Three Years Complete
Time flowed swiftly.
Before he knew it, two full years had passed since he began training alongside the boy.
“……Tough bastard.”
The moment Kairon stepped out of the training hall, his hand found the scabbard at his hip of its own accord and gave it a couple of idle taps.
There had been a time when he always kept a cloth ready, wiping blood from the blade after every session……
At some point, the cloth had become unnecessary.
A blade without a single drop of blood on it.
In that clean gleam lay every strange, grueling experience of the past year, preserved without a mark.
“……Haa.”
A sigh rose from the crown of his head and escaped him.
All because he remembered the daily life-or-death struggle inside a circle no more than two meters across.
……At first I really thought it was insane.
It had been the kind of training where a man dying would not have been strange at all.
The method was simple.
Inside a circle two meters in diameter, Arteon had to evade Kairon’s attacks.
Blocking was not allowed.
He had to dodge—nothing else—and the conditions made it far crueler still.
Kairon, the attacker, was free to use mana. Arteon was forbidden from using any at all.
He had to slip past the strikes of a mana-wielding swordsman with nothing but the movement of his body.
In the beginning, every swing left blood beading on Arteon’s skin.
Cut. Pierced.
Even Kairon, who was only there to help with the training, had found it hard to watch.
But a little over a year later, everything had changed.
Shing.
Kairon drew his sword once more.
The spotless blade seemed to answer for him.
Reflexes that defied all reason.
No…… can you even call this reflexes anymore?
It felt less like reacting by sense and more like perceiving danger itself before it arrived.
There were moments when it bordered on precognition—so unbelievable he could scarcely trust his own eyes.
And then—
Thud. Thud.
Heavy footsteps approached, and Rionhart came walking toward him.
He asked,
“How was it?”
“……Perfect. Are we moving to the next stage?”
Kairon pursed his lips and slid the sword home.
Rionhart shook his head.
“No. This training ends here. More to the point—how are you?”
“…….”
The question was hard to read at first glance, yet Kairon knew exactly what it meant.
He let out a small breath.
“Haa…… Honestly, I had a lot of complaints at the start.”
He laid it out without dressing it up.
“All the swordsmanship I’d worked so hard to learn started to feel like…… nothing but service for that guy.”
At some point it had seemed as if the training Rionhart once focused on him had shifted entirely onto Arteon.
He, who had trained as a principal disciple, had been reduced to Arteon’s sparring partner.
Yet a strange light lingered in Kairon’s expression.
“But…… the weird thing is, I thought I was just helping with his training—and without even noticing, I’d gotten a lot stronger myself. Strong enough I can barely believe it.”
Rionhart gave a deep nod. Unconcealed pride shone in his eyes.
“I’m glad you see it that way. Keep that fire going. You, too…… will become one of the Empire’s foremost powers.”
This one has the talent to climb as high as Svein, at least.
Rionhart gave his shoulder a light clap.
“Go wash up and rest. Rest is an essential part of training as well.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Kairon withdrew, Rionhart turned his steps back toward the training hall.
The quiet afternoon sun slanted low, casting a long shadow across the circle.
At its center, Arteon still stood as he was.
His upper body was bare, the deep scars across his torso laid open to the light.
Cuts, stabs, and scrapes crisscrossed in a chaotic map—wounds that would have killed an ordinary soldier dozens of times over.
As Rionhart drew near, Arteon bowed his head briefly.
“You’ve come, Master.”
“As of today, this training is finished. Now…… comes the final training.”
“……I see.”
Several emotions flickered through Arteon’s eyes.
From learning to breathe without mana, to the drills that reinforced every fiber of muscle, to this last ordeal—forcing every joint through unnatural angles to expand his range of motion and driving his body’s danger-sense to the absolute extreme.
Not one of the past years’ trials had been easy.
Not one had been free of pain.
But someone had said it once:
The more you strike a human body, the harder it becomes.
He had been here a mere two years, and already his former self was almost impossible to remember.
Already……
He could feel how incomparably stronger he had become.
And if……
If this training ends completely……
What would he become then?
He had not yet faced true combat, so he could not name his level with any precision.
The urge to test himself burned hot enough to choke on.
But——
—Endure. When everything is finished, you will know.
Rionhart’s single rebuke had made Arteon abandon the thought entirely.
He would simply do as he was told, in silence.
He meant to see it all through to the end.
“Then from tomorrow, rest for a few days. Your body will need time to recover before the final training.”
“Understood.”
Even the old impatience that rest once brought him was gone.
Arteon only nodded and drew the mana back out of Iglis.
Clack!
The spear collapsed into its rod form. He slid it through his belt, gathered the shirt he had set aside, and turned to go.
Watching his back,
“…….”
Rionhart only smiled, faintly.
A stillness like deep, measured breathing filled the study.
As the sun sank, crimson light poured through the window frame, and dust between the shelves of documents caught a soft, luminous sheen.
Maps and reports rose in layered mountains across the desk.
At their heart, a blond man sat absorbed in the papers before him.
Rustle. Shff.
