The Sword Demon's Request

Raon smirked as he watched Wrath flick his tongue at Rimer.

Those two meeting would be a show worth watching.

The thought of Wrath and Rimer in the same room — two souls who would weep if they ever lost a contest of childishness — was enough to pull a smile onto his face all by itself.

Would they bicker like a pair of kids?

He was still turning that conversation over in his mind when Wendy Ariane stepped up onto the sparring ground.

She walked straight to Rimer and bowed from the waist at a perfect right angle.

"Light Wind Squad Leader. You have my deepest thanks."

When he had first asked to open a gambling floor in the arena, she had taken him for a man possessed by money. She could not have been more wrong.

Raon and Rimer had not merely saved House Arian. They had cooked up this entire gambling scheme for the sake of supporting the family with gold as well.

This is Zieghart. This is the Light Wind Squad.

Ugly rumors about Rimer had always been thick on the ground, but they all seemed to have been empty noise. To meet one hero after another, first Raon and now this man — gratitude tightened her hands into fists of their own accord.

"Heh heh heh…"

Rimer nodded along, letting out a kindly little laugh as though Roen himself had possessed him. A tear that had been clinging to the corner of his narrowed eye slipped free and fell.

"To donate a sum like this…"

"House Arian will never forget this kindness!"

"From this day forward, we will honor you as our benefactor!"

"Waaaaaah!"

The men and women newly raised as House Arian's officers bowed their heads to Rimer and roared their cheers.

"Heh heh heh…"

Rimer offered up that same hollow laugh again and did nothing but nod.

"Let's toss him!"

"Yeahhhhh!"

"Thank you, Lord Rimer!"

Wendy and the officers hoisted Rimer into the air and sent him up again, pouring out their gratitude a second time.

"Heh heh heh…"

Even as he drifted up into empty space and came back down, Rimer wore nothing but that vacant smile.

He looked like a man whose inner workings had simply given out.

"Benefactor?"

"Lord Rimer?"

People were tilting their heads when Raon stepped up beside him.

"He's delighted. He's always been the type who loves to give."

"Ah, so that's it!"

"I knew it!"

"Giving like that isn't easy. Truly admirable."

It was not only House Arian's officers. The spectators lifted their hands again and sang Rimer's praises once more.

"Come to think of it, I heard something like that once."

One of the officers looked at Rimer and clicked his tongue in warm admiration.

"A friend of mine said he saw Lord Rimer donating to an orphanage."

He murmured a story that could not possibly have happened and smiled a gentle smile.

"Donated? Not robbed?"

Raon narrowed his eyes at Rimer.

"Have you ever actually donated anything yourself, Squad Leader? Sure that wasn't someone with the same name?"

It was an absurd tale, but he asked anyway, just in case.

"How the hell should I know!"

Rimer whipped his head away and climbed down from the sparring ground, waving a hand as if to say the rest of them could handle whatever was left.

"Bank!"

"Yes, sir!"

At Raon's call, Dorian sprang up onto the sparring ground like a fish breaking water.

"Finished the accounts?"

"Of course!"

Dorian ran a finger down the ledger as if he had truly been made president of a bank, then nodded.

"Then give Lady Wendy the Squad Leader's donation."

"Understood."

He drew gold coins from his belly pouch and held them out to Wendy Ariane and her officers.

"Ah…"

"I truly don't know how to thank you…"

Wendy and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠officers stared at the heaped pouches of gold and could not find another word.

"Contact the Sepia Merchant Guild and tell them to open trade with House Arian. This is a chance to lock down the finest grapes and blueberries on the continent. They'll come running."

The thought of House Arian — already as good as an allied power — knitting itself even tighter to the Sepia Merchant Guild pulled a smile across his face.

"The Guild Master will be thrilled!"

Dorian nodded at once and pulled out the communication orb the Guild Master had given him.

"Light Wind Squad! Light Wind Squad! Light Wind Squad!"

"No! These days they call them the Mad Dog Squad!"

"Mad Dog Squad! Mad Dog Squad! Mad Dog Squad!"

The crowd raised their voices, praising the Light Wind Squad that had saved House Arian and then poured out gold on top of it.

