Bernstein was a Royal Guard.

He could no longer append the surname bestowed by the imperial family to his name. Everyone had forgotten him; not a soul remembered who he was. Even so, Bernstein still considered himself a Royal Guard. It was all he had left.

Bernstein brought his sword against the blade driving toward his chin.

CLANG!

The blades collided harshly. Bernstein knocked Najin’s sword aside, flowing naturally from defense into counterattack.

He ground his teeth. This whole situation irritated him.

As far as he was concerned, he had not insulted a knight. He had merely listed facts. Besides, who would call that monster a knight? An insult only counted when the other party had honor and pride to diminish.

An empty husk of a monster.

A fugitive who was no longer a knight.

He had every right to curse that coward. Having that right infringed upon offended Bernstein. He swung his sword irritably. The sword aura rippling from its tip blazed like the sun.

A sword style permitted only to the finest knights among the Royal Guard unfolded at Bernstein’s sword tip. It was the Sun Sword, modeled after the swordsmanship of Sir Gawain of the Round Table. In the darkness of the Outer Lands, Bernstein’s blade shone like the sun.

“What do you know?”

Bernstein swung with his eyes wide. The blazing sun battered Najin’s sword.

“You say I insulted him? I merely exercised my rightful privilege. Do you know anything about that monster? Don’t meddle in things you know nothing—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“What?”

Najin swore with a frown. Bernstein’s eyes widened. The offensive remark startled him, certainly, but so did the sheer ease with which Najin had blocked his sword.

“Why do you talk so much?”

CLAAANG!

Najin shoved Bernstein’s sword back hard. Flustered, Bernstein retreated, but failed to gain any distance. Najin followed him step for step.

“This is a duel. Not a debate to decide whose opinion is right. A duel.”

With their swords locked in a contest of strength, Najin thrust his face toward Bernstein. His platinum eyes bored into the other man’s.

“I didn’t draw my sword to chat with you. Or are you saying you can beat me even while taking it that easy?”

Their contest of strength gave way to techniques. As move met move, Najin gained the upper hand. He pushed Bernstein’s sword aside and surged forward.

“If so, talk all you like.”

He would shut that mouth for him.

Najin did not voice the rest. He swung his sword, letting his actions speak instead. His relentless barrage was difficult even for Bernstein to handle.

Bernstein ground his teeth again.

In the end, he had to shut up. With his mouth closed, he blocked Najin’s sword and counterattacked. Only the clash of blades rang through the silence.

2.

Najin had recently reached Sprouting. Having climbed one of the three steps toward becoming a Sword Master brought more than a change to his sword aura. His senses had grown sharper and more precise.

On top of that, he was learning swordsmanship from a Sword Master. The Sword Saint had taught him a little, but this was the first time he had received such detailed instruction over so long a period. The Helmeted Knight often muttered that he lacked confidence in teaching others, but Najin disagreed.

He was an excellent teacher. Not simply because Najin learned well, but because his instruction was intuitive and easy to understand.

It was time to demonstrate the results of that instruction.

To himself, and to the master watching him. Najin could not see it, but behind his helmet, the Helmeted Knight’s eyes were wide. He watched Najin’s sword swings with that wide-eyed gaze.

‘Honestly.’

The Helmeted Knight groaned.

‘What a maddening brat.’

His own swordsmanship lived in Najin’s swings. Watching his sword reflected in the boy’s blade, the Helmeted Knight could only sigh.

CLAAANG!

A sword swung true. A sword that had symbolized knighthood. Before him was a sight that recalled the days when he always won and returned in glory. A glory the Helmeted Knight could no longer possess.

People yearned for what lay beyond their reach.

It was just as the boy had said. The Helmeted Knight desired glory. He yearned for his radiant past—all the more because he could no longer have it. Watching Najin wield a sword as he himself once had, he groaned.

“Ngh...!”

The Helmeted Knight was not the only one groaning.

Bernstein, who recognized Najin’s swordsmanship, did the same. Not because it was sharp and powerful, but because he recognized whose sword it was. Perhaps his groan was a lament.

Why had he passed his swordsmanship on to someone else?

This sword was meant for one man alone.

Wasn’t this a sword style reserved for the Empire’s hero?

Didn’t he know its significance better than anyone?

After turning so many people away with those very words, after refusing to teach his swordsmanship to anyone, had he developed lingering attachments now? Bernstein’s mental image seethed with anger. The sun upon his blade blazed as though it might swallow Najin at any moment.

Bernstein wanted to raise his voice and spit those words out, but he had no room to do so. The relentless sword attacks kept his mouth shut. The anger he could not voice went into his swings instead.

CLAAANG!

Knocking Najin’s sword aside, Bernstein rammed his shoulder into him. He intended to shove the boy back, open some distance, and swing. The Sun Sword was, by nature, powerful at a distance.

Bernstein had reached Flowering and stood on the verge of Full Bloom. In other words, he was a man close to becoming a Sword Master. At least, he had been until a hundred and fifty years ago.

For a hundred and fifty years, his mental image had failed to reach Full Bloom.

Because it had been defiled.

And the man who had defiled it stood just beyond that boy. To Bernstein, Najin was an obstacle. He decided to remove him.

He tightened his grip on his sword.

He did not intend to kill the boy outright, so he did not bring his sword aura to Flowering... but he meant to take an arm. In this land, an injury of that magnitude would suffice to teach him a lesson. Bernstein raised his sword vertically.

