Master of Brawling
Master of Brawling
"I wish to help you find a peaceful death."
Aslan's voice cut through the thick, silent darkness. Itar fixed his sunken eyes on him.
The words should have struck him as strange, yet Itar only stared at Aslan without a word.
It was because of the plan Aslan had laid out before he spoke those words.
Aslan's plan had no complicated angles.
If anything, it was brutally simple.
Nothing more than protecting Itar from the approaching threat so that he could die in peace.
But the content made the plan sound bizarre.
Even more so when you considered that protection normally meant keeping someone alive, guiding them toward survival.
The reason behind that unconventional plan was the Warrior Monks.
Priests who could offer a severed human head to their god at any time.
Simply guarding Itar would not bring about a good outcome.
And so Aslan's plan had taken shape.
To ensure Itar died for certain.
To prevent Itar's soul from falling into the hands of the War God.
To burn Itar's body so the Warrior Monks could not take it.
To send him off, body and soul, whole.
Even as an uncomfortable silence stretched between them, Aslan could read Itar's emotions. He could see the man straining to grasp what this meant.
While the rest of the party seemed not to understand — or understood but doubted whether this was truly Aslan's intent — Itar slowly turned his gaze to Richard.
There was no malice in that look.
Nothing but a dull pity lingered there.
The entire plan rested on Richard's consent.
Richard's painful consent.
Then Itar's gaze shifted to Aslan, who set down the arrow shaft he had been working on beside the dying campfire and spoke.
"How much longer can you endure?"
Itar said nothing at first. Then, expressionless, without a trace of discomfort or hesitation, he opened his mouth.
"Not much longer."
He spoke of his own death with composure. There was not even the air of approaching death about him.
Like a fire that burns brightest just before it goes out, Itar looked healthy.
At least on the surface.
"Do you have any lingering attachments? Regrets?"
Aslan asked, and Itar gave a short shake of his head. A trace of bitterness edged into his voice.
"For one who serves Sorrow and Death, such things..."
"No."
Aslan's stubbornness cut through Itar's bitterness.
"You are human, too. People regret. People have attachments. You will have them as well."
At that, Itar lowered his sunken eyes. His gaze swept the ground, and soon remorse crept in. Regret stretched long in the shadow thrown by the campfire.
With the deep shadow before him and the party silently pressing, Itar eventually closed his eyes and shook his head again.
"No, after all... I have no regrets left. Only vague memories I cannot speak aloud, and stories I have no one to tell. But..."
He let the words drift off, and his gaze settled on Richard.
"I do regret that I could not guide Richard more fully."
No regrets, but a ruefulness remained. At Itar's benevolent smile, Richard hung his head, face dark with gloom.
As silence settled again, Aslan glanced at Tiyamal, who sat close to the fire.
Tiyamal sniffed the air and spoke.
"Not sure if you are aware, but the one called the Executioner is on his way. Twenty total, including him. They all look to be Warrior Monks."
The number was excessive even for Warrior Monks. Ereta, well acquainted with the fighting strength of priests, let out a low hum. Tiyamal glanced at her and nodded.
"If we do nothing, make no preparations... they will be here within two days without fail."
"And if they reach us and seize Lord Itar, his body and soul will certainly be offered to the War God."
Aslan took up where Tiyamal had begun, and Itar rubbed one hand over the other in silence.
The calluses embedded there, the years piled up within those fists.
"If that happens, Lord Itar's techniques will become convenient tools for the Warrior Monks, used to kill people. So I will ask you. What was your plan?"
There was no accusation in his tone, but Itar felt the question like an accusation.
Even if it was, there was no helping it. Itar smiled, his expression dark.
Itar had no plan.
But that lack of a plan was not because he thought it was fine, or because he could not be bothered. He had simply had no other choice.
If he ran, people would die. If he called soldiers, people would die. If he fought, he would die, and if he hid, he would die.
If he simply died, his techniques would be defiled, and his body and soul would find no rest.
