Master of the Sword
Master of the Sword
Randy Gorge didn't have many villages. The one the bandits were holed up in was one of the few—now reduced to complete ruin by the bloodworm infestation.
It looked the part from the outside, desolate and crumbling, with barely a single intact building left standing inside. From a distance, nothing about it seemed to have changed at all.
But Aslan knew better. His heightened Luck transmitted a cold unease, a palpable wrongness radiating from within. A chill crawled up his spine.
The moment they stepped inside, the scene confirmed both his Luck's precognition and his own expectations.
"Hold them back, hold them back! Fire!"
"Aaargh, burning, I'm burning!"
"Get the fuck off me, you son of a bitch! Don't you fucking grab me!"
Flames roared up on all sides, and the bandits who had set them were now themselves on fire. Others screamed as the fully turned—those already consumed and made into hosts—latched onto them and dragged them down into death.
It was bedlam. People died, killed, thrashed for any chance of survival. Through the chaos, Aslan watched bloodworms and their hosts running rampant.
Even those who had been told exactly what to expect still grimaced. Angie pressed a hand over her mouth and nose, nauseated by the stench of burning flesh. Ereta, on the other hand, wore an expression of pure nostalgia.
"Holy shit..."
"They burn well."
Angie shot Ereta a revolted look, but Aslan couldn't exactly argue with the statement. The whole village was collapsing into flame.
He didn't know who had started the fire, but with one entire side of the village engulfed, the bandits couldn't even flee. The bloodworms were devouring them where they stood.
Fay.
An ordinary Elf wouldn't set a fire. But Fay was not ordinary. Aslan was certain of it, and then he heard Dmitri let out a small sound of recognition.
He turned. The potbellied bandit chief was running toward them.
"D-Dmitri! You son of a bitch, what took you so—"
"Work kept me, you pig. So, this is all that's left of your crew?"
"Yeah, this is every fucking one! The rest are all dead and gone!"
Behind the furious chief stood five starving, ragged bandits and no one else. The rest had been killed by bloodworms, or...
"What about the Elf? She was merchandise."
"That goddamn monster bitch showed up and took everything! Every last one of them, gone!"
Fay killed them, then.
Aslan narrowed his eyes. The moment the bloodworms started swarming, she must have killed her guards and slipped away. It was the obvious play.
She might be watching right now.
He scanned their surroundings and saw nothing. His Luck picked up nothing either. At Luck 8, he simply couldn't find Fay.
He let the thought go and addressed the bandit chief.
"First, we evacuate. There's a mine tunnel in the gorge up ahead. If we head there, we might lose them—the tunnels all connect."
"The mine? The swarm mother is—"
"The swarm mother's been hunted down. Dmitri, the man you hired, saw it himself. Ask him if you don't believe me."
The bandit chief's eyes flicked to Dmitri, who nodded with his usual smirk.
"Right, okay, then—then let's go there. Please."
Plenty of things should have struck him as wrong, but the chief was too starved and cornered to think clearly. He wasn't the sort of man who could keep his wits under extreme pressure.
He bit the offered bait without hesitation, and he and his remaining men fell in behind Aslan. Aslan led the group toward the gorge where the mine tunnel waited.
The bloodworms and hosts gave chase as naturally as breathing. Attack after attack came during the stretched-out pursuit.
A host dropped from the trees, seized a bandit by the neck, and hung on as it poured bloodworms into his mouth. The writhing mass slid down his throat, eating through flesh, claiming his heart.
"Ghhk—aaagh! Chief! Chieeef!"
The bandit fell. The group pulled away. His pitiful screams faded into the kind of shriek that begged not to be abandoned, and then he rose again as a host.
Aslan ran, listening to the screams die out. He drew Seobsaeng and swung it at a bloodworm boring in from four directions. The bisected bug skittered across the ground.
He hadn't expected to protect all of them. He'd had no reason to. He shepherded them along just enough to keep them unsuspecting.
The bandits' numbers thinned steadily on the way to the mine.
Dragged off. Ambushed from the side by a host and infected. Buried under a cascade of bloodworms and devoured in seconds.
Through countless deaths, the potbellied bandit chief kept running on nothing but the raw will to live.
And that will finally paid off when they reached the mine entrance.
A tunnel mouth set against the forest's back.
Aslan pulled the two-handed axe from Angie's back and shouted.
"Everyone inside!"
"Yes."
Ereta answered with perfect calm, and the party plunged into the tunnel. Aslan turned away from the flood of bodies and faced the closing horde of bloodworms, gripping the axe tightly in both hands.
Shadow Flip.
The shadow wavering at his feet vanished. In that instant, two slashing cuts carved through the tree beside the mine entrance.
Cra-rack!
The severed tree tilted.
Groan—crash!
The moment the falling trunk slammed across the mine entrance, Aslan dove inside.
Rumble. Rooaar.
The entrance collapsed, dirt and debris crashing down. Thin slats of sunlight bled through the wreckage, scattering a dim haze of light into the tunnel.
"Did... did we make it... just me..."
