Ishura - Volume 8 - Chapter 17.2

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Jelky the Swift Ink listened to the Gray-Haired Child’s voice with his consciousness hazy from exhaustion and shock.

Rosclay had been perfect. He even managed to defend himself from unavoidable traps laid out in his path.

That was how it was supposed to have been.

Rosclay the Absolute had truly responded perfectly to all the traps set in the old town plaza.

He should have ensured his safety, guided the citizens, and left.

However, Rosclay’s whole reason for personally guiding the throng was because they had gathered together out of a desire to see his match against Soujirou. Right at that point, Soujirou himself went and showed up, too.

Now, the only option was to start the match.

<There’s no room for any foul play. The exact thing Master Rosclay wished for himself is happening exactly as scheduled, nothing more.>

“What do you want?”

Jelky decided to bend without a second thought.

If he didn’t admit defeat here, Rosclay would be beaten. Defending the symbol Rosclay stood for was far and away more important than saving his own worthless pride.

<…The first part of my proposal is a revision to a part of the slave law. Due to the vagueness around the current law’s definitions and punishments, in regard to the hotbed of illegal work—monstrous race slavery—I would like to clarify how they are handled, and legalize their trade among the citizenry. By opening up legal markets, along with curbing the slave trade of other races through labeling them as handled “as monstrous races,” as well as monstrous race slave dealings done by criminal organizations, it will guarantee a laborer population throughout your territory. Also, we would like to offer reconstruction support for the damages caused by self-proclaimed demon king Alus’s attack and this series of military coups. Our government shall loan resources to Aureatia including funds and labor, and donate some as well. I look forward to hearing a positive response regarding these two proposed policies—now, while I have answered your question, there is one important point to add.>

Before Jelky could think over his reply, the voice on the other end of the radzio smoothly continued.

“Wh-what—”

Jelky’s breath caught in his throat. Jelky’s throat trembled not out of unrest, but purely from exhaustion.

“What are trying to do here?! You didn’t set up this grand scheme to negotiate?! All to get a political victory for your nation in spite of your defeat in the Sixways Exhibition…?! If this isn’t a threat, then what the hell is it supposed to be?!”

<It’s a campaign pledge.>

Despite unmistakably being the voice of a young boy, there was a terrifying, weighty pressure to his tone.

From the moment that Aureatia refused to accept the Gray-Haired Child, Aureatia was no longer the man’s ally. They were nothing more than an offering to ensure his allies’ victory.

All for something as trivial as that?

Jelky couldn’t incredulously question if he truly was doing this out of a sincerity toward a citizenry of a completely different nation.

The Gray-Haired Child understood.

He was nothing but a monster, as far removed from the people as he possible could be.

So why then, why did he understand?

Rosclay muttered as he remained standing atop the shut-down fountain.

“Master Krafnir. I ask you to ensure the safety on the outside of the venue. There may be someone who tries to make a move while all the focus is gathered on Soujirou the Willow-Sword.”

“…I’D MUCH RATHER DO THAT SORT OF WORK. GIVEN MY POSITION, I DON’T WANT TO ANTAGONIZE A HERO CANDIDATE.”

Soujirou—death in minian form—was closing in.

All around him, the people pulled back like an ebbing tide, creating a strange blank space right in the middle of the old town plaza. While there wasn’t any boundary line, no one else made any attempt to fill in the arena-like area. Everyone was anticipating it. A match between Aureatia’s strongest swordsman, and the almighty swordsman from the Beyond.

“You’re Rosclay, yeah?”

“That’s right. It’s a pleasure to meet you… Why are you here?”

Herein lied the Rosclay’s biggest question.

The Gray-Haired Child most likely had floated a rumor several days ahead of the tenth match and resolved to lure Rosclay here to the old town plaza.

However, where were the means to convey such a decision?

This definitely wasn’t a coincidental encounter. There was a considerable distance between here and Romog Joint Military Hospital. Since he only had one leg and couldn’t utilize any sort of carriage, it would have been physically impossible for him to get here in time unless he made straight for the plaza upon his escape.

“Not sure you’d really get it even if I explain, to be honest.”

Soujirou idly looked up to Rosclay.

“I’ll try my best to understand.”

“Sure… I know this girl, Yuno, see. A while back, she did the same type of thing. Used her arrowheads to mark things, make signals for me, so… I was only able to get here ’cause whenever I was about to get lost, I’d see one of the marks she left behind.”

A cipher that only a specific individual could understand. He had considered the possibility. While Soujirou’s senses may have been able to distinguish simple marks scratched into a building, the soldiers patrolling about wouldn’t have been able to recognize it as a type of cipher. However, that wasn’t the problem.

“…It’s not the place that I question, but the date and time. Why did you escape from the hospital and come here, believing that there would be a match?”

“’Cause this is where we’re having our match, right?”

“No. The tenth match is canceled. You should’ve been informed about this ahead of time.”

“Huh, ain’t we fighting, though? You say some really bizarro stuff, y’know that?”

They weren’t on the same page. Why had Soujirou…been convinced that a match that couldn’t possibly happen while he was still in the hospital was going to happen? Why, also, hadn’t anyone been able to get a grasp on his method of communication?

“After making such an impressive show of it to me, what the hell’re you on about?”

There existed some type of obvious reasoning in Soujirou’s mind.

Inside Rosclay’s brain, he thought at full speed in the pause of a single breath.

He “saw” it. What sort of visual method was used? On top of that, something he recognized as being shown specifically to him… In which case, was it something he could see from his hospital room? At least, if the information was conveyed to him through some secret writing, he wouldn’t phrase it like this. Soujirou is a visitor, for starts. There isn’t any script in our world he could read—

Then, he hit upon it.

There was only one. One method that could convey something to Soujirou in an impressive manner without hiding it from anyone.

Rosclay looked up at the sky.

Balloons.

The shopping district’s colorful advertising balloons could be seen from the window of his Romog Joint Military Hospital room.

Hiroto the Paradox had a powerful influence over the shops he bargained with. It couldn’t have been hard to make them fly balloons in the exact pattern he specified.

