All Things Are Equal Before a Club
Raon narrowed his eyes at Inild, who stood trembling from head to toe in open panic.
Expert High-Class, is he?
Inild's behavior was as foolish as it came, but the energy rolling out of him rivaled Expert High-Class. A level that could not be dismissed. Morell had not authorized this duel for nothing.
Neither Inild nor Morell, however, had grasped Raon's true strength. They would take the aura he had been showing at face value and assume he sat somewhere around Expert Mid-Class.
He's got skill, no question. But there's something unfinished about him.
Set against the force of Inild's presence, the man's actual caliber was not particularly solid. He did not seem to have seen much real combat.
"Nngh!"
Inild ground his teeth, glaring at the massive club in Raon's hands.
"Are you looking down on me?! Draw your sword this instant!"
He jabbed a finger at the Heavenly Sky Sword hanging from Raon's waist.
"I haven't even given this sword its inaugural battle yet. It'd be a waste to use it on you."
"You little bastard! I'll fucking kill—"
He started to curse, then flicked a glance at the princess behind him and swallowed the rest. Even in a situation like this, he was still worrying about her. The man was no ordinary fool — and not in any of the good ways.
"What's going on? Why is everyone piling up like this?"
"There's a duel, apparently. And it's Zieghart versus Balkar!"
"Two of the Six Kings? That's insane!"
"Whoooaaa!"
The square in front of the city hall was already one of the busiest stretches in the city, so a crowd closed in around them in a matter of moments.
"Who's going to win?"
"Unfortunately, that's already decided."
"Balkar, no question."
"Why? Zieghart is one of the Six Kings too."
"That long blond over there is Inild. Morell's disciple, a mage who's reached the peak of the Fifth Circle. They say he handles dual-attribute fists like a dream. That handsome kid on the other side is young, and nobody's even heard his name."
"All right, enough chatter! Get over here and put your money down! You can't just walk past a match this juicy!"
Since nobody knew any better, a betting ring sprang up on its own. Most of the money, riding on Inild's reputation, was going on him to win.
"Haaah. Fine. I'll make you regret not drawing that sword."
Inild smiled, listening to the spectators sing his praises. The way a few compliments soothed his rage and excitement said everything about how consistent the man was.
"Start preparing to get on your knees and beg Her Highness for forgiveness after you lose!"
He pulled on a pair of combat gauntlets and brought his hands together. As he began to chant, the flow of mana accelerated, and light bloomed across his entire body.
"So we've started, then?"
Raon smiled coldly and kicked off the ground. In the space of a blink he was in front of Inild, the club — thick as a grown man's torso — already whipping around.
"Wh-what! Shield!"
Caught mid-buff, Inild frantically threw up a shield spell. A blue barrier unfurled in front of him. It made no difference. Before a club, all things are equal.
A single layer of shield shattered like a pane of glass, and the blunt club smashed into Inild's waist.
A vicious crack, like stone splitting open, and Inild went bouncing away like a ball, his head slamming into the dirt.
The dozens of people ringing the square stared, mouths hanging open, at the steam curling off Raon's club.
"Wh-what was that!"
"That movement just now…"
"I could barely see it!"
"How is he swinging something that huge…"
It was not only the spectators. The mages of the Balkar Kingdom had gone pale as well.
"Inild!"
Morell's mana-laced shout cracked across the square, and Inild scrambled up off the ground in a fluster.
"Hah! Hah!"
He was gasping, cold sweat running down him from head to toe, but for a man who had just taken a club to the ribs he looked surprisingly intact.
"Of course."
Raon glanced at the ring on Inild's right hand and let out a short laugh.
An artifact, huh.
When the club had landed, it had felt like striking a sack stuffed full of beans. True to the Balkar Kingdom's fame for artifacts, the mage was wearing something built for physical defense.
"Y-you bastard! What the hell do you think you're doing!"
Inild's eyes went red as he screamed.
"Doing what?"
"You attacked me while I was preparing! You coward!"
"Preparing? Preparing for what?"
"I was casting buffs! You hit me in the middle of it — have you no honor at all!"
