Ishura - Volume 7 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1- Sand Labyrinth

Twenty years ago, the seven strongest warriors of the age, the First Party, challenged the Demon King and were mercilessly routed.

When the final embers of hope were extinguished, the True Demon King’s reign of terror began at last.

This was also the period when a group of lycans, just over ten in number, gathered in the Gokashae Sand Sea and began establishing a new settlement far from minian civilization.

This irregular group of lycans resembled a martial arts school more than a lawless band of renegades. They were a fighting collective known as the Zehf Tribe: monks who revered one of the members of the First Party, Neft the Nirvana.

Few knew the goals of these terrifying monks. Even fewer knew that, when this group formed, there was a single undersized ooze mixed in among the lycans.

In the settlement at that time was nothing but a small shrine—yet to expand into a proper temple—and a well for drawing water.

In the center of the small shrine, sitting cross-legged in meditation without moving whatsoever, was an elderly lycan.

Another lycan was attending to him. This lycan had been the teacher leading the Zehf Tribe. However…

“These are all of the events that occurred in your absence, milord.”

The withered lycan, Neft the Nirvana, was the founder of their school.

Among the First Party, where all the others had met their deaths or otherwise suffered tremendously, Nirvana, second of his name, had, in a cruel twist of fate, returned alive.

The defeat of the immortal warrior Neft shocked all of his disciples and flung them into despair. But even then, Neft gave them the strict orders to continue their training exactly the same as before.

He remained in his meditative position ever since he had returned to the Zehf tribe two days prior. So great were the fruits of his training that he remained so still as to appear dead. If a sandstorm kicked up or a bug landed on him, there wasn’t the slightest tremble; not even a breath escaped his lungs.

His expression alone smiled with delight.

“That fledgling…? He went off into the middle of the desert and reached the Sand Labyrinth?”

“…It would take nothing short of a miracle for him to survive,” the attending teacher replied. “It was our mistake for thinking that he was following after you, milord, and heading outside the Sand Sea… It was the day after we received the report that the First Party had failed to bring the Demon King down. Psianop slipped out of the eastern gate and made for the heart of the Sand Sea…and when we discovered him at the Sand Labyrinth, since he crossed the desert with his ooze body, the heat and dryness left him more dead than alive. He likely would not have survived the trip back if we tried to bring him, so we gave him food and water and left him behind.”

“He volunteered to stay behind, didn’t he?”

“…Yes.”

“Then there’s nothing left to say. If you are still bringing him food, then let the next time be the last. It was never something worth cutting into your training time to begin with.”

“But, milord… You yourself told us to keep Psianop alive.”

“Enough.”

Among the First Party, the legendary seven who challenged the True Demon Lord, there was an unknown eighth member. An ooze by the name of Psianop.

He had no physical strength to speak of. He was clever and had an impressive command of language for an ooze. That was all there was to their companion.

This Psianop interacted a lot with the other seven members, spoke often, and diligently strove to handle the work he could manage.

Neft believed that the First Party—a gathering of a relatively normal young man, a heretical young girl, an idolized sage, a man-eating monster, a visitor from another world, and even a former Demon King—managed to reach the final battle without dissolving along the way thanks to their individual efforts. Fralik the Heaven was their mental support pillar, and Psianop acted as a buffer to mediate between them.

The other six members likely shared the same feelings on the matter. When it came time for their decisive battle against the Demon King, with no guarantee of survival, all of them had agreed to remove Psianop from the party. His lack of combat ability left them no choice.

Although he was practically harmless, he was beastfolk. The Zehf Tribe that Neft led decided to take the ooze into their care to ensure Psianop didn’t follow after his beloved companions. To prevent Psianop from ever challenging the True Demon King, even if the First Party were to be defeated.

“For a fragile ooze like Psianop…groo-groo…to reach the Sand Labyrinth without exhausting all his strength… It surely cannot be mere coincidence.”

“…If he didn’t go down the shortest route… If he became the slightest bit lost, or if he had failed to properly read our maps, he would have perished without a doubt.”