A sword embodying noon. No sun hung in the sky, but one hung at the tip of his blade. As he brought the sword down, sunlight-colored sword aura shot straight toward Najin.

SHAAAA!

Facing the incoming sword aura, Najin angled his blade. Sword aura compressed to its limit took the place of its edge. Just as the Helmeted Knight’s aura had done, Najin’s coated his longsword in white and gold.

Golden stars studded the white blade.

Its form called Excalibur to mind.

Compressed to its limit, his sword aura’s cutting power was no less than Bernstein’s. Najin swung his sword, not his aura. With a splitting crack, the sunlight-colored aura cleaved in two.

As heat spread from the divided aura, Najin kicked off the ground and charged Bernstein. He broke through the heat, closed the distance, and abruptly hurled his sword.

“...!”

Startled by the unexpected move, Bernstein swung to knock the thrown longsword aside. At that very instant, Najin closed to point-blank range and threw a punch.

THWACK!

The vicious punch smashed into Bernstein’s jaw. His jaw twisted sideways, and he staggered. Barely regaining his balance, he glared at Najin with wide eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I told you, didn’t I? I’d split that mouth open.”

Najin pointed at Bernstein’s maw.

The corner of his mouth was indeed split.

“I considered doing it with my sword. But you seem to be an acquaintance of my master’s... and he seems to prefer that I don’t. So I’m thinking of leaving it at this.”

Najin raised his hand.

The sword, knocked away by Bernstein’s swing and spinning through the air, fell toward his raised hand. Precisely, without the slightest deviation.

“Unless you want to continue.”

Najin’s nose was intact.

Bernstein’s mouth was split. The outcome was clear. It was a humiliating defeat, at that. He could have made excuses: I went easy on you. If I’d fought properly, it wouldn’t be your nose but your head that came off. But that would only make him look pathetic. He was not even certain he could do it.

GRRRIND...

Now the grinding of his teeth was plainly audible. He clenched his jaw so hard that its tendons stood out. He trembled where he stood, then exhaled at length.

“Why?”

He glared at the Helmeted Knight.

“Why, why...”

The words came in a groaning murmur.

Najin seriously considered chiding him with, “The loser is supposed to keep quiet.” But he did not. The Helmeted Knight had stepped forward, moving in front of him.

“Bernstein.”

“...”

“If you have something to say, say it.”

As if a humiliating defeat were not enough, his opponent was now showing him mercy. In this utterly wretched situation, Bernstein could not bring himself to raise his voice in accusation.

“Why did you do it?”

In the end, his words emerged like a groan.

“Why did you end up like this?”

3.

Bernstein of the Royal Guard had admired a certain knight. That knight had been a hero of the Empire. A pillar of the Empire, and the commander of a knightly order that represented it. Countless knights besides Bernstein had admired him.

Because he was a hero. A hero who had saved his country and brought peace to a troubled Empire.

Those who had lived in the same era as that hero—Bernstein, countless other knights, and aspiring knights—admired him even more than King Arthur. King Arthur was a hero of the distant past. This knight was a hero who truly existed before their eyes.

Thus, when that hero announced he was leaving for the Outer Lands, Bernstein gladly joined his procession. He still had time to spare, but he wanted to accompany the hero. The emperor, too, readily approved Bernstein’s departure, bidding him aid the Empire’s hero.

Aid the Empire’s hero and slay the Emperor of Revelry.

They would show the devils of the Outer Lands the greatness of the Empire.

Only victory. Glorious victory.

But there was no victory. No glory awaited them there. Even that would have been all right. Those were not the things Bernstein could not bear.

“Why did you end up like this?”

He looked at the knight standing before him.

“You were a hero. A hero! I, the knights who fought alongside me, the Empire’s soldiers... every one of us looked up to you as our idol.”

He groaned as he gazed at that faded idol.

“I can’t remember what your name was. I can’t remember what feats you accomplished, which order you belonged to, or even the name given to the sword you wielded. I’ve forgotten it all.”

“...”

“You used to be a shining hero. A hero who saved his country, a knight who always won glorious victories. But what are you now?”

One hero stood within Bernstein’s mental image. That hero was the symbol of the Empire, and the weight of the Empire rested upon the sword he wielded. There stood a hero who seemed destined to shine forever.

But what of reality?

Bernstein looked not at the hero within his mental image, but at the hero in reality. Rusted, broken armor. Clothes little better than rags. What about that man could possibly be called heroic?

“I’ve forgotten every feat you accomplished, but I remember perfectly the sight of you kneeling so cravenly before the Emperor of Revelry, bowing your head. Before that goddamn devil! All I remember is the Empire’s hero submitting, breaking, begging. You shouldn’t have done that. You, of all people, shouldn’t have...”

His groans rose into anguished cries.

Clutching his face, he shouted at the Helmeted Knight.

“It would have been all right if we’d all been defeated. If we were with our hero, our deaths would have meant something. Even if that hero lost, that battlefield would still have had meaning. It would have meant something for my dead comrades, and for your men.”

So why?

“Why couldn’t you remain a hero for us until the very end?”

“...”

“Why did you kneel? You were the Empire. Why did you show us the Empire bowing before a mere devil?”

At last, Bernstein dropped his sword.

“Why?” he said feebly.

“Why did you become a jester of revelry?”