“If you want to see my swordsmanship, I’d be happy to oblige.”

Kyle shrugged. Seeing Julius again after four years, he thought his grandfather had grown more mischievous. Rather than a touching reunion embrace, he was being told to put on a performance the moment he arrived.

Not that he minded. Kyle drew a deep breath. For four years, he had smelled nothing but the fishy stench of the Mudflats and the sea, worse than rotting corpses. The air outside, which he could finally breathe again, tasted refreshing and sweet.

And the taste of the air was far from the only change. He had grown quite accustomed to it, but mana had been subject to hardening on the Floor of Asceticism. There was none of that outside.

Even now, he was circulating mana throughout his body without conscious effort, and it felt perfectly natural and unrestricted. His whole body was so light he felt he might fly. In fact, he even wondered whether he really could soar through the air.

On the off chance, he tried a little hop in place... but he couldn’t fly.

‘Not quite that far, then.’

Still, his body and mana felt very, very light.

[“Outside! We’re outside!”]

Jorm cheered noisily inside his chest. Ignoring the cries, Kyle looked around again. According to Julius, today was the day he had gathered the youngsters to see their swordsmanship.

He had picked a good day. Along with that thought came the realization that he had been right to eat, wash, and put on fresh clothes before leaving. The Fragment’s mischief had dropped him here, but if he had arrived unwashed and dressed in rags like some filthy beggar, he would have made a complete fool of himself.

Kyle surveyed the spectator stands surrounding the training ground. House Alastor’s knight cadets, apprentice knights, and full knights were there, along with many others.

He spotted quite a few familiar faces. His other uncles and aunts were up in the seats of honor, but Erika was in the stands. Apparently she had completed her apprenticeship during the past four years: she wore the official uniform of the Aurora Knights and was staring at him wide-eyed.

Kyle waved to Erika, then turned to the next familiar face. Bruno. He was still wearing an apprentice’s uniform. He had already been enormous four years ago, but now he was even bigger, almost matching his father Varkas. Kyle waved to the gaping Bruno as well.

Then there was Lucia.

Like Bruno, she wore an apprentice knight’s uniform, and her eyes were round with surprise. Kyle waved to her too.

He also spotted his cousins Cassius, Vecius, and Vivian in the stands, but he wasn’t particularly close to them, so he didn’t bother waving. Having finished surveying the stands, he looked back up at the seats of honor where Julius sat.

“...?”

Arian and Aslan were nowhere to be seen. Arian was a spirit practitioner, so her absence was understandable, but surely Aslan, a man called the Sword Maniac, wouldn’t miss a spectacle like this. Puzzled though he was, Kyle asked Julius a different question.

“Who should I face?”

“Well, how about one of the two whose match you interrupted?”

“Hmm.”

Kyle looked at the swordsmen standing awkwardly nearby. Having their absorbing match interrupted had left them with decidedly mixed feelings. Each had been convinced that just a little more would secure him victory. Not only had their match been disrupted, but Kyle’s sudden appearance had stolen everyone’s attention.

“Would either of you like to spar with me?”

Kyle decided to give them the choice first. Their abilities were much the same. Frankly, he could handle both of them coming at him together.

But if he said that aloud, rumors would spread that House Alastor’s youngest young master was an arrogant, insufferable bastard. Kyle himself had endured every sort of abuse since his previous life, so he didn’t care if people criticized his character. But there was a chance they might blame Arian for failing to raise him properly, so he decided to watch himself on occasions like this.

“...”

Neither swordsman stepped forward. Instead, they glanced at one another. They were irritated and conflicted, but they couldn’t simply fly into a rage.

Just moments ago, Kyle had dropped out of thin air and simultaneously deflected swords coming from opposite directions. And those hadn’t been ordinary blades. They had been wreathed in sword aura—and he had turned them aside without even holding a sword.

That alone was enough to make them feel the gulf in their abilities... but now the golden eyes facing them seemed unfathomably deep. Merely standing before him with swords in hand made them want, for some reason, to lower their weapons. No, to let go of them altogether.

