The Knight Who Refused to Fade
The beach was littered with the plunder the pirates had looted from the village, wooden crates of tribute stacked high enough to form a hill, a wall. The treasure within them glittered in the sun.
“Good! Very good!”
Pirate Captain Gale let out a bellowing laugh as he lifted a fistful of jewels from a crate. “Wealthy territories really do bring in finer tribute! Bwahahahaha!”
“C-Captain!”
Gale turned. A pirate with a hideous bruise swelling around one eye came stumbling toward him, out of breath.
“We need reinforcements! The town is mounting a full counterattack—!”
“What?”
Gale scowled. The naval forces should have been crippled by now. “The remnants of Blue Harbor's navy?”
“N-No, sir.”
The pirate was sweating buckets. “Just the townsfolk! The flower shop owner, some tourists, a chef...”
“...Have you lost your mind, man?”
Just then, with a sharp clonk!, the reporting pirate's eyes rolled back and he crumpled to the sand. Behind him stood a man dressed, quite genuinely, in a chef's uniform, grinning as he hefted a frying pan.
“Waaagh!”
“Hurgk!”
Beyond the wall of stacked crates, pirates could be seen flying through the air, one after another.
Gale shot to his feet. “What is going on!”
Crash!
The piled crates toppled as airborne pirates slammed into them, and beyond the collapsing timber, the villagers came striding forward with unmistakable swagger.
And they really were the flower shop owner, the chef, the tourists.
Unbelievable. So that report was true?
He watched a woman in a swimsuit seize a pirate by the collar, hoist him clean off the ground, and start slapping him across the face.
Smack! Smack! With every blow, teeth sprayed from the pirate's mouth like scattered buckshot.
I see.
Gale's expression hardened. Every last one of them was wearing something like armor made of bone.
This was a necromancer's doing. The only proper necromancer on Blue Harbor was Finch—which meant—
“There you are. Boy in the black uniform.”
Behind the line of townsfolk stood a boy in black, sweat dripping from his face. Gale clicked his tongue and stroked his long mustache.
“Kizen was supposed to handle things on their end, and this is what we get—a mere scratch. I knew it was a mistake to join hands with that lot!”
“Oh?” Simon smirked crookedly. “So there was an inside man.”
“Heh heh heh! Think whatever you like!”
By now the villagers had Gale surrounded. Every one of them had gained their life's power from Simon's Bone Armour, and their confidence was at an all-time high.
Even so, Gale stood his ground with perfect composure, idly twisting his mustache.
“Charge him, all at once!”
The armored villagers rushed in as one. In that instant, Gale's eyes flashed and his muscles swelled.
Simon shrieked in alarm. “Wait—!”
KWAAAAAAANG!
A colossal shockwave tore through the beach, and all ten villagers who had been charging were blasted into the air at once. A few who had taken the brunt of it head-on had their Bone Armour stripped clean off, knocking them unconscious.
“Hup!”
The chef darted nimbly in from behind and brought his frying pan down on the back of Gale's head—but Gale blocked it with a raised arm without even turning around.
Bang! The frying pan shattered against his bare hand.
“A m-monster...!”
“Out of the way, mister!”
The girl in the swimsuit dove into Gale's flank, palm snapping open.
CRACKAAACK!
Gale's head whipped violently to the side. The impact rang out like thunder, wind burst outward, and sand swirled up around them.
Her slaps carried enough force to rip the teeth clean out of pirates' skulls with every single blow. And yet—
“Cute.”
With nothing but a red handprint on his cheek, Gale grinned and leaned his face in close to hers. “Is this what they call an industry bonus these days?”
“Ah...!”
She stumbled backward in panic.
Gale's hand closed on the hilt at his waist. Mana exploded outward as he drew the blade, and the girl squeezed her eyes shut, throwing both arms over her head.
BOOOOOM!
The tremendous pressure kicked up whirlwinds across the whole stretch of sand. Crouched where she stood, trembling, the girl opened her eyes.
“Ah!”
Before her stood Simon, one leg extended in a perfect line. He had kicked Gale's sword arm upward from below, deflecting the blow.
His leg was shaking.
