It Was Never About the Sword Alone

It wasn't merely swordsmanship.

"Did you see?"

His eyes opened.

No—calling it regaining consciousness would be more accurate.

"Hahk!"

Having experienced this kind of thing more than once before, Cariel—unlike the others—was not thrown into any great panic.

"Th-that just now—was that—?"

"Saint Cariel's... memories?"

"Did you see?"

A heavy, weighty voice.

Everyone turned their gaze toward the source of the sound—yet even that, each of them turned in a different direction.

And small wonder.

The voice was coming from every direction at once.

At some point, barbarian warriors in pallid, spectral forms had taken their places there.

Dozens of them.

Perhaps even more than that.

They stood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as if laying siege, glaring fixedly at those within—everyone, Cariel included.

Those wearing helmets glared through the gaps in their visors.

Those without stared with ferocious, sunken eyes buried deep in their bare faces.

"Did you see?"

"Wh-what do you mean, did we see—?"

"No—did you actually think you could hold a conversation with a ghost, Baron?"

Filbar retorted at Baron Roia Varonens's words, and then—

"Then you. Did you not see?"

"Uh, er? Um—is my voice... reaching you, sir?"

Confronted with the fact, Filbar was left utterly dumbfounded.

His skin was pale to begin with—who knew it could go even whiter than that.

"..."

The silence was heavy.

This was no atmosphere where half-baked charm or clever wordplay would pass.

"We s-saw it. Saw it, yes, of course we did."

His sagging shoulders looked pitifully small.

"Who are you people? I can roughly guess, mind you."

Luke asked bluntly.

Anyone with even a little sense wouldn't have needed to ask at all, but it was obvious he wasn't asking out of mere caution—he needed confirmation.

Their garb and bearing gave away their identity for free, after all.

"We were wronged."

So they say.

We died meaninglessly.

Fell uselessly.

Died for absolutely nothing at all.

How bitter it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠is.

Had we died like heroes.

Had we died gloriously.

...Surely then we would never have been bound to this land.

Standing upon the eternal battlefield.

Standing upon the stage of glory.

Basking in full the honor of warriors chosen by god.

"Why did we never reach that place?"

"Why can we not leave this place?"

"Answer us, descendants. Why must we rot away so wretchedly, so meaninglessly?"

One warrior raised an axe.

Another hoisted an enormous greatsword.

Another, a hammer.

Some leveled spears, and one man began battering his own head with a massive shield.

Yet not one among them was whole.

One had no eyes.

One limped on a ruined leg.

One had only a single arm.

One's cheek had split clean open, jaw joint and teeth laid fully bare.

Another bled in thin streams from the belly and the hollow of the throat.

There were dozens of them at the very least.

No explanation was necessary.

These were, in a word, them—

Those slain by Saint Cariel.

The warriors defeated on that battlefield.

Alesia, silent until now, took a step forward and spoke.

"You had your reasons for showing us that memory. And I imagine you have reasons for appearing here and addressing us now. Please, tell us. What is it you desire?"

"..."

A long, long silence.

But whether they burned with hostility could be understood well enough from the atmosphere alone—from the pressure they radiated.

They were burning with hostility toward Saint Cariel's heirs. His descendants.

Grudges? Lingering resentment?

Or did they simply need a target to vent upon?

...He didn't know.

Only—

Cariel's gaze turned toward one place.

He was still standing there.

A pallid, spectral figure.

So precarious it seemed he might vanish at any moment.

The very form they had seen in the memory.

No—it was a little different.

This appearance of his was, most likely, from after—after he had crushed the barbarian warriors.

Save for the fact that no blood flowed,

his body was already a broken wreck.

"Now that I think of it... Ruel?"

Alesia turned her eyes toward Cariel as if it had only just occurred to her.

"Did you know that name when you took it? Was that why you used it as your alias during your knightly training journey?"

"..."

A sheer, strange coincidence.

That a boy bearing the same name as the alias he had chosen would be connected to Saint Cariel.

When he had declared the alias, nothing else had come to mind,

so the name Ruel had slipped out of his mouth unthinkingly.

Part of his father's name.

That was truly all there was to it at the time.

He'd regretted it ever since the moment he'd said it, but what was spilled water could not be gathered again.

Trying to scoop it back up just because he wanted to—that was beyond hoping for.

But in the end, it was only an alias.

There had never been any spilled water in the first place.

"Not at all."

"Right. Well, the name Ruel spread far and wide thanks to the Knight of Radiance, so there's nothing strange about it."

And there it was.

It always had to be mentioned.

Filbar, too, chimed in as if it had just come to him.

"That gentleman had his second child recently, did he not?"

That as well

was something he'd heard in passing, here and there, while moving through the village.

He had done his best to pretend not to hear.

"You two. I don't suppose that's the important thing right now?"

