The Great Warrior Appears
11. An unknown barbarian blocked Kyle’s path. As he had done before, Kyle swung his sword. Most barbarians fell easily to such a strike, but this one was different.
“Hahaha! A fine warrior!”
“……Aura?”
The barbarian facing him was a warrior who could channel Aura into his weapon, just like Kyle himself. He had reached the level people called Aura Expert. As was typical of masters at this stage, he was not someone who could be defeated with a few casual swings. Victory depended on the depth of training one had accumulated. And Kyle was confident that, when it came to training, he was second to none.
“State your name!”
“……”
Ignoring the barbarian’s demand, Kyle swung his sword again. It might have seemed dishonorable, yet the barbarian only grew more delighted.
“Yes! That’s it! A true warrior speaks with steel!”
The nameless barbarian swung his axe as he spoke. Every time the Aura-infused axe met Kyle’s blade, it threw off brilliant sparks. The sparks alone drew every eye on the battlefield. Kyle instinctively realized this fight could not be allowed to drag on.
‘There are archers on the walls and mages like the Duke, so we won’t be pushed back one-sidedly……’
Arrows and magic only worked when the soldiers and knights on the front line could pin the barbarians down. If the barbarians who had slaughtered the soldiers climbed the walls, neither the high ramparts nor spells would matter. And now that Kyle had descended from the walls, prolonging the fight risked being surrounded.
“Hahahahaha—!”
“……Hoo.”
Facing the barbarian’s hearty laughter, Kyle grinned as well. The Aura filling his body surged through muscle and nerve, coating his weapon and armor. Two Aura-enhanced warriors clashed. They struck with swords, slashed, used armor and gauntlets, fists and kicks, even headbutts with their helmets—every possible means to pressure the barbarian. Surprisingly, the barbarian proved more skilled at this kind of brawl than Kyle, who had formally studied swordsmanship and wrestling. Real combat was never perfected by training alone.
‘This won’t work.’
Realizing time was slipping away, Kyle took a gamble. He threw himself straight at the descending axe. Trusting that his body, saturated with Aura, could withstand a single blow, he launched himself forward and thrust his shoulder out. The axe aimed at his crown slammed into his pauldron instead. In the same motion, Kyle drove his blade deep into the opening that appeared.
Thud—!
He twisted the sword that had pierced the barbarian’s abdomen and ripped it free. The upper half of the barbarian who had been laughing moments ago was cleanly severed, sending up a fountain of blood.
“—Gerald?”
A distant barbarian cried out upon seeing his comrade fall. Kyle flicked the blood from his blade without a care and leveled it at the barbarian who stood frozen, staring at the corpse. The man trembled violently at the sight of his friend’s death, then let out a maddened roar and charged.
Boom— Boom—!
Explosions erupted beneath the barbarian’s feet as he crossed the snowfield, and in an instant he was upon Kyle.
“You bastard—!”
The barbarian’s rage took shape in the form of a long bone from some unknown monster. Gripping it like a club, he brought it down with tremendous force. Kyle caught the blow with both hands on his sword, feeling his knees buckle under the impact.
‘What the—!’
“Die, dieee!”
The barbarian did not stop. He rained down blow after blow, swinging the bone without pause for breath, as though fatigue were a foreign concept. Every time Kyle blocked, a numbing shock traveled through muscle and into bone. Hard as it was to believe, the barbarian’s raw strength exceeded his own.
‘This doesn’t make sense.’
A wave of disbelief hit him. Even if his body hadn’t fully matured, he had spent nearly ten years forging it. He trained systematically every day and had endured the pain of bones breaking. Yet these barbarians, who seemed to have done nothing but run wild in the wilderness, had surpassed him so easily? No matter how much muscle mass differed between races, this was simply too much.
“How dare you—Gerald!”
While Kyle struggled to overpower him with strength alone, the barbarian continued to rage. Kyle deflected a vicious swing, read the next movement, and broke the chain of attacks. The barbarian’s wrist was struck; the bone flew from his grasp as a dumbfounded sound escaped his lips.
“Huh?”
Weaponless, the barbarian immediately threw a punch, determined to fight bare-handed. But a sword was still longer than a fist. Kyle didn’t even need to swing with full force. He simply angled the blade and the barbarian’s fist was sliced cleanly in half.
“—If everything could be solved with strength alone, how convenient that would be.”
Kyle spoke as he severed the barbarian’s neck. The man had possessed tremendous natural power, but because of it he had neglected training. Gerald had been the more dangerous opponent; he had trusted the skills he had honed rather than raw strength. Raw speed and power alone were not enough to survive. Neither was technique alone. The harmony of body and skill was what mattered.
And—
‘I see.’
Kyle looked down at the sword in his hand. For ten years he had been blocked by the wall of Aura Expert. He had begun to doubt whether the wall of Master even existed, yet a single real battle had given him a tangible sense of it. He understood why an Aura Master was called a Sword Saint, and grasped the connection between Aura and the sword that had once seemed unrelated.
‘Coming out to fight was the right choice.’
If he had remained in his territory, swinging his sword alone and sparring with knights who would never truly try to kill him, he would never have reached this realization. The Master’s wall would have felt even more distant.
“—Who’s next?”
Kyle stepped forward as he spoke. The barbarians faltered, sensing his momentum. The front line that had been steadily pushed back began to advance. Smiling, Kyle prepared to charge—until an enormous surge of energy from above made him freeze.
“—!?”
Startled, Kyle looked up and finally understood the source of the energy. A massive iceberg large enough to blot out the sky was hurtling toward the barbarians. Like a catapult stone, the sheer force of its passage was enough to sweep them away. Watching the iceberg crush the barbarians and vanish, Kyle let out an admiring gasp at the power of magic.
“—What are you doing here?”
A voice called from the wall above. Kyle looked up carefully. The speaker leapt down and landed before him. The ruler of the North, the six-star mage—Duke Valter Grace—regarded Kyle and asked,
“Kyle Meyer.”
“It’s been a while, Your Grace.”
“Why are you here?”
“I ran away from home.”
“Ran away from home.”
The Duke let out a dry laugh, as though he couldn’t believe his ears. His lips twitched with the many things he clearly wanted to say, but he seemed to think it absurd to lecture someone who wasn’t even his own son. Shaking his head, he looked at Kyle.
“Enough. Get back up. At this rate the barbarians will retreat—”
—Found youuuu—!
At that moment, a tremendous voice echoed from the distant barbarian lands. The Duke immediately turned toward the source. Kyle followed his gaze a beat later—
A spear—no, something that looked like a spear—came flying straight at the Duke. It shattered the layers of mana barriers protecting him in an instant, sending the Duke flying dozens of steps backward.
“Kuh—!?”
Kyle’s eyes stayed fixed on the direction the projectile had come from. Something was approaching at incredible speed. At first it seemed like a long spear, but as it drew nearer it became clear it was a person. A person running so fast they resembled a spear in flight.
The moment Kyle recognized him, he reflexively swung his sword. Yet his gaze never left the Duke. No one should have been able to ignore an Aura-infused blade—yet the newcomer did exactly that. Or rather, the sword he carried made it possible.
Slash—!
Kyle’s sword was cleanly cut in two. The only power in this world capable of slicing through an Aura-clad blade so casually was an Aura Blade—the authority of an Aura Master. A force that could sever anything in existence with a single sword.
“So you finally show yourself—Duke!”
“—Damn bastard.”
The greatest warrior who ruled over all the barbarians—the Great Warrior Chantalca—revealed himself before them.