The Master of the Deadly Poison
“Knowing that the light watches over me fills me with radiance.”
Johan said it out loud, then grumbled inwardly.
Helping Valberga wasn't out of faith in God, nor was it flattery. Well—if the church here had been a bit bigger, a bit more substantial, maybe he would have tried to curry favor. But the church was as small and shabby as the manor itself deserved, and Valberga was the entire staff. One lone priest, responsible for every baptism, sacrament, and blessing in the fief, all the drudgery included. He had errand boys and servants, sure, but the old man was the stubborn sort who insisted on doing God's work with his own hands as much as possible.
If Johan had come out and said, 'Drop the parish work and teach me instead,' there would have been trouble. So lending a hand while he learned was simply the best option all around.
'He's decent enough as far as personalities go, but I'm not planning to become a priest or join a monastery...'
Valberga was a pure believer, utterly devoted to God, without so much as a single connection to the church hierarchy. There wasn't much he could offer Johan. The real reason Johan helped was the letters.
Once you learned the hardest script on the continent—'Ancient Imperial Language,' the tongue used by continental scholars, clergy, and the beastfolk of the Catalia Peninsula—'Holy Imperial' and the Kingdom of Erance's language were comparatively easy. All three shared enough in common to make them siblings.
Few people could read and write. Not just serfs—even the nobility. The prevailing attitude was 'why learn it myself when I can just hire someone who knows letters?' Literacy belonged to priests who had to read scripture and to city merchants. Which meant the most educated man in the fief was Valberga.
'Back on Earth I believed in religion half-heartedly at best, and now I have to fake piety this hard.'
Religion in the Holy Empire wasn't so different from home. Our God, who is Light and the Sun, is one; He desires faith; the Pope is supreme; therefore pay your tithes...
Word had it that truly remarkable priests performed miracles, but Johan wasn't sold on that. He'd have to see it with his own eyes before believing.
Honestly, the letters this old man taught him felt far more impressive than any miracle.
'If I can hunt and read Ancient Imperial on top of it, I won't starve anywhere.'
Learning was good. The more you learned, the more fear faded and confidence grew.
Johan could write and read Ancient Imperial, and he was comfortable with numbers to boot. A modern man's mathematics—calculus included—was no ordinary asset in this world. When Valberga watched Johan work out the fief's accounts in his head, he'd marvel that God had granted the boy a gift.
At first, when praised for mere mental arithmetic, Johan had scoffed—'Is this because I'm a knight's son?'—but he soon understood the reason.
They didn't use Arabic numerals here. Johan had been stunned.
'These backward bastards...!'
Ancient Imperial numerals ran I, II, III, one stroke at a time, with no zero to hold place values, so calculations were clumsy, error-riddled messes. Even now, remembering it made him shake his head.
'Absurd—but honestly, a stroke of luck.'
The more abilities these people lacked, the easier Johan's survival would be.
When Sir Eitz died, Johan intended to scrape together every asset, hidden or otherwise, and head for a port city. A harbor meant work. With his hands or with his head...
'Hm?'
Walking from the church toward the manor, Johan felt something wrong. A prickling at the nape of his neck.
'Killing intent!'
Because he'd never imagined anyone would lie in wait for him out here, his reaction came a beat late. He tensed his body in an instant and swept his eyes across the surroundings.
“Impressive! To notice this much.”
“...So you're not a wanderer.”
“A wanderer I am. I simply wasn't here for the sights. The world rarely looks the way it appears, boy. You are a pig's son who moves like a lion.”
The old man stroked his chin once, then opened his mouth with visible hesitation.
“...May I ask you one thing? It seems a rather impertinent question...”
Throwing out that line in the middle of an ambush—Johan could only gape. And then, perversely, he grew curious. What kind of question would a ruthless old man warranting a nighttime ambush bother to ask permission for?
“Which is?”
“Are you truly Sir Eitz's son? No matter how I look, you seem nothing like your sire.”
“...Well. Even a pig can sire a lion.”
At Johan's words, Kaegal's jaw dropped wide open. Then he erupted into mad, booming laughter.
“Kwahahaha! Kwahahahaha!”
“What's so funny?”
“I never dreamed you'd answer like that!”
A knight's son, insulted about his father, his house, should have flown into a rage and lunged. Kaegal had expected exactly that from Johan.
Instead, the boy had taken the insult in stride, smooth as water off a duck's back.
'I like him! I like this one!'
It struck him anew—the witch's prophecy did not miss. Kaegal felt his heart pound. He wanted to pass his arts on to this young man before him.
But he couldn't just force it on him out of nowhere.
Kaegal began wracking his brain. He'd planned to subdue Johan if the boy attacked and talk then, but...
“So what do you want? Fair warning: I've got nothing. If silver's what you're after, aim for the manor behind us. It's the one with the lights on.”
“Every word out of your mouth pleases me, boy. But I didn't come for silver. Silver I have aplenty.”
At that, Johan's eyes sharpened.
