Everyone Fears Me, Regardless of Status
No matter their station, everyone feared me.
I studied the man connected to the barrier through his mana, taking careful measure of him. Formal dress, glittering with decorations across his chest and shoulders. Of all the humans I had ever seen, he was the strongest. His aura was like a single, unsheathed blade — this was no ordinary man.
The Swordmaster who guarded the imperial house. Duke Hailon, the Sword Saint of the continent. A single figure crystallized in my mind, for the description I remembered from the books matched this man's face exactly.
So a Swordmaster is the one standing in my way.
The moment I realized who he was, my spirits lifted. This was, in effect, a contest of strength fought entirely through mana. He was pushing me back with his defensive barrier, while I pushed against the barrier, trying to force my way into the audience hall. If I wanted to pass through this place, I had to overpower the Swordmaster by sheer force.
But this contest was not a fair one — it had been overwhelmingly in my favor from the very start.
Back in the Draikna royal palace, I had spent a full ten years lying in bed. Throughout all that time, I had been taming the mana of the Dragon Heart. If I failed to contain the immense power slumbering within it, the mana could rage out of control at any moment and burst my heart apart. My survival had depended on mastering that control, and I remembered passing through more than two hundred moments of sheer desperation along the way. Wielding the Dragon Heart's mana was that grueling.
But now that I had succeeded, no one alive could match me in mana control. And this man thought he could push me back with nothing but formless mana? The Swordmaster's challenge was almost laughable.
Fsssht.
I reached out and toyed with the mana of the barrier holding me back. The shape of it revealed itself to me — where the power originated, and how it flowed. I found the thread of mana linking the barrier to the Swordmaster, seized it, and pulled hard.
"Hup—!"
The Swordmaster, standing atop the dais beside the Emperor, was yanked abruptly downward. Thud, tatatat, thud. He scrambled, slapping his feet against the floor to recover his balance.
I had lost interest in breaking through the barrier entirely. I was simply toying with the Swordmaster, the man whose mana was tethered to mine through it. Can you hold your ground? I gave the thread a sharp yank, testing in reverse whether he could withstand my strength.
"Ughk!"
The man I had dragged down from the dais stopped panicking, rallied his power, and pushed back against my pull. How interesting. A human actually contesting me in a trial of raw mana — I come to the imperial palace and stumble into unexpected entertainment. I had no idea what his intentions were, but he had thrown a rather disagreeable prank my way. Not that I minded. I welcome any prank played on me.
I drew out the mana pooling within my body, seized hold of the Swordmaster's hands, and reeled him in — a feat of telekinetic artistry. Like it or not, he would be playing tug-of-war with me from now on.
"Urk—!"
The Swordmaster kept channeling his strength into the barrier, trying to push me back. But I stopped pushing altogether and instead began hauling in the mana, slow and steady. I didn't want this game to end yet — I wanted him to hold out longer.
Crrrack, krrk, krrk.
The sound of mana tearing filled the air between us. The formless power had grown so concentrated, the invisible line stretched so taut, that it became visible to the naked eye and rang out loud enough to hear. Shockwaves rippled outward where the two forces collided, and space itself began to shimmer — and still I kept pulling the Swordmaster toward me.
Thud, dadadak.
Like a man losing a tug-of-war, he was dragged forward one step at a time. However hard he strained, however desperately he struggled, he could not beat my mana control. In both raw power and technique, I held the advantage.
"This is...!"
After savoring the embarrassment spreading across the Swordmaster's face, I let up on the line for a moment. At this rate, the contest would end far too quickly. I was enjoying myself — I had to keep it going rather than finish it right away. When the pulling slackened, color briefly returned to the Swordmaster's face. He tested his weight against the line once more, then realized nothing had changed at all. Like an angler playing a fish on the hook, I reeled him in and released him, coaxing the line with practiced ease.
Shing.
Judging that this could not go on, he squared his stance and drew his sword — then severed the thread of mana connecting us. At some point the distance between us had shrunk to five meters. A moment later, and he would have been hooked completely.
“...”
A shattered defensive barrier. A Swordmaster with his blade raised. And myself, standing inside the audience hall. I addressed Duke Hailon directly.
"Next time, will you come out and play with me using your sword?"
His blade still humming with aura, the man flinched at my question, astonishment written across his face. He could never have intended to actually fight me. And yet the way he stood — sword leveled in my direction — looked precisely like a man aiming his blade at me.
"Duke Hailon. Why so silent?"
