Invincible Caelo
Four Knights of the Promise.
They were the four knights who had received the Sword Master’s instruction and, in truth, stood as the Lian Kingdom’s finest.
Perfection, Leventor Santaeru.
Ascent, Rance Crosel.
Invincible, Caelo Matahari.
Wandering, Ban.
Lawrence still remembered the songs the bards sang.
There were so many heroic tales that whenever a bard came to a village, he always raised his voice with a different one.
He had driven a battle already steeped in the scent of defeat to victory.
He had drawn his sword for the poor and the ragged.
He had thrown down his gauntlet to defend the honor of a beautiful lady.
Those were songs so famous that everyone knew them.
And yet, despite all those overwhelming feats, opinions differed wildly on what the actual Promise Knights looked like.
That was only natural, since every bard described them differently.
In some songs, a knight with a massive frame.
In others, a knight with a lean, agile build.
They were all just vague sketches of an ideal knight.
Even their personalities never matched from one telling to the next.
“It’s an honor to meet you like this. I never would’ve guessed Kyle was one of the Promise Knights.”
“Well, of course you wouldn’t. From rumors, all you’d have are bard songs, right? And nine times out of ten, those songs are nonsense.”
Ekaterina snorted.
Lawrence couldn’t entirely deny that, and the irony of it was almost funny.
He had spent so much time recently with Cedric that he had come to understand the reality behind a bard’s glamour.
He didn’t even need to look far.
The song of the shadow mage that had been written from the boy’s exploits had also been thick with exaggeration.
People liked embellishment, or so they said, but…
He no longer took songs at face value.
Of course, he knew not every bard was like Cedric.
Still, people never said things without a reason.
“Come to think of it, the Kyle I saw—no, Caelo—always looked tired. He was a little different from the image I had from the songs.”
“Remember this, junior. This idiot is just as hopeless as he looks. Honestly, aside from wielding a sword, he’s no better than an ordinary man in anything else. For all I know, if no one fed him, he’d starve to death within a few days.”
Caelo frowned.
“That’s true of you too, fake Sister. I find it interesting that there’s no cigarette in your mouth today.”
“And what exactly is that supposed to mean? I’m working right now.”
“……”
How shameless could she be?
She lied without even wetting her lips.
Then again, it wasn’t that she wanted to smoke and couldn’t—her tobacco had gotten wet.
“I don’t sleep while I’m on a mission either.”
“You’re supposed to sleep at night, you idiot.”
“You were the ones who asked for help because you were short-handed.”
“We had work to do even without you. You’re the one who couldn’t keep the schedule, and you still talk a big game.”
“We met where the mission was being carried out, so if anything, we saved time.”
At this rate, if they were left alone, the argument would never end.
It wasn’t even like a pair of kids fighting; neither of them seemed willing to give an inch.
Lawrence cut in and brought the exchange back on track.
“What’s the situation inside the gate?”
As if by magic, the bickering stopped.
“Before you got here, I took a look around the perimeter. For now, there’s no opening mechanism outside the door. The only thing audible from within is the sound of water. I couldn’t find any clue that would tell me more than that.”
Lawrence didn’t know how to open it any better than they did.
So far, he had been able to enter the Lost Sanctuary only because there had been gaps.
“Of course there isn’t a mechanism. This wasn’t made with human entry in mind to begin with.”
Ekaterina looked thoroughly displeased.
“The sound of water is only natural too. This sanctuary lies inside a coastal cliff. If you had to compare it to anything, it’s closer to an underwater temple… Though it’ll be easier to understand if you go in and see it for yourself rather than listen to me explain it.”
She placed a hand on the tightly shut door.
“As the lamb said, a day in the courtyard of the Goddess’s house is better than a thousand days elsewhere. I would rather stand at the threshold of the Goddess’s house than dwell in comfort in the house of the heretics.”
It was a familiar verse.
The very prayer that had opened the chapel door.
The door, touched by a sheen of light, began to open with a massive groan.
“Don’t forget this: there is a Vodianoy in here. Eight sisters, led by Priest Victor, are holding it down with prayer, but no chain is perfect. Avoid provoking it unnecessarily.”
