The Light That Should Not Be Taken (4)
The pursuers' movements had changed.
Najin had vaguely sensed it. Those who had been scattering and acting alone were now moving in pairs of at least two, and as many as three or four.
Killing six of them over two days must have had an effect.
This was the second day since he had drawn his sword and begun his flight.
In those two days Najin had killed six pursuers who were operating alone. After thrashing one or two of them, he had gotten a feel for how to handle the rest; finishing the six had not been difficult.
He ambushed them. He lured them into complacency.
He hid his strength, then crushed them in a single surge.
The combat methods he had learned from Ivan and Oppen worked just as well against the Church's shadow agents. Though that did not seem to be the whole of it.
Clench.
Without a word, Najin squeezed his hand into a fist and opened it again. The injury he had taken fighting Druggy Hakan—an arm that had barely been able to move—had recovered enough that he could swing a sword once more.
It isn't just my recovery speed that feels higher.
Power flooded his body, and his mind was clear.
When he opened his eyes wide, he could see, sharp and vivid, how an opponent was about to move. The current that shoved his body forward was something he could now command at will. Was this another effect of Excalibur?
…Maybe Arthur wasn't the great one. Maybe Excalibur was just broken as hell.
The irreverent thought flickered through his head—only for a moment. Of course, it was a misconception. The only thing Excalibur had given him was rapid recovery. Everything else had been his from the start.
It was simply that he had steeled himself to cross the line.
That he had released the restraints he had placed on himself.
And so the talents he had always possessed had begun to bloom at speed. He already had experience in abundance. The growth curve of a Najin on the verge of blooming was climbing steeply.
"…Hoo."
Najin, who had been watching the pursuers' movements, let out a long breath. For the past two days he had made a show of wandering the underground city without purpose—as if his goal were not escape, but the hunt itself.
The performance seemed to have landed.
Mistaking his purpose for hunting, the pursuers had begun to cluster together… and as a result, gaps had opened in the net they had cast over the city. It was about time to return to his real objective.
Just one last time.
He only needed to put a clean period on the end.
A group of three pursuers was moving together. Only after they stepped into a dark alley did Najin close the distance. The underground city was full of narrow alleys, and the alley walls naturally offered plenty of footholds. Stepping from crack to crack, he approached them.
How to face multiple opponents at once.
Recalling the combat experience that had been branded into his body until he was sick of it during the fight with Druggy Hakan, Najin twisted his mouth into a bitter smile.
Of course, comparing mindless addicts to the Church's shadow agents was wildly insulting to them… but so what.
At least they don't explode like the addicts.
No one nearby would notice if he killed them.
With that thought, Najin kicked off the alley wall and plunged toward the ground. The three pursuers sensed the presence of the falling figure and formed up in an instant.
The one in the lead swung his sword to meet Najin head-on, while the remaining two moved as if to thrust into the opening that would create. Najin took in every motion.
And, having taken it in, he understood. Word about him still had not properly reached them.
You shouldn't have tried to block it.
In the split second before the falling Najin's sword met the pursuer's swing, his blade flickered white. A shard of sword aura, drawn up in a single breath, coiled around his steel.
You should have dodged.
Shard or not, what he had wrapped around the sword was unmistakably sword aura. And Najin knew exactly how terrifying that cutting power was. He remembered it clearly—the moment his own iron sword had been sheared away by Ivan's aura, death so close he could feel its breath.
A blade without aura
could not block a blade that carried it.
CRACK!
The instant the swords met, the pursuer's blade shattered. Najin's sword, driving on through the ruin, sank straight into the man's shoulder and burst out the other side, cleaving through his body.
One.
The battle plan they had drawn depended on one of them catching Najin's sword. By shattering that first condition, he had completely collapsed their scheme.
Spatter.
Through the spray of blood, Najin dropped low at once. He slipped past two swords thrusting out of the dark and dragged his aura-wreathed blade along close to the ground.
Pursuers who could not wrap their swords in aura had limited options in a narrow alley. Their edges would only bounce off the walls. But not Najin. Still low, he swept his sword level through the air.
Shhk.
With the aid of the aura, the blade carved through the wall itself and sprang free. One man dodged. The other did not. The pursuer's ankle was severed; he toppled. Najin stabbed him short and clean through the nape, then pulled free.
Two.
Blood leapt. A corpse toppled and fell.
Having finished two, Najin turned his head. His gaze met that of the last pursuer, who had lost both comrades in a heartbeat. The deep hood hid the man's face, but Najin saw the way his pupils shook.
Tap.
When Najin took a single step forward, the pursuer stumbled back. Disadvantage born of unbalanced information. At the sight of the boy closing in with sword aura drawn, the pursuer spun and bolted.
Hunter and hunted had reversed.
Najin did not chase the fleeing prey.
Instead he plucked a throwing blade from the bracelet bound around his wrist—spoils taken from the pursuers he had hunted. Holding it, he took aim at the running man.
He had never used a throwing weapon himself, but he had watched how they handled them and how they threw. Having seen it, imitating it was not hard.
Thud.
Stepping forward, Najin hurled the blade. It screamed through the air and buried itself deep in the pursuer's leg.
"Ghk—!"
With a dying cry the man went down. Najin threw one more blade to finish the job.
