008. Prelude to Rivalry
“…Eight years have passed, so I figured everyone would have forgotten me by now. Apparently not.”
Rian let out a long sigh and scratched his head, as if he'd just been handed one more tedious chore. He had gone out of his way to hide his face and falsify his identity, only for a single moment of carelessness to expose everything.
That said, even Rian felt he wasn't entirely without grievance here. Who on earth could have predicted that people from the Holy Nation would come calling on the very night he'd infiltrated the mansion to dig up information? He was beginning to suspect the curse the Lich had laid down might have included a hefty dose of bad luck.
“Sorry, but I've got things I need to do. So I can't exactly let myself get captured by the Holy Nation.”
When he drew the Iron Sword out slightly, Aleyna flinched and shuddered. Watching her, Rian assumed she'd been frightened out of her wits by her brush with death.
But in truth…
Rian, why? You sold me off—and now you carry around that rusty old iron sword? Why, in the world, would you do that?
That was what she wanted to ask.
But fear sealed the words in her throat. If he answered that the Iron Sword was simply better than a Holy Sword, she felt her heart would collapse entirely.
By every measure—appearance, performance—she was leagues superior. And yet, if the Iron Sword had been chosen because of her own past behavior, because of how harshly she had once driven Rian…
She had come seeking forgiveness, but Aleyna could not bring herself to hope for it.
Ugh…! Ugh…!
A jet-black aura that should never have flowed from a Holy Sword was seeping out of her. Even Aleyna's holy stone was gradually growing murky in color.
It may have been a hasty judgment, but she couldn't dispel the dread coiling in her chest.
Have I become a useless sword to Rian?
It felt as though her heart were being sliced apart, cut by careful cut.
After begging his forgiveness, she had wanted to start over. She'd thought that if she apologized in earnest for her wrongs, perhaps he might overlook them.
But the Iron Sword resting at Rian's side was demolishing every one of those assumptions.
“If I can't be forgiven, then at the very least, that sword…!”
Creak—!
In the end, Aleyna bared a jealousy steeped in years of resentment toward the battered iron blade and bit her lip hard.
I'll destroy it. I will destroy it, no matter what.
The sword that had defiled her memories would not be left standing.
Aleyna's eyes turned vicious as she resolved on an extreme course of action.
“Hey, you there. Can you not hear me?”
Meanwhile, when the woman standing right in front of him failed to react—just like the Lich before her—Rian began to take the situation seriously. Genuinely suspicious now that the Lich's curse might be at work, he climbed the stairs slowly.
Then he leaned his face right in front of Aleyna, who stood with her head bowed, muttering something unintelligible.
“Hyaaah!”
Startled by Rian's face suddenly thrust toward her, Aleyna let out an involuntary— and undeniably adorable—squeak. Her previously pallid cheeks flooded red in an instant, and her lips began to open and close uselessly.
“What's with you? You weren't reacting, so I briefly thought I'd turned invisible.”
Curse, my foot. Rian gave a wry chuckle at his own needless worry. At the sight of that smile—a smile she'd rarely managed to glimpse even eight years ago—the red spread all the way to Aleyna's ears.
Wh-what? Was Rian's smile always this dazzling?
Aleyna kept staring at him, dazed. And as she did, features she'd never noticed eight years ago began registering in her vision, one after another.
The gentle lines of his eyes. The jut of his Adam's apple. The scar running from his cheek down to his jaw.
To Aleyna's eyes, every last one of them looked strangely, unsettlingly beautiful. She felt an impulse rise up in her—to throw her arms around him right then and there—and had just begun to reach out her hand when—
“Listen, any answer at all would be fine. I'd really like you to say something.”
“Ah! Y-yes, yes!”
“Oh, finally.”
Confirming that she was, in fact, capable of conversation, Rian repeated what he'd said before.
“I have a goal I absolutely have to achieve, so I'm in no position to be hauled off by the Holy Nation right now. But killing you to keep you quiet would be far too cruel, don't you think? So here's my proposal: I'll send you on your way peacefully, and in exchange, you keep the fact that you met me a secret from everyone else. Deal?”