“You’re embarrassing me just watching you.”

The young man striding onto the training ground had blond hair tied back in a ponytail. Rather than the uniform of another house or knightly order, he wore leather armor without a single crest. He sneered at the swordsmen frozen in their awkward stances.

“If you’re scared, put your swords away and get off the field.”

“Wh-what did you say?”

“Who do you...”

The two swordsmen shouted indignantly, only to flinch and shrink back when they recognized him.

“J-Jade...”

Jade, the Rending Fang. The mad dog said to be sweeping the western dueling circuit. A wandering knight licensed in Ransel, the so-called kingdom of knights, he was famous for avenging other people’s grudges for money and serving as a champion in Ransel’s trials by combat.

His activities earned him scorn as a vulgar man, but his swordsmanship was undeniable. When the swordsmen, who knew him well, fell silent and drew back, Jade snorted and drew his sword.

“I said, get off the field.”

The weapon Jade drew was no ordinary sword.

One edge of its oddly shaped blade bristled with teeth like a shark’s, or a carpenter’s saw. It was a swordbreaker, designed not to slice flesh but to rip it apart and destroy an opponent’s weapon.

Kyle’s eyes lit up at the sight. He had seen plenty of men wield swordbreakers on the battlefields of his previous life, but this was his first time seeing one in this life. It was a practical, powerful weapon, but a difficult one to handle. The way Jade flaunted it suggested he had absolute confidence in his skills.

‘He certainly looks it.’

Kyle hadn’t deliberately exerted his will, but unlike the swordsmen who couldn’t even meet his eyes, Jade stared straight at him. Gazing into the abyssal depths of Kyle’s golden eyes, he twisted his lips.

“You’ve got some damn strange eyes, young master. How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“How does a young master born into a fine family and raised with all the love he could want end up with eyes like that?”

“I’ve had a pretty rough time lately.”

Jade snickered at the glib answer. The other two swordsmen were already leaving the training ground, shoulders slumped.

TING!

Jade flicked a finger against his sawtoothed blade.

“Young master. This sword of mine has a nasty temper.”

Jade’s gaze moved to Blood Fang at Kyle’s waist. With its scarlet blade, the sword was obviously far from ordinary.

“You don’t mind if it breaks, do you? I’m not paying for it if you come complaining lat—”

“I can’t use this one.”

“What?”

“It belongs to someone else.”

As he spoke, Kyle looked around the stands.

“Would anyone lend me a wooden sword?”

Jade’s brows knitted.

“Young master. What did you just say? A wooden sword? You’re going to take my blade with some little stick?”

“Even a stick can be better than a masterwork sword, depending on who holds it.”

“Hey, are you serious? If you don’t have a sword, borrow another one. A proper steel blade, not a wooden sword. Isn’t this castle crawling with swords?”

“I’d like to, but I’ve already decided which real sword I’ll wield first.”

“I have... no idea what you’re talking about. So you won’t spar with me unless you have a wooden sword? You may be House Alastor’s young master, but this is a match. I won’t go ea—”

“Do you spar with your mouth instead of your sword?”

Kyle grinned as he asked.

“What’s with all the complaints? Why did you draw your sword if all you’re going to do is talk?”

“...”

“I don’t want to go this far either, but I have no choice. The sword I decided to wield first is...”

At that moment.

BOOM!

Something came hurtling through the sky from far away and plunged into the center of the training ground. Startled, Jade leaped backward, but Kyle stood perfectly still and stared at what had fallen.

A single sword had embedded itself in the ground with a thunderous crash. It was plain and unadorned, its black blade like a long stroke of ink.

The sword, said to have been forged by a dwarf, that he had claimed as spoils after completing the revenge he had long awaited as commander of the Crow Mercenaries—a revenge that had left him hollow. The sword he had favored for the eighteen years afterward, which had become the symbol of the Sword Demon.

The sword that had been with the Sword Demon at his end.

