Outside the smithy.

The gang members waiting for their boss to finish collecting payment rose when they saw someone emerging from the shop. Old Hogel would never hand over the protection money willingly, so their boss must have helped himself to a whole pile of swords. Hearing a box rattle, two of them hurried forward.

"Boss, let me carry th...?"

The gang member trailed off. It wasn't his boss walking out of the smithy. Strictly speaking, his boss had come out too, but he wasn't the one doing the walking.

"Ugh, urrrgh..."

Their boss lay facedown, groaning. And a boy was dragging him along by the hair. One of the gang members opened his eyes wide and was about to shout.

THUD!

The boy threw the box he was carrying down in front of them. It was the very box they had brought to confiscate the smithy's swords, but instead of swords, it held their boss's cleanly severed arm.

"H-hah!"

"Boss!"

Both men recoiled in horror.

The boy, Najin, tossed the one-armed man he had dragged outside to one side. The two gang members approached their fallen boss, keeping wary eyes on Najin.

While they tended to him, Najin silently let his gaze drift. Three men had been waiting outside. Two were insignificant lackeys, but the third was not. Najin turned his eyes toward the man who had been watching him without moving all this time.

"..."

The man sat on a convenient rock, glaring at him. His hood was pulled too low for Najin to see his face.

"Looks like..."

Najin let out a short breath.

"You're the one in charge. Let's talk. We have a few things to discuss, don't we?"

The man gave a disbelieving laugh.

"Ha. Look at this little bastard."

He pulled back his hood, revealing a face marked by a long scar running from his right ear down to the back of his neck. Najin frowned at the sight of it.

Najin had memorized the faces of the Spider's officers, and that face was one he remembered.

"Oh, for..."

Najin sighed.

"Now he's sending officers, too. What a fucking mess."

"You know me?"

"Horse the Spider's Sixth Leg. Aren't you Lopsided-Ear Flix?"

"Eighth Leg, not sixth. And it's Frix, not Flix."

"Eighth out of eight officers means you're the weakest, then."

"No, it doesn't."

Frix's expression hardened.

"The numbering of the legs isn't a measure of strength. I'm stronger than the sixth one."

"You do like to talk. Sixth or eighth..."

Najin nudged the box in front of him with his toe. The arm inside rocked back and forth.

"What's an officer doing in Ivan's territory? This is a clear breach of the agreement. One lackey's arm isn't going to settle this."

"Haha. So you want my arm, too?"

"An arm would be going too far."

Najin raised his middle finger.

"Let's just cut off one finger."

"You're completely fucking insane."

Frix laughed loudly at the boy who showed not the slightest fear of him. Still laughing, he rose.

Then came the rasp of steel.

SHING!

Frix drew his sword. It gleamed, clearly well maintained. Najin glanced down at his own blade, black with grime and rust.

Smacking his lips for no particular reason, he rolled the sword once in his hand and adjusted his grip.

2.

One of the eight officers serving Horse the Spider: Frix, the Eighth Leg.

Up above, he had been a knight's squire. Not a proper knight's squire, of course. The knight he served had been old and sick, treating Frix like a slave instead of giving him decent instruction.

Even so, Frix had learned swordsmanship from a knight and acquired at least a rudimentary grasp of mana. He hadn't understood the value of those lessons at the time, but after falling into this city, he realized just how precious they were.

'In this city, I'm one of the strong.'

Up above, he had been nothing more than an insignificant knight's squire. Here, however, Frix was undeniably powerful. That fact made him feel superior. In this garbage heap of a city, someone with a proper education was special.

He was a fighter who could strengthen his body with mana. Though he hadn't reached the rank of Expert and learned to produce sword aura, his ability to use mana alone placed him among the city's strongest.

To Frix, men who swaggered around waving blades were laughable, and those who boasted about having killed a few people were pathetic. Nothing was more ridiculous than watching men who couldn't even use mana strut around full of themselves.

'This one looks much the same.'

Frix studied the whelp standing before him. He had heard rumors about the boy: Ivan's prized hound. He must have some talent if Ivan had taken an interest in him, but...

'I can't sense any mana.'

There wasn't the slightest trace of the presence a mana user naturally gave off. Apparently, the great Ivan hadn't taught him how to train his mana.

That meant the whelp was ultimately no different from all the other nobodies running around thinking they were something special. Having reached that conclusion, Frix smiled.

"Hey, whelp."

Frix grinned and flicked his sword tip.

"I'll give you the first move. Like you said, this is Ivan's territory. You deserve at least that much of an advantage."

Imitating a knight's sword salute, Frix yielded the opening move. Najin, who had been watching him silently, adjusted his grip. He wasn't going to refuse.

THUD.

Najin stepped forward and put his weight into that step. His knees were bent, his sword hanging low. It looked more like a stance for leaping than for swinging a sword.

'What kind of sloppy, untrained...?'