Even throughout the course of the Sixways Exhibition, there hadn’t been any point of contact between Hiroto the Paradox and Soujirou the Willow-Sword. Rosclay thought there couldn’t possibly be any cipher that the two of them could mutually understand.

However, there was a single one.

If this code was boldly hoisted up into the air, no one, none of the Aureatia citizens, nor Rosclay, would be able to read it.

“I see, there is a method he could use…to tell you something…”

“No way you’d write that if you weren’t tryin’ to tell me something. You didn’t want anyone else to know that you were holdin’ the match in secret here in this plaza…”

A blind spot in their thinking due to living in this world, and not the Beyond.

A code that only Soujirou and Hiroto could understand.

“So you wrote it in Japanese, right?”

…Hiroto the Paradox.

Disguising it as a notice from Aureatia, he had gotten Soujirou to act on this day.

The patterns of notification balloons were complicated to emphasize individuality. If one of the patterns among the notices that numerous shops flew into the air happened to coincidentally align with the writing script of another world, was there anyone here in this one who could have differentiated it?

…It was impossible to ever predict. How could there be someone who could understand one specific language among the thousands that exist in the Beyond…?! Even worse, it happened all while we were pressed with responding to the grand coup erupting all over Aureatia… With an inevitability as if fate itself was being manipulated, he forced me to come across him!

Hiroto the Paradox had lost. He had been defeated by the colossal nation of Aureatia, both politically and militarily.

Was there anyone else who could manage to do all this from a state of affairs that left them without the slightest possible chance to turn the tables?

Truly a paradox. Hiroto the Paradox was, without a doubt, a monster.

Now, right in front of his eyes, Rosclay was faced with yet another monster.

“Rosclay! Rosclay! Rosclay!”

“You got this, Rosclay! We’re cheering you on!”

“Don’t go easy on him just cause he’s missing a leg!”

“I’m gonna brag about this to my mom! It’s like a dream come true!”

“Soujirou’s a helluva fighter, too, y’know!”

“Rosclay! Rosclay!”

He had to fight. Rosclay couldn’t ever run away.

Since no matter who he fought, Rosclay the Absolute was never supposed to lose.

“Run if you want, I don’t mind.”

Soujirou alone spat out his words amid the chorus of cheers.

“Ever since I showed up…seems to me like you’ve been scared stiff, eh? Lemme tell you, ain’t any fun for me to cut down guys like that.”

“Heh… Thank you kindly. However, that is one thing I cannot do.”

Rosclay descended from the fountain and stood at the same height as Soujirou.

It was a necessary move to convince the crowd, but because he stepped over the fountain, the inside of his shoes were wet and now worked to his disadvantage in battle.

Of course, when it came to disadvantaged footing, Soujirou fighting on one leg had it far worse than Rosclay. Nevertheless, the discrepancy between Rosclay and Soujirou’s fighting skills was on a whole different level.

“…How should we signal the start of the match?”

“Feel free to come at me whenever you want or whatever… I’ll even give you a handicap and say I won’t attack first. We’re gonna end up in sword range anyway.”

“That’s fair. In that case, how about when our breathing’s synchronized.”

As he talked, he put plenty space between himself and Soujirou.

What he needed to do was verify his foe’s range. The attack range including what Soujirou showed in the third match, reflecting blades and throwing them.

“Please, citizens of Aureatia, I ask you to remove yourselves from this plaza! As this is a true duel, your safety is not guaranteed. Your assistance is unnecessary!”

Openly turning his back to Soujirou, he put space between them as he called to the people.

He was aiming for a psychological effect by openly turning his back. Along with their conversation just now, he was making Soujirou and the audience recognize that they weren’t at the fighting stage yet.

The tall buildings adjoining the plaza… No, I can’t use any of them. The residents should all been completely evacuated by the start of the first match, but there are far too many people gathered on the roofs looking down over the plaza.

His gaze then arrived on the observation tower soaring on top of the hill. The tower was a massive stone construction of a bygone age, and the observation deck at the top was narrow. There was maybe ten or so citizens who had grabbed these “box seats.”

“I beg those of you watching from the observation tower as well, please come down and leave this plaza… Even should I win my match against Soujirou, if any of you were caught in the battle and injured, then it shall not be a true victory.”

“M-Master Rosclay!”

“Hey, hey! Rosclay talked to me! Yeah he spoke to me!”

“Oh, listen to you! We’re causing him trouble, you dolt! Quit putzing around and get down!”

“Master Rosclay, I’m rooting for you…! I believe in you, I know you’ll never lose!”

The citizens in the observation tower departed, each one commenting as they went.

Continuing after this, Rosclay did something similar several more times.

When Rosclay first arrived, he had needed to climb a fountain just to avoid people, but the droplet of terror that was Soujirou the Willow-Sword served to make them keep their distance.

As long as he was able, as much as possible, to create a space that they absolutely weren’t supposed to approach, then crowd psychology would make it difficult for them to step into the area again. Rosclay extended out this area to construct an advantageous arena for himself.

The castle garden theater wasn’t Rosclay the Absolute’s only battlefield—also…

“C’mon, already! Quit dragging this out! How long’re you gonna keep me waiting here?!” He heard Soujirou’s enraged voice from behind.

Rosclay was just about to head over to double-check that there wasn’t anyone near the observation tower a second time.

“You are the one who said I was free to set the start of the fight at my leisure. While it may be of no concern to you… For myself, the safety of the citizens is paramount.”

“Okay, sure, but…ahh, what a pain! Time to cut you down! If you don’t got any plans to fight, I’ll just attack from behind, got it?!”

I’m sure you would. You’ll blow your top and come at me yourself. Your current position…means you have to make sure that this fight actually happens.

Rosclay turned back around near the tower and faced him with a smile.

His feet had already dried after being soaked in the fountain water.

Soujirou’s movements, wobbling forward and drawing his right stick leg along, resembled a clumsy clockwork doll.

It thus meant it was impossible for him to run, jump, or make any other sudden evasion movements. On top of that, if he was also in an excited mental state, his movements would naturally grow more linear and straightforward.

“This should be enough.”

Rosclay wasn’t in sword range. Soujirou was at the bottom of the hill.

Rosclay swept his left side with a sword slash. It wasn’t an act of intimidation.

