Thirin Wins an Oscar
When Gordo collapsed with a hideous, half-bald mess after getting his hair ripped out, Thirin shook the strands from her hand and waited for the next challenger. The mercenary band stirred, and this time a man who looked nothing like Gordo stepped forward. He held a sword in each hand, both of them that awkward in-between length.
The guy himself looked just as ambiguous as the blades he carried. With a smug grin, he twirled his swords in flashy circles and opened his mouth.
“Witch! I won’t go down like that idiot Gordo! Your magic ends here!”
Thirin didn’t bother answering. She just stared at him blankly, then glanced around the area.
“Witch! How dare you let your guard down in front of me? I’ll make sure you—”
Thirin didn’t feel like waiting for him to finish. She casually kicked a chunk of wood lying nearby, sending it flying. It was a piece of the debris Gordo had smashed earlier with his fist.
The dual-wielder looked momentarily startled by the incoming projectile, but then swatted it aside with an annoyed flick.
Thirin nodded to herself.
What an absolute moron.
She was certain now. The only thing she’d gotten from Gordo’s surreal rock-smashing display was some pathetic beggar sect technique. Against a clown like this, she probably wouldn’t learn anything worthwhile even if she let him stab her. Getting hit by this idiot would be nothing but a waste of time and pain.
Thirin didn’t think twice. She launched herself forward.
“What the—!”
The dual-wielder frantically swung his blades to defend against her sudden charge, but he couldn’t keep up with her speed. Thirin slipped past his swords like a ghost and closed the distance.
Since it had already come to this, she decided to test out a new technique.
Rigid
Thirin had zero prejudice about it. The technique clearly said “palms,” yet she used it as a kick without hesitation. She drove her foot, infused with the Rigid force, straight into the man’s right wrist.
“Gahhhk!”
The sickening sound of bones snapping accompanied his scream. His right sword clattered to the ground as he rolled around clutching his shattered wrist.
Unlike when she had used the technique with her fist, this time her foot didn’t break. At least not this time.
“Aaaaaagh!”
Thirin looked down at the man writhing in agony and nodded. It was once again proven in this fantasy land that all dual-wielders were morons. No further investigation required.
“......”
Suddenly, Thirin felt like something was very wrong. It was the same uncomfortable feeling as seeing one mismatched tile in an otherwise perfect sidewalk, or watching someone throw away a yogurt without licking the foil lid.
She quickly identified the source of her displeasure.
Mismatched socks.
Thirin picked up one of the fallen swords.
The dual-wielder, sensing her killing intent, flailed his good arm desperately.
“W-wait, witch! I surrender…!”
“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.”
“Then what the hell is that sword for?!”
“You tried to stab me with two swords,” Thirin scolded him sternly. “Therefore it is only right that you pay the price with both arms. Since your right is already broken, your left must be broken as well. All hands are equal, after all.”
The dual-wielder looked horrified.
“What kind of nonsense is—!”
“Witch! Stop!”
That was when Bjorn stepped in. Thirin ignored him and drove the blade home.
“Aaaaaagh!”
A fountain of blood sprayed out alongside the man’s piercing scream. Only then did Thirin turn to face Bjorn with a satisfied expression.
Bjorn was no longer content to simply watch. He strode forward, stepping past his fallen subordinates sprawled across the ground. Instead of drawing the massive greatsword from his back, he planted it firmly into the earth. Then he drew the relatively ordinary longsword from his waist.
“...Not using that cool sword?”
“That’s only for hunting monsters,” Bjorn answered calmly.
Thirin breathed an inward sigh of relief. If that thing had hit her, she might have been cut in half. She had been fully prepared to bolt the moment he pulled out the greatsword.
Unaware of her pathetic calculations, Bjorn looked at her with a glint in his eye.
“You didn’t kill any of my men.”
“A promise is a sacred thing.”
At Thirin’s matter-of-fact tone, Bjorn’s eyebrow twitched.
“......I never expected to hear such words from a witch.”
“Witch witch witch, blah blah blah. Is that all you know how to say?”
“......”
Is she really a witch or not?
