Middle-Rank Priest Volkman (1)
From childhood, Najin had been a prodigy at mimicking the movements of others. Techniques Ivan demonstrated only once or twice, he would copy with ease, and anything he had seen and learned, he almost never forgot.
There were times when a lack of physical strength or flexibility kept him from matching a motion exactly—but he never once forgot a movement he had witnessed.
Najin himself had never thought much of the fact. Only after leaving the underground city, in conversation with Merlin, did he realize how abnormal he was.
"Normally, you know," she told him, "people just can't do that."
"You're the weird one."
Even a constellation, a transcendent of the night sky, found his powers of observation and memory unnatural. And yet Najin's eyes held something more particular than those two gifts alone could explain.
"Doesn't it come together in your head when you watch? Like the motion is cut into separate frames…"
Najin took out paper and pen. Just before their escape from the underground city, Ivan had shown him a technique; now he sketched it out with quick strokes. A single movement broken into many fine panels. That was the landscape of the world that appeared when Najin widened his eyes.
Not continuous motion—but a landscape like dozens of discrete stills stitched end to end.
He would break a single movement into stages, memorize each one, and then join action to action the way one climbs a staircase. That was how Najin imitated the movements of others.
"Hah…"
Merlin let out a breath of pure disbelief at the drawings on the page. Najin had not sketched rough approximations of motion. Force applied here, the angle of the blade, the abdomen drawn tight as breath was swallowed—every minute detail was there.
No one could do this after seeing something only once or twice. There had been a genius of a similar kind among the Knights of the Round Table, but even he had never imitated like this.
Galahad, strongest knight of the Round Table.
Even that monstrous knight had followed others' movements by feel; he had never fully reproduced them the way Najin did. If one compared it to painting…
If Galahad recalls the impression of a picture and forges a sensory copy—
Najin was laying paper over the original and tracing it, line for line. In sheer precision, his method belonged to another realm entirely from Galahad's.
"So I'm telling you," Merlin said, "people normally can't do that."
By now she was beginning to find him a little frightening.
2.
The guild hall.
In a corner of the counter crowded with adventurers and mercenaries, Najin sat waiting for his client. With time still to spare before the appointed hour, he leafed through a guidebook left in one corner of the hall.
What the guidebook listed were the city's rankers.
He had little interest in the lower grades. Najin checked only the names and brief profiles of the five White-grade mercenaries at the very top.
Former ranger of the Techel Mountains.
Hawk's Eye, Kaufman Teosis.
Former knight-captain of the Zenobels family.
Sword Seeker, Reinhardt Polsen.
Captain of the Red-Eyed Mercenary Band.
Sword Seeker, Roselyn Ascalo.
Names, brief profiles, and backgrounds were public for only those three. The remaining two had refused disclosure. As he read through the information on the people he had marked as targets, Najin rubbed his jaw.
They say that once you hit White-grade you get an honorary title. Looks like it's true.
"Of course it is. Sword Seeker-class powerhouses aren't that common inland. They're strong enough to serve as knight-captains for any decent house. That level of treatment is only natural."
Sword Seeker-class. Strong enough to lead the knights of an ordinary house—and strong enough, even if they left this city for the imperial capital, to claim a seat of their own.
And…
The realm Ivan and Oppen had dreamed of. The rank he had set as his first goal—Najin was gauging roughly where it stood when a shadow fell across him from above.
He lifted his head.
A middle-aged man stood there. A rough, stubbled beard that looked as if it had been trimmed without care, and the shabby robes of a dojo. From his breast the man drew a sheet of paper and held it open for Najin to see.
"You Ivan?"
Ivan, mercenary, age twenty-eight.
It was the name and false identity Najin had borrowed from his master in order to operate in this city. Ivan himself was in his mid-forties, but—
Even so, mid-forties is a bit much.
It would have been far too obvious. So they had settled on twenty-eight. Even if he later drew aura and proved himself a Sword Expert, twenty-eight would still read as merely, Ah, a talented one—and that would be that.
