About the First Horn (2)
The Empire's Sword Master, Gerd.
This old man, who had served the Empire with loyalty for nearly two hundred years, was less a bureaucrat than a knight, and less a knight than a soldier. He placed rules above all else and restrained his every emotion and action with perfect control.
No one had ever seen Gerd agitated. Not even when his own daughter and son—indeed, his entire bloodline—joined the rebels, and not even when he executed them with his own hands. Gerd did not waver.
He simply swung his sword, expressionless.
That was the kind of man Gerd was.
If the Lighthouse Keeper of the Holy Light Church was immovable, then Gerd was unyielding. He never swayed, never faltered; for long years he had held his post. He had done so in the past, and he had believed he would continue to do so in the future.
But not in this moment. Before his eyes unfolded a sight capable of shaking his entire life.
Gerd's pupils trembled. His lips parted and closed, again and again. That Imperial First Horn—the unshakable pillar of the Empire—was agitated. The old man who had been staring at a single sword scar carved into the ground lifted his gaze to Najin.
"This... this..."
The words spilled out without forming proper sentences. The Imperial First Horn who had always spoken with absolute self-assurance was nowhere to be found. Only an aged swordsman who had just witnessed a landscape he had longed for across the years stood there.
"How... how did you do this?"
The rage and suspicion that had flared in Gerd when Najin first spoke the name Alderan turned to pure astonishment in almost no time at all. No tedious proofs were required. No lengthy explanations either.
Both Gerd and Najin were swordsmen.
And a swordsman is a being who proves himself with the sword.
By revealing the Triumphant Sword, Najin had proven he possessed the right to speak of the First Horn. Only then did he open his mouth.
"In the Outer Land I served a knight who wore a helmet. He told me he was the previous Imperial First Horn, Alderan Basaglia, and..."
Najin unstrapped the spear from his back and drove it into the earth. Bound to its shaft was the banner of the Golden Horn Knights.
"He said he was the commander of the Golden Horn Knights. I am his squire and his disciple. He taught me the Triumphant Sword."
This spear, this flag, and the Triumphant Sword I showed you—these are the proof. The expression that crossed Gerd's face in that instant was something no words could capture.
A moment that was brief for Najin yet felt like half a day to a Sword Master passed before Gerd finally managed to speak.
"He was... alive? And you're telling me he passed the sword on to you?"
"Yes."
"It is impossible to believe. His star fell long ago. Worse—every memory and every record of him was erased. No constellation can maintain itself under such conditions. Even if he still lived, he would have been nothing but a dead man."
Gerd tried to cling to reason.
Rationally speaking, every word he uttered was correct. No human, no constellation, could survive those conditions. That had been the conclusion Gerd himself had reached long ago.
Yet the counter-evidence stood before him now.
A boy who held complete, undistorted knowledge of the being called Alderan Basaglia. That boy was living proof that Gerd's conclusion had been wrong.
"But then... the fact that you possess memories of him, that you can perform the Triumphant Sword—none of it makes sense. Just how..."
Just how?
To the question, Najin answered simply.
"He was no dead man."
Najin smiled bitterly.
"To the very end, he was a knight."
I will tell you.
What kind of end he met.
Najin sat on a rock and struck a spark. A small campfire blossomed on the prairie. Across that fire he spoke to Gerd.
How he had met the Helmet Knight.
What conversations they had shared.
What he had learned, and what he had lived through.
As the tale unfolded, Gerd's gaze grew heavier. Yet that did not mean he remained unmoved. At points in Najin's story he laughed; at others he started in surprise; and at still others he fell into silence.
"He..."
"Yes."
"He was surprised when he heard I had seven stars? That the brat had come to that, he said?"
"Yes. He seemed delighted."
Proud, even.
At those words Gerd wordlessly raised a hand and covered his face. Dragging the hand down over his features, he murmured, "Is that so."
Until this day Gerd had believed Alderan was dead.
He had despaired, certain that his master and benefactor who had departed for the Outer Land had met his end, and that the death had held neither honor nor pride.
No one remembered him.
No one remembered him.
He had been a great hero of the Empire, yet there were even those who dared to call him a traitor. The world believed the hero of the Dawn War had been Gerd himself, but Gerd knew the truth.
The hero of the Dawn War was Alderan Basaglia.
Gerd had merely cleaned up the remnants.
Crushed by the guilt of having stolen his master's glory, bound by the promise his master had left behind, Gerd had lived one hundred and fifty years. All that time he had carried in his heart the existence of an imperial hero no one else remembered.
His star could no longer be found in the sky. Nowhere remained a single record of him.
He had been commander of some knightly order, yet Gerd could not even recall which. All that remained was the knowledge that Alderan Basaglia had been a hero—and that he had wielded the Triumphant Sword.
And so Gerd had devoted his entire life to the Triumphant Sword. Because that beautiful blade must never be forgotten.
"I'll show you just once, brat."
"Watch carefully."
"This is the secret technique of the Triumphant Sword."
To recreate, in his own fashion, the secret technique he had glimpsed only once in his youth, Gerd had willingly cast his life into the fire. One hundred and fifty years of that life had already burned away.
"One thing."
One hundred and fifty years later, a boy sat before him.
"One request."
Gerd made the request of that boy.
"Will you watch the sword I am about to swing? And speak without reserve. Tell me whether my sword is correct—whether it resembles his."
