The answer is surprisingly close at hand.

So said Roselin Ascalo, who had spent three years trapped within her chrysalis but ultimately achieved emergence. Yet Najin could not quite understand her words.

A little over a month had passed since Najin became aware of a fragment of his mental image, and he was approaching the two-month mark.

Two months. Sixty days.

Those who became aware of a fragment of their mental image generally reached the Sword Seeker realm within forty days. After all, the crucial step in becoming a Sword Seeker was recognizing one's mental image, not the process that followed.

Yet despite having recognized his, Najin had been unable to move forward for nearly two months.

Of course, that was not a particularly long period of stagnation. But to Najin, who had always grown without impediment at dozens of times the speed of others, the very idea of being stuck felt unfamiliar.

'What's the reason?'

Emergence. Molting. The reconstruction of sword aura.

Najin could not get a grasp on that process. It all sounded as nebulous as trying to catch a cloud. Roselin had told him he ought to look back on himself.

“It certainly is a reasonable observation.”

Merlin's voice rang in his ears.

“It's only natural that you take longer than other people. Why? Because your mental image has two centers.”

Najin closed one eye.

What he saw then was the landscape within his mental image. A star suspended high above, and a star suspended down below.

“People usually hold only one mental image. They have a single center. But not you. Your mental image has two centers. That's strange...”

Merlin continued.

“And fascinating, too.”

'Then what should I do?'

“That's not something I can tell you. In fact, no one can. You have to find the answer yourself.”

Only then would it mean anything. Only then could it have meaning, Merlin said. Najin let out a long sigh.

“Still, if I were to give you a hint...”

Looking at the star suspended in the sky within Najin's mental image, Merlin spoke.

“Never compromise. Believe that the only true world is the one you hold within, not the one before your eyes.”

The archmage who had attained transcendence said,

“Have confidence in yourself, and yourself alone.”

That was the virtue required of those walking the path toward transcendence. Perhaps it was selfish, self-righteous, and even ruthless. Merlin smiled as she whispered those words.

2.

“Alcohol is life's lubricant.”

Leaving Najin lying spread-eagled in the field, utterly exhausted, he continued.

“Whether life is dry and dreary or shitty beyond belief, a drink makes it a little better. That's why I like alcohol. Sadly, I hardly feel a buzz these days.”

He sipped his drink as the breeze washed over him.

With an appreciative sigh, the man wiped his mouth, popped in a piece of dried meat, and looked as though he had the whole world in his hands. Najin glanced at the bottle and piece of meat he held.

Cheap liquor available anywhere.

A scrap of jerky that was nothing more than dried, salted meat.

They were utterly commonplace things, yet the moment the man before him enjoyed them, they ceased to be ordinary. Najin barely managed to raise his aching body and looked at him.

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

Najin smiled at the six-star Sword Master enjoying cheap liquor with jerky on the side.

“Your tastes are rather modest.”

“It's that simplicity that makes it meaningful. Care for a drink?”

“No, alcohol isn't really for me. I'll just have a piece of jerky.”

Najin accepted a piece of jerky from the Sword Saint and chewed it as he loosened his stiff shoulders. The Sword Saint had promised to check his swordsmanship every month or two, and today was the appointed day.

'Have I been swinging my sword for about half a day?'

His shoulders and arms screamed.

Even pouring everything he had into each strike, he could never reach his opponent. Having thrown himself at such an opponent for nearly half a day, it was only natural that his overworked body was screaming.

“Your sword has become much sharper. Your movements have improved, too. I take it you've met some worthy opponents?”

“I don't know about worthy, but I nearly died three or four times.”

The Sword Saint burst out laughing at Najin's answer and sipped his drink. With an appreciative sigh, he set down the bottle and motioned with his chin, inviting Najin to continue.

“I crossed swords with Sir Griffin, commander of the knights of the ducal House Arbenia.”

“Ah, the man who uses Trigardian's swordsmanship. A knight with a steadfast, uncompromising sword. Breaking through that steadfastness is exceedingly difficult.”

“Next, I fought Pauve, a Fourth Circle dark mage who owned the Masterpiece Flameshadow...”

“A dark mage with a Masterpiece? Interesting.”

“And I clashed with Kaufman Theosis, a former Ranger of the Techel Mountains. Ah, I think that was the most dangerous one. I actually nearly died several times.”