“Understood.”
“If anything comes at us, I’ll cut it down. That’s all.”
“Junior. Keep an eye on that idiot so he doesn’t run wild.”
“I… I’ll try.”
Could anyone even stop him if he did?
The three of them stepped through the door, where blue light spilled out.
* * *
The sanctuary’s interior was awash in blue.
The path was half-submerged, and the cavern beneath had no visible bottom.
The dark opening seemed connected to the sea, and seawater flowed in at regular intervals, endlessly recirculating.
Most of the temple’s features were damaged.
Columns stood half-collapsed, and the walls had been ravaged.
The worn-down statues were so eroded that it was impossible to tell what they had once depicted.
A building that had once known glory had now fallen into ruin.
And yet the solemn light remained, faintly asserting its presence as if nothing had changed.
At the end of the connected passage, pillars of falling water came into view.
On top of the four pillars, frog-like statues spat out streams of water.
Through a massive hole in the ceiling, brilliant radiance poured down.
A beam of light cascaded into the center of the temple.
And trapped within the prison made by that light was a giant frog.
It was far larger than the Bugbear King or the Forest Spider Queen Lawrence had once encountered in another sanctuary.
It was, quite literally, as large as the sanctuary’s door.
Its blue body, tinted with a translucent glow, gave off a strange sense of unreality.
Beneath its jaw, a croaking sac twitched without pause.
Its feet, each with four toes, planted themselves firmly against the ground.
The majestic sight made it feel like the true master of this immense sanctuary.
Spirit Vodianoy.
Lawrence swallowed.
Even if he accepted the scene exactly as it was, it would still have been shocking.
The problem was that the force radiating from the giant frog felt oddly familiar.
It was not the same as a monster’s.
The energy emanating from this colossal spirit was clearly…
that of a neighbor of the Spirit World.
“There are quite a few Horn Boars.”
“Finish them all while I do my work.”
“You’re not in a position to order me around, fake Sister.”
Caelo’s hand moved toward his greatsword.
Was he trying to protect Vodianoy?
Horn Boars emerged from the water.
“This is my mission.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
With the hiss of a sharp wind, a swath of fabric fell away.
At last, the greatsword was revealed, swallowed in pitch black.
It bore an unfamiliar, heat-haze-like pattern, and a pure white groove ran along the center of the blade.
For a moment, Lawrence stared at it blankly.
It was incomparably more beautiful than the greatsword he had seen in the dwarf’s forge.
It was clearly a blade worthy of being called a famous sword.
That was the only way its shape could be understood.
“Junior. The bag.”
“Here.”
It was the bag they had received when they left the monastery.
As Lawrence handed it over, she took out a small casket from inside.
“I’ll need you to guard me.”
“Understood.”
Ekaterina laid a hand atop the casket.
“The Spirit of the Goddess has come upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the captives, recovery of sight for the blind, and liberty for the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Goddess’s grace.”
She spoke the prayer with reverence.
By then, a considerable number of Horn Boars had gathered.
Even if one only counted the ones clustered around Vodianoy, there had to be close to several dozen.
“Caelo. Can I leave the Horn Boars in front to you?”
Faced with a Horn Boar that looked ready to spit water at any moment, Caelo wore a fierce grin.
“Don’t worry about it.”
There was a sound like something breaking.
The next instant, Caelo’s figure vanished from beside him.
Acceleration in an instant.
The ground, unable to bear the force of his legs, was etched with a sharp scar.
The sound that followed his figure was less like footsteps on water than the brutal crushing of the very ground beneath him.
The Horn Boars had no time to spit water.
Caelo closed the distance in an instant and swung his greatsword.
One strike.
Five or six Horn Boars were transformed into chunks of flesh and sent flying.
He had only made a single cut.
And yet the absurdly oversized blade had carved through every enemy that entered its path.
…!
Being clustered together had, instead, worked against them.
The next sweep of the blade swallowed the Horn Boars as their formation collapsed.