“Those who expect to lay down their lives from the beginning cannot summon such resolve,” Neft quietly, yet assertively declared. “Can you really coddle someone with such determination? Make him procure his food through his own strength. If he chooses to live in solitude, then leave him to it…”

Neft had thought that, should Psianop desire fighting strength of his own, it would be fine to train him here in the Zehf Tribe. However, the ooze had chosen a completely different path for himself without Neft guiding him at all.

The Sand Labyrinth stored a tremendous treasure trove of knowledge that the lycans had simply been unable to decipher. If, perhaps, there was some form of devoted study, only capable inside this perverse “library” that flowed here from the Beyond…

“We will focus on our own training. What is the height that our Zehf tribe is meant to aim for?”

“…Understood. We must surpass our lord’s heights with our own skills… And then, at the next opportunity, we will slay the True Demon King ourselves.”

“Very good.”

Neft the Nirvana had been bested. However, the lycan who followed Neft from before his fight with the Demon King even now maintained their will to keep on fighting. They hadn’t been broken by fear like their leader.

Someone who inherited the essence of Neft’s technique would, one day, kill the True Demon King. It could take decades, centuries, or even millennia. It may happen once the Kingdoms were annihilated, and the minian races were erased from this continent. Perhaps those who continued to inherit this will would come to an end first.

Nevertheless. Someday, someone would.

After the First Party’s defeat, if there was any leftover hope, this was all it amounted to.

“I will wait for one to surpass me.”

The True Demon King had undoubtedly killed the nearly immortal Neft. Neft had completely stopped any and all movement after his return because, at this point, he had no choice but to do so. He only had enough vitality left to spend over ten years gathering the vestiges of his life force, like individual grains of sand, to truly fight at full power one more time.

After a long period of time, the successor of the First Party would appear to challenge the Demon King. When that time came, Neft planned to fight just once more to prove this successor’s all-powerful strength and complete the succession.

Since he hadn’t been able to beat the True Demon King, Neft bore the responsibility of raising someone stronger than himself. In so doing, he would fulfill the purpose of his birth.

The lycan would congregate even further and spend time growing stronger. The Zehf tribe was a martial arts school established for this purpose.

“…Milord. There is one thing…that Psianop said.”

“Tell me.”

“He said he would grow stronger until, someday, he can reach where you are, milord.”

“Groo, groo…”

Still sitting cross-legged, Neft’s lips didn’t tremble whatsoever. Still, he laughed from the heart with nothing more than his expression.

Neft could readily believe that Psianop would do something someday.

Since he was, unmistakably, a member of the First Party.

“The fledgling… At least say you’ll surpass me.”

The library, half buried in sand, possessed an architectural style unlike anything found in this world—unlike anything Psianop had laid on eyes during his travels with the First Party.

The building itself had been expelled from the Beyond—an exceptional event even when taking visitors and magic tools into consideration.

Nevertheless, when Psianop first arrived, it may have been far more important to him that there was simply some kind of structure to shield him from the sun and the wind.

The room full of bookshelves was separated by a heavy door without any windows to let the sun in, and thus, it appeared to be somewhere even a beast could live without fear in the desert.

Fortunately, it was the rainy season, and a river flowed through a craggy outcrop not too far from the library. For the time being, he would be able to stockpile just enough water to live here. As for food, he would have to identify, one by one, which of the flora and bugs found in the area were edible.

…I can only ever do one thing at a time.

Was there so much value in leaving the lycan tribe and fending for himself in the middle of the desert?

Psianop still didn’t understand this much, himself.

However, he believed an ooze had no place among Neft’s disciples.

They were lycan and he was an ooze. Assuming he could master Neft the Nirvana’s techniques, they were all developed in line with a lycan’s physique and ability. It would be impossible for Psianop to become stronger than Neft.

Thus, Psianop needed to train his mind rather than his body.

Though I can’t understand the writing used in the Beyond, I can comprehend most everything else…

During Psianop’s travels with the First Party, Romzo the Star Map taught him how to read the Order’s script. This knowledge had taken root in Psianop over the course of their journey together, and even became a point of pride for him. He had become able to do something that no other ooze could.

I’ll take things one step at a time.