The very tip of the sword grazed the foundation of the observation tower, scratching as it went…

There was a loud stone creak.

“We can begin now if you’d like.”

The observation tower was leaning precariously in Soujirou’s direction.

The tower, severed diagonally at its base, began to reveal its rectangular cross section.

“Ohhhh!”

It crashed. A destructive sound of everything, stone, earth, and steel smashing together.

Shouts and cheers echoed from the audience, at last understanding the situation.

Rosclay’s goal wasn’t to kill Soujirou in one attack. The aim had been to prevent him from making any evasive moments with the descent of a mass far too large to meet with a sword slash. He concealed it among the noise…

“Antel io Jadwedo. Laeus 2 telbode. Temoyamvista. Iusemnohain. Xaonyaji.” (From Antel to the steel of Jawedo. The axis is the first right finger. Pierce sound. Descend from clouds. Circulate.)

—the Force Arts coming out from the radzio.

The longswords that had already been generated within the collapsed tower transformed into a tempest of silvery white and pierced through the gaps in the debris. Six. Ten. Thirteen. Nineteen of them. They rushed out at speeds too fast for the onlookers to even perceive.

They passed through from above, left, right, and from front and behind.

These swords started to make a buzzing sound from their terrifying speed.

Rosclay took several steps back.

…Wasn’t able to kill him, was it?

A person’s arm peeked out from a gap in the rubble. This single arm alone managed to grab onto two of the longwords, but by the time he had gotten his shoulder out, the shape of the longsword was crumbling away to dust.

He couldn’t allow Soujirou’s hand to grab onto any sword whatsoever.

“Ownopellal io tem. Nactekcca. Siliyo axolis. Nika.” (From Ownopellal to Temilulk sword. Winged night. Thorny snow cover. Exhaust.)

The Craft Arts that continued to flow from Rosclay’s radzio had destroyed the observation tower and made the numerous longswords all collapse in on themselves. Needless to say, it wasn’t Rosclay who had used the Force Arts moments prior, either.

Determining it was impossible to avoid the match, Rosclay had drawn out the start time as long as he could.

He knew that even with that slight bit of extra time, Jelky the Swift Ink could summon them all. Antel the Alignment, clearing out the rebel army in the vicinity of the old town, and Ownopellal the Bone Watcher, stopping around the station, had arrived exceptionally fast. His Craft Arts support and his Force Arts support had both arrived.

Light shot from among the mountain of debris.

With a crunch like a bug being crushed, the trajectory of the light changed in midair. Two of the longswords, brought together in a midair cross, were sliced through, and because Rosclay had reacted late, it stabbed most of the way through his sword blade.

It was a fruit knife, seemingly obtained from some residential home.

Rosclay’s hair stood on end.

“…!”

“Awww… Shoulda figured throwing stuff at random wouldn’t do it.”

I can’t react… Krafnir and Antel protected me with everything they had, and just barely made it in time. Even a plain knife…can reach me from this far away?!

Soujirou the Willow-Sword hadn’t been injured whatsoever.

It merely seemed that he had been crushed underneath the mountain of rubble, but looking closer, within the mountain was an open space just big enough to fit one person. It wasn’t a coincidence—the rubble that Soujirou had dismantled in the span of a second had accumulated in shapes that mutually supported one another, so if anything, it had protected Soujirou as he stood in the middle of the destruction.

On top of it all, that slight amount of space must have been plenty of room to defend himself from the longswords rushing in from the openings in the debris and leaving him nowhere to run.

A deviant blade master with complete control over a sword, even those not in his grasp, on a technical and theorical level.

Even after reflecting the scalpels precisely thrown by an almighty chimera and having a blade forced against him with a visitor’s brute strength, his wounds hadn’t been fatal. He understood absolutely everything as if the blade and him were of one body and mind.

“Is that all you got?”

…If I assume the projectile just now was a feint, then he can’t have many hidden weapons on him. Collapsing the observation tower and confining Soujirou inside was to stop his line of sight with the rubble. It was worth it just to try. Attacks via Force Arts aren’t effective, and if anything, there’s a greater risk the swords will be used against me.

“You can run away if you want. ’Cept you’d better be running to try and win.”

Rosclay put space between them. He couldn’t himself get closed in on here.

Suddenly, it seemed like Soujirou’s clumsy steps changed their pace completely.

“Krafnir!”

“PISS OFF ALREADY!”

Metal insects swarmed Soujirou, trying to bite and tear at him. Although the swarm should have been just barely dense enough to avoid the audience’s eyes, there was a blade whirlwind with godlike speed, and the bug colony that should have been impossible for any swordsman to deal with dropped to the ground without a single one of them reaching their target.

Aberrant leg strength. If Rosclay had been fighting Soujirou at full strength, he wouldn’t have even had the chance to breathe once the match had started.

“If you ain’t got any chance of winning, then cut it out!”

“I CAN’T KEEP THIS UP, ROSCLAY!”

“Please, just a little bit longer!”

Krafnir’s fighting force, each bug on par with a single minian soldier, was being worn down. This wasn’t an opponent they could hold back against. If their army came to an end, it was death.

Rosclay was continuing to back off, but there were some in the audience who grew suspicious of Soujirou as he slashed the air.

“What’s that move of Soujirou’s there, ya think?”

“He’s not hiding some invisible thrust up his sleeve or something, like Toroa, is he?”

“This can’t be happening… Rosclay, unable to finish him off…?”

Soujirou advanced, and Rosclay withdrew.

“Antel io—” (From Antel—)

Assuming it could even get a square hit on Soujirou, throwing longswords was a completely ineffective method of attack. Antel must have understood this for himself, too.

Rosclay went down the hill while conversely Soujirou was on top of it, where the observation tower had originally stood. While there was plenty of space between them, Rosclay’s experience was warning him that he was in danger.

Right now, Soujirou’s taken the high ground.

He saw a long thin shadow, changing its shape atop the hill. Rosclay murmured.

“…Professor Ownopellal. Craft Arts on the post of the gas lamp.”

Orders given through the radzio.

Since there had once been an observation tower constructed there, it meant there were gas lamps to illuminate the night view as well.