"It's Light Wind, not Mad Dog, you bastards!"

The instant Marta heard the words Mad Dog, fire leapt in her eyes.

"Aaaaagh!"

"It's the Demoness! Zieghart's hellhound!"

"I'm not the demon! That bastard Raon is!"

She vaulted into the stands and raised hell, but it was nothing more than a minor accident.

Everyone here wore a smile and drank in the day's festival.

Well. Everyone but one.

The only person who was not smiling was a red-haired elf crouched in a corner, shedding tears of blood.

"Nngh… my money. My easy street…"

He bit down hard on his lip as he stared at the bundles of gold Dorian had pulled out.

Time to keep my promise to the Sword Demon… hm?

Raon started toward the Sword Demon and stopped.

That…

Behind the Sword Demon, Muston was staring this way with bloodshot eyes.

So there's one more who isn't smiling.

Raon had not caught every word, but after the duel the Sword Demon had not scolded Muston. He had encouraged him. None of it seemed to have taken. Muston was not raising his aura, yet the malice sitting in his gaze was thicker than before.

I'll have to step on him properly, just once.

Now that he had reached the peak of Master, he was confident he could break Muston without much trouble even if the man came at him with everything he had.

It was time to pin him down with raw strength and settle the order of things.

"Lord Rektar."

Raon walked toward the Sword Demon, receiving Muston's cutting stare with easy composure.

"It's finished."

The Sword Demon nodded and gestured toward his lodging.

"Let's have a cup of tea somewhere quiet."

The Sword Demon drew a hand down his teacup and lifted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his gaze. He looked at Raon sipping tea across from him and chose his breath with care.

No matter how I look at him, he resembles him…

If Raon's hair were brown and his eyes blue, he would have looked very nearly like that boy. The expression he wore when he fought had been identical — as if that boy had come back from the dead and taken up a sword.

The world was wide enough that a passing resemblance was nothing strange. But this close… it was hard to imagine anyone but blood.

"Lord Rektar?"

"Ahem."

At Raon's call, Rektar pulled himself back and cleared his throat.

"Forgive me. My mind wandered for a moment."

"Not at all. It's fine."

Raon shook his head, unhurried.

He looked lonely, just now.

A moment ago the Sword Demon had not looked like a ghost of the blade. He had looked like an old man, wearing every one of his years, and the sight had been quietly sad. Given that he had called it a wandering thought, he had likely slipped into some old memory.

What is he trying to ask me?

Not a favor. Not a rematch with his disciple. Just a few questions. Raon could not quite read the intent.

"Don't think it strange. Just hear me out."

"Yes."

"May I ask about your father and mother?"

"My mother and father?"

"That's right. I want to know what kind of people they were, to raise you this upright."

The Sword Demon wore an awkward smile, his eyes calm, as if he found it genuinely remarkable that a young man of twenty could already be finished in martial power, in will, and in character besides.

Character, he says…

It seemed the Sword Demon knew perfectly well that his own disciple Muston's character had gone to ruin. Watching him seek advice for a student like that, Raon found he liked the man even more.

It isn't exactly a secret.

That he was Sylvia's son had already spread far and wide. Telling him would not be difficult.

"My mother is Sylvia Zieghart. She was a Zieghart swordswoman once. She lives an ordinary life now. But her heart is sturdier than any swordsman's, and she is the kind of person who puts everyone around her at ease."

Raon spoke honestly of everything he had felt and thought about Sylvia.

"You mentioned character a moment ago. It's a little embarrassing to say, but the epithet of chivalry they hung on me exists because of my mother."

He told him how Sylvia had said she hoped he would become someone who drew his sword for others, the way the old swordsmen of Zieghart once had.

"…I see."

The Sword Demon swallowed a low sound and nodded.

"And your father?"

"This may sound strange, but I don't know my father well."

"You don't know him?"

"Yes. He passed away before I was born. I never even met him."

"He… died, you said?"

The Sword Demon's voice was even, but his lips trembled, fine as a thread.

"How? Was it illness?"

"It's a little difficult to explain to an outsider, but he was murdered."

