Three Years Remaining
The first light of dawn had only just begun to slant across the training grounds.
A faint dampness clung to the sandy floor from the chill that had settled overnight, and the breeze still carried a lingering cold as it stirred lightly through the air.
A strange stillness hung over everything.
Yet beneath that quiet, a tension coiled tight, as if something were about to erupt at any moment.
“……You?”
Kairon stepped into the training grounds and saw Arteon standing at the center, spear in hand.
What caught his eye first was the strange vest Arteon wore—something whose nature he could not place.
It had no pattern and only a dull color, its surface looking for all the world like a turtle’s shell painted black. Neither leather nor metal, just something that appeared unnaturally hard and peculiar.
Kairon frowned.
What the hell is that…… When did he start wearing another weird thing like that?
But then Rionhart entered behind him and spoke while looking at Arteon.
“Maintain that state as much as possible while you spar with Kairon.”
“Yes.”
Arteon answered briefly. Rionhart turned to Kairon.
“Kairon, once again today you are forbidden from using aura. Stay within the bounds of two-star mana and focus on moving as much as you can to wake that stiff body of yours. Arteon will help you.”
“Yes, Master. But…… what’s with that weird vest?”
Kairon asked. He had been here quite a while, yet he had never seen anything like it.
Rionhart’s reply was cold.
“It has nothing to do with you. Focus on the training.”
“……Yes.”
Kairon pouted and swallowed a curse, then drew his sword and faced Arteon.
“Let’s have some real fun, then.”
With those words, Kairon’s form shot toward Arteon.
His injuries were not fully healed yet, so at first……
Lightly.
Kairon knew better than to push too hard. He put only light weight behind the blade as he swung.
But—
Clang!
“Kh……!”
Even as Arteon blocked with his spear, his face twisted. The grunt that slipped from his lips was nothing like his usual self.
Kairon’s eyes went round.
Huh? That expression……?
Something felt off. Kairon tilted his head in confusion, but—
“Keep going, Kairon! Don’t stop—keep pressing him!”
“Yes, sir!”
At Rionhart’s bark he swung his sword in rapid succession.
Clang! Clash-clang! Screee!
Every time blade met spear, the screech of metal rang out and sparks flew. Kairon’s body loosened bit by bit, his attacks regaining their old sharpness as if reclaiming a lost sense.
A downward cut from high guard, a spinning slash at waist height, then another strike sweeping from above to below. Under the relentless barrage Arteon could only defend, barely managing to keep the spar going.
Then Rionhart’s voice rang out again.
“Mix high and low properly. Right now the important thing is to activate the body with as many varied movements as possible.”
“Understood!”
Kairon followed the order, endlessly shifting stances as he pressed the attack.
And yet—
Clang!
“Ugh……!”
Arteon caught the blow on his spear and staggered back, his face contorting hard. A thin line of red blood had begun to trickle from the corner of his mouth.
Kairon flinched and stopped in place.
This guy……?
It was nothing like his usual self. Even if the recent training had been rough, attacks of this level should have been child’s play for the Arteon he knew.
Kairon quickly shouted toward Rionhart.
“Master! This guy…… something’s wrong with him!”
His breathing was ragged, sweat beaded on his skin, and beneath that turtle-shell vest his body was trembling.
But Rionhart only shook his head at the question.
“No. It is perfectly normal. Simply moving while wearing the Mana Flow Vest is itself a form of agony.”
“Mana Flow…… what?”
Kairon’s face twisted at the difficult name of the vest. Rionhart paid it no mind and looked at Arteon.
“Can you continue?”
“……Yes. I can.”
Even as sweat poured from him like rain, Arteon did not hesitate. If anything, the greater the pressure, the more fiercely his fighting spirit burned. He spoke to Kairon.
“Your body still isn’t warmed up, is it? Keep going. Don’t hold back.”
“You look like you’re about to die right now.”
“……To the likes of you?”
At those words Kairon’s expression turned ice-cold. He raised his sword.
“……You little bastard. I’m going to make you regret saying that.”
“Anytime.”
The spar that had begun with the rising of the dawn sun stretched on until noon, and only when the sun was slowly sinking again did it finally end.
And so, once more, time flowed swiftly onward.
As the sun slipped beyond the western ridgeline, crimson light poured through the study window.
The long red sunset painted the floor, the bookshelves, and Rionhart’s shoulders.
“…….”
Rionhart looked down at the letter in his hand and let out a quiet breath.
A letter from the First Prince, Sedrian.
The tension and desperation woven into the writing stood out all the more sharply in the red light.
When he finished reading, Rionhart pressed the bridge of his nose and tilted his head back. There had simply been too many things demanding his attention of late; a mild headache was creeping in.
“I suppose…… I should call this fortunate, at least.”
He murmured softly, thinking of how they had avoided the worst possible outcome.
But still—
“Even so…… a decision must be made.”
This place could no longer be called entirely safe either, and his thoughts grew tangled.
At last Rionhart looked out the window.
Two months had already passed since Arteon had come here. Short if one thought it short, long if one thought it long……
In silence Rionhart gazed toward the training grounds.
Clang!
A sound like metal being torn rang out, and Kairon’s face twisted violently.
Sunlight fell in slanting rays across the training grounds, dust motes floating in the air. The ground was already gouged from repeated clashes, and every gust of wind carried the scent of iron and a wave of heat.
And at the center of it all—
“Hup!”
Arteon charged and thrust his spear at Kairon.