In the midst of his confusion, Bjorn recalled the strange agreement he had made with Thirin before the trial by combat.
‘Trial by combat? You beggar bitch, even if you win, you think we’ll just let it end there?’
Bjorn steadied himself, remembering how he had nearly fallen for her sly smile.
‘This isn’t the heart of the Empire where laws are respected. These are the same scum who run wild even during the Festival of the Ten Thousand Gods, and blood has already been spilled.’
His face hardened as he continued.
‘We outnumber you. Do you really think a single trial by combat will settle everything?’
A realistic question. Thirin had laughed, thinking the bear in front of her wasn’t quite the idiot he appeared to be.
‘Who said anything about killing all of you? And it doesn’t matter if I lose.’
‘...What?’
‘You’ve got Heres’s lackeys, right? Send them out first. I’ll beat them down for you. And then—’
Thirin jerked her chin toward Bjorn.
‘You step up personally at the end and defeat me. That way you keep your pride, get your revenge for the dead vice-leader, and everything wraps up nicely.’
She spoke without hesitation.
‘Let’s end it with a few stabs to the body. Just don’t take my head off.’
Bjorn had understood what she was suggesting. She wasn’t offering to die. She was saying she would accept a defeat that might lead to death.
Bjorn absently stroked his rough beard. It was a tempting offer, but also an absurd one.
‘...You could actually die.’
Thirin had answered with a cackling laugh, as if the idea delighted her.
‘Then stab gently. I hate pain.’
That casual attitude. That bizarre quality of treating even death lightly. Bjorn had felt a chill run down his spine back then.
And now the woman was once again giving him that eerie, unreadable smile.
With a bewitching grin, she had said, “You’d better come at me with everything you’ve got, Captain.”
“......”
Bjorn raised his sword without a word. The next instant, his body shot forward.
“!!!”
Thirin was startled. The quality of his movement was on an entirely different level from the previous opponents. It was refined and tempered, nothing like Gordo’s brutish charge or the dual-wielder’s clumsy defense. Every motion was economical. Each step, each angle of the sword was perfectly efficient.
-Clang!
Thirin reflexively brought her sword up to block Bjorn’s first strike. The heavy impact made her arm go numb. But Bjorn’s attack didn’t stop there. His longsword moved like a living creature, relentlessly seeking out her openings. Fast. Precise. Unpredictable.
“Ugh!”
Thirin barely managed to deflect the blows and staggered backward. Cold sweat ran down her spine. Even with her stats inflated by Coward Mode, his speed and skill were almost too much to keep up with. This wasn’t the fighting style of a simple mercenary.
She finally created some distance and shouted.
“What the hell are you?!”
“......”
“I thought you were a monster-hunting mercenary captain? That’s not the skillset of someone who’s only killed a couple beasts. Did you used to make your living killing people?”
The technique of someone who had grown accustomed to butchering humans, not monsters. Thirin’s accusation stirred up fragments of memories Bjorn had buried deep in his mind.
"The night is deep and the paths are tangled, yet the three-faced goddess has granted us a torch to drive away the veil."
"Yet behold—beneath that torch dance countless shadows."
⟨ ILLUSION SWORD ⟩
Lux Viae Noctis.Legio Ignis Hecatica.
The Empire’s special forces legion that served the Goddess of Night and Crossroads. They had fought against monstrous beasts twisted by malicious power, witches who whispered forbidden curses, cultists who practiced human sacrifice, worshippers of evil gods who ruled over destruction and corruption, and those who sought to borrow power from ancient forgotten beings.
Under the name of the Goddess of Night and Crossroads, Bjorn had once carried a torch and battled the unholy things hiding behind the veil of night.
The witch’s voice had brought back memories of those days. Battlefields thick with the smell of dust and blood. Chaos faced in the darkness of night. The screams and curses that erupted from it. And the burning villages. Torches that set people ablaze instead of lighting the way.
But those thoughts lasted only a moment. Bjorn was fighting his inner turmoil even as he crossed blades with Thirin.
Just what is this woman?