I asked the man again, but he had frozen solid. Strike me, why don't you? It would make me happy. He clearly had skill — a duel between us might actually count as one. Just like our tug-of-war through the mana, moments ago.
Sring.
Only then did he withdraw the aura from his blade and slide it back into its sheath.
"I beg your pardon for the discourtesy, Prince of Drakena."
He had pushed an invited guest back with a defensive barrier, then drawn his sword against him — he could hardly bear to meet my eyes. He bowed his head first and offered his apology.
"Tell me — do you not fear me?"
I put that question to him before anything else. I had dared to hope, from the one man capable of such rudeness toward me. Perhaps a true Swordmaster did not find me frightening? Perhaps he could hold an ordinary conversation with me?
"F-fear you? N-no, not at all."
"Truly?"
"...No. The truth is, I am terrified."
Lying in front of me was not tolerated. When I tilted my head and stared at him, Duke Hailon hurriedly retracted his earlier words.
"A pity. Still, what you did to me just now was rather delightful. Next time, prepare an even more entertaining game for me."
I smiled with genuine delight — and in answer to that joy, uncontrolled mana burst from my body in an instant, writhing through the air around us. Duke Hailon glimpsed the monstrous power unfurling from me and flinched hard.
No answer, hmm. I stared at the man who had gone speechless at my request for a more fun game. Push too hard, and he might genuinely refuse to play with me ever again — so I left the conversation there and walked on.
The Emperor sat waiting on his throne. Watching me pass him by, Duke Hailon seemed about to move, but couldn't easily pick his feet up off the floor. His position was an awkward one. He was no longer up on the dais with the Emperor, yet not entering the audience hall the way I was. Frozen half-crouched in the middle of the red carpet, he retreated awkwardly to the side as I approached.
Merely meeting my gaze without fainting, refusing to kneel before me, holding a conversation and keeping his wits intact — for that alone, I rated the man highly. The Empire's great Swordmaster. I hoped he would come at me again someday.
Having finished my business with Duke Hailon, I took my place at the foot of the dais, directly before the Emperor, looking up at him. The towering platform stood between us. I made no effort at courtesy as I met his gaze. Instead, I delivered a single message.
"Come down."
The Emperor was in no position to look down on me. Sitting in his high chair upon the dais, he was avoiding my eyes entirely. If you fear me, you do not presume to look down upon me.
"Come down, Emperor. Or I shall come up."
I was not being gratuitously rude. If he wished to hold a conversation with me, he could not do it from a seat like that. The list of people weaker than me who were permitted to look down on me was very short — my father, and my father alone. He was the Dragonian who had raised me, the king of the kingdom to which I belonged. He was the one man to whom I owed proper courtesy, and the only one with any right whatsoever to look down on me.
The Emperor was not. He was not the king of Draikna, and he was not stronger than I was. Judging by the strength he possessed, he would likely want nothing more than to fall to his knees before me right this instant. Because he was afraid. That, in the end, was how people naturally treated me. I was simply giving him the chance to find some peace of mind.
"Heh heh. C-come down? W-what nonsense is this?"
"If you wish to speak with me, coming down would be the better choice. From up there, it's uncomfortable — you can't even look at me."
“...”
"Do not attempt to assert your authority in front of me. You are not my king, and it was you who invited me here claiming you wanted a conversation. I intended to show you basic courtesy for the sake of your years — you are my father's age, after all. But you opened with a prank like some mischievous child, so I shall dispense with any unnecessary politeness as well."
He was not seated in a position above me, and it was his side that had thrown courtesy and protocol out the window first. Who had hung a defensive barrier across the doors of the audience hall on his own initiative, if not Duke Hailon? And who had skipped the greetings and tested my abilities by assailing me with formless mana, if not the Emperor himself?
“...”
The Emperor hesitated, rose from his throne, and descended the dais. It might have looked like a humiliating moment, but it was nothing of the sort. Emperor and commoner alike were the same before me. No matter their station, everyone feared me. Kneeling before me was, if anything, the perfectly natural thing for him to do.
Still, out of a residual sense of dignity, he neither fell to his knees nor bowed his head as he came to stand before me. He possessed at least that much fortitude — enough to endure his fear.
"Now, tell me why you invited me. Don't tell me that little prank on the audience hall doors was the whole reason you called me here."
I gazed down at the Emperor as he stood below the dais and asked. Cracks had already run through his composed, dignified expression. As though he had never once met anyone as frightening as I was, he stared awkwardly down at his own feet.