Rombel's Reason
Sonia regained her confidence after seeing how Elbridge and Rombel reacted.
“Well? Doesn’t it make you want to help me now?”
But Elbridge did not give her the answer she wanted.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Sonia. I asked about your goal. Yet your answer is still missing one. Both yours and your father Viscount Dickens’s.”
Elbridge tapped the floor with his finger.
“The first thing I want to ask is why Viscount Dickens gathered those demon cores.”
Heinz and Walter looked startled. Only now did the two realize that the beads Sonia had mentioned were demon cores.
Sonia gave an awkward little laugh.
“They say men develop a girlish side as they age… Maybe my father simply wanted to collect pretty things?”
“Haha!”
It was a silly joke, yet Rombel laughed. He seemed more animated than usual.
The others, however, did not react to Sonia’s jest. Bishop Heinz’s silence in particular felt almost menacing.
“Miss Sonia. This is not a matter to be brushed off with humor.”
“I know that. But how am I supposed to know what was inside my father’s head? I only learned what those beads really were after I went to the Magic Tower… No, it was long after I entered the tower that I found out.”
Sonia Dickens looked genuinely aggrieved.
In truth, if Sonia had known Viscount Dickens’s thoughts, that would have been the stranger thing. In this world, there are secrets that cannot be shared even with blood relatives.
Still, she had her guesses.
Most who broke demon seals shared similar motives—the vain belief that the demon would grant them power, wealth, or glory.
Viscount Dickens probably had not been so different.
The viscount must have desired the demon’s power. Finding a trustworthy mage capable of handling seals would have been difficult, so he sent his own daughter to study at the Central Magic Tower.
Sonia’s situation fit the pattern too. The only mismatch was that the disaster had erupted before she returned.
Elbridge moved on to the next question.
“All right. Next question. Sonia, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here?”
“What do you think I’m trying to accomplish? My father caused the worst catastrophe in continental history. If I can’t clean up the mess, I’m dead. Isn’t that right, Father?”
The story that had begun as an answer to Elbridge’s question ended as a question directed at Heinz. Sonia’s gaze remained fixed on him.
Heinz wore the robes of the Golden Platter Order. Anyone with decent observation skills could tell he was a high-ranking priest.
Sonia was wary of him because she had roughly guessed his identity. Heinz was someone who could return to his order and, with a few well-chosen words, place her on the pyre.
The power of a major order, and the power of collective punishment.
Opinions differed wildly on whether collective punishment was just.
Yet everyone agreed on one thing: few deterrents were as effective.
Heinz answered her question.
“Yes. Better than standing idle.”
If Sonia stood idle, she would die. And the time she had been given was not long.
In that time, what she had to prove was not her innocence. She had to prove her value and her usefulness.
“You’re planning to enter the lord’s castle, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
Sonia had no choice. That was why she made her demand with both desperation and confidence.
“I don’t want to die on the pyre. And I can be useful to you. Isn’t that reason enough for us to work together?”
The answer came from Rombel.
“Of course. More than enough.”
After the conversation ended, Elbridge stepped outside. Marcus and Rombel followed.
The three of them loosened their bodies a short distance away.
Then Marcus leveled his sword at Elbridge.
“Here I come.”
Elbridge nodded. Marcus charged, swinging his blade.
The sword flashed beneath the faint moonlight.
It was a complete disaster at first. Now it’s become quite respectable.
Half of the improvement came from accumulating holy power and the resulting enhancement of his physical abilities. The other half was pure growth in Marcus’s own skill.
Clack. Clack.
Elbridge advanced, swinging his scabbard to meet the incoming sword. Blade and sheath tangled several times.
Once, Marcus would have struggled to clash swords even twice. Now he handled the basics smoothly and occasionally launched his own attacks, aiming for Elbridge’s openings.
Marcus came to Elbridge nearly every day to learn the sword—during their travels and even while they stayed in Soleneon.
These sparring sessions benefited Elbridge as well.
His swordsmanship was excessively practical, forged in real combat. Marcus was even more extreme. Having never received proper instruction, he had survived on the crude, self-taught style he had scraped together.
Teaching swordsmanship to someone with no foundation forced Elbridge to revisit the basics he had learned long ago.
The fundamentals always bring new realizations. There is a reason they are called the fundamentals.
Marcus feinted a retreat, then twisted his balance to stab at Elbridge’s armpit. Elbridge deflected the thrust lightly with his shield.
“How about learning shield work too? I think you’d take to it quickly.”
“Handling one sword is already too much. Why would I bother with a shield…”
Elbridge closed in, swinging his scabbard again.
Clack.
Marcus’s sword met the scabbard solidly. The next instant, however, he lost his balance and crashed to the ground with a heavy thud.
Marcus looked down. At some point Elbridge’s foot had hooked his leg. His shin throbbed.
“You focus only on what’s in front of you. I’ve told you to always stay aware of what’s happening outside your field of vision.”
“I know, but it’s still hard. Damn it.”
The frustration in his voice was genuine.
Marcus was always like this. He knew he could not beat Elbridge and accepted defeat as natural. But whenever he failed to do what he knew he should, he grew angry with himself.
That was why Elbridge continued to teach him.
If a student stopped improving or lost sincerity, a teacher naturally lost interest. Marcus, however, absorbed every lesson and remained serious in every moment.
