A Midday Date (4)
Argo, knight of Atanga.
In the heart of the imperial capital, Argo's face lit up at the sight of a familiar face. The youth who went by the alias Ivan. They had promised to meet again once he became a knight—but chance encounters, of course, answered to no such schedule.
"Good to see you, nameless youth."
"Good to see you, Sir Argo."
Argo knew the alias, but since he had never heard it from Najin's own lips, he left the name Ivan unspoken. He simply grinned with easy good humor and called him the nameless youth instead.
"I've heard the rumors. You've been making quite the splash, haven't you? Word is you even traded blows with Sir Griffin."
"It just sort of happened that way."
"Just sort of happened, eh? That sounds like you, all right."
Argo laughed heartily.
"What brings you to the imperial capital?"
"A friend of mine had business here, so I came along—part escort, part sightseeing."
"Sightseeing. Then what are you doing at a blacksmith's shop? Camelot has far more entertaining places to visit."
"Well…"
Najin gave a wry smile.
"I was walking, drawn by the sound of steel being hammered, and found myself standing in front of this forge."
"Fair enough. The master of this forge does have a rather lively ring to his hammer work."
Argo nodded firmly. Then he beckoned to the girl sitting before the smithy. She rose and took her place at his side at once.
"This is my squire, Planche."
Argo mussed her hair as he spoke.
"I stopped by the forge to have a sword made for her. Now that she's earned the right to bear Atanga's crest, I figured I ought to gift her a proper blade."
Najin looked at Planche with a brief murmur of admiration.
On her pauldron was engraved the crest of two crossed swords and a shield—a handsome emblem, and one Ivan had held dear.
Even so, a fierce gaze kept boring into him. When he turned his head a fraction, he found Planche's eyes fixed on him without blinking. As Najin registered a flicker of puzzlement, Argo smiled ruefully.
"Haha. My squire has taken rather a keen interest in you. Every time she hears a rumor about you, her eyes go wide as saucers."
"…Is that so?"
"It is. That day—hunting the Knight Demon—was this child's first mission. She met you on that assignment, so of course the impression stuck."
Planche was still staring straight at Najin. Argo narrowed his eyes and gave her shoulder a light pat.
"That's rude, Planche."
"…I'm sorry."
"Not to me. To him."
"I'm sorry."
As Planche bowed her head toward Najin, Argo stroked his chin. A squire who showed such intense interest in the youth—and a chance meeting like this. After a moment's thought, Argo spoke.
"If you wouldn't mind."
"Would you care to look at this child's sword?"
2.
The Damanos Forge.
It held an exclusive contract with the Knights of Atanga, and naturally a space suitable for testing blades had been prepared behind the workshop. Recognizing Argo's face, the blacksmith gladly opened the way to the rear.
So they arrived at the sparring ground.
Argo's squire, Planche, loosened up as she eyed the man opposite her. There he stood, rolling his shoulders—the man she had first faced during the subjugation of the Knight Demon Bernhaigen, the man who had not left her thoughts since that day.
At a glance he looked roughly her age.
But Planche knew the truth: that man had brought down Bernhaigen alone. Bernhaigen had been estimated at Sword Seeker caliber. How, exactly? She could not begin to understand it.
A genius.
A once-in-a-generation genius who will succeed Sir Caron the Sword Saint—who may even shatter his records.
Barely seventeen, and already on the verge of Sword Expert. He'll reach that realm before long.
Those were the stories she had heard until now.
The world called her a genius, and by any objective measure Planche was one. No one her age could keep up with her, and she possessed an innate gift for the sword.
Planche knew she was a genius. She also carried the compulsion that she had to be better than anyone else of her generation.
To her, Najin was an alien presence. Roughly her age in appearance—yet standing at a realm overwhelmingly higher than her own. That was why he unsettled her so.
"Planche, squire to Argo of the Knights of Atanga."
Planche leveled her sword at Najin.
"I ask for a bout."
The terms of the spar were simple.
A pure contest of blades—no mana, no aura, only steel against steel. And within those rules, Planche was confident. Confident she would not lose.
Pure swordsmanship. The domain of technique.
That was her field of strength. Planche had been swinging a sword since she could walk, and twelve years had already passed that way. She had never coasted on talent; she had trained harder than anyone.
I don't look down on you.
