Rangers.

Najin knew little about them. He had only the most basic knowledge: Rangers handled dirtier, darker work than knights. All he knew was that they excelled at covert operations, assassinating important figures, setting traps, and laying ambushes.

["Rangers are tricky."]

And, to add a little more:

["That's right. Tricky. Hard to explain, but Rangers are tricky. You know that famous saying?"]

["Not every fight is decided by levels of attainment."]

["Most of the time, that's bullshit. But against Rangers, it turns out it isn't."]

That was what Ivan and Offen had told him.

["Those bastards are hunters."]

Rangers were hunters.

["Does a hunter face a beast head-on? Someone who looks a boar in the eye and swings a sword at it from the front is just a crazy fuck, not a hunter."]

["A hunter does nothing but hunt."]

["They learn their target's habits, traits, movements, routes, quirks, even the tiniest weaknesses..."]

Ivan pointed a finger at Najin's temple.

["Bang."]

Pretending to fire a crossbow, Ivan grinned.

["And then, finally, they pull the trigger."]

2.

CLICK.

Najin turned at the sound of a weapon being loaded behind him. Kaufman was fitting a bolt into his crossbow. Though it wasn't pointed at him, Najin felt an inexplicable chill.

"What's wrong?"

"... That's an unusual crossbow."

Najin deflected for no real reason.

"I've never seen one that large."

"I imagine not. They're normally mounted on castle walls."

Kaufman held an enormous crossbow. It was comparable in size to a defensive ballista mounted on a castle wall, yet he carried it over his shoulder as though it weighed very little.

'Ordinary strength wouldn't be enough for that.'

Najin struggled to picture someone gripping a crossbow that size in both hands and firing it without securing it to a mount. The recoil seemed liable to shove them backward or knock them over.

'Impossible for an ordinary human.'

Superhumans performed such feats without a second thought, and Sword Seekers approached that realm. For a warrior regarded as their equal, it would hardly be difficult.

Najin and Kaufman walked silently along the waterway. First, they needed to descend into its depths.

SHHH...

They could hear the flowing water, but neither man's footsteps. Both were masters at concealing their presence. Walking in front, Najin failed to notice Kaufman closely studying his gait from behind.

"Were you a covert operative?"

Kaufman asked the brief question after watching Najin intently. The abrupt, probing question brought Najin to a halt.

"Keep walking. We can talk as we go."

"..."

"I asked whether you belonged to a covert unit. Your gait resembles that of the order's covert operatives. Resembles... No. You're better than those bastards, aren't you?"

Kaufman murmured indifferently.

"You seem to have quite a story behind you."

"Why bring that up all of a sudden...?"

"Identity unknown. No records whatsoever. Your age, your name, even your level of attainment is unclear. It's fortunate that a noble who practically heads the Cambria Foundation vouched for you..."

Kaufman chuckled as he muttered.

"Otherwise, you'd have had a rough time. I'm speaking from experience. I had a rough time myself after entering the city with my identity concealed."

"And in the end, it all came out anyway. Even you recognize me. You know who I am."

As he spoke, Kaufman let out a long, very long breath.

"I'm not asking for an answer, so there's no need to rack your brains for one. Just think of it as some old geezer rambling."

"Is that so?"

"That's right. Wait until you're my age. You get talkative. There's no need to talk, but you find yourself making idle conversation anyway."

The underground waterways stretched endlessly downward.

"Maybe it's loneliness, or maybe you just get sentimental... Sometimes I even talk to the targets of my commissions, you know?"

They still had a fair distance to go before reaching the depths, so Kaufman continued. It was less a conversation seeking a response than a monologue.

"I get curious. How has this bastard lived? What kind of life brought him to this point? So I hear his story."

CLICK.

Kaufman aimed the crossbow at Najin.

"With my crossbow pointed at him like this."

"That's a nasty habit."

"It is. But if someone has something to say before they croak, shouldn't I hear them out? However shitty a life they've lived, a human being should at least get to leave some last words."

Kaufman looked at Najin's hand. Though he had pointed the crossbow at him in jest, Najin's hand at his waist had already drawn his sword halfway. What if Kaufman pulled the trigger now? He would respond instantly.

