Gerd, the Empire's foremost warrior.

The exact age of the Sword Master who served as the first pillar supporting the Empire was unknown. Countless records had been lost to fires set by rebels during the Dawn War.

His estimated age was somewhere between 180 and 210.

Yet that estimate only confused the chroniclers further. Was it not the natural order of the world that, past the age of 150, one's body wore down and one had to depart for the Outer Lands? There were a few exceptional beings who defied that rule, of course, but they could not serve as ordinary examples.

Yuel Razian had simplified herself. By erasing her memories and emotions and defining herself through a clear, simple set of principles, she had avoided the erosion of her soul.

The Lighthouse Keeper of the Order of Star Radiance remained immobile. He had not moved for a very long time. By remaining motionless, he stepped outside the flow of time, enduring erosion as he drank in the faith offered by his followers.

What, then, was Gerd?

Those two were effectively beings who had transcended humanity, and their peculiar circumstances made them unsuitable examples. Gerd, however, remained human. Unlike them, he was purely human.

What allowed him to endure?

There was only rampant speculation. Many scholars suggested it might have something to do with Gerd's aging, but none of their conjectures could be called an answer.

A man who had endured in the Empire for nearly two hundred years, perhaps longer. A swordsman who had become a Sword Master at a strangely late age, considering his achievements as a Sword Seeker. An old man who had not regained his youth even after reaching transcendence.

There was no end to the mysteries surrounding him.

Yet the ideal Gerd pursued had never changed, not once since he first learned the sword. Born and raised in the Age of Turmoil, when traitors ran rampant, he had always remained loyal to a single ideal.

"For the Empire."

The Empire's foremost warrior. The first pillar supporting the Empire.

True to that title, Gerd protected the Empire.

「The leader of the traitors is dead. Without anyone to rally around, they will scatter. I'd rather wipe them all out myself, but I have no time.」

Yet no one knew.

「So you do it.」

「It's your turn next.」

No one knew that it was not the Empire he sought to protect.

「Now you protect the Empire I defended.」

The "Empire" Gerd spoke of was not simply the Empire. There was a line attached to the Empire he meant.

"For the Empire he defended."

Gerd kept his promise.

He was simply keeping a promise he would never forget.

2.

The tower of Gerd, the Empire's foremost warrior, was quiet.

The tower of Cypria, the Ever-Radiant Point and the Fourth Pillar of the Empire, was full of mages who followed her. The other towers were much the same. The pillars of the Empire were powerful figures second only to the emperor, people even the emperor could not readily touch.

Naturally, such powerful figures attracted followers, and the places around them were bound to be noisy.

But Gerd's tower was quiet.

It was almost desolate. Najin thought as much as he climbed toward the top floor. Quiet. The tower was so excessively quiet that it seemed Gerd lived there alone.

'Gerd. The old Sword Master.'

Najin thought back over what he knew of Gerd.

Information about the old man was easy to find in virtually any history of the Empire. After all, he had lived as an imperial soldier and knight for nearly two hundred years.

Gerd's name appeared in every major event: the campaign against the dark mage Kephalon, the slaying of a fallen star that had tried to cross the Boundary from the Outer Lands, the uprising of the dark mages, his pivotal role in the Dawn War, and more. His life was the history of the Empire itself.

TAP.

Najin reached the top of the tower.

A vast meadow stretched across its summit, with the blue sky for a ceiling. This was his first time setting foot here, but the meadow looked familiar.

He had seen it once before, when he sparred with Gerd. The meadow he had seen then was the very one spread out before him now. The grass rustled beneath his feet as he walked.

"You've come."

An old man stood in the middle of the meadow.

Turning his gaze from the Empire below, he looked at Najin. His eyes were dry, devoid of emotion. They resembled Yuel's, but differed in one crucial respect.

Where Yuel's eyes were empty from having erased all her emotions, Gerd's resembled a parched desert.

Eyes worn dull through endless wear. Yet as they turned toward Najin, a hint of interest appeared in them. Gerd's expression softened, if only slightly.

"The Empire has been buzzing with talk of you. As if becoming the youngest Sword Seeker weren't enough, you have four stars at your age. That is certainly an achievement worth making a fuss over."

"I didn't intend it, but that's how things turned out."

"That is the nature of great feats. Rarely does one accomplish them simply by resolving to do so. They come of their own accord when you live consistently by your convictions."

There were rocks in the meadow.

Seating himself on one, Gerd gestured with his eyes to the place opposite him, inviting Najin to come closer and sit. The two rocks set beside one another gave Najin a peculiar sense of déjà vu.

A campfire between them would have made the scene complete.

"What brings you here?"

Gerd asked as Najin sat down.

"You have the right to ask one thing of me, whatever it may be. A right you won in our duel that day. I assume you have come to my tower to exercise it. Am I correct?"

"I may use it depending on how our conversation goes, but that isn't why I came."

"Oh?" Gerd narrowed his eyes.

"You've come to talk, then. Is there something you need to tell me?"

"There is."

"The time of the Empire's foremost warrior is valuable. A private audience with me is more valuable still. Not as valuable as the right you possess, but it is no trifling matter."

Gerd gave him a look.

"Speak. If your story is not worth that much, I shall take my interest in you and my goodwill toward you as payment."

He did not seem to expect much.

The old man had stood at the pinnacle of the Empire for many years and experienced countless things. Truly countless things. Whatever story Najin offered, it was unlikely to surprise him much.

Parched eyes. A man who had dried up.