That bizarre regenerative ability that let her stand up immediately after taking Gordo’s punch. The absurd logic and antics that struck at the heart. And above all, that strangely captivating way with words. They were all characteristics of a witch.
Yet at the same time, she avoided unnecessary slaughter and even said things like “a promise is sacred.” She was different from any witch Bjorn had ever encountered.
......A promise is a promise.
Bjorn muttered to himself. Yes, since the witch had kept her word, he would keep his. But...
I must confirm it.
If this woman truly was an evil being, he could not let her go free here. This was not the duty of a mercenary captain, but an oath from his past self.
Bjorn’s eyes changed. He took a deep breath and adjusted his grip on the sword. He carved onto the blade once more the power of the Goddess of Night and Crossroads—the power he had thought he would never use again.
The space around Bjorn’s sword began to shimmer like heat haze.
“!”
It wasn’t Thirin’s imagination. A single blade instantly split into two, then three, and finally dozens of deadly possibilities that confused her vision. This was no mere illusion. It was the sword technique of the Legion, refined under the divine power of the Goddess of Night and Crossroads.
Illusion Sword.
To fight the evil things hiding in darkness, the Torch Legion had to find answers at the intersection of swordsmanship and magic. Like the crossroads of night where truth and falsehood, safety and danger crossed paths, the Illusion Sword confused the opponent’s senses and judgment with countless afterimages of the blade.
The things hiding behind the veil of night. Things whose shapes were unclear and nearly impossible to count. Things that deceived the senses with wicked magic. The power the Torch Legion used to fight evil had ironically come to resemble the very tricks of those evil beings.
Thirin saw that sacred power and nearly had a seizure.
“You fucking bear bastard! You’re really going to pull this shit?!”
“I will keep my promise. If you are not a ‘true’ witch, you will not die. But if you are...”
“If I am, then what?!”
Bjorn silently unleashed his blades. Thirin barely dodged in her shock. Those were not simple feints. Each afterimage carried a chilling killing intent.
Thirin swallowed a curse.
This is supposed to be a fantasy world! Why does this one guy have a completely different genre?! Is this a murim novel now?!
She twisted her body reflexively to avoid the pouring sword strikes. She couldn’t dodge them all. Some of the passing blades left only the sound of cutting air, but others brought a sharp sensation that sliced into her skin.
Thankfully, not all of them were real. She just had to avoid the real ones.
No, that wasn’t right. She needed to identify the real ones and take a hit on purpose. Whatever it was, it was clearly an incredible technique. The Physical Realization she would gain from receiving such an attack would certainly not be trivial.
Thirin repeated to herself.
Just don’t let it hit my neck.
She wasn’t sure if she could survive a decapitation. She had no idea how far Coward Mode’s immortality would carry her. In that case, to identify the real blades...
This son of a—!
Another wave of sword strikes poured down. She didn’t even have time to finish cursing.
Thirin threw herself desperately to the ground and rolled. She really ought to consider herself lucky for falling into a fantasy world. In a murim world she would have earned some ridiculous title like “Masked Lying Sword” or “Peerless Ground-Rolling Guest.”
Fortunately (or perhaps because they had no sense of shame), no one in this practical fantasy land laughed at Thirin’s Ground-Lying Sword Technique.
“Cough.”
Thirin coughed. The rising cloud of dust stung her eyes and made them water.
“......!”
She looked at the ground. Yes. This, and Gordo.
Bjorn closed the distance once more and charged. Dozens of blades rained down on Thirin in a chaotic storm.
Thirin stomped hard on the ground.
Rigid
-Boom!
The ground beneath her feet caved in as an explosive cloud of dust erupted upward. Visibility vanished in an instant. The dozens of illusion blades Bjorn had created were swallowed by the dust cloud.
Found it!
Thirin cheered inwardly. Only the real blades with physical form could cut through the dust cloud to reach her.
Her relief was short-lived. She cursed again.
This crazy bastard!
Three real sword strikes were closing in from three different angles. Even in wuxia novels the real strike is only one! How are all three real?!
One toward her neck, one toward her torso, one toward her thigh. She couldn’t dodge all three. Could she survive if her neck was cut? She didn’t know if Coward Mode’s immortality covered decapitation.