This post, far thinner than the tower, aimed at Rosclay and collapsed straight toward him.

It had been sliced on top of the hill.

“Ownopellal io orde. Ikutes dea—” (From Ownopellal to Orde pillar. Waterfall eyeball—)

Right. I’ll do the same myself.

“Don’t try to—”

A sound of metal scraping together.

“—screw with me!”

The sound of Soujirou sliding down the diagonally tilted post as it collapsed down the bottom of the hill.

The two-cylinder structure he had in place of his right leg was locked together with the pole.

“Arpistera. Gill.” (Unpeeled glimmer. Open.)

“…!”

The post, fulling its role as a railway to slide down, warped in the middle and bent.

Soujirou grabbed on to the post with his left arm to stop his body from being sent flying.

Conversely, Rosclay closed in on Soujirou for the first time in the match.

Swordsmanship exactly as drilled, correct and just above all else. His step forward and stab happened all at once, as part of a single flowing body movement.

However, as long as the move came from a blade, this visitor’s sword would catch the tip of Rosclay’s own and—

“…What the hell?”

Immediately beforehand, Soujirou blocked the thrust with his fake leg.

There was a shrill bursting sound, and one of the two poles that made up his fake leg bent and went flying. The leg strength he felt through the fake leg’s kick, like that of a savage beast, repelled Rosclay’s right arm, throwing it out wide.

In that brief second, unable to defend his midline—

“…”

Stillness.

Soujirou rolled without attempting any follow-up attack and landed on one leg.

Rosclay the Absolute, too, remained still where he stood.

The opposite side from his right hand, thrusting out and deflected away wide. In his left hand, held at the ready behind him, was a strange navy blue sword, baring a thick blade like a liyuedao sword.

Making him grab the post with his left arm, he had blasted Soujirou’s fake right leg. If Soujirou had attacked him, Rosclay would have been able to cleave his face down the middle with a slash that was guaranteed to strike first.

“Why,” Soujirou spat, “are you using that thing?”

“Hah… Well, here I’m wondering why you didn’t block that with your sword for me.”

“Rosclay! Rosclay! Rosclay!”

As if the condensed moment in time had returned to normal, suddenly the reverberating cheers reached his ears.

When Soujirou sliced through the gas lamp and came flying into Rosclay’s melee range, the Force Arts activated. Launching longswords at Soujirou wouldn’t get a proper hit in, regardless of how many hundreds they fired at him.

However, it could easily manage the task of handing over a sword to Rosclay.

In his thrust-out right hand, Charijisuya the Blasting Blade.

In his left hand behind his back, the Magicked Blade of Razhucort.

Jelky had pulled out all the stops in his arrangements. The plan to pass through certain death range and then counterattack should have been a guaranteed kill.

For the blade master from the Beyond, even that didn’t touch him.

I’m different from Soujirou.

Right now, Soujirou and Rosclay needed to fight together, standing on the same ground.

Rosclay stood face-to-face with Soujirou slightly outside his sword range.

“…Close to letting down my guard for a moment there when I broke through your defenses. A real good performance, eh?”

“I’ll gladly accept that as a compliment.”

Both of the swordsmen were smiling.

A fiendish smile searching for blood, and a virtuous one praising his enemy.

Krafnir. Jelky. Antel. Professor Ownopellal.

Nevertheless, Rosclay the Absolute remained intent on victory.

Even if he deployed all the dastardly and heretical tricks and eroded himself completely—

“Rosclay! Rosclay! Rosclay!”

He would still win in a way befitting a just champion.

…I’m not fighting this battle alone.

The chestnut-haired young girl was nothing more than a single person among the jostling crowd of countless onlookers.

The fervor in the old town plaza felt like enough to crush Iska.

No spectator seats had been set up, so she couldn’t really see Rosclay himself due to the heads of the people jostling to look.

However, she had caught several glimpses of him through the gaps in the crowd.

She saw Rosclay topple a tower with a single slash and press in on his enemy with a flurry of Force Arts.

She saw him as he reclaimed a superior position over Soujirou in a momentary clash, as he been moving backward, as if driven into a corner by an invisible blade.

“See, look, Rosclay did it! Soujirou’s only got one part of his fake leg left!”

“You idiot, that’s cause he blocked the attack with his leg! Even still, I’ve thought this for a while, but Rosclay’s crazy strong, huh… Just barely left a scratch and look what he did.”

“Hey, Dad, you went to watch the third match, right?! What sort of moves does Soujirou use?!”

“No clue, but if Rosclay’s gotten him that close, then it’s over!”

“Rosclay! Rosclaaaay! Over here!”

…He was doing this the whole time, wasn’t he?

Iska’s body wasn’t able to frequently make trips outside. She had never actually witnessed Rosclay fight for herself.

Up until now, she had only been able to imagine how he fought based on Rosclay’s confessions, or the stories her mom would catch while out and about.

Rosclay the Absolute was a scoundrel who tricked his enemies and deceived the people according to Rosclay, and a flawless, upright, and bold knight according to her mom.

Even though she knew the dream would never come true, she still thought to herself—if Iska ever did have the chance to witness how he fought, what did Rosclay truly look like?

He’s putting on a front.

Watching Rosclay as a spectator, he did indeed look like the sort of strong and beautiful champion her mom had relayed to her.

Even the Force Arts she briefly glimpsed were performed in a way that made it seem like his own technique, even as she knew the truth of it all, and Rosclay could have revealed the truth to everyone present, and it still would have been hard for anyone to accept.

However, Iska could tell he was pushing himself far too hard, as well.

This normal young man, the type that could be found anywhere, was fighting in order to remain a strong and beautiful champion.

Frantic and desperate, without anyone knowing the wiser.

Rosclay. The fact I’m feeling this…may all be a misconception on my part.

She thought it was a misapprehension stemming from her knowledge of Rosclay the individual.

But this misconception should just remain mine and mine alone.

Iska loved Rosclay.

She wished for a future together, just the two of them.

However, as long as Rosclay the Absolute remained as Aureatia’s wonderful champion, he would continue to fight battles just like the one Iska saw.

It’s okay. At this point, I’m not going to stop you or anything… Rosclay.

