The Path to Ascension (1)

That night, someone bearing an exact likeness to me entered the mansion of Birow, the Second Prince.

And that was not all. Sightings of me came pouring in from every corner of the capital, all reported at once — and every last one of them was at the home of one of Birow's inner circle. What they had seen was my phantom. It spoke with no one, showed itself only long enough to step inside each building, and then vanished.

Birow and Iden are in league with each other.

That single sentence was all it would take. With it alone, the capital's political circles would sink into a cauldron of chaos.

I returned to my duchy without staying to see the outcome. There was too much to do. Among the tasks that simply had to be done, keeping the imperial family in check didn't even crack the top five.

The most important matter, of course, was food.

Grain prices were climbing steeply even now. Lords were scooping up military provisions wherever they could find them, and the inflation was spiraling beyond control. To fix this, the dragon vein needed to be drawn out to the farmland as quickly as possible — but Laszlo couldn't manage the vein alone. Driving in the stakes required me to guide him, every step of the way.

"I'm sorry, Master. My shortcomings only hold you back."

"Sorry for what? You're doing fine. No one is good at everything from the start."

"But you, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Master..."

I could guess what Laszlo left unsaid: You're my age, and there's nothing you can't do. Apparently the fact that we were the same age was what daunted him. If only he knew we shared nothing but the bodies we wore — our minds were twenty years apart.

Morning and evening, I carved out time to drive stakes with Laszlo. With five kilometers of ground to cover each trip, it was no small undertaking.

The second most important matter was my engagement to Uld.

I had learned a great deal about her in the meantime. She was surprisingly shy, for one. And despite an image that suggested she would cut down anything in her path, she was fond of cute things.

But we had yet to reach what Vitten called "the stage of truly understanding each other." We were still awkwardly distant — at our shared meals, the clink of tableware was heard far more often than conversation. According to the wedding ceremony's order of service, I was supposed to slide a ring onto Uld's finger while delivering some face-burning line of devotion. At this rate, I doubted I could manage so much as holding her hand, let alone the speech.

"Uld."

She looked up at me. She had been sitting in a chair with a book. I stole a glance at the title.

A book I had been made to study at seven years old. I had despised every page of it. Thanks to it, though, court etiquette was drilled so deeply into my body that no one would ever guess at my humble past life.

"Is the studying going well?"

Uld's face turned helpless. It was exactly the expression I must have worn the day my own master first pressed a Daoist scripture into my hands.

"I am trying my best, but there are so many difficult words..."

"No need to push yourself too hard. The ones who would nitpick you have already left the fortress city."

The Esterji clan council had moved its base of operations to the capital. Word was that they were actively supporting Mabel's military campaign from there.

"Still... I want to show you my best, Iden. As much as I can."

"...Uld."

I cleared my throat first.

"There is something I need to ask of you."

"Of me?"

Uld ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠looked startled. It was the first time I had ever come to her asking for something.

"Yes. It may be a bit of a stretch, but—"

"It's all right. Ask me anything."

"Teach me the sword."

"...What?"

Uld was genuinely stunned.

This was my idea of how we might come to understand each other better. Conversation grows out of shared experience, after all.

"As it turns out, we learned the same sword art. The Crimson Blade."

"You studied the Crimson Blade too, Iden?"

I nodded.

"My own teacher, Caroi, left after only a few years of instruction. Everything I know is the foundation of the Crimson Blade and nothing more. You, from what I can tell, learned all the way through the advanced forms."

"That's right. But why would you have learned the Crimson Blade...? My master always told me it was a sword art belonging to him and me alone."

"Caroi said the same to me. Claimed he had invented it himself. It may simply be a demon's turn of phrase — the habit of boasting that he created his own sword art."

"That may well be it."

Uld giggled. It was a laugh far removed from anything written in an etiquette manual, and I liked it far better.

"Yes! I'll teach you!"

She shouted it with her fist pumped into the air, her eyes nothing like the dying look she'd worn over her etiquette manual.

Asking to learn swordsmanship wasn't only about growing closer to Uld.

Daoist arts were techniques devised for enemies beyond humanity — dragons, monsters, spirits, and the like. Martial arts, by contrast, were devised for fighting humans. Against a human opponent, there was no need for grand techniques that spewed fire or called down lightning; a human dies from a single thrust to a vital point. But when the enemy was a being whose vital points you couldn't even locate, the correct answer was to blast it to ash at maximum output.

And that was the problem. Against humans, Daoist arts were simply overkill.

I wasn't so deluded as to dream of fencing like Uld. But if I had even Vitten's level of skill, the power I wasted would shrink considerably.

...Or so I had thought.

"Focus."

I had forgotten. The moment Uld took up a sword, she became someone else entirely.

"You need only repeat the movement you just made ten thousand times."

"Ten thousand? It would take until the end of time to—"

"Do it."

"..."

She drove me without mercy — enough to make Caroi seem the gentle one by comparison. Somehow I squeezed the training in around my packed schedule. I was the one who had begged for lessons, after all; doing it halfheartedly would have been beneath me.