The thin, dry friction of turning pages repeated without end.
Night and day the reports piled higher as Sedrian prepared for the North—and he was already a different man from before.
The old, roaring blaze of his spirit was gone; in its place shone a cold, tempered competence, honed by the long work of preparing the northern campaign.
“……Haa.”
Sedrian lifted his head under the weight of fatigue, exhaled softly, and pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose.
As the deadline drew near, exhaustion had stacked upon him until his body neared its limit.
Even so……
Because of that very push, things were finally beginning to settle into order.
He turned his gaze back to the documents.
And then—
Knock. Knock.
A knock sounded—and before leave was even granted, the door opened.
Sedrian looked up toward it.
“……!”
“I’ve returned, Your Highness.”
Svein, thick coat still in hand, spoke with a broad smile.
The tension that had saturated the study eased at once. Sedrian rose from his chair before he quite realized he had moved.
“Sir Svein!”
“It has been far too long since I last beheld Your Highness. Though…… your color does not look well.”
As Sedrian came closer, Svein’s face softened with concern.
Sedrian only smiled brightly and gestured him to a seat.
“Sit first.”
“You look thoroughly worn, Your Highness.”
Sedrian gave a small laugh.
“I’ve grown used to it. I’m fine. And…… there is not much time left, is there?”
Svein nodded.
“Now that you mention it…… it will soon be three years.”
Two years and ten months had already passed since the Emperor inserted himself into the succession between his two sons.
Two months more.
When that span ran out, the time would come to offer true proof.
As the air grew heavy again, Sedrian walked to the cabinet.
“I set aside a wine for when you returned, so we might drink it together. I kept it in this room and forbade anyone else from laying a hand on it.”
From a cabinet sealed with temperature-regulating magic, Sedrian drew the bottle, then two copper wine cups.
Svein’s mouth curved at the sight.
At least Sedrian seemed to have found a little room to breathe.
Pouring the wine, Sedrian said,
“How was the North? I never meant to send even you that far…… I am sorry.”
“What are you saying, Your Highness? In a situation like this, everything that can be done must be done.”
Unless extraordinary circumstances forced it, Svein never left Sedrian’s side.
But once the Emperor entered the princes’ struggle for the throne, the danger to Sedrian’s person had lessened—and the work that remained was simply too great. Svein had had no choice but to head north himself.
Thanks to that, they had finished the tasks just within the deadline.
“Having you has been a tremendous comfort. Of course I am sorry as well for those still suffering in the North even now.”
“Please don’t say such things. Everyone knows that no one has worked harder than Your Highness.”
The mood grew heavy once more.
To clear the air, Svein brought up something he had heard on the way back.
“More importantly—have you heard any news of him?”
“Him?”
Sedrian tilted his head.
What was this about all of a sudden?
Svein only smiled faintly and went on.
“The young man you entrusted to Sir Rionhart. Arteon.”
“No—I’ve had no leisure for anything else while preparing the northern expansion. Is there something notable?”
“On my return from the North I happened to make contact with my old master, and……”
As Svein’s words continued, Sedrian’s expression shifted into mild surprise, then—
“……Remarkable.”
—softened into a quiet smile.
Already, then……
“Come to think of it, he must have completed his coming-of-age rite by now.”
“He said that if you saw him again, you would be utterly astonished. He is not a man who speaks that way lightly.”
No one knew Master Rionhart better than Svein.
Which only made Sedrian’s anticipation burn hotter.
“I want to meet him as soon as possible. How much he will surprise me…… I am curious myself.”
Svein smiled with him.
And time, once more, shot forward like an arrow……
Until at last the full three years were filled.
Three years.
Looking back on that span—which had fled as swiftly as an arrow—he could say it without a single hesitation.
He had spent the time without any lack at all.
The last promise made with Rionhart.
Arteon had succeeded in the final training given to him, and now he stood before his master.
And at the sight of him—
“……Khkhkhkhk.”
Rionhart laughed—a laugh he had not once shown in all the three years past.
Was it not truly magnificent?
The boy he had first judged to possess no great talent had completed his coming-of-age rite and now stood in a body tempered to perfection.
Could one find, in this entire Empire—no, across the whole continent—anyone more thoroughly forged than this?
The obsession and endurance the youth had displayed had transcended anything merely human.
Without something beyond death itself driving him to the extreme…… this would have been impossible.
Rionhart looked at Arteon before him and spoke in a low voice.
“I have taught you everything I can teach. Lessons that should have taken a full ten years and more…… and you finished them in a mere three.”
All that remained was to keep practicing them until they became wholly his own.
“These past three years have been nothing but joyful days for me. Well…… for you they were likely nothing but pain.”
“No, Master. Because of you…… I learned a great deal.”
Arteon planted his spear in the ground to steady it, turned fully toward Rionhart, and bowed his head with deep respect.
“Truly…… thank you.”
“Huhu. The gratitude is mine. Now go. This is not the place where you belong.”
At the declaration of parting, Arteon took up his spear once more.
“I will surely come to see you again.”
And with those words, Arteon turned away.