He looked around as if he had been grievously wronged, loudly declaring Raon a coward to anyone who would listen.
"Coward?"
Raon slung the club over his shoulder and cocked his head.
"Are you going to say that on a real battlefield too?"
"What?"
"When a blade is already at your throat, are you going to ask them to stop because you're not ready?"
"Th-that's different! This is a duel!"
"When a mage starts working magic in a duel, isn't that the starting signal? If anything, I was the one who got jumped."
"Th-that's…"
Inild's lips trembled. He had no answer. Raon looked at him with a gaze as cold as frost and went on.
"A mage circulating mana is the same as a swordsman drawing his blade. If you want a match where people wait around for you like children playing house, go do that at home."
"D-do not insult Balkar!"
"I insulted you, not Balkar."
"What you said wasn't about me, it was—"
"You talk entirely too much."
Raon swung the club. A crushing wave of air flattened Inild's voice.
"Are we doing this, or not."
"Nngh — I won't let my guard down this time!"
Inild sprang backward and began slapping buffs onto himself in a rush. Haste, Strength, Iron Skin, and a handful of others sank into his body one after another.
Raon simply stood there this time, and waited until every last buff was in place.
"You idiot! There's no point playing at honor now!"
"It wasn't for honor. I just stood here because listening to you yammer on again would be a pain."
"All talk!"
Inild gathered flame in his right hand and wind in his left — and vanished from in front of Raon's eyes. The next flicker of his presence was at Raon's back. It was not speed. His presence had simply disappeared and reappeared. Close-range translocation magic. Blink.
"Die!"
Wind and fire roared around Inild's fist as it drove in along a clean, practiced line. The target was Raon's waist — a petty little payback for the blow he had taken.
"You telegraphed that so hard it hurt to watch."
Raon turned without a hint of surprise, planting a heavy step. Monstrous power climbed from his ankle, caught the rotation of his hips, and poured into the club as it came around.
The club, loaded with that tremendous force, crashed into Inild's magic-wreathed fist of wind and flame.
"You moron!"
Inild snorted as he watched the club come on. The reaction speed was worthy of a swordsman, but trying to punch through a Fifth Circle combination — Torrential Wind bound to Flame Spirit's Dagger — with a lump of wood like that was exactly the kind of empty-headed thing a swordsman would do.
I'll burn that smug face right off!
He was gathering even more mana to do exactly that when something went wrong.
Huh?
The club, which should have been ash a long time ago, was suddenly right in front of his nose.
Wh-what is this!
The club was huge, yes, but it was still only wood. That it had not burned in this heat — that it was crushing the magic and coming through anyway — was something he could not believe.
Don't tell me he put aura into that thing?
The larger a weapon was, and the blunter its shape, the harder it was to load with aura. There were plenty of Sword Masters on the continent. Hammer Masters and Morning Star Masters could be counted on one hand, and that was why.
But this lunatic seemed to have packed mana into that club. Inild had taken him for a man with nothing but a mouth. Apparently he had some skill after all.
"Gaaaaah!"
Inild screamed and poured everything he had into the clash. It did not matter. The club drove through the Fifth Circle combination magic with terrifying force.
"B-Blink!"
Inild abandoned the contest and threw himself backward. Fall back first, then pick a different spell and look for an opening.
I-I got out clean. If I'd stayed there I would have taken another— huh?
He was letting out a breath of relief, watching his own magic melt away, when a shadow fell across his head. He looked up. A massive club was dropping toward him, blotting out the sun.
"Ah…"
His mind went white. He did not even think of Blink or a shield. His mouth simply fell open.
"Blink won't work anymore."
Raon smiled faintly and brought the club down.
A shockwave burst out hard enough to gouge the ground, and Inild crumpled. The artifact was still working; a considerable portion of the impact vanished into it.
"Nice. He's satisfying to hit."
Raon's eyes turned vicious as he lifted the club again.
"W-wait! Wait a second! I lo— gaaaaah!"
The word of surrender never made it out of Inild's mouth. The club came down again.
A gale whipped the sand off the ground into a rising spiral, and Inild shot into the sky.
