The Essence of Three Hundred Years (5)
Bernstein was a Royal Guard.
He could no longer append the surname the imperial family had once bestowed upon that name, and though he had been forgotten by all so thoroughly that no one remembered him, Bernstein still regarded himself as a Royal Guard. It was the only thing left to him.
Bernstein brought his blade up to meet the edge driving toward his jaw. Clang! The swords crashed together with a rough, jarring note. He knocked Najin’s blade aside. Defense flowed naturally into counterattack.
He ground his teeth with a harsh grind.
The situation irritated him.
In his mind, what he had said had not been an insult to knighthood but a simple statement of fact. And who in their right mind would call that monster a knight? An insult only held weight when the target still possessed honor and pride worth tearing down.
An empty husk of a monster.
A runaway who was no longer a knight at all.
He had every right to curse that coward. Having that right trampled now left Bernstein sour. His sword lashed out in irritation. Aura rippled from the tip, blazing like the sun itself.
Swordsmanship permitted only to the finest among the Royal Guard unfolded from Bernstein’s edge—the Sun Sword, modeled after the techniques of Sir Gawain of the Round Table. In the dark soil of the Outer Land, the tip of Bernstein’s blade shone like the sun.
“What would you know?”
Bernstein’s eyes bulged as he swung. The seething sun smashed into Najin’s sword.
“You called it an insult, did you? I was only exercising a right that is mine by nature. What do you even know about that monster? Don’t stick your nose into things you don’t understand—”
“Ah, fuck.”
“What?”
Najin scowled and spat the curse. Bernstein’s eyes went wide—not only at the crude insult, but because Najin had caught his blade far too easily.
“You talk too damn much.”
Kaaaaaaaaang!
Najin drove Bernstein’s sword back hard. Startled, Bernstein retreated, yet he could not open the distance; for every step he gave, Najin closed it again at once.
“This is a duel. Not a debate to decide whose opinion is right—it’s a duel.”
Blades locked, they strained against each other as Najin shoved his face in close. Platinum eyes bored into Bernstein’s.
“I didn’t draw my sword so I could chat with you. Or are you saying that even while running your mouth like that, you can still beat me?”
Techniques chained out of the bind. Technique tangled with technique, and it was Najin who seized the upper hand. He shoved Bernstein’s blade aside and surged forward.
“Then by all means, keep talking.”
I’ll shut that mouth of yours myself.
Najin left the rest unspoken. He let the swing of his sword say it for him. The relentless storm of his strikes proved troublesome even for Bernstein.
Bernstein ground his teeth again.
In the end he had no choice but to shut up. Silent now, he caught Najin’s blade and answered it. In the quiet that followed, only the ring of steel on steel filled the air.
Not long ago Najin had reached the realm of Sprouting. Having climbed one of the three steps that led toward Sword Master, he found the change was more than a mere shift in his aura. His senses had grown sharper, more precise.
On top of that, he was learning the sword from a Sword Master. He had received a few lessons from the Sword Saint as well, but never so thoroughly or for so long as this. The Helmet Knight often muttered that he “had no talent for teaching others,” yet Najin saw it differently.
The man was an outstanding teacher—not simply because Najin learned well, but because the instruction itself was intuitive and easy to grasp.
It was time to show the fruit of that teaching.
To himself, and to the master who was surely watching. Najin could not know it, but beneath the helm the Helmet Knight’s eyes had gone wide. He stared, unblinking, as Najin swung.
Honestly.
The Helmet Knight let out a low groan.
What an absurd brat.
The sword Najin wielded carried the Helmet Knight’s own techniques. Watching his own sword living in that blade, the Helmet Knight could only sigh.
Kaaaaaaaaang!
A sword swung true and upright. A sword that had once stood for knighthood itself. The sight called back the days when he had always returned victorious and in glory. It was a glory the Helmet Knight could never claim again.
Humans long for what they cannot reach.
Just as the boy had said. The Helmet Knight hungered for glory. He yearned for the brilliance of the past—all the more because it was forever beyond him. Watching Najin swing a sword the way he himself once had, the Helmet Knight groaned.
“Kh…!”
He was not the only one who groaned.
Bernstein, who had recognized the sword, did the same. Not because the blade was sharp or powerful, but because he knew whose sword it was. The sound that left him was half groan, half lament.
Why did you pass the technique on to someone else?
This sword was meant for one man alone.
Was it not a swordsmanship permitted only to the empire’s hero?
You understood the meaning of this technique better than anyone.
He had refused so many with those very words, had never once transmitted the art—and now, of all times, he had regrets? Bernstein’s mindscape seethed with rage. The sun blooming on his blade roared as if it would devour Najin on the spot.
He wanted nothing more than to raise his voice and spit the words out, yet Bernstein had no leisure for it. The onslaught of steel sealed his throat. The fury he could not voice poured into the sword he swung instead.
Kaaaaaaaaang!
Bernstein knocked Najin’s blade aside and slammed a shoulder into him, intending to shove the boy back, open the range, and then cut. The Sun Sword was most devastating at distance, after all.
Bernstein had reached the realm of Blooming and stood on the threshold of Full Bloom. In other words, he was a man who had drawn near to Sword Master. At least, he had been—one hundred and fifty years ago.
Across those hundred and fifty years his mindscape had never fully bloomed.
Because it had been defiled.
And the man who had defiled that mindscape stood beyond the boy. To Bernstein, Najin was an obstacle. He decided to clear it away.