“Well...”

The Sword Saint laughed in disbelief.

“I'm hardly one to talk, but you lead quite a dramatic life. It can't be easy to encounter so many formidable enemies in such a short time. Were you going around challenging them to duels?”

“It just worked out that way. There are rather a lot of people trying to kill me.”

The Sword Saint merely shrugged at Najin's words.

He had already drawn a firm line: he would teach Najin swordsmanship, but would not involve himself in Najin's life in the slightest.

“Well, those are all experiences that will build you up. Nothing is more valuable than varied combat experience. Take this opportunity to train to your heart's content.”

“Don't I have to survive first for it to count as experience?”

“If that much kills you, then that was the extent of your potential. Survival itself is part of growing. There are experiences you can gain only on the boundary between life and death.”

Najin gave a hollow laugh. He felt it every time they spoke: Karon was hardly normal himself. He had a pronounced battle-maniac streak.

'If anyone else said that, it would just be empty bluster...'

But the Sword Saint repeatedly challenged the powerful, plunged into the border between the Battlefield of Stars and Camlann, and lived his life walking the tightrope between life and death. Najin could not simply dismiss his words.

“That's a rather extreme approach.”

“And the right one.”

The Sword Saint ran a hand over his sword hilt.

“Sir Gerd, Yuel, and I all set foot on the path to transcendence this way. We stepped onto countless battlefields without a thought for the value of our own lives.”

He grinned at Najin.

“Do you think just anyone can become a Sword Master? Only madmen become Sword Masters.”

“Including you, Sir Karon?”

“Of course. I consider myself normal, but by society's standards, I'm just another lunatic. I have no intention of denying that...”

Karon shrugged.

“But I'm probably the most normal of the Sword Masters currently active on the continent.”

Sword Saint Karon.

The murderous fiend, Yuel Razian.

Gerd, the Empire's foremost warrior.

Karon was claiming to be the most normal of the three Sword Masters. Yuel Razian was a hundred million years removed from normal to begin with, which left Gerd as the only comparison... Najin tilted his head.

“Isn't Sir Gerd the Empire's foremost warrior?”

“He is, yes?”

“He's an immensely powerful man who serves as a mainstay of the Empire... and you're more normal than he is?”

“What exactly do you think of me?”

Karon looked incredulous.

“You can only say that because you don't know Sir Gerd. That man knows nothing but the sword and the Empire. In a sense, he's even more of a madman than Yuel Razian.”

The sword and the Empire.

The two values that defined Gerd.

“For the Empire, he killed his own daughter and son with his own hands. He killed his wife and every one of his relatives. They were traitors. And that wasn't all. For the sword, he abandoned everything, including his humanity. His reason was that it interfered with wielding his sword.”

“...”

“Transcendence, the path toward perfection, is paradoxically completed by discarding something. That holds true for both Yuel Razian and me. But Sir Gerd...”

Karon held his tongue for a moment.

Then he let out a long breath and spoke.

“He's discarded more than he's kept. He reached transcendence by stripping away everything except the sword and the Empire. A frightening obsession.”

“That certainly is...”

“A being difficult to call human. And Yuel Razian goes without saying. Well? Doesn't the man sitting before you look a little more sensible now?”

Najin chuckled.

“I can't deny it.”

“Right?”

“Yes. All the more so when I recall meeting Lady Yuel.”

“What? You met Yuel?”

“Right after the battle with the dark mage. Lady Yuel had been dispatched to assess the situation, and I encountered her.”

“Good heavens.”

Karon was aghast.

“You nearly died. Truly.”

“Yes, I nearly died. Truly.”

“If you met Yuel, she must have taken an interest in you... You're in for a rough time.”

He gave Najin a sympathetic look.

“If she'd discovered then and there that you were my student, the Order of the Sword would have received a prettily wrapped head. Truly dreadful.”

'Good thing I kept my meeting with Karon a secret.'

Murmuring that inwardly, Najin nodded.

“Sir Karon.”

Then Najin spoke. This was what he had really wanted to discuss.

“Do you know about emergence?”

“I do. It's a path I traveled more than ten years ago.”

Karon narrowed his eyes.

“Come to think of it, you seem to have recognized a fragment of your mental image. Are you undergoing emergence?”