A Sword Master seeking instruction from a Sword Seeker. Yet Gerd felt no shame. On the contrary, he found the moment joyful. At last he could compare his answer against the true solution.
Gerd swung his sword.
Stroke after stroke, until at last he unveiled the secret technique of the Triumphant Sword. His blade passed over the single scar Najin had carved into the earth.
First Horn. Triumph.
With a sharp crack the prairie split open. Having finished the cut, Gerd looked to Najin. The gaze demanded an answer. But the youth who met that gaze only smiled in silence. The meaning of the smile was simple.
You already know without needing to ask me.
Gerd looked at the scar he had left. The single stroke he had etched into the prairie matched Najin's scar exactly—without the slightest deviation.
"Ah..."
The old man who had spent one hundred and fifty years trying to recreate a technique seen only once in youth finally understood. Those years had not been wasted. Only after one hundred and fifty years could he lay his solution beside the answer sheet, and only then did he know he had not been wrong. He smiled.
"How is it, brat?"
"Magnificent, isn't it?"
Remembering the master who had once smiled down at him, Gerd laughed. He laughed aloud. He could not remember the last time he had laughed so freely, so completely.
Only after one hundred and fifty years do you give me the answer.
By realizing that his sword had never been wrong, he understood that he had already achieved a great feat long ago. Realization became conviction; conviction became unshakable self-assurance.
"...Ah."
Najin looked up at the sky without thinking.
Beside the seven stars that hung above the tower of the Imperial First Horn, a new star was rising.
The eighth star.
The new star Gerd had claimed shone brightly in the heavens.
"I owe you a debt too great to repay. Truly, impossibly great."
"Was it not a realization you reached yourself?"
Gerd shook his head.
"I thank you. For granting me that realization. For giving him an honorable duel. For ensuring the Triumphant Sword was not forgotten and was carried forward. For every single thing you have accomplished—I thank you."
He offered Najin a formal sword salute.
The Empire's first pillar, who never bowed even before the Emperor, willingly lowered his head to Najin in respect.
"Though... he never found rest, I dare to believe his end was one that satisfied him."
After the salute, Gerd ground his teeth.
"Then what remains is the duty of the disciples."
From Najin he had learned who had reduced his master to that state, and who had denied him peace.
"Until now I believed the one who made him forgotten was a constellation that wielded the powers of oblivion and incineration. I searched for that constellation for long years and found nothing. It was a star that erased even records of itself."
A constellation of oblivion and incineration.
Of the records that remained, only those linked to "Rondinel" survived. Its constellation, its sanctuary, even the form of its true body—all unknown.
"I possessed the rage, and the will to swing a sword with that rage, yet I never knew where to aim the blade."
It is difficult to rage against the unknown. Gerd's anger had pooled deep for long years, finding no outlet.
"But no longer."
The dammed flames overflowed.
The old man's eyes were no longer dry. Boiling fire filled them.
"Revelry Emperor."
Gerd spat the name as though chewing glass.
The flames in his eyes burned so fiercely they seemed ready to devour him and hurl his body into motion at any instant—yet Gerd was not consumed by rage.
Having stood for long years at the Empire's pinnacle, Gerd was a master of politics: seasoned, cunning, and thorough. He knew that what vengeance required was not searing fury but cold reason.
"You sought me out to request aid in the subjugation of the Revelry Emperor. Am I correct?"
"Yes."
"Depending on my reaction, you intended to exercise the right you hold."
"I did—but it seems unnecessary now."
"Of course. This is a duty I must fulfill even if no one forces it upon me. I swear it upon the office of Imperial First Horn and upon my own name."
The Imperial First Horn spoke.
"As of this day, you stand under the protection of the Empire. By 'Empire' I mean the Imperial First Horn—myself."
The Imperial First Horn is the Empire.
An arrogant declaration, some might say—yet no one would ever call Gerd arrogant. The power and weight carried by that single man could truly be set against the Empire entire.
"So long as your blade points toward the Revelry Emperor, I will spare no support. Even should you choose a path that harms the Empire, if that path exists to kill the Revelry Emperor, I will stand with you."
The man who had given everything to the Empire now promised cooperation even against it. Najin was not so dull as to miss the weight of those words.
"Whatever you hide, whatever you carry—it matters nothing. The Empire's first pillar does not forget grace. Does not forget promises. Remember this: the tower of the Imperial First Horn will always stand open to you."
Enough of that for now.
With those words Gerd exhaled a short breath.
"Now we must discuss how to kill the Revelry Emperor. Gathering information comes first."
"I have considered that myself, yet finding materials proved difficult. Related records have been erased—and distorted as well..."
"No need to worry over that."
"Pardon?"
"What stands before you is the Imperial First Horn."
The Imperial First Horn said,
"At a single gesture, at a single word of mine, the entire Empire moves. You say records are erased? Concealed and twisted? Let them try."
He gave a short, scornful laugh.
"The Empire's seven magic towers, the Empire's pillars, every scholar and every mage will, from this day forward, dig into everything connected to the Revelry Emperor. I will make certain of it."
The Revelry Emperor had never shown her face, remaining behind the curtain while cunningly rewriting every scrap of information. But Gerd declared that from this day he would drag her out of that darkness and set her upon the stage.
"When I take that head and display it upon the First Horn Tower, Master will be pleased. I look forward to that day with great anticipation."