Sword Master, Yuel Razian (3)
A sword-cry that sounded like a human scream.
With a shrieking kiiiiiiik that tore the air, a gale howled through the deepest reaches of the underground waterway. What dragged wind into a place where no wind ever blew was a sword swung by a human hand.
Yuel Razian swung her blade.
A Sword Master swung her blade.
In that instant Najin saw it—the sprawling workshop of Kepalon, stretching far into the distance, being carved clean out of existence. The process was nothing like splitting, cutting, or shattering. It was different, alien.
It was being excised from the world itself.
Like scissors snipping paper, she swung her sword and cut the scenery free. It felt less like severing or cleaving and far closer to dismantling. Even watching with his own eyes, Najin could not grasp how the act was accomplished.
Yuel Razian swung once, and the workshop vanished without a trace. Process itself evaporated, leaving only cause and result.
I’d heard the rumors, but seeing it for real is something else.
Merlin’s voice rang in Najin’s ear.
You remember what I told you about Mysteries last time?
He remembered.
Things unbound by rules, set outside the bounds of common sense.
Right. Masterpieces are called weapons that hold Mysteries, but why call them Masterpieces? Because they made the impossible possible.
Merlin sighed.
Mysteries originally dwell in living things.
A few kinds of creatures are born with them. Certain races—dragons, demons, fairies, that sort.
But every once in a very long while…
After a short pause she continued.
A Mystery can settle into a human too.
There are people born with one at vanishingly small odds. Of course not every one of them ever realizes what they carry.
Only the tiniest fraction awaken to their own Mystery.
A rare chance multiplied by another rare chance—no need even to speak of the odds. Muttering that, Merlin gave a bitter little smile.
And somehow both of them are right here.
Both, she said.
One is me, whispering in your ear. The other is that crazy bitch standing over there.
Najin looked at Yuel.
The woman held a greatsword of the class called Zweihänder. When she released it the blade melted into empty air with a soft rustle.
She turned her head and met Najin’s gaze.
Still expressionless—yet Najin had already glimpsed the madness that hid behind that blank face. Facing that sticky, blood-red stare, he swallowed dryly without meaning to.
Deconstruction.
That was the Mystery Yuel Razian carried.
Merlin said as much. There was no need to ask how the word was being used; the example stood right in front of him.
Scenery deconstructed and cut clean out of the world.
The empty shell of the workshop spoke the word’s meaning more clearly than any explanation. Najin clicked his tongue inwardly.
Creepy thing, this Mystery.
They’re mostly things you can’t understand, yeah.
Then what’s yours, Merlin?
Najin asked. Merlin fell silent. After a beat she answered.
Period.
She offered no further detail, as if she had no wish to pursue the subject.
Kepalon’s workshop was gone without a trace.
It had been a facility that should have taken dozens of Inquisitors to clear, yet Yuel Razian had finished the work with a single swing. She herself, however, did not look particularly satisfied.
“Haaah…”
Yuel let out a long breath.
While she exhaled she rummaged inside her coat and produced a liquor flask—already emptied clean. Even held upside-down and shaken, not a single drop fell.
“Ahh…”
She made a small sound of regret, then snapped her head toward Najin.
“Ivan.”
“Yes.”
“Do you happen to have any alcohol?”
A thoroughly unexpected question.
Najin shook his head; Yuel sighed even longer. Watching her sigh again and again, he finally dug out his own water flask.
“I have water, if that will do.”
“I shall make do with it, then.”
She accepted the flask and drained it. Even after emptying the entire bottle her thirst seemed unquenched; she smacked her lips and looked at him as if hoping for more. Najin shook his head again.
He did have potions, but he had no desire to hand expensive ones to Yuel. She was not even wounded.
“Are you thirsty?”
“It is a habit. When I wish to kill and cannot, my throat grows dry. Alcohol helps a little, but sadly there is none here. A sad state of affairs.”
She glanced sideways at him as she spoke. From Najin’s perspective it was not a comforting look. She was essentially saying she wanted to kill him and the inability to do so was making her thirsty. Rather chilling.
He decided to change the subject.
As they climbed the waterway back toward the surface, Najin kept the conversation going.
“You seem fond of drink.”
“Yes. I enjoy the heat that scorches the throat. A touch of poison would make it perfect.”
Yuel’s lips curved in a thin smile.
“My favorite is the Holy Blood wine brewed by the Holy Blood Church. The world calls it holy water or sacred liquor, but do you know that the undiluted finest grade is in truth a poison wine?”
“You mean it is strong?”
“Both meanings. It is a fierce liquor that acts as poison upon the human body.”
She licked her lips and stroked the empty flask.
“When you drink it, your throat burns as if set aflame. Bloodshot eyes, every sense standing on end. For one who has reached the transcendental realm such as myself, Holy Blood wine is the only liquor that still grants intoxication and pain.”
Some people cursed it as madman’s wine, she muttered, but those were fools who knew nothing of taste. A smile spread across her face, as though the mere thought of drinking delighted her.
I thought she was an emotionless doll…
Apparently not.
Najin walked on with that thought, then suddenly stopped. Yuel stopped with him.
“Is there something you wish to say?”
“May I ask one question?”
“Of course.”
She nodded; Najin spoke.
“I recall you said you wished to swing your sword at me—and to kill me.”
“Indeed. I find you interesting. I wish both to cross blades with you and to kill you.”
There was no hostility in the words.
Pure interest. Speaking of death so lightly was still unnerving, yet once he accepted that Yuel Razian was simply “that sort of person,” it became almost understandable.
“Forgive the presumption, but I understand the Church’s Executioner holds tremendous authority.”
