What Was It All For?
Shattered helmets and broken sword fragments lay scattered beneath Arteon’s feet.
It looked less like the aftermath of clashing steel than the wreckage left behind after a storm had torn through.
The stench of blood rode the wind and brushed against his nose.
The dead said nothing. The living made no sound either.
The Lacosta Knights facing Arteon stared at him with ashen faces.
“Ugh… uhhh… a m-monster…!”
Several knights dropped the swords they still clutched and stumbled backward.
The overwhelming martial prowess Arteon had displayed belonged to an entirely different plane from any battlefield they had ever known.
“Where the hell is the Commander?! We can’t handle this alone!”
“W-we’re all going to die…!”
There was no trace of knighthood left in their terror-stricken cries—only raw, screaming panic.
Arteon simply watched the Lacosta Knights in silence.
In battle, one must never lose composure. One must remain calm.
And yet…
Something…
A strange emotion he had never felt before pressed down on his chest.
The Lacosta Knights.
He could not gauge the full weight of their reputation, but as a knight order under the Second Prince that handled every filthy job thrown their way, their skill should never have been this mediocre.
And the one who appeared to be their commander was a four-star warrior who could even wield aura.
So why—
…are they this sloppy?
The longer he fought, the more their flaws stood out and nothing else.
The spirit they had shown at the start, their quick judgment—those vanished like a mirage the moment a dozen of their comrades fell. Their coordination began to grind and seize, until even the timing of their joint assaults fell apart.
Compared to the elite Kar Tribe units he had faced in the north—
They don’t even reach their ankles.
Men who would not last a single month on the northern front.
Was that why?
Arteon felt an unnameable emotion slowly rising from the bottom of his chest.
Contempt?
No. Closer to confusion and hollowness… and perhaps the belated emptiness of a reality he had only now understood.
All this time… what was I…
Fighting through dozens of brushes with death in the north.
The comrades who fought beside him, and the ones who died—
“What for.”
Thud.
When Arteon took a single step forward, they scrambled two steps back.
Comrades who had died fighting the Kar Tribe.
Men who screamed as their arms and legs were severed, writhing in agony until they were left crippled for life.
We who suffered the cold, who starved for days on end when supply lines were cut—
What the hell were we enduring that hell for?
Arteon’s gaze settled on the Lacosta Knights before him.
The heart of this world.
The Empire’s center was a place utterly unlike the north.
With skill this pathetic—
“You call yourselves knights… puffing out your chests and lording it over everyone else?”
A seething, bitter fury rose in him for reasons he could not fully name.
For scum like these.
Something low and violent boiled up from his throat.
“We were forced into those deaths… for the likes of you…!”
With those words, the light in Arteon’s eyes changed.
It was the gaze of a beast rising from the darkness of an abyss that had suddenly yawned open—a bottomless pit.
Ssssssssssh—!
Killing intent poured from Arteon’s body, flooding the entire area in an instant and crushing the air itself.
The Lacosta Knights felt as though merely facing him was enough to slice their flesh open.
“Hiiiiiieeek!”
“B-back! Fall back!”
Vice-Commander Felico shouted desperately.
But his own legs had already locked in place; all he could manage was a flailing struggle to get away from Arteon.
“R-retreat! Everyone retreat!”
Felico finally clawed his wits back together and roared.
A knight beside him cried out.
“What about the Commander?!”
“This is no time to worry about the Commander! If you want to live, run—now!”
The commander was an aura user, after all.
Unlike them, he would find some way to escape on his own.
At Vice-Commander Felico’s shout, the knights broke into a frenzied flight.
Bababababababat—!
The formations and discipline they had displayed at the start were gone without a trace.
Watching them flee on pure instinct, Arteon’s body moved forward of its own accord.
Something in his mind was screaming.
—Don’t let them escape…!
—Kill them all!
Arteon’s mana surged violently. Strength gathered in the tips of his toes—
“Enouuuuuuugh!”
A thunderous shout from behind made Arteon flinch and turn his head.
Rionhart had drawn close without him noticing and laid a hand on Arteon’s shoulder.
“Enough… stop.”
He did not press hard, yet Arteon’s body would not move.
Under that earnest appeal, the rage that had seized Arteon began to drain away with startling speed.
“Push any further and you’ll destroy yourself.”
“……”
There was a warmth in the old man’s voice, a resonance that seemed to fill deep fractures.
In pure strength he was far weaker than Arteon, and yet—
“……Understood.”
Arteon exhaled slowly.
By then the fleeing knights had already vanished from sight.
Strangely, he felt no regret.
Just… something he could not put into a few simple words still weighed complex and heavy on his chest.
“One of them is still left.”
