Sitting before the campfire, Najin examined his wounds. He seemed to have suffered fairly serious injuries in the battle with Krünbel, but in the heat of the moment, he had given himself only cursory first aid.
Grabbing broken bones and forcing them back together by hand—first aid of the most brutally crude sort. In truth, it was madness hardly deserving the name. What was surprising was how effective that madness had been.
Najin opened and closed his hand several times. His fingers moved without catching. Even the fingers that had become lumpy when he forced the bones into place were smooth now. His other wounds were much the same. Only his utterly shattered right arm hung limp; the rest of him was fine. Even that arm was recovering rapidly.
He tilted his head. He knew his regenerative ability was exceptional, but it had never been this good.
Had his race changed from human to something like a zombie without his knowing? Or perhaps a homunculus with super-regeneration...?
“Starlight grows stronger in the Outer Lands, after all.”
Neither was the case.
According to Merlin, concepts associated with stars became stronger in the Outer Lands. Thus, the abilities of Excalibur, the Sword of Stars, were enhanced here as well.
'That's amazing. At this rate, maybe I really could fight knowing I might lose an arm...'
“Go ahead and try it if you want to see me lose my mind.”
'I'm joking.'
As Merlin glared at him, Najin considered it. Certainly, at his current level, he doubted he could regenerate an entire body part if it were torn off. Broken bones and cuts healed quickly, but flesh that had been ripped away altogether took a long time to grow back.
“Well, that aside, congratulations.”
'Huh? For what? Beating the Knight of Silence?'
“That too, but I mean your new star.”
Najin blinked.
A new star?
“What? You didn't know?”
Focusing on his starlight, Najin spread his hand wide. One, two, three. Three stars twinkled above his palm. His eyes widened.
'Wait, this counts as a great feat too?'
“Of course it does! That Knight of Silence you fought was a Constellation with no fewer than six stars. Fallen or not, he had power close to that of a transcendent being. You're still only a Sword Seeker, and you defeated an opponent like that. What would you call it if not a great feat?”
'But I had the Helmeted Knight's help.'
Merlin gave him an incredulous look.
“Even accounting for that, you played a major role in the fight. At the end, you even charged him head-on and broke his technique.”
Challenging a being of a higher order head-on and emerging victorious was an achievement worthy of being called a great feat. And he had even overcome a transcendent being's technique... It seemed the heavens had recognized it as such.
“...”
Najin silently gazed at his third star.
He naturally understood what his third star symbolized. Breakthrough: a word meaning to overcome a crisis or surpass a previous record. That was the concept engraved in his third star.
The star had been given that concept not merely because he had broken through Krünbel's technique head-on. A star did not hold only a single achievement. It held the life its owner had lived.
Najin had always faced his enemies head-on, breaking through trials without retreating. He had even shattered previously established records... Both meanings of the word breakthrough applied to his life.
Challenge, dragonslaying, breakthrough.
Looking at his three stars, Najin smiled without realizing it.
“So you did gain another star.”
As Najin sat there, the Helmeted Knight let out a long sigh. Pointing at the stars twinkling above Najin's palm, he spoke.
“Did you say you were eighteen?”
“I should be about nineteen by now.”
“Three stars at nineteen. And you've reached Sprouting as well?”
“Pardon?”
Once again, Najin blinked.
Sprouting? Ah, come to think of it, his sword aura had changed during the battle. He raised his sword and summoned his aura... Sure enough, its density had increased considerably.
“Be honest. You're twenty-nine, not nineteen, aren't you? No, even then it wouldn't make sense... Good grief.”
“I am rather hard to believe.”
“It's all the more aggravating because I can't deny it.”
As the Helmeted Knight clutched the back of his neck, Najin asked him,
“How old are you?”
“You don't ask an old man his age.”
“What do you mean, old man? You don't even age. By that logic, someone I know...”
Najin stole a glance at Merlin.
Merlin blinked and tilted her head, then realized what his look meant and became indignant.
She insisted most emphatically that she was young and beautiful, and that since she had attained her level at around nineteen and her physical age had stopped there, she was effectively nineteen herself.
“So we're practically the same age!”
Najin let the shameless thousand-year-old mage's words go in one ear and out the other.
“Well, anyway. It hardly seems fair for me to be the only one to give my age. How old are you?”
“Who knows? I stopped paying attention after a hundred and fifty. How many years ago was the Dawn War?”
“About a hundred and fifty, I believe.”
“Then I must have lived some three hundred to three hundred and thirty years.”
Three hundred years. Najin nodded.
“So I'll be learning the essence of those three hundred years.”
As Najin spoke, the Helmeted Knight looked far from enthusiastic. He seemed reluctant to teach his swordsmanship to someone else.
“I don't know if I have any right to teach someone swordsmanship I can no longer use myself.”
“Why can't you use it?”
“The sword I wielded was a symbol. I don't know what value it has now that it has lost that meaning. I have no conviction. It would be a waste of breath to explain how meaningless a sword swung without conviction is.”
“Still,” he said, rising to his feet.
“A promise is a promise. I should keep it.”
Leaving the sword bound at his waist untouched, the Helmeted Knight went off and returned with another sword from somewhere. He gave it a few little flicks, then took his stance.
2.
“I don't know how long it's been since I taught anyone swordsmanship. When was the last time? More than a hundred and seventy years ago, I think...”
