Sword Master, Caron (3)
Sword Saint Caron was an oddball.
Who would dare call a Sword Master who had reached transcendence an oddball? And yet Caron was a man who could only be described by that word.
One day he would vanish into the Demon Realm and return with a heap of high-ranking demons' heads; the next he would walk the borders of Kamran and butcher the accursed things that crossed the threshold; on another day still he would be swinging his sword across the battlefield of the stars.
And that was not all.
Having found a fine liquor, he would stride into the sanctuaries of the constellations in the night sky to share a drink with them. Or, while the sentries stood watch with eyes wide open, he would vault the walls of the empire, knock back a cup with the emperor himself, and stroll back out again.
A man of endless eccentricities, utterly impossible to pin down.
Even so, the world did not regard this oddball among oddballs as particularly dangerous. The values he held sacred were far too clear for that.
The sword. And righteousness, and chivalry.
Just as the knights of Atanga bound themselves with honor and pride, the Sword Saint bound himself with righteousness and chivalry. He paid no mind to power or renown, pouring himself instead into whatever he judged right.
His head held nothing but the sword.
Politics and authority held no interest for him.
No one could even say what he was aiming for.
And yet even Caron had a purpose.
He always said the same thing.
That he had to reach the absolute limit. That he had to seize more stars and grow stronger still. It was not merely the mindset of a man testing his own boundaries.
Why did he hunger for strength?
Once, when asked that question, Caron had answered:
The world did not know what that wish was.
Only Caron, and every Sword Saint who had ever sat in the master's seat of the Sword Church, knew its true nature. It was less a wish than a duty, a destiny.
Caron turned that wish over and over in his mind.
What it required was a monster who could surpass even him—the one called an unparalleled genius. Ordinary methods would never even approach the Church's dearest wish. And so Caron searched.
For a being who held the potential to surpass him.
For the one who would show him what came next.
Well then. What about you?
The Sword Saint looked at the youth before him.
Time to look a little deeper.
How much talent did this one possess? Could he become the existence Caron had been hunting for? And if so, by what measure should the youth's worth be judged?
The answer was simple beyond compare.
By the sword.
If there is something to confirm, confirm it with the sword.
That was the way of the Sword Church.
Najin looked at Caron.
Sword sheath in hand, Caron had not taken a single step. As if inviting him to come at him. It was not arrogance. It was the ease of the strong. Najin could not deny that fact.
Because it was true.
Even if he poured out everything he had and drew Excalibur itself, he did not think he could win. The gulf between Caron and himself was something even a holy sword could not bridge.
A man who stood at the pinnacle of the sword.
A powerhouse who stood shoulder to shoulder with the constellations of the night sky.
He has six stars, they said.
—That's right. He could ascend and become a constellation whenever he wished, but he remains on the earth.
A being who could become a star of the night sky, yet chose to stay among mortals. Najin steadied his breathing and let his sword hang low. Opportunities to face the absolute peak did not come often. It had arrived without warning, but Najin knew exactly how precious this chance was.
And because he knew, he had no intention of holding back.
"Hoo…"
One breath.
A current surged through Najin's body. Everyone already knew he could use aura, so there was no longer any need to hide it. Pure white aura coiled around his blade.
"…!"
Volkman, watching their spar, went wide-eyed. Awakening aura in a mere month was absurd. The correct judgment was that Najin had already known how to handle aura from the moment their swords first clashed.
He was concealing his strength.
Volkman smiled. He felt no disappointment. If anything, he was only more curious to see how far Najin could go against Caron.
And Caron—
Still had not drawn his aura. He simply watched Najin with the sheath in his hand. With a crack of dirt, Najin kicked off the ground and charged. His speed already surpassed the level of a Sword Expert.
Whish!
In a single burst of acceleration, Najin's sword swept out. A lightning-fast strike. His stance as he swung, the arc his blade traced—both were clean. Even to the eyes of a mid-rank priest like Volkman, it was a flawless blow.
But not to Caron.
Caron flicked the sheath lightly. Its speed was neither slow nor fast. At just the right pace the sheath touched Najin's shoulder as he swung. Caron simply thrust the sheath forward.
That alone shattered Najin's stance.
The sword's trajectory twisted; balance broken, Najin toppled backward. He barely twisted his body enough to avoid falling flat—yet his pupils were shaking.
Tak.
Najin corrected his footing at once and lunged again. Once, twice, three times… five times in all, the same thing happened.
