Ivan was a knight. He knew he could no longer be called one, yet he still considered himself a knight.

A knight was someone who upheld honor and pride.

Ivan had lost his honor, but he had not let go of his pride. He had lost his right eye, but he still had one eye left. Thus, he was at least half a knight, and though one-eyed, he could still see light with the eye that remained.

Because he was not blind. And because he was a knight.

'... You damned brat.'

Ivan had seen the radiance Najin produced, and he understood its worth. It represented immense potential. It was a brilliant light that must not remain buried in an underground city like this, a flame that anyone above who noticed it would be determined to trample out.

The radiance Najin possessed.

The potential Najin had revealed.

Neither should have emerged from this city where heretics were cast down, treated no differently from the accursed things of Camlann.

And so Ivan agonized.

The conversation he had shared with Offen over drinks last night echoed in his ears. Kill him, or let him live and nurture him. In all honesty, killing him was the right choice.

The latter was a gamble. If things went wrong, Najin would lose his head, and so would Ivan. By Ivan's standards, it was unmistakably an act of crossing the line.

A throb.

His missing right eye ached.

People had to live with the lot they were given. Those who failed to know their place and crossed the line would only come to grief. Ivan knew that better than anyone.

「Gouge out his eye.」

「Confiscate the masterpiece and cast him down.」

「You are no longer a knight of Atanga, Ivan.」

「You are merely a filthy heretic who dared reach for a star.」

He had reached for something beyond his grasp and lost everything. He had been thrown into the depths, where neither light nor stars could be seen.

'I have to kill him.'

People had to live according to their station.

So the right thing to do was to kill Najin, who would plainly become a danger, or at least make sure he could never wield a sword again.

That was what the ruler of the underground city in him said.

But the knight in him offered a different answer.

When he had been a knight, Ivan had once dreamed of reaching the pinnacle. Once, he had hoped to hang his own star in the night sky. The knight who had gazed up at the lofty heavens and run in pursuit of a star spoke. The dream you lost is right before your eyes.

Will you trample that dream beneath your filthy feet? the knight asked. Ivan could not answer.

"..."

Ivan remained silent.

At the end of that silence, he let out a long breath.

"This is going to drive me mad. It really is."

... Ivan was a knight.

He still wanted to be one.

Ivan made his decision.

2.

"This is going to drive me mad. It really is."

Ivan let out a hollow laugh.

Najin felt the pressure that had been choking him disappear. The tension eased in an instant. Before him, Ivan was laughing in disbelief.

"Why did you have to possess something like that? Why did you have to show it to me..."

He dragged a palm down his face.

With a long sigh, Ivan looked at Najin, hesitation in his eye. How much time passed like that? At last, as though he had made up his mind, Ivan spoke.

"Najin."

"... Yes, sir?"

Too breathless to answer properly, Najin struggled to get the words out.

Knowing he had nearly died, Najin looked at Ivan with fear in his eyes. Yet he also had questions about the light that had dwelled in his sword.

Curiosity and fear mingled in his gaze.

Meeting that gaze, Ivan spoke.

"Today, Offen and I are going to infiltrate Horse's territory. I'll be away for two days at the shortest, three or four at the longest..."

Ivan unfastened a sword from his waist.

He always carried two swords. One was the knight's sword he had brought from above; the other was a masterwork forged by old Hogel, the underground city's blacksmith.

It was Hogel's masterwork that Ivan handed to Najin. Najin accepted it without understanding why.

"Hold my place while I'm gone. If anyone gets uppity in my absence, cut them down with that. The fact that I've entrusted you with that sword is proof that you're acting on my behalf."

That was what Ivan said as he handed over the sword.

"And..."

One corner of Ivan's mouth curled upward.

"When I return, I'll teach you how to wield sword aura."

The thing he had put off time and again.

Najin blinked at Ivan's promise to teach him. Ivan shrugged.

"You don't look like you believe me at all."

"Didn't I just nearly die? Honestly, I'm scared you'll kill me under the pretext of teaching me."

"Hey, kid. Do I look like that much of a brute to you?"

Najin nodded.

Ivan smiled bitterly. Well, he couldn't deny it.

"You won't believe me, but I wasn't planning to kill you. I did consider giving you another scar on your shoulder if you failed to react in time."

"You're a complete piece of shit."

"It's all for a greater purpose, you damned brat."

Najin was still looking at him suspiciously. Ivan let out a long breath.

"Well, it's only natural you don't believe me. So I'll stake something you can trust."

"What?"

"What do you think? The weightiest thing I have to offer."

The one sword left at his waist.

Atanga's crest had been erased from it, but the sword still symbolized Ivan as a knight. It was like a part of him. The moment he laid his hand on its hilt, his demeanor changed.

"I swear on my pride as Ivan, knight of Atanga."

He spoke not as One-Eyed Ivan, ruler of the underground city,

but as Ivan, knight of Atanga.

"This is a bargain, Najin."

An offer, a bargain made in acknowledgment that the other person stood as his equal.

"From this moment on, I'm going to invest in you. I won't stop at teaching you to produce sword aura. I'll teach you everything I have."

That radiance you showed me just now.

I'll stake everything I have on that light.

"So you must rise higher than I did."

Do not stop at Sword Expert.

Reach the next level.

Reach the place I could not.

"Rise that high, and help me reclaim what I left behind in that damned world above. I mean become powerful enough to negotiate with them."

"... What did you leave behind up there?"

"Honor."

What a knight must possess alongside pride.

"My title as a knight of Atanga, and the honor of having once been a knight who pursued a star."