He began to copy the shapes of the characters he was seeing for the first time and slowly built a vast lexicon. He gathered together all the books with many annotations and surveyed them to see if there was anything in common between the characters that indicated a certain object. There were also occasions when he would realize that something he thought was a written character actually wasn’t. In time, he also came to realize that there was utterly meaningless vocabulary, or words that outlined concepts that didn’t exist in this world at all.

Romzo the Star Map wasn’t here now. There was no one else who would serve as an ooze’s teacher.

Psianop could only handle the daunting deciphering work by going one step at a time.

Still, no matter what, I can always manage at least one thing.

As long as Psianop continued to struggle with the work, his efforts weren’t zero.

During the periods there was water, he would tirelessly carry it for his stockpile. He needed to immediately flee from any starving beasts he encountered, or when he felt the rumblings of a wurm slithering through the earth, to ensure he didn’t need to search for food every day.

However, he would devote all remaining time to the texts.

It took Psianop two years to decrypt a single volume of a tome from the Beyond known as a “dictionary.”

What he valued most wasn’t the knowledge he gained from the dictionary, but the lessons learned from the experience.

I needed a way to fight for myself.

For the two years he dedicated to deciphering, Psianop had faced innumerable threats to his life.

While, certainly, Psianop had found his way through these crises with his own intelligence and quick wit, he also understood that most of the time it was the result of nothing but good fortune.

In order to measure up to the First Party, he would need to spend a far greater amount of time learning.

Across such an enormous stretch of time, would he continue to avoid all the crises he encountered through sheer luck, just as he had over the past two years? That was sure to be impossible.

In order to survive for long in this desert, he needed a means to fight more than anything else.

If I had remained in the settlement…

His stifled regrets threatened to bubble over.

If I had inherited Neft’s technique, even if it didn’t suit my body…

Was he supposed to go back to the Zehf tribe and restart his training from the beginning? Or was he supposed to use the dictionary he had managed to decipher as a key and carry out his will to master the library’s endless knowledge?

In any case, it didn’t appear that he would be able to do both at once.

All Psianop could ever do was one thing at a time.

…I’ll continue to learn. There has to be some fighting wisdom here somewhere.

This was the first major crossroad during Psianop’s journey.

Focusing his strength, he condensed and contorted his gelatinous frame.

They were contradictory body movements for an ooze like Psianop; however, in order to replicate minian techniques, he needed to practice moving his body in such a way. In repetition as well.

He murmured the name of the move, “Straight jab.”

The technique possessed enough bite to send a small fragment of debris flying a fair distance.

It wouldn’t prove useful in combat. Even Izick and Lumelly had been able to deliver more powerful strikes. Nevertheless, he was now able to fight off poisonous insects. The shifting of his body necessary to replicate the punch’s opening step could provide some amount of utility when he needed to fly over rocky areas.

“This is fine. I’m getting stronger.”

At some point, Psianop had begun to vocalize his thoughts.

The initial catalyst behind joining the First Party had been because, unlike other oozes, Psianop was gifted with speech. If he wasn’t able to speak, he would have never even made it to the starting line in his quest for self-improvement.

“Next is the front kick.”

Amongst the innumerable books in the library, there were writings chronicling the martial arts of the Beyond.

They were all outlined by assuming a minian body and, exactly like the techniques of the Zehf tribe, very far from being the optimal techniques for Psianop.

I still haven’t found a different path from Neft’s. Even now…

He continued to hone himself in order to gain the barest strength needed to survive, even if it was an awkward imitation of another race’s techniques.

As he did this, he continued to voraciously decrypt and devour the knowledge of the library’s tomes—however.

It was around this time when an unknown danger began to haunt his work.

There were times when approaching a specific section of writing would cause him to grow dizzy, and he would awake to find that the sun had already set. Touching a particular page of a book would cause a sharp pain to shoot through his body. Even though there wasn’t enough space for a living creature besides him to enter the archive, he discovered a volume swarmed by an unusually large number of bugs.

Psianop’s physical and mental fortitude were slowly being eaten away.

The library, expelled from the Beyond, was a collection of material and immaterial oddities.

His attempts to decipher and understand the documents within its walls were equivalent to ingesting an unknown poison along with every bit of knowledge he gained.