Three.
After looting the corpses for anything useful, Najin slipped deeper into the alley. This would be enough. He began to run toward his true destination.
The place Oppen had told him about.
Toward the only exit that could take him out of this underground city.
2.
Not long after Najin left the alley, two more pursuers stepped into it and scowled hard at the sight of their comrades' bodies. Even three of them together, and they still went down? To a single boy born and raised in a place like this?
Nine taken in two days.
Nine, plus three more.
A full dozen dead. They had no pride as shadow agents to speak of, but they still had a minimum of self-respect.
Even so, the mission had to be carried out. They swallowed their anger and examined the traces Najin had left behind. As they searched, they frowned. Something strange had turned up.
The sword is shattered.
Their comrade's blade was completely destroyed.
Worse, a long scar remained where the wall itself looked as if it had been split. A mark no ordinary sword could leave. It was the trace of sword aura.
The target was only eighteen years old.
An eighteen-year-old boy, using sword aura?
Had he used Excalibur? No—if he had, brilliant light would have poured out. While they were still struggling to accept the situation—
Tap. Someone stepped into the alley.
They whipped their heads toward the sound of footsteps. Whether fortune or misfortune, it was not the boy they were hunting. A mercenary who had volunteered to cooperate with the operation stood there.
"…What is it?"
Something to report?
At the shadow agent's question, Oppen nodded.
"Yes. There's something I need to tell you urgently…"
Stringing plausible words together, Oppen took one step, then another, toward them. By the time they were frowning at his disjointed talk, he had already closed to within five paces.
Five paces.
The interval Oppen had drawn for himself.
He took a long stride forward and drew his sword. The moment the blade cleared the scabbard, sword aura settled along its edge. The shadow agents moved too late at the sudden shift in his presence—by then it was already far too late.
Swords clashed a few times.
Blood sprayed a few times more.
Having made two corpses, Oppen let out a short breath and left the scene. Before he went, he checked the traces of sword aura that seemed to be Najin's work and smiled. The boy was doing even better than he had expected.
The pursuers Najin had killed over two days numbered six.
But the number the pursuers themselves knew was nine.
The remaining three had been Oppen's work.
Feigning cooperation, he had read their routes; when they were isolated, he struck them from behind—staging it to look like Najin's handiwork.
This should be enough. With a smokescreen this thick, Najin's true purpose would be perfectly concealed.
All that remained was to prepare for the one-in-a-million chance.
Assuming the absolute worst, Oppen set his steps toward the final destination Najin would have headed for. What he was wary of was not these shadow agents.
The knight, Berlo.
He, too, was hunting Najin.
He did not yet seem to have guessed Najin's real destination, but a one-in-a-million case could not be ignored. Once Oppen had decided to do something, he meant to see it through to the end.
…What a mess I've gotten myself into.
But his mood was not entirely foul.
Ever since he had fallen into this city, Oppen had lived each day as if already dead, drowning himself in drink. He had wasted time meaninglessly—and yet, even in that wasted time, there had been something that shone.
A light that did not belong in this underground city.
A light he himself had never been able to hold.
Perhaps Oppen had been projecting his own past onto that light. Starlight he had reached for and never managed to grasp. And so he wished—
That this light would not be trampled underfoot.
3.
Following the path Oppen had given him, Najin ran.
He realized the destination was near. The sound of falling water—ssshhh—had begun to reach him. He called the map up in his mind.
The waterfall marked on the map.
To reach it, he would have to pass through a mine shaft.
An old shaft, long out of use. Because the end of the shaft opened onto the waterfall, the moment he entered it his escape would be as good as complete. Running toward where the shaft entrance should be, Najin felt his heart pound.
It was close.
A little farther and he would be free of this city.
He had not even crossed the waterfall yet, but he could not help the lift in his chest. The chance of getting outside was beginning to show itself. With every step he took, someone's voice echoed in his ears.
"Poor thing."
"Why were you even born in a place like this."
Words the boy had heard his whole life.
"You'll rot here forever."
"You'll never get outside. You'll die mixed in with trash like us for the rest of your life…"
The mockery he had heard all his life.
The words Trixie had spat as he died, the sneers of the gang members who had fallen to Najin's own hand, Druggy Hakan's voice—all of them kept circling his ears.
You cannot climb up.
You will rot in this place forever.
The talent you have will only make you miserable.
Stories he had ignored until now, or cut short and turned away from. But not anymore. Talk all you want. Laugh all you want. I am leaving this place. I am going outside.
A smile touched the corner of Najin's mouth.
With every step he took.
With every step closer to the mine shaft, the voices ringing in his ears faded one by one.
Running and running, Najin reached the entrance of the shaft. Every voice had gone quiet; only one remained in his ears. The voice of someone he had not been able to cast off even at the very end still rang there.
"Do not cross the line, Najin."
"If you cross it, I will have no choice but to kill you."
Najin stopped walking.
The shaft entrance stood before his eyes, but he could take no further step. Someone was standing guard there.
"So you came."
The one who had drawn the line for him.
The owner of the voice that still echoed in his ears.
"I've been waiting."
One-eyed Ivan.
The final line Najin had to cross, and the vast wall itself, stood before him.