Realization
In a quiet stretch of forest, far from where human footsteps rarely wandered.
Shk! Shk! Shk!
From deep within those woods came a sharp, rhythmic sound, cleaving the air at perfectly regular intervals.
The source of that sound was Tiana—the prodigy who had become an S-rank adventurer while still a child, her name blazing across the land.
Shk! Shk!
It had been a week since she arrived at the village. She had found herself a reasonably safe spot in the forest, settled in, and performed ten thousand sword draws a day—the Gratitude Sword Draw, over and over without pause.
She gathered her mana, pressed her palms together before her chest in prayer. As her right foot stepped forward, her right hand found the hilt at her hip. The moment her foot met the earth, she poured that force into the draw, blade sliding free of its sheath.
Shk!
Her sword traced a single unbroken line from lower left to upper right, slicing through empty air. With a keen whistle, the blade that had split the very atmosphere slid back into its sheath.
Two seconds to gather her mana. Two seconds to offer her prayer. Two more to draw, swing, and return the blade to its sheath.
At six seconds per repetition, completing all ten thousand took her just past sixteen hours.
That was a pace only possible for someone like Tiana, who stood far beyond the limits of ordinary humans—an average person would have struggled to manage ten thousand swings at all.
And yet—
Shk!
There was not a hair's breadth of disorder in her movements. She trod the exact same ground with every step, swung along the identical arc every time, displaying something close to the madness of a machine.
But then—
Shiiit!
That flawless focus of hers finally wavered.
She had fasted entirely for days on end while performing the Gratitude Sword Draw, and doubts had begun to creep in whether she liked it or not.
Am I really doing this right?
On the first day, Sian had come to where she was training. Tiana hadn't gone out of her way to hide, and Sian, having wandered these woods for years, hadn't found it especially difficult to track her down.
She had asked him—whether she was doing it properly. But Sian had left her with only one remark: that posture wasn't what mattered.
On the second day, he came again. She asked once more. To whom, exactly, was she supposed to pray? If she was meant to give thanks to everyone who had brought her into existence, didn't that ultimately mean praying to the gods?
But Sian had only said that she needn't pray to any god.
That was where her confusion began. If neither posture nor prayer mattered, then what was the meaning of this practice at all?
And yet, even as that question gnawed at her, she never once stopped. The moment she abandoned the Gratitude Sword Draw, a dreadful dread would close over her—the terror that all hope would be lost.
More than the fury of possibly being deceived, it was the prospect of never avenging herself—of the Calamity remaining forever beyond her reach—that frightened her more. And so she refused, absolutely, to stop.
Don't doubt. That's all.
Hadn't she already resolved to trust Elina over her own instincts? Doubting it now, this late, would mean nothing. She chose to believe that this seemingly pointless act would become the foundation of her vengeance.
Discarding her hesitation, she swung the sword once more.
Shk!
Somehow, the blade felt sharper than before.
So it went—two weeks, then three—and at the one-month mark, she realized something.
Shk!
"……?"
With that stroke, she had just finished today's ten thousand. She was certain her pace had been no different from usual.
And yet—
"The sun……."
Day had broken.
Even after completing all ten thousand Gratitude Sword Draws, the sun had not yet set. Ordinarily, even starting the instant it rose, she never finished until after it sank.
"……"
She quietly looked down at her own hands.
She could tell that something had changed. What, precisely, she couldn't yet say.
Just as that thought crossed her mind—
Clank.
A rough metallic sound rang out from somewhere nearby. A noise far too strange to have come from the forest itself. Had someone come? Was it Sian, come to check on her?
She thought so—but she was wrong.
Where her gaze had turned, black armor was pushing its way through the trees, forcing the forest aside. From within its empty eye sockets, a dark red glow began to seethe.
"……! A Death Knight!"
What had emerged from the forest was a knight clad in jet-black armor, steeped in the aura of death—a Death Knight.
She fixed it with a rigidly taut expression. A killing intent so dense it felt as though her very organs were freezing solid.
……Its presence is anything but ordinary.
A Death Knight was an A-rank monster by its mere existence. Worse, it was a high-tier creature that could rise to S-rank—or, depending on who it had been in life, become something close to a Calamity itself.
"Haap!"
With a battle cry, she launched the first strike. With a razor-sharp hiss, sword aura erupted from Tiana's blade, stretching out to cleave the Death Knight in two.
But—
Chwaak!
The Death Knight's sword tore the sword aura itself to shreds. The energy scattered, and the air shuddered. It didn't stop there.
Chwararak!
The Death Knight's blade carved through the air countless times. Tiana swung to meet it, trading blow for blow, but—
Trickle.
Blood ran down from her cheek.
"……!"
Tiana swallowed a ragged breath. In that single exchange, the Death Knight had gauged exactly what level of opponent it faced. Not the overwhelming might that could be called a Calamity—but it could sense strength that was, at minimum, S-rank.
