The Seventh Ring
Focus training on Bukmang Mountain through the night. Physical conditioning at dawn. One-on-one spars through the morning, then supplementary drills to patch every hole in their martial arts through the afternoon.
The Light Wind Squad had spent all twenty-four hours of the day in training, and the instant evening arrived, they dropped like felled trees.
"Uuugh…"
"I-I'm dying. At this rate we're all going to die…"
"Kkkuuuh!"
"I-it won't stop hurting…"
"Kh-hk, how is a spot he hit me in the afternoon still throbbing now?"
The Light Wind Squad lay with their faces planted in the training-ground sand and could not get up. Only the faint thread of their breathing proved they were still alive.
Raon looked them over one by one, and a satisfied smile touched his mouth.
Not bad.
That should be burned into their skulls by now.
Thanks to the Ring of Fire, he could read every swordsman's strengths and weaknesses at a glance. He had beaten those weaknesses into their bodies with his own hands during the spars. They would never forget them.
"Good work, all of you. From tomorrow, follow the Chief Manager's instructions for training."
He had put them through focus drills, spars, and filled in the gaps in their martial arts. They would do just fine in Dokoe's hands.
"Raon. You're not even that handsome."
Runaan barely managed to lift her head. Her eyes were even blanker than usual, and her lips pushed out in a pout. Come to think of it, this might have been the first time she had ever complained.
"Yeah. I know."
He had never particularly cared about his own looks, so he nodded without the slightest hesitation.
"I hate you…"
With that, Runaan buried her face in the sand again.
"J-just kill me already, you crazy bastard."
Marta lay spread-eagled with her eyes squeezed shut. Even she, with that stubborn, never-say-die streak of hers, seemed thoroughly sick of a training regimen that demanded everything she had for twenty-four hours straight.
"I can't do this anymore. I don't even have the strength to twitch a single finger, okay? Wait—!"
Drained of all strength, she had let the whine slip out—and her eyes flew open in horror.
"So you can still twitch your toes, then, okay~?"
"Don't you dare!"
Marta heaved her neck up off the ground and shrieked.
"No strength in your fingers or your toes, but plenty left to twitch your neck, I see."
"Uuugghhh…"
She ground her teeth in sheer indignation and turned her head away.
"D-did you people seriously endure this for a whole week?"
Burren, who had held out until the very end, sank to the floor with a deathly pallor.
"You've all lost your minds. You, and that lunatic over there—every last one of you is insane!"
Barely twenty-four hours ago he had called Raon a benefactor he would spend his whole life repaying. Now he was shouting lunatic at the same man.
"So much for a life debt. Didn't last long, did it?"
"I'm a patient! Who in their right mind puts a patient through all of this!"
"Patients don't die when they get stabbed, then?"
"Huh?"
"If you train properly, you won't end up in that kind of mess again."
"No, this time it wasn't because I was weak—Gelmier attacked from behind—"
"Enough."
Raon cut him off and waved a hand.
"You're a week behind. Start preparing to catch up. The moment my disciplinary confinement ends, you and I are beginning a separate training regimen."
"Urgh!"
Burren's pupils rolled like a boat hit by a wave.
"…Why. Why do I miss being kidnapped?"
He gazed up at the sky with mournful eyes, then toppled over.
"I'll see you all in a week. If nothing's changed by the time I get back, you'd best prepare yourselves."
Raon waved, a smile of genuine anticipation on his face.
"Grrrnnngh!"
"A-a demon. He's definitely a demon…"
"The vice-captain has no feelings! His human heart's already been worn down to nothing!"
"Grrrr…"
Sprawled and collapsed across the sand, the Light Wind Squad clamped their hands over their ears and trembled from head to toe. A few of them were making animal noises.
"Then I'll leave them in your care starting tomorrow."
Raon approached Dokoe, who had been standing on the platform, and bowed his head.
"A-are you trying to kill those kids?"
Dokoe let out a weary puff of air, thoroughly fed up.
"Of course not. I only pushed them as far as they could go."
It wasn't a lie. Using the Ring of Fire, he had taken the measure of the entire squad's stamina and aura, then drawn their strength out to the absolute limit.
It would be hard enough to make them wish they were dead. But they could do it.
"Is that so…"
Dokoe looked over the Light Wind Squad, who could not so much as twitch, and gave a reluctant nod.
"I'll be going, then."
Raon offered his farewell and was about to leave when—
KWAANG!
The training-hall doors slammed open hard enough to splinter. There was only one person who made an entrance like that.
"Where have you been all this time? Squad Leader, you have training to do as well—"
Raon started forward to greet Rimer, then stopped dead.