"……"

The Sword Demon closed his eyes. Those shoulders, which had looked as unyielding as steel, suddenly seemed as thin as a dry branch.

"My mother never spoke of him, so to be honest, I never even heard his name."

"They were on bad terms, then?"

"No. She said the two of them were closer than anyone. I think she was being careful, so I wouldn't feel his absence too keenly."

Whenever Sylvia spoke of his father she smiled — and at the same time her face turned quietly sad. He had never asked the name on purpose. He could not bear that expression.

"If I put it the way my mother did, she said my father was a fool. He was tall, and his swordsmanship was outstanding, but he had no talent for aura, so he was never a swordsman anyone knew by name."

Raon recounted the story Sylvia had once told him, quietly, in pieces.

"But she said he was the kind of man who drew his sword for other people, and who grew stronger when he stood in front of them. If I think of others the way I do now, it's because of my mother — and she was the way she is because of him."

He had lived his previous life as an assassin whose humanity had been worn down to nothing. Without Sylvia, he might well have become a broken monster, something cracked in the same places as the Sword Demon's disciple Muston.

Meeting Sylvia and the people of the Annex had been the greatest fortune of his life.

"……"

The Sword Demon said nothing. He only looked at the teacup he had set down on the table. The last few drops at the bottom seemed to be evaporating where they sat.

"I'm truly sorry to ask this, but do you know who murdered your father? Please."

"…It was Eden."

"I… see."

He clasped his hands together and bowed his head. The fingertips that had been so steady when their swords met were trembling, fine and thin.

"Mm…"

Raon touched his lip, watching the Sword Demon, who looked somehow precarious, as if he might come apart.

"Did you… know my father, by any chance?"

The way the Sword Demon was acting now made sense only if there was some connection to his father.

"Not yet."

He had mastered his expression in the space between one breath and the next. He shook his head, his voice even again.

Not yet?

Raon could not quite grasp what that was supposed to mean.

Then again, it would be stranger if he did know him from an explanation like that.

He had not even given a name. For the man to already know his father would have been the stranger thing.

"May I ask one more favor?"

The Sword Demon drew a short breath and lifted his head.

"Please."

"When you return to Zieghart, may I go with you?"

"Is it my mother you wish to see?"

"There is something I want to confirm about your father. I swear I will cause no one any harm."

He set the sword-hand, his right, over the left side of his chest where his heart sat, and spoke a swordsman's oath.

"I don't plan to go straight there. I mean to stop at Habun Castle first. Will that be all right?"

"It makes no difference."

"If you come as a guest, it should be fine."

The Sword Demon was no enemy. And even if there was some tie to his father, the feeling in it did not seem like a bad one. The man had given them enormous help this time. Inviting him was no great burden.

"Thank you. Truly…"

The Sword Demon lifted his gaze. The look in his eyes was plain, unadorned — and yet it felt hot, like an iron plate left too long on the fire.

"It's nothing. We leave in five days, so please prepare ahead of time."

"I will."

He nodded, told Raon to take care of his body, and let his eyes fall shut.

Raon bowed his head and stepped out of the Sword Demon's room.

I wonder what this is really about.

He was turning the Sword Demon and his father over in his mind as he went down to the first floor when Muston came up the stairs toward him.

Two blades still sat in that man's eyes.

"What did you talk about with Master?"

Muston raised a chill in the air, as if he might draw his sword then and there.

"And what would you do with that if you knew?"

Raon snorted at him.

"If it had been something you needed to hear, he would have called you into the room too."

"You arrogant…"

Muston's brow crumpled like a scrap of paper crushed in a fist.

"You waited for a moment of carelessness and now you actually believe you won that fight fairly!"

"It isn't a belief. It's what happened."

"If I had used my real strength from the start, the result would have been different! If we fought now, you wouldn't even be my match!"

He clenched the scabbard as if he wanted to fight this instant.

"For Lord Rektar's sake, I'll let it go. Once."

"Don't you dare put my Master's name in that mouth of yours!"

Raon sighed and started down the stairs. Muston seized his shoulder, rough and hard.

"You're the one who doesn't know his place."

Raon turned and closed the distance.

