***
“I’m back,” I said.
I had made my way out of that underground room and found my friends waiting for me, just like I had told them to. Thanks to Third Vision, the sudden change in lighting hadn’t been at all disorientating. I didn’t wear masks very much, so I hadn’t had many opportunities to use this Relic, but it seemed worth the price it fetched.
Lucia looked agog at the package I had. She furrowed her brow and said, “Where did you go?”
“Hmm. I don’t really know.”
“Excuse me?”
She looked incredulous. Even if I told her about what had happened back there, I didn’t think she’d believe me. There really were all sorts of fan clubs out there. And owning a rare fox mask apparently made me their boss. I still felt halfway like a spirit was tricking me. I had walked into another “interesting” experience.
Foxes sure had become a staple in my life. And I had somehow ended up with a Relic. I was no stranger to strange things, but a stranger giving me a free Relic was a first. Still, I was more than happy to be the boss of the Fox Mask Fan Club if this was how they wanted to pay me. What discerning eyes they had, impressed as they were by a mask from Peregrine Lodge.
Since I was going to be in Kreat for the time being, I figured this wouldn’t be the last time I ran into them.
The lodge Sitri had secured for us appeared to prioritize security over luxury. The building itself was simple, but you could tell this wasn’t an ordinary place due to the presence of multiple knights patrolling outside. The windows were made of thick glass and the walls had an unusual luster.
When I took my first timid steps inside, it seemed normal enough at first, but when I looked around, I saw guards positioned in inconspicuous places. The other guests were people like rich merchants and nobles traveling with a legion of servants. I didn’t see any other hunters besides us.
We were shown to the top floor, where there was a room big enough to host a group of our size. Liz let out a cheer before she began to dart around, checking under the beds and behind the picture frames. Lucia looked out through the large window. It reminded me of the steps we took when camping out in the wild.
“I secured the safest lodge I could,” my dear friend Sitri proudly said while glancing my way. “Kreat can get hectic during the Supreme Warrior Festival.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t see the need since we were only here as tourists. Sure, I understood we had Princess Murina with us and all, but still.
“After all, you just recently antagonized Nine-Tailed Shadow Fox,” Lucia said to me. “It won’t hurt to tread carefully,” she sighed.
“I can’t wait to see how many they send. I’m ready for ’em,” Luke said while swinging at the empty air.
Ansem nodded.
“Hmph. An inn employed even by nobles. A smart precaution,” Karen said with an arrogant nod. “This was a good choice. I should hardly need to say it, but we’ll have to divvy up the rooms. We can not allow men to sleep in the same space as Her Imperial Highness.”
It seemed I was the only one who didn’t understand what was going on. I would’ve felt bad about this if I wasn’t already used to it. So I just put on a hard-boiled smile.
“Leader, we’ve ticked some people off and aren’t short of enemies. Please, be careful, okay?” Lucia lectured me. “Word has already gotten out that we’ll be in the tournament and remnants of a number of organizations are gathering here.”
That was all news to me. Except for the part about ticking people off.
Having finished her inspection of the room, Liz brazenly sat down on a table and folded her legs.
“To hell with that! We can just crush ’em. Right, Anssy?”
She was as confident as ever.
“Hardly.”
Ansem had a soft spot for his sisters, but even he couldn’t abide by that.
Luke nodded solemnly, an uncharacteristic gesture for him. “Liz, we have more important things to focus on.”
He’s right. We have more important things. And why’s she assuming we’ll be attacked? There’s no guarantee!
Then Luke continued, still entirely serious. “What we should be worrying about is that we can’t divide them up evenly unless their numbers are divisible by nine! Right, Krai?”
“Huh?! Uh, yeah, uh-huh,” I said, caught up in Luke’s flow.
“It is?!” Liz cried.
I could never go against Luke’s enthusiasm. That’s why I was still a hunter. And he sure was casual about including Murina and her guards.
While organizing the luggage from the carriage, Sitri put the matter to rest by saying, “Well, if they decide to attack us, they’ll probably come in large numbers. As to whether or not there will be any Swordsmen, I can’t say.”
“Did we do something that bad?” I asked.
“Making a bloody mess of a Supreme Warrior Festival challenger is a good way to get your name out there,” she said as though this was just the way the world worked. It still seemed terribly immoral to me.
“So driving them off will be good practice and improve our image! Two birds with one stone! Right, Krai?”
“You sure are smart, Luke.”
I told myself I probably didn’t have anything to worry about. After all, my friends were strong enough to handle it.
