Outside the World, Outer Land (3)
Hundreds of stars hung in the fractured sky.
Najin gazed in silence at the stars that had split the heavens, shattering them into fragments and claiming their own domains. The sky looked like a pane of broken glass. Blue daylight and pitch-black night tangled together in a landscape both grotesque and mysterious.
And decorating that sky—the stars.
Had he known nothing of what they were, he might have called the vista breathtaking. But Najin could no longer take in that mystical sky with pure eyes. Those stars felt like so many pupils staring down at him.
Tens, hundreds of eyes.
Hundreds of gazes fixed on him alone.
They were nothing like the looks of city adventurers or passersby. The gaze of a vast being made itself felt through mere sight. A crushing weight on the body. A sensation of being pierced through. Goosebumps crawled slowly up his spine.
Najin bit lightly down on the tip of his tongue.
A sharp sting and the taste of blood lingered in his mouth. Only then could he pull free of the confusion and steady his breathing. The gazes still pressed in, but they were bearable now.
It's only the gazes for now. We're near the boundary line.
Merlin spoke evenly.
The farther in you go, the more becomes possible. Projecting letters before your eyes, whispering in your ear, imposing trials—things like that.
Around Kamran they'd just drop down to the ground and wander around, she muttered, then glanced at Najin. Her eyes were uncharacteristically calm.
You haven't forgotten what I told you last time?
You've told me so much I don't even know which part you mean.
Have confidence in yourself.
Merlin pressed a fingertip to Najin's heart. The Merlin he saw was only a phantasm; her finger never truly touched him—yet he thought he felt a faint warmth.
There are mountains of precautions and things you need to know... but in the end, what matters most is that. Plant your own will firmly, and act on what you believe is right.
Merlin shrugged.
Meaning don't get jerked around by those constellations. Well, it isn't that dangerous yet.
Najin nodded slowly.
Under the stars' gazes he walked deeper into the Outer Land. An entirely new stage. A place where every previous common sense no longer applied. In other words—a world where everything was unfamiliar.
Hey.
Merlin's voice rang by his ear.
When he turned his head a little, she was looking at him with a puzzled expression.
Why are you smiling?
Najin touched the corner of his mouth and soon let out a quiet laugh. Why was he smiling? The reason was nothing special.
It's the same.
Same as what? Merlin asked. Najin answered.
Same as when I first left the underground city.
New scenery. Unfamiliar things. A place where endless sights he had never seen unfolded without end. This sense that his world was expanding—Najin did not dislike it.
Thud.
Najin stepped forward with force, as if to leave a mark that he had set foot in the Outer Land.
2.
Outside the world, the Outer Land.
Stars looked down from the sky, thoroughly obnoxious things wandered about, and the extraordinary happened as if it were ordinary—yet even here, people lived.
A nation built adjacent to the boundary line.
Demon hunters who hunted demons.
Armies and knights who stood against monsters and demonkin trying to cross the boundary into human lands.
People and factions of every kind. In the end this was a place human feet reached, a place where people lived, so finding where people gathered was not difficult. After walking a while, Najin arrived at a tavern.
Tavern, supply depot, inn, and guild all in one.
In truth it was simply called a tavern, but Najin understood it as a kind of hub that handled every sort of business. The goods piled high inside were being hauled by teamsters to every corner of the Outer Land.
Not horses—monsters.
Ordinary horses were useless here, so they used improved breeds or monsters to pull the carriages. Glancing at the sight, Najin stepped inside the tavern.
Creeeak—he pushed the door open.
The gazes of those gathered inside fixed on him, as if checking who had entered. Najin met their eyes in return. All manner of people filled the place.
Knights in full armor.
Mercenaries in light gear.
Hunters laying out every kind of tool for maintenance.
Their eyes crossed with Najin's. The looks that had been merely identifying him soon shifted to curiosity. To them, after all, his was a face they had never seen.
"What, a newbie?"
"Been a while."
"Could be a fresh recruit."
"To the eastern front? Hah, he's gonna get put through the wringer."
"Might be from a knight order, no?"
"No way. He's not wearing armor. Knights live for engraving crests on their plate. At least greaves or a pauldron—gotta wear something to call yourself a knight."
They chattered among themselves, leaving Najin aside. Letting their voices wash over him, he walked deeper into the tavern. Then he held out a few gold coins to the proprietor and said,
"I want to hunt wyverns. Can you tell me where I should go?"