If that was his wish, at the very least, she would watch over him here.

Should things be as Rosclay the Absolute’s own words said, and the individual power of the people served as Rosclay’s strength—then, at the very least, Iska must have possessed the power of one person inside her.

Soujirou the Willow-Sword didn’t particularly have much interest in Rosclay the Absolute.

He was fine with letting someone else who wasn’t in the ring themselves offer him help.

However, even if he did win the fight with these cheap tricks, was that actually enjoyable for Rosclay?

Whatever happened, they were the ones who would die when they lost, so if they didn’t have the most fun battle to the death possible, to account for their lives being on the line, then ultimately, weren’t they just missing out?

When it came to the man’s skills and abilities, while Soujirou agreed that Rosclay must have honed his body to the absolute limits of the minia form, that was basically all there was to him. He hadn’t reached the standards needed to properly cross swords with Soujirou whatsoever.

That was how Soujirou thought of it.

“I should be able to make quick work of ’im…”

Soujirou scratched his head right in front of his foe.

It appeared that Rosclay the Absolute wasn’t as weak of an enemy as Soujirou sensed he was.

Soujirou should have seen a clear route to Rosclay’s life, but with Rosclay constantly enacting two or three schemes at once, he couldn’t reach the correct path forward. Soujirou was being outwitted.

Rosclay was always ready with a card to play to bridge the gulf of their abilities. The clash with his enchanted swords just now had been exactly that.

Much like it was impossible to distinguish between a visitor and the minia of this world based on appearances alone, he couldn’t judge whether something was an enchanted sword or not simply by looking at the blade itself. He been able to dodge the Blasting Blade because he had watched the intents of its wielder, Rosclay, instead.

On top of it, simply by seeing through the first Blasting Blade attack, he ended up with the tables turned back against him. Rosclay the Absolute had even foreseen that Soujirou would break through it and kept the Magicked Blade secret.

“All right…well, what’re you gonna do from there?”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure the same move won’t work on you again.”

“I mean, ’course not.”

Repelling the first part with precision via the tremendous recoil from the Blasting Blade, Rosclay would find his prey with the Magicked Blade guaranteed initiative when Soujirou came flying down at him. It was logical, but still ultimately confined within the realm of logic. It was a move that was entirely composed under the premise that the enchanted blasting sword would score a hit. For Soujirou, he could simply evade it from the start and be fine.

Soujirou lightly bent his left knee, and prepared to kick out left, right, up, down, front, back—in all directions at once.

Rosclay, meanwhile, remained in the same stance as before.

The Blasting Blade held out in front in his right hand, and the Magicked Blade in his left hand, held behind his back.

He maintained his decorous smile as he spoke.

“I’ll came at you with the same move.”

“…Oh yeah?”

“Ownopellal io arte.” (From Ownopellal to Arte sword.)

Word Arts. Soujirou kicked the ground faster than his brain could think.

The Magicked Blade was already being swung down at him. As if Rosclay had perfectly predicted the moment Soujirou would move.

However, the truth was he hadn’t read Soujirou’s moves. The sword, merely swung down as fast as possible, exploded on the ground without hitting its mark.

Something’s not right.

The blast was bereft of bloodlust. It guided him to opened-up low ground. A distraction. Aural camouflage.

Soujirou had instinctively stopped Alcuzari the enchanted hollow sword that he meant to follow through with.

He felt an intensely heavy resistance. A rifle bullet had made contact with the sword blade. A sniper.

Even before the shock could demolish his wrists, he deflected the bullet by rolling it with the flat of his sword in accordance with the bullet’s rotational direction.

Rosclay’s response…

Soujirou was paying attention to Rosclay’s left hand.

“Yones hamsh. Rix te neshel.” (Left side of the mount. Crime-knowing curtain.)

…is coming from here.

Soujirou didn’t move.

The Magicked Blade of Razhucort did.

Soujirou knew that the blade of ultimate initiative had passed by right in front of his eyes. The enchanted sword, because of this guaranteed forestalling move, needed to be precisely aware of its opponent’s form and speed and placed along their trajectory to hit its target, or it was rendered meaningless.

The blade flew, and right as the second attack, fastest of all, began, Soujirou responded with his own blade. The enchanted hollow sword entangled the tip of the Magicked Blade and wrested it from Rosclay’s hands with the same terrifying acceleration. If the wielder wasn’t a shura himself, then slaying an enchanted sword was simple.

The Blasting Blade was still stuck into the ground. The Magicked Blade repelled down.

Another half pace forward, and he was within lethal sword range.

“Dis terda.” (String of dark tone.)

“I saw it. That…”

“Nim a.” (Become hollow.)

“…life of yours.”

A killing slash.

“—”

He felt his hands cut through air.

Soujirou’s intuition had perceived a definite path of slaughter.

However, Soujirou hadn’t reached his target.

The sword blade had crumpled like dirt.

Alcuzari the enchanted hollow sword, supposed to never break or chip.

“Break open my defenses and get careless.”

The Blasting Blade, pulled out with one hand, grazed Soujirou’s left elbow as he lifted it up.

The impact nearly sent Soujiro’s tiny body sailing straight into the audience.

“I said I’d come at with you the same move, didn’t I?”

“Gwaugh, gahak!”

The aberrant blade spit up blood as he laid on the ground.

The problem was less that his left elbow had been blown away almost down to the bone, and stemmed more from one lung being crushed from the point-blank blast wave. Regardless, he was robbed of most of his faculties in one arm.

…I got played!

Rosclay the Absolute was weak.

While he may not have been the absolutely weakest, when it came to pure fighting capabilities among the hero candidates, myriad freaks and demons all jumbled together, he was undoubtedly near the very bottom. Anyone would recognize him as such.

…This guy’s strong.

Strong—as long as visitors were themselves people…

Then it was possible to deceive them, including by ensuring one’s strength was never shown.

Alcuzari the enchanted hollow sword was, from the beginning, something he had received from someone else.

“Gifting me…an enchanted sword. Haade, that bastard. Gwahk, hah hah, hyrk.”

From the beginning, it had all been to make him use it here in this fight.