Besides, I liked the picture of Uld teaching me. She had been so cowed, convinced she was only ever the one receiving. But as I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kept saying, this was a political marriage of mutual benefit. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I regarded her as an equal partner, and my people had better do the same.

Training under her made it clearer than ever: Uld was something beyond a Grand Master. She still hadn't revealed her Awoken Ability. There was a reason Hellcat became a docile kitten in front of her and no one else.

It was about a week before the wedding when word arrived from Stormrock Fortress.

The third thing that had to be done: bringing my father back.

By the contract I had struck with Ulkaard the Black Dragon, I was bound to deliver Demon Duke Ragnor to her lair. And to do that, I first had to flush Ragnor out of wherever he had gone beyond the Demon Realm. That was why Thalia had marched at the head of an army.

Thalia, commanding the expeditionary force, had recorded the battle honors in her usual deadpan tone.

Our strategy was simple and clean: stir up the Demon Realm until Ragnor had no choice but to come back himself.

Opinions differed on why Ragnor had never shown himself at the Battle of Andrassy. At first, the prevailing theory was that he was wary of our strength. Lately, though, another voice had been growing louder — that something had gone wrong inside the Demon Realm itself. That some catastrophe had struck the demons internally, big enough that Ragnor had been forced to hurry away even after losing tens of thousands of troops.

Either way, Ragnor, gone north, showed no sign of returning. At this point, we would have to consider pushing the front line north of Stormrock.

The fourth thing to do was to ascend to the Ascension Realm. It might even have deserved to come before everything else. If I could raise my realm one more step from here, a great many problems would resolve themselves smoothly.

"Iden?"

Srudal looked at me and faltered. He was in the Exploration Bureau's courtyard, making his preparations to depart.

"You haven't left yet, I see."

"No, my lord. I was on the verge of departing."

"Then come with me."

I handed him a talisman.

"And what might this be?"

"An Earth-Shrinking Talisman. It shortens distance. We have no time to spare, so we will finish the survey today."

"...Within the day, you say?"

Srudal was half in doubt.

"The site where the dragon traces were found lies more than twenty kilometers from here as the crow flies. However quickly we go and return—"

"You're unusually talkative today, Srudal."

I smiled with confidence.

"Put it on your leg."

Srudal pressed the talisman to his leg, and the three-meter giant's stride turned light and springy, as though he were bounding.

"This is hard to believe. I feel as though I could fly."

In truth, the talisman had nothing to do with his stride. It simply shortened the distance itself. But if that was how it felt to him, I was happy to indulge him.

"Let's go, Srudal!"

"At once!"

We burst out of the Exploration Bureau and began to run. The way was anything but smooth. Twenty kilometers was the straight-line distance only; canyons and mountain ranges, valleys and marshes packed the space between. When we had cleared every obstacle and reached the target point, three hours had passed since we left the bureau.

"There it is."

Srudal's voice had gone grave.

"That is the dung of an active dragon."

Where he pointed, an enormous mound of droppings rose from the ground. It felt utterly different from the fossilized remains we had seen at Ruby's nest. This reeked, vivid and fresh, and the damp had left its texture sodden.

"Dung of this size... would belong to an adult Magma Dragon. An elder among them — what is called an elder dragon."

"Wouldn't an elder dragon be stronger than Ulkaard?"

"Quite possibly."

Srudal's expression turned very serious indeed.

"Long life does not guarantee strength alone. There are parts that decline, and wounds accumulate over the years. The only certain way to judge is to see the dragon with our own eyes."

"Good. Let's find out what manner of beast this is. As carefully as we can — above all, without being spotted."

If it was an elder dragon stronger than Ulkaard, the word "impossible" would not begin to describe the difficulty of bringing it down.

But severed meridians could hardly be overcome without materials from a first-class monster. And if I could not ascend, I was fated to die regardless.

I stepped cautiously into the darkness of the vast, gaping depths.

Suspicious signs appeared before long. Bones lay strewn carelessly all about the valley. They seemed to belong to humanoid monsters, and there were so many of them that they piled up into small hills.

"Rock Goblins."

Srudal sifted through the bone piles with his hand.

"Small of frame, but highly intelligent, and they gather in hordes as large as any human army. That combination makes them notoriously troublesome to deal with."

"The goblins among our enemies, then, were never much of a nuisance."

"These bones show clean cuts. It appears to be the work of a species that knows how to craft weapons."

We passed the boneyard and pressed deep inside. When we emerged from the valley, our view opened wide onto a broad plain.

"Now, this is astonishing."

I whistled softly.

"They don't just know how to forge, do they?"

"...So it appears. Their fortification arts are of a considerable level as well."

Srudal and I stood side by side, gazing out over the plain. What had taken root upon the depths' plain was a towering castle wall — one to rival Esterji Fortress City.

The Northern Grand Duke's Daoist Arts Are No Joke — Chapter 97