'Quick reactions.'

Kaufman laughed softly and lowered the crossbow.

"Of course, dark mages are an exception, so don't worry."

"Why are dark mages an exception?"

"Isn't it obvious? I told you. A human being should at least get to leave some last words."

Najin blinked, and Kaufman answered.

"Dark mages aren't human. They're beasts. Ungrateful, fucking beasts."

He spat the words out. His voice was venomous, his muttering steeped in deep resentment. He must have suffered something terrible at a dark mage's hands, Najin thought.

"It's coming into view."

"That iron gate looks like the entrance."

"Lead the way. I'll cover the rear."

As they walked and talked, they had reached the deepest part of the underground waterways. Passing through the iron gate, which had been twisted open, Najin thought:

'This place is fucking huge.'

Perhaps because it ran beneath the entire city, the waterway was horrendously vast. Nor was that all. It had been built when the Seven Circles dark mage Kephalon occupied the city.

In other words, it had been designed from the outset to conceal dark-magic research facilities and altars, and to give Kephalon and his disciples somewhere to hide and hold out.

Its layout was consequently a maze reminiscent of a spiderweb or an anthill. How long would it take to find a dark mage in a labyrinth like this? Flowing water and humid air erased traces, rendering Najin's usual tracking techniques useless here.

'Where do I even start...?'

But he did not ponder that question for long. There was no need to search for tracks.

SCRAPE... SCRAAAPE...

Beyond the sound of flowing water, he heard dragging footsteps. Najin looked toward the sound. A guard stood there. The uniform belonged to a city guard, but the skin was discolored blue, and the face was deathly pale.

This was no living soldier. A corpse that had already breathed its last was moving.

Magic that animated corpses was forbidden in the Empire, and only one kind of person took breaking such taboos for granted: dark mages. Sure enough, beyond the corpse stood two dark mages with their hoods pulled low.

SHING.

The moment Najin drew his sword, the dark mages swung their staffs. The water flowing through the underground channels began to bubble, and corpses started bursting from it. The meaning of their movements was simple.

They apparently had no intention of hiding or running.

As though they owned these waterways, they had chosen to intercept the intruders. Whatever their reasons or intentions, the same thought crossed Najin's and Kaufman's minds as they regarded the horde of corpses.

This just got easier.

At least they had been spared the trouble of searching.

3.

The only magic Najin had ever experienced was the blood-based magic used by Hakan the Junkie, the underground city's alchemist. Even that belonged to a branch of alchemy, strictly speaking, so calling it magic was questionable.

Thus, strictly speaking, this was his first time seeing proper magic. Najin looked beyond the moving corpses. The bodies reanimated through necromancy were merely a vanguard. Behind them, the dark mages were preparing their spells.

Black mana surged, gathering in midair. As it coalesced, two rings appeared—what mages called circles. The moment the strange characters inscribed on those rings flashed, Najin's body moved reflexively.

WHOOOSH!

A stake of bone shot through the air. Resembling a human spine, it slammed into the spot where Najin had stood a moment earlier.

"A textbook example of the necromantic school."

A voice rang in Najin's ears.

"A perfectly typical necromancer, commanding corpses and offering up their bodies to cast spells."

Listening with half an ear, Najin settled into his stance. He did not really understand how the spells were launched, but he could see the flow of mana disturbing the air.

"Their basic attack is a bone stake. See them pulling out bones over there? The corpses blocking your way are both their vanguard and the mediums for their dark magic."

Sword aura formed along Najin's blade.

"The next spell will be... Aha."

He bent his knees and lowered his stance. Drawing his sword back behind him, Najin narrowed his eyes.

"A bone marsh. Jump."

Almost simultaneously with Najin kicking off the ground, bone stakes erupted from the floor. It was a spell meant to prevent a swordsman from closing in—a thoroughly orthodox tactic that transformed the terrain into a trap, immobilizing the enemy to attack them from afar.

But it was easy enough to counter if you knew it was coming.