“That is true. Above me stand only the Empire’s Sun and the High Priests who lead the three Churches.”
“Then would there be any punishment if you simply killed an adventurer like me?”
You are already in a position to swing your blade exactly as you please, he was asking.
Najin knew this world well enough. Even if Yuel executed him on the spot, the incident would never grow large. Who would dare raise a hand against the Church’s Executioner?
Yet she did not.
He wanted to know why.
The question was dangerous, yet some instinct insisted she would not kill him here and now.
“Yes. If I killed you this moment, no real sanction would fall upon me. That is fact.”
Yuel answered.
“But that would be making an exception to the rules I myself set. One exception becomes two, then three and four. Therefore it is impossible.”
“…Rules?”
“Rules for surviving.”
She exhaled slowly and continued.
“Live by desire. Kill as I please. Yes—about a hundred and fifty years ago I lived that way.”
It was a story about herself.
“I killed exactly as I wished. It was an age of war. On a battlefield of kill-or-be-killed there is no good or evil, no right or wrong. So I lived that way. A truly delightful era.”
She slaughtered without discrimination and grew drunk on blood.
“But time passed and the wars ended. Then must I not change my methods as well?”
She spoke with calm detachment.
“I am a murderer. I take joy in killing people and I love those who bleed. Yet just as strongly I possess a hunger for life. A desire to savor this pleasure for a very long time.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes, truly. To enjoy this pleasure long, must I not align myself with the measures of good and evil, right and wrong, that the world has set?”
So she had simply decided upon her own rules.
That was what Yuel Razian said.
“Those who commit crimes. Those who do wrong. Apostles who dabble in black magic. The wicked and the heretical.”
“If I cut such things down, the world does not condemn me. But should my blade open the throat of the innocent and spill their blood…”
“They would come.”
Yuel shrugged.
“The Lighthouse Keepers of the Holy Light Church, the Star Incarnation of the Holy Body Church, Sword Saint Caron, Gerd of the Empire’s First Horn.”
Not the battlefields of the stars or the lands of the Abyss—
the superhumans who walked the Continent itself.
They were beings who would come running in a single stride to strike down a murderer running free upon the Continent.
“Ahh, they are strong. Even if I threw everything I have at them, I could not survive facing them all. Of course the urge to fight them and shed blood is there as well, but I have set that wish aside for the very last.”
She smiled as she spoke.
It was a smile pure and clear beyond anything else.
“The most delicious dessert should be saved for last, should it not?”
He could not understand every word, yet the final remark Najin agreed with completely.
“I see.”
“Yes, that is how it is.”
He felt he understood, a little, what sort of person Yuel Razian was. He had no wish to empathize with her way of life even slightly, but understanding was another matter.
“So I think I shall hold back a little where you are concerned as well.”
“…What?”
The end of the waterway came into view.
Click. Climbing the stairs that led to the surface, Yuel looked back at him.
“You possess the qualities to reach Sword Master. Reaching such a realm at your age—surely you will stand in the same place as I before long.”
Her pure white hair caught the light filtering down and glittered. Standing with her back to that light, she smiled at Najin.
“When that day comes, I shall challenge you to a duel once more. I hope you will not refuse.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Ah, you may also commit a crime if you like. Minor offenses can be pardoned under the Special Sword Master Act, so if possible a grand massacre would be—”
“That might be a bit difficult.”
“Is that so?”
Yuel shrugged.
“What a pity.”
When Yuel and Najin emerged from the waterway, the city’s lord let out a sigh of relief. The matter seemed to have been settled more quietly than he had feared.
“I will be returning to Cambria now.”
Having finished every task in the city, Najin headed back to Cambria, and the carriages of the Inquisitors likewise returned to the Holy Blood Church.
Yuel Razian, however, did not leave.
Only the carriage she had arrived in remained in the city.
While the lord watched her anxiously, Yuel stood motionless, then slowly tilted her head. Her gaze settled on a narrow alley of the commercial city.
“I understand Regenoff is a commercial city.”
“Y-yes, that is correct, but…”
“I will ask one question. Bear in mind that, depending on your answer, you may become a criminal who has abetted crime.”
“…What?”
The lord’s shoulders trembled. Yuel fixed him with her crimson eyes. She stretched out an arm and pointed a fingertip deep into the alley.
“I sense demonic energy from there. Things that should not be sold are being traded. I hear voices—the voices of merchants.”
No one else heard a thing.
Not even the knights guarding the lord, nor Najin, nor even the Sword Saint himself if he had stood there, would have caught any sound.
But Yuel Razian heard.
Her senses were abnormal even among Sword Masters. Her ears caught the voices of merchants conducting black-market deals; her nose caught the stench of the goods they bought and sold.
“Is this an enterprise managed by Your Lordship, or the independent work of cultists who have nested here?”
The lord realized what she was speaking of.
The black market.
A black market existed in Regenoff City, and its existence was tacitly tolerated. It brought in considerable money; the commercial city’s rapid growth had been possible only because of it.
The lord had looked the other way. At times he had even supported it and allowed it to swell.
But he could not admit that fact. The Executioner standing before him was someone who would sever a man’s head for mere association with crime—and face no punishment for doing so.
“I… know nothing of such… matters…”
“Is that so?”
She knew the lord was lying, yet Yuel merely nodded. It made no real difference to her.
“Then I shall clean it up for you. It is my duty as the Church’s Executioner.”
It was a minor affair that did not require someone of her stature. Even so, Yuel Razian stepped toward the alley. The lord had no grounds to stop her. He squeezed his eyes shut.
That day the alleys of Regenoff City ran red with blood.
No screams rang out.
Yet a sword-cry that sounded like a human scream echoed through the streets.