“You had a disciple?”
“I wouldn't quite call him a disciple, but there was someone whose swordsmanship I helped with a little. Knights of the Empire used to come asking me to take a look at their swordsmanship, too. I always sent them away, saying I had no talent for teaching, but one or two learned by watching.”
The Helmeted Knight raised his sword.
The moment he did, Najin felt his senses sharpen. From the instant the knight took hold of the sword, his presence had changed completely.
“It's been a long time since I held a sword, too.”
The Helmeted Knight moved the tip lightly.
The sword in his hand was a shabby thing, worn and rusty from long abandonment. Najin doubted that dull edge could cut anything.
SHING...
Yet even such a dull blade became a peerless sword in a Sword Master's hands. Though its tip sliced through empty air, there came the sound of something being cut.
The Helmeted Knight took his stance and swung. It was a downward stroke, the most fundamental movement of imperial swordsmanship. And naturally... fundamentals performed by a Sword Master were on another level entirely.
CRACK.
The ground split in a straight line. A boulder in its path parted silently in two. Najin's eyes widened. What had he just seen? Of course, he too could split the ground with a sword swing and cleave a boulder like that.
He could—but only when using sword aura.
The Helmeted Knight had produced that result without any aura at all. Najin stared at him wide-eyed. The knight himself merely clicked his tongue and muttered, “That's not it...”
“Ah, this is how it felt.”
He raised his sword overhead.
Ash-gray sword aura bloomed along the blade. His aura was not ostentatious. It settled into a thin coating over the sword, as though replacing its dulled edge. At a glance, it almost looked as if he weren't using aura at all.
A sword tinted ash-gray.
The Helmeted Knight brought the raised sword down. Najin strained to understand the movement with his eyes wide open, yet still failed. Not because it was fast or complex, but because it was far too simple.
He merely raised the sword and swung it down.
The movement would be easy enough to imitate, but Najin doubted he could reproduce its result. As the Helmeted Knight swung his aura-clad sword, the ground split once more with a crack.
Deeper and longer than before.
Najin closed his eyes and pressed his fingers firmly against their corners. What on earth was that? He had never felt anything like this. It wasn't his first time seeing a Sword Master's swordsmanship. When he had seen Karon's and Yuel's, he had thought their swordsmanship too fast and complex to even attempt to imitate.
But not this time.
It was the opposite.
It was neither fast nor complex. Bring any swordsman here and ask them to copy that stance, and they would easily manage it. So how?
“You look like you're wondering how I did it.”
“Exactly.”
“My swordsmanship is rather unusual.”
It was simple rather than unusual. In fact, it seemed like swordsmanship Najin had seen many times before. Where had he seen it? As he pondered, he let out a short, “Ah.”
“Imperial swordsmanship felt just like this.”
“Imperial swordsmanship?”
Najin rose and demonstrated the movements of imperial swordsmanship in sequence. It was the most basic swordsmanship knights learned, and having faced a number of knights, Najin naturally knew how to use it.
“Isn't it similar?”
“...”
The Helmeted Knight gave no answer.
Najin couldn't tell for certain with his face hidden by the helmet, but he thought the knight seemed a little surprised.
“Wait... That's imperial swordsmanship? It's a bit different from the imperial swordsmanship I know.”
“Haven't you been in the Outer Lands for more than a hundred and fifty years? That's enough time for it to change.”
“Imperial swordsmanship went unchanged for nearly eight hundred years after the Empire's founding. Surely it wouldn't change so easily? Strange. Are you certain that's imperial swordsmanship?”
Najin nodded. The Helmeted Knight remained silent for a while. Then he began to laugh, as though he found it absurd—and as though he had realized something.
“I see. So that's what happened...”
He ran his hand over the sword bound at his waist. The Empire's emblem was engraved on its chain-bound scabbard. Worn and rusted though it was after so many years, the emblem was still recognizable.
“It seems some things haven't been forgotten.”
There was a hint of pleasure in the Helmeted Knight's voice as he murmured those words.
3.
“What do you think matters most when learning swordsmanship?”
“Proper form?”
“No, wrong. That can always be corrected later. What matters is actual combat experience. As much experience as possible. Consider the best choice in all sorts of situations, and you'll naturally come to understand how to swing your sword,” the Helmeted Knight said.
“It was the same with my swordsmanship. Fighting on battlefields, hunting devils, and beating the shit out of bastards trying to sell out their country—my skill naturally improved. As I pieced together what I'd learned through experience, I naturally developed a style of swordsmanship.”
“So,” he said, “let's start by getting you some experience.”
He pointed at a golem beneath the cliff.
A golem was a monster formed from clusters of mana-infused rocks. They were commonly found near ancient ruins even on the continent. But in the Outer Lands, everything defied common sense.
The golem stirring below had formed from fragments of fallen stars. A golem animated not by mana, but by starlight.
“Try cutting that.”
“That's easy enough.”
“Without using sword aura.”
Najin blinked.
Just as he was about to ask how he was supposed to do that, the Helmeted Knight kicked him in the back.
“Ah.”
“Have a good trip.”
As he fell, Najin saw the Helmeted Knight waving at him. “Fucking hell,” he muttered, twisting his body around.
ROAAAAAAR!
For the starlight-driven golem of the Outer Lands was charging at him with a monstrous roar.