"I can hit as hard as I want and he still won't die. How convenient."
Raon took the club in both hands and swatted Inild out of the air on the way down.
A roar like the sky itself splitting open, and Inild slammed into the earth spread-eagled. The two rings on his fingers crumbled to powder and scattered on the wind.
"Nnngh…"
With the rings gone, there was no shock-absorbing artifact left. Inild could not get up. He only lay there, moaning.
"S-spare…"
"I'm not going to kill you."
Raon looked down at him with the club resting on his shoulder.
"But you do talk a lot of useless garbage. Let's have you practice a vow of silence for a while."
And with that, he smashed Inild across the mouth.
A bright, cheerful crack rang out, and a spray of teeth clattered from Inild's mouth like a handful of corn kernels.
"Grkkk…"
Inild's head lolled back, his eyes rolled up. Raon had not killed him, but the man was going to be hurting for a good long while.
Raon flicked the blood off the club and allowed himself a thin smile.
That felt good.
Whether Inild liked women or just liked attention was none of Raon's concern. The man had used him to catch the princess's eye. He talked too much and acted like a child, and after beating him as thoroughly as he pleased, Raon felt as if a weight had lifted off his chest.
"How vicious…"
Wrath shook his head at the wreck that had been Inild.
"This King would have ended it in a single blow, without inflicting such suffering."
"I was holding back, I'll have you know."
If Raon had truly put everything into it, Inild would have died on the first strike. This had been considerable restraint.
"Humans, for all their frailty, are nothing if not cruel."
"Cruel? Killing him would have been—"
Raon was shaking his head when the message arrived.
You have drawn forth the admiration of Wrath.
Strength has increased by 1 point.
Oh.
The system handed him the stat point and withdrew.
"W-what nonsense is this! When did This King ever express admiration!"
"You did. You called me cruel."
"N-no. That was merely a figure of speech!"
"You're a king, aren't you? And not just any king — the great king of the Demon Realm."
"Th-that is so."
"And a great king like that just says things? Shouldn't every word carry meaning?"
"That is…"
"Anyway, I'll take it. Raising a stat off a guy like this…"
Wrath ground his teeth, watching Raon check the new point.
"D-damn it. You really do have a filthy talent for twisting words."
Inild, that greasy creature, simply talked too much. Raon, on the other hand, knew how to turn words. Wrath felt it every time — he could not win a war of tongues against this one.
"This is a creature one must never engage in conversation…"
A crack ran through the ground.
The spectators, who had been staring blankly at Raon, snapped back to themselves at the sound of the earth giving way where Inild had been driven into it.
"Z-Zieghart's young swordsman won? And he didn't just win — he crushed him…"
"Hah!"
"This isn't a dream, right?"
"In all my life I've never seen anyone put aura into a club…"
"Is Zieghart teaching club work these days too?"
"Insane. This is insane. He doesn't even look twenty…"
They looked Raon up and down — the boy who had dismantled Inild at his leisure — and swallowed dryly.
"L-Lord Inild lost?"
"And not even to a sword. To a club…"
"H-he let his guard down, didn't he?"
"What are you talking about! He used Blink! He just couldn't dodge!"
"How is this even…"
The Balkar mages stared at the fallen Inild as well, their jaws trembling, unable to believe what they were seeing.
"All right, all right, the match is over, so let's settle up! Anyone who bet on Zieghart, over here! The odds were a sweet 4.2 to one!"
The man who had opened the ring in the first place was already waving people in.
"I hit it big!"
"From now on I'm bowing to Zieghart every single day!"
"Handsome swordsman of Zieghart! Drinks are on me tonight!"
"M-me! Me too!"
Among the voices crowing over their winnings was a bright, familiar one that the Light Wind Squad knew very well.
"Ahahaha! Jackpot!"
A red-haired elf who had somehow found his way into the betting was cackling down at the twenty gold coins in his hand.
"I knew I was right to borrow that money. If I just bet on Raon, I never lose! If the pot had been a little bigger it would have been perfe—"
"Rimer."
Morell's hand closed on Rimer's shoulder just as the elf was grinning and scooping up his gold.