“Ah, don’t make me wait any longer,” Luke said, taking practice swings. “Come on, eight-armed dragon Swordsman.”
“You still think that’s gonna happen?” Liz sighed. “There’s no way something like that exists. Right?”
“Yeah. Uh-huh,” I said.
There was something magical about Luke’s ability to make even Liz the Extinction Event look slightly well-adjusted.
An eight-armed dragon Swordsman, huh? Well, there are those Troglodytes. They had loads of arms.
Weary of talking about bloodshed, I pulled out the Relic I had received from Galf. Luke’s crimson eyes lit up when he saw what I had.
“Ooh! It’s a sword! Krai, give it here!”
“In a bit.”
The Relic from the Fox Mask Fan Club was indeed a sword-type. The hilt was covered in a strange geometric pattern. It was kept in a wooden scabbard which was fairly bland by comparison.
“Interesting,” Sitri said. She was staring at it with fascination. “It’s too short to be a longsword, but too long to be a shortsword.”
“It’s definitely a Relic though,” I replied. “It’s awfully light. Maybe it’s a ceremonial piece?”
I was ultimately just a collector, so I didn’t mind having a sword that I couldn’t swing. And since I got it for free, I wasn’t expecting much.
I carefully removed the blade from its sheath. It was about half the width of a typical straightsword and didn’t strike me as a very reliable weapon. It was double-edged and had a copper-like sheen. Tiny channels were engraved into its surface, forming a strange pattern.
Relics were manifestations of memories of the past, so their functions didn’t always match their forms. But since they were based on things that had once existed, form was still a good indicator of what a Relic did.
Lucia’s eyebrows shot up as she stared at the sword. “Wasn’t that stolen from that town we passed through?”
That’s absurd.
Lucia removed a newspaper from her luggage. “Here, there’s a picture of it in this paper I bought before we left.”
I took a look. The front page proudly explained how the bandits had been fended off and how there miraculously hadn’t been any casualties. In the center of the page was a black-and-white photo of a sword that looked just like the Relic that I was holding.
No. Wait.
“The scabbards are different,” I said.
“You’re right.”
The two swords were identical, but the sheath in the photo also had the same engravings as the blade. The two were total look-alikes, but they couldn’t have been the same item. After all, the theft had been prevented and most of the criminals had been apprehended.
Then my eyes flew open and I snapped my fingers. “I’ve got it. The Relic at the museum manifested with a scabbard, but this one didn’t.”
Relics generally appeared as a set. Swords came with scabbards, shoes came with laces, and Smartphones came with boxes and instruction manuals. But sometimes only part of a set would appear. It was rare for swords to form without a sheath, but it had happened before. Sadly, the inverse sometimes happened where a scabbard appeared without a sword.
“Isn’t that a little too much of a coincidence?” Lucia asked.
“But I’m certain that’s what happened.”
It wasn’t uncommon for the same Relic to manifest more than once. It was widely believed that a Relic’s drop rate correlated to how commonly found it once was. However, there had been instances of multiple Relics appearing even though only one of their baseline was believed to have ever existed. It was much more feasible than the idea that the Fox Mask Fan Club would set a town ablaze and steal a Relic.
What I held was the same as the item in the photo, but it wasn’t the item in the photo. But Lucia still looked doubtful.
“Besides,” I said, whacking the newspaper, “I think it’s premature to say these are the same just by looking at—wait a moment.”
“What is it?”
My eyes went wide as saucers as I read the paper. According to the article, the Relic was known as Key of the Land and it was a national treasure. Even if the one I had wasn’t necessarily the same Relic, and even if it lacked a scabbard, finding an identical item was nonetheless a huge discovery, wasn’t it?
Maybe if I brought it to the museum, they’d let me see their Relic up close. Maybe they’d let me touch it. The article didn’t mention what powers the Relic had, but the people at the museum would tell me. We would definitely have to stop there on the way home.
With that settled, I handed the sword to Luke, who had been looking at me like a pitiful dog for the past few minutes.
“Here. Don’t go cutting people.”
“WOOO! So I can cut them if they’re not people?!”
Luke’s love of swords extended to Relics as well. Most of the time, we forced him to use a wooden sword to make him less of a threat, but I had let him test out most of my sword-type Relics.
He examined the length of the blade, then gulped. “This blade, its length, weight, pattern. Krai, this thing is incredibly hard to use. It’s like a toy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And no matter how much mana I put into it, it doesn’t fill up! It just has this odd feeling about it. I can’t charge it! Is this really a sword?”
