The Fault Was Never in the Sword (2)
"……"
Even so, he doubted he could wield this sword exactly as it was meant to be wielded.
He knew better than anyone that the world spread out before his eyes was not reality. But that knowledge would guarantee him nothing—not survival, not anything.
In that sense, thankfully, the sword Elhermina had given him still hung right where it belonged at his hip.
What should he do?
…Think rationally.
He slung the straight sword haphazardly at his waist, and drew Elhermina's blade into his hand.
Far off in the distance, between the ranks of warriors who had halted in formation, a handful of barbarian fighters were walking toward him.
As the distance between them shrank, he felt it anew, down to his bones.
Each and every one of them was so massive, so colossal, that they could have treated any ordinary grown man like a child barely out of swaddling clothes. Even the sinews writhing between their bulging arm muscles coiled with a grotesque menace. Everything about them was thick, dense, and unyielding—like the body of some superbly developed great beast.
Before the Kingdom of Berck, there had been a great empire.
It went by many names. Bel. Vera. Ver. Vello.
Come to think of it, the Kingdom of Berck itself was born of that empire's legacy, declaring itself heir to the old imperial line. The great military power that was said to have conquered the continent and even the lands beyond it triumphed not through the skill of individual warriors, but through discipline and military law—through a systematized, hardened, organized fighting force.
Time and again it crushed its enemies tactically and strategically, wielding both stratagem and statecraft to break them, bring them to their knees, and slaughter them into submission.
And yet even that great empire collapsed in the end—undone by the uprising of the barbarian tribes.
The emperor was deposed by the Great Chieftain of the barbarians, the throne usurped. From that moment, everything came apart.
And those men out there were the ones who had sounded the beginning of that fall.
Their distant descendants.
In the far west, southwest, and northwest of the continent—including Berck—the martial tradition had developed toward refining technique, cultivating mana through accumulated practice, and wielding the two in harmony. But for these men, who roamed and pillaged every corner of the land from the east outward, there was only one creed: the strength of the flesh.
Each path had its merits, no doubt. But in wild charges, in close-quarters melee, in the chaos of a raging free-for-all—there, the barbarians had always stood above all others.
To compensate for what they lacked, they poured their passion into ranged weapons, into weapon-smithing and metallurgy, into the development and refinement of armor and protective gear. Which was, in a sense, the natural course of things.
The growth of their magic-tool craft, their turn toward trade and diplomacy with other races, their grudging, half-conscious acceptance of magic after long shunning it—
…It was that admission of their own weakness that ultimately became the seed of the harmony and free-spirited system the Berg Empire enjoys today. But through the eyes of that earlier age, it could only have looked like the desperate flailing of the weak. Nothing more than struggling against the inevitable.
An era when they could not withstand even an incursion of a few hundred warriors—or, at times, a few dozen—when, like frightened children, they buried themselves behind fortress walls and called that their only defense.
"……"
And those men were the opposite. They crossed into other nations' territories as casually as stepping into their own yards, making plunder their chief industry and their very purpose.
For them, peace and harmony were concepts that simply could not exist. The weak being taken from the strong was simply how the world worked. The weak laboring themselves to death for the strong—even dying for them—was simply right.
And so, with fear and loathing mingled in their throats, people had always called them barbarians.
"……"
And yet—when one of those infamous, rumor-haunted figures actually stands before you?
Like meeting a wild bear in the heart of a forest. Standing before that hulking mass of muscle, seeing with your own two eyes that the weapon in its hand is the size of a man's entire upper body—
Of course the blood runs cold. Of course the courage you'd worked so hard to summon wilts away. Of course the will to fight drains out of you, leaving you helpless.
…And who could blame anyone for that?
Because that is reality.
"Are you ready?"
There were only three of them, and yet a deep shadow fell over his head, as though the sky itself had been blocked out.
"……"
But even so—
That was no reason to concede defeat.
And Cariel—
Through the endless trials and torments of the Demon King's malice, he had…
…seen things far larger than that creature. Seen them any number of times. Endured them with his own body.
As for how many times he had died—
Far more than that.
