A beat late, everyone remembered his presence. He had vanished so naturally, leaving no trace of his presence anywhere, that he had slipped from everyone's attention.

General Patraxion sat perched atop a container, looking down at them with apparent boredom.

"I'm on leave, so I wasn't planning to work. I was just going to watch, because I was curious why on earth you'd bother with a container full of mail and chimera bean seeds."

The general hopped down. Landing without a sound, he walked forward with the leisurely steps of a man out for a stroll.

He held no weapon, yet Sir Waltzroy couldn't take his eyes off him, his entire body taut with tension.

It was as though the armed man and the unarmed man had traded places.

"But come on, you idiot. Challenging an old man to a duel? A duel? Leave him alone and he'll be dead soon enough anyway."

Sir Waltzroy gritted his teeth and shouted at the familiar face that had appeared out of nowhere.

"... Why? Why are you here? With them coming down now, no one should be heading this way!"

"So information really is leaking somewhere. The Resistance knows the operational directives better than we do, and they've barely been issued."

The general scratched his head as he answered.

"Have you ever seen me follow anyone's orders? The moment I saw that order, I put in for leave and came running. Coming here without taking leave would've been insubordination."

Their encounter with him here truly was nothing more than a combination of whim and coincidence. Realizing this, Sir Waltzroy muttered hollowly,

"... Damn it. Of all the rotten luck."

"Rotten luck? Isn't this better, actually?"

General Patraxion grinned, displaying his empty hands.

"Look. Here I am. No weapon, no subordinates protecting me. Defeat me in a duel here, and the Military State will stagger while your reputation soars. What do you say? Isn't that much more worthwhile than looting some container?"

But Sir Waltzroy knew better than anyone just how unrealistic that was.

Now numbered among the Military State's Six Generals, he had once been one of the kingdom's most promising knights.

The knight who defeated the Guardian Knight, the strongest of his age, and brought down the kingdom with his own hands.

The treasonous knight, Patraxion the Peerless Spear.

He was looking down at Sir Waltzroy with eyes full of exhilaration.

"Show me your spirit. Show me your resolve. Challenge someone you cannot defeat, and entrust the outcome to the embrace of glorious God. Come on. Your enemy, the traitor who brought down the kingdom, stands before you. Judge me openly in a duel!"

Facing the oncoming wind, Sir Waltzroy gripped his spear firmly. Yet for all the strength in his grasp, despair swelled within him.

He steadied his trembling hands and shouted to hide his fear.

"How dare a traitor who destroyed the kingdom speak of sacred duels...!"

"Treason? What nonsense."

BANG!

Just then, a Resistance member keeping watch at the rear abruptly fired. At the same instant, the general lightly swept a finger sideways.

The wind stopped.

In strength, a little finger cannot beat a thumb. However much you train it, even if it becomes stronger than someone else's thumb, it cannot beat the strength of that person's legs.

You cannot reach around behind your arm. Even with improved flexibility, merely touching it is the limit. The body was not designed that way.

All utterly self-evident. Strength, like anything else, has limits, and a weak point cannot overpower a strong point. A fundamental truth.

Yet when one's energy arts reach a certain level, there comes a point when they far transcend ordinary strength. A moment when power changes from an extensive property to an intensive one.

The general held a bullet between his fingers. It was a specialized round designed solely for greater penetration, meant to punch through bullet-repelling energy by any means possible. But it was nowhere near enough.

Radiating energy from his entire body, the general had seized control of the very space around him. So completely that a mere bullet could never hope to penetrate it.

Spinning the captured bullet between his fingers, the general spoke.

"What I did wasn't treason."

It had been an age when private duels ran rampant in God's name. When it was taken for granted that the strong would fatten themselves by exploiting the weak.

Corrupt merchants had learned to collude with knights who possessed military might, amassing wealth dishonestly and spreading the harm far and wide.

Indiscriminate duels followed one after another. The weak had to submit to survive. Seeking wealth and honor, the strong hunted for people weaker than themselves who had accumulated property.

God blessed the victors, while the dying were vilified as evil.

"I lawfully challenged the kingdom to a duel. I simply happened to win."

It was a tale now recounted as legend.

