Sword Saint's Homecoming
A nameless woman who looked just like Rainia met my eyes and held them, her gaze steady and unblinking, pupils red as rubies.
Watching those eyes spin in slow, hypnotic circles, I began to feel as though I ought to answer anything she asked.
…Huh. I've felt this somewhere before.
"Boy. Your name?"
"E-Evan, ma'am."
"This lady is called Kiara. I govern a modest little house."
Having introduced herself, she never once looked away as she drifted closer. When she was near enough that a raised hand could brush my cheek, she reached toward my face with deliberate, unhurried grace—
"I have a few questions for—"
"—That's far enough."
Kiiing—!
Something shattered inside my skull, and at the same instant someone seized me from behind in a fierce embrace. Soft, full breasts pressed against the back of my head, and I knew at once who had wrapped her arms around me.
"What exactly do you think you're doing here?"
"So I found you."
"You still haven't answered my question. —What are you doing here, Clan Head?"
Rainia snarled at Kiara the way a beast snarls at an enemy, her voice low and raw.
Kiara tilted her head, a puzzled look on her face, as if she genuinely could not understand the hostility directed at her.
"I came all this way to take you home."
"…And what business could you possibly have with me?"
"Those nine tails. They are proof that you have awakened the blood of the great one who founded our Nine Lives — the White-Faced Golden-Furred Nine-Tailed Fox."
The adventurers around us erupted into murmurs.
"Nine Lives…?"
"Holy hell. The beastman union."
"Even His Majesty the Blue King treads carefully around those people…"
"Which is why I'm asking."
Rainia's grip on my shoulder tightened, and she ground her teeth.
"What business do you have with the daughter you once discarded, that you'd come to drag her back?"
"—Ah, 'once discarded.' Rainia. Do choose your words carefully."
Kiara's eyes glittered as she spoke.
"You were the one who ran away."
"Because you never bothered to act like a mother."
"Wait — that woman is Rainia's mom?"
"Yeah. That's the biological mother she told us about."
While the room reeled at the revelation that Kiara was not some unattached older beauty but a married woman with a claim, Rainia finished the introduction.
"Head of Gyeongguk-gyeongseong. Kiara."
"Speaking so casually to your own mother… proof you never received a proper education."
"My apologies. The parent in charge of that education was such trash."
"Yes. I am reflecting on that. Deeply. I should have found you after you fled the clan and brought you home no matter what it took… I regret it from the bottom of my heart."
Kiara's eyes shone as she said it.
"—Which is why I decided I must bring you back, even now."
Clap. The moment Kiara struck her hands together, the guards who had followed her into the guild slowly raised their weapons and began to close a circle around us.
"I don't know the full story, but… after hearing Lady Kiara out, I believe Miss Rainia really ought to go home!"
"Do not resist. Refuse to submit to arrest and we will add obstruction of official duties to the charges."
"—Yeah, yeah! A parent shows up after years and says she's come to take her kid home! Not going along is an insult to orphans like me!"
It wasn't only the guards. Even the adventurers who had been watching from the sidelines pressed in with a ugly, hungry energy.
Caught up in that atmosphere, I almost wondered whether we ought to simply hand Rainia over — then I lifted my head and looked at her.
"Rainia, maybe we should just go quietly… huh?"
There were tears in her eyes. A single drop, squeezed out by sheer fury. The instant I saw it, something inside my chest caught fire.
"—Rainia. What's the rank of this city's lord?"
"…Why do you suddenly need to know that?"
"Just tell me. Quickly."
"Count."
The word was barely out of her mouth before I pulled free of those full, soft arms, seized my sword, and unleashed sword energy in every direction.
One Sword Rules the Age
The blast of sword energy sheared through every weapon in the room — the guards', the adventurers', Kiara's, and those of the bodyguards lurking around her.
While the crowd stared in blank shock at their neatly severed blades, I drew the Sword Saint's token from my coat and spoke.
"By the name of the Sword Saint."
When the guildmaster had handed me this plaque, he had said:
—From this moment, you hold the standing of a quasi-count.
In other words, I ranked equal — in theory — to the lord of this city.
"All of you. Get out."
Guards like these were no enemies of mine.
Driven from the guild by Evan, Kiara sat in the manor the city lord had prepared for her and thought in silence.
The beastmen who had followed as her escort watched her drum her fingers against the armrest without a word, and kept their own silence in turn.
The tension was so thick a person might forget to breathe. At last, Kiara spoke.
"Good. Very good."
"Clan Head, if I may ask… what exactly is good about this?"
"That child and the Sword Saint — that superhuman — seem rather close, don't they? Which means if we take either one, we get the other as a package deal."
"Wouldn't that mean we'd have to fight both of them to take either one…?"
"Ordinarily, yes — but those two have such clear, convenient weaknesses."
Kiara smiled, languid and predatory, as she recalled Evan and Rainia. A boy skilled enough with a blade to earn the title of Sword Saint, and a girl who had somehow fully awakened the power of a nine-tailed fox.
And yet Evan had no resistance whatsoever to the fox clan's charm and hypnosis, while Rainia, for all the power she had unlocked, clearly had no idea how to use it.