Silence settled in. Outside the quiet hiss of settling dust, the only sound was ragged breathing.
In the middle of it all, the bandit chief clutched his head and let out a despairing breath.
"All dead... just me..."
He was right. The only people inside the tunnel were Dmitri, the chief, and Aslan's party.
Thud!
"Hik!"
The bloodworm hosts poured cold water over his quiet despair.
The collapsed earth blocked most of the view outside, but the infected bandits were pounding on the fallen tree, trying to claw their way through.
They looked like something crawling up from the underworld, determined to drag the chief down with them.
The chief clearly thought so too. He stared at the silhouettes shifting beyond the barrier, his jaw trembling violently, then shoved himself upright and grabbed Dmitri by the collar.
"You bastard... this is all because of you, you worthless piece of shit! Because of you, the Elves are all dead, my men are all dead! Fuck—I, I'm—!"
It was obvious lashing out, and Dmitri just looked incredulous and faintly scornful. He didn't bother to answer.
With no response, the chief gritted his teeth, shook with rage, and let go.
His next target was Aslan.
Aslan was idly drinking from a waterskin when the chief stormed up to him and shouted.
"You're the problem too! You said it yourself—you said if you killed the swarm mother, everything would be solved! You said you were investing! So what the hell is this?!"
"I did say that."
Aslan's answer was cold. Something about that unbothered calm threw the chief into a deeper rage.
"Then what the hell is this shit now?! Nothing's solved! Nothing! It's even—"
"Let me correct one thing."
Aslan tossed the waterskin. Ereta caught it and drank, her expression oddly flushed.
"The Elves aren't dead. They were just taken away. Which means my investment worked out fine."
"...What?"
The chief's face went blank with incomprehension. His dilated pupils fixed on Aslan's cold expression, but bubbling emotion drove him to reach out.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, you bastard—!"
Aslan caught the hand before it could seize his collar. The hand trembled uselessly in his grip.
Cold teal-green eyes met the chief's despair-drenched gaze.
"I invested in the Master of the Sword—Fay. Not you. The investment was every slaver here, including you, the bloodworms... and the safely retrieved Elves."
The name came out of nowhere: Fay, Master of the Sword. The chief blinked, uncomprehending, and then a certain rumor surfaced in his mind.
The Master of the Sword that every slaver who dealt in Elves dreaded crossing.
The rumor that the Master of the Sword was an Elf.
Aslan watched the confusion spread through the chief's eyes and smiled faintly.
"Commander of the Thornbush Mercenary Corps, Thorn Torek. You didn't think I wouldn't recognize you."
The chief—Torek, mercenary commander—went wide-eyed at the sound of his own name.
In those wide eyes, he saw Aslan's companions standing quietly by, even as the situation spiraled into something strange.
They were utterly at ease. As if they'd known from the beginning.
"From the start...!"
"I remember the number of people you've sold into slavery. And all their families you killed to do it. Quite a lot."
"You... how..."
"Did it feel good, tricking them and locking on the thorn restraints?"
"How—how did you know?"
The strength drained from the hand that had tried to grab Aslan's collar. Torek tried to stumble back, but Aslan didn't let go of his wrist.
Instead, still wearing that slight smile, he drew his blade with a smooth motion.
A sword carved from stone. Seobsaeng.
Seobsaeng devoured life.
The stone sword punched into Torek's heart, its blade so brutally rough that the pain was beyond comprehension.
"Ghk...."
But there was no time to even register the pain. Aslan twisted the blade, pushed forward with his grip on Torek's wrist, and pulled the sword free. Torek hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Blood gushed from the heart. It spread from Torek's mouth. Life Seobsaeng hadn't yet chewed and swallowed spilled over.
Aslan looked down at him without expression and flicked the blade clean.
"I memorized every piece of trash like you. Twelve years ago."
Torek's clouding eyes found Aslan. Aslan added,
"I don't claim the right to punish evil men. But you tried to kill me. That's why you're lying there now."
Torek managed to twitch one finger—and died. The limp corpse breathed no more.
Dmitri had watched the whole exchange with flat, unmoved eyes.
Thud. Thump.
Outside, the infected hosts kept hammering at the rubble blocking the mine entrance.
The sound was like rain. A familiar sound to Dmitri. He heard it every time he fell asleep, echoing in his dreams.
The middle-aged man who had been staring at Aslan for a long while finally exhaled.
"Employer's dead. Things I was supposed to protect, all dead. Merchandise is gone too... contract's a failure. Shame. A real shame."
Aslan didn't return the sword to his belt. He kept his eyes on Dmitri.
"No revenge?"
"Revenge?"
Dmitri gave a baffled wave of his hand.
"Why would I do that? I don't mix personal feelings with work. A failure's a failure, and if the employer gets killed, he gets killed. Why would I risk my life over something that trivial? I don't fight unless my own life's on the line."
It sounded like a declaration that he wouldn't fight. But a smile was spreading across Dmitri's face, contrary to his words.
"The reasonable thing would be to just walk away. Problem is... I honestly don't think I can walk away from what's out there and get out clean."