Standing with both feet planted on the outskirts of the capital, the Peerless Spear had shouted the formal challenge toward the distant royal castle.

The challenger: himself. His opponent: the kingdom itself.

The most brilliant knight became the treasonous knight.

The twilight of knighthood, and the first morning star to rise.

The man who had changed history let his shoulders droop in apparent disappointment and said,

"I managed that, but you can't even duel one man? You call yourself a knight, and you don't have even that much courage?"

"Are you trying to provoke me?!"

Sir Waltzroy's spear flashed without warning. Even with the general's energy gripping the wind, he shook it off with his own energy and thrust. A fierce strike meant to break through a single point, with no thought spared for what strength he would have left.

The general casually caught the spear with the bullet between his fingers. The spear tip met the tip of the bullet precisely, stopping in exquisite balance.

The general muttered,

"Your basics are decent, but you're not quite there. You've been slacking on your training lately, haven't you? Well, with no duels, I suppose there's no need to practice."

"You bastard!"

With his attack blocked, Sir Waltzroy twisted his spear, intending to spin the bullet away.

But his spear did not move. Groaning, he wrenched his arms. He gripped and twisted, then concentrated his strength into a momentary push.

The bullet did not budge. With its short, blunt tip, the general was receiving all that force as though performing a trick.

The only movement permitted to the knight was retreat.

"Try a little harder. Put your strength into it. Hold it with both hands."

As though playing a game, the general moved the bullet to follow Sir Waltzroy's spear.

At one point during that bizarre standoff, the general's guard opened for the briefest instant. Elation spread across Sir Waltzroy's face.

"You've let your guard down, Peerless Spear!"

CLICK.

Sir Waltzroy pulled something attached to the spearhead. Immediately, acrid smoke billowed out and the entire spear turned red. The shaft sucked in the surrounding air.

Sensing something unusual, the general muttered,

"Huh? Did I let my guard down?"

Waltzroy's weapon was a spear, yet not merely a spear. Its hollow shaft also served as a disposable gun barrel, with something built inside to fire a single shot.

By the time the general noticed, the explosion had already begun.

"Wow."

His remark was accompanied by a thunderous roar. The shaft detonated the air it had sucked in, firing a shell from within.

Its accuracy was abysmal and its durability atrocious, but once—just once—it could deliver a blow more powerful than anything else. The spearhead glowed red and spewed furious flames.

The hidden trump card of a knight who already possessed formidable martial prowess.

"What? You use a gun too?"

Even that was rendered powerless before strength that had reached such heights.

The general held no spear. But that hardly mattered. He could wield even the tiny bullet between his fingers like one.

An ultimate technique unfolded in his hand.

Though the bullet was only finger-sized, the general swept it forward and threw it like a spear. The shortest spear in the world traveled back up the barrel.

Launched from his fingers, the bullet pierced the very center of the explosion, carrying a tremendous torrent of force.

Guns and cannons, after all, merely confine an explosion within a steel barrel and direct its force one way.

Put simply, then, if your energy arts are stronger than steel, overcoming guns and cannons is remarkably easy.

The general's energy was stronger than the barrel. Blocked by the storm the bullet brought with it, the explosion inside the spear shaft scattered every which way like a disorganized mob.

Unable to withstand the force, the shaft finally burst from within. With even his trump card thwarted, Sir Waltzroy stared blankly down at the shaft, broken in the middle.

"So even a knight couldn't resist the changing times. Abandoning the spear for a gun... But my spear won, so doesn't that mean spears are better than guns after all?"

He seemed entirely oblivious to the fact that what he had just fired was a bullet, not a spear. Sir Waltzroy staggered back until he stood with his back to the container.

'... He's in a different league. I can't win. I probably can't even escape. Damn it.'

Having felt the gulf between them, Sir Waltzroy glared desperately at General Patraxion. His heart held neither a loser's shame nor anger, but only a sense of bitter injustice.

He shouted,

"Damn it. Why? You could have lived like a king in the kingdom. No, you could have reigned like a god! Why?! Why did you abandon the kingdom?!"

Faced with the anguished cry of a man driven from privilege, General Patraxion merely picked his ear, unperturbed.