Caron flicked the sheath lightly.
And that alone collapsed Najin's stance.
It was not even a proper strike, nor a particularly fast one. The speed at which Caron thrust the sheath was equal to Najin's own, or slower. And yet the man dismantled his form with absurd ease.
How?
Najin already knew the answer. Gaps in posture. Unstable points. The tiniest fissures invisible to ordinary eyes—Caron stabbed into them with perfect precision.
Then…
Najin exhaled short and reset his grip on the sword.
"…It's begun."
Watching, Volkman clicked his tongue.
Caron's spars usually went exactly like this. He deliberately limited his own sword to a speed equal to or slower than his opponent's—and yet that limit meant nothing…
Caron thoroughly overwhelmed his target.
He stabbed into openings, shattered sword paths, read stances and broke them, and from a single spot blocked every blade that came. Being overpowered by someone swinging slower than yourself was never, even by the kindest measure, a pleasant experience.
The feeling that your own sword is being denied.
Which meant the feeling that you yourself were being denied.
That was why so many people avoided sparring with Caron. They might gain a great deal, but recovering pride once it had been crushed took a long time.
How would this youth fare?
He must have known he was exceptional.
The blow would hit hard. Thinking as much, Volkman watched Najin—only for Najin to charge Caron in exactly the same stance as before. Had he failed to accept that his swordsmanship had gaps? Volkman was just clicking his tongue again when—
The moment Caron thrust the sheath—
Najin's movement transformed.
It was a gap that had already been stabbed once. The instant it was pierced, Najin had already finished organizing in his head how to seal it, how to correct the stance. Breaking his own body into a continuous sequence of motions and discarding the wrong picture was not a difficult task for him.
The gap Caron had meant to pierce was closed. Without retreating, Caron simply flicked the sheath. For the first time, Najin's sword and Caron's sheath met.
Without aura, one cannot stop a blade clad in aura.
That was common sense—yet Sword Masters stood above common sense. Even without wrapping the sheath in aura, Caron deflected Najin's sword with absurd lightness. The current flowing over the sheath made it so.
Kagagagagak!
But Najin did not panic.
He twisted his stance at once and unleashed a flurry of strikes. As the accelerated blade whipped through the air, Caron's sheath drove into Najin's openings again and again.
He was shoved back with broken posture and rolled across the ground—
but only that first time. Once a gap had been stabbed, Najin never offered it twice. Swordsmen always said a fixed stance became habit and was hard to correct, but exceptions existed everywhere.
What in the world…
Watching Najin correct his posture in real time and seal his own openings, Volkman's eyes flew wide.
Indeed.
A smile touched Caron's lips.
He could roughly understand why Volkman had rated the youth so highly. This was certainly outstanding talent. The boy knew how to control his own body.
And…
Caron's eyes narrowed.
In the sword Najin swung, Caron felt the swordsmanship of Atanga, saw the rough blades of mercenaries, and sensed Volkman's sword as well. The youth's blade was a mixture of many styles. Yet they had not fully fused.
He was only imitating someone else.
It was not a sword that existed solely for himself.
They said he had a gift for imitation and mimicry, didn't they?
Well then. Let's see it.
Probing openings was enough. To dig any deeper, he would have to swing faster than the youth. So Caron adjusted his grip on the sheath.
What he unfolded as he settled into stance was the swordsmanship of the Church.
The pinnacle of the Sword Church—the seat of Sword Saint—was not something granted simply by reaching the rank of Sword Master. It was a title that could be held only by one who had climbed to the absolute extreme of every sword style and every stance that existed within the Church.
Among the three living Sword Masters—
if pure swordsmanship alone decided the clash, no one could defeat Caron. The realm he had attained was that alien.
"……!"
At last Caron unleashed a technique.
Najin's eyes went wide. Not a technique that transformed the form of aura or imbued it with properties—simply a technique performed by moving the body.
Techniques like that could be imitated just by watching.
If he saw them, he could copy them as much as he wanted.
Najin was certain of it. He had always done so, and he had never once failed. Determined to drink in Caron's swordsmanship exactly as it was and make it his own style, Najin poured strength into his eyes.
I saw it. I drew it in my mind.
Receiving the blade, Najin was driven back.
Certainly different from Volkman's. The same Church swordsmanship, yet the degree of completion was another matter entirely. Of course—if someone could swing a sword like this, his own blade would look full of holes.