Baron Roia Varonens, gravely keeping watch over their surroundings, was anxiously sweeping his eyes between Alesia the Saintess and the warrior souls encircling them.

"Somehow we've ended up merely reconfirming our ancestor's more human side."

No—rather than unease at the situation itself, it might have been disappointment at what he had just witnessed in Saint Cariel's memory.

At the disgraceful spectacle of his own ancestor, seen there.

Or perhaps—

"And yet, I believe I would have done the same. I find I cannot bring myself to resent him."

"Father..."

Ludhi regarded him with pitying eyes.

―BOOM!

At last,

the silent souls stamped upon the earth and

shattered the silence.

"What we desire is the reenactment of that battle. The very battlefield of that day! Its reenactment!"

"??"

"We could not even welcome death with satisfaction. Had we but died gloriously in this place, we would have been neither so shabby nor so wretched."

"It seems there are circumstances here we know nothing of."

Filbar murmured in a lowered voice toward Alesia.

"..."

Without betraying anything, she kept observing the situation.

As a Saintess, she bore a duty to offer what help she could to the sorrowful souls bound to this land—she had that power, after all.

But what if they were heathens?

There were those who insisted heathens must be killed.

Alesia was not of that persuasion.

'This is Irenis, who forgave even the man who stabbed him to death.'

Those who were his heirs—those who sought to carry on his will and his teachings.

Would they turn away from this?

Was it truly righteous conduct, to protest over and over that one was no divine sage, all while neither reciting his teachings nor striving to follow them?

It might be impossible to follow them.

But what kind of reasoning was it, to not even attempt it?

"..."

Alesia, too, had of course glimpsed Saint Cariel's memories.

That Filbar had not intended any of this was clear enough from the look on that idiot's face.

But apart from that, the life of Saint Cariel had granted her a insight of considerable depth as well.

"And if this reenactment of the battle proves impossible—what becomes of us?"

she asked.

"Then we shall spare one person alone."

The cruel verdict fell.

"And... if we refuse?"

"We will kill you all. Only the one we choose among you will live. Only so can this truth be spread wide across the world of the living."

"N-no! What kind of nonsense is this! What mortal sin have we committed that you would do this to us!"

Filbar hopped about in outrage.

He had refrained from outright defiance, but the spirit of the Varonens household was no exception to the shift in the air.

Luke spoke, flexing his wrist.

"Let's steel ourselves, everyone. Still, we do have the Saintess with us, don't we?"

That was true, but—

"Though I say, everyone—how exactly do you plan to fight without proper equipment?"

"That's easy, any sword will do—"

Luke drew his own sword with confidence, then seemed to realize something crucial, and his words trailed off.

That aside from Cariel, not a single soul here was armed.

Only then did the realization seem to strike him, and his face flushed red and blue in turns.

The Saintess, who should have been their most vital fighting force, was—of all things—completely defenseless.

"The Saintess's whole body is a lethal weapon anyway—she'll be fine bare-handed."

"...Would you like to die first?"

Crack.

From nothing more than a single clenched fist, a sound like snapping bone rang out savagely from within her grip.

Filbar, startled into a flurry, seemed to reluctantly steel his resolve, summoning his servants to him with gestures.

"..."

"Ruel?"

Alesia asked quietly.

Cariel gave no response, as though his mind were somewhere else entirely.

Having watched him for a moment, she naturally followed his gaze as well.

An empty stretch of space.

And yet Cariel stared fixedly at it as if something were there—as though it were the only thing in the world worth watching.

Then, abruptly, he turned his head.

"There is one more weapon."

"What?"

Cariel pointed at it with his index finger.

"That."

"..."

It was

simply an old, worn straight sword.

The sword said to have once been wielded by Saint Cariel.

And

everyone who had glimpsed Saint Cariel's memory believed without a shred of doubt that it was true.

But.

That was merely a tale from long, long ago.

"..."

Without a word, Cariel approached it and picked up the sword.

The edge was long gone, the blade cracked and rusted through—

but thanks to its careful preservation, the form remained fully intact.

"Are you sure about this?"

Alesia asked.

Without answering, Cariel gripped the old, battered sword,

drew a light breath,

and closed and opened his eyes several times.

Then he gave a small scoff.

Well, of course.

This was never a question to agonize over in the first place.

"You said it, did you not? That you wish to reenact it—that humiliation of that day—is that what you said?"

"Hmm...?"

"Ruel?"

Cariel exhaled a long breath and spoke.

"And then? Where does it end? Will you be satisfied only if you win? Or will you be convinced only when you suffer a defeat more wretched than that day's?"

"There is no such thing as satisfaction. The outcome is one thing only—death or life. So if you can fell every last one of us—if your strength can bear the full weight of us—then all of you who live will return to the world of the living, exactly as you are."

"Then—let me ask you this."

