The Silence of Steel
The shouts flowed around the two men without touching them. Their clasped hands remained locked. Kael measured the weight of the question. Lies would not work here. Silence—before this blade, even silence counted as an answer. Denial would only carve the certainty deeper.
“...How much of that person’s name does Your Excellency know?”
“The military records list it as unidentifiable. A name that becomes a wound upon the nation the moment it is spoken. In the ten years since that day, I have never uttered it once.”
“Then I will answer only to the same extent.”
Kael returned a single pulse of strength through their joined hands.
“There is a name I, too, have never once spoken aloud to that same measure.”
Geralt’s eyes deepened. An answer that was neither confirmation nor refusal. Yet to a swordsman, it was everything.
“...I see. That is enough.”
The hands parted. Geralt stepped back and slid his cracked heavy sword into its sheath.
“Remember one thing. Of the thirty thousand who returned alive from the Gray Boundary that day, not one is free of debt to that ash-gray blade. I am among them. A debtor does not pry into his creditor’s circumstances.”
“......”
“What I heard today, what I saw today, I will carry to my grave.”
For the first time since his master vanished, someone who knew the master had stood on the master’s side and offered him silence.
“However, I will give you one warning. Paper does not know how to stay silent.”
Geralt’s gaze flicked toward the platform. Iden stood there clutching a file, watching them.
“That pen pays back every defeat twice over. And the owner of that pen… remember the words Imperial Martial Arts Festival. It is the stage where the imperial family lines up its swords. A blade like yours will be dragged out even without an invitation.”
The delegation departed the next day. In the pre-dawn hours before their leaving, Geralt stood alone in the training grounds. When Kael entered, he spoke without turning.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I reviewed the match. No matter how many times I replay that last exchange, I can’t see how I could have received it.”
“...You had six-tenths of your strength. If you had used your full power, the result would have been different.”
“Comforting words?”
“An assessment.”
Geralt let out a booming laugh. He drew his cracked heavy sword halfway from its sheath and examined it in the pale dawn light.
“The blacksmith offered to melt it down. I refused. This crack is not a flaw; it is a medal. In twenty years as one of the Imperial Seven Swords, only two opponents were worthy of marking my blade. One passed by in ash-gray ten years ago. The other slipped through a single sheet of paper yesterday.”
The sword returned to its sheath.
“Come to the Imperial Martial Arts Festival.”
“...Even you are saying that.”
“I know it is the Crown Prince’s trap. Come anyway. Knowing it is a trap and shattering the trap itself is the way of the sword. Above all, on that stage I can face you with my full ten-tenths. Not in a spar, but in the main tournament. That is how steel repays its debt.”
Only then did Geralt turn. He struck his own chest once with a fist. It was the salute a knight gave another knight. That one of the Imperial Seven Swords would offer it without hesitation to a commoner was remarkable.
Before they left, Iden requested a private meeting. Inside a side room of the lord’s residence, there was no Geralt this time—only paper, a pen, and bloodless hands.
“The results of the spar will be reported exactly as they occurred. A promise is a promise, so the investigation will be closed.”
“Thank you.”
“However, an addendum will be attached to the closure report. That falls outside Sir Geralt’s guarantee.”
Iden drew a single sheet from his file and slid it across the table, oriented so Kael could read it. Not kindness, but a blade.
Three witness statements.
A sword-bearing wanderer sighted near the orphanage during a heavy blizzard.
Observed heading north accompanied by one child.
At the same period, orphanage records destroyed by fire.
If three coincidences overlap, the Intelligence Bureau calls it a trail.
“Three coincidences overlapping is what the Intelligence Bureau calls a trail.”
“...An interesting hypothesis. Yet where is the evidence that the child the wanderer took is me?”
“There is none. Not yet.”
“The description of the child in the statements—”
“The blizzard prevented any witness from seeing the face clearly.”
“Then it is not a trail, but the weather. In Trent during blizzard season, everyone travels north with a child. That is how border villages survive the winter. All the work is at the northern fortress.”
Iden’s pen paused for a moment, then moved again. Not writing a counterargument, but recording the method of counterargument.
“We will fill in the rest of the hypothesis in the capital. Paper is slow, but it reaches the end.”
Iden closed the file and rose. At the door, for the first and last time, he added a personal remark.
“Personally, I was impressed, Squad Leader. Your defense against paper was no less impressive than your sword. We will meet again in the capital. Most likely… around the time of the Imperial Martial Arts Festival.”
The aftershock spread faster than the delegation’s carriages. From the day after the spar, Valk became the city of the ash-gray swordsman. In the plaza, tales of the duel swelled to three times their size and rolled about—lightning struck on the final move, Sir Geralt’s sword snapped in two. In front of the company’s headquarters, a line formed of clients, spectators, and would-be disciples all mixed together.
“First Squad Leader! The eastern count offers exclusive contract! Three hundred gold coins annual salary!”
“Western merchant coalition offers escort captain position! Four hundred!”
“The lord of the neighboring city sent a dinner invitation—”
“Decline them all. Politely.”
Kael’s answer never changed, and Hugo’s hand blistered from writing so many refusal letters.
“‘We are deeply grateful for your kind regard’… Hey, this is the twentieth one. My fingers are going to fall off. Let’s carve a stamp. A refusal-only stamp.”
“That would lack sincerity.”
“Why does refusing need sincerity!”
“Refusal is entirely sincerity. I know because I have received it.”
