The City of Opportunity, Cambria (1)
Aura — the mark of a Sword Expert.
It was the exclusive domain of those who had reached a certain height of power, yet to a transcendent like Merlin, aura itself was nothing particularly special. On the stages where she had once thrived, the place had been crawling with bastards who flung the stuff around like confetti.
Aura alone was nothing to marvel at. The realm of Sword Expert was no different. Merlin had seen more Seekers and Masters who had surpassed that rank than she could count. Which meant ordinary talent no longer had the power to surprise her. So what, exactly, had left her speechless?
The answer was simple.
"…How old are you?"
"Eighteen."
"By Imperial reckoning?"
"Yes. By the Briton Empire's calendar."
First — the boy's age.
Eighteen. Not a child, exactly, but far too young to be drawing aura. Merlin had never paid much attention to the goings-on of the wider world, but still…
Merlin!
Look at this. The youngest Sword Expert in history. They say he drew aura at twenty-three. Can you believe it?
Good heavens — twenty-three!
She still remembered Bedivere making a tremendous fuss over the birth of the youngest Sword Expert some ten-odd years ago. She remembered her own astonishment just as clearly when she confirmed the news. Drawing aura at twenty-three had genuinely been something to marvel at. Setting aside the exceptional case of King Arthur, that man had been called the youngest Sword Expert in history. He was the one who now held the seat of the Sword Church's leader, wasn't he?
A genius hailed as peerless — and even he drew aura at twenty-three.
And the boy standing before her was eighteen.
When had Arthur first drawn aura? Merlin couldn't be certain — Arthur had already been wielding it by the time they met — but she seemed to recall Arthur had been around the same age as this boy.
…
Merlin fell silent, staring at the boy's blade.
Drawing aura so young was one thing. But the color of the aura glittering before her eyes was not something she could simply let pass.
She was speechless. The words would not come.
Platinum aura. That had belonged to Arthur alone — Arthur's exclusive domain. Of course, it was too early to judge by color alone. She would have to confirm it properly once the boy before her reached the realm of Sword Seeker, capable of pouring his mindscape into his aura…
But if, by any remote chance, the boy's aura shared the same nature as Arthur's, this was not a matter to be taken lightly. Platinum aura was a reverse scale to everything connected with Kamran.
And more than that — the moment the dragons confirmed the boy's aura, they would stop at nothing to kill him.
…This just got complicated.
Even if the fact that Najin was Excalibur's master never came to light, the instant his aura was exposed, countless eyes would fix upon the boy. The light he carried was more than he could bear as he was now.
In a boy she had expected might, at best, manage a little mana, Merlin had found something far beyond imagination. She let out a hollow laugh. Everything the boy held in his hands was dangerously volatile — things that, if discovered, would draw the hostility of the entire world.
To raise him until he could survive that hostility while still carrying all of it. That was the role she had to fulfill as his guide.
It would not be easy. One wrong step and everything would collapse. But — to borrow the boy's own words — that was precisely what made the path worth walking. A smile touched Merlin's lips.
As they traveled, Najin and Merlin talked about a great many things. Several points emerged from those conversations, and Najin took a moment to sort through what he had learned.
"First — you said the constellations who might stand as my allies, yourself included, are far from here?"
"That's right. We're bound near Kamran."
The Knights of the Round Table. The heroes who had stood with Arthur. They were stationed not inland but at the boundary line at the world's edge, spending their days hunting the cursed things of Kamran that slipped through the cracks in the seal Arthur had forged — or so Merlin told him.
"Even aside from that, constellations generally have a hard time intervening inland. To do it properly you'd need to found a church, and that's an enormous headache."
Ordinary constellations could not intervene inland. The places they could reach were the intermediate zones beyond the interior, the Battlefield of Stars, and the vicinity of Kamran.
"Under normal circumstances, even holding a conversation with you would impose an enormous burden. The only reason we can talk this comfortably is because I transferred my consciousness through Excalibur as a medium."
Merlin boasted that what she had done was tremendously impressive — something an ordinary constellation couldn't even dream of. From Najin's perspective as the listener, he simply took her word for it and moved on.
