.

And thank you... for forgiving this wretched father, this failed Master. I will never forget it.

My last disciple. My youngest daughter.

Yeon. Be happy. Always.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Years later, the book would pass into Yeon's hands, and reading it, she would collapse into her husband's arms, unable to contain her grief, weeping until her tears soaked through his shirt.

But that is a story they do not yet know.

For now, Ryu Shin simply looked on with a smile at his disciple, who was swinging her sword with all her heart before his eyes, beneath a sky that seemed, today, impossibly clear.

Time passed, and the day of the duel arrived.

Yeon was pressed against me, drinking in my scent to shake off her fear and steel her nerve.

"Agh... why do you keep smelling me! You smell like something, okay?!"

"I do. You smell good."

"Yeon. Aren't 'you smell like something' and 'you smell good' two things that can't coexist in one sentence?"

But I was the one who had shoved this duel forward on my own, so in the end I couldn't resist at all — I simply watched as she latched onto me and sank her teeth into the back of my neck.

Apparently this is what it takes to relax...

But... this is getting a little too stimulating. Yeon had a figure that rivaled Ellie's, after all. Naturally, as a perfectly healthy adult male, I couldn't exactly fail to react to her — and my second beloved, currently seated on my thigh, knew this better than anyone.

I honestly couldn't tell you why she was doing this.

Just as I felt myself reaching my limit, Yeon mercifully rose from my lap. Then, gazing down at me, she spoke slowly.

"Did you know? In the Dong Empire, when a man throws himself into a battle where his life hangs by a thread — and his beloved fights at his side, and they return victorious—"

"...?"

"—she gives him everything she is. So? Our dear Successor can do that too, can't he?"

Wait. Those words...!

I'd never even heard that line in the game..!

"......?!!!"

I couldn't hide it if I tried — my face, flushing scarlet, was on full display for her.

"Hahahaha! Hyeon, your face looks just like a strawberry. You know you're super red right now, right?"

"Yeon, you—! You're joking!"

"Not joking. I mean it — I'm giving you everything. Once this is over, it'll be as if every wound from my past simply never existed."

"And you, our wonderful Successor, had a hand in erasing them. Whatever the outcome turns out to be — you acted with the best of intentions, doing everything in your power to save me. That's what decided it for me. Giving you only my heart would be too hard on me. So instead, I'd rather give you all of it."

"So watch me. If you're there, I feel like I can face anyone, no matter who they are. Heehee."

She was holding the attire that only the Successors of the Holy Empire and their contractors were permitted to wear. Perhaps because the garment was pure white, the blue scale at the nape of her neck — the proof of her contract with me — stood out all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the more brilliantly. At some point Yeon had already dressed in the white uniform, and at her waist hung the famed blade I had placed in her hands myself: Starlight.

"Ready?"

"Yeah. Ready to fight, at full charge!"

And so Yeon and I walked, slowly, toward the final battlefield that would sweep away her past for good.