One book inflicted a gnawing hunger. Another book tried to devour anyone who attempted to decrypt it. Yet another book forced a druglike dependency on the reader. Another book whispered in an unknown person’s voice.

“…Is this all meaningless?”

Buried in reading material, Psianop finally vocalized the fear that he had dared not speak.

It was a day so hot the entire world seemed to boil.

“No matter what I do…”

Five years had passed. Continuing his solitary training, Psianop had grown able to overcome any danger with his experience and knowledge, just as well as any wild animal.

The will to survive. The strength to manipulate the outcome of a fight. The intelligence to keep learning. The power to hone it all even further.

All of this strength, when held up against the abnormalities of the library that tormented Psianop, had been meaningless.

The more he trained, the more he seemed to awaken to its true, colossal power.

Was he simply being toyed with by something so tremendous that no living creature with a soul, be it Psianop, the First Party, or even the True Demon King, could stand against it?

The fact that Psianop was still alive must have been because he was fortunate enough not to read a book that had a more lethal effect.

Fortunately, he was born relatively clever for an ooze; fortunately, he was sent away and spared from the decisive battle with the True Demon King; fortunately, he had arrived at the library without shriveling away in the desert…and this sort of fortune would eventually end, like a taut string being cut. Psianop would perish somewhere along the way.

It was a fear he had no way to fight against, exactly like the moment he realized his lack of martial ability.

…I should put an end to this. Someone like me could build up as much knowledge as possible and still not have any hope of beating the True Demon King. Even if I can’t defeat them—

However, the train of thought ended mostly on reflex.

Psianop kicked off the floor, jumping, while simultaneously sending a punch flying toward the blind spot of a bookcase.

Some being other than him had been there—the presence of a sinister something, with a mind of its own.

“……”

His fist connected with nothing but empty air.

The gaze of someone, the sound of someone’s footsteps, and the smell of someone else, produced by the library’s books, all came to form an image, making him feel as if there was actually someone standing there.

Yet Psianop’s senses, and his fist, had seemed to clearly perceive the formless presence of something.

“I’m…improving…”

It was a thunderous realization.

Previously, when he had been traveling with First Party, he never could have imagined fighting anyone. He had concluded that it would have been impossible to perceive and defeat a formless enemy unless he was someone like Neft or Romzo.

Perhaps, though, Psianop could accomplish it, too.

“Of course… If I’m going to be cursed by these books, then I just need to be cursed even more. How could I possibly defeat the Demon King if I can’t bring down a library or two…? I won’t rest. Do it all, one at a time.”

From that moment, a single goal was born within Psianop’s daily life.

To perceive this shadow, shaped by the library’s curse, and overcome it.

When he would continue his book deciphering, when he would go out into the desert to gather food, and even when he would eat or lay dormant, he would constantly keep a part of consciousness keenly at work.

When he did, he was able to understand that he wasn’t alone in the vast library he’d initially considered deserted. A chaotic entity, a bit like malice, a bit like insanity. He challenged it to a fight.

This shadow didn’t have a corporeal form, would quickly vanish, and was impossible to even see with his eyes, but Psianop thought that by continuing his unorthodox training, he might eventually be able to strike it.

This situation continued for close to a year and, at some point, this shadow began to show Psianop something that resembled a reaction of its own. This didn’t mean that the figure had gained the ability to speak or that it had become possible for them to communicate with each other.

When Psianop attacked it, it reacted with something resembling a counterattack.

To say that an opponent without a physical form would perform a counterattack was beyond comprehension. It was more accurate to say it was because these elements reached the realm of perception that Psianop had become able to comprehend when the shadow was matching him with its counterattack.

If the shadow was like an incarnation of the accumulated curses and knowledge amassed within this library, then it would be able to respond to the martial arts of the Beyond. For Psianop, this formless figure was a product of his image training, but it may have also served as his silent mentor.

His long period of solitary life inside the Sand Labyrinth served to hone Psianop’s instincts far more than the asceticism of the monks. The martial arts of the Beyond that he learned solely by practicing the movements depicted in the books he had deciphered were sublimated, through countless drills and practice, into techniques of his own. The body that had constantly weathered the preposterous curses and knowledge had begun to evolve into a life-form that couldn’t be contained within the scope of a singular ooze body.