Najin clicked his tongue at the stance drawn in his head. If Volkman's swordsmanship had been sketched in roughly thirteen pictures, the Sword Saint's blade was drawn in more than a hundred.
Trickle.
His nose prickled, then blood ran. Bloodshot eyes stung. He had only watched a single stance, yet it felt as if his mind had overloaded.
"You said you were confident in imitation."
Caron looked at Najin.
He gave the sheath a little tilt.
"Steal as much as you like. Copy as much as you like."
He was smiling.
"As long as you can steal it, I am ready to show you every sword I possess."
If you can, then try.
That was what Caron was saying. Najin wiped the nosebleed with the back of his hand and smiled back. If the man was offering so freely, there was no reason to refuse.
Grit.
Jaw clenched, Najin moved.
He swung his sword following the pictures forming in his mind. But at some point he realized it. His body and the pictures he was drawing were slipping, little by little, out of alignment.
Number 34, number 41, number 56…
Seven pictures in total had gone askew.
Of course, in a sequence of more than a hundred, that was only a tiny fraction. At a glance it looked as if Najin had stolen Caron's sword, and to ordinary eyes the trajectory his blade traced seemed perfect…
But Najin himself, swinging the sword, and Caron, watching it, both knew.
That gaps had been born from the misaligned parts. That this strike was incomplete. Caron lightly thrust the sheath and stabbed the opening. Najin's stance collapsed and he tumbled across the ground.
"……."
Sitting on the dirt, Najin stared blankly at the sword in his hand. The pictures had gone wrong. Never before had they slipped out of alignment like this. He called up the skewed images in his mind.
When he moved his body, what he felt was dissonance.
No matter how he moved, there were parts in the pictures he simply could not follow. He turned those parts over in his thoughts as he rose to his feet.
"You cannot copy it. That is what you are thinking, isn't it."
Caron thrust the sheath toward Najin.
"Well, of course not."
Caron spoke as if stating the obvious.
"This is my sword. Refined to my flesh, my breath, my speed—a sword that belongs to me alone."
He spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Even if you steal it, how could it ever be yours? This is mine. Mine alone."
His eyes narrowed.
"Your talent for imitation is truly innate. Astonishing, even. But if it ends at mere imitation, it means nothing."
He flicked the sheath in a sharp arc.
The trajectory of the sword Najin hastily pulled was shattered with ridiculous ease. Najin stared at the sheath tip resting just in front of his throat.
"Where is your sword?"
Caron asked.
The Sword Saint asked about the sword.
"Show me your sword. If you do not yet have one, create it here and now. If you cannot…"
Caron's eyes cooled to ice.
"…then this spar is worthless. If all you can do is copy, your sword will never reach the extreme."
And I have no intention of wasting time on a worthless match.
The Sword Saint declared as much. Before that declaration Najin fell silent for a moment, then let out a short laugh. The man had forced the duel on him out of nowhere, only to decide its value on a whim. Of course Najin could have dismissed the Sword Saint's words as nonsense and ignored them…
Whish.
Instead of ignoring them, Najin reached for the sheath leveled at his throat. At that sudden move the Sword Saint frowned and started to withdraw the sheath—
Clack.
Najin's hand closed around it. A motion as if he had perfectly predicted the sheath's trajectory. Before that movement the Sword Saint's eyes narrowed.
"If this spar gains value,"
Najin asked, still gripping the sheath,
"what do I get?"
A question bold beyond measure.
Faced with it, the Sword Saint burst out laughing. Because the sight of Najin meeting his eyes head-on and speaking without a shred of fear before a Sword Master was refreshingly new.
"My trust. And a master."
"A master, meaning—"
"That I will become your master. Of course, only if you want it."
Najin smiled.
"That sounds good."
He released the sheath and stepped back several paces. So the man had asked for his sword. Claimed there was nothing to see but imitation. That much was certainly true, as the Sword Saint said.
He had never once considered something that was purely his own.
But that did not mean Najin's temper was good enough to simply let himself be treated that way. He decided he would somehow show this man a variable—and he would not feel better until he saw the Sword Saint look surprised.
His own sword was still a mystery…
But a variable? Something that belonged only to him? He did have one. It was something he had been born with, something he had tempered without even realizing it until now.
Eyesight. And instantaneous judgment.
And now it had even reached temporary foresight of the future.
Najin's two eyes gleamed with the light of sunset.