All in case he won out against his first opponent, Ozonezma…and fought Rosclay in this match.

“Y-you were…thinking up something awful after all!”

It was impossible to distinguish whether a sword was an enchanted one just from looking at it. Even if it wasn’t an unbreakable enchanted sword, but instead from the very beginning one that was destined to break, destroyed with Craft Arts after waiting for a fatal opportunity—Soujirou’s technical prowess meant that he wouldn’t have broken the blade to begin with, even after parrying a rifle shot.

A lie that was impossible to see through, presupposing the visitor’s supernatural gifts.

Rosclay couldn’t allow Soujirou’s hand to grab onto any sword whatsoever.

“Hey look, it’s Soujirou.”

“No way… He got thrown away that far just from a single blast?”

Behind him, the crowd stirred.

“Rosclay even had his sword repelled.”

“Hey, Soujirou, you okay? Give up yet?”

“Stuff it, all of you…”

As a result of getting blown far away, he was out of range of any follow-up attacks.

In his current situation, with the crowd near, there was little chance of any Force Arts attacks or attacks from those tiny bugs.

In order to pick himself up, Soujirou thrust his untouched right hand into the ground and felt something gross and wet.

“…What the hell’s this?”

A swarm, looking like metallic beetles melted together into a muddy mess, happened to lie dead exactly where Soujirou had fell. They were undoubtedly the bugs that the friend of Rosclay’s was using. Why were they dead, though…?

“…Gaugh, hngh!”

An intense pain began to rapidly spread from his right fingertips.

Writhing, he scratched the ground with his right hand. His nails were easily peeled back, and there were several red lines drawn on the ground.

The crowd screamed and backed off, circling wide around Soujirou.

“Wh-what the…hell is this…?!”

“Nectegio, the Ravenous Rot.”

In the middle of the shrieks, Rosclay coldly murmured a reply, in a low whisper to make sure no one else would hear.

What exactly had Rosclay done just now? What was going to happen to Soujirou? At the very least, Soujirou knew one thing for certain.

I was wrong. My estimation was totally wrong.

This man wasn’t the type of naïve opponent to give up on a follow-up attack for any halfhearted reasons like Soujirou being out of range, or the crowd standing nearby.

Much more than that, he had driven Soujirou into the most effective follow-up attack of all.

After one learned the truth behind the champion of Aureatia, they started to lose sight of an extremely simple fact that even the nameless city children knew very well.

Rosclay the Absolute had slain all of Aureatia’s enemies.

Including the Lucnoca the Winter.

“You’re going to die. I’m not going to step in range of you any further.”

Ever since Aureatia was first established, no one had been able to best him.

Command headquarters. Jelky, in a state of complete exhaustion, listened to the sounds coming from the radzio with his head facedown on his desk.

He couldn’t give in now.

…Ekirehjy the Blood Fountain examined Nectegio on Rosclay’s orders and gathered its toxins… Did he manage to coordinate with Krafnir…?

It was one of the trump cards they had prepared for emergencies, but they had deployed several of said trump cards in this fight already. Rosclay had prepared and accumulated them all.

Antel the Alignment. Ownopellal the Bone Watcher. The enchanted swords for defending the palace. Dally the Coin Repeller. Ekirehjy the Blood Fountain. He had arranged to have as much fighting power present as possible.

Jelky’s head was in terrible pain, and he had almost no sensation in his left arm.

In addition to the daily, chronic overwork, the mental pressure and enormous amount of work that surged in one fell swoop that day was shortening Jelky’s lifespan.

Everything I was able to do…all so Rosclay may win…

He thought that, to be precise, this attachment he had wasn’t toward Rosclay.

It was an attachment to the yet-unseen Aureatia.

The Aureatia that would become a unified nation upon overcoming all the dangers that threated the world without killing the monarch or the people.

Jelky may have lied this whole time, just as Hiroto the Paradox said.

Even then, he didn’t believe that they had been mistaken in their methods. If they had progressed down a just path, free from any deception, it would have led to a great many more sacrifices than there were now.

The true value of a nation wasn’t the approval rate of the people. It was guaranteeing the people’s safety and having the faculties to perpetually maintain it.

“I should have…said that back to him…”

The radzio call with the Gray-Haired Child had already ended.

Jelky also hadn’t any energy to spare to counter back in the moment. First and foremost, he had needed to give all the effort he had to support Rosclay right away.

“How frustrating…”

His body was beginning to die.

Defeat meant that there had been some part of Soujirou’s way of fighting that had been wrong.

It wasn’t that he had come into the battle missing his right leg, nor was it that he hadn’t been suspicious of Alcuzari the enchanted hollow sword. It was that, despite wanting his match against Rosclay, he hadn’t been able to slash at him at the start.

The guy who avoids fighting is the stronger one?

If he hadn’t given Rosclay time to prepare, he wouldn’t have been ground down by the sheer amount of reinforcement he was getting like this. In that regard, Rosclay the Absolute was terrifyingly brilliant.

Presuming he would fight in the castle garden theater, this match should have been under the worst possible conditions for Rosclay, egged on by the crowd and forced to fight on the spot.

However, when faced with the worst possible conditions, he had immediately found himself weapons—the vague start for the match, and the need to let the people escape the area.

Back then, Rosclay had observed the surrounding terrain as he moved about the plaza and bought time to give him the greatest possible advantage.

Even someone who seemed inferior in strength to Soujirou had areas in which they excelled compared to himself.

If Soujirou could obtain that strength for his own—

“That…ain’t…right…!”

He wriggled and struggled as he got up.

It wasn’t about next time. It was now.

Right now, he had to close the distance and kill Rosclay, or it would be over. He would die first.

His left leg amputated, and his prosthetic broken. Explosive trauma to his left elbow. His right hand was soaked in lethal poison.

“What the hell’re you running away for! Champion, my ass…!”

“Soujirou the Willow-Sword! I do not wish to slay a swordsman of your caliber! The blood loss from your elbow must be quite severe. Should you move, it will only put you in even greater danger. You can be saved if we attend to your wounds immediately. I ask you to rest there and wait for a doctor to arrive!”

That wasn’t it. The harsh pain in his right hand was beginning to reach his wrist.