This guy again…
He looks like a beggar.
Rimer's red hair was scorched black as if it had been burned. His clothes were torn, and livid bruises mottled him from head to toe. He looked like someone had beaten him senseless and rolled him across the ground.
"Grrrr…"
The moment Rimer's eyes found him, his hands began to shake, and he bared his teeth like a wild beast.
"Did you go gambling again?"
"GRRRRRNGH!"
The growl in Rimer's throat deepened the instant the words left Raon's mouth.
"Do you have a talent for raising beasts as well?"
Wrath tilted his head, studying Rimer.
"Why does everyone turn into a rabid dog the moment they meet you?"
Raon shrugged as he watched Rimer grind his teeth.
How should I know?
"You truly are a demon…"
That night.
The Enforcement Division had tried to suppress the rumors surrounding the clash between the Light Wind Squad and the Vanguard Squad—but rumors were never so easily bottled up.
The finer details had not gotten out, yet the news that the two squads had come to blows spread through the whole of House Zieghart in a single day.
The shabby tavern in the back alley that Rimer frequented was buzzing with the story as well.
"Light Wind Squad versus Vanguard Squad—the winner's obvious, isn't it?"
"The Vanguard Squad won for sure."
"Right. The experience gap is huge. If the Light Wind Squad is a cat, the Vanguard Squad is a tiger!"
"It's not just the members. The captains' fight is a foregone conclusion too. Rimer, maybe. But Raon still can't touch Gelmier."
"No need to even wait for the result."
The people in the tavern took it as a given that the Vanguard Squad would win—the squad that had completed far more missions and spent far longer accumulating martial knowledge.
"Th-the Light Wind Squad beat the Vanguard Squad!"
An hour later, a red-haired swordsman came running from the Main House, and the result he delivered drowned the entire tavern in shock.
"Th-they won? The Light Wind Squad?"
"Does that make any sense? The Light Wind Squad was only just formed! The Vanguard Squad is a unit with tradition behind it!"
"Good heavens…"
"H-how did they even win? They used some dirty trick, didn't they?"
"Apparently not. The Enforcement Division confirmed it—it was a straight fight, sword against sword, the whole way."
"I was wondering why the Light Wind Squad's name kept coming up more than anyone else's lately. There was a reason. To already have that kind of strength…"
The people in the tavern listened to the news of the Light Wind Squad's victory and knocked back their beer as if their souls had left their bodies.
"Th-then what about the captains' duel?"
"Right! There would've been a fight between Raon and Gelmier too."
"Never mind that—why were they fighting in the first place?"
"Of course there's news about Raon and Gelmier's battle as well. First of all, the two of them clashed in the underground of the Heavy Martial Palace. As for why they fought underground…"
The red-haired man who had brought the detailed news rubbed his throat and gave a dry cough.
"Ah, I ran all the way here. My throat's parched."
"Th-the Divine Art of Severing!"
"No! That's a demonic art! Innkeeper! Beer!"
"What's a glass! Bring a whole keg!"
"Order every side dish on the menu too!"
"I've got money! I'll pay, so spit it out already!"
"Consecutive slashes! Hit him with consecutive slashes before we feed him Nadin Bread!"
The people in the tavern hurled money at the man in a frenzy, shouting for him to tell them the rest. A few even threatened to feed him Nadin Bread—that rubbery, flavorless ration Wrath despised more than anything in the world.
"Aaah, hold on."
The red-haired man lowered his hands and calmed them all down.
"I'll tell you everything, one thing at a time. First, this whole affair started with Burren, the Light Wind Squad's Third Unit Leader."
"Burren? Why Burren all of a sudden…"
"The truth is, Gelmier, captain of the Vanguard Squad, kidnapped his own younger brother Burren, and…"
The man recounted the reason the Light Wind Squad and the Vanguard Squad had come to blows as if he had been standing there himself.
"What! Not content with kidnapping his own brother, he brainwashed him too?"
"Those sons of bitches! Absolute pieces of shit!"
"That's the Heavy Martial Palace for you. All brawn, not a shred of humanity in them!"
"The Light Wind Squad, on the other hand—now that's impressive. Storming the Heavy Martial Palace to save a comrade…"
"I thought they were just a bunch of kids. I'll have to look at them again."
"Light Wind Squad! Light Wind Squad!"
"Raon! Raon! Raon!"
Moved by the story of the Light Wind Squad fighting the Vanguard Squad to rescue Burren, the people in the tavern roared Raon's name and the name of his squad.