Time continued to pass. Ten years. Fifteen years.

Psianop continued to battle the shadow. The shadow would occasionally change its size and shape; other times, it would endlessly multiply and even utilize techniques Psianop didn’t know of. The incorporeal fists never managed to scar Psianop—however, he felt the reality of death every time he lost a fight, and the shadow touched him.

The fear that his training would end halfway through was constantly present in his mind.

Why did Neft the Nirvana, already excelling with unparalleled martial skill, also master a secret art to control his life force?

I understand the true nature of this fear… I need to conquer it.

From this period, he began to hone his self-regenerative Life Arts. This knowledge was one thing that couldn’t be found recorded in the words from the Beyond, so all he could rely on were his memories of Neft and studying on his own. Nevertheless, he always had a target to test his Word Arts on in the most immediate place of all.

“More. I’m going to become even stronger, Neft. All of you… The strength of the First Party had to have been much greater than this.”

His realization had been mistaken.

There were not so many truly colossal powers that he couldn’t conquer.

If he honed all of his senses to the extreme, he was able to move like normal even when amidst the nightmares and illusions that the books would show him. If he had perfect command of his own body, even a mere ooze like himself would be able to take down a wyrm. If he continued to fight, train, and push himself, he would eventually surpass even the First Party and defeat the True Demon King. Until that day came, Psianop’s fight would never end.

Twenty-one years went by with Psianop holed up in the Sand Labyrinth.

The True Demon King died. The royal games to clearly determine who slew this Demon King were going to be held in the largest city in the world, Aureatia. It had yet to be given the name Sixways Exhibition.

These royal games, unprecedented in the Kingdom’s history, were ostensibly recruiting self-proclaimed heroes regardless of their race or status—however, a great number of well-known champions and visitors were already being backed by the Twenty-Nine Officials. There were very few nameless participants who possessed the strength to surpass these famous champions and obtain the qualifications to participate.

Therefore, the soldiers in charge of screening participants didn’t even recognize Psianop, who was visiting the castle garden theater as an applicant looking to participate.

“Captain. Look at this ooze here. I’ve never seen one that can talk as well as this guy.” A young male soldier curiously called to a female soldier.

“An ooze, huh…? You’d see them all over the waterfront in my hometown, since the species usually gather in groups and all. It was pretty cool once evening came to see them all fill up with the color of the setting sun.”

In Aureatia, oozes didn’t have citizenship, but they weren’t aggressively stamped out either, since they were harmless.

“…Do I need to explain myself again?” Psianop murmured, aggravated.

This whole conversation had already come up three times that day alone, and twice they hadn’t reached very appropriate conclusions.

“I’m a grappler, one who defeated Neft the Nirvana from the First Party. I’ve received evidence to prove as much from three witnesses. I’d like recognition as a candidate in the royal games.”

When he was departing the Zehf tribe, Psianop was given a fragment of Neft the Nirvana’s twin axes to take with him.

As long as he had certain physical proof, he had thought that no matter what Psianop’s appearance and race may be, the minian races would be forced to recognize him, but…

“…Hey, Captain. I was thinking… Is this job even necessary? All we deal with are hopeless losers, right? I’m sure the bigwigs are the ones who’ll decide who’s going to play the foil to the Hero anyway.”

“A job’s a job. Don’t let your guard down. Sure, all we get are insolent and vulgar louts, but we don’t get the chance to beat the snot out of those types in our normal line of work. It’s not so bad.”

“Hah, I get it now! I heard that guy you smacked around yesterday’s going to be in the hospital a long time. How dare he look down on you just because you’re a woman, I swe—”

“Hurry up and evaluate me. Or is listening to all of your drivel one of the requirements?”

“Huh?”

The male soldier looked a bit annoyed. Perhaps he thought that since no one else was looking to be evaluated aside from this ooze—who was clearly out of the question—he could take a bit of a break.

“Hey, ooze. You crazy or something? Lemme show you what we do to guys like y—”

The soldier tried to kick Neft’s ax, which was left on the table.

His kick stopped.

“You’re lucky.”

Psianop was touching the calf of the soldier’s pivoting foot.