Najin rose from his chair and nodded toward the man.
"Yes. I'm Ivan."
"Hm. Younger than I expected. The plate said a twenty-eight-year-old mercenary…"
"I tend to look young for my age."
"I'm a little envious of that. Well—I won't dig any deeper."
The man grinned and held out his hand.
"I'm Volkman. Middle-rank priest of the Sword Church, and a Sword Expert. Looking forward to working with you today."
Together with Volkman, Najin rode a carriage out onto the plains. Their destination, Volkman said, was a small village not far from Cambria.
"Seems an orc settlement was found near the place, you know? The moment I heard, I snapped up the commission. Couldn't let some other bastard take it."
Talking with Volkman inside the carriage, Najin came to a few realizations.
"You thought we were going to save the village? No—why would I? Plenty of people out there to save villages. I just want to swing a sword against orcs. Nothing better for building experience than those bastards."
Volkman talked a great deal.
"Orc hide isn't just tough—it's damn tough. Hide like iron, and they're huge on top of it. You won't find a better training dummy. Hard as hell to cut without aura, which makes them perfect for practice."
He was a priest, and yet nothing like a priest.
Volkman was a long way from the pious, noble, austere image most people associated with the clergy. Solid build, shabby dojo robes—calling him a wandering swordsman would have fit better, Najin thought.
Are all the priests of the Sword Church like this?
"Why do you think it's the Sword Church? The order's ancient, and these types have always been this way. They're sword-mad, the lot of them."
Why they called themselves a church, Merlin added, she still wasn't sure.
Rumor held that the Sword Church worshipped no principal god. The single blade in a man's hand was the god they served—or so the story went.
"Hm. We're here."
While Najin made the appropriate noises of agreement, they arrived. The carriage stopped, and not far off an orc settlement came into view.
"Follow if you like, or wait here until the hunting's done. Did you bring a sack for the orcs' heads?"
"Yes. I picked one up at the guild."
"Good. So what's it to be?"
Najin answered without hesitation.
"I'll follow. If it isn't an imposition, I'd like to watch you use your sword up close."
"Haha. A youth with fire in him."
Volkman smiled. His gaze moved to the sword at Najin's hip, then to Najin's palms—the calluses set deep into the skin of hands and finger joints. Proof that the young man before him never neglected his training.
"Watch as much as you like. Just don't come too close. It could get dangerous."
"Thank you for the opportunity."
Keeping a few paces' distance, Najin walked behind Volkman. After a while they reached the edge of the orc settlement, and Volkman stopped. Standing still, he let out a long breath.
The flow of the air changed.
From that moment on, Najin fixed his eyes on Volkman with full force. Each time the man inhaled and exhaled, a current formed around his body.
Then—
Volkman drew the sword from his hip. Unlike the man's mild, almost dull-looking face, the single blade in his hand had been honed sharper than anything else. The moment he gripped the sword, the presence he wore transformed.
With the blade hanging loose, Volkman stepped into the settlement. Inside, four orcs and a swarm of smaller goblins that followed them milled about.
Grrr!
A goblin that sensed him charged. Goblins led; the orcs followed with heavy strides, closing on Volkman.
"Hoo…"
Volkman let out a short breath and took one step forward. He did not swing at the oncoming goblin. He merely raised his sword above his shoulder until it lay level with the sky.
No grand motion was needed.
Holding the stance, he simply extended the blade.
Thuk.
The tip drove into the goblin's throat. With the point that had pierced and come free, Volkman flicked the sword lightly to the side. The second goblin's body caught on the edge and was sheared through.
Through the spray of blood, Volkman took another step. Before Najin quite noticed, he had returned to the first stance—sword raised level with the sky.
"…"
Najin watched every posture and motion with eyes wide. As he observed, a pattern emerged.
Repetition of stances. A cycle.
Volkman was cycling through four stances.
Stance flowed into stance. The act of linking them was itself both attack and defense.
The movement was astonishingly efficient.