"Here's the point," Merlin said. "Until you have a star of your own and climb high enough to reach the Battlefield of Stars, we can't protect you. Inside the interior, you survive alone. That's what it means."
"The way King Arthur did?"
"Exactly. Arthur was hounded by countless demons and the nations that worshipped them… You've just swapped those out for a somewhat different set of bastards."
There might well be constellations and factions friendly to Arthur — and by extension to Najin — but…
"The malice of the ones who are dead set on killing you runs a little too deep to lean on simple goodwill."
There were far too many enemies to rely on goodwill alone. Merlin muttered as much and smiled bitterly.
"You understand what I'm getting at?"
"More or less."
Najin was a quick study, and he had already caught the gist of what Merlin was driving at.
"Hide the special things I have. That's it, right? Because if they get out, some very troublesome parties will come after me."
"Exactly that."
For better or worse, only a tiny handful of people knew that Najin had drawn Excalibur. The Church side was a nuisance, but they wouldn't be eager to air their own dirty laundry either.
"So for now, I just need to watch out for the Holy Light Church."
…
The moment the Church's name came up, Merlin fell silent. Through their conversations she had already heard, in brief, about Najin's origins and the life he had lived. She let out a long breath before she spoke.
"…That part is on me."
Her voice had softened somewhat.
"I never imagined the Church's judgment apparatus was being maintained in that kind of fashion — by those kinds of methods."
And she had never dreamed they would try to murder a candidate who had drawn the sword on the spot. Something that might well have been a challenge to Arthur's authority — and they had done it without hesitation, all to protect the Church's reputation?
"The 'Lighthouse' I knew wouldn't have had it in him. Whether this was the underlings acting on their own or the Lighthouse intervening directly… I'll have to look into it. I'll ask Bedivere to—"
"Don't."
Merlin had been muttering about how to handle the Church when Najin cut her off.
"…What?"
"I said don't. Leave them alone. The Church."
Najin's voice was flat and final.
"Whether I take revenge on the Church or deliver judgment… I'll do it with my own hands. No one's help."
He had made that promise.
Ivan had told him: become someone no one can ignore, and restore my honor. Saying those words, Ivan had taken Najin as his squire.
That promise had been broken — overwritten by a new oath. But Najin still considered himself Ivan's squire. The honor the Church had trampled belonged to Ivan, and only Ivan's squire could reclaim it with his own hands. Ivan would never be glad of honor restored by someone else's aid.
Someday.
Once he surpassed Sword Expert. Once he reached Sword Seeker — the realm beyond the one Ivan had attained. And if that still wasn't enough, once he climbed higher still, to Sword Master…
Once he had the qualifications. Once he had the power.
Then he would return to that city and shout it: that he had come to reclaim the honor of Ivan, Knight of Atanga. That the starlight they had tried to crush underfoot had returned. Holding that distant future in his mind, Najin spoke.
"There are things I can only reclaim by tearing them down with my own hands. Things I can only earn that way. So leave them alone."
Merlin was silent. She had felt the weight in the boy's voice.
"If that's how you want it, fine."
He meant to achieve his ends by his own strength alone. Some would laugh at that stubbornness and call it foolish — but Merlin liked that kind of foolishness. Everyone who had walked with Arthur had been that sort of idiot, no matter what anyone said.
…A brat worth guiding, at least.
Thinking as much, Merlin returned to her proper role. A guide who showed the way. She would offer counsel, nothing more. Walking the path was the boy's work.
The City of Opportunity, Cambria.
The city that served as the backdrop where King Arthur first truly rose to prominence, where her epic found its stride.
Perhaps because Arthur had built her renown and gathered her companions in Cambria. Or perhaps because it had been the true starting point of that journey. At some point, Cambria had come to be called the City of Opportunity.
A place where magical beasts and every manner of anomaly occurred — and the legends of King Arthur woven through that backdrop — naturally drew adventurers and mercenaries. Into the adventurers' city that formed around them poured noble houses hunting for hidden talent, along with outside capital and merchants catering to adventurers and sellswords. And into the city that flourished from all of that came academy students, apprentice mages from the Magic Towers, squire-knights, and other young shoots looking to cut their teeth on reality before stepping fully into the world.
