'Follow my heart?'

If asked whether he enjoyed killing people, Jaxon would have had no particular answer. No matter how many times he considered it, he could not tell whether he enjoyed it or not.

There were men in the guild who went berserk unless they spilled blood at least once a week, but Jaxon had never experienced that. Honing his skills, however, was fun. That, he certainly enjoyed.

["He wasn't telling you to stab your friends in the back. He meant you should survive even if that's what it took, you little bastard."]

The Master always spoke lightly, but he was right. That was what Jaxon's father had meant. Jaxon had merely interpreted it to suit himself. He had needed that at the time. He had needed to search for something to fuel the flames of his vengeance.

["Wasn't she telling you not to dwell on the past, rather than to look only ahead?"]

Again, the Master was right. His mother had not wanted him to be bound to his family. Jaxon had twisted that memory into fuel as well. He knew that himself.

["What I'm teaching you isn't the art of killing."]

["Then what is it?"]

["Figure that out yourself! Do I have to spoon-feed you everything?"]

Not something to say while poisoning his meals and teaching him how to detect it. When they first met, the Master had asked him:

["Will you come with me? Then I'll teach you how to live."]

Not how to survive, but how to live. It was not an art of killing, merely one way of living.

His concealed killing intent remained unchanged. His presence had not weakened either. But Jaxon could not stop his mouth from opening of its own accord.

"May I stay?"

The words came straight from his heart, bypassing his head.

"Beat me, and I'll let you."

Encrid answered as he always did, speaking from his ready stance.

'If it's a way to live...'

Then it could not be his reason for living. A fresh realization. An insight that came only after he spoke.

Jaxon had never found anything his heart desired beyond revenge. But now, one thing was certain.

Spending time with the man before him was more enjoyable than killing him. He enjoyed mastering techniques and reaching new heights. He enjoyed watching his lover.

Then why couldn't he do all of it? He asked himself and found his answer. It was obvious without any need to dwell on it.

"Then I suppose I'll be staying," Jaxon said.

Sunlight warmed his back. The summer sun added to his body's heat. A faint smile appeared on his shaded face. The simple suggestion to follow his heart brought a refreshing sense of freedom, snapping the chains around his heart.

There were techniques Jaxon could not use with someone watching, or against an opponent he could not kill.

'Why should that be?'

Who had told him to do that? Not the Master. It was merely an unwritten rule passed down through the guild called Georg’s Dagger. A useless rule he had followed out of habit.

Encrid was not fooled by his opponent's smile.

'A trick he's been hiding?'

He could feel how much his skills had improved lately, and obtaining Aker had only made him more unruly. At every opportunity, he used his presence to challenge his company members to fight, to spar.

Jaxon was no exception. Even when he saw him deep in thought, he kept prodding him. Naturally, none of them could simply brush off the provocation of Encrid's presence.

The same was true now. Telling Jaxon to beat him was half joke, half provocation. Jaxon took the bait without hesitation.

To be honest, Encrid had paid no attention to the part about staying. With no one willing to spar with him, his thirst for a bout was mounting.

Jaxon's presence emerged. It made his body seem larger, but Encrid paid it no heed.

'If even I don't believe in myself, I'll never win.'

Do not overestimate your opponent. An iron rule to observe before any fight. Yet he also had to avoid carelessness while giving it his all. Easy to say, but impossible without learning it through experience.

He placed his hand on the grip. Taking his stance, he studied Jaxon from head to toe, opening his senses and assessing him.

Always give it everything. Encrid did as he always did—and very nearly repeated today.

A burden on his heart, perhaps. Or chains that had bound him all this time. Dismissing all that, Jaxon turned away with light steps. All the lighter when he thought of Encrid, whom he had just fought.

'He's improved a great deal.'

The art knights wielded was called Will. Was there any reason an assassin could not wield it too?

["If I leave you to your own devices, I'll end up creating the best killer on the continent."]

The Master had not said that for nothing. Jaxon had talent. The previous Master had known that too.

And so Jaxon had just come away from puncturing several parts of Encrid's body with techniques he had not shown even against that Count Molten fellow.