The soldier didn’t even know at what point in the kicking motion, faster than a single breath, Psianop had slipped close to him.

However, just by touching his leg, Psianop ensured the soldier was no longer able to move his kicking foot any further. Still standing in his unstable position on one foot, he was unable to pull his body back in nor collapse to the ground.

“If you had kicked Neft’s ax, your spine would’ve shattered.”

“Augh, gahak, koff…?!”

The soldier’s agonized groans didn’t stem from Psianop, stimulating a pain point at his feet.

It was because he had been forced to maintain his stance, midway through launching his kick, purely off the strength of his own muscles. Simply by standing, his own bodily strength was tormenting his skeleton and nerves.

“What’re you doing…?!”

When the female soldier next to him went to draw her sword, an open hand flew in and stopped her.

The blow came from the male soldier.

The male soldier, locked into the stance by the ooze, for that one moment, contorted his body on reflex, as if writhing in agony, and was forced to accurately hit the female soldier’s hand with the back of his own.

“I don’t mind if you draw your sword, but… Why now and not during the evaluation? The public advertisement for the royal games claimed that there would be no discrimination based on status or race.”

“C-Captain, I-I’m not…the one doing this!”

“I’ve already come here no less than three times, and I believe the requirements haven’t changed at all, have they?”

The soldier didn’t move from his ridiculous pose, standing on one leg with his left arm widely stretched out.

Due to the male soldier’s left hand obstructing the hilt, the female soldier remained unable to draw her sword.

“Ooze… Are you the one doing this?”

“Who else could it be? I’m putting on a show of my technique for you.”

Just by separating himself from the male soldier’s legs, the soldier’s center of gravity crumbled, and he fell over headfirst.

“Gwaugh?!”

“…In that case, a direct taste would serve as good experience, yes? You, woman. Do you want to have a go?”

“……!”

“You’re not going to fight, but don’t intend to add me to the roster, either, huh?”

Psianop picked up Neft’s ax. The battle amongst the First Party members, both combatants putting absolutely everything on the line, didn’t serve as proof of anything in this country.

“……”

“I’ll come again tomorrow. I’ve waited twenty-one years. One more day is nothing.”

“U-um.” The voice of a third party interjected from behind Psianop.

Although it was so quiet, it was almost impossible to recognize that it was butting in at all. It was a woman’s voice, like a bug modestly buzzing in the background of a conversation.

The woman, her thick bangs hiding her face, had arrived in front of the garden theater.

She had an awfully fragile demeanor, lacking any confidence whatsoever. She didn’t even carry a weapon.

“Um… Mr. Ooze there. Just now, you said… ‘you, woman’…didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“…Were you, perhaps, referring to me? I-I’m…a woman, too.”

“……”

Psianop could tell that she was saying this to cover for the female soldier who had fled from the ooze’s challenge.

Psianop responded, “Yeah. You’re right on the mark. I want to fight you.”

She had simply been passing by to observe the hero candidates applying from the general public.

Nevertheless, it was not a coincidence that she ran into Psianop.

Whether it was Aureatia, the world controlled by the minian races…or anywhere else, even the first Kingdom he had been to in twenty-one years, he had come all this way believing that someone like her was bound to be there.

Her name was Qwell the Wax Flower, Aureatia’s Tenth General.

The nighttime plaza, after the first match of the Sixway Exhibition had concluded.

Participating as a hero candidate, Psianop had defeated Toroa the Awful.

Even that night, hours after he had half his body cleaved off and used Life Arts to fully regenerate, he didn’t neglect his training. Rather, in order to imprint the experiences from the battle that day into his memory, he was putting together a training regimen.

His sponsor, Qwell, stood about five paces away from Psianop.

The wind was gentle, and the night air was crisp and clear.

Even this late into the night, the town lamps—lined up a set distance apart along the road in front of the plaza—and several windows in Aureatian buildings were still giving off light.

The quiet, however, was the same as any other city. The crunching sound of stepping on grass, lost amidst the normal hustle and bustle, could be heard clearly.

Most of these resounded each time Qwell would swing her massive war ax. Despite swinging the weapon—so heavy even a grown man could barely lift it—with almost monstrous speed, her footsteps were exceedingly quiet.