Rosclay was saying that Soujirou had to move, or the poison would circulate through him and he would die.

Rosclay the Absolute wanted to kill Soujirou more than anything.

“I…can still…fight…”

Mustering up the last of his strength, Soujirou tried to kick off from the ground.

His shoulder was pulled back.

“Huh?”

It was an Aureatian citizen.

A well-built Aureatian citizen had stepped forward and grabbed Soujirou.

“Whoa now, buddy… You can’t push yourself so hard in a state like that.”

“You okay?! We’ll take you to a clinic.”

“That bastard…!”

Rosclay hadn’t been calling out to Soujirou.

It had been to the Aureatian citizens. More precisely, he had purposefully called out to create a situation where it would make sense for the Aureatian citizens to act this way.

He had someone at the ready. Waited…for this worst possible second. Rosclay…you were this thorough?!

Unable to waste a single second in his situation, Soujirou’s potential options were few.

Just gotta go for it.

With his destroyed left arm, he stole a knife from the citizen right next to him. Something he could manage.

Soujirou just needed to cut off the fingers of the large man grabbing his shoulder and peel him off.

The large man murmured, “Sorry, but…”

Slash them—

“You can’t cut me down.”

The slash that was supposed to fly as fast as his nerves fired, stopped before he could move a single finger.

It was none other but Soujirou himself who stopped it.

“…Wha…what the hell’re you here for?”

He recognized the large man’s voice. To blend in amongst the citizens, he wore a black hat and glasses to greatly alter his image, but Soujirou’s intuition for slaughter was the one thing that couldn’t be tricked.

If he attacked this man, he would end up dead.

“Fweh-heh-heh… Been a minute hasn’t it, Soujirou?”

Kuze the Passing Disaster dug the fingers of both his hands even harder into Soujirou’s shoulders.

“Ngh… Screw you…!”

“But today’s going to be goodbye for good.”

Kuze the Passing Disaster was an assassin. He needed to assassinate Queen Sephite.

In order to save religious faith, he needed a crime heinous enough to pin all the Order’s notoriety on him.

If he advanced to the second round, when the royal family would come to watch the matches, he could get his wish. To win and proceed on, he should have only needed to kill only one person, his opponent in the first round.

That didn’t happen. Kuze killed Alus the Star Runner himself, as ordered by Aureatia.

“Well…who do I need to kill next?”

He was in the second borough of Aureatia’s Eastern Outer Ward, after it was struck by a conflagration—in a small shack along the canal.

Kuze sat down on a wooden box in the room, looking fatigued.

“Rosclay the Absolute. That must be what this is about, if you’ve called me out to a place like this.”

“No one else knows about this conversation, even within the Aureatia Assembly. That’s why I needed to hide myself and meet you in person.”

There was a man hidden under a robe inside the shack.

His facial features were more well-sculpted than a theater actor, but when he wasn’t inside his glittering silver armor, Rosclay looked like a normal citizen, as if his usual impressive presence was a complete lie.

“I see. Well, what is it, then?”

“Let me make my thinking here clear. I can assist your organization in your goal.”

“…!”

Killing.

The choice flickering in the back of his head brought him disgust, like his entrails were rotting, but he needed to steel himself. It wasn’t guaranteed that things would get to that point.

“Fweh-heh-heh… Goal? Our goal, huh… If Rosclay himself is willing to help with restoring the Order, I’d accept the offer with open arms.”

“Regrettably, restoring faith at this point will be impossible. Your organization thought that yourselves, yes? If those who lived a proper life are enterally left unrewarded, then you need to create someone to shoulder the blame for that—”

“It’s the same thing that you lot are doing to us, isn’t it?”

In the age of the True Demon King, there wasn’t a single person who had been saved by the teachings of the Wordmaker.

The Order was rotten, exploiting the poor and destitute to eke out its survival.

In exchange for forgetting their faith in the Wordmaker, the people of the world started to believe these stories instead.

They didn’t want to believe that the tragedy and atrocities that befell them had all happened without any reason whatsoever. At this point, the Order was seen as necessary in order to serve as that reason.

Kuze needed to detach the reason from the Order he needed to keep protected.

“…How much do you know?”

The plot to assassinate the Queen was something that not even the head of the Order Division in the government, Nophtok the Crepuscle Bell, knew about.

If the plot was discovered, all the sacrifices up until now would be rendered meaningless. If it meant protecting the secret, Kuze would even manipulate Nastique of his own will.

“I’ve already made my conclusion clear. I can assist you. You wish to take responsibility for assassinating the Queen and use it to prolong the life of the Order. Is that right?”

“…”

Kuze wasn’t so much preserving the silence on purpose, but was unable to answer.

He simply thought that it showed Rosclay the Absolute’s extraordinary tenacity, to identify the truth all by himself.

“Why do you think I’ve gone to these lengths?”

“Good question. Trying to use me for yourself?”

“The answer is similar, but a bit different. I don’t want to die.”

Rosclay gave a fatigued smile.

“The Order may teach that even when the body dies, Word Arts will be woven on eternally…but I don’t want to die. Simply imagining that I may lose myself forever is terrifying… That’s why I don’t want us to remain enemies.”

Everyone must have felt that way.

Since, even at that moment, Kuze could kill Rosclay with a thought.

“You sure about this? If it comes out that you overlooked the Queen’s assassination, you’re not going to get by with just an execution.”

“…In order to achieve our faction’s goals, it will mean abolishing the monarchy in the end anyway.”

“…What?”

“I’m sure your Order never even dreamed of it, did they? That we would both share the same goal of dethroning the Queen. We intend to use the symbol of the hero to convert Aureatia into a republic. The Sixways Exhibition event is for the sake of this reformation as well.”

“Hah-hah-hah. Is that…really true? Hah-hah, hah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah.”

Kuze laughed, but it wasn’t the sort of laugh that came out on purpose.

What exactly was the point of all the killing he had done?

His emotions were horribly dry, and empty.

“Huh, I get it, sure, sure! Instead of dethroning her while she’s alive, it’ll make everything go along faster if she dies and the whole monarchy is broken instead…! Not only that, but the perpetrator is going to step up and admit it for himself. How ideal! You’d definitely be getting everything you wanted that way, wouldn’t you?”

