Two had come, but three would return.

As Kyle instructed, Aslan had neither bathed nor trimmed his hair and beard. He had not even been allowed to change his clothes. Still dressed in what amounted to rags, he sat hunched and fidgeting in the VIP lounge at the Kingdom of Valian’s warp gate.

‘Twelve years... Twelve years?’

Naturally, Aslan had never intended to remain in seclusion for so long. The insight that had driven him to seclude himself had seemed just within his grasp, yet remained elusive. He had thought that if he committed himself to seclusion and focused on his sword, he would grasp it in no time.

And yet twelve years had passed. Every time he considered that vast stretch of time, a sigh welled up from deep within his chest.

That insight, forever just beyond his grasp. Had it felt distant at all, he would have ended his seclusion midway and gone outside at least once to clear his head. But the damned thing had remained tantalizingly close and out of reach to the very end.

As he immersed himself in it, he had lost all sense of time, as though that faculty had broken altogether. At some point, his body had even ceased to require food or drink, and Aslan had become utterly absorbed in his own world.

It was all just excuses. Swallowing yet another sigh, he stole a glance at Kyle, seated across from him.

‘My... and Arian’s... son...’

Red hair and golden eyes were practically the hallmarks of Alastor purebloods, but his son’s coloring was brighter and softer than that of Julius, who sat right beside him.

His hair was as red as rose petals, his eyes golden—just like Arian’s. His face bore many resemblances to hers as well.

‘His lower face takes after mine... And his talent for the sword, too...’

No. That was wrong. Aslan recalled the terrifying, murderous killing intent he had witnessed earlier, along with that unbelievably precise mana control and swordsmanship. He was confident that his own talent for the sword was exceptional—but his son’s far surpassed it.

‘Is it the Alastor blood...?’

He could only steal glances. He could not bring himself to approach Kyle. There was the pressure Julius exerted, sitting beside him with his arms crossed, but more than that, Aslan had enough shame to know his place.

He had not been there when his son was born. He had not watched him grow this big. Despite the boy’s extraordinary gift for the sword, he had taught him nothing... He had even made his son come looking for his father first. All of it weighed heavily on Aslan’s shoulders.

“Father, has your hair always been that color?”

Kyle addressed Aslan, who sat with his head bowed, wallowing in self-loathing.

“Uh... Huh?”

“Your hair. It’s gone white like an old man’s.”

Kyle found the sight of Aslan sitting tight-lipped, hunched, and restless irritating. Yes, it was Aslan’s fault that he had been absent for twelve years. But whatever had led them here, they had met now, and time was still passing even at this moment.

If he had squandered all those years, shouldn’t he make the time ahead rich and meaningful? He could wallow in self-loathing when he was alone. When they were together, he ought to do his utmost for his son.

“My... my hair used to be brown. It faded like this during my seclusion...”

“Was seclusion fun?”

“Well... that...”

“Be honest. Just be honest. Don’t say things you don’t mean out of guilt toward me or Mom.”

Kyle snorted and folded his arms.

“You secluded yourself for the sword. For twelve whole years. If all that time in seclusion brought you results you’re satisfied with, I can understand. Mom probably can too.”

“...”

“But understanding doesn’t mean forgiveness. If you want us to forgive you, treat Mom and me well from now on.”

“Hah.”

Julius chuckled softly at his grandson’s clearheaded words, while Aslan’s eyes trembled. His son’s words struck a chord in the guilty father’s heart. Tears began to fill his wavering eyes.

“Don’t cry.”

Kyle’s voice turned cold.

“What have you done right to deserve a good cry? If you really want to cry, shed those tears in front of Mom, not me. I only met you today, but Mom knew you before all this.”

“Snff...”

“Actually, I’d rather you didn’t cry in front of Mom either. When someone cries, it makes you feel like you have to forgive them. Even if you don’t want to, it makes you feel that way.”

“Snnff...”

“I think crying while you say you’re sorry is fucking cowardly. Save the tears until after you’ve been forgiven. Understand?”

At his son’s icy words, Aslan fought desperately to hold back his tears. As a guilty father and husband, he could offer no argument. Even if he could, he had no right to.

When word came that the warp gate was ready, the three left the lounge. Just as a few hours earlier, Valian’s prince and high-ranking nobles were fidgeting in the passage to the gate like puppies desperate to take a shit.

“Y-your Grace, Duke Alastor.”

The prince approached, his face deathly pale.

“The truth is... a visitor just arrived asking to see you, Lord Julius...”

“I know.”

Julius answered curtly and walked past him. A visitor? As Kyle tilted his head, Aslan let out a quiet sound of surprise beside him.

“It can’t be...”

Aslan’s murmur suggested he too had an inkling, and Julius continued walking. Kyle did not bother asking who this “visitor” was. After only a few steps down the passage, he felt a gleeful yet ferocious presence ahead.

Looking like a child who had discovered a new toy, Kyle poked his head to one side. Julius was blocking his view of whatever lay ahead.