"…What is that kid."
Morell's face had gone past surprise into outright shock.
"Some monster Zieghart has been raising in secret? To hide an aura I couldn't even sense — what in the world is he?"
"I've never seen that look on you before."
Rimer tucked the coins away, grinning from ear to ear. Morell was a flame mage, and yet the coldest man Rimer knew. He had never seen him this rattled.
"Have you heard of the Sword Demon of Habun Castle?"
"That lunatic who held a collapsed wall up from below during the Wave?"
"That's right. That lunatic is this kid."
"I see. So the Sword Demon of Habun Castle was a Zieghart swordsman, as expected. I simply did not imagine he would be that young."
Morell narrowed his eyes at Raon. His defeated disciple, the wager — all of it had fallen away. What filled him now was nothing but astonishment at the boy himself.
"It isn't what he's done so far that you should be watching. It's what's coming. Take a good look. It won't be long before he's far more famous than this."
"Don't get cocky. He's impressive, I'll grant you, but Balkar has people of similar—"
"I will not accept this!"
A sharp voice cut across them without warning, and both men looked to the right.
"I will not accept a match like this!"
Princess Jayna was walking toward Raon, her red lips pressed into a hard line.
Raon tilted his head at Jayna as she planted herself in his path.
"What is it you won't accept?"
"This match!"
Jayna glared down at Inild, still sprawled at her feet, and pressed on.
"I never accepted it!"
"The representative of your party accepted it."
Raon pointed at Morell, who was looking this way with surprise written plainly across his face.
"He is not the representative. I am!"
Jayna pointed at herself with complete conviction. That much could be true. In the great houses, it was common enough to name an heir the representative in name only, so they could gain experience.
That did not mean he was going to let this slide.
"That doesn't hold."
"What?"
"If you were going to say that, you should have said it before the match. It's over, and now you can't accept the result? That's just proving how small you are."
"I— earlier, I couldn't get the words—"
"On top of that, this man invoked the name of Balkar and the name of Zieghart."
Raon jerked his chin at Inild, who still had not come back to his senses.
"You didn't stop him even after both sides had put their names in their mouths. That means you gave implicit permission. Are you going to keep arguing after staking your kingdom's name on a match? I suppose Balkar's name doesn't weigh very much."
"He's right. If she was going to stop it, she should have stopped it then."
"Exactly. It's already over. What's she doing?"
"Arguing after it's finished is just ugly."
The spectators muttered just loudly enough for Jayna to hear.
"Nngh…"
Feeling those pitying stares settle on her, Jayna's face twisted.
"All of you shut up! This match was invalid!"
"Fine. Then I'll give you a chance."
As she shouted at the crowd, Raon picked the club back up off the ground.
"If you fight me and win, I'll void the previous match."
"A m-match? You and me?"
"Why so startled? Don't tell me you thought I'd just let it go."
"I…"
Jayna's eyes drifted to the bloodstained club. Looking at the same weapon that had just beaten Inild like a dog, she did not seem able to get the words I'll fight out of her mouth.
She swallowed dryly and turned around. She looked at Morell. He only watched her in silence. The meaning was clear enough: accept the loss.
"No! Balkar cannot lose to Zieghart!"
"If you don't want to accept that, then come at me. Stop standing there flapping your mouth. Come."
He smiled coldly and raised the club. The current that surged off it as he leveled it at Jayna was heavier than anything he had used to beat Inild.
"Nngh…"
Crushed under that enormous presence, Jayna could not even open her mouth. Her hands only shook.
"Is running their mouths the house specialty over there? Nothing but talk."
"Want me to handle that?"
Marta was smiling coldly as she said it when a clear voice rang out from among the Balkar knights.
Another fool, is it?
Raon turned, wondering what kind of idiot had just followed his instincts into this.
A knight in his mid-to-late twenties stepped forward — not particularly tall, but solidly built. His eyes were clear and straight in a way Inild's had never been. He seemed more interested in Raon's strength than in the princess.
"I am Zatis of the Balkar Kingdom's Spirit Knight Order. If it would not be an imposition, I would like to receive Sir Raon's sword."
