The Fated Encounter
The Teach's back, walking out there all alone, kept wavering unsteadily before my eyes. No — it wasn't the Teach who was wavering. It was my gaze. The title screen alone had been telling us from the start that this was a puzzle game.
Right. This was never a game meant for a one-on-one standoff like that. And yet there he was, squaring off against it bare-handed, without a single weapon. How is that right...
"Isn't this kind of dangerous?"
The minotaur that had erupted from the ground wrenched its axe free of the earth. For a split second it looked like someone yanking a radish out of a garden bed, and the viewers were howling with laughter. I was the only one who couldn't laugh.
I could see it all too clearly: the Teach cleaved in two by that colossal axe. The game title itself announces it's a puzzle game — so why on earth was he charging in bare-handed! While I stared at his back with mounting dread, the small-eyed beast's savage glare finally locked onto him.
And then it came. A voice that seemed pressed directly into my ear, ringing through my skull, scattered my attention — even at the brink of a hair-trigger clash, my mind flooded with the voice rather than the danger before me.
The vast earth is but the imprint of man's footsteps.
"Am I the only one hearing this?"
"No, don't joke around."
It definitely sounded like the Teach's voice. But the Teach is way over there, still walking forward — with the minotaur's swinging axe right in front of him, no less.
"Wha...?"
Its end shall never be found.
The voice washed through my head once more. And in that very instant—
KAANG!
A clear, ringing sound echoed across the plaza. It was not the scream I had imagined a hundred times over in my head — the shrieking of a man being cut and torn apart. It was clean. Transparent. Like...
The clash of iron upon iron. The ring of a hammer forging steel.
"Th-that's his hand, right...?"
It was a sight I couldn't believe even with my own eyes — because what stood blocking that colossal axe was the Teach's bare hand.
How on earth was he holding back an axe that size with one hand — bare-handed, at that... And why did it ring like metal? But setting those questions aside, he hadn't budged a single inch. Utterly composed.
"He really... was an incredible person, huh."
An intense gaze began boring into my back. Ah — so she has been spurred on. Yes, that is what she wished for. Let her admire. Let her rise upon that admiration as her stepping stone. Even the trouble of humoring a foe who cannot land a single blow is, in the end, for her sake as well.
"How long do you intend to keep clinging to it like that? Put more strength into it. Was it not your intent to split your own head open with that axe of yours?"
"M-Moooooo!!"
So even cattle talk back these days. Whether the world has gone mad, or simply everything around me — well, I had my eyes closed, so I cannot say what the creature looks like, but a cow is a cow no matter where you go. Still—
"What in the world do you intend to use all those muscles for!"
Against the axe's trajectory sweeping from above to below, left to right, and across in a diagonal arc, I simply extend my hand. What is needed is a pair of feet rooted into the earth, and faith. If a man cannot believe in himself, who else will believe in him?
The earth in which man takes root is boundless — and so too is his potential boundless.
The shock of the clash travels from the axe into the arm, from the arm into the body, down through the legs and spreading into the ground — and the floor collapses. Hmm. So it did break after all. It was decently solid earth, too. With nothing but mindless weight to it, calling that thing an axe is a mistake; an axe-shaped lump of iron would be the honest name for it.
Its confusion at finding its attack sealed away lasted only a moment before it sensed the heat of its own fury and began swinging the axe in a frothing frenzy. But there is no depth to it. Swift, yes. Strong, yes. And that is all it is. The ignorant common folk and third-rates might not know better — but does it truly dare look down upon me!
"Insolent creature."
Yet even granting it no inner power worth the name, I did not study under any fool of a master, and I shall hardly spill blood to an axe swung wildly by a mere beast. The sight of the axe brings her to mind. What was her name again... ah yes. Wildflower. Far too delicate a face for a bandit of the Green Forest. Her father had been a bandit, and so she followed him into the trade — but in the end her nature won out, and I remember how she seemed to enjoy that life all the same. The axe she wielded above all was beautiful.