A man stood before the last door leading to the gate, wearing a blade-sharp silver pauldron and a pitch-black cloak. He was all smiles, but his narrow, sharp eyes made him look suspicious and obnoxious even when he was simply smiling.

“It has been a while, Lord Julius.”

The man greeted them in a jaunty voice when they were about halfway down the corridor.

“And you too, Brother Aslan. Why, who would have thought I’d see two men so rarely found outside on the same day, in the same place? How lucky I am!”

“Still as ill-mannered as ever,” Julius said coldly. “Has the Sword Cult’s leader still not taught you how to sheathe your sword?”

“Hahaha! I’m not a child. Of course I know how to sheathe a sword. I simply don’t want to.”

Blue light flashed between the man’s narrow eyelids. He was openly radiating a cutting menace, yet Julius merely rebuked him without drawing his own sword.

“What brings you here?”

“Curiosity. I wondered why you had finally ventured outside after thirteen years in the Sword Tower... Ah, I know the reason now. It was rather dull, really. To think a man of your stature came all this way to drag his son-in-law out of seclusion.”

The glowing blue eyes shifted to Aslan.

“My congratulations are overdue, Brother Aslan. You attained the sword during your long seclusion, I see? Our Leader will be delighted by your achievement.”

“Evan.”

Aslan frowned, looking thoroughly uncomfortable.

“It has been thirteen years since I severed ties with the Sword Cult. Must you still call me brother?”

“They say distance makes hearts grow apart, but we both still hold swords, do we not? Brother Aslan, so long as you are a swordsman, renouncing the faith is impossible.”

The man, Evan, shrugged with a smile.

“Frankly, our Sword Cult isn’t asking anything of you. Let’s keep things pleasant, and please remain our brother.”

“Is the Sword Cult’s leader well?” Julius asked with a snort.

“Our Leader is as well as ever. She sometimes speaks of you and Brother Aslan. Being of her race, her sense of time differs from that of humans like us, so listening to her can be rather bewildering. She speaks of meeting you as though it happened only days ago.”

“To an elf, fourteen years might well feel like a few days.”

Murmuring softly, Julius strode toward Evan. With each step he took, Evan’s smile faltered a little more. Kyle did not follow, but watched Julius steadily close the distance.

He was not simply walking. Julius and Evan were exchanging invisible “swords.” Julius cut through every bit of the ferocious, cutting force Evan emitted as he advanced. When fewer than ten paces remained between them, Evan groaned and staggered.

“To our Leader... fourteen years may seem a short time. But not to a human. Lord Julius, your sword has reached even greater heights.”

“If you truly wish to see my sword, come to Gladiheim instead of playing these childish games.”

Julius reached out and lightly patted Evan’s shoulder. Evan dropped to one knee and coughed up a mouthful of blood.

“Did you come purely out of curiosity?”

“Haha...”

Evan looked up at Julius, sweating coldly.

“Only half a day has passed since you left Gladiheim. Surely you know as well as I do, Lord Julius. Our Leader isn’t diligent enough to grasp the situation, devise some scheme, and dispatch me all within half a day.”

“That is true.”

“Thank you for understanding. I came... purely out of my own curiosity. To see how far Brother Aslan has attained the sword. And... to see the potential of Alastor’s youngest grandson, about whom rumors abound but little is truly known.”

Evan’s gaze turned to Kyle. His presence, which Julius had utterly crushed, became a single strand of sharpness and shot toward the boy.

Kyle neither flinched nor retreated. Nor did he stride forward. He simply stood where he was and met Evan’s sharpness.

“Oh...”

Evan’s eyes widened, though given how narrow and sharp they were to begin with, it made little difference.

“Young man, would you care to join the Sword Cult?”

The proselytizing began without warning. Kyle gazed silently at Evan before asking,

“Where do you rank in strength within the Sword Cult?”

“Haha, your question is as interesting as your potential. I am the youngest of the Sword Cult’s seven Apostles.”

“Does that mean eighth, including the Leader?”

“For now, yes.”

“Hmm.”

Kyle considered it briefly. From what he could discern, Evan’s skill did not seem far removed from Aslan’s. If someone of that caliber ranked eighth, it was a religion that rather piqued his interest.

“What is the Sword Cult’s doctrine?”

“Pursue the sword. Love the sword. Be mad for the sword.”

“You don’t need to join the Sword Cult to do any of those things.”

Evan blinked several times at Kyle’s grinning reply. In the silence that followed, Julius let out a hearty laugh and opened the door.

“Give my regards to the Sword Cult’s leader.”

Julius passed through the doorway, and Kyle followed. Aslan, who had been standing blankly, hurried past Evan as well.

“...”

The door closed. Left alone in the corridor, Evan rose unsteadily and looked back at the closed door.

Naturally, the Thunder Emperor Julius Alastor, one of the Ten Greats, was powerful. It was equally natural that Aslan Antares, who had attained the sword after twelve years in seclusion, had reached a higher realm than when Evan last saw him.