Kyle stared wide-eyed at Fenris.

He didn’t know how Fenris, which had been embedded in the floor of the Hall of Sword Pinnacles, had flown here, but one thing was certain.

Before Kyle could go to Fenris, Fenris had come to him.

“You son of a bitch.”

Smiling, Kyle whispered as he reached for Fenris’s hilt.

“Only now do you recognize your master?”

Kyle had been five when he first saw Fenris in the Hall of Sword Pinnacles and asked Julius to give it to him.

‘Ten years, then.’

Ten years had been the deadline Julius originally set. Back then, unsure of what the future held, Kyle had asked what would happen if it took longer. He had never imagined Fenris would acknowledge him after exactly ten years.

‘Acknowledge me?’

On second thought, that didn’t sit well with him at all. The Sword Demon had been Fenris’s master to begin with, and Kyle was the Sword Demon’s reincarnation. Forged by a dwarf, kept by Ruin’s side until the end, inhabited by a goblin after five hundred years—whatever its distinctions, however extraordinary it might be, Fenris was still a sword.

‘A mere sword dares to pick and choose its master?’

Kyle’s fingers closed tightly around Fenris’s hilt. At that moment, black mist that only he could see and feel erupted from the sword.

“Stay the fuck down, you son of a bitch.”

Snapping viciously at the black wolf about to spring from the mist, Kyle took a long stride forward. With that step, the mist vanished, and Fenris came free of the training ground.

The momentary resonance ended. Strangely, Kyle could sense an “emotion” from Fenris in his hand. It was utterly flustered.

‘Act like a sword.’

Its master wasn’t flustered, yet the sword was. How ridiculous. After that cold rebuke, Kyle pointed Fenris’s tip at Jade.

“I was going to borrow a wooden sword for our match, but the real sword I’d chosen as my first came here on its own.”

Jade stared at Kyle in wide-eyed astonishment. A sword falling from the sky was startling enough—but what shocked him even more was the way Kyle’s presence had transformed the moment he took hold of a real blade.

“I’ll spar with a real sword, just like you wanted. Come on.”

He mustn’t approach. If he did, he would die. Jade swallowed, chilled by that certainty. His heart, his instincts, were screaming their warning—but he suppressed them. He had fought countless real battles. He had never died, but he was accustomed to killing others.

Living that way, he had long since accepted that he might one day die himself. But could that day really be today? Excitement stirred within the tingling shiver running through him, and Jade kicked off the ground.

Scarlet sword aura flared around the teeth of the swordbreaker in his two-handed grip. Savage slashes descended on Kyle as though a wild beast were sinking its teeth into him.

To meet the dozens of slashes rushing at him head-on, Kyle held Fenris out to the side.

HUM...!

A low vibration rang from Fenris’s blade, and a dark violet haze coiled around it.

One strike.

Once was enough. Compared to Jade’s violent swordsmanship, Kyle’s was silent stillness. But it was not motionless. Fenris swept through the air, neither too quickly nor too slowly.

It slipped into the savage slashes.

With a single swing, it caught and cut through every one of them. Advancing without wavering, Fenris reached the end of its completed arc and met the swordbreaker.

CLANG!

A sound like shattering glass rang out.

“...?!”

Shock filled Jade’s eyes. He had seen and experienced it himself, yet understanding lagged behind. His sword aura had been cut. How? Could sword aura woven from aura really be severed so easily?

He put understanding aside. Hurriedly, Jade twisted the swordbreaker to catch Kyle’s blade.

He pulled the hilt to do so, but the weight in his hands was far too light.

Of course it was.

The swordbreaker’s blade crumbled like fine grains of sand and spilled onto the training ground. What Jade had pulled and twisted was merely the bladeless stick that had once been a sword.

“You don’t mind if it breaks, do you?”

Unable to answer, Jade merely gaped at Kyle.

“You told me not to complain, but you can complain to me.”

“...”

“My family has plenty of money.”

With a brusque expression, Kyle lowered Fenris.