Their eyes met, close enough for their breaths to mingle.

With Dieta still gripping his collar, Najin looked into her eyes. They gleamed bright yellow—eyes the ducal House Arbenia called golden eyes, or sometimes gold-coin eyes.

He faced his own reflection in them.

His eyes were badly bloodshot, with faint shadows beneath them. Seeing the face he had so often worn while living in the underground city, Najin caught his breath.

TAP.

Dieta released his collar and took a step back. Najin remained silent for a while. Had he been walking around looking like that ever since his encounter with Kaufman?

'Merlin.'

"Yes?"

'Have I been walking around looking like a ghost?'

"You actually look better now, I'd say."

Merlin sighed.

"You looked ready to tear someone apart. Why do you think the adventurers backed away whenever you came near?"

Najin said nothing.

It was a lingering habit, ingrained in him during his life as a hound in the underground city. Indeed, whenever a mistake or a lapse in vigilance endangered his life, he had always behaved this way.

'It certainly did help, but...'

Ivan had never liked it. Whenever he saw Najin walking around wide-eyed and tense from head to toe, he would click his tongue.

["You've got more than a day or two left to live."]

["Keep going around like that and you'll make yourself sick. Relax. Hey, are you going to loosen up or not? Look at this brat, still tensing up."]

At times like those, Ivan would hook an arm around Najin's neck and give his head a few light knocks. He would also clap those taut shoulders and threaten to kill him if he didn't relax.

["Come along. We're going for a drink."]

["It's broad daylight, Ivan."]

["Kid, that's when booze tastes best. Besides, a capable, levelheaded boss like me has to get fucking hammered and make a drunken fool of himself once in a while. Gives me a human touch."]

["You've got plenty of that without even..."]

["Hey. Quit arguing and come along."]

Once Najin finally had no choice but to relax, Ivan would sling an arm around his shoulders and drag him to a tavern. He would sit Najin, who was still too young to drink, beside him, rambling nonsense and ruffling his hair.

Because they had shared times like those, Najin had feared Ivan, but never disliked him. Remembering those moments, he fell silent.

"..."

Those were times he could never return to now.

Ivan was no longer there to smack his shoulders and loosen him up whenever he grew tense. The boy who had left the underground city had to become an adult—one who took care of himself without anyone else's help.

"Whew..."

Najin let out a long, very long breath.

He did need to remain alert. He couldn't afford to neglect his training, either. His life was under threat, and he had no way of knowing when or where an attacker might appear.

But... he also had to admit that this sort of vigilance would do him little good.

'It isn't as though this will make me a Sword Seeker.'

As he exhaled, Najin relaxed his shoulders and the tension around his eyes. Fatigue washed over him as the strain eased, and his shoulders ached. Loosening his tightly clenched muscles, he happened to look at Dieta.

She had turned away and was fanning her face with her hand. Despite the chilly breeze coming through the open window, she looked hot. Najin spoke her name.

"Dieta."

"Y-yes?"

The boldness with which she had pulled him by the collar was nowhere to be seen. Watching her gaze waver, Najin smiled wryly.

"We're friends, aren't we?"

"... We agreed to that in the carriage, remember? To be friends from now on."

"We did. In that case, you're my only friend..."

His only friend. His one and only. Dieta's eyes lit up at those words, and Najin continued. Hadn't she said a friend was someone you could confide in?

"Would you listen to a friend's troubles?"

"Of course. Come sit over here."

The trading company's building was still bare, with no furniture yet. Najin and Dieta settled into a corner.

"So, what's troubling you?"

"Before I begin, there are a few things I should say... Just hearing this could put you in danger. My background is rather complicated. Would you still be all right with it?"

"... How dangerous?"

"Dangerous enough to be assassinated by someone at Sword Seeker level."

"Wow."

Dieta gave a brief exclamation.

"That's quite a problem. Did you commit some sort of crime?"

"I've been a sinner since birth."