As he kicked off, Najin began running along the waterway's wall. His physical abilities, approaching those of a Sword Seeker, and his innate balance allowed him to run along it almost as fast as he could on the ground.

TH-TH-TH-TH-THUD!

Belatedly, bone stakes erupted from the wall as well, but they were too late. By the time they emerged, Najin had already leaped into the midst of the corpses. A dark mage hurriedly swung his staff.

The corpses swelled.

BOOM!

They exploded, scattering bone fragments in every direction. Dark mages of the necromantic school grew more troublesome with every additional corpse they could use as a medium. With this many bodies, shredding a single warrior was child's play.

That was what the dark mage thought as he detonated them.

Until he saw Najin hanging upside down, his sword embedded in the ceiling.

'When did he get there?'

The dark mage's eyes could not follow Najin's movements. By the time he activated his spell, Najin was already gone—as though he knew what would happen.

"It's over."

The voice ringing in Najin's ears was Merlin's. What his eyes saw was the flow of mana.

He knew when a spell would be launched, and Merlin whispered what form it would take.

In other words, it was like knowing exactly which direction an opponent's sword would come from, what path it would trace, and precisely when it would arrive. If he knew all that, there was no reason he couldn't counter it.

'When you said I wouldn't lose to a dark mage...'

Hanging upside down from the ceiling, Najin bent his knees.

'Is this what you meant?'

"I told you a low-level mage wouldn't catch you out through ignorance. Well... I suspect you'd have managed without my help."

BANG!

Najin kicked off the ceiling. Shooting diagonally toward the dark mage, he resembled an arrow. The mage swung his staff, firing bone stakes and drawing corpses toward him, but...

Najin twisted in midair, swinging his sword.

The moment the bone stakes touched his aura-clad blade, they crumbled to dust. As his spinning sword swept past, every corpse blocking his path split apart. Mere corpses could hardly stop sword aura that cleaved through stone walls and even steel.

SLASH!

His view cleared in an instant.

The dark mage's eyes widened as Najin landed right in front of him. The moment a mage allowed a swordsman to close in, the battlefield turned against him. And this dark mage had no means of reversing that disadvantage.

Najin's sword severed the mage's wrist. Sending the staff-holding hand flying, he reached out. Merlin had said that a mage needed fingers, a staff, or a mouth to cast magic.

"Unless they're an archmage, they're bound by syllables and circuits. Shut all of those down, and they won't be able to cast."

He had disposed of the hand and staff. That left the mouth.

Najin struck the dark mage's jaw with his palm. Once he had shut his mouth, he seized the mage's face.

The eyes of the dark mage, subdued in an instant, trembled.

Ignoring that, Najin glanced to the side. Two dark mages had greeted them. He had subdued one; what had happened to the other? The answer lay a short distance away.

"Ghk, ghrk..."

The other dark mage was pinned to the wall. An enormous bolt had pierced his abdomen and buried itself deep in the stone behind him. Impaled on it, he resembled a mounted insect specimen.

Looking back along the bolt's trajectory, Najin saw corpse after corpse with their upper and lower bodies separated. They looked as though their bodies had burst apart, but closer inspection revealed the marks of the bolt tearing through them.

It was a chilling scene for a single bolt to have produced.

At the far end of its path stood an expressionless Kaufman. As he loaded another bolt and began to move, a sound rang out.

CLICK.

The sound of a shoe heel echoed through the underground waterways.

Najin's head snapped around. It had come from a passage bending to the right. Though the turn concealed whoever was there, he could see a shadow cast upon the wall.

A shadow meant there was light.

The shadow swayed, as though its owner were holding a lantern. Najin threw aside the dark mage he had subdued and was about to step toward it when something moved.

An arm whipped out from around the bend.

Keeping their body hidden, the shadow's owner extended only an arm. It held a lantern burning blue.

The blue flame flickered. Its wavering light was reflected in Najin's eyes.

A burning flame. A swaying lantern. And an enormous shadow. The shadow cast on the waterway wall took the shape of a flame. The fire's shadow blanketed the channel.

WHOOSH.

Flameshadow swallowed Najin.