The owner regarded Najin steadily. Then he took only two of the five gold coins Najin had offered and answered shortly.
"First time in the Outer Land?"
"Yes."
"Hunting a wild wyvern is easy enough. Finding one is the hard part. If you absolutely need to kill a wyvern, there's a battlefield I could point you to, but..."
He looked Najin up and down.
"I wouldn't exactly recommend it."
"May I ask why?"
"It's a rough place to send some greenhorn who reeks of newbie. If I introduce you and you come back a corpse, it'll leave a bad taste in my mouth—and those guys over there will give me an earful."
He smiled bitterly and pointed behind Najin. Men were walking over with cups in hand. They set their drinks down beside him with a clack and joined the conversation.
"Boss, you were about to send him to the Hodgkin front, right? That's where the wyvern units show up most often."
"Yeah."
"Not there. He'd die for sure."
"Hey, newbie. Don't know what you did inland, but heading straight to a battlefield is a bad idea. You don't even know the ecology of the monsters out here. This place isn't soft."
It was a far cry from territorial bullying.
Listening carefully, they seemed sincerely trying to advise him. Najin heard them out in silence, then pulled a necklace from inside his clothes and handed it to the proprietor.
A White Horn-rank token.
Recognizing it, the owner narrowed his eyes.
The token meant the person before him was a Sword Seeker-class powerhouse, and that he had ample experience with all kinds of missions. As if something had clicked, the proprietor frowned and asked Najin,
"What's your name?"
"Najin."
When Najin answered, the owner's eyes went wide, and one of the men who had joined the talk slowly tilted his head. Najin, Najin... he muttered, then let out a short "Ah."
"Najin... the youngest Sword Seeker?"
"Isn't the youngest Sword Seeker Sir Caron?"
"You're slow on outside news. That record got broken weeks ago. Read a damn newspaper once in a while."
"Broken? By how much?"
"Eighteen years old."
"What?"
"I said eighteen."
While the man who had asked fell silent, the gazes of everyone who had joined the conversation—and even those merely sipping drinks in the tavern—swung toward Najin. Outer Land residents might not care much about goings-on in the world within, but news of the youngest Sword Seeker was the exception.
It had been a major incident that shook the Empire, and as martial men, it was the sort of news that piqued their interest.
"Could you introduce me to that Hodgkin front?"
Faced with Najin's repeated request, the proprietor laughed as if he couldn't believe it and pulled out a few documents.
3.
"So you're saying you want to enlist in our unit?"
The wyvern-hunting unit of the Hodgkin front.
The unit's commander, Gillette Reginpert, smoked a cigarette as he regarded the boy before him. From Sword Seeker onward one maintained a youthful body, but even allowing for that, the boy looked young.
Youngest Sword Seeker, Najin.
The proprietor's letter of introduction stated that the person before him was the boy who had recently set the Empire ablaze. So that was it. Not that he looked young—he actually was young.
"Quite the honor. The Empire's youngest Sword Seeker volunteering for our unit. What's your reason?"
"I want to experience hunting wyverns."
"Nice clean reason. So how many battles are you planning to join us for?"
Najin nodded, and Gillette burst out laughing.
"What a freak. Never thought I'd see the day someone comes to the Outer Land to kill wyverns and just waltzes up to join the army."
"I wanted a decent way to bring down flying monsters. The inland wasn't very helpful."
"True enough—nothing quite as fiery as a wyvern."
I like how straightforward the goal is, Gillette muttered, then gestured for Najin to follow.
"If you're not planning to work for our unit for years, we can't really train you in techniques or anything. What's the point of teaching you if you'll be gone in ten days?"
As they walked, Gillette continued.
"This is a battlefield. Not a place to teach and babysit greenhorns. I'll show you, but don't expect any special help."
He flicked away the spent cigarette and glanced at Najin.
"If you get in the way, I'll kick you out on the spot. Remember that."
He would only allow him to stand on the battlefield with them.
It meant: never forget you are an outsider. Right then a bell rang across the battlefield. The signal that a wyvern unit had appeared. Gillette clicked his tongue.
"Perfect timing. Let's go."
The Demon King, lord of demons.
Beneath a lord, of course, there is an army. The wyvern units were one such force. And... wherever an army appears is, by definition, a battlefield.
Clang, claaang!
"Push them back!"
Thud, craaack.
"Aaaaaaagh!"
"Push! Push!"
"Left flank, left flank appearance!"
