Withered Flowers Bloom Again (2)
“..That.. where.. from..?”
“On the battlefield. Once this thing punched a hole through my gut, I got the hang of it pretty quick.”
Recalling the sensation of a lightning-wreathed fist punching straight through armor and then through my abdomen… yeah, not something I wanted to remember.
Still, apparently there was a tradition in the East of teaching your techniques to the opponent whose gut you’d just run through while boasting about how great you were. That made it ridiculously easy to pick up hints about martial arts.
Well… he’d been in the middle of declaring that I should consider it an honor to die to his magnificent technique and spilling every last detail when I, already recovered through Yoru’s power, put a hole through his head instead.
So… think of yourself as a single bolt of lightning… and regard the punches, kicks, and fingers you throw as nine separate conduits, was it?
From what I’d heard, people in the East normally had to accumulate internal energy charged with lightning qi in something called a dantian before they could use this power. But as a Westerner, I didn’t need any of that.
Mana was everything. In other words, it could become lightning too.
Crack-! Snap-!
Lightning qi erupted from my entire body. The blue-tinged energy discharged wildly from me, electrocuting everything in the vicinity.
“Uh.. this isn’t it.”
What I wanted was to concentrate mana into my fists, feet, and fingers according to the Nine Walls Divine Fist’s mantra, not to spray mana all over the place like this.
“Id..iot.”
“Your mouth’s gotten pretty foul, hasn’t it?”
“..Hmph..”
BOOM-!
Baekseol seemed intent on using her own martial art as-is; blue fist-qi gathered around her knuckles.
...One hit from that and I’m done for.
I couldn’t just go down that pathetically.
I matched the charging Baekseol by assuming the stance of my own free interpretation of the Nine Walls Divine Fist. With the lightning qi pouring from my body and the stance of the Nine Walls Divine Fist in place, the lightning qi began to gather roughly in my fists.
“Hup..!”
BOOM.
The sound of fist meeting fist. But contrary to my momentum, my fist was pushed back by Baekseol’s. The clear fist-qi clinging to her knuckles was proof of her training—a realm my clumsy Nine Walls Divine Fist couldn’t hope to reach.
But I had magic.
“....Kh..”
I slightly modified a spell that normally generated lightning and discharged it in all directions for attack, instead creating the lightning inside my body and intentionally channeling the mana to gather and release it through my fist. The lightning that had been leaking from my body like a stream of water diminished and coiled around my fist.
Crrrk-
Only then could I push Baekseol’s fist back. But hand-to-hand combat wasn’t decided by fists alone.
The moment Baekseol judged her strength was being overpowered, she immediately withdrew her fist and dove into my embrace. Having slipped into my arms, she used the fact that my weight was leaning forward to plant her elbow and smash it into my abdomen.
BOOM-!
“Guh..”
I hastily wrapped mana around my gut to defend, but her clear sword-qi pierced right through my defense.
“....Hup..”
Sensing I’d taken internal damage, Baekseol withdrew the elbow she’d extended and pressed even closer against me.
Striking techniques? Footwork? Ground fighting?
Countless thoughts flashed through my mind in that brief instant. Too close for striking techniques or footwork—we couldn’t even move our hands or feet freely. And if she meant to take me to the ground, she wasn’t even grabbing my collar.
And so, that fleeting moment passed without me reaching a decision.
THUD-!
“..Is this a street brawl or what...”
“..Just.. once.. I wanted to.. beat you.. up..”
“...Haa..”
Whoever taught Baekseol to swear, if I ever catch them, I’ll string them up on my sword and float them into the sky myself.
In the moment I failed to decide, Baekseol shoved my chest to knock me down, pinned both my arms with her knees, and straddled my chest. Then she raised both fists. And those fists held not even a shred of fist-qi.
In other words, she was going to beat me until her own heart was satisfied.
Hey, the man you like is getting jumped by another woman. You got nothing to say?
“Hmph. That white mutt doesn’t even have feelings for you, much less any concept of such things—she’s just a kid. Why should this lady take the side of the bastard who won’t even accept my own heart? So no more, no less—take exactly thirty hits and I’ll call it off.”
Yoru watched from a distance, eye-smiling as if she found the whole thing hilarious, completely uninvolved.
“Go easy?”
“...Mer..cy...”
With those words, her fists came flying at me.
“I said go easy.”
“....Hmph..”
I had no idea what her problem with me was. We’d barely even seen each other a few times on the battlefield.
Well… every time we met, I did thoroughly thrash whatever unit she was leading or being led by. And Yoru, snickering away right next to me, was every bit as annoying.
She’d promised to call a stop to the spar after thirty hits, yet I’d taken over fifty and ended up with a bruised face. So the moment the spar was called off, I tried to circulate mana through my face to heal it, but every time I did Baekseol stared at me with that expressionless face, applying silent pressure, so I couldn’t.