But in the pure domain of the sword, she was certain she would not fall behind. She had studied the blades of countless strong opponents, mastered a wide range of styles, and under these very rules she had even fought Sword Seekers to a draw.
So Planche, sure of herself—certain at least that she would not be defeated—took a step forward. She drove hard off the ground, closed the distance, and swung. Her blade traced a clean arc.
And Najin—
"……"
—watched the path of Planche's sword with an expressionless face, then flicked his own blade with casual ease. A light tak, then a clang. Planche's brow furrowed at how easily her sword was knocked aside, but she calmly continued her assault.
Her blade swept through smooth trajectories. The result, however, was much the same.
Tak, and clang……
The same sequence repeated several more times. Through it all, Najin never truly swung his sword. He merely brushed it sideways with a light motion, or flicked it with a snap of the wrist.
Clang!
Even a high-speed thrust powered by the elastic spring of her whole body was turned aside. Planche's eyes wavered. She had known her opponent was stronger than her—but this was strange.
How?
A bizarre sense of wrongness. Planche glanced at Najin's eyes and found the answer. Even as she swung, his gaze was tracking the tip of her blade with perfect precision.
He was reading the trajectory of her sword and cutting in before each strike could reach its peak of force. When she realized what the man before her was doing, a chill ran down her spine.
Somewhere before……
She had been through something like this once.
Remembering when was not difficult. Roughly two years ago. A certain swordsman had appeared out of nowhere before Planche, who was already making a name as a once-in-a-generation genius.
A swordsman who had walked alone into the headquarters of the Knights of Atanga.
He had caught the blades of fully alert knights bare-handed and flicked them aside, then approached her and challenged her to a bout. That swordsman had swung his blade just as the man before her did now.
Neither too fast nor too slow—just the right speed.
A sword that moved in time with Planche's own.
And strikes that bounced away far too lightly.
Finding herself in exactly the same situation, Planche ground her teeth. Because the memory of that day had returned.
How disappointing.
That day, the swordsman had looked at her with cold, emptied eyes and said those words.
Ordinary. Nothing different.
You're just a little faster than the rest.
Only later had she learned that the swordsman who muttered those disappointed words and walked away was Caron the Sword Saint. The incident had left a deep wound on Planche's pride. And now the same thing was happening again.
At the hands of a swordsman roughly her own age.
Planche could not accept it. She drove boldly into Najin. The speed of her blade climbed; she began to vary its trajectories. The force she displayed was nothing like what one expected from a girl merely approaching Sword Expert.
Najin narrowed his eyes.
Then, with a solid thud, he stepped forward for the first time and settled into a stance.
"What are you watching with such interest?"
"I'm observing a spar."
The master of the Damanos Forge—the master smith Damanos himself—perched on the forge's wall with a cigarette clamped in his teeth. He struck a light, drew a long breath, then exhaled a slow stream of smoke and let his gaze drift. From the direction Argo was watching came the noisy clash of steel on steel.
"One of them is Planche… who's the other?"
"A youth making a name for himself in the adventurer city. The principal figure in the Knight Demon subjugation."
"Ah—that Ivan fellow?"
Watching the bout, Damanos narrowed his eyes.
"Well now."
He let out a long breath of astonishment.
"Unless my eyes are failing me, Planche is being pushed back. Without using mana or aura."
"It looks that way to me as well."
"In pure swordsmanship alone, isn't she a child who wouldn't fall behind the mid-ranking priests of the Sword Church?"
"She is. Extraordinary talent, and she works extraordinarily hard."
No one denied that Planche was a genius. The world was always talking about how her gift rivaled the Sword Saint's.
But……
Damanos let his cigarette die and focused entirely on the spar between Planche and Najin.
"Then what in the world is that youth?"
"I wonder the same thing myself."
No matter how marvelous a trajectory Planche's sword traced, it never reached Najin. He severed the path of her blade, blocked it, struck it aside before it could complete. Once or twice could be dismissed as chance—but……
Clang!
When it happened a dozen times over, chance became a hard explanation to swallow. For something like that to be possible, he would have to understand precisely which sword arts Planche had learned and practiced—and that was next to impossible.
Planche had mastered nearly dozens of styles.
Imperial swordsmanship. The blade of Atanga. The sword of the Sword Church. The Guardian Blade of the imperial hero Aigar…… To understand every one of those arts was impossible. Especially the Guardian Blade of Aigar, which had been transmitted to Planche alone.