"And now the last part—the highlight. The battle between Gelmier, captain of the Vanguard Squad, and Raon, vice-captain of the Light Wind Squad. A mid-rank Master against a low-rank Master. But contrary to what you'd expect, the one who dictated that fight was Raon. Every time their swords met…"
The red-haired man nodded in satisfaction as he watched the crowd curse the Heavy Martial Palace, then launched into the final battle.
He praised Raon without pause, especially for overwhelming Gelmier—a craftsman of the thrust—with thrusting himself.
"He—he overwhelmed him with thrusting?"
"That's insane…"
"Never thought I'd say this about a kid who isn't even twenty, but he's genuinely cool. The person himself is cool."
"Doesn't it baffle you? How does a low-rank Master overwhelm a mid-rank and even take an arm?"
"He beat an Apostle back when he was still an Expert, remember?"
"At this point it isn't even the martial arts. It's Raon himself who's strong."
"Ah, to hell with it! From now on I'm cheering for the Light Wind Squad and the Frost-Flower Sword Hero!"
"Raon! Raon! Raon! Raon!"
The red-haired man told the story so well, and the ending went down as clean and cold as the beer, that everyone in the tavern erupted once more, chanting Raon's name and his epithet at the top of their lungs.
"Hmm."
The red-haired man watched the tavern bloom with conversation, drained his mug, and stepped outside.
Shhk.
He raised a hand to his face and drew it down. The ordinary middle-aged features vanished, and Rimer's sly face appeared in their place.
"Raon. You ought to be grateful. You betrayed me, but I only spread the good rumors."
Rimer thumped his chest, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
"This is what a true master looks like."
He grinned and nodded—then his gaze slid to the cloth bundle in his right hand.
"Ahem. Let's just have a look…"
Rimer gave an unnecessary little cough and cracked the bundle open.
The moment his eyes met the coins flashing gold and silver, they went slack as a pair of rotten eggs.
"How much is all this? As expected, our Raon really is a god of wealth!"
He clutched the bundle tight and threw both arms toward the sky.
"Thanks to you, I can live!"
KWA-RUMBLE!
"Hieek!"
Thunder crashed from a clear sky, and Rimer leapt a foot in the air in sheer terror.
"Y-you're not here, are you?"
He rubbed his hands together like a fly and scanned the surroundings, then let out a breath of relief when he confirmed that that person was nowhere in sight. Even so, he kept glancing over his shoulder as he scurried off down the back alley.
"He's really not here, right?"
Raon returned to his room in the Annex. Confinement at House Zieghart was essentially house arrest, which meant he could not carry out his duties as acting squad leader. He had no choice but to wait at home.
This was for the best, actually.
He had been so busy raising the Light Wind Squad's martial strength and focus that he had neglected his own training a little. This was his chance to make up for it.
If they fall short of my expectations in a week, I can just work them even harder.
Now that he understood how to squeeze them properly, he was confident he could handle the Light Wind Squad's swordsmen.
"Y-you mean you can squeeze them even harder than that?"
Wrath's brow furrowed in genuine horror.
Even a wrung-out rag still has a little moisture left in it.
"Hah!"
Wrath's eyes went round, and a sound of pure astonishment escaped him.
"Raon Zieghart! No matter how This King looks at it, your presence in this place is a waste of talent! Come with This King to the Demon Realm…"
Not happening.
Raon waved off Wrath, who was trying to cling to him, and sat down on the floor. He savored the moonlight spilling through the window, then lowered his eyelids.
I already know what I have to do.
The Ring of Fire. Through countless battles and drills, it had reached the peak of six stars. It was time to open a new path.
He did not know whether it would be possible within a week—but if he could pull it off, not only would his own skill leap forward, he would also be able to run the Light Wind Squad's training far more efficiently.
"Hooooo…"
He slowly settled his breathing and set the Ring of Fire in motion. The six rings circling his heart collided over and over like glass marbles in a barrel, ringing with a clear, resonant tone.
I have to form a new ring while dodging all of these, huh?
A dry laugh slipped out of him.
It had been hard enough shaping a new ring while avoiding five. Now he had to dodge six just to make the seventh, and the tension was already climbing.
Still. I have to try.
He began to form a new Ring of Fire, weaving it through the six rings that spun on no fixed orbit, whirling however they pleased.
He was still assembling a fragment too frail to even be called a ring when the fifth came barreling in and smashed it from the side.
Kyaang!
A bright, ringing crash—and the ring he had been building shattered in an instant.
"Tsk."
The first attempt, over before it had even begun. He clicked his tongue in frustration.
"What foolishness are you up to now?"
Wrath's face scrunched up in open disapproval.
