I Learned It by Watching?
The moment I realized Seolhyang had vanished, I vaulted over the windowsill and scrambled up onto the rooftop. A dim city, lit only by the occasional magic lamp. Far too quiet for a place where a woman had just been abducted.
Which means…
Across the rooftops, footprints cut through the thick dust. Judging by the undisturbed powder around them, the trail was fresh.
Drawing on the tracking skills my hunter father had taught me, I followed the prints at once—and realized they led straight to a single building.
That bastard—!
The trail ended at Cyrus's estate. No wonder his eyes had looked so foul when he saw Seolhyang that morning. He'd just straight-up kidnapped her?
Sword in hand, I sprinted for the estate and found Cyrus swinging a blade at Seolhyang while she rolled across the floor, barely dodging each cut.
"You lunatic!"
I dropped in front of Cyrus in a flash and slammed my sword into his, then twisted around to look at Seolhyang.
"That guy—can I cut him down?"
A confirmation, so I wouldn't repeat the mistake I'd made earlier that day. Thankfully, Seolhyang nodded—and I drew my blade at once.
You're dead, you piece of shit.
The instant his hand closed on the hilt, the blade tore free like a thunderbolt and streaked for Cyrus's waist. But Cyrus casually turned his sword sideways and deflected the edge at an angle.
Evan, mid-swing, let out a faint sound of admiration at the way Cyrus so effortlessly blocked his path.
Aside from the earliest days when he had first picked up a sword, no one had ever stopped his blade.
Not bad…
And in the middle of that thought, the two locked swords slid—his opponent's edge slipped straight through Evan's blade and shot for his chest in a blink.
Startled, Evan threw himself backward and avoided the full strike, but he couldn't stop the tip from carving a finger's width into his chest.
"Ugh…!?"
He clutched at the wound, checking the damage. It felt like he'd been cut open—yet there was no bleeding at all.
Even so, a dull pain and the sensation of blood thrashing inside his chest kept spreading outward. Hardly the feeling of an uninjured man.
"What the hell is this."
"For a mere adventurer, you handle a sword decently enough—but that level of skill will never be enough to beat me."
Cyrus grinned as he looked at Evan. Evan pressed a hand to his chest and glared right back.
Behind him, Seolhyang—collapsed and dying—forced her lips open one last time.
"E-Evan… that man is… the Sw-Sword Demon. Sword Demon Cyrus… Be… careful…"
"Ah—right. Seolhyang."
Only then did Evan realize she was dying. He pulled out one of the spare potions he always carried and poured it into her mouth.
Lying on her back and staring at the sky, Seolhyang choked and coughed as the liquid flooded her throat—but once he was sure most of it had gone down, Evan tipped the rest into his own mouth.
So it does heal.
He could feel the thrashing vessels inside his chest settling back into place.
Relieved, he looked up at Cyrus—who was watching him drink the potion with complete leisure, as if he had all the time in the world.
"Finished?"
"Are you an idiot? Why would you just stand there and wait for me to drink this?"
"A broken toy is fixing itself. Why would I stop it?"
Cyrus spoke with playful eyes fixed on Evan, then rested his sword on his shoulder and beckoned with one hand.
Come whenever you're ready—the absolute confidence of a man who knew he held the advantage. That unknown sword technique from a moment ago was clearly the source of it.
A magic sword worthy of the name Sword Demon. And Evan recognized something uncomfortably familiar about it.
"A sword style that cuts only what you want… I never could get a feel for it, so I just gave up. How do you do it?"
"Huh? What?"
"What you just did. It's a technique that picks out only the target you want and cuts that, right? I'm asking how you pull it off."
"Oh, kid. Sharp eyes. If you survive this, you'll go far someday."
Cyrus let out a sound of genuine admiration. Was it because he'd been hit by the technique himself—or because, childlike, he simply accepted everything he saw at face value?
Everyone else who'd taken that cut had been so trapped in the fixed idea of what a sword was supposed to do that they never even realized what had been done to them.
This one had the makings of greatness. Assuming he walked out of here alive, of course.
Evan seemed to know that much himself, because he carefully opened his mouth again.
"So—any chance you'll let me live?"
"Of course not. Now that you know what my sword really is, I can't let you walk away."
"Shame. I was planning to spare you."
Cyrus snorted at that. Childish bravado. Even after taking a hit, the boy still believed he had a path to victory.
Time to shatter that delusion. Cyrus began walking slowly toward Evan. No frantic charge—just a calm, unhurried approach.
Watching him come on so leisurely, Evan answered with pure, childlike honesty.
"—You showed me one of yours, so I'll show you one of mine."
Cyrus was still smiling as Evan gripped his hilt—then he saw a vision of himself being cut, and hurled his body sideways.
In the same instant, Evan's sword whipped through the air with a sharp ssaaek. The distance was too great. No sword should have been able to reach. And yet—he was cut.
FWAAAAAK—!!
Rolling across the ground, Cyrus barely avoided the flying sword-energy, then twisted his head to glance behind him. The upper half of the snowy mountain—Abirins's famous landmark—had been cleanly sliced away.
"…What is this."
"There—we've each shown one. Fair, right? If you don't have anything else hidden, I'll go first?"
"No—what the hell was—!"
Cutting something regardless of distance—a phenomenon so absurd it barely counted as swordsmanship—left Cyrus reeling. He charged at Evan at once.