In that case……
Was he imitating the Sword Saint?
Damanos, who had never crossed blades with the Sword Saint, could not know—but Argo did. That was something the Sword Saint did from time to time.
"Tch."
Watching the bout, Damanos clicked his tongue.
"Planche is going to take quite a shock."
"She needs it."
"Needs it?"
"Stimulus. The frustration of defeat. Excellent nourishment, wouldn't you say? Exactly what she needs to keep pressing forward."
Argo smiled with satisfaction.
For a squire who had been so keenly conscious of that youth, this would prove a fine opportunity. And more than anything, for Planche—placed in an environment where she could easily grow complacent—this spar would be a healthy jolt of fresh air.
That was when it happened.
Planche settled into a stance. The moment Argo saw it, his brow furrowed. It was the stance for Atanga's sword art. Seized by competitive fire, she had reached for a technique she should not have used.
I'll have to correct her for that.
Argo was about to step forward and stop the match when Najin moved first. Before Planche could unleash Atanga's sword art, Najin's blade traced a clean arc and smashed into hers.
An upright, uncompromising trajectory.
A sword that shattered the opponent's stance.
It was a technique that demanded plain, precise control of force—and Najin executed it flawlessly. The instant the blades met, Planche's posture collapsed, and—
CLAAANG!
"Kh…!"
At last Planche's arm whipped upward and she lost her grip on the longsword. The blade she released rang as it hit the ground.
"……"
Lips pressed tight, Planche spoke.
"I lose."
As she conceded defeat, Argo stood frozen in place, eyes wide. A moment later, he burst out laughing.
To see that again.
The sword art Najin had just shown—the blade that shattered the opponent's stance and crushed down from above. That distinctive motion and footwork lived in Argo's memory. In his days as an apprentice knight, it was the technique that had beaten him again and again.
It was a technique Najin used as if by habit—yet clear fragments of Ivan clung to it.
Confronted with those fragments, Argo laughed with genuine pleasure. He had never imagined he would see his old comrade's technique again.
3.
"Well done. This is a gift from me."
Argo handed Najin a wooden case. Inside was a pair of leather gauntlets. Judging by the quality of the tanning, they were high-grade work.
"To a knight, gauntlets matter almost as much as sword and armor. Do you know why?"
When Najin shook his head, Argo grinned and mimed hurling a glove to the ground.
"Throwing down a gauntlet before a duel is tradition, isn't it? The louder the slap when it hits the floor, the better the atmosphere."
Najin laughed softly.
"I'll accept them with gratitude."
"Good. And thank you for crossing blades with this child. It did her a great deal of good."
Planche bowed deeply to Najin. The look in her eyes after crossing swords was different from the one she had worn before. Najin smiled at her.
"You're remarkable. Your sword has a sharp edge. I look forward to matching auras next time."
At Najin's words, Planche's eyes went wide. A little startled, she moved her lips, then answered in a voice that nearly vanished into itself.
"Th-thank you……"
As Najin started to walk away under their farewell, he rubbed the back of his neck. For some time now he had been feeling a gaze on him without quite knowing why.
A subtle stare.
He could feel eyes on him, but he could not tell where they came from. He turned his head and scanned the surroundings, yet nothing came into view. After looking around for a long while, Najin's gaze finally stopped in one place.
A tower standing far off in the distance.
One of the five towers that ringed the imperial palace.
It felt as though the gaze had come from that tower. He watched it for a time, then shook his head. His imagination, no doubt. He had been reacting far too sensitively of late……
The old man stroked his beard.
Hair turned pure white by the storms of years. Skin creased with deep wrinkles. Yet not even the passage of time had bent the old man's back or waist. He rose slowly from his chair.
For a while the old man gazed in a certain direction.
Because the resonance of a sword had reached him from there.
The ringing born when blade met blade. No matter how far away, that resonance alone he could always feel. The song of the sword—it was the only sound that made the old man's soul tremble.
"Berge."
"You called, my lord."
"Grey hair. Adventurer's garb. Sunset-colored eyes. Look into the youth who visited this city today."
"Yes, my lord. At once."
The First Pillar of the Empire.
Humanity's pinnacle, bearer of seven stars.
"Interesting."
Gerd, the Sword of the Empire, smiled. Humming the pleasant song of the sword that had just brushed his ears, he watched the young swordsman who had come to the empire for some time longer.