But for the youngest pureblood grandson of Alastor to possess such immense potential—natural though one might call it—lay far beyond the bounds of his understanding.

“A monster’s offspring would naturally be a monster... but those fangs are far too sharp for such a young one.”

The cutting force he had sent as a test had been severed all too easily. Not merely severed, either: the boy had struck back at his throat.

Evan shook his head with a hollow laugh.

* * *

“Father, you were in the Sword Cult?”

“Briefly, when I was young.”

Aslan answered with an awkward expression as the magic circle activated in the chamber.

“After I left the military academy and was wandering the world, someone from the Sword Cult approached me. They said joining would let me learn swordsmanship I didn’t know... so I joined.”

“What did you do after joining?”

“Learned swordsmanship. Nothing else. That’s the kind of religion the Sword Cult is.”

“You didn’t... do anything bad?”

“No. The Sword Cult is simply a gathering of people who like swords.”

“Not all of them,” Julius said dispassionately. “The Sword Cult’s leader does not govern it herself. It isn’t in her nature. But the Apostles under her all have different inclinations. That is what makes the Sword Cult such an irritating nuisance.”

“I-I only learned swordsmanship in the Sword Cult. I did nothing else.”

Aslan spoke as though defending himself, and Julius cast him an icy glance.

“I know. Had you done dirty work for the Sword Cult, you would never have been allowed to stay in Gladiheim, let alone marry my daughter.”

“...”

“All the Sword Cult’s problems stem from its leader being an elf. Elves think only about what interests them. Anything else never even enters their minds. Whatever bullshit their underlings get up to, they neither care nor reprimand them. Because it doesn’t interest them.”

“That... is true.”

Aslan nodded with a rueful smile.

“Even if a rebellion broke out within the Sword Cult, the Leader would pay it no mind until a blade came close to her personally.”

“And is that all? Even when the insane, ill-tempered sword-wielding bastards in the Cult do despicable things, she never rebukes them.”

Elves were an entirely different race from humans. In some respects, they were far more removed from humanity than Demons were, particularly in their innate nature.

Demons were much like humans by nature. They were emotional and greedy. Elves were different. They were slow to feel emotion and free of greed.

That was because elves lived for such an extraordinarily long time. People commonly said they lived a thousand years. Whether they truly did was unknown, but there was no doubt that the race lived immensely long lives.

To live through all those years without going mad or growing weary of life, each elf chose a single interest.

‘A destiny.’

The elf Kyle had taken in during his previous life as Raikal had called that interest a “destiny.” Once elves chose their destiny, they devoted their entire lives to it. Conversely, they took no interest whatsoever in anything unrelated to it.

‘Helenas.’

He thought of the elf now known as the Sword Cult’s leader. The ungrateful little brat who had not shed a single tear of gratitude after he went to the trouble of rescuing her from a slave market.

The child who nevertheless trotted after him, pestering him to teach her swordsmanship. Yet when he actually tried, she turned out to have not the slightest shred of talent with a blade.

‘If you chose the sword as your destiny and have lived this long for it, I ought to go see your sword someday.’

It was the Sword Demon who had taught that little elf, who had never held a sword in her life, how to grip one. Kyle briefly lost himself in memories from five hundred years ago.

The warp gate completed its operation.

Lennon and the sky carriage were waiting outside the warp gate in Vigrid, in the northern empire.

“It has been a while, Lord Aslan.”

After brief greetings, the three boarded the sky carriage.

Kyle’s short outing was over. It was time to return home.

* * *

The sky carriage landed in the Sword Garden before the Sword Tower. Before getting out, Kyle looked through the window.

All his relatives had gathered in the garden, and naturally, Arian was among them. Holding his breath, he examined her expression.

“Hmm...”

Apparently, word of their half-day outing had reached her. Standing at the head of the family with her arms crossed, Arian wore the fiercest expression Kyle had seen on her face in his entire life.

“Mom looks very angry.”

“This was your idea. You finish it.”

With a mischievous look, Julius refused to get involved.

“Father should finish it, not me.”

Kyle likewise washed his hands of the matter and looked at Aslan.

“What are you doing, Father? Get out there, kneel before Mom, and beg forgiveness.”

“Mm...!”

His expression stiffening, Aslan opened the carriage door. Just as he was about to step out first, he hesitated and looked back at Kyle.

“Wh-what about you...?”

“I’ll get out once Mom calms down.”

Kyle answered without the slightest change in expression.

Whatever he might be on the inside, the twelve-year-old boy feared his mother’s fury more than a blade cutting into his throat.

“Ah... A-all right.”

Aslan felt the same way. He was a formidable swordsman, but he was also a guilty husband. And if they were assigning blame, Aslan bore one hundred percent of it, while Arian bore none.

Drenched in cold sweat, Aslan stepped out of the carriage.

BOOM!

The instant he stepped out, a heavy blast of wind sent Aslan flying.

“How dare you crawl back here!”

At the thunderous shout from outside, Kyle involuntarily sucked in a breath and hunched his shoulders.