"Ghhhk…"

Muston hauled up his own presence to meet that vast pressure, but the aura came on as sharp as if it had been wrapped in blades, and it tore him apart in strips.

"W-what is this…"

His jaw shuddered. He stumbled backward down the stairs.

"Urgh!"

The wave grew rougher still. Muston's foot missed the step, and he tumbled, rolling, until he sprawled on the floor at the bottom.

"Muston."

Raon looked down at the man where he had fallen and let his voice come out dry.

"In the world of combat, there is no such thing as catching someone off guard. If that had been a real fight, your head would be rolling on this floor right now."

"Ghh…"

"If you understand that, shut your mouth and stay out of my way."

He left Muston trembling from head to foot and walked out of the Sword Demon's lodging.

"That one has been eaten alive by jealousy."

Wrath clicked his tongue.

"Jealousy is an emotion most people cannot carry with their own strength. They call it a Snake's Heart — a filthy, reptilian kind of envy."

A Snake's Heart…

"There was one like him in the Demon Realm as well. You could speak kindly to him, he could have more than he could ever use, and still he envied ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠others and resented them. The difference is that madman took that jealousy and turned it into enormous power."

He muttered that, even among demonkind, the creature had been a uniquely ugly thing.

Don't tell me…

"That's right. That bastard climbed all the way to a Demon Lord's throne on the strength of that ugly jealousy."

Raon did not need the name said aloud. The Monarch of Jealousy. Envy. The other Demon Lord Wrath had mentioned when he talked about how roughly he treated his subordinates.

So he reached a level comparable to yours through jealousy alone?

"What kind of nonsense is that! This King is far stronger than that wretch!"

Wrath sniffed, declaring that he could crush the likes of Envy in the quality of his subordinates and in his own martial power alike.

Well. That one is too pathetic to ever become a Demon Lord.

Raon looked up at the Sword Demon's lodging and shook his head.

Still, I have to wonder why Lord Sword Demon ever took an idiot like that as a disciple…

"Haa…"

The Sword Demon let out a heavy breath.

It's all but certain.

A righteous nature that did not know its place and stepped forward anyway. Aura that was weak, and swordsmanship that was not. And last of all, the height.

He would have to confirm it with Sylvia to be sure, but no matter how he turned it over, Raon's father was that boy.

How did it come to this…

He had heard, while he was shut away in closed-door training, that the boy had paid a terrible price and left the Union. He had never imagined the threads would knot together like this.

And of all places, Zieghart…

Not some other house. The fact that the boy had belonged to Zieghart made something in his chest twist.

Then again. You never did care about things like that.

The Sword Demon let out a hollow breath and pressed a hand to the unrest in his chest. The door opened, and Muston came in.

"Master. What did you talk about with Raon just now?"

He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠came closer with a face that had gone somehow crooked.

"It was nothing of importance."

The Sword Demon shook his head. He could not speak of a thing that was not yet certain, so he shook his head and left it there.

"Stop wasting your thoughts on useless things and train for the next four days. On the fifth we will go to Zieghart with the Light Wind Squad, so be ready."

"What?"

Muston's mouth fell open.

"Y-you're going to Zieghart? What are you saying!"

"Something has come up that I must attend to."

"That place is enemy ground! Even if they don't know who we are, why would you—"

"As you said, neither your affiliation nor mine has been revealed yet. That is precisely why it has to be now."

The Sword Demon pushed a hand back through his hair and let his eyes fall shut.

"I have watched you give instruction to talented martial artists of the Six Kings more than once. This is not the same."

Muston ground his teeth.

"Another of the Six Kings would be one thing, but the rift between us and Zieghart runs deep! No matter how much Raon Zieghart has taken your fancy, this crosses a line!"

He dropped to his knees, as if he could not accept it.

"Master. Come to your senses! I am your disciple! A summons from the Union will come soon enough — if something happens before then, it will be a disaster!"

Muston drove his head into the floor, as if the answer could only be no.

"Even if it comes to that…"

The Sword Demon opened the eyes he had closed so deeply. A will as hard as bedrock sat in them, and they flashed a hard, cold blue.