“No wonder I couldn't sense any Jet-Black.”
Simon smiled, sweat streaming down his face, his gaze fixed on the mana rippling along Gale's blade. “An Aura user. You're the first I've ever met.”
“Hahaha! You should have come out yourself from the start!”
Simon withdrew his leg and fell back. “Everyone, stand down. This is an enemy we can't fight without a Core.”
“Hold on! I can still fight—!”
Simon swept his arm, and every scrap of Bone Armour he had given the townsfolk dissolved at once.
Startled out of their wits, they finally retreated to a safe distance.
“You know,” Gale said, rolling his neck like a man stretching before a workout, “I really hate necromancers.”
“...”
“Truth be told, I was planning to kill him too, once this business was over.”
He was clearly talking about the inside man. Which meant the odds had just gone up that the traitor was a necromancer as well.
Simon could roughly piece together how things were flowing. But wanting to draw out more concrete information, he let the conversation run on naturally.
“Someone still using Aura in this day and age. How quaint.”
“Quaint?”
Gale swirled his blade in a slow arc. “That's precisely what's wrong with you necromancers. You divide the world into mainstream and fringe without proving a single thing. Just because we're different from you, you sneer at Aura and Pure Magic as relics of a bygone era.”
“I've never sneered at anyone.”
“Maybe not. But when people look at my Aura with those eyes—like they're watching a curious monkey at the zoo—that alone is enough to turn my stomach.”
Gale adjusted his grip, then brought the sword up to his chest in a formal, disciplined salute. Then he hammered his right foot into the sandy floor and came charging.
Gauntlet Mode!
Simon yanked his right arm back. The moment the bones clattered over his fist, he thrust out his punch.
TUKWAAAAAAANG!
The sand of the beach erupted skyward in fountains all around the two of them.
KAGAK!
Simon's Jet-Black-wreathed gauntlet and the Aura-resonating blade ground against each other in a shower of sparks, neither giving ground.
“Grrgh! That form—!”
Simon forced the blade back with a strained voice. “Raising the sword to your chest before the charge! That's the salute of the Baldwin Kingdom Knight Order, isn't it!”
“Oho! So you recognize it!”
CLANG!
Gale poured in his strength and flung the gauntlet away. But he didn't press the attack immediately—he seemed fairly satisfied with Simon's quick eye.
“I'll hide nothing from you! The house I was born into had been knights for generations!”
...A knight? A pirate?
In a world where necromancers reigned supreme, the knightly houses had withered away without end.
It was simply the current of the times—but young Gale had refused to accept it.
He honed the sword and the Aura handed down through his family line, and at last he passed the trials and won a place in a great territory's knight order. And yet.
“Of the two hundred seats in that order, one hundred ninety-eight were held by necromancers with open Cores.”
A bitter smile played at the corners of Gale's mouth as he said it.
The irony was exquisite: Gale, a man of the orthodox tradition, was the one treated as an obsolete relic within the order and shunned by his comrades.
He was never given a fair chance to prove his skill. He was even excluded from the grand ceremonial reviews—on the grounds that he couldn't turn his blade black.
He couldn't bear to stand by and watch thugs with neither chivalry nor a trained body spout nonsense about practicality and modern efficiency.
Rotted through with disillusionment, Gale finally left the order and set out for the sea—and that was how he came to be captain of three great pirate ships.
S-so this is occupational crime...
Hearing the whole story left Simon with an indescribably complicated feeling.
“A student of Kizen, the pinnacle of necromancy.”
Gale hoisted his sword high above his head. Bluish mana rippled along the blade like waves. “Killing you is going to be fun!”
Then he swung the blade down in one great, straight arc.
KWAKWAKWAKWA!
The slash tore across the beach, splitting the sands in two. Simon backstepped clear, and the people around him scrambled away screaming.
“Plenty of necromancers have come at me calling it pirate-hunting! And every last one of them lost their head to my blade!”
Gale roared with laughter. “You'll be no different! Kizen!”
He closed the distance in a flash and swung the Aura-blooming sword. Wherever it passed, columns of sand geysered up again and again.