……This is a problem.
It was true that an S-rank adventurer could fight an S-rank monster—but only with proper preparation. Right now, without even the barest of it, no matter how capable Tiana was, the fight would be beyond difficult.
They told me this was a peaceful village…….
Why on earth was a monster this monstrous lurking in the forest? Even as the thought ran through her head, her mind never stopped searching for a way out of her situation.
Deep within the empty sockets of the helm, a dark crimson light wavered.
Clank.
The Death Knight lowered its stance.
And then—
Kwaduk.
With the sound of the earth compressing beneath its foot, its figure vanished. In the same instant Tiana's eyes snapped wide open—
Chang!
Sparks burst through the air with a sound that pierced her eardrums. The Death Knight and Tiana were trading blows so fast that the sounds of steel collapsing into one another rang out as a single continuous roar.
"Hah… hah…."
Tiana exhaled a rough breath. The situation was desperately unfavorable. Beyond her lack of preparation for a Death Knight, her own condition was far from sound.
She had all but abandoned food and water for a month, swinging her sword like a madwoman and nothing else—her body couldn't possibly be normal.
"Here……."
She could not fall here. She had not yet finished her vengeance. Until it was done, she would survive however she had to. She clenched her teeth.
But contrary to her resolve, Tiana was beginning to be pushed back, step by step.
Drip. Drip.
As time passed, her wounds only multiplied. Forehead, cheek, forearm, hands, flank, thigh, calf. Nothing fatal yet—but blood flowed from the cuts covering her body.
…It's toying with me.
They said a Death Knight's strength was proportionate to its life, and that its fighting style mirrored who it had been in the flesh. If that was true, then the Death Knight before her was the vicious kind—the sort that played with its prey slowly, until death.
When the battle turned unmistakably against her, Tiana let out a faint, hollow laugh.
What is this.
She had sworn to take revenge on a Calamity—and here she was, struggling against a mere Death Knight. How pathetic did she look? Laughter rose unbidden at her own predicament.
But…… I can't back down here.
Partly to stay alive. But there was another reason too.
If she fell here, the thing would head for the village next. No one in a rural backwater could bring down a Death Knight—unless Elina happened to return.
Even as she thought this, her mind drifted to Sian, and she recalled the strange sensation she had felt just before the Death Knight appeared.
"……"
That peculiar feeling she'd had before its arrival. Even now she couldn't be certain what it was. But it occurred to her that it might be the key to breaking through this situation.
And so she decided to betray her own instincts—instincts that were screaming at her, right now, to swing her sword—once more.
"……"
She pressed her palms together in prayer.
Her two hands, folded neatly before her. Even the Death Knight faltered for a beat at this needless gesture—a movement in battle that could cost her her life—as though it could not fathom the meaning.
She was dishevelled, a month without proper food or bathing—but in that moment, the figure of her praying was like a saint.
Perhaps that sight displeased it.
Shaaaaa…….
The death aura pouring from the Death Knight thickened, and the forest itself convulsed. The aura began to gather into its blade, and the old sword took on a blackness like polished night. Then the Death Knight's dark blade swung down.
But—
Shk!
The sword that left its hand was already in two pieces.
Kwak!
The Death Knight's blade struck the ground a beat behind the swing. Even its wielder seemed unable to grasp what had happened, staring blankly at its own weapon.
And then—
"Ahat."
Tiana laughed as she watched it. Not out of joy at having cut the Death Knight's sword in two. Her expression was that of a sage who had finally understood something.
"I see……. So that's what it meant."
There was, if anything, a trace of madness steeped in her laughter. How pathetic I am—that something so simple took me a month.
It's not perfect yet.
But if what she had felt was real, then facing a Calamity alone was no longer impossible.
Teacher…… what in the world are you?
Reverence and awe toward Sian surged up from somewhere deep inside Tiana. From the day she met him to the moment he taught her the Gratitude Sword Draw, not even a full day had passed—barely a few hours. And yet he had seen through everything about her, and handed her exactly what she needed.
Just how far above her did one have to stand to see this clearly? It sent chills crawling over her whole body.
She thought she understood why he hadn't come after the first and second days, either.
He was disappointed in me.
If she had trusted and practiced properly, it might all have been over in two days. And she had dragged it out like this—how pitiful she must have looked.
"I'll have to go back and apologize."
For bringing him disappointment. For only now, at last, understanding—that foolish, benighted disciple of his.
With that thought, Tiana turned to look at the Death Knight, which still stood motionless.
"……"
From within the empty helm, a dark red glow wavered, regarding her with something like bewilderment. Something had changed. Nothing about it had changed—and yet it knew that something had.
And Tiana, looking at that Death Knight—
brought her hands together one last time, and prayed.
It was the last thing the Death Knight ever saw.