“Ah-yes! Yes, of course!”
“Good. So we're agreed, then?”
Rian grabbed Aleyna's hand and pumped it up and down vigorously—a gesture meaning, roughly, may we get along well from here on, contracting parties.
Aleyna, however, interpreted it very differently.
R-Rian is holding me and swinging me! Something that was only possible in my imagination is happening in real life…!
Ever since she'd realized how precious Rian was to her, Aleyna had imagined it countless times—a future in which Rian would once again take her up and wield her, just as he was now.
But reality, cold and immovable, had told her such a thing would never come, and it had shredded her heart to ribbons.
But this—this is neither dream nor fantasy! This rough texture, the calluses of Rian's hand against mine…! This is unmistakably real!
Her own hand, overlapped with Rian's, was being shaken up and down—and if her hand was the hilt, then there was no mistaking it: she was being wielded.
In that moment alone, Aleyna felt she could return to being an ore and die without a single regret.
“Then I'll trust you to keep your word. I'll be going now.”
“Y-yes, yes, sir!”
As a parting gesture, Rian patted her twice on the shoulder and slipped away.
The moment he was gone, Aleyna collapsed where she stood, no longer able to hold herself upright.
She had been at the very peak of rapture—so close that sacred water had nearly gushed from between her legs. She barely managed to suppress the indecency, but her body still trembled in helpless little spasms.
Ahh! Not only was I wielded, but Rian even touched my hilt…!
As the ruler of the Holy Nation, Aleyna was expected to maintain her dignity at all times. But at this particular moment, keeping her composure was utterly beyond her.
She giggled to herself, savoring again and again everything that had just happened.
So this is what people mean by “ecstatic bliss,” is it?
The memories that had been briefly tarnished by that shabby iron sword? Forgotten, and swiftly. She simply added a new precious memory and discarded the old one without ceremony.
After all, the past was mostly Aleyna's own personal hall of shame. To her, the present—in which she had finally understood her mistakes—and the future ahead mattered far more.
“…And yet in the end, I never managed to ask for Rian's forgiveness. It seems he didn't realize I was the Holy Sword, either.”
Even amid boundless happiness, a thread of regret was woven through it. Coming to her senses, Aleyna calmly settled her racing heart.
She replayed the conversation she'd shared with Rian, brief as it had been.
A goal I absolutely have to achieve… If he came out of seclusion and returned to the world for it, it must be something truly serious.
She hadn't heard what Rian's goal was. But merely learning that he had a purpose at all was an enormous gain.
If I help him achieve his goal… then perhaps he might forgive me.
Though she had tasted bliss simply from being handled by Rian, Aleyna could not be satisfied with that much. The only thing that could satisfy her was returning to Rian's side as his foremost blade—his first sword.
That had always been her ultimate goal, and she was prepared to use any means, however underhanded, to reach it.
“Lady Aleyna! Are you all right?!”
“That was rather quick of you, Sir Roland.”
“F-forgive me, my lady. I was delayed putting down the remaining undead.”
“For abandoning me, you would ordinarily deserve a formal disciplinary punishment. But I shall let the matter pass—this once.”
“Your mercy is as deep as the ocean itself. I am truly grateful.”
Every trace of the dazed, feeble woman Aleyna had been before Rian had vanished without a trace. Her eyes narrowed to a sharp edge, she radiated the presence of an empress, brimming with majesty and grace.
It was a figure befitting the ruler of the Holy Nation.
“More importantly, Lady Aleyna, I have something to report.”
“Go on.”
“It appears that until moments ago, someone besides ourselves was fighting the undead.”
“Yes—and as it happens, that someone exchanged a few words with me before leaving this place.”
“I hadn't dared imagine you had met them in person, my lady. Might I ask what manner of person they were?”
“And why, exactly, do you wish to know?”
“You may find this difficult to believe, but among the litter of undead remains scattered throughout the estate, we detected no trace of holy power whatsoever.”
Of course not. The Rian that Aleyna knew had never possessed a shred of religious faith. And faith was the crucial state of mind from which holy power flowed.