To Frix, who had learned proper swordsmanship from a knight, Najin's stance looked atrocious. At that rate, the sword would swing him around rather than the other way around.

Was his opponent even less impressive than he'd thought?

Just as disappointment set in—

BOOM!

Najin kicked off the ground.

CLAAANG!

The sound of his takeoff and the clash of blades rang out almost simultaneously. Frix's eyes widened.

Nearly ten paces had separated him from the boy. Najin had covered that distance in a single leap and swung his sword, moving far faster than Frix had expected.

CLANG, SCREECH!

Najin's rusty sword shuddered against the opposing blade. The heavy force bearing down on Frix's grip startled him. Hastily drawing on his mana, he pushed Najin's sword away.

Najin slid back three paces. The exchange had lasted only a moment, but Frix couldn't conceal his bewilderment. His sword hand was tingling.

'... Is he really unable to use mana?'

That wasn't the kind of weight an ordinary sword swing could produce.

Frix glared at the boy. Three paces away, Najin was breathing lightly and showed no sign of strain.

Najin looked silently at Frix, then down at the hand holding his sword. After flexing his sword hand a couple of times, he narrowed his eyes. Frix couldn't tell what that sequence of movements meant, but he knew the boy was sizing him up.

"You arrogant little shit..."

Frix frowned. Unlike before, he drew fully on his mana and changed his stance, taking the high guard of imperial swordsmanship he had learned directly from a knight. A shimmering haze rose from his body.

It was caused by mana leaking out because he couldn't fully contain it—a telltale sign of an unskilled mana user.

Najin watched him with narrowed eyes.

* * *

Najin didn't know how to use mana. Ivan and Offen had never taught him. And so he believed he couldn't use it.

'Is that mana?'

Najin looked ahead at Frix, who was radiating menace, and glanced at the haze rising from his body. Najin had sparred with Ivan and Offen on occasion.

'I don't think either of them had that sort of haze coming off them.'

Offen and Ivan were experienced fighters who had reached the rank of Expert. Compared with them, Frix was merely an unskilled beginner. That haze was the difference between an experienced user who could fully contain mana and an inexperienced one who couldn't...

But Najin had no way of knowing that. He simply decided it must be another way of using mana.

At that moment, Frix kicked off the ground with a sharp tap. Taking the basic stance of imperial longsword technique, he let out a short breath and took one great stride forward, swinging as he stepped. It was a textbook diagonal cut.

WHOOSH!

Yet when coupled with a mana-enhanced body, even the simplest cut became a lethal blow. The blade descended toward Najin, slicing through the air.

"..."

Facing the oncoming blade, Najin thought that mana really was remarkable. Frix was moving noticeably faster than before, and Najin marveled at the sight. Was that what you could do if you knew how to use mana?

'But...'

It didn't seem all that fast. He could still see it, and he could still react to it. Having made his assessment, Najin moved.

TAP.

Instead of dodging, Najin stepped forward, moving right into his opponent's sword range. At first glance, the decision looked almost suicidal. Yet as he closed in, he swung his own sword—before Frix's blade could complete its arc, just before the blow could gather its full force.

CLAAANG!

Najin struck Frix's blade aside. Breaking the attack with little effort, he thrust at the opening he had created.

"...!"

Surprise flashed across Frix's face. But only for an instant. The haze rising from him thickened, and his body accelerated as he forcibly pulled his deflected sword back.

The sword's trajectory curved. The blade knocked aside when his technique was broken returned to its original position.

It was a strange movement impossible for an ordinary human body, made possible only by mana. In his current stance, Najin could neither dodge nor counter the resulting strike.

A strike beyond his expectations.

Just as his blade was about to tear into Najin's shoulder, Frix saw it: Najin's eyes still tracking his accelerated movements. That chilling gaze was fixed on the tip of his swinging sword.

THUD!

Najin stamped his foot down. In that fleeting instant, his body accelerated. He twisted the sword he had thrust forward and raised it at an angle. Every movement was unnaturally fast—even faster than Frix, who was using mana.

'How in the hell?'

There had been no mana to sense until now. Yet in that instant, Frix felt mana coming from the boy. It flashed and dispersed in the blink of an eye. Brief as it was, the boy had unmistakably used mana to accelerate his body.

So smoothly and naturally.

As though breathing in and out.

'Th-this bastard...!'

Frix was furious at having been deceived. But Najin had never intended to deceive him. He believed he couldn't use mana and didn't even know that mana had assisted his movements just now.

Always be efficient.

Maximum effect with minimum effort.

Najin was simply following the fundamentals of combat drilled into his mind, leaving everything else to instinct.

CLANG, SCRAAAAPE!

Frix's sword slid along Najin's angled blade, scraping roughly across its rusty surface as it fell. An opening appeared.

"... Ngh!"

Wary of Najin's sword, Frix hurriedly pulled his own back. But Najin's sword didn't move. His leg did. Raising his foot, Najin drove it down onto Frix's knee.