Hugo shut his mouth and wrote the twenty-first ‘We are deeply grateful for your kind regard.’
Sparks flew even into Finn’s sword lessons. Spectators began sitting in a row along the empty lot’s stone wall. Mercenaries hoping to steal the ash-gray swordsman’s teachings over his shoulder.
“Mister, should I chase them all away?”
“Leave them. What is learned over the shoulder only reaches the shoulder.”
“...What does that mean?”
“It means the basics must be learned with the hands. Lower your stance. One hundred times.”
While Finn swung his sword a hundred times, the spectators on the wall awkwardly copied the motion a hundred times as well. That sight became another rumor. They said the ash-gray swordsman taught even beyond the wall.
“Hey, I’m genuinely curious. Why turn down three hundred, four hundred? You like money. You like calculations!”
“It is not a good calculation. The offers coming in now are for the value of the spar, not my value. The value of rumor disappears when the rumor dies.”
“...Then when do you receive your true value?”
“There is a separate place for that.”
Dorte hung a signboard in front of the display shelves only a month after opening the branch: Caravan Escorted by the Ash-Gray Swordsman.
“Take that down. The escort contract has ended.”
“Where is an expiration date in business? A fact is a fact. Thanks to it, sales have doubled. I even raised Finn’s salary. Any complaints?”
“...If Finn’s salary went up, that is enough.”
“I knew you would say that.”
The lord’s offer was the heaviest. Honorary knighthood of Valk. Direct subordinate to the lord, sword of the city. Kael refused that as well. An honorary knight was merely a sheet of paper outside the city. What he needed was a status that would allow him to walk anywhere in the empire—especially into the Gray Boundary in the north—with a sword at his side. There was only one door in the empire that granted such status, and both Geralt and Iden had pronounced its name the same way before leaving.
The Imperial Martial Arts Festival.
“Commander. If the Imperial Martial Arts Festival truly opens, what is your view on the company entering?”
“I would stop you. Nothing good comes from getting involved in an imperial stage.”
Vargas answered instantly while sharpening his axe. Half a beat later he added,
“...is what I would say, but you don’t have the face to be stopped. Fine. If you go, go under the company’s name. If you win, our request fees will rise again. Kahaha!”
The princess also left, three days after the delegation.
“I’m returning to the capital. I’ve seen everything here, and once my brother begins arranging the Imperial Martial Arts Festival stage, someone needs to watch from inside.”
“...Will Your Highness not be in danger?”
“Oh? Are you worrying about me right now?”
“It is management of an investment. A year’s worth of drinking money is on the line.”
“Ha! That tone of yours, I like it to the very end.”
Seraphina paused while boarding her carriage and looked back one last time. Half mischief, half sincerity on her face.
“See you at the Imperial Martial Arts Festival. I will watch every one of your matches from the first-row seat. Ah—and shall I give you one prophecy? It is a collector’s intuition.”
“...I will listen.”
“On that stage, there will be one more person besides you who comes staking their life. From the north.”
The carriage door closed.
In the evening when the commotion had finally subsided, Kael stopped in front of a stationer’s stall in the market. He stared at the letter paper on display for a long time. News of the spar would reach the north in five days. In what kind of seat would that person hear the rumor? Would she worry? The word worry still felt mismatched when attached to her, yet the last line of the letter kept speaking to him from inside his coat.
Someday, I hope you will call me by something other than my title.
The problem was what to write in the first line of the reply. If he wrote Your Highness, it was a title. If he wrote her name—his mind held nothing for what should follow.
“...I will simply buy the paper.”
Kael purchased a bundle of letter paper. It was not a decision to write, but a purchase that postponed the decision not to write. Because he himself recognized the difference, his steps back to the lodging were a little slower than usual.
At that same moment, in the imperial capital.
Two reports had arrived at the Crown Prince’s office. One was the official report. Spar results, investigation closed. Signed by Geralt. The other was the addendum. Written in Iden’s hand. Trent, blizzard, wandering swordsman, fire. And the final line of hypothesis—that the individual’s master might be connected to a certain sword master who disappeared ten years ago.
Leonard placed the two reports side by side and stared at them for a long time. Then he smiled. The attendants knew that smiling instead of becoming angry was this man’s worst habit.
“A commoner who defeated one of the Seven Swords.”
Buy—rejected. Both with his sister’s card and with the paper’s card. Borrow—Geralt had closed his mouth, and the lord of Valk had failed to make him his own. Then, before moving to the next stage, one card remained to test.
The method of obtaining without destroying. The method of making the person walk in on his own feet.
A sword calls another sword.
An attendant brought one more new report.
“And Your Highness. From the north… Her Highness the Grand Duke’s daughter has reviewed every record of the knight order’s master training. She has also doubled her morning training.”
“Oh?”
Leonard rolled the report in his fingers for a moment, then nodded as if delighted.
“The former fiancée whose engagement was broken sharpens her sword, and the former escort of that fiancée defeats one of the Seven Swords. Both strings have grown taut. Taut strings must be brought onto one stage to show their true worth.”
“Tell Vice Chief Iden when he returns.”
Leonard placed a fresh sheet atop the approval documents and wrote in elegant strokes.
Revival of the Imperial Martial Arts Festival.
Reward for the winner — conferral of peerage.
Schedule — advance the date.
The pen tip completed its final stroke. A smooth smile flickered long in the candlelight.
“I must make him come of his own will. If he is a sword of the empire, all of them.”