"Whether you can bear that name, we shall test it ourselves!"
The great axe rose in a vertical arc.
It looked sluggish at first glance, but the sheer force riding behind it came through loud and clear. Because they squeezed every last fiber of muscle for the swing, the motion seemed slow—
but the moment it came crashing down, the moment that weapon descended—
like a beast of prey lunging at cornered game, there would be nothing hesitant about it at all.
It would split hide and bone like a beast's carcass—cleave even a single massive log in two at a stroke.
BOOM!
A detonation far too violent for anything striking soft earth.
This was not the momentary reinforcement of the whole body through mana. For the barbarians, using mana was less a technique than a kind of bomb—something you hurled at an enemy to smash them down.
Meet that head-on without understanding their nature, and you'd be swept up in the shockwave before you knew it—your body shattered by the impact, or in the worst cases torn to pieces outright.
For them, flesh was strengthened through lifelong training begun in childhood. It was an altogether different structure and philosophy from old Berck and the present Empire, which had focused on building vessels—systematizing how mana was handled and filling those vessels to the brim.
"Ha—HAH!"
The warrior on the left closed in fast and swung a round shield in a wide arc.
Cariel dropped low to evade, then raked the underside of the shield with his pommel as it passed.
"Urk!"
The hulking warrior flinched, stumbling back a step. His balance had broken.
Seizing the opening, Cariel slipped free—and just barely deflected the spear shaft driving in from behind.
"There it is! Yes! That's the technique!"
The shield-bearer let out an inexplicable cry of joy.
"It was the same back then! One touch and somehow my strength wouldn't work right! I'd put my weight in, and what do you know—it wouldn't go through!"
"He learned the same swordsmanship, didn't he? Of course it is!"
"You here to sightsee?! Fight properly!"
He did not let his guard down.
This was the chance they had wanted, craved, for so long—they would never let this single moment slip by carelessly.
And yet their joy overflowed beyond containing. Shouts like war cries, gasps like screams, laughter like death rattles—they burst out of them all, ringing clear, tearing the very air to shreds.
"……"
One thing was certain.
This was far harder than he had expected.
Meet their weapons clumsily head-on, and their sheer power would grind him down—he'd be the first to go flying.
He had just confirmed he could interfere with the flow of mana latent within an enemy's body. But it wasn't easy.
It was like trying to catch, by hand, a river bursting through a broken levee—a deluge pouring out without end. Truly, impossibly heavy.
Even if he recalled, replayed, and mastered to perfection the feel of a tree's inner flow—while standing in a body of stone—
he felt like he would break. Like he would snap clean through.
Not yet.
Because I am not whole.
Because I am not prepared. Not ready for any of this.
The disconnect between body and mind persisted. His body was still immature; his consciousness and spirit hung in tatters. The only thing binding the two together was sheer will.
But however desperate and devoted that will might be, it was not omnipotent.
Everything, after all, is relative.
And right now, he faced opponents against whom he was hopelessly outmatched. Opponents to whom his very attributes were disadvantageous. He was outnumbered on top of all that.
…Of course he was being pushed back. It was the most natural thing in the world.
And so—accepting that natural order, he would walk a path that did not exist, carving it out as he went.
That much, too, was simply part of his resolve.
"How long will you keep running!"
"Wretched squirrel of a man!"
"The name of Cariel rings through history! That man never once retreated a single step from the likes of us!"
He was not that man.
The reality he faced, the situation itself—even those were different.
This was not a question of right or wrong. Not a question of who was better or worse. They were simply two entirely different people.
Even the swordsmanship he was said to have learned from Grandeus was, in truth, a completely different thing.
What Grandeus taught that man was the fundamentals—how to swing a blade.
And Cariel? For him, taking a stance, swinging, cutting, thrusting—those had been supplementary, peripheral. Little more than an afterthought.
He still had not fully mastered the sword. He had awakened to a measure of its principles, but even that was barely a step past standing still.
More than that, his body simply would not obey. He might understand it in his head. He might grasp it by instinct. But his body could not carry it out.