He came forward and offered a formal sword salute.
"Are you confident?"
"Not at present."
Zatis said it without shame. At present, though. Meaning that someday, he intended to stop it. His strength had not even reached Expert Mid-Class, but there was a steadiness in him that sat above his realm.
A knight of Balkar…
Balkar was a kingdom of magic, and mages were its spine. The story that went around was that its knights were little more than shields for the mages, men without power and without fire. Raon felt none of that from this one.
"Very well."
Raon nodded and lifted the club.
Zatis lowered his stance and set a thick blade on a diagonal. He did not look ready to dodge or give ground. Just as he had said, he meant to receive it.
I like this one.
That did not mean Raon had any intention of going easy. He brought the club down with more force and more aura than he had used on Inild.
A terrifying pressure of air came with it. As the club fell, Zatis's stance shifted by a fraction — half to endure, half to deflect.
Not a chance.
In that sliver of an instant, Raon turned the club just slightly. The new line could not be shed.
"Hup!"
Zatis's focus was no ordinary thing. The moment he saw the club change path, he abandoned the deflection and poured everything into the block.
The club, loaded with a vast current of power, met a sword sheathed in dense aura, and a compressed shockwave burst between them.
Through the settling gray haze, Zatis came into view holding a shattered blade. The sword was broken and his knees had hit the ground, but he had not gone down. The pain must have been considerable, and still he clenched his teeth and held on, gripping what was left of the weapon.
"I— I have lost."
Zatis admitted defeat with a faint smile. His eyes, though, were brighter than they had been at the start. He had felt something.
So they're not all fools.
He had sought a match and accepted defeat cleanly. For a kingdom of that name, it seemed they were not all idiots. This Zatis was a martial artist who would climb higher.
"Nngh! We lost again! Why do all these idiots keep stepping up and ruining everything!"
Jayna, apparently, did not see it that way. She glared at Zatis, who was bleeding from the mouth, and threw grit into an atmosphere that had just begun to settle.
"This one went out on his own too, so I still won't accept it!"
Her childish outburst sent a spike of irritation straight through him.
"Princess Jayna."
Raon set the club down and stepped in front of her.
"As vice-leader of House Zieghart's Light Wind Squad, I will say this."
The moment he flicked the scabbard, the presence he had been hiding surged up like a tidal wave.
An overwhelming force crushed not only Jayna's aura but her very emotions. The one who ruled this space now was Raon.
"Ah— nngh…"
Jayna bit her lip — and then her legs gave out anyway. She could not endure Raon's terrifying presence. She began to gasp for air.
"Answer me."
"Haaah…"
Raon did not ease the pressure. Jayna had started to drool when Morell appeared behind her as if he had always been there.
Heat-laced wind unfurled from his gesture, shoved Raon's presence back, and snapped the ropes of aura that had been holding Jayna in place.
"That's enough."
Morell caught the violently trembling Jayna by the shoulders and pulled her up, shaking his head. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she had fainted.
"Hhhk…"
She could not even look this way properly. The terror seemed to have been branded deep into her mind.
"She's been raised as the kingdom's precious jewel, so she still hasn't grown up."
"That's not something we need to understand."
"You're right. I'll apologize in her place."
What sat in his eyes was less apology than shock and disorientation. He seemed thoroughly stunned that he had failed to read Raon's strength at a glance.
"We'll be taking our leave. As promised, we'll withdraw from this matter."
"And just where do you think you're going?"
Raon stepped into Morell's path as the man made to leave.
"Hm?"
"I haven't yet said what I intend to do after winning."
"Wasn't the loser supposed to withdraw?"
"The condition of this match, as you yourself stated, Lord Morell, was that the loser would obey the winner."
"Nngh. So what is it you want?"
"Your disciple was kind enough to give me an excellent idea."
Raon pointed at Inild, who was being carried by the Balkar knights.
"Until this commission is over, the Light Wind Squad will be using the Balkar Kingdom's Salaman Magic Corps as our servants."
Raon grinned and held out his hand to Dorian.
"A standard contract."