“Uh-huh?”
While he was a Swordsman, his mana still dwarfed mine and was enough to charge most sword-type Relics. If Luke couldn’t fully charge it, this thing must’ve been a massive mana hog. Looking the way she did when I asked her to charge something, Lucia watched Luke’s enthusiastic attempts.
“So if I can learn to successfully charge this,” he said, “it’ll mean I’ve become a better Swordsman. That’s how it works, right, Krai?”
“Yeah. Uh-huh.”
“Someone could learn from my example.”
Now he was making Lucia look bad.
Through wide eyes, Princess Murina watched her mentor’s childish behavior. Luke hadn’t changed at all since we were kids.
“Krai, can I use this?”
“Sure. This sheath isn’t a Relic, so you can just use your own.”
Luke’s scabbard was of a special design that could hold multiple swords. I had accidentally dropped a sword in the middle of a treasure vault before, so it was much safer in Luke’s hands.
We may have been on a trip, but that didn’t affect my daily routine much. All the more so since it was dangerous outside. I sat out on the terrace, using my Smartphone to send Little Sister Fox a picture of the Fox Mask Fan Club and brag about my experience.
“Right, Krai Baby,” Liz suddenly said, “what are we gonna do about training the princess?”
So she’s just calling her “the princess.”
Wasn’t that sort of disrespectful? The timid gaze from the princess sitting between her guards on the couch seemed to suggest that she found it rude.
But what was Liz getting at?
“We’re gonna train her, aren’t we? We’ll do it if you tell us to, but, like, I know you get this, but she won’t get any stronger. There’s no mana material out here, and making her stronger will take time. I don’t know what you plan for her—”
“That so? I’m planning, of course, to send her to the Supreme Warrior Festival.”
Princess Murina stared at me. “I beg your pardon?”
“What do you mean?!” Karen demanded.
“Brother, I seriously don’t think—” Lucia began.
“You’re serious about that?” Liz cut in “I think it’s a bit much for her. She’s a total amateur and I don’t think there’s a spot for her.”
What a strong reaction. I thought I had made my plans clear a long time ago.
“In that case,” Sitri said with a clap of her hands, “why not put her up against bandits? That’ll also give her real combat experience.”
“Siddy?!” Lucia cried. “It’s because you’re always indulging my brother that—”
“But Lizzy’s right. Making Her Imperial Highness any stronger in such a short period will be difficult. So I thought we might approach this from another angle. This town currently abounds with scofflaws, so I believe this will be our best bet, given our deadline. As to how she’ll get in the tournament, that’s a separate matter!”
“In a way, I respect how you try to suck up to Krai Baby at every little chance you get,” Liz told her.
But it wasn’t a bad idea. Fighting phantoms was certainly different from fighting people. But could we really pit the imperial princess against bandits? The emperor had proven capable of fending off frigid dragons, but I didn’t think even he had ever fought a criminal before. There was honor in being a Dragon Slayer, but not so much in bringing down brigands.
“I thought it might come in handy,” Sitri said while proudly removing a file, “so I consulted an information broker about which organizations are present.”
“So that’s where you were?” Liz said.
“Nice going!” Luke cheered. “Here, let me take a look!”
“No. I made this so I could give it to Krai!”
Well, as long as they’re having fun. Really, I mean it.
Inside the file was a neat list of bandits and criminal organizations. It was more than I had anticipated. They weren’t all famous, but you could make an army if you had a single fighter from each group.
“Many of them have the talents to be in the Supreme Warrior Festival. And whether it be big or small, many have a bounty on their head. There are also groups angry to see their rivals in the tournaments and groups forming alliances to strike at common enemies. All of that and so much more.”
Am I in hell?
“They say every year there’s a few participants who don’t make it to the tournament,” Sitri continued. “And sometimes people make an underhanded attempt at getting revenge on whoever they lost to. Those attempts, however, rarely succeed.”
I had been given a glance of the glamorous tournament’s dark side.
I despise violence, but I’ll say it if I have to!
“This wouldn’t happen if someone took care of these outlaws!” I said.
“There’s also attempts at avenging fallen comrades. Zebrudia’s protected by its excellent knights, but nothing of the sort is in this nation.”
My own constant nightmares had made me blind to it, but Zebrudia was actually a special place.
“You’re talking like it’s all up to you, but do you understand you’re talking about a member of the imperial family?” Karen said. “Her Imperial Highness can not be fighting bandits!”