His steps took him out of the barracks grounds. Two soldiers on sentry duty saluted. They seemed to recognize him.

He passed them without responding and walked outside along a wall lined with trees. The voice he had been waiting for spoke.

"Are you serious?"

She was probably speaking as a guild member and acting Master, rather than as his lover. Jaxon also knew she had watched his spar with Encrid.

"You even showed him things you should reveal only to someone you're going to kill."

He could hear her voice but could not see her. Jaxon detected five more presences hidden in the trees. Six in all, three of them assassins of longer standing than himself.

They were masters of poison, knife throwing, and concealing their presence, respectively, and had also taught him their skills. The Master was not the only person whose techniques Jaxon had learned.

But he had long since caught up with them in skill. They could not stop him on their own. Attacking would mean a pointless death, so they would not attack. His lover, the Master's daughter, was not that much of a fool.

Jaxon surpassed everyone in skill and was quick to assess a situation. He had not inherited the position of Master for nothing.

"... Why did you do it?"

The question came from his lover, who, as a child two years his senior, had been like an older sister to him.

"Just because."

Somehow, his answer sounded like Encrid's.

"I followed my heart."

Unintentionally, another similar answer.

"Did being Master mean so little to you?"

Was she disappointed? Perhaps. Even so, Jaxon did not regret his choice. There was no reason to. Life was not a matter of choosing one or the other.

"When did I say I was giving up my position as Master?"

"... What?"

Only his lover, the Master's daughter Yenatrice, had been speaking. She repeated the question as if dumbfounded, and Jaxon answered calmly.

"I'm staying here. That doesn't mean I'm giving up Georg’s Dagger."

"Do you think that makes any sense?"

The poison expert could not hold his tongue. His voice seemed to come from both left and right. A crude trick.

"Why shouldn't it?"

Jaxon looked directly at the man's hiding place as he spoke. His eyes seemed to say he would show him the respect due an elder, but that attacking him would mean death.

"Don't worry. No one will die here today. I'll persuade you all, one by one."

Arrogant words. Even as Master of Georg’s Dagger, how could he turn the entire guild against him and survive? That was what most people would think.

But Jaxon remained calm, as though he would do it simply because it had to be done. That only made him seem all the more deranged.

Yenatrice emerged from the shadow of the wall where she had been hiding. Jaxon already knew she was there and showed no surprise.

"You do whatever you please."

"Do I?"

Yenatrice watched him for a moment. Why had she fallen for this man? Right. Because he did things like this without hesitation.

["I have to kill the previous Master?"]

Georg’s Dagger was the foremost assassins' guild on the continent. For generations, its Masters had passed their techniques on to their heirs, then died at those heirs' hands. Jaxon had disregarded the rule.

["You mean to defy the rules?"]

["I do."]

Three assassins competing for the succession and five elders had died then. Including their followers, the dead had numbered more than thirty. All Jaxon's work. He had done it alone.

["You crazy bastard. You wiped out thirty percent of the guild's strength just to save me?"]

Yenatrice's father, his teacher and Master, had scolded him so, then closed his eyes in peace. The toxins accumulated in a body overworked since childhood had taken their toll, but he died smiling.

"Some people won't take your side."

Jaxon gazed steadily into his lover's orange eyes. He reached out to her, and she took his hand.

Like his teacher, Yenatrice was perceptive, especially in matters concerning Jaxon or herself. She had already considered the possibility that he would not return and gathered people who would side with him. All this had merely been to confirm it. Every elder who had accompanied her was on Jaxon's side.

"Tell me who. I'll persuade them one by one."

Of course, that persuasion would be Encrid's kind. Smacking them in the head until they listened. Or kicking them in the head until they listened. He could simply do what Encrid had done to persuade the constable in the capital.

And if they still wouldn't listen?

"Keep at it until they do."

That was what Encrid would say. Jaxon knew very well that he shared that tendency.

A man who had never followed his heart in anything, except when he saved her father. Even then, she sometimes wondered whether it had truly been what he wanted. Had he perhaps done it for her? That was how Yenatrice saw Jaxon. So, inwardly, she welcomed his decision.

