Irene Yuris (4)
Mana was, in a sense, the will of the world.
It was something every human being carried within them, and the law of this world was that no one could even breathe without it.
Whether one wielded a sword or magic, the level of one’s skill determined one’s rank, and rank in turn determined the honors one could claim. In swordsmanship, the realms were known as User, Expert, and Master: first the awakening to mana, then the ability to wield it, and finally the stage at which one dyed the world with one’s own mana.
When I saw the others’ expressions harden at the white force gathering along my blade, I clicked my tongue inwardly at the surge of exhilaration racing through my body.
This power... It felt like I could accomplish anything, and the fact that such strength could exist in a human body—and that this power was mine—was profoundly startling.
How am I supposed to get out of this?
Sir Chris only watched me in silence.
Had he decided I could handle them on my own? Or was he simply watching the assassins with both eyes wide open, perhaps on guard for thrown daggers? Either way, he stood there without moving.
Then I would have to cut them down with my own strength alone.
I didn’t feel much guilt about killing a person. I had already cut one down, after all, and the one I’d struck was even now collapsed on the floor, growing cold by the second.
“Haa...”
As I drew in a breath, something seemed to tremble near my chest.
It pulsed as though it were the very blood coursing through my body—most likely the mana wrapped around this sword.
With every breath I took, my senses were sharpening. Hearing, sight, smell—they were all straining as if to shout at me to cut these assassins down in a single stroke right then and there.
Srrk—
The standoff dragged on. Of course, the ones they were aiming for were Irene Yuris and me standing behind her.
The fortunate thing was that she had lived through so many assassination attempts that she didn’t panic and lose her head at the sight of one.
She simply stood behind me, silently watching the situation unfold.
Maybe I wasn’t even necessary here.
She was the future head of the family, and surely she possessed enough strength to be of use as a shield for the emperor’s protection.
But her escort was me now.
I tightened my grip on the longsword in one hand and once more drove up the white, searing aura surging along its length.
With the purity of mana flaring even hotter than before, a spark of surprise flashed in the assassins’ eyes. They had realized that if this dragged on, they would be the ones to suffer for it.
I couldn’t rush forward carelessly, but I couldn’t simply stand by and let them come in either.
Fighting while protecting someone was this hard.
When I had first met assassins, I thought anyone who asked their names and origins was foolish.
Of course they wouldn’t answer, and all that useless chatter would only waste time.
But when I faced them myself, the words came out before I could stop them.
How ridiculous.
“Who sent you?”
“......”
As expected, all I got back was silence bordering on mockery.
Lopena looked at me with the same pitying expression, as if to say, Do you really think they’d answer that?
Still, foolish acts like this sometimes paid off.
Just like now.
Swish—
“...Gh!”
For one fleeting instant—barely long enough for an eye to blink—I sensed the killers’ momentum falter. The moment they heard my words, their tension eased just enough for their grip on their swords to loosen.
Was this the instinct Evan Fried had possessed? My judgment wasn’t slow. I knew better than anyone that in situations like this, a split second of decision could determine everything.
One step, then two. The distance between my blade and the assassins.
Countless thin lines surfaced in the air. Like spider silk, they revealed the number of possible attacks, and when I lightly swung my sword along those lines—
Swish—
“Kkhh...”
The body of the man holding the sword crumpled in an instant. The assassins watching him were painted with shock.
That was exactly what I had aimed for: surprise in a single instant. I could hardly call it anything but a successful feint.
Without lowering the sword that had already taken one life, I lifted my elbow again and cut diagonally into the one closing in from the side.
As I watched the invisible lines hovering in the air, I also kept an eye on Irene, who had retreated to a safer distance.
A body through which mana circulated was far lighter than I had imagined, and my flesh was carrying out my will even before I consciously gave the command.
One, two. The number of swords aimed at me.
Chest, side, thigh. I knocked aside the blades coming at me with one sweep, then without hesitation sliced open the chests exposed by those openings.
The sound of steel cutting flesh made me frown for some reason, unpleasant as it was.