Psianop, the one taking on these ax swings, was even quieter. He only made a few movements to begin with.

A vertical slash. Tracing a large circle, the ax blade closed in diagonally behind Psianop. The blade passed through, but the seemingly immobile Psianop evaded it by a hair’s breadth.

The heavy war ax’s momentum continued its circular arc and scraped the ground. Its wielder, Qwell, dropped her body slightly, and the motion undulated greatly, this time shifting to a sideways sweep. An abruptly transforming, lightning-fast slash.

Even this attack was undermined by Psianop’s retreat two fingerbreadths backward. Without even repelling the war ax straight on, he continued to fend off the attacks with movements that were, from a minian perspective, shorter than a single step.

His opponent, Qwell, didn’t stop her offensive, either. She began to shift to her next attack immediately, to avoid having her weapon grabbed and to deny her opponent any opening to get closer.

The clashes back and forth, where a single mistaken move spelled death, was performed as naturally as breathing.

As a result of their repeated training together, both fighters had become familiar with the other’s technique.

“H-how…how is it, Psianop?”

“…Not bad. Another two or three days of practice at this level and I should be back in full form.”

These were the heaviest wounds he had suffered since his previous battle with Neft the Nirvana, but considering that he was recovering from getting hit with Toroa the Awful’s enchanted swords—dipping below the line between life and death—the recovery time was too short, if anything.

The marvelous speed of his regeneration also meant that he was paying the suitable cost—five years of his cellular life span—each time he regenerated. The regenerative Life Arts would chip away at Psianop’s remaining time with each use.

“How are you doing?”

“W-well… I don’t think… I’m managing to do…everything you’ve taught me.” Qwell bashfully smiled, wiping her sweat. “But whenever I’m sparring with you, Psianop, I feel like I can do it.”

“If you have a model to follow, the techniques will come to you.”

Psianop fought against the shadow that appeared when he was halfway insane, and spent twenty-one years mastering his technique.

Whether the techniques of the living, the knowledge from books…or even an illusion—when one first stepped down a path and began something, they needed a model that would show them their destination.

“…Toroa the Awful was young. He must’ve had a good example to follow.”

So slowly that even Qwell’s eyes could capture the movement, his pseudopod extended and released a straight jab.

Slightly holding back, Qwell used the middle of her war ax hilt to block just before the conventional attack could hit her. There was still this much of a gap in the speed of their opening movement.

Her ability to concentrate on offense was impressive, but she might still have some weaknesses in her guard.

“U-Um… In that case…why’re you acting as a model for someone like me?”

“Even I have something to gain from it. That, and I can’t think of anything else I want to do before I perish.”

“…Do you plan…on dying in the Sixways Exhibition?”

“…”

Once during his battle with Neft. Once during his match with Toroa. If he were to then use his full regeneration Life Arts during each of his remaining three matches, then Psianop’s life wouldn’t hold out another two years.

At the summit of the Sixways Exhibition, when he proved he was the strongest among the First Party, Psianop’s journey would come to an end as well.

“I-is there anything I could do?”

“No. This problem stems from my way of life.”

“…Erm. Um! Psianop!”

Her battle ax halted in place.

Qwell seemed to be forcing her words out by any means necessary. She was so unaccustomed to talking that it was enough to completely pause her training movements.

“…I…can understand how you feel. I—I… Um, for as long as I’ve been alive, strength has been the only thing that mattered…so…I can understand that feeling… To prove your strength, even at the cost of your life…” She searched for her words while her downcast gaze wandered over the ground. “B-But…well…um. It’s disappointing… I feel like, maybe…you shouldn’t die… At least…not before you pass on your knowledge…”

“Before I answer, there’s something I’d like to ask you, Qwell.”

The question had been on his mind ever since they had met.

Believing it would be discourteous to ask, he had held back until now, but it was an unavoidable question if he was going to fully comprehend this woman named Qwell the Wax Flower.

“If pursuing strength is your way of life, why haven’t you trained your body?”