CRRACK.

The mana reinforcing his body kept Frix's knee from buckling inward, but his face twisted in pain. His stance crumbled as well. A sword swung from such an unstable position couldn't possibly carry proper weight.

Najin easily batted the weak blow aside and stepped farther in. He was now much too close to cut with the blade, but he had never intended to cut Frix in the first place.

'That would kill him.'

He wasn't trying to kill him. He needed him alive to extract information. Right in front of Frix's face, Najin swung his sword hilt like a hammer.

THWACK!

The pommel, the counterweight at the end of the hilt, smashed into Frix's temple. The impact sounded suitably heavy for Ivan's sword, which weighed more than other blades.

"Gah...!"

Frix's head snapped back at the unexpected blow. Yet his eyes remained focused. Najin marveled at the sight.

'Mana really is useful.'

Reinforcing your body with mana let you stay conscious even after a blow to the temple? For Najin, who still believed he couldn't use mana, it was astonishing.

'Still...'

Najin reached out and grabbed Frix by the hair.

'Keep hitting him and he'll pass out eventually.'

Holding Frix's hair with one hand, he swung the hilt with the other, smashing the pommel into his face over and over.

THWACK, THWACK, CRUNCH...

Only after five or six blows did Najin release his hair. Blood streamed from Frix's broken nose, and fragments of his shattered teeth pattered to the ground.

THUMP.

Frix collapsed facedown, his eyes rolled back. Najin let out a short breath and turned his head. Horse's gang members had been about to rush him with their blades but had missed their chance. Glancing at them, Najin spoke curtly.

"Put those down."

Najin crooked a finger.

"Cut off one finger each before you go. That's the rule."

It was a rule Horse and Ivan had agreed upon. It hadn't been observed very often, but the men realized they couldn't ignore it now.

3.

"Heavy as shit."

Najin walked on, carrying the box containing an arm and fingers in one hand while dragging the unconscious Frix by the scruff of his neck with the other.

'I'd love to just dump him somewhere...'

He might have done that with a low-ranking gang member, but he couldn't dispose of an officer so carelessly.

'There's been a lot of trouble lately, too.'

That Spider bastard keeps crossing the line.

Najin had heard Ivan mutter those words. And hearing wasn't all he'd done. As the organization's executioner, Najin had personally seen that several of the people he'd killed lately had connections to the Spider.

Now there was blatant territorial encroachment on top of it. Whatever it was, the Spider was definitely plotting something. An officer would know at least something, so Najin intended to use this opportunity to extract information.

... That aside, Najin reflected on the fight he'd just had. Thinking back over the techniques and movements he had used, he smiled faintly. He had confirmed that his swordsmanship worked even against someone who could use mana.

'All that hard training paid off.'

The things he'd learned from Ivan and Offen.

If Offen had taught him how to wield a sword, Ivan had taught him combat itself. Strike when you see an opening. Close in when your opponent makes a big movement. Don't just swing your weapon; use everything you can.

How to move his body efficiently. How to stop an opponent's attack with minimal force. Hand-to-hand combat at ranges too close for a sword. How to use the terrain and knock people unconscious.

Najin had learned countless other tricks from Ivan as well. Remembering the techniques he'd learned through Ivan's beatings since the age of ten, he found himself frowning. The long scar across his shoulder had begun to ache.

'Come to think of it, those aren't really things a knight would teach.'

The knights in fairy tales were noble and refined. But Ivan, who had been a knight up above, was skilled at all kinds of dirty work, including torture and covert operations. Sometimes he was even better at them than Offen, who had worked as a mercenary.

["Watch closely."]

["You'll be doing these things yourself someday."]

The torture Ivan had performed.

["You won't break under torture?"]

["What a joke. You can only say that because you have no idea how inventive human nerves can be, how many different kinds of pain they can feel."]

["Let's bet on how long this one lasts."]

The process of forcing tightly sealed lips open, of crushing a person's mind until it burst. Flickering lamplight. Blood spattered everywhere. Screams that went on and on.

["See?"]

["Want to try it yourself?"]

As Najin dwelled on those memories, he suddenly looked back. Frix was groaning behind him. From the way he moaned and twitched, he seemed to have regained consciousness.

Blinking slowly, Frix met Najin's eyes. Only then did he seem to understand his situation, and he ground his teeth. But there was no grinding sound. Several of his teeth had been knocked out by the pommel.

"A word of advice."

Najin gave Frix, who was glaring at him with murderous intent, an indifferent look.

"Don't try to tough it out. Just talk. You're going to talk anyway, so wouldn't it be better to end the torture while some part of you is still intact?"

Najin pointed ahead. Frix's eyes followed his finger, then shook violently when he saw what Najin was pointing at. A building stood there that every resident of this underground city knew.

The residence of Ivan, ruler of the underground city.

Pointing at it, Najin said,

"Ivan is far more frightening than you people think."