That utterly dry old man was hardly a suitable conversation partner. Whatever Najin said, he would probably answer with no more than a nod and a "Hmm." But Najin knew a subject that would instantly draw him into the conversation.

"The First Pillar."

Najin introduced his subject.

"I've come to discuss the First Pillar."

"The First Pillar?"

Gerd's eyes narrowed.

He seemed to be weighing what the person before him had said, trying to discern its meaning.

"What does that mean? You've come to discuss me? The First Pillar of the Empire?"

"No. Not the pillar."

A flicker of interest. Moisture seeping into a parched desert.

Drawing even that much interest from Gerd was an achievement that would have impressed the Empire's finest orators, but Najin had no intention of settling for so little.

"I've come to discuss the Empire's First Horn."

Najin went straight to the heart of the matter.

"Alderan Basaglia, the former foremost warrior of the Empire. There are things I need to discuss with you about him, Sir Gerd."

3.

Alderan Basaglia.

The instant Najin spoke that name—

SLICE.

For a moment, Najin saw a vision of his own head being severed. In the past, he would have disgraced himself by instinctively backing away and drawing his sword. Now, however, he did not move a muscle. It was only a vision, after all.

The atmosphere had sharpened in an instant. The oppressive presence Gerd exuded had merely shown Najin such a future.

Najin faced Gerd calmly. With his eyes narrowed, Gerd opened his mouth. His voice rang out, as sharp as the sword he carried.

"Consider this a warning."

Gerd glared at Najin.

"If you have spoken his name merely to tell me some worthless tale, or to draw my interest... you will have to use that right of yours to leave this place alive."

Alderan Basaglia, the former foremost warrior of the Empire.

Many knew that name because Gerd had inscribed it in the Empire's histories. There had also been many fools who spoke it in an attempt to attract his attention.

There was no need to waste breath explaining what had become of those fools. To Gerd, Alderan Basaglia was both his most sensitive point and a sanctuary. A realm no one dared touch or trespass upon.

"Think carefully before you speak."

Najin said nothing in response to Gerd's warning. He did not even open his mouth. He simply rose to his feet.

Then he drew the sword at his waist.

Gerd's eyes narrowed further. Najin was pointing his sword not at Gerd, but at the empty air. Unable to tell what the boy intended, Gerd watched him questioningly.

Then Najin swung his sword.

Taking one firm step after another, he demonstrated the swordsmanship he had learned.

SWISH.

Najin was no orator. Much less a politician. He had no talent for persuading or enticing people with words. He was, above all else, a swordsman.

WHOOSH.

Just as an orator persuaded others with a silver tongue, a novelist moved people's hearts with sentences, and a chronicler recorded history with the brush in their hand, a swordsman spoke with his sword.

The swordsmanship Najin was demonstrating was the imperial style. The fundamentals of imperial swordsmanship.

It was such an exemplary display that any knight or swordsman in the Empire would have seen it and said, "That's imperial swordsmanship."

But there was one man.

One man alone who recognized the sword Najin wielded. Who saw the gap between imperial swordsmanship and Najin's. Who noticed the raw sharpness dwelling in that sword, a sharpness absent from imperial swordsmanship.

Gerd's narrowed eyes slowly widened.

In all the Empire, Gerd alone knew that swordsmanship. The original form of imperial swordsmanship. A style that remained only in his memories. Gerd had adapted and refined it to create imperial swordsmanship, believing that such a beautiful sword must never be forgotten.

A swordsmanship lost a hundred and fifty years ago.

A swordsmanship Gerd had restored, however imperfectly.

The sword of the Empire's former foremost warrior: the Triumphant Sword.

Now it was being recreated at the tip of a boy's sword. Gerd's eyes were no longer merely wide; they were stretched open. Rain poured onto the parched desert. The heart of an old man whose interest had been worn away over long years began to pound.

Then—

THUD!

Najin stamped down on the ground.

With his feet firmly planted, he raised his sword high toward the sky. At that instant, Gerd could not help rising to his feet. The memory he held in the deepest part of himself was being recreated before his eyes.

First Horn.

Najin had said earlier that he had come to discuss the First Pillar. That had been no lie. He showed Gerd the First Horn.

You would recognize it. And you would know.

Know what came next.

Sure enough, Gerd had abandoned even his dignity and was staring at Najin with his eyes stretched wide. Those eyes were no longer dry or parched.

Najin met that expectation.

First Horn: Triumphant Return.

He brought his sword down.

He used no sword aura. Nor did he strain his body to its limits as he swung. Partly, this was for the perfectly sensible reason that he should not use a technique of such power in the middle of the Empire. But it was also because, in his current condition, he could not execute the Triumphant Sword.

Its form, however, was perfect.

CRACK.

A single line was carved into the meadow.

Najin had left a sword mark in the tower of the Empire's foremost warrior.

Ordinarily, damaging a pillar of the Empire was an exceedingly grave crime, one for which the offender could not protest even immediate execution at that pillar's hands... but the First Pillar of the Empire, who should have held him accountable, remained silent.

He looked at the sword mark Najin had made.

Then he looked at Najin.

Merely reproducing the form had reopened a wound. Pressing firmly against his shoulder, Najin met Gerd's gaze. Then he smiled at him.

"Didn't I tell you?"

Gerd's eyes were wavering.

The First Pillar of the Empire, who had not been shaken in over a hundred years, who had remained unshaken no matter what happened, was wavering now.

"I came to discuss the First Horn."