"If you want to play god, go down a well and become the god of the frogs. Why struggle so hard to crawl out? If you're going to fight, fight someone strong. Isn't that the real pleasure of a duel?"

The implication was that Waltzroy was nothing more than a frog in a well.

Stung by the insult, Sir Waltzroy gritted his teeth and muttered low,

"... Everyone."

Sensing trouble, the Resistance members had been crouching inside the container. They waited there for Sir Waltzroy's orders.

Having called to them, Sir Waltzroy spoke with an ominous gleam in his eyes.

"Scatter. Run! Take hostages, flee, whatever! Find your own way to survive!"

At once, the Resistance members burst out in every direction like a swarm of rats spilling from a hole. While the general briefly turned his gaze toward them, Sir Waltzroy kicked off the ground too.

'A hostage! I need a hostage!'

Looking around for his only means of survival, Sir Waltzroy spotted the mother clutching her son. He immediately moved toward her, swinging his spear in every direction.

But he did not get far.

"I thought you might do that."

Colonel Gand, General Patraxion's disciple, blocked his path. His plain, standard-issue spear easily swept Sir Waltzroy's aside.

Thwarted once again, Sir Waltzroy glared at the colonel's spear.

"How dare the likes of you wield a spear against me!"

The Peerless Spear was one thing, but he could not lose to a mere subordinate.

Half out of stubborn pride, half from cold calculation, Sir Waltzroy extended his broken shaft. The shortened spear cut through the wind, targeting Colonel Gand's vital points in rapid succession.

Yet Gand handled his attacks with paper-thin dodges and deflections.

"Ever since knights went extinct, I've regretted never having the chance to cross spears with one."

CLANG.

Gand drove Sir Waltzroy back with a broad sweep of his standard-issue spear and muttered dispassionately,

"Now that I've finally fought one, I'm disappointed. Is this all you have?"

"You dare lecture a knight on spearmanship! Pay for that arrogance with your life...!"

Enraged, Sir Waltzroy drew up all the energy in his body. Making his whole body into a single spear, he lowered himself and thrust diagonally upward. Ghostly fire bloomed from the energy-laden spearhead.

His all-out killing move: Goblin Spear. A technique bearing the embarrassingly grandiose epithet that every flash of its goblin fire claimed another life.

Seeing the spear rushing toward his throat in an instant, Gand thrust to meet it. Their shafts crossed, and their blades sought each other's lives without regard for defense.

SKRITCH.

The shafts scraped against one another. Drops of blood dripped down a spear blade. Victory was decided by someone's death.

Colonel Gand muttered indifferently,

"You're the one who should know better. Knowing who my master is, how dare you challenge me with a spear?"

"Ghk...!"

The voice comes from the throat. Thus, with a spearhead lodged in your throat, you cannot speak.

And so Sir Waltzroy could say nothing. Bloody froth bubbled from his mouth before he crumpled helplessly. Gand retrieved his spear and twirled it.

General Patraxion strode over to Gand.

"Hey. You've gotten better, haven't you? I'd say you're ready for a general's star."

"Do you think stars get handed out just because you ask for one? I need military achievements first."

"You've got enough service under your belt. What do you need achievements for? If you want them, go somewhere on your own. Following me around all the time is why you keep losing credit."

"How can I go off on my own when you haven't even taught me your ultimate technique yet, Master?"

"What, am I holding something of yours? Why are you looking to me for your ultimate technique?"

Colonel Gand looked around for the other Resistance members, but soon realized there was no point.

Everyone who had scattered in all directions was already a corpse.

The only ones left were the captain, the old combat engineer, and me. Oh, and the mother and son who had nearly become hostages.

Amid the slaughter, the general shrugged and announced loudly,

"Well! Surprised? I'm actually General Patraxion, currently on leave. I was on my way somewhere on personal business, so I concealed my identity. Anyone have a problem with that?"

Naturally, no one was about to speak up. The captain and I shook our heads vigorously. Our reaction was relatively restrained; the old combat engineer was so overwhelmed at meeting a legend of the Military State that he could hardly breathe.

The general turned to me with a grin.

"Hey, little brother. Let me ask you again. Which is better, spears or guns?"

I answered readily.

"Spears. Without a doubt."