Clang!
Kairon’s arms were flung back as if struck, his face contorting. It was a spar limited to four-star mana. No aura was used, yet the force approached that threshold—strong enough to pulverize rock.
Kairon barely managed to raise his sword, grinding his teeth.
“Kh……!”
But Arteon gave him no opening. He seized the brief instant of lost balance with ghostly precision.
Swaaaaaash!
Crash-crash-crash-crash!
A barrage of blows too fast for the eye to follow. Kairon hurriedly swung his sword to defend, but—
Thud!
“Gah!”
Arteon’s spear smashed through the defense and slammed into Kairon’s abdomen. Thankfully it was the butt of the shaft rather than the blade, so death was avoided—yet the impact far exceeded any ordinary blow.
“Urgh……!”
He forced down the bile rising to his throat. Kairon’s knees buckled, but he held on by sheer will. He would not collapse in front of this bastard.
“Shit……”
The taste of blood spread through his mouth. Had it been the spearhead, his body would have been run clean through. It was a daily occurrence, yet he still could not grow used to it.
“Hoo…… How about we stop here for today?”
Arteon said, catching his breath. The sun had already set, and the allotted training time was ending. Besides, he wanted to get out of this damned thing as soon as possible.
Arteon fiddled with the Mana Flow Vest strapped to his body. Pain still flared whenever he used mana, but it was no longer as unbearable as before. He had reached the point where he could wield four-star mana—or even more—without so much as blinking.
Of course, that did not mean he could unleash his full power. According to Rionhart, there was still more training to complete. Yet the change from before was considerable. He could now continue fighting even after delivering a heavily powered strike, and so Arteon trusted Rionhart’s words.
If he finished every part of this training, then—
I too……
Would become far stronger than he was now.
At Arteon’s words Kairon’s eyes flew wide and he shouted.
“Shut up! That’s for me to decide! We’re continuing!”
Kairon raised his sword even as he swayed. His heartbeat hammered as if it might shatter, yet his eyes did not waver in the slightest.
Arteon watched him for a moment, then quietly lifted his spear. It was a fighting spirit that bordered on recklessness.
But—
Not bad at all.
Without that kind of grit, no one could survive in the North. No—even in that merciless North, men with this kind of tenacity were rare.
That was why Arteon rather liked Kairon.
And so he lowered his stance and drew up his mana once more.
“Watch yourself.”
He intended to answer the other’s sincerity in kind.
At the surge of Arteon’s presence, Kairon unconsciously swallowed. For the briefest instant the thought flickered through his mind that maybe he should have stopped after all—but—
Weak talk……!
He had not the slightest intention of ending it here.
Just as the two raised their fighting spirits again and prepared to clash—
“Excuse me!”
A sudden voice rang out, freezing both of them in place.
A young woman entered the training grounds. Her brown hair was neatly tied back; she was Ciela, a maid who worked at Rionhart’s mansion. She looked like an ordinary servant, yet she could handle mana at the two-star level.
When Arteon and Kairon turned to her, she smiled in her usual bright way.
“Both of you—the instructor asks that you come to the study at once.”
Kairon’s eyes widened.
“Master?”
“Let’s go.”
Arteon silently withdrew his mana, took up his spear, and turned. Kairon hurriedly followed after him toward the study. Moments earlier they had been trying to kill each other; now, at a single word from a maid, they trailed after her like obedient students.
When Arteon and Kairon entered the study, Rionhart stood by the window. He turned and spoke.
“A letter has arrived from Lord Sedrian.”
At those words Arteon’s expression hardened.
After the sun had set, in the cold, settled air, Sedrian could not bring himself to lift his fingers from the letter he had set down.
“…….”
Speechless, he stared into empty space. It felt as though something inside him had collapsed all at once.
Beside him, Svein spoke quietly.
“Still…… if one looks at it a certain way, we have managed to block the variables, have we not?”
Svein’s words were meant as comfort, yet they merely brushed past Sedrian’s ears. Sedrian shook his head.
“I…… do not think I will ever be able to forgive Bellacrod for this.”
Sedrian was a man who rarely touched alcohol. Yet now he poured strong wine straight into his mouth, his face twisting hard. Grief lay thick in his eyes.
He set the glass down and spoke.
“Because of me…… His Majesty’s remaining years…….”
“The imperial physicians said his body would not last long in any case.”
“Even so, it has now been confirmed that His Majesty has only five years left.”
And more than that—
“Because of it he cannot even move normally…… He will have to live with nothing but breath left in him.”
Sedrian’s expression was one of pure despair. That his father’s final days would look like this because of his two sons……
At the present moment, the next throne was all but Sedrian’s. Bellacrod’s actions had grown far too large, and he had received a severe punishment for it. Born the Second Prince, he had never before known the inside of a filthy prison cell.
Yet separate from that, a weighty imperial decree concerning the succession had been issued. All past merits and faults had been wiped clean, returned to zero.
“Three years from now…….”
The words filled the room with heavy weight. After a three-year period of preparation, the achievements of the following two years would decide everything.
Sedrian’s eyes cooled and settled. There was no use regretting or blaming himself for what had already passed. There was only—
“I must simply do everything I can, Sir Svein.”
Seeing the return of the original, coldly rational Sedrian, Svein nodded.
“This servant…… Svein. Even if it costs me my life, I will aid Your Highness.”
For this single day, Sedrian washed away the grief and the resolve with wine…… and looked toward tomorrow.