It was a matter of time. Training demands the tempering of time. Even the finest blacksmith alive, given insufficient hours—no matter how superb his materials and tools—could not complete a single thing perfectly.
"Ha-hi—HAH!"
With an unearthly shriek that shook the very earth, a warrior came charging in.
-?!!!
Blocking was not enough.
The sheer weight, the momentum behind it, sent his body hurtling into the air.
Only because he had reacted properly was it merely this. Had he taken that force head-on, it would have gone beyond the body being damaged—bone, limb, or everything at once, shattered one way or another. Which meant, quite simply, that at that moment, it would have been over.
"—!!"
The ground rushed closer.
Before he struck it, he twisted his body into the best position he could manage—both so his body could roll smoothly, and so he wouldn't impale or cut himself on his own weapon.
Mindful of even that, he carried the fall through, bleeding off the impact.
Despite his best effort to set his stance, momentum still dragged him along, scraping across the ground as though plowing a furrow through it.
"……"
An absurd situation.
He hadn't even properly begun to resist yet—and already he was in this state.
He had seen Saint Cariel's memories. But how that man had fought the barbarian warriors—he had never seen.
Because he had returned to reality just before.
And yet, even if he had seen it—what would have changed?
"Yes! This is normal! This is how it should be!"
The barbarian who had sent him flying bellowed, working himself up into a fervor.
"But it wasn't like this back then! Back then he was different—utterly different!"
"You have no right to speak that name!"
"Look at the big talker now! Struggling against the likes of us—what a frail little wretch!"
…It was all true, so there was little he could say in reply.
Excuses were useless things. If they didn't work, they only made you uglier. By the time you were making excuses, it was already far, far too late.
"……"
And yet somehow, the sword had neither bent nor broken.
The sword had held because the sword was superb—not because he was anything remarkable.
Put plainly: he was weak.
Even if the blade in his hand were the Holy Sword his father had once wielded, he doubted he would be any different than he was now. Even with the Sacred Relics. Even with some magnificent magic tool, or anything else besides.
Because his roots, his very foundation, were wanting.
He worried he would crumble, that he would snap—
…and right now, what he feared above all was being torn out by the roots.
"……"
He walked forward.
He did not hope someone would push him from behind. He did not dream that someone would stand in front of him and shield him. He did not even cling to the vague belief that his weak self might somehow work a miracle.
He hoped for nothing, dreamed of nothing, expected nothing.
The point was this: the reality given to him was a problem to be solved with the fruits of everything he had built so far. If he could not manage it here and now—
there was no next time. No later.
Would he cling to what he could not do? Challenge the impossible?
Who decided what was impossible? Who cried out that it could not be done?
All of it was him. His weakness, his fear, his complacency.
…Because he had thought so, and accepted it so.
"Have you still not come to your senses?!"
"Will you come or not! Come on, then!"
"Little human! Show us what mettle you have! You think this will satisfy us?! This isn't even fit as an offering to the gods! So we will kill you! And we will kill all the rest besides! Glory to the Lord!"
The axe came cleaving through the air, ferocious and fast.
"?!"
He corrected his stance even as he advanced, forcing his sword into both hands, and barely managed to knock the blow aside.
KRAANG!
What—? It was the sound of a siege engine striking a fortress wall, slamming into his eardrums.
The shock flung both arms upward. In an instant it raced from the sword through his arms, over his shoulders, down to his very ankles. Because he hadn't deflected it cleanly, his stance collapsed outright.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Uheheheh!"
The warrior pounded across the earth, closing in within the blink of an eye. Like a bear charging at full sprint.
No—worse. Far more monstrous than that, it came barreling down on him.
"Uraaa—ah!"
A dagger, pulled from somewhere on his person. Even that was considerable in size, from where Cariel stood.
He barely caught the descending blow—
and redirected it.
In the same breath, he burrowed in deep, shifting the sword from two hands to his left—
and slashed his forearm down as if to cut with the flat of the blade.
WHUNG!
It didn't cut.
As though striking solid steel.
"Where do you think you're aiming!"
The warrior scoffed, swinging his arm dismissively.
