“There’s something I’d like to ask.”

One of the knights climbing the mountain trail posed a question.

“Do we really need to go out in force just to catch one runaway dog? Any of us should be able to behead a single deserter who knows nothing of honor.”

The knight’s question was reasonable. Knightly orders were famously strict in dealing with deserter knights, but even so, this seemed excessive.

“However many bandits there are... couldn’t a force like ours wipe a small village off the map?”

The captain gave a brief answer to the knight’s question.

“Our superiors judged this force appropriate.”

“Yes, but why...?”

“Because this isn’t the first time knights have been sent to capture him.”

The captain turned a cold gaze on the knight.

“He has killed six knights of our order so far.”

The wind echoed through the wooded hills.

“He may know nothing of honor, but his skill at killing is beyond question.”

“...”

“Do you know what that runaway dog was called when he served in our order?”

The captain spoke in a low voice.

“The Berserker.”

* * *

What was the most decisive difference between a sword beginner and a sword walker? There were probably several answers, but if asked to choose just one, everyone would say the same thing. 「Paths」.

Unlike 「sword beginners」, who could do no more than absorb and accumulate Mana, 「sword walkers」 could put it to proper use.

Forming a second heart, slightly strengthening a sword, sharpening the senses, and gaining a little resistance to Mana—that was the limit of a 「sword beginner’s」 ability to manipulate it.

Compared to Mana’s potential, it was utterly insignificant.

What about 「sword walkers」, then?

For a start, they could create paths from their second heart and spread them throughout their bodies like blood vessels. Those paths granted a swordsman’s body superhuman strength.

They could wield the Mana they had absorbed however they wished.

That was why the swords wielded by 「sword walkers」 were far sharper and harder than those of ordinary swordsmen. Their movements, too, became astonishingly swift and precise.

But their greatest power was not the strengthening of their swords or the enhancement of their physical abilities. The decisive reason 「sword walkers」 were called superhuman lay in the power of their 「paths」.

“Three, four, five...”

Besides extending their heart’s 「paths」 through their bodies like blood vessels, sword walkers could spread them outside their bodies like spiderwebs. Those paths had a variety of uses.

They could instantly detect an enemy who entered their 「paths」 without permission, and their superhuman power increased within those 「paths」, giving them a far greater advantage in battle.

“Six.”

In short, it was fair to say that 「paths」 were everything to a sword walker.

“Six paths. That’s all he has.”

Still concealed in the darkness, I finished my observations. The captain of the 「Red Wolves」 bandits, a deserter knight, was a powerful man who had reached sword walker, as befitted a knight.

But how should I put it?

“He’s pathetic compared to Seolyun, The Black Bride, or Petel.”

He was not overwhelmingly strong.

“Petel had more paths than I could count, and Seolyun’s took extraordinary shapes, starting as one before splitting into several branches. But his are far too straightforward and unstable.”

After listening to my list, Liam replied.

「Of course they are.」

“Why of course?”

「That girl Seolyun is a talent born once in a hundred years, and the knight Petel is a seasoned veteran who has no business being in this rural backwater.」

Right. There was nothing strange about this. It was the two I had met before who were unusual.

「Well, even if he’s weaker than you expected... you know, don’t you?」

“Yes.”

Liam spoke with a glance at me. I gave him the answer he was expecting.

“I won’t let my guard down.”

* * *

Murphy, captain of the 「Red Wolves」 bandits, was deeply displeased with the current situation. Only moments ago, he had been indulging in the sweet dream of hunting another insolent knight and taking his head as a trophy.

And now...

“Captain! A g-ghost! I think there’s a ghost!”

“It c-could be a dark mage! Didn’t that d-drunk at the tavern say so? That a dark mage had settled here? Huh, huhuhu...”

“Or else some terrible plague really has—”

What the fuck was this nonsense?

“Shut! Up!”

Murphy bellowed, straining his throat.

His men hiccupped in fright, their eyes going round as they clamped their mouths shut. His Mana-charged shout was no different from a lion’s roar.

Frozen in place, they stared blankly at him.

“A dark mage? Would those lazy, childish bastards leave the capital and come all the way to this backwater? Those pleasure addicts who can’t last a day without booze and beautiful women?”

“B-but...”

“You know nothing about dark mages. If one really had made his home here, you’d all be skeleton soldiers already, or have your guts ripped out and be offered to a demon.”