A very reasonable objection. If you asked one hundred people, they would all say she was right. The imperial guards sure were loyal if she was still willing to oppose my friends after enduring their brutal training.
“That’s for Krai to decide,” Sitri responded, wearing a mellow smile.
“Hmm. There’s a lot of them,” Liz said. “Hell, do we even know where any of them are?”
“That’s our biggest obstacle. I think we should be able to figure that out if we take the time to look.”
If fighting was the only thing on their agenda, I could probably trust the imperial princess with them, but it was still just not a risk worth taking. The list was a long one and things could get messy if they accidentally pissed off the wrong people.
I wormed my way out of making a decision and walked up to the large window. Being on the top floor of a fancy inn, I had an expansive view of the streets of Kreat. As I looked around, I spotted rising trails of smoke every here and there. A number of those were probably the remnants of fights. What an insane place I had come to.
“Hmm. Bandits. Bandits. What can we do?” I muttered.
The next moment, a man in a black fox mask was clinging to the other side of the window. A feral glow shone from the eyeholes. I was too surprised to even show it on my face.
“Boss, if you need us,” he said as though this was a perfectly normal place for him to be, “we, the Fox Mask Fan Club, await your orders.”
Is this supposed to be impressive? I’m just scared. What the hell sort of organization have I joined?!
***
In a room deep underground, Galf of the seventh tail looked at a list and groaned.
“This is what the boss wants? This will be a big operation.”
Fox controlled a number of subsidiaries and even had members in top places of more than a few governments. No other secret organization matched them in scale. But the number of actual Foxes was limited to only the very best. This was the exact opposite of their defunct rival Serpent, who had owned vast legions of soldiers.
During major operations, Fox would draw personnel from subsidiaries and cooperators. The key roles would be handled by Foxes, while the ranks at their command would be supplemented with recruits from other organizations. By keeping them in the dark, very little information could be leaked.
This operation would be unlike anything in the past. Recruiting fighters had been left to Galf. He looked at the subordinate who had acquired the list. They were quite capable where stealth was concerned.
“He wants this many people?” Galf confirmed.
“Yeah. He wants us to figure out where they are. Though he told us not to work too hard.”
Galf looked again at the list. This seemed like an operation too important for failure to be an option. But more personnel wasn’t necessarily better. The length of the list struck him as absurdly long. It was almost as though they were supposed to search for every criminal organization currently in Kreat.
“I don’t believe this is the sort of task that would normally be entrusted to us,” said the other Fox. “Given that this was concocted by the boss, there’s likely more to it than he’s letting on. But he has his expectations.”
That seemed very possible. Galf was of one of the higher tails, but this man was at the very top. The boss was keeping the most important parts a secret. There could very well be another, top secret team at work.
This was a good opportunity. Fox was always looking for capable individuals. If Galf could make a good impression on the boss, a promotion was certain to come his way. Nobody was stupid enough to not work hard just because they had been told it was okay.
I’m—no, we’re not like the Counter Cascade. He was a brilliant Magus, but he lacked leadership.
Galf may have lacked Telm’s combat prowess, but Galf had a legion of trustworthy underlings.
“We’re to invite everyone on that list, and deploy every one of us to help make that happen,” Galf said.
“But they’re currently making preparations.”
Galf’s plan was perfectly laid out. He never neglected to prepare far in advance if it could ensure his success. He had allotted time to securing escape routes and managing security forces, but now it looked like he wouldn’t have room for that.
“There’s nothing we can do,” he told the other Fox. “Even if we’re not fully ready, the plan is moving forward. Don’t miss the forest for the trees.”
With a big smile, Galf began issuing his orders.
***
“We’re off in search of strong foes!”
“Woo!”
Luke and Liz’s fervor was on par with the rest of Kreat. The rest of us Grievers went with them. Someone needed to stop those two from starting fights, and after coming all this way to Kreat, I wanted to do some sightseeing. Princess Murina had her own official matters to attend to, so for the first time in a while, it was just us Grievers together.
The Supreme Warrior Festival was still a few days off, but the town was already so packed we could barely walk through the streets.
“You’re not wearing that fox mask?” Sitri asked.
“Nah,” I said, rubbing my cheek.
I wanted to hide my face as much as I could, which meant I was tempted to wear the mask, but it seemed to attract the Fox Mask Fan Club. One of them had even come to my room, so there was no telling how many of them might appear if I wore the mask in the open.
