First the dark mage Pauve, then Kaufman.

Exhausted from back-to-back battles against formidable enemies, Najin dragged himself through the underground waterways. His steps were heavy, and his eyelids kept falling shut.

'I feel like death.'

Najin let out a long breath. Even with Excalibur's healing power and a potion, mental exhaustion and critical wounds could not be healed in an instant.

Still, he had work to do.

He retrieved Pauve's corpse, which he had discarded while fleeing Kaufman, and headed up. By the time he emerged from the underground waterways after the long climb, dawn was already breaking.

Warm sunlight shone down in the early morning.

After so long in the dark, sunlight felt rather unfamiliar. Najin frowned and blinked a few times. Only once his eyes adjusted could he take in his surroundings.

"..."

"..."

People had gathered at the entrance to the underground waterways: inquisitors from the Order of Starblood and the mercenaries assigned to assist them. A few noticed Najin and turned toward him.

Then—huh?

They stared at him with wide eyes before noticing Pauve's corpse dragging behind him. Their eyes widened further, and cries of astonishment escaped their mouths.

They had been checking their equipment and reviewing the operation in preparation for entering the waterways that morning.

Instead, they were confronted with the news that everything had already been taken care of. The dark mage's corpse in Najin's hand proved it. As even the composed inquisitors stared in shock, Najin exhaled at length.

Then he took a few steps forward.

He approached his employer, Hite, who stood among the mercenaries and inquisitors, and set down the corpse.

"Good heavens..."

Hite let out a long sigh.

"Truly remarkable."

Hite had asked Najin to resolve the matter as quickly as possible—or, as the advance party, at least weaken Pauve enough to prevent any more deaths among the inquisitors.

Najin had fulfilled both requests perfectly.

It was the swift, clean resolution Hite and the city's lord had wanted, but...

Events did not unfold as they had hoped.

Contrary to their wishes, this incident could not end quietly. Beneath the city, the workshop of Kephalon, a Seven-Circle dark mage, had been discovered.

The day after that news broke, the Order of Starblood made its move.

2.

After giving his critical wounds only basic first aid, Najin slept like a log for an entire night in the guest room Hite had provided. That alone cleared his mental exhaustion, but the gaping holes in his body were another matter.

'He sure punched some big holes in me.'

Kaufman had been a warrior on the level of a Sword Seeker.

True to that reputation, the holes he had left had yet to close completely. Of course, Najin's healing ability already exceeded human limits, so it did not look as though it would take much longer.

He wrapped himself in bandages to conceal the healing wounds and went outside. When he reached the reception room, people were waiting to hear his account.

"Please explain in detail how you defeated Pauve..."

Najin answered their questions.

He told them everything: how he had defeated Pauve, and how he had discovered Kephalon's workshop while pursuing her as she fled.

Of course, the inquisitors had already located the workshop. The blood trail's unnatural break had allowed them to pinpoint its location.

"Oh dear..."

His employer, Hite, groaned as he listened. In the end, the order's intervention had become unavoidable. Yet he could hardly hold Najin responsible. With a sigh, Hite spoke.

"Where is Sir Kaufman Theosis?"

Najin had returned from the underground waterways alone.

Nor had Kaufman's corpse been found. After a brief silence, Najin answered.

"He fell in battle against the dark mages."

That was the response Najin had chosen.

Revealing that Kaufman had been the order's hound, and that he had died at Najin's hands, would only complicate matters.

'Not yet.'

The strength, the political power, and the justification to bring down the order.

Only once he possessed all three would the contract Kaufman had handed him be put to use again.

"... I see."

Hite pressed his fingers to his brow.

During their pursuit of Pauve, she had fled to Kephalon's workshop and cast the Fourth-Circle spell Hunger of the Dead, killing Kaufman.

That was Najin's account of Kaufman's death.

Hunger of the Dead turned its targets into undead, and those undead crumbled when the caster died. It was only natural that no trace remained. This also matched the inquisitors' findings.

'Traces remain of the Fourth-Circle spell Hunger of the Dead, cast using the sacrifices prepared in the workshop as mediums.'

Everything fit.

But Hite, who would have to announce Kaufman's death, could hardly help feeling sick. A White Horn-ranked adventurer had died, and the estimated threat level had been misjudged.

'This was negligence on our part.'

The damages they would owe the Cambria Foundation would be no small sum. Hite's brow furrowed.

"Thank you for your work. Your commission payment will be delivered through Cambria's Central Guild."

With that, Hite left the reception room, his steps as heavy as could be. Najin watched him sigh repeatedly, looking thoroughly miserable, then reached for a newspaper lying in the room.

He wanted to see what had happened during the night he had spent asleep.

The moment he opened the newspaper and read the first page, Najin understood why Hite had reacted that way—why he had looked not merely miserable, but half dead.

「Dark Mage Pauve, Who Fled Beneath Regenof, Successfully Slain Following Pursuit.」

「However, a Facility Discovered Beneath Regenof.」

「Workshop of Kephalon, the Dark Mage Who Terrorized the Empire Decades Ago, Discovered...」

Lines summarizing the situation.

After those small lines, a much larger headline caught Najin's eye.

「Order of Starblood Intervenes.」

「The Order's Executioner, Dame Yuel Razian, Announces Her Intention to Visit Regenof.」

A workshop left behind by a Seven-Circle dark mage.