"Her nine-tailed strength is formidable, of course — but when the user is that inept… a few of our clan's charm-resistance talismans should be more than enough to handle her."
"And the brat…?"
"Even easier. No resistance to charm at all. Without someone at his side to protect him, he'll be simpler to manage than Rainia."
She would send herself — or another beastman with charm abilities — after Evan, and dispatch Ilgidangcheon's finest combat operatives after Rainia.
"Strike when they're apart. It will be almost trivial."
A chance to claim a superhuman.
Kiara smiled at the thought.
She had come to drag home an insolent girl who had dared awaken nine fox tails outside the clan — and now superhumans were tumbling into her lap in bunches?
No matter how she looked at it, fortune was on her side.
As if to prove that the heavenly signs she had read had not been wrong after all.
That night, Kiara put her plan into motion.
On her orders, the beastmen moved against Evan and Rainia.
Whether heaven was helping or the two of them had simply grown careless, Evan and Rainia were not together. They were, in fact, completely separate.
By Kiara's design, it should have been a clean sweep — both of them seized and carried home to the clan without a hitch. But there were a few variables she had failed to account for.
"—What the hell are these things?"
"Freeze."
"If I break an arm or a leg, I'll just fix it for you afterward~."
First: Rainia was the leader of an Upper Class adventurer party whose strength already approached Highest Class, and of course she shared lodgings with her party members.
"Pong-pong! I've come to charm you! Look at this leaf!"
"…Who are you?"
"Pong-pong! First, look at the leaf!"
"No — who are you?"
"Uh… huh?"
Second: the assumption that Evan would walk into a second charm attempt completely unprepared. Those two miscalculations were her mistakes.
To be fair, the Evan side could hardly be called a true blunder. No one could reasonably expect him to acquire an anti-charm item in less than half a day.
But Evan only smiled as he turned the ring on his finger.
This thing's pretty useful…
A ring he had requested from Canelly in the Royal Capital. She had used some spatial-link technique over magic communication to drop it straight into his subspace storage. That had been only a few hours ago.
Just as Canelly had promised — that no mental interference of any kind would work while he wore it — the raccoon beastman could wave whatever he liked in front of Evan's face and produce no effect whatsoever.
"You. Do you have any idea what it means to assault a noble?"
"Hic—!? P-please spare me!"
"Who sent you?"
"I-I can't say!"
"So you'd rather die with your mouth shut. Is that it?"
Evan drew a spare iron sword as he spoke. The raccoon beastman was already bound hand and foot by sword energy, unable to so much as twitch. Evan drove the blade straight into his heart.
He cut just enough flesh on the way in that the tip punched clean through the chest and out the back. Because he had deliberately left the wound shallow and precise, the beastman felt every inch of the sensation of a sword through his own heart.
"Now then — what do you suppose happens if I pull this out? Hmm?"
"P-please spare me… I'll tell you anything… anything…"
"I'll ask one more time. Who sent you?"
Faced with Evan's devilish smile, the raccoon beastman could only tremble and name his master.
When Evan arrived at Rainia's lodgings, one look at her party members — drenched in sweat and dust — told him they had been attacked as well.
He walked over to the women sitting on the floor, panting as they caught their breath, and greeted them as casually as a village headman out for an evening stroll.
"You got hit too?"
"You toooo…? Evan, they came after you as well?"
"Yeah. Just the one, in my case."
He glanced around as he spoke and realized none of the beastmen who had attacked them were present. Had they fled?
"What about the attackers?"
"They ran~ We barely managed to stop Rainia from chasing them alone. This one."
"Where is Rainia?"
"Washing up right now. Why — planning to peep?"
"…Am I allowed to?"
"You. Come here."
Anes hauled him into her sweat-and-dust-streaked arms. Evan thrashed, trying to break free, but it was no use. His body was far too honest for that.
He was still squirming in her embrace when Rainia emerged from her bath. The moment Anes saw her, she released him and bolted for the washroom.
"Peeping on me is fine, though~."
"Anes, what nonsense are you spouting now…"
Fresh from the bath, Rainia shot Anes a brief glare for the nonsense, then turned to Evan.
"—So they came for you as well."
"Ah, this is just from Anes just now…"
"…I see."
"I did get attacked, though. You said your side got hit too?"
"They were quite strong. If I hadn't become a nine-tailed fox, they would have taken us."
Rainia turned over the strength of the beastmen who had struck them. If fully awakening her nine-tailed potential hadn't dramatically raised her physical abilities — and if the noise hadn't drawn other adventurers, forcing the attackers to flee — they would have been overwhelmed in moments.
When the recollection faded, she looked down at Evan.
"So. Why did you come?"
"If someone strikes your left cheek, what do you think you should do?"
"…Offer the right one as well?"
"No. That's something only a saint can manage. And none of us are saints…"
Evan grinned and closed his hand around his sword hilt.
"If they hit your left cheek, you draw your sword. Let's go."
"Where?"
"Nine Lives."
At those words, Rainia felt her heart begin to pound.
"To their headquarters."
They were going home.
With the blade of vengeance in hand.