“Oh, erm… Th-that’s…well…”

“I’m not talking about technique. I don’t know what sort of physical constitution you may have, but…if your delicate frame has this much physical strength, then honing your delicate frame to become even thicker would expand the scope of your ability. You can always train your muscles. Why don’t you?”

Qwell’s body was thin. Both her height and width would make it impossible to differentiate her from a town girl. She looked far from a warrior.

Because of her poor, hunching posture, she looked even smaller.

“…I—I…want a proper physique, too, if possible… Sometimes I even wish…I had been born a man. But n-no matter how hard I train…I…I can’t get any bigger than this…”

“You’re a minia, aren’t you? You absolutely can build more muscle.”

“R-right. Oh…but, um…that’s not it. It’s a s-strictly guarded secret…so.”

“…”

Psianop paused to see what she would say next.

It was a mere estimation based on their brief time together, but Psianop figured that Qwell didn’t often experience someone asking so persistently about her circumstances.

“…You know about vampires, right? They were a huge threat to the Kingdoms before the True Demon King, and…even now, their race’s numbers have been reduced significantly, but…”

“I know about their biology. Is that what you are?”

“O-originally…that might have been…what I was supposed to be.”

The sound of the wind rolling over the grass. The chirping of insects cut through the stillness of night.

Qwell smiled faintly.

“Apparently, we’re called dhampir. When we’re born, even if our body’s been remade…very rarely, we’ll detoxify the vampire pathogen… We’re a v-varietal race that’s produced antibodies against infection…”

If a minia infected with the vampire virus gave birth to a child, the child would be a vampire, based off the minian form. Save for the blood and marrow that autonomously produces organisms, these creatures are almost no different from minia. However, the moment they come into existence, many emblematic genetic modifications from the virus appear.

Beautiful, well-proportioned facial features and a tenacious body to make it easier to come in direct contact with other members of their base body’s species. The vampire virus gives its host advantageous qualities for its own proliferation, and is capable of continually maintaining said qualities.

“So, if your physical body’s no different from a vampire’s, the proportions you were born with won’t change at all? Now I finally understand where that abnormal physical strength comes from.”

“…”

Vampire bodies were meticulously designed at the cell stage and didn’t need to be honed after the fact.

Since this was the work of the virus, there was no flexibility on the matter, either. Any deviation from the body that was perfectly constructed from birth was rejected on a cellular level.

“Th-that’s why I know…it would be useless to strengthen myself, since…I was born strong…and even when I try to hone my technique, I always wonder if that’s not by my own power, either…”

“There’s no way all dhampir can reach the same level you’re at.”

“…Is that…really true? I wonder. If…if I had been born minia…what would’ve happened to me?”

The lone dhampir looked up at the small moon.

In some far-off region, the moon was said to symbolize the vampire.

“If, as a minia, I underwent the same training…what would have happened? Maybe my body would’ve gotten bigger…and I could’ve surpassed my current limits. Or perhaps…my honed training isn’t really much of anything compared to all the other minia… and I might not have even gotten where I am now.”

“Qwell…” Psianop spoke as if he was scolding her. “…I’m an ooze.”

Psianop was burdened by the shackles of his race just as she was.

Being innately strong from birth, being innately weak from birth.

For those aiming for their martial peak, which was the more fortunate circumstance?

Surely none could measure such a thing.

“Eh-heh… Eh-heh-heh. Fair enough… You are an ooze.”

“You’ll grow strong. Your innate strength hasn’t made you overconfident, and you have the drive to reach even greater heights. I would go as far as to say that the only reason I’ve gotten to where I am is because I’m just like you.”

Psianop would fight his way through the Sixways Exhibition for as long as he could and then die. That alone was enough.

Yet even now, after defeating Toroa, a distracting thought had worked its way to the forefront of his mind.

“Qwell…I want to try passing my technique on to you.”

“……!”

He had rested quite a bit today.

Still, he had time to spare.

“Want to go again?”

“I do.”

With her wide eyes peering through the gap in her bangs, Qwell smiled.

Her eyes held no prejudice and beheld only strength, regardless of background.

Psianop had embarked on his journey because, no matter where it was, be it the Kingdom twenty-one years later or somewhere else, he had trusted that a woman like her would be there.

“I would like to spar with you.”