The crash of spear and sword. Roars ringing out. The place Najin reached following Gillette was a battlefield in every sense of the word. Soldiers holding the line, knights weaving between them.
"Wyverns! It's a wyvern unit!"
And there, Najin's target was as well.
Beings casting shadows on the ground. Wyverns high in the sky, and the demonkin mounted on their backs. The army called the wyvern unit.
Najin glanced beside him.
The wyvern-hunting unit that had arrived on the battlefield with him, led by Gillette. A guerrilla force formed solely to handle the wyvern units.
"We're going."
With that short order Gillette gestured.
At his signal some men drove large ballistae into the ground; others dragged chains that clinked and rattled. Stakes were fixed to the ends of the chains.
Najin watched them quietly.
He had come here ultimately to find a method of hunting flying targets, and those who made their living hunting wyverns were excellent textbooks. Soon they began to move one by one.
Thwung!
Najin paid no attention to those opening fire with the ballistae. His gaze was fixed on the ones who had laid out the chains. Without any means of long-range attack, how did they hunt things flying so far away?
Unless one was a Sword Master, there was no way to cut a target dozens of meters away, nor any way to bring down a flying monster. A swordsman who had not reached transcendence could only cut what his sword and sword aura could reach.
An unreachable gap in distance.
The gulf between sky and earth.
How did they close it?
Charrurrrrk!
One of the soldiers standing by Gillette provided the answer. He gripped the trailing chain, spun it, and began to race across the battlefield. Then—boom—he kicked off the ground, leapt, and hurled the chain high into the sky.
The moment the stake, flying at high speed, punched through the wyvern's hide and lodged deep, he used the chain's rebound to spring upward. Twisting his body, winding the chain around himself, the soldier soared into the air—and Najin took it all in.
It wasn't just one soldier.
Each spinning a chain, the soldiers began to charge across the battlefield. The unit's mage, rather than targeting the flying wyverns directly, created footholds for them to plant their feet and leap from. Soldiers with the large ballistae drove chain-linked bolts into the cliff face.
As if casting a net.
Soldiers began to run along the net thus formed. Some raced across the battlefield itself; others ran along chains firmly anchored to the cliff. The only thing distinguishing them from the ordinary soldiers mixed into the fight was that they held chain-stakes in their hands.
"Hey, newbie."
Najin looked to the side.
There was Gillette, grinning. The commander of the wyvern-hunting unit. He tossed a chain-stake to Najin.
"Unless you can draw sword aura out dozens of meters, a chain-stake is essential for hunting wyverns. I'll lend you one."
Gillette shrugged.
"Well, using it properly takes at least a month of practice spinning the chain, so it won't be ea—"
Just as he muttered that and was about to spin his own chain—tap—Najin brushed past him. Doesn't even wait till the end of a sentence, Gillette thought with a bitter smile.
He charges in full of spirit, but...
As if it would be that easy.
There's a reason a dedicated wyvern-hunting unit exists. Handling a chain-stake is no simple matter, and landing a stake on a wyvern flying through the sky is even harder.
Only after long years learning to handle chains, only those soldiers highly skilled with the chain-stake, can join this unit.
Youngest Sword Seeker this, turned the Empire upside down that—plenty of rumors, but what a battlefield demands is not talent but trained technique and instantaneous judgment. Charging in with nothing but spirit, he's going to fall flat on his face. Just as Gillette was about to click his tongue—
Charruk, spin.
Najin began to whirl the chain-stake. In that instant Gillette's eyes narrowed. He stopped spinning his own chain and stared at Najin.
The grip position, the handhold, the spinning speed, the angle of the stake...
The more he checked each element, the narrower Gillette's eyes became. He felt a strange dissonance. Hadn't the boy set foot on this battlefield for the first time today, and only just now taken up a chain-stake?
So what the hell was that movement?
Every motion was precise. Seasoned. Not a newbie. The figure of a veteran soldier who had spent at least several years in a wyvern-hunting unit seemed to overlay the boy. Was it his imagination? But even that thought vanished soon enough.
Tap, then thwung.
Najin kicked off the ground, leapt, and hurled the chain-stake. The stake that split the air drove deep into the wyvern's belly—and in that moment Najin used the chain's rebound to spring upward. Twisting in midair, winding the chain, he accelerated his body.
Every single motion was perfect.
Even to the eyes of Commander Gillette, there was not a flaw.
"Huh."
Gillette Reginpert let out a hollow laugh.
"Is this kid insane?"