"Are you some traitor's illegitimate child? Or a direct descendant of a rebel?"

"I don't think my parents were anyone that important. But it seems they did something to fall out of favor with an order."

"So an order is your enemy."

Listening quietly, Dieta stroked her chin and closed her eyes with a thoughtful hum. A few seconds passed. Then she opened her eyes and glanced at Najin.

"We're friends, aren't we?"

"... You just said we were."

"Then you're my first friend, Najin, and I don't want to distance myself from the first friend I've ever made. It won't be easy, but I'll accept the risk."

"So," she said, "tell me. What's going on?"

Najin looked at Dieta.

Her gaze did not waver.

... Of course, there was no guarantee Dieta was on his side.

They were on good terms, but he couldn't be certain she would remain his ally after hearing everything. They hadn't been together long enough to forge a bond that close.

'But...'

However short their time together had been, it was enough to get to know the person she was. And she had said they were friends. Najin wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe those words were sincere, not lies or deception.

So perhaps this was a gamble.

"Do you know of a place called the underground city of Atman?"

For the first time, Najin told another person where he came from.

2.

Najin confided his situation to Dieta, leaving out everything related to Excalibur. If he told her about that as well, the danger she would have to accept would extend far beyond a mere Sword Seeker.

He spoke for some time, and Dieta listened without a word.

"... And that's how I've ended up here."

Having finished his story, Najin looked at Dieta.

She was looking back at him with exactly the same expression as before. A little tense, he waited for her to speak.

"I expected you to have an unusual background, but it's even more complicated than I imagined. I never could have guessed this."

Dieta murmured as though slightly surprised.

"Still, if you're from the underground city, it all fits. That odd sense that you're detached from the world, and the lack of any proper identification records."

She gave a firm nod, as though she had settled something in her own mind. She even looked refreshed, as if a long-standing question had finally been answered.

Najin found her reaction bewildering.

"... Is that all?"

"What?"

"I expected a little more... some other reaction..."

Shock, withdrawal, a frown at learning he came from the underground city—the usual reactions. At the very least, Najin had expected her to look at him differently. But none of that happened.

Dieta simply looked at him just as she had before hearing his story.

"Don't tell me..."

Dieta tilted her head with a mischievous smile.

"Did you actually think I'd be afraid of you, or despise you for coming from the underground city?"

"..."

"Wow. Judging by that silence, you did. I'm a little disappointed if that's what you thought of me."

Dieta frowned.

"What does it matter where you're from? Or how complicated your background is? Whatever your past, it doesn't change the fact that you saved me."

"That was..."

"Because you promised, and keeping a promise is only natural. That's what you'd say, isn't it? I know. That's the sort of person you are."

She covered her mouth and chuckled.

"Someone who calls things natural when they're anything but, and plunges into unreasonable actions without weighing the gains and losses. That's who you are."

"And yet," Dieta said, glancing at him, "you don't expect any of that from others. You don't think that because you act that way, others will treat you the same. It's admirable that you do it without expecting anything in return, but..."

Dieta moved a handspan closer.

"Surely you can expect it from a friend, though? At least one person needs to give you an unexpected response as though it's perfectly natural. That way, you'll understand how surprising and bewildering the things you've done really are."

"How do you feel right now?" Dieta asked, poking his side.

"Surprised? Bewildered?"

"... Honestly, yes. I am."

"You have no idea how surprised I was that day. Well, that's what I mean. Your story is certainly shocking, but it's no reason to distance myself from you. Much less a reason to hate you."

Najin was silent, and Dieta smiled.

"We're friends, aren't we?"

"..."

"What is it? Are you a little touched? Do I suddenly mean a lot to you? I'm joking. Why are you taking it so seriously..."

"I am."

"... What?"

"I said that's how I feel."

Dieta's face turned bright red.

Najin smiled at her.

"Having a friend really is nice. I feel a little better after talking about it."

"Uh, um..."

"Thank you. For saying that."