This was not something they could simply overlook. It was the perfect justification for mobilizing the main force of the Order of Starblood, which passed judgment upon wicked and unholy things.

And so the order had deployed its instrument of execution.

The being known as a walking tribunal.

The order's executioner, Yuel Razian.

A Sword Master bearing six stars was coming to Regenof. Najin finally understood the commotion outside.

This was not the bustle of preparations to welcome a celebrity or hold a festival. It was closer to the opposite.

Doors were being locked, streets cleared, shops closed, and every stall packed away. Amid the commotion, the streets were emptying. In a few hours, they would probably be deathly quiet.

To Najin, it looked just like the underground city's residents preparing to receive someone from the "upper district."

3.

The order's executioner, Yuel Razian.

Najin knew very little about her.

He had researched all the Sword Masters before, but information about Yuel Razian was astonishingly scarce.

The Empire's first pillar, Gerd, the Empire's foremost warrior.

The master of the Order of the Sword, Karon the Sword Saint.

The executioner of the Order of Starblood, Yuel Razian the murderous fiend.

Although she stood among the three most renowned Sword Masters of this era, the information available about her amounted to a mere handful compared with the other two.

Her origins, her life, her swordsmanship, her sword aura...

None of it had been made public.

Someone destined to become a Sword Master would normally distinguish themselves from childhood, yet nothing was known of hers. At most, there were records like these.

『A ghost roams the Dawn War.』

『There is a girl who wanders with long, snow-white hair trailing behind her. She kills defeated soldiers. She survives by tearing into corpses and eating them. If you encounter her, flee without looking back.』

『Estimated rank: Sword Seeker.』

An eyewitness account from a war fought more than 150 years ago.

『There is an insane murderous fiend.』

『A group led by a dark mage was annihilated by a white-haired girl. A Six-Circle dark mage was brutally slain.』

『The girl, drenched in blood, came to the Order of Starblood with 182 dark mage corpses and demanded payment. The High Priest was so shocked that he collapsed into his seat.』

An anecdote from eighty years ago.

『Executioner of the Order of Starblood.』

『Yuel Razian.』

『Reached the realm of Sword Master a little over ten years after receiving baptism from the High Priest.』

That was everything known about her life.

She had existed at least 150 years ago and reached the realm of Sword Master seventy years ago. Once someone became a Sword Master, they were freed from the limits of a natural lifespan, so even her age was unknown.

All of that remained a mystery, but the history she had stained with blood was fully recorded in the Empire's history books.

Where dark magic, demons, and wicked, unholy things ran rampant, Yuel Razian went. And once there, she slaughtered everything involved. As though she enjoyed murder itself, she showed no hesitation in killing and dismembering people.

Everywhere she went was stained blood-red.

Thus the world feared her and held her in awe. It was around then that she acquired the insult "murderous fiend," but Yuel herself burst out laughing and adopted it as her epithet. She liked it.

"She's a completely crazy bitch."

Merlin muttered with her chin propped on her hand.

"You have no idea how much Bedivere and I screamed when she became a candidate for Excalibur. That bitch is just a walking butcher of human beings."

Her voice was full of disgust.

"To become a Sword Master, you have to master swordsmanship, awaken your mental image, and know how to shake the world with your sword. But back in my day, some lunatic proposed a theory."

'A theory?'

"Yes. It was deranged. How did it go again?"

Swing a sword and kill people.

Drink their blood, listen to the final screams of their souls, and draw close to death itself.

"It's a little complicated if you get into the details, but here's the gist. Kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people with a sword, and you can reach the realm of Sword Master without a mental image or swordsmanship or any of that."

Najin let out a disbelieving laugh.

'What kind of deranged...'

"Right? Even in my day, people called the scholar who proposed it a crazy bitch."

Merlin sighed.

"And Yuel Razian is the person who actually did it. Someone who became a Sword Master by killing enough people."

Someone who had neither grasped the mysteries of the sword nor projected her mental image upon the world, but simply reached the pinnacle by swinging her sword and killing, over and over.

"..."

Najin fell silent.

Just then, a carriage approached in the distance. It bore the emblem of the Order of Starblood. The carriage stopped on the deserted street.

CREAK.

At last, its door opened. Despite the carriage's ornate exterior, it carried only one passenger. The honored guest, who had arrived without a single escort, stepped outside.

CLICK.

A young woman emerged from the carriage. Snow-white hair fell to her waist, and her skin was so fair it looked pallid. She seemed composed entirely of a single color—except for her eyes.

Eyes as red as blood.

After stepping down from the carriage, she looked at Najin.

The moment his gaze met those red eyes, a chill crawled up Najin's spine. Visions flashed before him: his head severed from his body, blood pouring out of him.

He barely managed to seize his left hand with his right before it could reflexively draw the sword at his waist. Cold sweat ran down his back.

He had never felt anything like this before.

Yuel Razian's presence was utterly unlike Karon's. She radiated unrestrained killing intent, and the sight of her was chilling beyond measure. When Najin glanced beside him, he found that his employer Hite, who had been standing there, had collapsed with his eyes rolled back.

"See? I told you she's a crazy bitch."

As Merlin muttered in disbelief, Najin raised his head. Yuel Razian was watching him from a distance. He saw the corners of her utterly expressionless mouth move, ever so slightly.