Only a swordmaster can kill a swordmaster.

It was an ancient maxim, common knowledge even among young children.

* * *

Was it because I had spent far too long in a manor steeped in the stench of corpses?

Or perhaps I had gone too long without interacting with anyone. A blade was talking to me. I would have to visit a nearby temple and seek treatment from a priest.

It wasn't even a particularly rare symptom. I had read that soldiers who had fought in repeated wars, or people who had experienced something horrific, suffered from this phenomenon too. The psychological shock I had endured was, if anything, worse than theirs. It certainly wasn't any less.

With lifeless eyes, I looked at our family's treasure.

The voice rang out once more, deep and commanding, like the growl of a lion.

「Eat me, descendant of Caravan.」

「Then you shall obtain what you desire.」

Had Father perhaps suffered from auditory hallucinations like these before madness took him?

I stared blankly at the sword without a word. Then, on top of hearing things, I began seeing things too. A translucent human figure shimmered behind the sword. An old man with the same heroic face as the one in the portrait. His face was wrinkled, but his eyes gleamed like a blade.

Looking at the vivid hallucination, I spoke before I knew it.

"Do you even know what I want, to be saying that?"

After a brief silence, an answer came.

「To become a swordmaster. To grow strong enough to kill a swordmaster.」

"..."

「I guarantee it. Without my help, you will never kill that swordmaster on your own. The bastard who came here a year ago is far beyond anything your generation should be capable of producing.」

The specter shimmering around the sword spoke.

「He is a swordmaster of a caliber you would only expect to see in the age of war. A greenhorn like you could train for a lifetime and still never have your revenge. So I will help you.」

"... How?"

「Eat me. Then you will understand everything.」

More incomprehensible words.

I found it absurd that I was having a conversation with a hallucination only I could see.

Yet I couldn't ignore it. I felt that I mustn't.

The sword's specter, which should have been nothing more than a hallucination, radiated an eerily overwhelming presence.

So I said something absurd again.

"Why would you help me?"

This time, the answer came at once.

「Because you are my descendant, heir to the blood of steel.」

"..."

「That swordmaster is not your enemy alone. Did he not dare to slaughter the descendants of my greatness? I intend to use you to pass judgment on him. In the name of Caravan.」

The specter's eyes gleamed.

Like a sword.

「You heard what he said, so you must know. Those old stories your innocent father told you were all true. They weren't empty fabrications meant to flatter his pride, as nobles are so fond of inventing. Caravan was greater than anyone. Once.」

For some reason, at that moment, I was drawn into his gaze.

And so I gave a strange reply.

"... How am I supposed to eat it?"

Perhaps I had already gone mad myself.

Just like Father.

* * *

The sword's specter spouted bizarre things.

Every word he uttered was hard to believe.

「The blood flowing through the Caravan family is a mixture of human and dwarf blood. That trait originated with me, a half-dwarf. That is why it was widely said that the Caravan family had blood of steel flowing through its veins.」

Dwarf blood in our veins.

That alone was nonsense. The members of our family had none of the dwarves' racial traits: short stature, astonishingly thick bones, luxuriant beards that began growing from the age of seven, or heat-resistant skin that wasn't easily harmed even by touching fire.

Neither Father nor I had manifested any such traits, and none were visible in the portraits of the successive family heads either.

「Though I had none of the traits of a dwarf, I possessed one special ability. By consuming blades—swords, to be precise—I could acquire the memories and power held within them. Every descendant who inherited my blood inherited this ability as well. It was the decisive reason the Caravan family could produce swordmasters generation after generation.」

.

.

.

「Consuming them is not difficult. Heat the blade, break it up with your teeth as though you were eating a baguette, and swallow it. Then it will seep into your stomach and mingle with your blood of steel.」

What followed was even more ridiculous.

Chew up a sword and swallow it? That would shred the roof of my mouth and my gums, and if a metal fragment lodged in my esophagus, I would die a very ugly death. Even if I managed to get it all safely into my stomach, I couldn't survive doing such a thing.