But it didn't connect.
It passed by in a perfect arc, the forearm grazing mere hairs from his face—
"Huh?!"
The warrior's footing tangled.
The truth was, he had known all along that it wouldn't cut. A sword strike of his that borrowed nothing from another's power—anyone who could handle even a sliver of mana could shrug it off. It wasn't even a threat to a child.
It was a flaw that had been pointed out to him, mercilessly and without end, even back in his academy days. The body he carried then and the body he carried now—both remained the same.
All that had changed was a smattering of tricks and techniques, arts acquired out of necessity, and knowledge forcibly hammered into his head.
And more fundamental than any of that: the change in his will. In his state of mind.
…But the pitiful hope that such things would simply conjure up miracles? There was no way he could bring himself to believe that.
He expected nothing of the sort.
Wishing and wanting were not enough. To make something happen required cold, clear reason—and realization built upon it.
In a word: results.
"Huh?!"
Riding the stumbling man's own momentum, Cariel clung to the uncut knot of hair trailing from the warrior's head like a rope—
and wrenched him back by it.
Left hand raised. Sword gripped within it. He adjusted his hold once, reversing the blade into a reverse grip—
and drove it, straight and true, into the man's eye. Into the socket itself. Stabbing down, punching it in.
CRUNCH!
"GAAAAGH—!"
Until it was finished, it was not finished. Clinging to the buried sword, using even the man's convulsing recoil, he wrenched the blade free in a savage cut and flung himself clear.
The warrior screamed. He barely slipped past the arms flailing wildly in all directions and sprawled onto the ground.
"Khh—"
A light cough untangled the knot in his lungs, and he put distance between them at once, watching his opponent.
The warrior, blood streaming in ropes from his ruined eye socket, thrashed and flailed—
and then, at last—
BOOM!
…collapsed, twitching, and nothing more.
"……"
One. Just one.
And even that was half a counterattack built on the man's carelessness. No doubt, having witnessed this, the rest would come at him differently. But so what?
He couldn't even handle the opponent in front of him—was he supposed to hold back his best move for later? Of course that, too, was part of the process. But put another way, that was a problem for after he'd cleared the wall standing before him.
"……"
He stepped past the sprawled, twitching thing that was no longer quite a corpse, and kept walking.
"Not bad!"
"Truly dispatched it like a squirrel, all fuss and flutter! What a brazen one!"
He did not waver.
Death was merely a process for proving one's courage.
"……"
Sword hanging loose at his side, wordless, he steadied his breathing.
The arm muscles felt close to tearing from the strain he'd forced through them. His ankle ached—had he twisted it slightly? Even his fingers throbbed where the strain of regripping the sword had told.
The impact from being flung earlier still lingered; his vision swayed as though the whole world might tip over if he so much as blinked.
Blood was trickling from his nose, though he was certain nothing had touched him. Perhaps even a clean dodge had been too much to hope for.
"Facing three at once is, admittedly, rather heavy going."
But now—
"It's two, isn't it?"
"Don't get cocky, whelp."
"Look at this—knock down one nobody and he starts preening. Keep that up and you die, boy."
"Quite the talkers, aren't we."
In the end, he would have to use this too. He drew the straight sword from his waist, where it had hung half-forgotten.
"How about this, then?"
One sword in each hand.
He had done this plenty of times before—out of play, out of amusement, out of sheer vanity.
But he had never once imagined fighting seriously like this. One sword was hard enough, and he would wield two? Without exceptional dexterity and feel, it was impossible by nature. Even with relentless practice, without the innate aptitude to back it. Without truly outstanding talent for the blade.
…This was nothing more than the suicidal posturing of a fool drunk on style.
"You madman?"
"We'll make you regret it."
And so he changed the way he thought.
Then and now, he was not wielding swords.
These were merely—
…tools. Nothing more.
He walked in slowly, closing the distance as far as he dared—
and hurled the sword he had just drawn straight at the warrior on his right.
His own body went the other way—to the left.
Like it had been waiting for him, the shield came crashing down over him like a fortress wall.