There was no way out.
Itar thought of that, then spoke to Aslan.
"I do not wish for you to die here. Even if you do not die, you will surely be injured. If you are injured like that... I could not bear it."
The dying old man said this.
For one who believed in Sorrow and Death, the sight of the living sacrificing themselves for one already dying — for the meager comfort of a proper death — was unbearable.
"I do not wish for the living to be sacrificed for an old man at death's door, for the sake of a comfort such as my proper death. So my proposal remains the same. Take Richard and leave. That is..."
"Is that the best option?"
But Aslan was no follower of Death and Sorrow.
At his question, which felt almost like something the War God might ask, Itar remained silent without a hint of displeasure. Aslan broke that silence and answered himself.
"No, it will not be. That is clearly... the lesser evil at best."
"It is not the worst."
"Then what is the worst? In this situation, what constitutes the worst outcome?"
Itar hesitated, then answered.
"This old body dying, and all of you who tried to protect its wretched life dying with me. That is... the worst I can see."
The will to protect thwarted, Itar's body and soul stolen, and further, Aslan — who carries a more noble purpose — brought to his knees. That was the worst outcome Itar envisioned.
The lesser evil sat right on the border of that.
Too close to dismiss with a 'maybe.'
Aslan recognized this and slowly opened his mouth to speak. The voice that came out carried a story that did not exist in Geladrion.
"...A long time ago, there was a man like that. A hero of uncompromising principle who said that if he had to choose between a greater evil and a lesser evil, he would choose neither."
When the party's attention focused on him at this unfamiliar story, Aslan took a single Stymphalian feather and laid it against an arrow shaft.
"I am not that resolute, nor that wise. I am the sort of man who, if he can achieve a better outcome by struggling with the lesser evil, will choose the lesser evil."
At the same time, that is my limit. Having finished fletching an arrow with a Stymphalian feather, Aslan drove the arrow into the ground and quietly looked at Itar.
"I have no room for surrender, no room for compromise, no ground to retreat to. I will struggle to the limits of my ability for the lesser evil I have chosen."
Even if it brings suffering. As he added this, Aslan gathered the arrows stuck in the ground and held them in his hand. Every arrow in the bundle was tipped with a blade resembling a feather.
"The lesser evil I have chosen this time is to see you die so that your soul may depart to the land of Sorrow and Death, and to see your body burn to ashes. To ensure that no one can defile your death."
The words did not sound like a lesser evil. They did not sound like evil at all. Itar gaped for a moment, then managed to speak.
"It will be hard. The Executioner is... a powerful Warrior Monk. You could die. You will certainly be wounded. It will be a difficult task."
"I know. It will be difficult."
"Why go that far...?"
"Because difficult is not the same as impossible."
Aslan's quiet voice drifted around the campfire, and Itar's pupils trembled faintly.
There was no room for falsehood in those few words. There was no intent to persuade. It was simply a quiet, murmured truth.
That shook Itar.
"A difficult task is a horizon you can reach if you keep struggling endlessly and keep your eyes fixed ahead. I think that if I keep overcoming difficulties... I will eventually be able to reach the impossible."
And I am a person who must achieve the impossible. Behind the voice, a gentle smile rose on Aslan's face.
"I will say again what I said inside that hut."
With that gentle smile, Aslan whispered.
I will kill every Evil God.
I will change the world.
I will save people.
At the end, Aslan added,
"You are no exception. I have decided to hesitate no longer before my goal. I decided not to stand idly by and watch the misfortune unfolding before my eyes. Striving to stop that misfortune."
That is my lesser evil.
At those words, Itar lowered his head and laughed, a sound empty of anything but exhaustion.
"You are making a sinner of me."
"The God of Law and Order is absent, so you need not worry about punishment."
A man offering comfort with a gentle smile and a jest. Itar stared at that man for a long while, then let out a sigh and closed his eyes.
There was resignation in that sigh. The resignation of an old man who realized he could not persuade Aslan.