'Sometimes in life, you get to do what you want.'

Just before he died, the guild Master had entrusted his daughter to Jaxon. And to his daughter, he had entrusted the man he cherished like a son.

["Even if that bastard leaves the guild, take good care of him."]

Yenatrice remembered her father's words.

Jaxon returned to the barracks. On his way in, he saw Audin praying.

"Bless you."

At those words, Audin raised his head, his hands clasped and his eyes previously closed. What had he just heard? It was shocking enough to interrupt his prayers.

Ragna, who had been nodding off in a rocking chair, slowly opened his eyes. Jaxon spoke as he passed.

"Go back to sleep."

Dunbachel narrowed her eyes. Had he gone mad? The question in her eyes was plain, but Jaxon spoke impassively.

"Wash yourself."

This from a man who normally offered no response whatsoever beyond ignoring her. Dunbachel immediately went to wash. His words sounded like a final warning. If she ignored him, might he slit her throat with a dagger in her sleep?

Seeing this, Teresa began to pray.

"Lord, drive out the evil spirit."

Somewhere along the way, she had been won over; her prayer was addressed to the God of War, not the evil cult. Her husky voice rang softly.

As Jaxon passed, he saw Rem off to one side, using a whetstone to sharpen a palm-sized hatchet. Rem saw him too. Their eyes met.

"Not dead yet?"

"Nope. Looks like I'll outlive you."

Jaxon asked and Rem answered almost simultaneously. They were truly like a pair of swans. In both the speed and content of their exchange, they could not have been more perfectly matched.

"A doppelganger?"

Krais muttered from where he watched. A doppelganger was a monster that mimicked another's appearance. And this Jaxon was not his usual self.

Even at the mention of a rare monster seen only near the Demonic Realm, Jaxon did not take offense. He headed to his room.

Encrid lay flat on his back, arms and legs spread.

'I misjudged things several times.'

He should have thrust instead of swung, and with Aker in his hand, he should have taken advantage of the exceptional sword's unique qualities.

'I was clumsy in places, too.'

Every fight offered something to reflect on and learn from, but when the Lunatic Company's members showed him something new, there was even more to take away.

He had been too embarrassed to say it, but their presence was one reason he had not stayed with the knight order.

'It might be different if I could meet an actual knight.'

Until then, he was certain that training here was better than learning in the knight order.

The sunlight was pleasantly warm. He could fall asleep right here. He was not being lazy, but he thought he understood why Ragna sat down and dozed whenever he found a patch of sunlight.

Even this weather was something he could enjoy only briefly. In a few weeks—no, a few days—the sunlight's warmth would turn to heat. Summer, the season of heat and fire, was approaching.

Winning or losing did not matter. He had no time to hesitate over such things.

Now that the civil war was over, would the kingdom know nothing but peace? Would he have less cause to swing his sword than before?

Not a chance. Besides, the new king thought the opposite of the previous ruler. The former Queen had dreamed of a stable nation. Krang did not.

Before they parted on that farewell journey, Krang had shared some of his ambitions.

["The central continent is divided into three nations. That makes us weaker than the west, east, or south. We in particular keep going to war with Aspen."]

["Are you planning to sign a peace treaty?"]

The longer they kept Aspen in check, the more strength Naurilia could accumulate. That was only natural. The supplies consumed by war alone were considerable. And what of the soldiers dying in it?

Krang had answered with a gentle smile, his tone as casual as if he were picking a flower from a nearby bed.

["No. I'm going to subjugate Aspen."]

When it came to dreams and ambitions, Krang was no less than Encrid. He spoke with the distinctive eloquence that captivated everyone around him. Though his words were meant for an audience of one, Encrid, he put his whole self into them.

As Encrid staked his life on his sword, Krang set his soul ablaze in declaring his purpose.

["I will become the sole ruler of the central continent."]

What was more, Krang had said then that ruling the central continent was only part of his dream. Just as Encrid saw becoming a knight not as his dream's destination but its beginning, so did Krang.