“More precisely, I'm stuck. I can't get a grasp on what reconstructing sword aura means.”

“Hmm.”

He slowly rose to his feet.

“Emergence. Molting. The reconstruction of sword aura. It sounds difficult in words, but it's actually simple and clear.”

In the wide-open field, Karon drew his sword.

“A sword is a paintbrush.”

The Sword Master, the Sword Saint, spoke of the sword.

“Sword aura is the paint that colors the brush.”

Sword aura blossomed over Karon's blade.

Najin could neither see nor comprehend the aura he had raised. The immense gulf between their realms distorted even perception.

“The sword is the brush, sword aura is the paint, and that paint is the mental image you hold within. Your mental image is your world.”

But the instant the Sword Saint swung his sword, the instant it advanced a handspan—

“To swing a sword is also to paint your world over the world itself.”

Najin's eyes saw it.

A landscape painted along the path of the Sword Saint's blade. It was the mental image the Sword Saint held within, the color of his soul.

SWISH.

The Sword Saint swung his sword lightly. Along its path, the world was painted over. Najin could not properly comprehend the landscape unfolding before him, but he had a rough idea of what the Sword Saint had done.

“This is the destination those who walk the path of the sword must pursue. And a Sword Seeker is a pilgrim searching for that path. They cannot yet swing their swords and color the world, but...”

Karon smiled as he sheathed his sword.

“Wherever their sword aura reaches, they make that space their own world. What they need to do so, above all else, is unwavering confidence in themselves.”

The Sword Master looked at Najin.

“In my eyes, you're imprisoning yourself. That isn't necessarily bad. Refining your conduct is admirable and deserves praise. But...”

He continued.

“It must not lead to denying yourself. You must not deny your own nature. Don't try to change everything at once. You cannot leap over all the steps toward perfection in a single bound.”

Karon prodded Najin over the heart with his scabbard.

“First, break the cage, boy.”

Then a new path would open.

“That's all for today's lesson.”

Karon waved as he walked away.

“I hope you'll be a seeker of the sword by the next time we meet.”

3.

At the center of Cambria, the City of Opportunity, where the Central Guild stood near the Merchants' Street, the Dieta Trading Company's building towered over a location rightly called the heart of the city.

And on its top floor sat a snake, coiled in place.

Dieta, the Snake That Swallows Gold.

She narrowed her eyes in an office surrounded by maps, documents, contracts, transaction vouchers, statements, and countless numbers and sentences. Her vivid yellow eyes, resembling gold coins, drank in the light of the mana-stone lamps and gleamed gold.

Money moves people.

People move money.

And wherever money moves, it naturally leaves traces. In other words, it leaves information. Any capable merchant had to know the paths gold coins had traveled, and the paths they would travel next.

In that sense, Dieta, the Snake That Swallows Gold, was an unprecedented merchant.

Her achievements were not the product of mere luck and a few coincidences. She had built them steadily from the bottom up, with astonishing speed and accuracy. How had that been possible?

Her eyes pursued gold coins. They pinpointed exactly where gold had flowed, where it would flow next, and where it gathered. That was the talent she had been born with and had honed over the past several years.

... And once she understood that entire process, creating a flow artificially was not difficult, either.

The Snake That Swallows Gold flicks a gold coin.

Just as a swordsman swings a sword, a mage works magic, and an archer fires an arrow, the Snake That Swallows Gold flicked a gold coin. That was her weapon.

The coin she flicked settled on the map.

Gold coins spread throughout the adventurers' city. Their form was not fixed. Sometimes they were people, sometimes commissions, sometimes stories exchanged in taverns. And so she created channels through which gold could flow.

Fish gathered in those channels made with gold coins, unaware that the waterways had been created artificially.

All Dieta had to do was cast her fishing rod into the current. Thus the angler waited with a fishhook made of gold coins hanging in the water. Time was on her side anyway. Indeed, she did not even need to wait very long.

With a snap of her fingers.

With a single flick of a gold coin.

She could control even the speed of the current as she pleased. The water surged swiftly. Fish began to be swept away by the powerful current. Their vision blurred by the wildly churning water, they finally took the bait.

“Found you.”

And the angler smiled.

For a fish was struggling on the end of her fishhook made of gold coins.