He extended his hand to Najin.

He added nothing more, but that outstretched hand was itself his offer.

"..."

Najin hesitated for a moment.

Then, at the end of his hesitation, he took Ivan's hand. Ivan hauled him to his feet and smiled.

"From today onward, you're my squire."

A squire. A knight in training.

"Squire to Ivan, knight of Atanga."

3.

Ivan's office.

Najin was watching over it in Ivan's absence. Perched in the chair where Ivan usually sat, he murmured blankly.

"What was that?"

Najin tapped the table with his index finger and tilted his head. He simply couldn't make sense of it.

'What on earth was that?'

His thoughts returned to a few hours earlier.

Najin mulled over his spar with Ivan. Thinking back, even the invitation to spar had been a little strange.

'He even used an iron sword, unlike usual.'

An iron sword, and a body strengthened with mana. And he hadn't stopped there—he had even used sword aura. When Ivan swung his aura-clad sword, Najin had truly sensed death coming.

'And then...'

At that moment, his body had moved on its own.

Reflexively, instinctively, he had moved, and radiance had gathered on his blade. Ignorant as Najin was of mana and sword aura, he still knew what had formed on his sword in that fleeting instant.

'Light. Mana. A fragment of sword aura.'

Proof that a warrior had reached the level of an Expert.

Then had he reached that level himself? That didn't seem to be the case. Najin took hold of the sword lying on the table and squeezed its hilt hard.

No sword aura emerged. He smacked his lips, then recalled the moment radiance had dwelled in his sword.

Something had pushed him from behind, and the moment the radiance formed, he had felt his strength drain away. He tried recalling that sequence of instinctive actions... but he had no idea how it had been possible.

"It feels like I dreamed it."

But pain lingered in his palms and body. That aching pain proved it had been no dream.

Then had he really produced sword aura?

How, when he hadn't even learned a mana training method? The only people in this underground city who could give him an answer were Ivan and Offen, and unfortunately, both had already left for Horse's territory.

"... I'll just ask when they get back."

He could ask now, after all.

Before leaving, Ivan had said it clearly. Once he returned from Horse's territory, he would tell Najin everything about sword aura and mana. It was knowledge Najin had craved for years.

Knowledge he had yearned for and wanted to learn, but which Ivan had never taught him. Ivan would evade his questions, saying it was too early for him, then warn him to stop if he pressed any further.

「When I return, I'll teach you. How to wield sword aura.」

Out of the blue, Ivan had offered to teach him those very things. To Najin, it had seemed as though Ivan was trying to kill him, only for him to suddenly reverse his attitude. Najin couldn't fathom what he was thinking, but...

There was one thing he did know.

'Ivan means it.'

His promise to teach Najin sword aura.

Najin could be certain, at least, that Ivan had not made that promise lightly.

「I swear on my pride as Ivan, knight of Atanga.」

Because Ivan had staked his pride on it.

Whenever Ivan made a promise using those two words—Atanga and pride—he always kept it.

'Without a single exception.'

That was the weight of Atanga, the weight of Ivan's word as a knight, and the weight of a past the one-eyed knight had yet to relinquish. Of course, Najin knew none of that. He only knew that whenever Ivan mentioned Atanga, he would keep his word, whatever happened.

'Anyway, what matters is...'

He could learn now.

'Learn what?'

With a small smile, Najin murmured,

"Mana, sword aura, proper swordsmanship."

The things he could now learn.

They were something special, things he had been unable to obtain in this underground city. Things he had never dared aspire to, because they lay beyond the line Ivan had drawn.

And they were...

Things that appeared in the storybook Najin always carried with him. Descriptions of King Arthur and the knights who followed him never failed to mention their "brilliant sword aura." Recalling those descriptions, Najin smiled.

He still couldn't see the stars.

But he felt a little closer to them.

"Squire to Ivan, knight of Atanga."

A knight's squire. A knight in training.

A squire, not Ivan's hound.

Savoring the resonance of that word, Najin ran his hand over the sword on the table.

It had a rather pleasing ring to it.

* * *

"Ivan has taken the bait."

In an underground mine tunnel connected to the mining grounds.

Horse the Spider spoke from his office in the deepest part of the tunnels. He was not talking to himself. Someone was listening to him.

"Give me what you promised."

"I'll give it to you. No need to pester me."

A woman sat perched on Horse's office desk. Grinning, she tossed a packet of drugs in front of him. With trembling hands, Horse tore the packet open and tipped its contents into his mouth.

Only then did his hands stop shaking.

Breathing hard, Horse glared at the woman looking down at him. A lunatic whose thoughts were utterly inscrutable. He spoke as he glared at her.

"What are you planning to do now?"

"What good would knowing do you? You don't need to know. Just do as you're told."

She propped up her chin and grinned.

"Come to think of it, your First Leg, Arnold, ran away. Did you tell him to?"

"... I had nothing to do with it."

"Well, it doesn't matter. We've lured Ivan out."

"What will you do with Arnold?"

"What do you think? He broke the rules, so..."

She extended her hand and pointed to a corner of the office. Members of Horse's organization hung limp behind the bars of a cage there.

"He'll end up like them."

The woman flicked her hand.

BZZZT!

A buzzing sound rang out. Immediately afterward, one of the gang members' bodies began to swell. Watching it happen, Horse closed his eyes without a word.

Blood and chunks of flesh flew.

"Ah, aaah..." Feeble groans filled the air.

Amid the noises echoing through his office, Horse clenched his teeth.