Besides, I couldn't remember any book about dwarves mentioning one with such an ability. They were famously close friends of iron and fire, but there was no record of them harboring such a mystery within their bodies...

As I was thinking this, the specter spoke.

「You don't believe me. I suppose it must sound absurd to your generation, now that everything has been forgotten.」

It was as though he had seen straight through my mind.

「If you cannot believe me, don't do it. I will not force you.」

"..."

「But you know it too, don't you? Whatever you do, you cannot achieve your goal on your own.」

The specter's eyes were glaring at me.

「Over the past year, you bought a swordsmanship manual and trained alone in the backyard. And afterward, you felt helpless. Because the body you were born with was as weak as a girl's. You struggle to build muscle, your bones are damnably thin, and you have a small frame. You don't even have a particularly good mind for grasping the subtleties of swordsmanship. You're a mediocrity who could never become so much as a sword runner, let alone a swordmaster.」

"..."

「The calluses on your hands are nothing but wasted effort. You've already thrown away a year, and in that year, the swordmaster you hate will have grown even greater. He was born with that kind of talent.」

The specter's voice pierced me like a blade, striking with exquisite precision.

I couldn't ignore those words. Every one of them was true.

「If you will not believe me, spend the rest of your life that way. Toiling in vain, resenting yourself, and watching from afar as he carries out his heroic deeds.」

Those words decided it.

As I listened to the specter, I reached out and snatched the keen sword from the wall.

Even looking at it again, it was far too sharp for a sword more than five hundred years old.

As though the slightest brush against it would slice off a piece of flesh.

Holding it carefully by the hilt, I went out into the yard.

The specter spoke.

「Where are you taking me?」

"I'm going to put you in the fire."

「The fire?」

I answered his puzzled question.

"Didn't you say I had to heat it before eating it?"

I'd be better off dropping dead than living like this.

In the end, I decided to stake my life on this madness.

* * *

"Ack, ack!"

To get straight to the point, chewing up and eating a heated blade was a very, very horrific experience. So how did it turn out, you ask?

Well, isn't the fact that I can give you this account proof that I survived?

"Fu... Urgh, ack."

It felt as though the entire roof of my mouth had been torn apart and set on fire. As though my esophagus had been shredded and molten iron poured into my stomach. Astonishingly, however, there was only pain. I hadn't been injured.

The roof of my mouth was intact, and no matter how much I coughed, not a single drop of blood came up from my esophagus.

As I marveled at this strange phenomenon, the sword's specter spoke.

No, now that his words had been proven true, calling him the sword's specter wasn't right.

I knew his name. Having actually eaten the sword, I now had to call him by it.

「You can believe me now, can't you? That everything I said was true, and that I am not some hallucination born of your weakness.」

Liam Caravan.

Founder of the Caravan family.

"... Yes, honored ancestor."

「Honored ancestor? What an amusing form of address. Never mind, there's no need to call me that.」

"Then what?"

Liam spoke casually.

「Call me Master. All my descendants called me that when they received my instruction.」

That settled what I would call him.

"Yes, Master."

I let out a long breath.

For some reason, my breath felt hot. Even after wiping my lips and drinking a mouthful of cool water, I felt no relief. My stomach still felt as though it were burning.

Rubbing my stomach, I asked Liam,

"Master, I don't feel anything different yet."

「Nothing has changed?」

Liam narrowed his eyes.

I nodded honestly.

"Yes. I can see your body a little more clearly and hear your voice better, but other than that—"

「Strange. Wait a moment.」

Liam reached toward my chest. He swept his translucent hand around the area of my heart a couple of times, then clicked his tongue.

「My blood has thinned over the generations. You inherited the ability, but it has grown considerably weaker.」

"Weaker? What do you mean?"

「Normally, I intended to have you eat my body... that is, the cherished sword I used in life, and first bring you up to the level of a swordmaster. But your case is different from mine.」

Liam continued.

「The ability flowing through your blood is far inferior to mine. So you ate it, but failed to digest it.」

"..."