Basically, she was telling me not to erase the bruises that symbolized her victory until we parted ways.
“Anyway, where did those other girls go, the ones who weren’t you?”
“...I.. don’t.. know..?”
“Why are you answering with a question?”
Baekseol and the other two who had confronted me when I left Lellasion Castle with her were probably still staying here. No harm in knowing their locations.
If you asked why… I’d only roughly subdued Baekseol because I couldn’t bring myself to kill her, but I’d left the other two with injuries all over so they could never challenge the Empire again.
Specifically: the necromancer witch Nihala, known as a one-woman legion, lost her left arm and right eye; and Brunhild von Scarlet, the blood-crazed maniac, lost her tongue and both eyes.
They probably weren’t as friendly toward me as Baekseol was. Nihala’s left arm had been the medium for summoning the dead and spirits, and Scarlet’s tongue had been the source that drank blood and absorbed the power within it. Having stripped them of their power, I was their mortal enemy.
“...To..morrow.. see you..?”
I wanted to refuse right then and there, but if I did she’d probably grab my collar with that expressionless face and never let go, so I just said fine.
“...Then.. tomorrow.. see you.”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow.”
Baekseol acted like she was leaving, but she’d probably head straight to the training grounds again.
Why does she train so hard?
I wondered if she was preparing for when the Empire fell and continental war broke out again, but looking at her detached attitude toward the world, that didn’t seem right either.
“Well, this lady hasn’t observed her for very long so I can’t say for certain… but the white mutt appears to have a goal.”
A goal?
“Yes. Since this lady was created to aid humans, I can tell. The white mutt looks like she has a goal of becoming stronger.”
A goal… for her, a goal probably meant a realm she wanted to reach.
“Sword God, then?”
“That much I don’t know.”
Her current realm was Sword Emperor. Only a single step remained until Sword God. A Sword God was said to be a being who could split a great mountain with a single gesture even without a sword in hand… or so the legends went.
Only one Sword God had ever appeared on the continent, so the information wasn’t entirely reliable.
Well… the realm of Sword God is something every swordsman dreams of, so aiming for it wouldn’t be strange.
For reference, if you judged me purely by sword skill alone, I was barely at the level of a Sword King. The only reason I’d beaten Baekseol just now was by using the Conductor ability and grappling techniques I’d never shown before to catch her off guard.
If my Conductor ability were sealed and I couldn’t use Yoru’s power either, and we had to kill each other, the odds would probably be fifty-fifty. Whoever struck the other’s weak point first would win. We both knew everything about each other, after all.
Anyway… what was I supposed to do now? Unlike Baekseol, I had no reason to grow any stronger, so I didn’t need to train. And I wasn’t particularly devout, so I had no desire to attend worship services either. If I tried to leave the Holy Kingdom and wander around, the outside was full of nothing but foul things, so I’d just end up exhausted.
Well… maybe I should at least make contact first.
I needed to explain Violet’s and my situation to Father and the Lailia family, after all.
Brrr- Brrr-
..Is that you, Evan.
“Yes, Father. I figured you’d be curious about my situation..”
Just wait a moment.
“Pardon?”
Father didn’t even listen to what I was saying; he seemed busy with something, because no matter how many times I called, there was no response. Maybe he was in the middle of a meal.
“Hello? Hel..”
Oppa?
“Oh, Sylvia. Right now I’m in the Holy Kingdom with Violet, who’s in critical condition..”
You’re hurt? Where? Does it hurt a lot? Are you okay right now?
“..No, listen to me..”
Who did it? Violet.. that bitch did this? Wait, I’m coming right now..
...What’s wrong with her?
The tone coming through the call was so fast and agitated I could barely understand her.
“No.. it’s not like that. Violet’s the one who collapsed after being put up to it by someone else. I came to the Holy Kingdom to treat her.”
Ha? So.. Oppa went to the Holy Kingdom because of some other bastard’s doing?
“Well.. when you put it that way?”
It was true that I’d come to the Holy Kingdom to treat Violet… but thinking that the person who ordered Violet’s death wanted me to come to the Holy Kingdom felt like a bit of a stretch.
“I’m fine, so just wait about… two months? I should be able to head back around then. Pass that along to Father for me.”
...Two months?
“Yeah. Two months or so. By then I should be able to return..”
BOOOOOOM-!!
A shock powerful enough to shake my body where I sat at the desk slammed into the Grand Cathedral.
“Mm, looks like something’s gone down. I’m heading over, so tell Father what I said. I’ll call again later. See you.”
Oppa?! Oppa!!
Sylvia’s voice sounded a little desperate… but so what? This situation was far more important right now.
If I handled it wrong, Violet might never come back.