Revealing the Sword Saint
Kyle stood before the lord’s castle and bellowed at the top of his lungs.
“Faaather-in-laaaaaw—!”
His lion’s roar, laced with aura, rolled across the entire duchy. Moments later, a colossal wave of mana erupted from inside the castle. Kyle recognized it instantly as the Duke’s. The murderous pressure that had been aimed squarely at him vanished just as quickly—perhaps mindful of the watching eyes, or perhaps because the Duke decided that drawing steel against another noble was simply bad form.
Instead of mana, the Duke sent knights.
“Lord Kyle Meyer. Please return.”
“The Duke himself told me to leave?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“If I were the kind of guy who just turned around and left when told, how the hell would I have gotten here in the first place?”
“—Even for you, young lord, there is no overcoming these numbers.”
The knight gestured toward the knights, squires, and soldiers he had brought with him. There was, of course, a strict penalty against actually killing Kyle Meyer, but this much manpower should be more than enough to subdue him. That was the logical conclusion.
The fiancé of Lady Yuri Grace. A promising young knight the Duke himself held in high regard. A future Master who was already an Expert. Surely they could stop someone like that.
Unfortunately for them, the logic was wrong.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Please turn back. No matter that you are the young lady’s fiancé, this land currently belongs to His Grace the—”
“Father-in-law! Keep this up and I won’t be able to keep my promise either!”
Kyle drew his sword. The knights sighed at the sight of him clearly ready to cause a scene, then raised their own weapons. It was an order from the Duke, after all. Still, the thought of beating up the man who might one day become the family head left a bad taste in their mouths—but orders were orders.
That was when Kyle lifted his sword high overhead.
The knights paused, confused about what he was doing. Then they saw it—pure aura pouring from his blade.
“……No way.”
“W-wait a second. How old is the young lord again……?”
“He should be the same age as the young lady—”
Aura Blade. The blade of power that proved one had reached the rank of Master. The dream every knight aspired to. An Aura Master stood before them.
“Still want to block my way?”
Kyle grinned as he looked at the knights standing in his path. A moment later, they quietly stepped aside.
‘……It’s noisy.’
Yuri Grace had been trying to sleep in her room when the commotion outside finally dragged her out of bed. She rose quietly, washed her face with quick, efficient movements, and finished tidying her hair in front of the mirror. It was a habit born from years of being forcibly awakened whenever trouble stirred in the North.
Of course, as a proper daughter of the North, she didn’t bother with makeup. She simply removed the crust from her eyes and applied a thin layer of moisturizing cream to protect her skin from the harsh northern winds. In other words, Yuri Grace’s breathtaking beauty was one hundred percent natural.
‘What’s going on…?’
After changing clothes, she left her room and moved to a spot that offered a clear view of the city. There were only two reasons the city ever grew this loud.
One: barbarians invading from beyond the Great Wall.
Two: important guests or new recruits arriving from outside.
It probably wasn’t the barbarians. Their momentum had been steadily weakening ever since they lost their Great Warrior. That left guests or new soldiers. Yuri suspected the latter.
No one would dare barge into the duchy without prior notice. No noble would be rude enough to behave that way toward the Duke. So the only remaining possibility was new recruits.
Even Yuri hadn’t been told about them in advance. Though she was the daughter of the Northern Supreme Commander, the Duke was always reluctant to share military matters with her.
‘New recruits, huh… I changed clothes for nothing.’
Still, she wasn’t the type to crawl back into bed after deciding to get up. Once Yuri was awake, she stayed awake until it was time to sleep again—like an iron soldier.
Having already dressed, she stepped outside and immediately spotted the busy maids hurrying about under the sharp direction of her mother. Yuri approached and lifted the hem of her dress in a polite greeting.
“Good morning, Mother.”
“……Yuri. It’s vacation. Why are you already awake instead of sleeping longer?”
“I can’t just laze around forever simply because it’s vacation.”
“Cutting back on sleep is terrible for your skin. Go back to—”
“Mother. I would prefer to stay right here.”
Adeline, Yuri’s mother, pressed her lips together tightly. She couldn’t argue because her daughter was right. The girl took after her father so strongly that even this part of her personality was eerily similar to the Duke’s. Adeline hid her mouth behind her fan and turned her head away.