Still, I knew I couldn’t hesitate, so my hands never wavered.
If I meant to cut them, then they were already cut. If I meant to block, then I had already blocked the strike.
I could feel the assassins growing frantic.
Then, one by one, they began to collapse like dolls with their strings cut.
Apparently they couldn’t keep up with me, because the surviving assassin blocked my sword and muttered in frustration.
“An Expert...!”
Chaeeng—
When even his final sword was sent flying through the air, the assassin stared after it in dazed disbelief.
Were they really this weak? No matter how gifted this body might be, these were foes I could overwhelm with hands that had only just taken up a sword today.
That was probably why Sir Chris had remained still.
Experience. The word I’d heard in Irene’s room earlier came back to me. Was this what it meant to have several months of it stacked up?
A sudden wave of irritation narrowed my eyes.
The wound inside my mouth must have split open again during the fight, because the faint metallic taste only fed my annoyance.
Swish.
When I pressed my sword to the assassin’s throat, blood spilled out. Even so, the man’s expression remained eerily calm.
As if his death was only natural, he simply kept staring straight into my eyes, despite the blade resting at his neck.
For a moment I watched him in silence, and then Sir Chris came up beside me and spoke to the assassin.
“Where are you from? And who are you?”
The weight behind the words was nothing like the casual question I had asked first.
The knife in his hand drove deeper into the throat of the fallen man. A single red line of blood ran along the blade, and we were close enough to see the throat twitch as it was squeezed shut.
Sir Chris took a breath and addressed the collapsed assassin again. This was likely the last question he would ask.
“Where are you from? And who are you?”
It was a threat, voiced by someone holding another man’s life in a vise.
Whether he spoke or not made no difference.
Once they had set their sights on the Iron Blood line, the assassin’s fate had already been sealed. A horrible end had been waiting for them from the start.
Even with a knife at his throat, the assassin said nothing.
Sir Chris gave a faint snort at the contempt in the man’s eyes, as if to say, Go on, kill me instead. Then he swung his sword and slit the assassin’s throat.
I had expected some manner of interrogation or torture, so I was surprised by how swiftly it was handled. Sir Chris spoke again as if reading my thoughts.
“Torturing them when they refuse to talk is one way to do it, but sometimes it’s better to finish them quickly and erase any loose ends. We can investigate where they came from after the fact.”
And that, too, was the Yuris way. At Sir Chris’s added words, I smiled bitterly.
The shield that protected the empire was so renowned that it could even make the impossible sound possible.
Finding out where these assassins had come from would likely be a matter of moments.
My field of vision was saturated with red, so I blinked once and looked away.
Irene wasn’t hurt, was she?
If she got injured, my own neck would be in danger. Since I still hadn’t found a way back, her condition was rather important right now.
But those worries seemed unnecessary. When I approached, Irene was already calmly wiping the blood from her clothes with a blank expression.
Lopena, who was carelessly wiping blood from her own face, and Sir Chris, who was tearing at the clothes of a corpse with its throat cut, and even I...
None of us looked normal, so I could only stare dumbly up at the dark sky.
#
When we returned to the duke’s estate, it would probably erupt in chaos.
That thought had lingered in the back of my mind all the way home, but the moment I arrived and saw the captain of the guard, it shattered at once.
“There was an assassination attempt.”
“Who was the target?”
Wasn’t that obvious? Who else would they be aiming for besides me, Sir Chris, or Lopena?
I wanted to protest, but after I calmly explained what had happened, the captain of the guard listened in silence, frowned slightly, and then gave a nod.
“I see.”
“...Pardon?”
I widened my eyes at how utterly matter-of-fact he sounded.
There had been an attempt on the eldest daughter of the ducal house, and all he had to say was that he understood?
I had expected at the very least that he would send out knights to eliminate any possible threat, or failing that, ask after Irene’s condition.
Was she injured? Had she been frightened?
Even knowing full well how indifferent Irene could be to such things, the absence of even a token concern made me let out a bitter laugh.
“Hah.”