Simon slipped the third strike sideways, arched his waist back, and drove out a fist. Crack! Gale's face contorted—but even as the blow landed, he grinned and swung his sword.
Urgh!
The blade grazed across Simon's chest. His Kizen uniform crackled—the protective enchantment woven inside it had activated.
“Again! Another dirty trick!”
Gale smirked. “Only a body forged through pure discipline determines a warrior's strength! You cannot win a duel with parlor tricks alone!”
Simon dropped his stance low to slip beneath the swinging blade, planted a hand on the ground, and drove his right heel up into Gale's chin.
Crack! Gale's head snapped back—but the sword never stopped moving.
Not even a stagger?!
Simon kicked off the Jet-Black beneath his feet, tumbled away, and put distance between them. Gale wiped the blood trickling from his lip and bared his teeth in a grin.
“A body that will not break, and an iron will! A warrior needs nothing else—no other cheap tricks!”
“Oh, I'll grant you, your story hits a little close to home.”
Simon let out a long breath and extended his right arm. “But that doesn't make your crimes disappear.”
SHAAAAAAAH!
Behind the outstretched arm, a mountain of sand rose up into a colossal monster.
He had secretly buried the Golem Core in the beach beforehand and been feeding it Jet-Black in sips the whole time, building a Mud Golem.
Though on a beach like this, Sand Golem was probably the more accurate name.
KRRK-GRIK!
A limb of sand that could barely be called an arm rose up and came crashing down on Gale. For the second time, Gale took the hit head-on, refusing to dodge.
But the fine sand of the beach, unlike ordinary soil, refused to clump—it scattered the instant it touched his body. Sand poured into his eyes, his nose, his mouth.
“Ptui! Kh! Useless garbage!”
And in the moment Gale's vision was blotted out, Simon came rushing in like a flash of light, seized the back of Gale's head with his armored gauntlet—and leapt.
That way!
Among the plundered goods was a very sturdy iron safe. Simon drove Gale's head straight down into it.
KGWANG!!!
With a deafening roar, the safe caved in. An ordinary person would have had their skull shattered—instant death at minimum—but Simon knew exactly how much punishment Gale's body could take.
Not done yet!
Simon retreated, tearing open his subspace. The potions he'd brewed in Toxicology class came pouring out in a cascade, splashing over Gale's face and body, while Simon blasted the bones scattered across the beach outward.
Disperse!
The bones swarmed to life and shattered every potion clinging to Gale's body. From head to toe, he was drenched in paralysis potions, poison potions, and worse.
“A knight...!”
Gale pushed himself upright, his legs trembling. “NEVER FALLS!”
“Yes, it certainly looks that way.”
“You necromancer filth! Resorting to poison like gutless cowards! Have you no shame!”
Gale bellowed and charged.
FWOOOONG!
His blade swept in head-on. Simon evaded with nothing more than a light twist of his waist.
FWOONG!
A diagonal slash this time. Simon tilted his head aside to dodge it, then snapped a counterpunch into his face with a sharp crack! before retreating.
“Grrgh!”
FWAAAAAANG!
The next horizontal slash he evaded by falling back, catching the hem of Gale's coat and yanking it forward as he drove his elbow into his face. Teeth spilled from Gale's mouth along with the blood.
“Kugh! Hrk!”
He swayed on his feet, hand pressed to his forehead. The poison blurred his vision into a spinning haze; he could barely stand.
“You little bastard! What did you do to me!”
Fighting a poison-drunk Gale was child's play.
Simon slipped past a desperate, sloppy swing and twisted his whole body into the turn—hips coiling, heel lifting.
CRRAAAAAK!
The spinning heel kick, picture-perfect, detonated squarely against Gale's face.
It sounded like the shell of a hard fruit cracking open, and blood sprayed in every direction.
“For what it's worth, I agree with you.”
Gale's body sailed through the air, skidded several meters, and rolled to a stop in the sand.
Simon walked over to him, unhurried.
“Chivalry, Aura, swordsmanship—none of it is an outdated relic as far as I'm concerned. Except.”
Looking down at Gale, who no longer moved, Simon brushed the sand from his palms.
You are the relic.