The Completion of a Misunderstanding
"Ugh-dadadat!"
Sian stretched toward the brightening morning sun, watching it climb over the treetops. The crisp dawn air filled his lungs, and a wave of freshness spread through his whole body. Once he'd loosened up, he turned his gaze to the forest.
"I wonder if she's doing all right."
It had been about a month since Tiana first came to the village. The day after she vanished into the forest, he'd gone looking for her—surely he should bring her something, he'd figured.
Finding her camp somewhere in that sea of trees had been no easy task. Skilled people moved lightly and left hardly a trace behind. And when he'd finally tracked her down, of all things, she'd asked him whether her form was correct.
There's no such thing as correct form, you know.
What could possibly be wrong about such a simple motion? And honestly, if anything, the Gratitude Sword Draws she performed looked cleaner and sharper than the one he'd shown her. When she asked about her stance on top of that, he'd had no choice but to tell her not to worry about it and keep doing exactly what she was doing.
And then the next day, too.
When he visited on the second day, she asked him again—this time about what she should direct her prayers toward. So he told her to stop worrying about that as well. No need to thank any god, he said; just be grateful to everything that had brought her into being. And after that, he stopped going altogether.
No, seriously—she interrogated me so relentlessly every single visit that it got scary.
The whole point was to let her figure out, at her own pace, that the whole thing was meaningless. But she took it so seriously that he couldn't bring himself to say a word. Even afterward, he'd dropped by a few more times—not every day—and tried to wait for the right moment.
"It was terrifying, honestly."
She'd been so lost in her Gratitude Sword Draws that she hadn't even noticed his arrival. Frankly, in that moment he'd genuinely worried that if he confessed the truth, he might become the technique's first human sacrifice. So he'd decided to stick to his original plan and wait until enough time had passed.
"By now, her head should have cooled off a little, right?"
If she was still half-insane and swinging away at it even now, he'd need to start seriously brainstorming alternative measures. With that thought, Sian decided to pay Tiana's camp a visit today.
And then—
"…Hm?"
The moment he arrived, something felt off. Several ancient trees that had stood in this forest for centuries lay toppled, and craters pocked the ground everywhere he looked. Judging by the scene alone, you'd think a battle had taken place here.
What the hell?
In this peaceful area, there was no way a monster she couldn't handle had just shown up out of nowhere. Had she gone berserk or something? The moment the thought crossed his mind—
"Ah, Teacher."
A soft gasp reached his ears. He turned toward the sound, and there stood Tiana.
"You came, Teacher!"
She hurried over with a radiant smile to greet him. He couldn't fathom why she was so delighted to see him, but a different question surfaced first.
"…?"
Bandages were wrapped here and there across her body. What on earth had happened while he was gone—an S-rank adventurer, wounded badly enough to need bandaging?
Did she overtrain?
But that didn't add up either. Ten thousand Gratitude Sword Draws a day was a lot, sure, but for an S-rank adventurer it would merely take time, not cause injury.
There's no way she ran into a monster in this peaceful village.
Best case scenario, a goblin or two? He'd never even seen one himself. In any case, there was no way an S-rank had been wrecked like this by monsters that even an ordinary civilian who'd never become an adventurer could beat. Given the state of the surroundings, she'd probably hurt herself doing some other training—something beyond the ten thousand draws he'd prescribed.
Just as he reached that conclusion, Tiana beamed and spoke up.
"I finally understand what you meant, Teacher!"
"…Excuse me?"
Before Sian could even parse her words, she moved her hands the way a child aches to show off a new toy—eager to display her achievement.
Tiana's two palms pressed together.
For an instant, nothing seemed to happen.
Shing!
A whisper of steel sliding free.
Whud! BOOM!
A tree in the far distance came crashing down, presenting a cross-section so smooth it might as well have been sliced by something impossibly fine. The falling tree had nearly drowned it out, but he was fairly sure he'd heard the sound of the cut itself—a sound that came after the tree was already toppling.
Sian's reaction to the sight was simple.
…What do I even do now?
Tiana was reproducing the Grateful Fist Punches from his previous life—as a sword-drawing technique. He'd never dreamed this was actually possible. All he could manage was a stream of dumbfounded admiration: so a human body really could exceed the speed of sound.
Well, it is a fantasy world, I suppose.
You had to be able to pull off at least that much to earn the title of S-rank, those so-called superhumans. Once again, he was reminded of just how much of a den of monsters this fantasy world truly was.
"It is still crude in many ways… but somehow, I managed to do as you instructed. Thank you truly."
What did I say again…?
No, seriously—he genuinely couldn't remember. All he'd told her was, If something clicks, come back and see me then. He'd said it fully expecting that once she calmed down and realized she'd been duped, they'd have a nice slow conversation about it. Apparently, she had interpreted it rather… differently.
And what was that about "crude"?
He hadn't even seen her draw the sword, so he had no way of knowing what could possibly be crude about it. If she refined this further, what kind of bizarre, reality-breaking technique would be born?
Then a thought struck him.
…Maybe I can just tell her the truth now?
