Fairness, Initialization, and the Long Road

After the System's advice, I took a moment to reflect, then set about trying further word combinations. After all, I had to acquire every word I'd set out as my goal.

Having lived with the Kotodama system for roughly seven and a half years now, I had a fair sense of how any given word would behave.

Fairness — my guess was that it would either bring my opponent's level down to mine, or raise mine up to match theirs. Against anyone weaker than me it would be worthless, but against a superior opponent, it would work with remarkable efficiency.

With that in mind, I went to find Sir Brand and asked if he could spare me a little of his time.

"Fairness."

There was no time limit. That, I decided, was its greatest strength.

But put another way, that was also precisely its weakness — no temporal restriction meant the balance had been adjusted somewhere else entirely.

"Would you mind swinging your sword at me for a moment?"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Perfectly sure. The power of the Kotodama is active, so you won't hurt me."

At my words, Sir Brand gave a nod and drew a graceful arc with his blade — and the instant he did, the sword in his grip came crashing down toward the floor.

His arm simply couldn't bear its own weight. Flabbergasted, he snatched the sword back up and slashed it through empty air, whereupon it sang out with a keen, menacing ring as if nothing had happened at all.

And from that scene, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠understood what additional restriction Fairness carried.

So the effect only applies when the synchronized target is attacking me specifically.

When he lowered his blade softly toward ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me a second time, his arm sagged yet again — that confirmed it beyond doubt. In a word: when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Fairness was active, the target's physical capabilities only equaled mine in the exact moment they aimed an attack at me.

How utterly useless...

If it had also let me sync my body to a designated target — raising myself up instead of merely dragging them down — it wouldn't have been half bad. As it stood, the word landed in a frustratingly ambiguous middle ground.

"How absurd..."

When I explained Fairness's effects to Sir Brand, who was demanding answers, he collected his sword with an awkward laugh. Frankly, I didn't think it warranted admiration — its flaws were simply too glaring for that.

Setting the thought aside, I still had words left to acquire, so I pressed on with more combinations.

A profound notification indeed. When this happened, there was nothing for it but to learn through experimentation.

"Initialization."

"Direct interference with time is impossible" — that was as good as telling me not to even dream of compounds like time travel.

So taken as it currently stood, Initialization was essentially the same as paying money to reset a botched skill tree in a game. For me, though, it turned out to be unexpectedly versatile.

Suppose, for instance, that the Demon World Tree revived someday and war broke out. There might come a moment when I needed to assemble a word indispensable to a specific situation. If I lacked the consonants and vowels to build it, Initialization would let me reclaim them and acquire it anyway.

Or if the day ever came when I couldn't use any more words — that is, when a crisis struck after I'd already exhausted the power of every word I possessed — I could simply invoke Initialization, recover my consonants and vowels, and recombine them on the spot.

The one regret was that it couldn't apply to one-use words that couldn't be recombined. Even so, acquiring it put my mind somewhat at ease. If I ever ended up recklessly hoarding words and decided too many of them were useless, I could wipe the slate clean with Initialization and start over.

With that, I thanked Sir Brand for his help, finished acquiring Wide Area, and turned back.

Wide Area was a buff-type word, same as Domination — once I used it, the next word I spoke would take effect across an entire designated range. Which meant that, at long last, I could apply something like Healing not just to a single target, but to a great many people at once.

This would surely prove invaluable later, when I began building recognition as a Pontifex.

Of course, the range I could designate through Wide Area was limited to what fell within my field of vision. Otherwise, I might as well have designated the entire continent and cast Healing over all of it.

Ah...

Come to think of it, though — "limited to line of sight" didn't seem like an insurmountable constraint at all. Human vision depends enormously on viewing angle and on the obstacles standing in front of one's eyes.

In other words, if I climbed high enough into the sky, I could apply effects across an unimaginable range — not quite the whole Empire, but close enough to beggar belief.

Perhaps because of that, Wide Area carried an extra restriction of its own: its effect could only be layered onto words that acted for another person's benefit.