Was it really so difficult to say, Are you all right? Were you hurt? That one sentence alone?
Only then did I understand the captain of the guard’s frown when he’d heard there had been an assassination attempt.
The expression on his face said he thought someone was being ridiculous—just because they had experienced an assassination attempt, they were dissatisfied about such a small thing.
With great effort I kept my face from twisting and lowered my head slightly to avoid his gaze.
“Did something happen? You look unwell.”
“...No. I’m just feeling a bit off.”
“Come to think of it, this is the first time you’ve killed someone today. You must have had a rough time. Well then, good work.”
His easy smile was the very picture of benevolence, yet I felt as though I might be sick looking at it, and hurriedly excused myself.
Even so, merely sensing the stained thread of responsibility aimed at a single person was enough to make the whole weight of the matter press down on me.
“...Haah.”
Only after I had put a long distance behind me and reached the garden could I finally let out the breath that had been clogging my chest.
Even after exhaling, my stomach refused to settle, and I swayed on my feet before a sudden ache shot through my shoulder.
“I’m hurt.”
I grimaced when I saw blood seeping from my shoulder blade, where I’d apparently been cut without noticing.
Blood—the bright red of it—entered my vision, and an unwelcome pain throbbed behind my eyes.
I could still feel the sensation of cutting a person down, the way flesh split under the blade and came away in pieces.
The pounding of my heartbeat sounded in my ears.
It was an unpleasant sensation, as though my heart were lodged right beside my ear.
I should treat the wound.
When I finally dragged that thought out from the fragments of my scattered mind, my feet were already carrying me toward the infirmary.
As I walked the dark corridor with only a single candle for guidance, I finally spotted the door marked with a red cross.
Knock, knock.
I rapped on it just in case someone was inside, but only silence answered from beyond the door.
When I opened the creaking door and stepped inside, I saw bandages piled in one corner.
At least I knew how to wrap a wound, which was fortunate. Under normal circumstances I would have disinfected it, or at the very least applied medicine, but my mind was too scrambled for anything beyond the thought that I simply needed to bandage it.
Rustle.
When I lowered my clothes, the split wound came into view.
It wasn’t deep enough to show bone, but the cut was clearly severe enough to make it surprising I’d been moving my arm so naturally until now.
“...Ghk.”
The bandage pressed against the wound and pain shot through it, drawing out a groan.
If I circulated my mana, it would heal completely in a few days.
In the past this would have been the sort of serious injury that would have caused a stir, but now it barely registered.
As if I’d suffered wounds like this a dozen times before, my mind had already grown used to accepting them.
I spat out the bandage I’d been holding between my teeth and lay down on the bed in the corner.
Tick, tock.
In the silence, where I couldn’t even hear birdsong, only the sound of the second hand moving reached my ears.
Just as I was focusing on that strange white noise, sudden footsteps sounded outside the door, and I sat up with the candle in hand.
Fwoosh—
The light came on at once. Magic light flooded the dark infirmary, and then the door opened.
When I saw the woman standing there, my eyes widened in surprise.
“What are you doing here in the dark without even turning on the lights?”
“...Ah.”
A cold gaze settled on me. Her blue eyes sliced through the silence and pierced straight into my chest, and a silent scream burst from my throat.
Apparently she had been about to sleep, because Irene appeared in a purple nightgown, and I only stared at her with my mouth slightly open.
“Haa.”
Perhaps dissatisfied by the sight of me, she let out a small sigh and looked fixedly at the bandage wrapped around my shoulder.
“So you were hurt after all.”
Had she already known I was injured? My lips parted at the rising question, but the emotionless way she looked at me closed my mouth again on its own.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s very serious.”
“...Thank you for your concern.”
“I only asked because if you were badly hurt, I’d have to change your escort, so don’t get the wrong idea.”
So that was it. I had been happy for a second, thinking she was worried about me, but it had all been my own useless delusion. My mouth twisted in spite of myself.
The fact that the blue eyes looking at me reflected not me, but only my usefulness, somehow stung more than I wanted to admit.