Thirin couldn’t gamble. She made her choice.
She twisted her head to the side. Instead of letting the most lethal strike aimed at her neck graze past, she took the other two real blades with her body.
The blade aiming for her throat barely brushed past the bread-bag mask on her face.
-Squish! Squish!
The Illusion Sword carved two wounds into Thirin’s body at the same time. One was shallow. One was deep. The real one had struck near her heart. Along with the unpleasant sensation of ribs breaking, a piercing agony like her lungs had been run through slammed into her.
“Guh...!”
Instead of a scream, Thirin vomited a mouthful of bright red blood. The spray of blood soaked the dirt along with the torn fragments of her mask.
Through the sword in his hand, Bjorn faintly felt Thirin’s heart struggling like it was making one last desperate attempt. He gritted his teeth.
Damn it.
The faint divine power he had placed on the blade remained silent. The goddess’s power showed no reaction at all. This woman... was not a witch.
Damn it all! This wasn’t what he had intended. He never meant to stab her in the heart! He had been trying to avoid vital points, but this insane beggar woman had moved in ways that completely defied his predictions.
A cold, metallic taste of guilt spread through his mouth. Once again, once again he had killed an innocent with his own hands.
The dust slowly settled, finally revealing Thirin’s face completely.
“......!”
Bjorn forgot to breathe. Even at the imperial palace’s grand banquets, he had never seen beauty like this. It was something that transcended the human realm. It felt similar to the awe he had faintly sensed when receiving the goddess’s blessing. If he had stood before the goddess’s own face, would it have looked like this?
Though stained with blood and dirt, those filthy marks could not diminish her otherworldly beauty. The furrowed brow twisted in pain and the faintly trembling eyelashes created a heartbreaking charm that stole one’s breath.
With her heart pierced, Thirin whispered in a fading breath.
“Ah......”
The following word was so faint it was barely audible.
“......”
A sound somewhere between “pa” and “ppa.”
“......!!!!”
Bjorn’s world stopped. Thirin’s final word struck his mind like a hammer. Memories he had forgotten—no, memories he had desperately tried to forget—burst forth like a broken dam.
The arrogance of the Torch Legion. The torches that burned innocent people instead of lighting up the night. The sight of a remote village reduced to ashes. And within those ashes, the face of a barbarian woman who had been nothing more than a fleeting one-night connection, whose name he could no longer even remember.
If she had survived and given birth to a daughter, she would be about the same age as the girl before him now...
“Huk...!”
Bjorn unconsciously let out the breath he had been holding. His hands shook violently. Such a past had never existed. Or had it? He could no longer tell what was truth and what was false memory.
One thing was certain. Once again, he had killed an innocent, believing her to be a witch.
Bjorn dropped the longsword as if it were a burning coal. Thirin could no longer hold herself up and collapsed forward. She lay on the ground bleeding, completely motionless.
“...!”
The first to regain their senses were Guard Commander Roderick and Peter. The two men rushed to Thirin’s side. Roderick’s face turned deathly pale when he saw her wound.
“Her heart... it’s been pierced!”
Among the mercenaries, belated cheers finally erupted as they grasped the situation.
“The witch is dead! The captain killed the witch!”
“Revenge! Revenge for Heres!”
“We won!”
Some collapsed in relief while others couldn’t contain their excitement and shouted wildly.
Bjorn roared in a cracking voice.
“Silence!”
He shouted at the murmuring mercenaries.
“This land is cursed! Return to camp immediately before the witch’s curse descends!”
Those words gave the terrified mercenaries a strange sense of relief along with their fear. The witch’s curse. Yes, all of this was because of that witch. The mercenaries hurriedly helped their fallen comrades and began to scatter.
Bjorn walked away, desperately suppressing his thundering heartbeat. He didn’t even think about retrieving his sword. No, he no longer needed that sword. Because he would never face another human being again.
Meanwhile, Peter crouched beside the fallen Thirin and whispered softly.
“Don’t laugh, you crazy witch.”
Thirin muttered to herself.
Fucking old bastard.