He tightened his grip until his knuckles whitened.
He did not intend to kill the boy outright, so he refrained from letting his aura fully bloom… but he meant to take at least an arm. In this land, a wound of that severity would serve as lesson enough. Bernstein raised his sword vertical.
A blade shaped after high noon. Though no sun hung in the sky, a sun blazed at the tip of his sword. When he brought it down, a straight beam of solar aura shot toward Najin.
Chaaaaaaaaaak!
Facing the oncoming aura, Najin set his tip at a slant. Aura compressed to its absolute limit took the place of the edge. Just as the Helmet Knight’s aura once had, the aura coating Najin’s longsword dyed the blade white and gold.
A golden star was set into the white blade.
It looked, for an instant, like Excalibur itself.
The cutting power of aura compressed to its limit did not yield an inch to Bernstein’s. Najin swung not the aura but the sword. With a sharp crack the solar beam split cleanly in two.
Heat bloomed from the sundered aura as Najin kicked off the ground and charged. He punched through the searing air, closed the distance, and simply flung his sword.
“……!”
Caught off guard by the sudden throw, Bernstein swept his blade to knock the longsword aside—and in that same instant Najin, already in his face, drove a fist into him.
Thud!
The vicious punch cracked against Bernstein’s jaw. His head snapped sideways; he staggered. Barely recovering his balance, he glared at Najin with bulging eyes.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I told you. I’d tear that mouth of yours open.”
Najin pointed at Bernstein’s maw.
The corner of the man’s lip was indeed split.
“I considered doing it with the sword, but you seem to be something of an acquaintance of my master’s… and he looks like he’d rather I didn’t, so I thought I’d stop here.”
Najin raised a hand.
The longsword that had been spinning through the air after Bernstein’s parry dropped into his waiting palm without the slightest error.
“If you want to continue, go ahead.”
Najin’s nose remained unbroken.
Bernstein’s mouth was torn. The outcome was plain. The defeat was even humiliating. He could have claimed he had held back, that a serious fight would have taken the boy’s neck instead of merely bruising his pride—but that would only make him look uglier. And he was not even certain he could have done it.
Grrrind…
The sound of teeth grinding was audible now. So hard did Bernstein clench that tendons stood out along his jaw. He trembled in place, then slowly let out a long breath.
“Why.”
He stared at the Helmet Knight.
“Why… why……”
He muttered like a man in pain.
Najin seriously considered snapping that a loser ought to keep quiet, but he held his tongue. The Helmet Knight had stepped forward past him.
“Bernstein.”
“……”
“If you have something to say, say it.”
A humiliating loss, and now the opponent was even showing mercy. In a situation so wretched, Bernstein could not raise his voice to condemn the other man.
“Why did you do it.”
In the end the words came out as a groan.
“Why did you end up like that.”
Royal Guard Bernstein had once admired a certain knight. That knight had been the empire’s hero—its pillar, the captain of the knightly order that stood for the empire itself. Not only Bernstein but countless knights had looked up to him.
Because he was a hero. The savior who had brought peace to a chaotic empire.
Those who lived in the same age as that hero—Bernstein and many other knights, and those who dreamed of becoming knights—admired him even more than King Arthur. Arthur was a hero of the distant past; this man was a living hero who stood before them.
So when the hero announced he would leave for the Outer Land, Bernstein gladly joined the procession. He still had room to grow, yet he wanted to walk beside the hero. The emperor himself had readily granted permission, bidding him aid the empire’s hero.
Aid the empire’s hero and subjugate the Revelry Emperor.
Make the greatness of the empire known to the demons of the Outer Land.
Only victory. Glorious victory.
But there had been no victory. Glory had not been there. Even so, that much he could have borne. What Bernstein could not endure was something else entirely.
“Why… did you end up like that.”
He looked at the knight standing before him.
“You were a hero. Do you hear me? A hero. I, the knights who stood with me, the soldiers of the empire… every last one of us made you our idol.”
Gazing upon the rusted idol, he groaned.
“I can’t even remember your name. I can’t remember what great deeds you performed, which order you belonged to, or what name your sword carried. I’ve forgotten everything.”
“……”
“The you of the past was a shining hero. A savior of the nation, a knight who always returned in glory. And now? What are you?”
In Bernstein’s mindscape stood a single hero. That hero had been the symbol of the empire; the sword he swung had carried the empire’s weight. An eternal, radiant hero had lived there.
But what of reality?
Bernstein looked not at the hero of his mindscape but at the hero of the present: armor rusted and broken, rags for clothes. By what measure could this man still be called a hero?
“I’ve forgotten every feat you ever accomplished—yet the sight of you kneeling in wretched submission before the Revelry Emperor is burned into my mind. That damned demon! The empire’s hero yielding, collapsing, begging—that is the only scene I remember. You should never have done that. Of all people, you should never have…”
The groan became a scream.
Clutching his own face, he shouted at the Helmet Knight.
“It would have been fine if every last one of us had fallen! If we had died beside the hero, that death would have meant something. Even if the hero himself had been defeated, the battlefield would still have held meaning. My dead comrades, your subordinates—all of them would have died for something!”
And yet.
“Why couldn’t you remain a hero until the very end?”
“……”
“Why did you kneel? You were the empire. Why did you force us to watch the empire bow before some common demon?”
Bernstein’s sword slipped from his fingers at last.
“Why,” he said, voice drained of strength.
“Why did you become a jester of revelry?”