「It seems you will have to reach a considerably higher level yourself before you can digest the essence contained in my sword. Damn it, not only is your body pathetic, but your blood is too. You blasted descendant.」

He needled me enough to irritate me a little, but I had no excuse to offer.

I really was pathetic. What could I say?

「Then there's no other choice.」

Fortunately, our family's founder (my master), who had promised to help me, did not abandon me and flee. He sighed once and offered another method.

「For now, you'd be better off eating swords suited to your level.」

"Swords suited to my level?"

「Yes.」

Floating in the air with his arms crossed, Liam looked down at me.

「Is there a weapons shop nearby? We need swords that have been used for a long time, not new weapons.」

* * *

For the first time in a long while, I left the village.

Carriages no longer traveled through the area, so I had to walk a somewhat rough route. I made my way through the forest and arrived at the small city closest to the village. In its center, merchants were selling their wares.

"Fresh fruit! Try some!"

I passed the fruit seller offering me an apple and entered a secluded alley. At its entrance, I felt intense heat. The heat of a forge. The smell of a smithy where iron was hammered.

But this wasn't our destination.

「The older the weapons, the better. Take me somewhere with plenty of old swords. I will choose them myself.」

I walked toward the place Liam wanted.

Past the smithy, deeper into the alley.

Then, along with a foul stench, the slums came into view. I saw ragged children living among piles of garbage. People at the very bottom, living with hopeless, despair-filled eyes. Every kind of refuse accumulated where they lived.

I could hear rats squeaking.

The inhabitants here were the poor, rats, cats, and all manner of insects.

"Just one coin, please. Just one."

"I'll do anything for a piece of that bread. What do you want?"

I shook off the poor people who clung to my ankles and babbled, then went farther in.

There stood a mountain of garbage.

A mountain made of discarded clothes, broken glass, and ruined household necessities.

Withered hands protruded from various places in the garbage mountain. Corpses were among the refuse that formed it. Dead people no one came looking for.

「A place dark mages would dearly love.」

Listening to Liam, I slowly climbed the mountain.

Every time I felt flesh beneath my feet, I struggled to conceal my disgust. The stench of corpses I knew from the manor was even stronger here. Once I had climbed far enough, metal clashed beneath the soles of my shoes.

CLANG

"There should be plenty of discarded blades here. Children in the slums gather all sorts of things and pile them up, and some weapons must have been washed into here by the rain. Most of them are useless... but there's nowhere nearby better for finding old swords."

「Good.」

Liam drifted slowly toward the spot I pointed out.

「When I first started, I too would eat swords in places thick with the smell of blood. Mine were battlefields. Swords clutched by dead soldiers, abandoned swords covered in dirt—I ate and ate until none remained. This place is quieter, but for some reason it reminds me of them.」

Liam's translucent hand swept over the tangled heap of metal.

Then it happened.

「Found it.」

"Already?"

「Yes. Pull it out.」

"Which one do you mean...?"

「The one I'm pointing at.」

Frowning, I looked again at the place Liam indicated.

Puzzled, I turned back to him. His gaze was unwavering.

It seemed to say that I wasn't mistaken—that really was the one.

'... But that isn't a sword, is it?'

I reached into the heap of metal, grasped the object Liam meant, and pulled it out.

In the sunlight, the dull blade took on a subtle gleam.

Liam spoke.

「The moment you eat it, you will know I chose correctly. Treat it with care.」

"..."

「It will make even a worthless thing like you a little more of a swordsman.」

I was still puzzled.

After all, the thing in my hand was far too slender to be called a sword.

Rather than a sword, it was... how should I put it?

Like a needle.

* * *

「Name: Liam's Cherished Sword」

「A sword favored by Liam Caravan, founder of the Caravan family.」

「Even after hundreds of years, it remains free of rust and retains its sharpness.」

「A treasure of the Caravan family.」

.

.

.

「Consumption Effect」

「Your connection with Liam Caravan's soul has strengthened.」

「Digestion Currently in Progress」