SECRET
Iska, Still Unaware
“Wait! Master, I said wait!”
As he exhaled, his breath white, a black-haired boy named Iska chased after a man who was already leaving.
The terminal station of the continental railway was dyed in the colors of the sunset. As the travelers passed each other in the corridor, Iska couldn’t catch up no matter how quickly he ran. He simply couldn’t match the man’s pace. Compared to the eleven-year-old boy, the man who he’d called “master” was over 1.8 meters tall.
“You always do stuff like this and leave me behind!”
“…” The man stopped in his tracks and whipped around. “Leave behind? Who leaves who behind?”
“You! You leave me behind!”
“…”
“You haven’t noticed?”
“I was just lost in my thoughts,” the man replied.
The boy sighed. Iska slumped his shoulders when his teacher showed no admission of wrongdoing. This was how he always acted. His master was a carefree wanderer who always had his head in the clouds. And whenever Iska thought the man was going to tell him something meaningful, he would always receive some half-baked response instead.
But this man was also the strongest swordsman in the Empire.
Crossweil Nes Lebeaxgate. He stood there, his long coat covering his slim figure—not a single bit of excess fat on him. In the past, when he had led the Saint Disciples, his moniker had been the Black Steel Gladiator, but he rarely spoke of those times now. According to the man himself, it wasn’t that he was reluctant to talk about that period in his life so much as he simply couldn’t be bothered.
“The special express train will soon be departing for Vale Republic. Ticketholders are advised to board as they wait for departure.”
“Say, master?” As Iska listened to the announcement, he looked up at the man. “Why are we getting on a train?”
Iska still had no idea whether they were heading out for vacation or a tour of duty. He was suddenly told the day before that they would be going on a trip, which he’d been fine preparing for, but he still had yet to learn what his master was hoping to accomplish—as per usual.
“What are we going to do once we leave the Empire?” he asked.
“We’re going to learn what it’s like outside,” Crossweil replied simply.
“What good does knowing that do?”
“…”
The strongest swordsman in the Empire looked up at the station’s ceiling.
“We’re doing this because you have yet to learn what a witch really is,” he said.
“…I know a little bit,” Iska countered.
There likely wasn’t a single person in the Empire who didn’t know what a witch was. They were former humans who had been possessed by the inexplicable energy known as astral power. Witches were terrifying beings and were capable of using astral power as they desired. They were wicked, aggressive, and loathed the Empire.
Such was Iska’s impression.
Now, this was only his impression because Iska had never spoken to a witch himself. He had learned everything he knew of them through word of mouth.
“I wouldn’t say that you’ve got the wrong idea about witches,” the man said, “but that isn’t all there is to them.”
His teacher looked around at the people heading here and there throughout the station.
“The stories passed down in the Empire about witches only apply to a minority—with exceptions like the Grand Witch Nebulis. Ninety percent of witches aren’t much different from your average human. Iska, what do you think of the people walking around in this station?”
“They look like normal people to me…”
He saw businessmen boarding their trains and families on outings. They all looked like ordinary people to him.
“It’s highly likely there may be witches and sorcerers among them. But they all look exactly the same as any Imperial. Do any of them seem wicked to you?”
“No.”
“So, this is just as true as all the other stories told in the Empire. Everything you’re taking in with your eyes right now is real. You’ll do well to keep both sides in mind.”
“……Got it.”
Iska was lying. He really didn’t get it. After all, as far as he was concerned, witches were frightening.
Of course, he tried his best to take in his master’s teachings, but Iska still couldn’t toss the preconceptions he’d developed from being born and raised in the empire aside.
“You’ll learn eventually,” the man said. “That’s the whole reason we’ve traveled out this far.”
“……Yes, sir.”
As for his teacher’s true intentions…
Iska would not see and understand those for himself until many years later.
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