Even without drawing aura, Volkman was butchering the charging goblins with the least possible force and the least possible motion.
Different from Ivan's sword.
If the sword Najin had always imitated—Ivan's—was a blade of heavy, devastating single strokes, then Volkman's was precise and keen, a sword that forged a continuous current.
Sharp, exact stances and footwork.
The blade that bit deep mixed thrusts and cuts. Action joined action in smooth succession. The stances that shifted with the enemy's movement and the situation almost looked like a dance.
So this was the swordsmanship of the Sword Church.
It was, without question, worth watching and learning from. But as he studied the movement, one question rose in Najin's mind.
Efficient, yes—but…
There was no decisive blow.
Goblins he could cut down easily enough. But what did he mean to do about those orcs?
Thoom.
With a heavy tread, an orc charged at Volkman. Still, Volkman did not draw aura. As if there were simply no need.
Then he seized the hilt hard and moved differently from before. His footsteps stamped a disordered pattern across the earth. The moment those steps stopped, the stance he took was nothing like the four he had been cycling through.
Sword hanging low.
Knees bent as if ready to spring upward at any instant.
As the orc swung its club, Volkman moved. He straightened the bent knees and, rising as if to leap, swept the blade up.
Shhk.
Najin's eyes went wide.
Though no aura clothed the steel, Volkman's sword parted the orc's hide as smoothly as cloth. The tip that had half-severed the wrist holding the club rose toward the sky.
A clean, powerful rising cut.
As a stone thrown skyward falls back to earth, Volkman twisted the tip and brought the blade down. The sword flashed; a long wound opened from the orc's shoulder to its waist.
Slash!
Blood fountained in a long arc. Watching every step of it, Najin clicked his tongue in admiration. Precise, powerful, and beautiful. He felt himself slightly overwhelmed by the refinement of a sword art the Sword Church had pared and perfected over long years.
While Najin was still replaying what he had just seen in his mind—
"…!"
Volkman whipped his head around and looked at Najin. He shouted. Before the sound even reached Najin's eardrums, Najin had already turned to look behind him.
He, too, had felt the presence.
Three goblins that had been hiding in the settlement were charging him. It was an ambush aimed at a gap—but it was not especially deadly to Najin.
A leap from the air.
A goblin driving in from the side.
All of it simply looked slow to his eyes. With time to spare, he gripped his sword and called up, in his mind, the stances he had just watched from Volkman. Postures built from exact footwork and exact distribution of force.
Where to put strength.
How to set the feet.
In which direction to raise the blade.
All of it was drawn with perfect clarity in his head. Drawn—so all that remained was to follow. Fixing his grip the way Volkman had, Najin took one step.
First stance.
He lightly extended the tip of the sword he had raised level with the sky. The throat of the charging goblin was pierced. Before he even confirmed it, his body was already moving.
Stance linked to stance.
From the first into the second.
The tip passed smoothly through a goblin's body. The creature stabbed through the point coughed blood and collapsed.
Tak.
When he had joined stance to stance and returned again to the first, three goblin corpses were all that lay beside him. Najin let out a short breath and lowered his sword.
So that's how it's done.
It was certainly efficient. He had not yet tried to copy the motion Volkman had used against the orc—but if he kept at it, that would come too. With that thought, he turned his head.
There stood Volkman, staring at him in an awkward half-stance. The priest's eyes were wide and trembling; his mouth opened and closed without sound.
"Priest Volkman!"
Najin shouted at the dazed man.
"Behind you! Look behind you!"
Orcs were still charging Volkman. The priest gave a choked, ragged gasp, steadied his breathing, and turned. He had to deal with the orcs in front of him first.
"Ah. I know that feeling."
Merlin's voice rang in Najin's ear.
"Wanting to say something and having the words just… stick."
What feeling is that?
"There is such a thing, you monster of a brat."
Whatever Merlin made of it—
Seeing Volkman's reaction, Najin was certain. His first plan—to leave a powerful impression on the man—had succeeded.