Beyond Dmitri's tilted gesture, the pounding on the barrier continued.
The massed hosts were tracking human presence, seeking nourishment.
Shiiing.
Dmitri saw Aslan's gaze shift toward the blocked entrance and deliberately drew his sword, letting the sound carry.
A red-gleaming blade. Dmitri's prized sword.
"So, one question. Still not planning to try and kill me?"
"No."
Angie stirred, about to step in, but Ereta caught her shoulder and stopped her. Angie grimaced at the gesture and forced herself to watch.
"You said you killed that pig over there because he tried to kill you. I've been doing the same this whole time. You're not going to kill me?"
"That's right. Because you've never once genuinely tried to kill me."
Aslan and Dmitri traded words. No other sounds but the breathing of two women and the pounding from outside.
"I've faced plenty of priests, gods, and men who wanted me dead. Monsters too. The killing intent I felt from them every time... you don't have it. You said you'd kill me, but they were just words. Every time we fought."
Aslan's calm analysis. Dmitri stroked his chin; his brown beard rasped against his fingers.
"I've fought you seven times. All seven times, there was no killing intent. Nothing but your aspiration for ascension."
Dmitri let out a low whistle. A whistle of genuine admiration.
Aslan watched him with almost no hostility. His sword hung loose, and that was all.
"...If I'd been a monster? Or a priest? Would you have spared me then, even without killing intent?"
"No. A priest, I'd kill without question. A monster, I'd watch for a moment and decide—but I'd probably kill most of them."
Aslan's matter-of-fact reply. Dmitri rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, figures. You've killed hundreds of priests. Obviously you would."
Dmitri smiled. It was a bitter smile—different from all the smirks he'd worn before. Something quietly tragic in it.
He set his palm on his sword hilt and clicked it idly.
"...A man who's spent his whole life killing people, being told I lack killing intent. Never imagined that."
"Some people take lives without killing intent. Rare, but they exist."
"Like that Elf waiting outside?"
Dmitri answered with a gesture toward the entrance.
Aslan nodded instead of answering.
A human being with no empathy could manage that.
Dmitri rolled his eyes at the non-answer. Aslan watched the former Master of the Sword and spoke.
"The threat outside—if Fay joins us, we can suppress it. That means you can walk out of here clean too. In that case—"
"No."
Dmitri, who'd been staring at the ceiling, cut him off and pulled something from his coat.
A pouch. Made from some creature's stomach lining, tough and leathery—whatever was thrashing inside couldn't tear through it.
The shape inside kept lunging in all directions, trying to burst free.
A familiar shape. Aslan's expression twisted with a premonition of dread just as Dmitri loosened the pouch.
Skreee.
A bloodworm shot out.
Legs all severed, one side of its lower jaw cleaved away—a badly mangled specimen.
Dmitri picked it up and gazed at it.
His lifeless eyes met Aslan's. There was almost nothing in them.
Aslan's eyes flew wide. He moved to stop him.
Dmitri jammed the bloodworm into his own chest.
"You—!"
The bloodworm burrowed, squirming, into his flesh. Its progress was slow because of its mutilated body, but it was sinking steadily toward his heart.
Dmitri clenched his teeth—enduring the pain or not—and spoke.
"If I lack killing intent—if I lack the proper spirit—then I just have to make some."
I'll become a monster. The declaration sounded almost like a joke. Aslan tightened his grip on his sword. Dmitri met his gaze with slack, unfocused eyes.
"Seven fights. Seven losses. Every time, you weren't serious. You never once meant to kill me. And I was trying to kill you."
Dmitri grasped his crimson longsword in both hands. A chill rippled through the firmly held blade, slowly numbing the agony in his chest.
Dmitri had once been a farmer. That was why he had no family name—why he was just called Dmitri.
His hometown had been completely destroyed by a priest. His family had died there. That same day, he had met Aslan. He had watched Aslan fight the priest and strike him down.
An ordinary man would have filled with hatred, with the hunger for revenge. But Dmitri didn't.
He had thought, purely and simply, that the priest's strength was beautiful.
And he had envied Aslan's martial prowess—prowess that had shattered that beauty.
He wanted power.
He submitted to the logic of strength, like everyone in Geladrion.
So he had fought endlessly. Fought without killing intent, and still once risen all the way to the rank of Master.
But he had eventually hit a wall, and eventually some Elf genius had taken his seat.
The disappointment, to his surprise, never came.
He was delighted. He had more opponents to challenge.
Dmitri looked at Aslan—one of those opponents—and smiled. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
"Strength is always truth. I want to be the strongest being in the world. If I defeat you, I'll be that much stronger!"
The smile spread. Widened toward a mad grin. His laughter echoed through the rumbling tunnel.
"Eighth fight. This one's the last!"
Steel sang as Dmitri raised his sword high. The stance was textbook—until he bent his wrist, angling the blade far back behind him.
"Come at me with everything, Aslan!"
Dmitri's ghastly crimson blade charged forward, laughter breaking from his lips. Aslan closed his eyes tightly, then opened them and murmured.
"You stupid bastard."
His blade flashed.