Hence the nickname: the City of Opportunity.
If you had talent — if you had the makings — then no matter how low your birth, you could climb as high as you liked. That was why Cambria was called the City of Opportunity.
Chasing opportunity. Or chasing gold and power. Every year, countless people arrived in the City of Opportunity carrying enormous dreams. But of course, not all of them could succeed. For every person who made it, another discovered the limits of their talent and ended up holed up in some alley of the city.
Which was to say — the circumstances were a little different, but not unlike Najin right now.
…
"…"
Najin and Merlin both fell silent, unable to accept the wretched situation they were in.
The context was as follows.
Following the path Merlin had shown him, Najin had spent a full ten days reaching the City of Opportunity, Cambria. Camping in the forest, hunting animals to fill his stomach, barely managing to hitch a ride on a wagon — getting to the city had been fine.
Getting to the city had been fine. The problem was a little different. He was completely out of money. And he was so hungry he thought he might die. The emergency rations he'd stockpiled had long since been cleaned out, and it had been days since he'd had a proper meal.
Clutching his empty stomach, he wandered the city for a while. When he came back to himself, Najin found he had drifted into a secluded alley. Old habit.
"…Why did you come in here?"
"Figured I'd dig through the trash."
"…You're serious?"
Najin nodded. Merlin nearly had a heart attack.
"That's — that's a bit much, isn't it?"
"Hey, I've got to stay alive somehow."
"Beg if you have to…! But digging through garbage is not—"
Listening to Merlin's shrieking, Najin laughed. Truthfully, he had no intention of rooting through trash. If he were truly cornered he might, but he still had a little room to maneuver.
There was a reason he'd come into this alley.
"I'm kidding."
Najin let out a long breath.
"I just want to rest a bit before I move."
"Really?"
"Why would I lie about something like this?"
"…Why not rest outside?"
"Too bright. Hurts my eyes."
Sunlight was still unfamiliar to Najin. He could manage while he was moving, but whenever he stopped to rest he found himself seeking out shade where the light couldn't reach.
It's kind of cozy, too.
It had only been ten days since he left the underground city. Habits worn into the body over eighteen years didn't vanish so easily. Leaning against the alley wall, Najin slowly exhaled.
The City of Opportunity, Cambria. The city was nothing like the fairy tales, and far larger than he had imagined. A wider stage. A broader backdrop. By drawing Excalibur and escaping the underground city, he had closed the prologue of his story.
Now it was time for Chapter One.
Najin shifted his gaze and glanced at the people dozing against the alley walls. Failures who had washed out of this city, most likely. The underground city had been full of their kind too.
If I settle into the comfort…
He'd end up just like them — left behind. Najin let out a long breath and cracked the whip on himself. Sitting still wouldn't make the hunger go away. He had to do something.
Just as he was about to push himself up from the alley wall, Najin turned toward an approaching presence.
At the mouth of the alley, a girl stood with the sunlight at her back. She looked down at Najin as he started to rise, eyes narrowed. Najin met the gaze of the girl looking down at him.
She's been watching me since earlier…
More precisely, not him — the alley. She had been sitting on a bench with a clear view of the alley the whole time, observing it.
"From the looks of it," the girl said with a smile.
Light brown hair that caught and glittered in the sun. Her half-lidded eyes called a snake to mind. Najin knew eyes like those well. The eyes of a moneylender — or a merchant. The kind of greed-slicked, glittering eyes you saw everywhere in the underground city. And the girl made no effort whatsoever to hide that greed. Najin could feel it fixed squarely on him.
"It doesn't look like you've had a proper meal."
She held out a hand toward him.
"I know a good place. Care to join me?"
The girl's name was Dieta Arvenia.
The city's nobles called her the cast-off child of House Arvenia. But the adventurers and mercenaries of this city called her something else.
The Gold-Swallowing Snake.
A nickname earned because she would lunge at and devour anything that smelled of money. Dieta threw herself at any field that produced gold coin — relics, commissions, even…
"My treat."
…a human being.