The Walker on Water and the Stablehand

From the dais, Ragnar watched the retreating back of Bjorn de Jevitz as the boy set off once more for Lighthouse Village.

"Remarkable, at that age. Already a Sword Expert—and mid-rank, no less."

"Haven't I told you, time and again? I've seen no end of brats who grab a sword and strut about calling themselves prodigies and geniuses. I have never seen anyone like Lord Bjorn."

Helga seconded the old man's musing. And the musing was right. Even Canniel de Jevitz himself looked as though he would pale before his own son.

Ragnar, however, was cold. What he felt had nothing to do with Bjorn's talent.

"……And yet that talent will end before it ever blooms. A shame. In time, he might have become a great shield for all humanity."

In his hand was the letter of Canniel de Jevitz, Commander of the Human Lighthouse Order—the same letter he had torn by accident the day before. Within the Order, such a command was absolute, heavier than the word of the Emperor of Oxburg. However preposterous the contents, it had to be carried out.

Helga drew his brows together as if he had bitten down on a bitter leaf.

"All we can do is pray that no storm of blood breaks over the north."

"Too exceptional for his own good. He gives too many people a headache."

The letter crumpled in Ragnar's fist. He stared out over the distant sea.

It was a troubled age. Ash had crept at last all the way to the lighthouse, and every year the continent's temperature plunged. The reports from the patrol ships grew stranger, and more numerous, by the month.

The words of the old man who had held the post before him came back whenever he thought of the day he became Lighthouse Master. Lately, more and more, Ragnar was haunted by the fancy that he himself was the unlucky fool caught in that accursed hour.

They had to prepare for a demon invasion. Humanity, though, had soaked too long in peace. Even when word came that the demons were descending, the great powers of the Oxburg Empire went on wasting precious lives in wars over territory. Even Canniel de Jevitz, Commander of the Human Lighthouse Order, did nothing but pick his way forward with caution where the invasion was concerned.

An age of chaos. Like a man helpless before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a rising wave, Ragnar did not know what to do with the current of the times.

And in that very instant, Bjorn de Jevitz stood before his eyes.

The rumors had been thick. A sword in his hand from the age of six. At eight, mastery of both the sword arts ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and the internal methods of House de Jevitz and the Lighthouse Order alike. At nine, the feat of Sword User—and two years later, the threshold of Sword Expert.

Nobles puffing up their own children was common enough that he had not believed a word of it, not even of the eldest son of the house he had served his whole life. Honestly, he had wanted to tell them to keep the exaggeration within reason, and to drive the point home with a curse or two.

Bjorn de Jevitz shattered that prejudice. Shattered it? Before the pressure rolling off the boy, before that overwhelming talent, Ragnar had no choice but to go to his knees.

Every rumor was true. No—those lush rumors had been selling him short.

An age of chaos calls heroes, or so they said.

Bjorn de Jevitz. To look at a brat of fourteen and speak of heroes—Ragnar found himself faintly ridiculous. And yet, if the boy was one, then which side was he meant to stand on? Was he to keep to the boy's side? Or hold his tongue for the peace of the north, and receive the death that was coming down?

Ragnar's thoughts tangled.

"Blub! Blub! Gack—hack!"

"Spit it all out? Then get back down there!"

The knight grabbed the skiff and kicked the candidate who had been vomiting seawater, shoving him back into the waves. I had watched the same scene until I was sick of it over the past month, so I set a foot on the calm sea with a thoroughly bored face. Naturally, the water swallowed it at once. Very slowly, I pushed the surface away with mana, from calf down to sole—and then I was standing on the sea.

Unlike the first exam, the second trial of the Human Lighthouse Order was a pure contest of skill. Three tasks in all. Stand upon the sea by means of mana. Attain the realm of Sword User. Master the sword art of the Lighthouse Order. Achieve even one of the three within five weeks, and you passed.

In a span of barely two months, reaching Sword User or mastering the Order's sword art was next to impossible, so most of the candidates were attempting the walk on water.

"Cough! Cough! Save me! Save—"

"What are you doing?! You don't want to get in?! Are you going to get your head on straight or not?!"

"Nnngh……"

"Look at this bastard. Let's see how long you can play dead and rest."

Candidates climbed onto the skiffs and tumbled off again, over and over. They had been pickling their bodies in seawater for weeks on end. It would not have been strange if hypothermia stopped any one of their hearts.

At a glance, the first task looked the simplest. Use a little mana and stand on the sea like a ninja out of some comic. There was a vicious trap in it, though. Standing on the water devoured mana at a horrific rate. For a knight, mana was the wellspring of strength, and the moment you burned through all of it on the battlefield, you died. The very height of inefficiency, in a way. One learned a junk technique like this in preparation for a naval battle against demons that might, someday, actually come. If a knight could walk on water, his worth in a sea fight would defy imagination.

In short, water-walking—which gulped mana by the mouthful—was not something a scrub of a candidate who had not even reached Sword User ought to attempt. Short of a considerable level, you were better off challenging something else. Those who realized this early had all thrown themselves into internal training, chasing Sword User. Most could not bring themselves to switch, chained by the time they had already sunk in and by sheer lingering attachment.

I, of course, was not among them.

No. Getting used to sea-walking still takes time.

In truth, I had cleared the passing mark in all three events ages ago. The difficulty was pitched at Sword User, and to a Sword Expert it was a children's game. Sea-walking, however, had romance in it. Asleep inside the technique was that chest-swelling beauty of purple and yellow.

"……Tsk."

A god, and still he can't step past the limits of his age? How is a way of thinking this barbaric—this primitive? So blind to the majestic art sealed in here. Fine. I'll explain it so even this dim medieval deity can understand.

If you mean to stop demons coming across a frozen sea, this is a technique you cannot do without. They smash the ice, drop the knights through, and freeze it shut again, and every last one of them dies like a dog. No harm in keeping one hidden card in reserve.

Appreciate the sharp critique.

Out on the water, a woman was chasing me at a ferocious pace. Amber Cutter. Her persistence, her pride, her obsession—I was past admiration and into outright disbelief.

"One, two, three……"

"I really thought she'd hold out for fifty."

Few candidates could stand on water at all just now, so the mere act of walking the surface was impressive enough. Chasing me on a Sword User's store of mana, though, was impossible. She had mana to spare. What she lacked was experience and control. A minute of running on the surface was the whole of it. After that she drove her head into the sea and went down gurgling, just like this.

On the skiff, the knights let out a long sigh—as if they had expected nothing else—and rowed out to haul her back up.

"I'm sorry—why would that be on my shoulders?"

"No. How many times do I have to say I have no intention of fighting demons? Four years of grace, I find you a body, and that's the end. Wasn't that the contract?"

Would you listen to him? Dropping a curse on me like it's nothing.

Say whatever you like. All I've got in my head is a vineyard, and a paradise of wine and flesh.

I turned the talk aside with a sour face.

"Fate this and fate that aside, I have been answering you quite seriously when we train. The results haven't been bad, either."

But you saw it too. That thing.

When the first entrance trial had ended, Helga gathered the candidates in the corridor and spoke.

Helga drew away the cloth that had covered the gift. A crimson jewel of lucid, piercing beauty revealed itself, pouring mana into the air.

"Even a country bumpkin has heard the name, I trust? This is the Basilisk's Heart."

The moment I heard it, something in me snapped.