To parse it strictly: words like Freeze or Incinerate treated another person as their target, and thus couldn't receive the Wide Area effect. What qualified were words like Healing, whose effects were bestowed wholly and beneficially upon others.

Once again, I had to admit the balance had been tuned with remarkable care down to the finest detail.

Throwing myself wholeheartedly into acquiring words, I resolved to establish a proper core for my fighting style.

Holding words that could carry the Kotodama was, in game terms, the same as steadily learning one skill after another. And in games, builds usually become standardized around the playstyle of a chosen class — I felt the same necessity applied to me.

Relying on words like Torrent, Freeze, and Incinerate as I had been wasn't bad, exactly, but it was inefficient. What looked best was a combat style anchored on Thousandfold Binding — comparatively lenient in its time constraints, once initiated it persisted until its action ran its course — built around not depending on single devastating words.

Besides, I'd discovered something in the recent slot expansion: Thousandfold Binding could be used additionally for each stored slot. Thousandfold Binding — Sword Arts, and then Thousandfold Binding — Spear Arts on top of it.

Naturally, one might ask why I insisted on such a roundabout path. It would be far easier to simply combine overwhelming power-words and crush ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my opponents outright.

But if I grew no stronger myself and leaned too heavily on one-shot language, I'd be left with no means to defeat enemies who didn't even warrant such power. If you carelessly swing the ox-slaughterer's blade at chickens, you'll find yourself in dire straits when the ox actually comes.

And that brute-force style was always available to me whenever I pleased. That was precisely why the crux of the matter was making myself stronger, with the Kotodama's power as my foundation. I'd been scrambling frantically lately to lay that groundwork — now was the time to reap the harvest.

To the question, I gave a nod. Breaking through the limit of my flesh meant unlocking the cap on my maximum growth.

No matter how many years a person devoted to building their strength, shattering a boulder bare-handed would remain impossible. The being called "human" simply has a limit inscribed upon it.

But designating my flesh through Limit Break would make the impossible possible. That said, the ceiling wasn't gone entirely — otherwise the day would come when a single step shattered the ground beneath my feet.

And so the highest realm my flesh could reach through Limit Break was Aura Master. Knights usually attain a physical strength beyond ordinary human reach by having mana absorbed into their skin, handed to them by grace of that absorption — whereas I could attain that ultimate realm purely through effort.

Naturally, since I'd receive no aid from mana, the road there through effort alone would demand sweat and blood. No — it might even be unreachable by that degree of striving alone.

Which was why, to narrow that gap, I turned to a workaround and additionally acquired Daily Advance. The word carried the meaning of growing day by day, month by month — an effect that would magnify the fruits of my labor.

Moreover, no matter how hard I trained my body, my stamina itself was finite. To shore up that weakness to some degree, I acquired Treatment, a synonym of Healing, and through it the compound words Stamina Recovery and Fatigue Recovery.

Still not enough.

Refusing to stop there, I swept through my remaining consonants and vowels and kept combining.

People do not enjoy hardship, whether of mind or body. Avoidance is instinct. Focus and diligence aren't called talents for nothing, either.

Even having acquired words to compensate for my limits of stamina, I was still seven years old — the hours in a day I could genuinely devote to effort would never be all that long. And if I failed to focus and strive properly within those brief hours, the losses would pile up enormously.

So my plan was to cover that shortfall with Focus, Musha's Realm, and Still Water.

With this foundation laid and time poured into it, my physical level would one day reach that of an Aura Master. And the disadvantage of being unable to use mana was something the Kotodama's power could overcome at every turn.

In truth, the single strike I'd charged with that power had already shattered Sir Brand's aura blade.

The one thing none of this could resolve, in the end, was the feel for combat that comes only from real battle. Might that not be patched by Sixth Sense or Intuition?

Of course, the ideal was to experience actual combat firsthand, over and over. Fortunately, the Asis Duchy borders the Barren Lands — a perfectly suited stage, wouldn't you say?

When the time came, I intended to pile up experience there until it overflowed.

Well, then...

They say even an ox's horn can be drawn out by steady twisting. From today onward, I would strive — with sweat, with blood, and without pause.