*
The Seyni Forest was a place of peaceful vegetation.
Monsters were rare, wild animals plentiful. The nearby river made the flora rich. A defining feature of the Seyni Forest was that not a single dangerous creature inhabited it.
The worst threat was the occasional bandit wandering down from the Bandit Forest.
The beings now walking through this forest were anything but ordinary — utterly alien to its usual character.
They moved like a disciplined military unit.
Every step they took sent wild animals fleeing in panic or collapsing in terror.
Without hesitation, they crushed the flesh and bones of those animals underfoot and pressed forward.
The figure at the vanguard was unmistakably violent.
A massive body to match her three-meter height. Her thick arms and legs, swollen with muscle, bore tiger stripes.
Feminine curves were still discernible among those stripes, but her hulking physique made them barely perceptible.
Beyond those curves and that bulk, she carried two executioner's swords on her back, and at her waist hung a strange lump of iron — it was hard to tell if it was a blade or a club.
Her name was the Executioner.
A Warrior Monk, and a woman who had once been a Master.
She was headed now for Itar's dwelling, which she had finally tracked down.
She felt no fear. No sense of danger.
But neither did she let her guard down.
She had once been a Master, and not long ago she had clashed with Itar. She had won through trickery, but she stayed vigilant.
Find him for certain, kill Itar, and offer him up. Nothing more.
The woman quickened her momentarily halted pace, and the Warrior Monks filled in behind her.
The forest that should have been silent filled with the sound of tramping feet.
The woman stopped abruptly a short while later, just as she passed a certain tree.
She halted and looked at the long line strung between that tree and the next. A thin line, hard to see — it appeared to be some kind of tendon.
An unmistakable sign of a trap.
'Itar... you have grown cunning.'
The woman clicked her lower jaw in satisfaction. It meant that prideful Itar feared the Executioner enough to resort to traps.
Chattering her jaw, the woman's eyes gleamed.
'How long can you last this time... I am looking forward to it.'
Make it enjoyable. Murmuring this, the woman stepped over the trap and advanced. To find Itar and kill him.
The moment she set her foot down past the trap.
—CRACK-BOOM!
A shattering report rang out from far away, the sound of something powerful tearing through the air. Two silhouettes appeared in her field of vision.
Arrows.
The length of short spears, like projectiles fired from siege weaponry — a colossal arrow and a black arrow tipped with a peculiar feather-shaped head.
The great arrow hurtled forward at a fierce speed that seemed to warp the space around it. The woman swiftly drew one executioner's sword from her back.
And swung.
Drawn and swung in a single motion, the executioner's sword united overwhelming strength, perfect stance, and high-level skill to precisely strike the arrowhead.
KWAAAAANG!
The arrow split with a detonation. Twisted metal scattered, and the shaft disintegrated into wooden splinters that showered her body.
An ordinary human might have been wounded, but the Executioner's hard chitinous hide would not be pierced by such things.
They scattered with a sound like raindrops drumming steel. The woman raised her sword toward the second arrow that followed — somewhat slower.
Slow. Weak. The force behind it was unimpressive. An arrow that had exhausted its momentum just reaching her.
But she did not let her guard down. She would block it with her sword and neutralize it.
She calculated this, and in the instant the arrow gliding through the air struck the executioner's sword — the arrow punched straight through the blade.
Rather, it passed through as if the sword were not even there, at a distance she could not react to. She twisted the blade in a split second, but it was already too late.
The dagger that had been fixed in the arrow shaft drove precisely into the woman's eye.
CRUNCH!
Blood slicked the ground with the sound of tearing flesh. The woman staggered, blood streaming from her eye, and yanked the dagger out with her hand.
KRRAACK!
She gripped it with her thumb and forefinger and pulled, then crushed the twisted metal in her grip. As the dagger fell to the ground in fragments, the woman's face contorted violently.
"Not... Itar."
As if in answer, the next arrow came streaking toward her.