“Go inside, Yuri Grace.”
“I refuse.”
“……Are you ignoring me right now?”
“Not ignoring. Refusing. I’ve already figured out why you’re saying this, Mother.”
Yuri began walking. Adeline tried to stop her, but an ordinary person had no hope of physically restraining a mage. Come to think of it, her mother had disliked Kyle for years now. She had never explained why, but her expression had been sour from their very first meeting. The fact that she was trying to lock Yuri in her room could only mean one thing: someone she didn’t want her daughter to meet had arrived in the territory. And the only person capable of stirring up the entire duchy while being deliberately kept away from Yuri was obvious.
—Father-in-law!
Kyle Meyer. Her fiancé. Her betrothed had come to the Duke’s castle like a hero to rescue the princess locked inside.
Kyle followed the same knights who had tried to block his path as they now guided him into the castle. When he asked if it was really all right for them to escort the man they’d been ordered to stop, they simply smiled lightly and nodded.
“Young Lord Kyle… No, Sir Kyle. If His Grace learns you’ve become a Master, the situation will change completely. That’s simply what a Master is.”
“Ah, figured as much.”
In truth, he already knew. He just couldn’t tell them the Duke had rejected him even after learning that fact. To ordinary people, a Master was practically a dreamlike being capable of achieving anything. A star in the sky. And once you’d become that star, there was no need to cut off the arms of those still reaching up from the ground.
Escorted by the knights and soldiers, Kyle reached the Duke with surprising ease. The moment the Duke saw the knights who had brought him in, he released a burst of mana.
“I distinctly ordered you not to let him inside.”
“……Y-Your Grace, with all due respect—”
“Silence. Get out.”
Power laced the Duke’s words—power that forced obedience. The knights trembled violently and fled the office.
Once the two of them were alone, the Duke pulled back his mana and stared at Kyle.
“So you revealed it after all.”
“You saw?”
“You were pouring it out so blatantly. It would have been strange not to notice.”
The Duke had confirmed it—Kyle using an Aura Blade in front of everyone, revealing that he was a Master. The North was a closed society. If the Duke exerted his influence, he might be able to stop the news from spreading… but how long would that last? It wouldn’t be long before the entire empire learned that Kyle Meyer had become a Master.
“If you publicly announce that you’re a Master, you won’t be able to live as freely as you do now.”
“Nobody else said that to me.”
“Who told you otherwise?”
“My father? The knights of our territory?”
“Were any of them Masters?”
He was right. All those pretty words—how becoming a Master made you the freest person in the world, how there would be nothing you couldn’t do—had come from ordinary people who had never reached that realm. Ordinary men could not describe what superhumans experienced. Whether it was their power or the way society looked at them.
The superhuman standing before him was saying something completely different. That becoming a Master meant you could never truly be free.
‘Now that I think about it, the principal said something similar.’
The principal had warned that if Kyle revealed he was a Master, he could no longer remain a student. It was the complete opposite of what Sir Leon and his private tutor had told him. Kyle asked for an explanation.
“Becoming a Master turns you into a superhuman who can do anything, right? So why is it like that?”
“Because the ones who became superhumans first won’t welcome a new one with open arms.”
“……What does that have to do with anything?”
“Do you think you’re the only superhuman in the world? To ordinary people, superhumans are beings who have transcended the mortal world. But to other superhumans, you’re nothing more than the youngest child who has just been born into their ranks.”
The Duke, who could be considered one of those seniors, spoke carefully to the youngest.
“After hearing what you said, I looked into Yuri’s situation.”
“Ah, that. So? I was right, wasn’t I?”
“I hate to admit it, but… yes.”
Perhaps because it concerned his own daughter, the Duke’s eyes had briefly lost their reason. He confessed it honestly. Hearing those words, Kyle instinctively realized the broken engagement would be nullified. But words weren’t final until they actually left the mouth. To make certain, he asked.
“—Then the engagement cancellation—”
At that exact moment the door burst open and Yuri stepped into the office. Her eyes flashed as she looked between Kyle and the Duke.
“……Engagement cancellation? What are you talking about?”