“I came to take a disciple.”
“A... disciple?”
Johan asked, faintly bewildered.
“That's right, son of Eitz. I am Kaegal, one of the Masters of Nessos' Deadly Poison. Ring a bell?”
“...I believe I've heard the name.”
Johan had heard it too. Once, a minstrel had passed through the fief and sung about how the great knight Sir Karamap tore apart the cowardly assassins of 'Nessos' Deadly Poison.'
An assassin guild!
“Then you know enough that this will be easy. You will learn from me. You have no other choice.”
As he spoke, Kaegal studied Johan carefully.
A boy raised his whole life in a knight's house, told to learn from the master of a filthy, underground guild, would naturally refuse before anything else.
But Kaegal had no intention of accepting a refusal.
He would make this boy his disciple, whatever it took!
An old man like him was unlikely to find a disciple he liked this much ever again. Tonight, the boy would kneel as his student—by any means necessary.
'If he refuses, I'll threaten the lives of his house and his own until he swears to learn as my disciple.'
An oath was sacred. As long as Johan was a knight, even an oath extorted at knifepoint, even with death staring him down, he would be bound to keep it.
That was simply the breed knights belonged to.
Johan opened his mouth, hesitating.
“Um...”
“?”
“How much do I owe you?”
“...What?”
What came out of Johan's mouth blew every expectation clean out of the water.
Johan was flustered.
The man had come all the way to this backwater fief—and he was a Master, at that—and he wanted to teach Johan swordsmanship.
Had he eaten something bad? Or had Johan simply lived so diligently that God had finally gotten around to blessing him?
Of course it was neither. Johan asked carefully.
“How much do I owe you?”
“...What?”
“You surely wouldn't teach me without taking anything in return...”
“KWAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Kaegal laughed until tears sprang from his eyes, the creases carving his face deeper and deeper.
How long had it been since he'd laughed like this in his life? He couldn't remember laughing this hard. Not once.
“You think I'm a swordsmanship tutor? You truly are not Eitz's son!”
“I am his son.”
“Then hear me again. To learn from me—Kaegal, Master of Nessos' Deadly Poison—means learning the sword of an assassin, not a knight's honor. Any knight who valued his name would spit on you for it, and a priest of the church would heap curses on your head. Knowing that, are you prepared to learn?”
“What does good and evil have to do with strength? When you forge a sword, do you hammer the steel—or do you hammer it while deciding who it will kill and who it will protect? A sword is only a sword. What matters is the hand that wields it. ...Hold on. If I learn your swordsmanship, do I have to join Nessos' Deadly Poison?”
“No. Live your life without a thought for Nessos' Deadly Poison. All you must do is keep my sword from dying with me.”
“Then I am ready whenever you are.”
“...God is fair, even to those who do not believe in Him. Follow me! I will teach you myself.”
Kaegal felt vitality surge through his entire body with joy. He had realized that Johan truly, sincerely regarded him as a master.
A child of a knightly house taking an assassin for a teacher. He'd never even dreamed of such a thing.
“Ever trained with a sword?”
“No.”
“Relax. Raise it naturally.”
Johan lifted the sword and brought it up toward his left shoulder.
“A lefty. Left-handers make fine assassins.”
“I have no intention of assassinating anyone.”
“That's the spirit of the thing. And how would you know, living your life, whether the day comes or it doesn't? I didn't decide to be an assassin as a child either.”
Kaegal's gaze swept over Johan's body. A terrifyingly complete physique. In truth, he barely needed the conditioning drills he'd normally prescribe before ever putting a sword in a student's hand.
“Your blade reaches the enemy. The enemy's blade does not reach you. That is all there is to it.”
“The Empire holds as many schools of the sword as there are stars in that sky, each with its own philosophy of the blade. You cannot know them all and answer each in turn. But once you understand, a single look at an opponent's movement tells you what he means to do. So—understand!”
As he spoke, Kaegal cut through the air—or so it seemed until the tree split. Even in that darkness where only moonlight reached, a flash of blade-light bloomed. The falling leaves dropped one by one, each skewered clean through.
“Of course, I don't expect you to master it perfectly on the spot. These things take time. Don't worry. I have time to spare, and I'll beat every last bit of it into your bones.”
“Thank you kindly for the warm words.”
“Spare me the flattery. Thrust. I'll watch your form.”
Johan took the exact same motion Kaegal had just shown, and thrust. The air tore with a chill rush of wind. Lightning-fast. The darkness itself seemed to brighten for an instant.
“...Again.”
Johan thrust again. Kaegal was stunned.
Flawless.
So much so there was nothing to correct.
“Moving on.”
“Pardon? Aren't you going to watch my form?”
“Moving on. Copy this one the same way.”
Kaegal demonstrated the technique his guild called Serpent's Tongue. At a glance it was an ordinary diagonal cut—until, mid-descent, it rode along the enemy's weapon and hunted for the throat and face. A vicious, serpent-striking art.