"Nothing like yours — so graceless."
The axe falls from right to left, from above to below, cleaving in a diagonal line. What follows is a bellow of rage and a horizontal smash. What on earth is any of this. A game is a game, that much is certain. It is almost disappointing.
CLANG!
It has reached the point where simply receiving the blows has grown tedious — why must attacks be so monotonous? I feel as though I am looking anew at those fools who claimed that strength and speed were all a fight required. Even the heart of the one watching from over there would cool at this spectacle. Let us bring this to a close, shall we.
There is no sword in my hand — but there is a sword in my heart.
A single blade of frost, held close — be torn asunder by it.
"Now I shall return that overhead chop of yours that you were so proud of."
The frost riding up along the falling axe's edge bites deep into the beast's wrist.
"MOOOOOOO!!!"
Along with that massive bellow swallowing the whole plaza came the crack of the floor shattering, and through my shoes I felt the texture of liquid spreading across the ground.
"So the arm is severed."
A fairly gifted body, it seemed — and yet utterly hopeless. Yes, hopeless. The one who promised me a fun game truly cannot be trusted at all. Her endless questions were one thing, and this is another. To think it could be felled by mere killing intent — not even the Mind Sword — I truly had no idea.
Flailing without its arm or its axe, the creature now looked no different from a scarecrow. There are two ways to bring down a foe this massive with a small blade.
The first is to forge one's weapon large and mighty enough to match the opponent. The second is—
"to cut it so many times it can no longer endure."
One sweep — the arm. Two sweeps — the ankle. Three — the belly. Four — the neck.
A fishy stench burst from the collapsing carcass and brushed past the tip of my nose. I don't much care for blood on my person, so I shall step back a little.
"Aso."
Gulp. The sound of a dry swallow echoed across the plaza behind me. What a loud sound. Or perhaps my senses had simply grown sharper.
"Y-yes!!"
I could easily picture her snapping out the answer at full military spirit, even with my eyes closed. Just how many times have I seen her like this? Hmm — quite a great many, indeed.
"It wasn't particularly fun, for the record."
I turned toward Aso, easing my expression in case any blood had found its way onto me. Surely that makes me a touch less overbearing.
"So next time, bring me something more entertaining."
"Yes sir!!"
Ah — surely it is fine to open my eyes now. Thinking so, I opened them and looked around: the cow fading away into motes of light, and the plaza, quite lavishly decorated all around.
"Quite a handsome sight, this. But tell me — was that cow a heifer?"
A dairy cow with that much muscle would be far too tough to eat.
"Huh...? D-don't tell me — you had your eyes closed?"
"Did I not tell you? I closed my eyes because I had no wish to watch ugly things make ugly faces."
Aso's mouth fell open in sheer horror. This time it was my turn to be appalled. Just how wide can a mouth stretch, and how far can eyes bulge? That mouth could swallow my fist with room to spare...
"Aso. Mind your expression."
"Ah — yes."
She did not look particularly embarrassed, though she still seemed unable to recover from her shock.
"Speak when you've collected yourself."
"What do I even do?"
"Could I ever become like that too...?"
"I don't care anymore — if the Teach told me to die, I'd die happy."
There was a time when I, too, had a dream: I wanted to be strong. I wanted to become someone who lived off the astonishment of others and the fear of enemies.
"A milk-fed brat acting tough, huh?!"
"Fine, I'll take a hit! No — two! Three! Four!"
Every time I got beaten like a dog and sprawled out on the floor, the same thought would circle back: what am I even doing here? Am I really the kind of person who can't do anything right? Was he right about everything after all... But I didn't want to give up. So I started streaming. If even a few people were watching, maybe I could draw a little strength from it. Maybe someday my fated encounter would finally find me. But the days never changed. If anything, at some point the stream started coming first, and I bent my dream around it — until I ended up here, like this.
And at last, it found me.
Yes. This person is my fated encounter.
"I hereby take you as my Seonsang-nim — my Teach!"
"Good."