Cariel lifted eyes that seemed somehow detached from the world,

sweeping them once across the souls as he asked.

"If I satisfy you—if I do, though I myself may not survive—then the others may go unharmed. Is that what you are saying?"

"Ruel?"

"What are you saying, man?"

"Don't talk nonsense! We should be thinking of joining our strength together—why would you say something so reckless—"

Cariel shouted.

"Then there's nothing to hesitate over. Come! Here! The Cariel you seek is right here!"

He shouted again.

"A fellow disciple of the Saint Cariel who brought you defeat! Trained under the same master! And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bearing the very same name!"

And then—

every soul in that place fixed its gaze upon the one man.

As though a storm had swept in without warning over a placid sea, dark clouds trailing behind it.

The killing intent of the barbarian warriors encircling the area surged through it all with the force of a gale bearing down thunder and lightning.

Breath grew difficult of its own accord.

The sensation of invisible pressure crushing his entire body was no illusion whatsoever.

"R-Ruel?"

"What on earth are you saying, man?"

"Wha—what?! Your alias was Ruel, and your real name is Cariel? That's what you're telling us, right?"

Cariel neither bothered to observe the others' reactions nor answered any of them.

He simply waited.

Simply endured.

The voices of the souls resounded.

"A fellow disciple, he says!"

"Then you learned the same swordsmanship as Cariel?"

"A fellow disciple? The same tribe? You mean to say you are of the same blood?"

"Could he be his bloodline? His heir?"

"He was not a born hero? Not a born warrior, you say?"

"The Saint Cariel who destroyed you is, in this age, a renowned guardian saint—the knight of knights, whose name resounds across the continent. In your terms, I suppose you'd call him a great warrior."

A warrior.

At that point in time, the word knight had not yet spread through the world.

That Iland had been called the Great Warrior—

Cariel remembered it distinctly.

"But among the countless Cariels in the world, I declare this: a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, you will never meet ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠another Cariel such as the one you seek. That you have met me—trained in his same sword, bearing his same name—is a chance you will not get twice."

And so—

swear it here.

"If you swear to wage a battle worthy of warriors, then gladly accept my challenge. And regardless of the outcome—send every one of the others away unharmed."

At that very moment—

Cariel could not see it.

In one place beyond the reach of his sight,

someone who had been standing in a daze

turned their head toward him in an instant.

And stared at him directly.

Eyes gone pale and dim flared suddenly with burning light—

"Good!"

Cariel could not know.

He could not even see it.

Because—

the souls that had seized Cariel's gaze were burning with killing intent as if they might hurl themselves upon him at any instant.

Even now, it felt as though his legs would give out and drop him to the ground if he relaxed even a fraction.

He could barely manage to draw breath.

But he refused to yield, glaring back with eyes wide open.

Even as the burst vessels reddened the whites of his eyes, blood threatening to seep through—

Cariel did not blink once.

Yes.

This much was fine.

This was far better.

Hardship of this kind... compared to all the suffering and humiliation he had endured in the Imperial Capital—

it was almost enough to make him laugh out loud.

"Ruel! What gives you the right to decide all this on your own?!"

Alesia, fury pouring off her, tried her best to approach Cariel—

but hulking souls barred her path like a fortress wall.

"Do not interfere."

"Would you defile the soul of a warrior?"

"Warriors?! You dare speak of that now?!"

The others too, thrown into confusion, shouted and protested—

but beyond that,

they were not even granted the chance.

Once more,

the world collapsed.

As though sinking beneath water.

But this time, it did not last as long as before.

For just a moment, his vision swam as if buffeted by a desolate wind—he blinked once,

and the world had changed.

"..."

There,

Cariel stood with nothing but a single battered sword in his hand,

placed upon a vast, open plain.

Why was it,

that a smile rose to his face of its own accord?

'In the end.'

So it would be his own mouth, in front of everyone, that voluntarily confessed his own damn name.

And yet, absurdly enough,

the thing weighing on Cariel's mind at that very moment

was nothing more than that.

He gripped the sword firmly.

It was an unfamiliar one-handed grip—but.

"..."

Did it matter?

So what if it was one hand? So what if he couldn't hold it with two?

He had never had any talent for the sword to begin with.

This was merely a tool, a means, in the shape of swordsmanship.

What mattered was the heart.

Sincerity.

The will to become it.

The resolve to see it done.

So he would not forget the state of his mind.

Had he not heard it, once, from the Demon King?

In that one desperate moment—when he had nearly been crushed flat, one-sidedly, beneath Elhermina's overwhelming, monstrous power—

the reason he had been able to press forward without a moment's hesitation,

the thing that had saved him there,

was never mere swordsmanship.

What had pierced through that thread-thin sliver of possibility

was nothing more than will—and intent.

And the thing that had borne it up was—

That was what the Demon King had said.

And he—he remembered every last word of it, vividly.