No more leisure. If the boy could cut anything at any range, keeping distance was a catastrophic disadvantage!
"Hrrgh—!"
Close the gap. Lock blades. That long-range cutting energy was the single greatest advantage a swordsman could possess—but pressed this close, it was far less decisive.
In a pure blade-to-blade clash, the advantage belonged to the one who could ignore the opponent's defense and attack unilaterally. Him.
Die—!
Cyrus unleashed his magic sword, his defense-piercing finishing technique. His blade sank into Evan's like soft clay, slipped past the steel, and drove straight for Evan's throat—
"I've already seen that twice."
Evan left those incomprehensible words hanging in the air and twisted his sword. The two blades locked together as if they had always been one piece of metal, and neither would move.
Realizing his magic sword had been neutralized as if it were nothing, Cyrus stared at Evan with an expression of pure disbelief.
"You… this is…"
"A sword that cuts only what you want… so roughly speaking, it works by slipping into the gaps in things? Seeing it firsthand makes it easy. Yeah. I get it now."
Cyrus glared at him as if the words made no sense. Was this brat actually talking like he understood something?
Impossible. Even the Sword King who had driven him into this quiet backwater had never grasped the principle of the technique.
And this kid—fighting him for the first time—had stolen his secret art and was using it already?
"Th-that can't be possible!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Where did you learn it! My magic sword—!"
"No, what nonsense have you been spouting this whole time… I already told you."
Evan tossed the answer out as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"I learned it by watching. Just now."
There was not a trace of pride or boastfulness in his voice. He didn't treat what he'd done as special at all—he spoke as if it were as natural as breathing, as if he genuinely couldn't understand what was supposed to be remarkable about it…
And that tone was painfully familiar. It was the same tone the genius Cyrus himself had so often used on the peers who trained beside him.
It's this easy—why can't you do it? You can't even do this? Not even something this obvious?
No intent to mock. Just pure curiosity. And because it was pure, it was the most vicious thing of all.
"—You damn brat, how dare you—!"
Cyrus wrenched his sword free with the secret technique again and swung at Evan once more.
He abandoned the magic sword and returned to the man he had been at the very beginning—when he first learned the blade. Murderous swordsmanship, intent only on killing, poured out in endless waves.
And every single one of those moves was dismantled as if it were nothing. Unbelievable. Was this even allowed? For a child like this to possess such skill—for a human being to hold that kind of talent.
Was it truly permitted?
"Boring."
After batting away a few more strikes, Evan muttered the word. The first person who had ever wounded him—he'd thought maybe this was a real swordsman. But aside from that one technique, there was nothing special about him at all.
He'd learned everything there was to learn. Interest in Cyrus gone, Evan steadied his breath and gripped his sword with both hands.
Here it comes.
Standing before him, Cyrus sensed something flying toward him and dropped into a defensive stance. In the world of swordsmanship, the first strike was always at a disadvantage compared to the counter—and if you already knew the opponent was about to attack, that gap only grew wider—
"Nameless Three-Stage Thrust."
A blade split into three paths and flew for the vital points all at once.
One for the philtrum.
He knocked it aside.
One for the throat.
It grazed past at an angle.
One for the solar plexus.
…He couldn't dodge it.
"Ghk—!"
Wounded at the neck and gut, Cyrus staggered back, clutching the hole torn through his stomach. He stared at Evan with an expression that refused to believe what had just happened.
Evan shook the blood from his blade with a face empty of any particular feeling. And in that expression, Cyrus saw the strongest man he had ever met.
—Came looking for the so-called Sword Demon… tch.
A superhuman above superhumans.
The one who stood above everyone else.
The face of the Sword King.
"—Ha. Haha. Ahahaha."
He'd thought that if he just hid quietly, he would never cross paths with that kind of monster again. To think there was another one… something he never could have imagined.
And so Cyrus met his death.
The Sword Demon, who had earned the hatred of countless people, closed his eyes.
After killing the noble bastard and shaking off the blood and the lingering unease together, I ran straight to Seolhyang. I'd given her emergency treatment with a potion, but there was no telling what injuries might still be left.
Huff—huff—.
Seeing her sleeping peacefully, breathing soft and even, I let out a breath of relief—then looked around, trying to figure out why she'd come here in the first place.
The smell of blood… Did Seolhyang come to save the people here? But that doesn't quite…
Most of the blood-scent was rising from the dagger she was carrying. Meaning the people in this estate had been killed by Seolhyang herself.
Why? Just a little while ago she'd been asking me to go home with her. And more than that—how had a blind woman managed to kill this many people…
"I don't get it. Sigh."
I let out a long breath, hoisted her onto my back, and left the estate. Whether she was a pleasure-killing maniac or someone with her reasons, the fact that she'd killed people didn't change—so she'd have to face an investigation.
I'd killed someone too, even if it was to save her, so I'd probably take the same punishment…
For love, I can do anyth—
I was about to finish the thought when a deep KOOM of vibration hit me, and I looked back. The snowy mountain I'd sliced through earlier with my sword-energy was collapsing.
Staring at the sudden avalanche, I grabbed Seolhyang and started running as hard as I could.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
Love or no love—I couldn't stop a landslide.
The collapsing snow mountain triggered an avalanche.
The avalanche swallowed the village whole.
The people living there fled as fast as they could, but casualties could not be entirely prevented.
There were six victims.
Cyrus, the local landowner—and his entire family.