Banking on the protection of my friends, I kept my ears open for gossip as I walked around. Unsurprisingly, everyone was interested in who might win the tournament. The contestants hadn’t been announced, but rumors must have been going around, as I heard Luke’s and Ansem’s names come up. As their friend, it was a funny feeling. But there was one name in particular that caught my interest.
“The Thousandfold Theurgics,” I repeated to myself. “It sounds like he’s famous. I’ll have to show my full support for him.”
According to Sitri, his title was self-proclaimed, but if these rumors were going around then it might be official soon enough.
“No, he said the Thousand Tricks. They’re talking about you!” Lucia said.
“No, that’s ridiculous.”
Why would they talk about someone who wasn’t taking part?
In the past, people would frequently try to start stuff with us if we entered a crowd, but not this time. Liz seemed to find this boring, but when an important showdown was coming up, nobody was going to pick a fight with someone who could clearly hold their own (especially if that person was Ansem).
After a bit of wandering, Luke clicked his tongue. “Hell with it, let’s go to a pub.”
“Agreed!” Liz said with needless excitement. She was definitely more interested in wasting people than getting wasted.
Lucia and Sitri were both exasperated, but I thought it was fine. Luke and Liz were impulsive. With a little drink in them, they’d forget all about fighting. And if they did start a melee, we could just intervene.
Together, we all entered a random pub. The town was already burning with passion, but when you added alcohol into the mix, it was enough to make my head spin. In the dark, cramped interior a number of gruff faces were gathered, quietly sipping drinks. Perhaps the danger that came with starting a fight in a place like this was why it was so much more quiet than any pub in the imperial capital.
The moment we stepped in, Luke’s eyes began to glimmer as he scanned the room.
“Nooow, where to start?”
So he was bent on getting the festivities started. I was about to try to calm him down, but he stopped on his own.
“Hang on. Isn’t that Touka?” he said.
Settled in a corner of the pub was a group of people wearing distinctive reddish-brown armor. It was common for parties to wear uniform colors. For instance, in Sven’s party Obsidian Cross, everyone’s gear was black. But this party was far larger than average.
When you had upwards of ten rugged faces all in matching colors, “party” stopped feeling like the right word. Mercenary corps. Sellswords. They were the militants of First Steps, making most of their income from combat rather than searching treasure vaults. They were Knights of the Torch.
Eva had told me that Touka would be in the tournament, but I hadn’t expected to run into her in a place like this. I spied her sitting in the center of the group. Even as the clan master, I hadn’t seen her in a while. The black-haired captain’s gaze instantly turned our way. Without a moment’s hesitation, she slammed her glass on the table and stood up.
“On your feet, everyone!”
The way they quit socializing and got up in unison was an odd sight. Their gazes all rested on me. The other customers looked our way, curious as to what was up.
“Salute our master client!”
The knights all saluted in unison and held the position.
There were two main factors that determined a party’s efficacy: individual strength and member coordination. Taking down powerful phantoms and exceptional monsters required a group of battle-forged individuals to multiply their capabilities by working together. Any first-rate party could claim to have both these things, but Grieving Souls leaned more towards individual strength, whereas Knights of the Torch was the inverse.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the shock I felt when I first met them. Their refined movements were like those of a proper knight order. Even as the other guests stared, the knights didn’t flinch.
Hey, did they get new members?
“H-Here, everyone’s watching. You can relax,” I said when I realized I was also being stared at.
“At ease!” Touka announced.
I didn’t know why I was being called their “master client” when it was Sitri who was hiring them. She was providing them with funds and equipment.
The only values Knights of the Torch had were the type that could be deposited in a bank account. They occupied an odd place in First Steps and they took an odd attitude towards me. They obeyed me because they knew I was Sitri’s longtime friend, which made them in some ways easier to handle than the people who had strange levels of faith in me.
“Don’t tell me you’ll be in the tournament, Touka,” Luke said. He was always excited by the idea of facing strong opponents.
“I’ll be there,” she confirmed. “I received an offer. Will you be there as well, Protean Sword?”
The Supreme Warrior Festival attracted all sorts of people. There were knight captains who maintained the security of the land while there were also famous mercenaries. Touka must have received her offer thanks to her fame among merchant companies and nobles.
Luke made a strange expression that words fail to describe. The reason Luke the Man Cutter never tried to cut Touka down was that she didn’t engage in profitless fights (I mean that literally, she didn’t fight if there wasn’t money to be gained), so these two were incompatible, but in a good way. Luke didn’t just want to swing at people, he wanted them to swing back.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login