Whatever had happened, Tiana seemed satisfied with the results she'd achieved on her own. If he confessed now, the odds looked pretty good that she'd just laugh it off—something like, Oh, is that so? No wonder it felt a little weak… haha.
He was about to come clean when—
"Oh, but Teacher—is this yours, by any chance?"
Her next words drew his eyes to her hand.
"That's…"
What she held was a small knife. Smaller even than a dagger—it was the herb-cutting knife Sian used to use. He'd lost it once while wandering the forest, long ago.
"Huh? Where was this?"
"It was lying there on the ground."
"Impressive that you found it."
Never in a hundred years would he have expected anyone to find that little knife.
"And that thing in the forest—that was your doing too, wasn't it, Teacher?"
"The forest…?"
Thrown by the non sequitur, Sian tilted his head. What was she talking about now? He racked his brain, trying to remember whether he'd done anything lately.
Then something flickered through his mind.
Does she mean the cabin I built by the lake?
There was a lake in the forest, and the view there was lovely, so he'd built a little cabin to use like a vacation home. He'd put real care into it, and Elina, who came to the village once in a while, sometimes asked if she could use it too. That was probably what she meant.
…It has to be, right?
It was such an abrupt topic change that he wasn't certain, but if she meant something in the forest, nothing else came to mind. His herb knife must have turned up at the cabin, then.
While Sian was busy rationalizing, Tiana was looking at him with an oddly satisfied expression.
I knew it. The reason this village is so peaceful—it was all thanks to Teacher.
Having felled the Death Knight, she had sensed that something about this forest was strange. Despite the presence of a Death Knight that powerful, the forest radiated such tranquility that she hadn't felt even a whisper of warning beforehand. Intrigued, she had investigated—and her findings confirmed it.
The forest itself is wrapped in an otherworldly barrier.
She had discovered a barrier of such high order that even she had nearly missed it. It was what made this forest appear perfectly ordinary. And hidden deep within it, concealed with deliberate subtlety—a dungeon.
That place must be…
It was a story so old that few knew it now, but she had read of it in texts she'd come across during her adventuring days. Among the Calamities that once drove humanity to the brink of extinction, the strongest of all—the being called the Demon King—had been born in a dungeon of legend.
Pandemonium
The dungeon she had discovered was none other than that place.
The texts never gave its exact location. To think it was beneath this village all along.
But for whatever reason, a portion of Pandemonium's seal had come loose. Left alone, ever more powerful monsters would be born from it—and among them, perhaps a new Demon King itself. So she had entered the dungeon to see for herself.
Everything was already dead.
She had been met with a mountain of corpses—monsters that could only be classified as Calamities or S-rank. Compared to those, the Death Knight she had slain was nothing more than a straggler crawling out of the wreckage too late.
Teacher took care of all of them.
When she'd first laid eyes on that scene, even she hadn't been able to believe it. These were no ordinary monsters—the notion that a single person had exterminated so many Calamities defied all reason. But every trace told the same story: the work of one man.
Most of them died cleanly, in a single strike.
And there, before Pandemonium's gate, she had found the herb knife. When Sian claimed it as his own, her suspicion hardened into certainty.
And so, with all the pieces in place, Tiana arrived at a single conclusion.
Teacher isn't merely retired.
The man standing before her was, from this village, holding back the birth of a new Demon King. If he did not exist, the world would by now be drowning in Calamities. It was no exaggeration to say that the peace of this world rested on his shoulders alone.
This was work that should have been undertaken at the national level—yet he guarded the world in silence. Why? Surely so that no needless sacrifice would be demanded. Even if a nation took charge, sealing this place would cost countless lives.
Gazing at Sian, Tiana thought: this must be what the legends spoke of—not merely a hero, but the Hero, chosen by the gods themselves.
She felt infinitely small by comparison. And at the same time, she dimly understood what she had to do.
Teacher must have faced Calamities back when he was active as an adventurer, too.
But with Pandemonium discovered here, he could not go elsewhere—he had to hold this single point. And amid all that, he had entrusted the spread of Calamities out in the world to Elina, passing along the work he himself once carried.
Then…
As his disciple, as her senior's junior—shouldn't she shoulder a share of that burden as well? As it happened, the very target of her revenge was a Calamity. It could not have fit better.
With that resolve, Tiana sank to one knee before Sian, the way a knight swears fealty to his king.
Naturally—
What is she even saying…?
Sian understood absolutely nothing of what she'd just said. Contributing to his cause? Out of nowhere? Her head hadn't merely overheated past the point of rational thought—she seemed to have transcended into some fourth dimension entirely.
Looking at her, Sian made up his mind.
Ah, forget it.
He gave up on explaining. She was so thoroughly convinced that nothing he said would get through anyway, and wasn't she leaving soon? Better to count his blessings: at least she wasn't misunderstanding him in a bad way.
And one more thing—
I need to warn Elina not to spout any weird nonsense around people the next time she visits.
Determined to prevent incidents like this from ever happening again, Sian resolved to have a very serious word with his first disciple.