Nearly several dozen of them were caught in the storm of sword wind without even managing to react.
Blood and flesh scattered through the air.
He hacked and hacked and hacked without hesitation. Watching the back of the man who silently whittled down the enemy’s numbers, Lawrence remembered what the dwarf had said.
“Calling it a sword that can cut anything sounds nice enough, but if there’s no one who can actually use it, it’s nothing more than a decorative greatsword.”
How on earth was this a decorative greatsword?
Not just the sword, either. Caelo himself, as he handled that enormous blade, was like a single sword forged to perfection.
Overwhelming power.
At this rate, it was impossible to tell who the monster was.
After clearing the surroundings in the blink of an eye, Caelo charged off in search of his next prey.
Lawrence shook his head.
There was no time to stand there dumbly.
Thanks to Caelo’s rampage, the number of Horn Boars had dropped dramatically, but the ones coming out of the water still showed no sign of stopping.
Shadow Spear.
He sniped the Horn Boars as they climbed onto land, one by one.
With so little ground available to stand on, there was no great need to adjust his aim.
He didn’t need to worry about anything else around him.
It was fair to say that every Horn Boar coming up into this area was already within the range of Caelo’s blade.
And from much farther away than that,
Lawrence worked his magic in a way that wouldn’t interfere with Caelo’s movement.
One spell, one monster.
It was less efficient than Caelo, who was killing three or four with a single sword strike, but this was the best Lawrence could do right now.
For the first time since learning magic, he found himself envying swordsmanship.
He hadn’t realized the heights one could reach simply by training the body would be so dazzling.
Whether one wielded magic or a sword, the end result was the same.
In the end, all that mattered was killing the enemy.
And if that was the case, anyone would naturally prefer whatever was more efficient.
But the envy lasted only an instant.
He realized how absurd that thought had been.
How many brushes with death had Caelo endured to reach that level?
It was a realm that might not even be reached by swinging a sword hundreds or thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of times.
It wasn’t something that could be discussed in terms of efficiency.
Lawrence himself was proof enough.
How much effort had he poured in just to read magic books?
Aside from time spent eating and sleeping, he had to spend every waking hour buried in primers and study texts.
And that was only the minimum qualification for reading a magic book. It took an enormous amount of time beyond that before he could interpret one and make it his own.
Effort never lied.
But the results it yielded were only a tiny handful.
There was no doubt that Caelo had, in his own way, cut away at himself just as brutally for his achievements as Lawrence had for magic.
The shameful feeling vanished almost at once.
Steeling himself, Lawrence focused on the Shadow Spear.
It did not take long to clear the Horn Boars.
About twenty minutes later, when a faint ache began to rise in his chest, there were no longer any moving Horn Boars nearby.
Caelo gave his greatsword a broad swing.
The filth that had pooled along the grooves scattered through the air.
He sat down and, taking out oil and cloth, began silently cleaning the blade.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“This doesn’t even count as hard work.”
The reply was plain and matter-of-fact.
Without taking his eyes off the greatsword, Caelo continued.
“Your skill is pretty solid. I can’t remember seeing many mages who handled magic as adeptly as you do.”
“You’re too kind. I was able to concentrate because you did so much of the work up front.”
That wasn’t false modesty.
Caelo hadn’t confined himself to reckless charges.
Whatever direction the creatures emerged from, he seemed to know a step ahead of time and move first.
It was as if he had eyes on the back of his head.
He also possessed the sort of broad battlefield awareness that let him take in the whole field at once.
It was closer to a predator’s instinct.
Everywhere a Horn Boar appeared, the greatsword flashed.
Lawrence could tell that Caelo’s skill was extraordinary.
He just hadn’t realized it was this overwhelming.
So this was one of the Promise Knights who represented the kingdom.
Invincible Caelo, who had never once experienced defeat.
Surely this too was only the tip of the iceberg.
After all, the true place where a knight shone was not in battle against monsters.
It was on the battlefield, where hundreds of soldiers wagered their lives, that a knight’s true value was revealed.
As Caelo quietly tended to his greatsword, Lawrence found the sight almost frightening.