While Dieta stammered, her mind brought to a standstill by that unexpected blow, Najin relaxed. Ever since escaping the underground city, he had kept his body tense.

The fact that Excalibur had chosen him.

The fact that he carried Ivan's and Offen's lives on his shoulders.

Those things had kept him from relaxing. But not at this moment, at least. His expression grew natural, and his voice and manner of speaking changed a little, too.

"Talking about it is making the back of my neck ache. Maybe I should just attack them first instead of waiting to be ambushed. That doesn't sound half bad."

"What...? Najin, you do know the Order of Star Radiance has a Master-level fighter called the Lighthouse Keeper, don't you?"

"I'm joking. If I charged in now, they'd neatly chop off my head and put it on display. I'm not that stupid."

Dieta blinked as Najin shrugged. A joke? He was joking? She had never seen him talk this way before.

A lighter tone. A relaxed face.

He seemed far removed from the Najin who had always answered stiffly and without expression. In fact, though, this was closer to his natural personality and manner of speech. He had talked this way in the underground city, too.

He had merely been correcting himself because he thought such words and behavior were unbecoming of a knight. After a moment of bewilderment at his changed demeanor, Dieta spoke.

"Anyway, thank you for telling me."

Then she brought up something Najin hadn't expected at all.

"Now we should work out what to do about it, shouldn't we?"

3.

["I've already thought of a few things."]

["Ways to keep you safe from assassination within Cambria, at least... I'll organize my thoughts and tell you on the way back."]

["We're on a short holiday right now, after all. Let's relax while we're in Camelot before heading home. All right?"]

Turning Dieta's words over in his mind, Najin walked the streets of Camelot. She had said she had company business to attend to and would see him again that evening, so he needed to pass the time until then.

For now, he was simply wandering without a destination.

Everything was unfamiliar. The people passing along the streets dressed completely differently from those in Cambria, and every shop lining the roads was new to him. As befitted the imperial capital, everything sparkled wherever he looked.

'Those are the most fascinating things, though.'

Najin raised his head.

The soaring mage towers came into view. Though they stood far away, their presence was astonishing: they were visible from anywhere in the Empire.

And there was something with a presence to rival those mage towers—or perhaps surpass them.

Najin glanced at the five towers surrounding the imperial palace. They symbolized the Five Pillars supporting the Empire, each tower bestowed upon one of those pillars. He had heard that Sword Master Gerd lived in one of them.

'The Empire's Sword Master.'

The Empire's foremost warrior.

An old man who was both the Empire's First Pillar and the one known as the emperor's sword. An unusual figure who moved about in an old man's body, even though anyone at Sword Seeker level or above could preserve their body in its prime, unaffected by aging.

What sort of person was he, and what sort of swordsmanship did he use?

That curiosity suddenly stirred in Najin, but he soon shook his head. He had happened to encounter two Sword Masters, but normally they surely weren't people one could meet so easily.

Leaving it as idle curiosity, Najin walked on. Before he knew it, he was standing in front of a smithy.

"Good heavens. With mountains of things to see, how do you unerringly find a smithy? You came all this way just to look at one...?"

Merlin's groan echoed in his ears.

Still, what could he do? He had found it.

He had heard the sound of a sword being hammered from far away and merely followed it. As Najin was looking at the swords on display at the smithy...

"..."

He felt someone watching him.

Turning his head slightly, he saw a girl sitting in front of the smithy, glaring at him. She wore light armor and had a sword at her waist.

And engraved on her armor was an emblem Najin knew well.

Two swords, partly hidden behind a shield. The emblem of an Atanga knight. Come to think of it, he had seen that girl somewhere before. Had it been when he encountered the Atanga knights after fighting the Demon Knight Berheigen?

JINGLE.

Just then, the bell on the smithy's door rang, and a knight stepped out through the open doorway. His eyes met Najin's.

"Why, aren't you...?"

Argo, a knight of Atanga.

The knight Najin had met during the Demon Knight subjugation widened his eyes in recognition.