“That’s considerable progress.”
“It feels strange to hear that while I’m getting beaten and knocked down every day.”
Elbridge smiled. No one knew better than he did that words offered little comfort in such situations.
“Still, it’s good to see you working so hard.”
“An opportunity has come. I have to seize it.”
Marcus stood and dusted himself off.
“Once you grab an opportunity, you have to hold on tight and stuff it deep in your pocket. That way, someday you’ll have the chance to take it out and use it.”
It was the sort of thing someone who had missed many chances would say.
Fortunately, it meant Marcus had not let this late-blooming opportunity slip away.
“My turn now?”
Rombel stepped forward.
He lifted the massive axe with one hand, bounced lightly in place a couple of times, then suddenly dropped his stance and kicked off the ground.
Thud—
The explosive spring only a dwarf could produce.
Elbridge’s expression grew serious. If the bout with Marcus had been instructional, this match with Rombel was closer to real combat.
Whoosh—
The axe, heavier than an average man, swung in and crashed against Elbridge’s shield.
Clang—
Elbridge lowered his stance, yet his feet still slid back slightly.
He could not treat Rombel lightly. This was a dwarf who had defeated countless demons without relying on divine power. His raw strength and talent surpassed most holy knights.
Scraaaape—
Elbridge pushed back with his shield while speaking.
“You shouldn’t look too favorably on Sonia.”
Sparring time was for sharpening oneself and maintaining one’s edge. It was also the time when two—or three—people could talk freely.
Rombel spun using centrifugal force and swung the axe again.
“Why?”
Elbridge lowered his stance and slipped under the axe. He had clearly dodged it, yet the back of his neck still prickled.
“You don’t belong to any order. It would be troublesome if the Golden Platter Order misunderstood your intentions.”
“I didn’t hug her. That’s distance enough. How many admirable fellows like that exist in the world?”
Shield and axe collided once more. Boom!
“Admirable? You found her attempt to atone for her father’s sins that admirable?”
“That too. But you know what? Truth is, I adore Viscount Dickens. Even though I’ve never seen his face.”
When Elbridge thrust his sword, Rombel leaped backward to evade.
Displaying astonishing agility despite his stocky build was another dwarf trait.
“Viscount Dickens?”
“Yes. If he were here, I’d have planted a kiss on him.”
Elbridge lowered his sword. Rombel set his axe on the ground.
“Elbridge. In the old days I fought for the same reasons you did. I had to fight the demons, and I believed it was right, so I fought. But now it’s different. As you know, my goal is to become a god.”
Rombel sat down heavily beside his axe.
“Do you know what I feared most during the two hundred years you were sealed?”
“Old age?”
Rombel laughed.
“Close. What terrified me most was that time kept flowing while I saw no path to heaven. I’m roughly three hundred years old now. I have about a century of life left. Out of that, maybe thirty or forty years where I can still fight at full strength.”
Elbridge recalled the old Rombel—a young dwarf of just over a hundred years.
Now half the dwarf’s hair had turned white.
“Every single day felt like my head would burst. Then you appeared, saying the great demon’s seal had been broken. At first I was stunned. But when I lay down that night… my heart raced.”
Rombel smiled with genuine happiness. Both Elbridge and Marcus listened quietly.
“I may be the finest blacksmith in the Eastern Magic Tower, but Varkuntol is full of smiths better than me. Many have left masterpieces that will remain in history. The only thing I do better than other dwarves is swing an axe.”
“Hm. You’ve achieved some self-awareness.”
“Naturally. For two hundred years that was all I had to think about.”
Rombel ran a finger lightly along the axe blade.
The enormous blade had been honed razor-sharp. A thin line of blood beaded on Rombel’s finger.
“The only way for me to reach heaven is this axe. Yet I never had the chance to swing it. Both my life and my dream of godhood were slowly melting away in endless waiting. But if Viscount Dickens is the one who broke your seal… then he gave me the opportunity to act, the chance to ascend. How could I possibly hate Dickens or Sonia?”
Only then did Elbridge understand why Rombel had seemed so unusually cheerful in front of Sonia.
To Rombel, Viscount Dickens was a benefactor, and Sonia was that benefactor’s daughter.
“You’ve changed a great deal, Rombel.”
“It was a long time. You of all people know exactly how long.”
Rombel stood and brushed the dirt from his trousers.
“The reason I fight and my goal have both changed from two hundred years ago. The fortunate part is that the direction I’m moving is still roughly the same. Or maybe not exactly the same. It might not be completely identical, but close enough…”
“Close enough” also meant “not the same.”
When travelers with different destinations walk together, it may look like they head the same way at first, but eventually the road must split.
“What happens when our paths diverge?”
“We’ll think about that when the time comes.”
Rombel gave Elbridge’s back a couple of light pats, then left with Marcus.
In the quiet night, Elbridge sank into thought.
…
His senses, sharpened by the sparring, noticed that the Goddess of the Rusty Shield was silently watching over him.
Beneath the night sky, Elbridge offered a solitary, reverent prayer.
“Goddess. Changing day into night is no small task, so please rest now, even if only a little.”
The Goddess of the Rusty Shield gave no answer.
Very quietly, she withdrew her gaze from him, as though she had returned to her bed long ago.