"Stop this pointless nonsense and let's go eat."
It's been less than an hour since dinner.
"What are you talking about? You eat so poorly on a regular basis that you ought to be eating at times like this. You are in your growth period. You shall eat two more meals between now and midnight."
Wrath had been delighted at the prospect of eating the Annex's cooking instead of the tasteless meals at the training hall, and now—less than an hour after dinner—he was talking nonsense about breakfast.
I'm busy right now.
Raon flicked Wrath away with the back of his hand and set the Ring of Fire turning again.
The new ring had grown about as long as a finger joint when the third came charging in like a wild boar. They collided, and the new ring melted away like snow.
This is hard.
He had expected as much, but it was no easy task.
Damn it…
"If you don't want a meal, then let's at least have a snack. Eating is never a waste."
Every time Raon opened his eyes, Wrath came rushing in, babbling for him to put something—anything—in his mouth.
This was a Demon King?
He wanted to find whoever had made this creature the Monarch of Wrath and have a serious word with them. If Wrath was this bad, he could not begin to imagine what the one called Gluttony would be like.
Ziiing.
Raon ignored Wrath's chatter about food and set the Ring of Fire in motion once more.
"Hooooo…"
He exhaled from the deepest part of his lungs and settled his mind. He shut out the five senses, starting with sight and hearing, and straightened his posture.
There's no point in forming it sloppily.
Even if he only managed it once, he would do it with total focus, and he would do it right.
Telling himself this was his last chance, he gathered his mana.
Holding his concentration at its peak, he began to refine the seventh ring.
He shaped the new ring so slowly he could barely feel it, the way a fingernail grows.
Bit by bit, like fitting pieces of a puzzle, he lengthened the ring, and discarded every thought and worry that rose in his head.
The Light Wind Squad's training. Rimer's recovery. The schemes of the Heavy Martial Palace. Even Sylvia's return to the direct line, buried deep in his heart, and his revenge against Derus Robert—he emptied them all.
He thought of only one thing: the Ring of Fire.
Ziiiiing.
The instant every nerve in his body locked onto the Ring of Fire, a resonance rolled through him as if his entire spine were ringing, and the six rings circling his heart seemed to slow to a fraction of their former speed.
It was the realm of a supreme master, born of concentration pushed to its absolute limit.
Was it because he had put the Light Wind Squad through Focus Enhancement Training? His own focus seemed to have grown as well.
The third ring surged toward the new one like an angry wave. He spun the forming ring with the principle of the Swift Sword and slipped past it.
The sixth came on like a storm, coiling into a spiral. He let it slide by with the principle of the Flowing Sword, the way a river glances off a stone.
A dry laugh rose in his throat.
His focus had risen because he had trained his comrades, and now he was using the swordsmanship he had taught them to dodge the other rings. It was a strange feeling.
All Flows Return to One. Many streams, reaching the end, become a single ocean. He had never expected to feel the truth of that proverb in his own body.
So absorbed was he in evading the six rings that, before he knew it, the two ends of the new ring had begun to face each other.
This is where it really starts.
The longer the new ring grew, the fiercer the threat from the others became. He concentrated until he could feel the grains of mana being drawn in with every breath.
Ziiing.
The six rings seemed to join forces against him, turning like the teeth of interlocking gears as they hunted the seventh. He was so busy dodging he could not even think about forming it.
He wrung his mind to its limit and managed to add a length no thicker than an eyelash. The tension clamped his throat shut.
As the seventh ring drew close to completion, even the beating of his heart became a kind of pain.
I can't do it like this.
Only the final shaping remained, but the six rings crossed in his path as if to obstruct him, and finishing it was all but impossible.
He would have to seize the single instant when all six moved in the same direction.
Hoooooo.
Raon exhaled, calm and steady. Endurance was something he had been confident in since his previous life. He could wait as long as it took.
Time passed.
As much time bled away as the cold sweat falling from his brow.
Hours. Or days. Or a month. He had no sense of how long it had been. He forgot everything, and simply waited.
The concentration he had believed was already wrung dry climbed one level higher.
The flow of the six resonating rings, and the movements that would follow, unfurled before him like a blueprint.
He swallowed a dry throat and waited for the moment. The single instant when the six rings would take the same motion, the way the moon covers the sun in an eclipse.
Ziiing.
Ring overlapped ring, twisting, until they became a single ring.
An instant carved from an instant. The only chance he would have to form the seventh. He bit down hard on his lip and filled in the last remaining piece.
KWAAAANG!
A pulse surged through him as if the two lines of soul and body had been joined into one, and golden lightning crashed through his mind.