11
“…! Where am I?!”
“Oh, Cecils, awake, safe.”
The young man in the blue robe got up off the ground as he suddenly found consciousness rushing back to him. He looked around hurriedly to discover a massive, brown wall looking down at him—Mogro Hagane.
Cecils Segmund blinked at his comrade—he never could tell what Mogro was thinking—and tilted his head, wondering what had happened. A lancing pain in his neck was quick to remind him.
Cecils had fought the young, red-haired man, taken him on head-to-head…
“I lost? Me?! Me, defeated by that nobody?!”
“Whaddaya mean, ‘nobody’? That was Lugunica’s Sword Saint.”
“Sword Saint? You mean the one said to have cut down a dragon?! He’s still alive?!”
“That story, four hundred years old, first Sword Saint. That boy, a descendant. But still, a monster.”
Groovy and Mogro shared a moment’s annoyance with Cecils’s startled misapprehension. But then Groovy nodded, confirming Mogro’s stilted words. “Yeah,” he said. “Can’t believe all of us got hung out to dry, geez. Three of the Volakian Empire’s Nine Divine Generals, done in by one nasty little shit!”
“‘Done in’…? Oh! Speaking of which, where’s His Majesty? What happened to him?! When you said ‘safe,’ did you mean—?”
“That we completely turned the tables on ’em and got the emperor back? Friggin’ hell, don’t make me laugh. We had to watch those pricks walk away with him. Was like we weren’t even there.”
“His Majesty, taken. Knights of the kingdom desire war, truly.”
Cecils had looked at his own, quaking hand when he asked to confirm the whereabouts of the absent Vincent. The generals, utterly defeated? A situation as bad as could be imagined? The emperor of Volakia, gone? It was almost too much to take in. This was all because Cecils had failed to match them as an opponent. For the first time in his life, he felt humiliated and powerless. The swordsman ground his teeth in shame. When he’d heard that knights from Lugunica were responsible for Balleroy’s murder and the emperor’s abduction, he’d been fired up. Cecils had casually assumed that the incident would give him something to do.
“We have to get His Majesty back immediately. I have to confess, I assumed I would’ve beaten them easily, but I wasn’t thinking hard enough… Do you suppose this is the worst thing that’s happened since His Majesty assumed the throne?”
“You just realizin’ that now, dung-for-brains?! Listen, the man told us to get the other generals and hunker down in the capital! Goz’s in charge now, the old nut!”
“Arrrgh, awful, this is awful, this is the worst thing!” Cecils flailed on the ground, angry over his belated understanding. After a moment’s wailing, though, he gave a long, deep sigh. “Phew, nothing like a good bit of yelling to calm yourself down… Now, if there’s one major problem, it’s that all the soldiers in the imperial army put together couldn’t best that red-haired Sword Saint.”
“Calm, suddenly. Proof, where?”
“Simple deduction. The imperial army faced me, and I cut them to pieces. So if there’s a young man who can do roughly what I can do, do you think they stand a chance?”
“ ” Mogro duly went silent at that.
Though they had been spoken lightly, Cecils words were true and bore no exaggeration. It was said that he had struck down the equivalent of an army during the Rite of Imperial Selection, but only because that was all the opponents that could been provided at the time. If there had been more of them, he could easily have cut his way through an entire town, the entire capital, an entire country. To a transcendent fighter like himself, the common foot soldier may as well have not existed. And the same was true of the red-haired Sword Saint.
“With the likes of him on their side, it wouldn’t matter if we pitched the whole army against them—it wouldn’t matter if the whole army joined into one gigantic, united entity. They can’t beat him. We must make sure they’re told not to engage him, even if he’s spotted.”
“You sayin’ we should tell ’em to just look the other way if they see the guys who kidnapped the emperor?”
“Yes, because they have no other choice. It is not our place to deprive His Majesty of his property, is it?”
Everything in the capital of Volakia was considered a belonging of Vincent’s. That included the city and its resources, of course, but also the life of every soldier, every commoner—all that there was. The Empire of Volakia was a rich land, full of wonderful and beautiful things. Yet Vincent felt that such abundance was no excuse to waste any of it. That was one of his more human qualities.
“Still, to lose to them… Ahh, so this is loss. I’m still alive, though. I’ve risen from my defeat and have the chance now to seize victory. I see, so that’s my new role! I sold you short, my red-haired friend! It seems destiny is on my side.”
He was confident that he and the Sword Saint, who stood between him and the emperor, would meet again. For the first time in his twenty years of life, Cecils Segmund had come up against an immovable object. When he had overcome it, then he would know for certain that he was truly favored by destiny.
“Hoo-hoo-hoo… Ha-ha-ha! Ahhh-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“Son of a—Keep it down! I said pipe down, shithead!”
“I can’t wait, I can’t wait; there’s no reason to wait. Right, I’m going to go grab a little something I forgot, for when we retrieve His Majesty. Gotta get my possessions back from the smith.” Cecils slipped his sandals back on his feet, tapping the toes gently against the ground and smiling.
“Possessions…” Mogro cocked their head curiously.
“Indeed!” Cecils said, nodding vigorously. “My beloved swords, my first- and second-best. Now that I know I’m dealing with the renowned Sword Saint of Lugunica, it would be silly of me not to take him seriously.”
He gave another innocent smile, utter joy flickering in his eyes, and his voice trembled just the tiniest bit.
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