“Certain undead cannot be so much as harmed without holy power, as you know. Yet every undead in the manor has been struck down. From this, I conclude that this person is a master whose skill even I could not hope to match.”
“Is that so?”
At Roland's thorough analysis, the corners of Aleyna's eyes lifted ever so slightly.
Rian was being acknowledged. Eight years on, his skill remained fully intact—indeed, it had grown only sharper.
Even now, already strong enough, he was evidently still striving to grow stronger with every passing day. As that evidence came to light, Aleyna found herself realizing, once more, that Rian was the man most worthy of the title of Hero.
And that she, for her part, could not live without him.
“Therefore, I believe we must bring him into our Holy Nation, whatever conditions we must offer to do so.”
“An excellent judgment, Sir Roland. However, that man has his circumstances—he is in no position to join any faction at present.”
“I see…”
“It's too early to give up, Sir Roland. If we understand his circumstances and support him in every way, materially and otherwise, I believe he may yet consider the Holy Nation's offer.”
“Wise words indeed. One thing, though—should we not be searching for the Hero first?”
“There's been something off about that rumor from the very start—more than just one or two things. First of all, a rumor spread by Maxwell of the now utterly bankrupted Tongues Merchant Firm is hardly worth trusting on its face. And then there's the fact that someone who has told us 'we don't know' countless times should suddenly begin broadcasting information to everyone? Can you really trust the word of a man like that?”
“…No. Honestly, I don't think I could either.”
“In the end, we've simply been on a wild goose chase this whole time. Let's not waste any more of it—return at once. Once we're back, I'll announce publicly that the rumor was false.”
“Understood, my lady.”
Aleyna had seen straight through to Rian's unspoken intention to move in secret. That was why she had concealed from her escort knight the fact that she had met him, and why she intended to bury Maxwell's rumor as a fabrication.
Her design was to send all information about Rian back into the fog of uncertainty where it had started.
The public's disappointment will be considerable, but there's nothing to be done. Now that a chance to monopolize news of Rian has fallen into my lap, I certainly won't give it up so easily.
It had happened in the instant Rian brushed past her side. Aleyna had swiftly worked a certain procedure upon the Iron Sword hanging at his waist—using a fragment of her own holy stone to forge a connection between it and the stone resting over her heart.
From that moment on, Aleyna could know where Rian was at all times. She could even eavesdrop.
Fufu! Now all I have to do is wait calmly and find out what Rian's true purpose is!
Having reaped countless gains from a single encounter, Aleyna wore the smile of the victorious.
My apologies to all the others—but the sword who returns first to Rian's embrace will be me!
A cavern where dew gathered on the stalactites above fell, drop by drop, into the dark below.
In the deepest reaches of that lightless cave, a colossal eye abruptly snapped open. The pupil was stretched into a vertical slit—an overwhelming presence radiated from it, the kind that stirred instinctive terror in anything that met its gaze.
“Scáthach.”
“Yeah. I felt it too, just now.”
Where those fierce eyes turned, a single sword lay resting. A pitch-black blade gleaming brilliantly amid the darkness of the cave.
Then, all at once, shadow swallowed it—and what emerged from the dark was no longer a sword.
A woman with fiery red hair, bearing rugged horns that evoked a black volcano, and long, elf-like ears that tapered to blunt tips. Her pupils, like those of the great eye that had beheld her, were slit vertically, and folded against her back were wings sheathed in thin membrane and thick scales.
From her hips descended the long tail of a reptile, curling down past her legs—and the way its tip trembled and quivered betrayed her mood precisely.
“This familiar sword aura, felt for the first time in eight years… At last. My master has returned.”
Walking slowly out of the cavern, the woman gazed wistfully at the world stretching away to the north. Behind her followed a creature of enormous bulk.
A dragon, its teal scales gleaming brilliantly as they caught the light of the moon.
“So you mean to go to him at once?”
“Yes. I've been waiting all this time—for the moment of my atonement, forever drawing nearer…”
The woman kicked off the earth and soared high into the sky in a single bound. Her vast black wings unfurled in grandeur, veiling the moonlight and, in an instant, dyeing the world black.
And then, flapping her wings toward the north, she became a wind on the edge of a gale.