And with absolutely everything without hope.

If it had to happen either way, that wouldn’t be too bad, either.

Even when it came to the Gray-Haired Child who he was currently working with, Kuze intended to assassinate the Queen in the end and betray him.

Even the Gray-Haired Child who he was currently working with intended to assassinate the Queen and betray him.

Assassinate the Queen and take on the Order’s persecution. At this point, for Kuze the Passing Disaster, this was all he had left. Much as it was so for Nastique, he simply had to be the blade focused solely on achieving this singular goal.

“Sure. To say thanks for giving me a good laugh, I’ll work with you. Who do I need to kill?”

“Lucnoca the Winter,” Rosclay answered. “There are some who are making moves to use the beginning of the second round, the ninth match, to take down Lucnoca the Winter. I expect there will be a tremendous amount of military force deployed against her, but should even that be not enough, there is a chance she will attack Aureatia… I need you as a trump card.”

A single one of Lucnoca the Winter’s Ice Arts breath attacks could easily annihilate all the areas of Aureatia at once.

Which was exactly why Kuze the Passing Disaster could be called her natural enemy. As long as Kuze was included in the enormous radius of the attack, that alone would be enough for Nastique to kill the strongest of all dragons.

“…So you’re not telling me to go out there directly and kill her?”

“Yes. Making them exhaust themselves is part of the operation.”

Whatever Rosclay the Absolute was planning was none of Kuze’s concern.

However, in all likelihood, Rosclay the Absolute was another schemer like Maqure the Sky’s Lake Surface, able to think up ambitious, far-reaching plans.

I wonder who’s stronger, you or the Gray-Haired Child.

“Kuze. I’m sorry that I am unable to save your Order.”

“…No worries. When the time comes, just let me know. At this point in the game…a little betrayal’s nothing at all.”

The ninth match. Psianop the Inexhaustible Stagnation and Tuturi the Blue Violet Foam’s hard-fought and brave battle resulted in the death of Lucnoca the Winter.

Rosclay the Absolute had preserved his trump card for later.

Rosclay the Absolute was always fighting with stratagems meticulously laid out around him.

Among them were tricks that were ultimately never used.

When he stepped into the old town plaza, he had spread out a cautionary net of Krafnir the Hatch of Truth’s constructs, but normally even this couldn’t be called an entirely flawless defense.

For example, it wouldn’t be guaranteed against arrows from Mele the Horizon’s Roar, or bombs from Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.

When facing attacks that would destroy the plaza in its entirety, keeping an eye out for onlookers would be meaningless.

Therefore, having Kuze the Passing Disaster happen to be present there was significant, as a precaution against such attacks.

He just needed to be on the scene—simply by having Kuze caught within the attack radius, he would serve as the ultimate shield of all, killing the attacker—before they attacked.

Save for Soujirou, the fact Kuze the Passing Disaster and Rosclay the Absolute were connected was known to no one else. Even to Rosclay’s back-up support, looking in from the periphery, Kuze currently resembled any other Aureatian citizen.

Furthermore, at this point, Soujirou was going to die, simply by being stuck where he was.

“Damn…you…!”

“Just pack it in. There’s no saving you at this point, even if I didn’t do anything here.”

In the confusion earlier, Soujirou had grabbed a knife for himself.

If Kuze was the only one to approach where he was standing, then he wouldn’t even carry this one weapon, but in a situation like this, crowd psychology meant that completely unrelated people also came to stop Soujirou.

As long as Soujirou held it in his hand, the knife wasn’t simply a tool for fighting off the crowd.

“Still…ain’t enough…! This much is…nothing! Ngh, gwauuugh!”

“Eeeek!”

“Eyaaaah!”

His arm fell with a thud.

Everyone in the crowd except Kuze screamed and backed off in terror.

Soujirou had cut off his own right arm, which was infected with the lethal bacteria.

“…!”

Kuze, pinning Soujirou down, was forced to follow those around him and separate himself, too. He was a hero candidate, whose face was already well-known. Once all of the other citizens had put space between them, he couldn’t make any conspicuous moves of his own.

“Wh-whoa now, what the heck’re you doing, buddy…?! Your arm may’ve been a mushy mess, but cut it off and the blood loss is going to knock you out of this fight way faster…!”

“I don’t…wanna hear, any crap from a damn…bystander!”

Turning to Rosclay, Soujirou began to walk, one step at a time.

Most of the cells in his four limbs were dead. His right arm and left leg were lost, and most of his left elbow was beginning to get torn off.

Since he wouldn’t be able to reach that far on his own, his only option was to make his enemy approach him.

Soujirou needed to learn how Rosclay fought.

A way of fighting where the weak could kill the strong. A battle using psychology and the environment to draw his enemy toward the battlefield he wanted.

“Rosclay! You really cool with this, huh?!”

“…”

“Aureatia’s strongest knight, huh?! Say that after you’ve lobbed my head off! A real knight? They cross swords back ’n’ forth right up to the end! I’m not admitting defeat unless you’re the one to kill me!”

He was closing in.

Rosclay the Absolute lingered where he stood.

…No. He was observing. He was watching and waiting like a coldhearted beast for Soujirou to die off.

“I have a different set of values. I do not condone tormenting and killing an opponent who can barely stand… Please, I ask you to fall where you are and accept treatment.”

Soujirou didn’t budge. In a battle of words, not swords, his enemy naturally surpassed him.

Could Soujirou come up with the words capable of moving Rosclay from where he stood?

If he didn’t, he would die. Fall and perish meaninglessly on the plaza ground, unable to do anything.

He needed to fight until the end.

“Rosclay! Finish him off!”

“C’mon, Rosclay, give him the fight he wants!”

“Just give it up! It’s too cruel to watch!”

“Soujirou’s not right in the head!”

“Rosclay! His head! Take his head!”

Rosclay couldn’t keep running away forever. With an audience looking on, he was bound to move.

From his now largely fuzzy consciousness, Soujirou spat out his words.

“I’m Yagyuu…the Earth’s last Yagyuu. The strongest…swordsman…”