He muttered it while looking toward Kairon, who was still fighting.
Rionhart answered.
“That fight is his to finish. We wait.”
“……Even though his opponent is stronger?”
“If he loses and dies in this fight, then that is simply as far as the boy’s fate reaches.”
At those words Arteon said nothing more and simply watched Kairon.
Drip… drip…
Kairon roughly wiped away the blood running down his jaw and looked at the man standing before him.
By now the hand gripping his sword trembled faintly, but he had not given up the match.
Ziorkan.
Commander of the Lacosta Knights, a four-star aura user.
Savage heat poured from between his twisted features.
“To corner me this far… I’ll grant you’ve got real skill. But this ends now.”
Crack!
Aura flared along Ziorkan’s blade and crashed down on Kairon like lightning.
The sword tore through the air in a rippling arc—
Clang! Claang! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Every collision drove a metal-warping roar straight into their eardrums.
Kairon was holding the onslaught at bay.
The momentum looked one-sided, yet something unyielding lived in the eyes that watched Ziorkan past the white-knuckled grip on his sword.
“Just a little… a little more…”
He murmured it like a spell, reminding himself not to collapse.
At those words—
“What are you babbling about?!”
Ziorkan bellowed and condensed his aura into the blade.
Watching this half-dead corpse keep clinging on had finally grown tiresome.
“It’s over…!”
Ziorkan arched his body far back and swung.
The aura crowning his sword flashed with blue radiance, and a massive arc detonated through the empty air with a thunderous roar.
The motion was large, but that only made Ziorkan’s will to end the fight that much more absolute.
And then—
Here it comes…!
Claaaaaaaaang!
A shriek like metal being torn apart exploded outward.
In the instant Ziorkan’s sword was about to complete its arc—right before every ounce of power poured into the blade—!
Kairon concentrated his strength at the precise timing and caught the attack.
It was a single focused blow, so the recoil hit hard—
“Gah!”
—but Ziorkan, still mid-swing, had to absorb that recoil as well.
Screaming, Ziorkan was hurled backward.
He had never imagined the brat had been crouching all this time just for one perfect defense.
“You stubborn bastard…!”
But with this, the boy had to be completely spent.
No more of that pathetic turtle act.
Killing intent flashed in Ziorkan’s eyes as he raised his sword again.
In that very moment—
Stagger!
“……!”
The wound Kairon had dealt him earlier.
The recoil from being thrown back just now made the injured leg give way, and his balance collapsed.
In that fleeting gap as his body buckled—
Ziorkan’s pupils shook violently. Beyond them, the corner of Kairon’s mouth curled up.
“You talk too damn much. It’s disgusting.”
“What…?!”
Ziorkan’s face contorted scarlet.
But in that instant there was nothing he could do.
Kairon dropped low and drove straight into him.
It was a charge that seemed to swallow a single breath—almost like teleportation.
“W-wait—!”
Ziorkan cried out in panic, but—
Slash!
Kairon’s sword-light streaked like a beam and sprayed crimson blood.
Fwaaaaaash!
The instant Kairon’s blade carved deep through Ziorkan’s side, armor tore open and blood erupted like a fountain.
“Guhk!”
Something other than blood tried to spill from the gash.
Ziorkan reflexively clamped a hand over it, but—
Thud!
His knees hit the ground and his head dropped.
The will to endure was still there, yet his body no longer obeyed.
Only short, shallow breaths slipped from his lips.
Kairon turned slowly.
The eyes looking down at Ziorkan were ice-cold.
Blood dripped steadily from his ravaged body, but the sword was still held a finger’s breadth above the ground.
“Your own overconfidence was your undoing. You can review the match… in the next world.”
With those words the tip of the blade flicked lightly.
Slash!
Ziorkan’s head toppled loosely to the side.
A silence rushed in as if a sudden gale had passed through.
Kairon’s body had already reached its limit, yet his eyes alone remained razor-sharp and alive.
Watching that sight, Rionhart simply nodded without a word.
In this moment he had witnessed his disciple surpass his own limits.
Arteon approached him.
“Need a hand?”
“……No.”
Kairon paused for a beat.
The martial might Arteon had shown earlier was still vivid behind his eyes.
When Arteon merely shrugged—
“Both of you, follow me.”
Rionhart looked at the two of them and spoke.
And then—
“……Things are about to get noisy.”
Together they turned their steps toward the mansion.
The aftermath of battle still lingered across the courtyard, but right now they needed to hurry and prepare for what came next.
Perhaps, Arteon thought, they might even have to leave this place that had sheltered them for so long.
And so, on the mountainside where the sun slowly sank, a deep darkness settled over them, and with it a heavy silence.