Damn it. At times like this, he regretted taking uneducated country bumpkins as his subordinates. They had no idea what terrifying monsters dark mages were.

“And a plague? Ridiculous. Can’t you see the holes in the necks of all these corpses? This wasn’t a ghost’s doing, and no plague has arrived!”

“Th-then?”

“You fucking morons, it was a person! Someone attacked us!”

Murphy’s head grew hot with anger.

He was trying to think of who might do something like this. Had the knightly order tracked him this far already? No, those lofty gentlemen would never commit such dirty murders.

This was the work of someone from the gutter, just like him.

'Damn it, I have too many enemies.'

Even after narrowing down the possibilities, Murphy had far too many enemies. The 「Red Wolves」 Brotherhood had plundered and destroyed countless villages, raped women, and killed countless men in humiliating ways.

In the end, Murphy gave up trying to identify his opponent.

'Who cares who it is? I just have to kill them.'

That was what he had always done. Whether it was a noble who had trampled his pride, a young noblewoman trembling and screaming, or knights swaggering about their hunt for a runaway dog, he had killed them all.

Murphy was certain he could do it again.

“You idiots, first, that forest over—”

And then...

“Eek!”

One of the men Murphy was looking at died.

“Aaar—”

Next, a terrified man drawing his sword died.

“Ah, aaah!”

Then two axe-wielding men standing guard died.

'What...?'

It truly looked as though a ghost had appeared. After standing dazed for a moment, Murphy realized he could not remain still.

He hurriedly drew the sword at his waist, took a deep breath, and spread his 「paths」...

“Hup!”

He failed to deploy them properly.

His hair stood on end. The instant he sensed danger, Murphy threw his body backward. A long, slender sword swept through the space his body had occupied a moment before.

'A sword...? What kind of needle-like sword is—'

Murphy narrowed his eyes and recovered his balance. Following the sword that had suddenly appeared, he caught sight of the attacker emerging from concealment in the darkness.

The attacker was a boy.

'That little brat killed all these men? And how did he get through my 「paths」 to come this close?'

Murphy hurriedly drew the sword at his waist and inhaled. Even if the 「paths」 he had spread were incomplete, they were not something a greenhorn like this could penetrate. Not unless he was another 「sword walker」.

“Whew...”

The 「paths」 within him shone, filling Murphy’s body with superhuman power. With the world now clear to his eyes through the darkness, he lunged at the boy. And—

'You crafty bastard.'

Murphy’s superhuman senses glimpsed the immediate future in the boy’s movements. A future in which the boy kicked up mud with his toes, scattering it, then thrust that strange sword through the spray.

That power belonged exclusively to sword walkers. It gathered all the information from the space adjacent to their paths, piecing the clues together to grant a breadth of perception approaching foresight.

“You bastard!”

Anticipating the spray of mud, Murphy shifted direction this way and that, whirling the sword in his hand. No matter how he looked at him, the boy attacking him was still only a 「sword beginner」.

The boy’s slaughter of so many of his worthless men in an instant had made him a little nervous, but Murphy ultimately decided the boy was no match for him.

And so there was something Murphy did not know.

“You’re handy with a blade, but you’re still—”

The boy was not a sword walker, but he could accomplish something similar to a sword walker’s power.

For instance...

“Nothing but a sword beginner—”

Through relentless suspicion and observation, he could draw clues from every tiny movement his enemy made, anticipate what would happen next, and respond in advance.

“A mere...?”

That was why what happened next bewildered Murphy.

When every sweeping stroke of his sword, infused with superhuman strength and swung along his 「paths」, missed.

“...?”

CLANG!

When, after swinging again and again, his sword finally made contact, only to bounce away with a loud metallic ring.

“A sword beginner’s blade... can’t be this hard...”

And then...

“What cheap trick are—urgh.”

When that long, slender sword pierced the muscle of his thigh before he could react.

“Guh!”

Murphy swung his sword in a mighty arc. Before he had even begun the swing, the boy had already darted backward, out of its reach. As though he could see the future.

Biting his lip, Murphy glared at the boy concealed in the darkness.

“What—are you?”

“...”

“You’re not even... a sword walker. How do you... keep slipping... through my 「paths」? As though you’re punching holes in them—”

It was impossible. It was not something a mere 「sword beginner」 could do.

“You. I won’t let you get away with this.”

Murphy looked at the humiliating wound in his thigh. Then he opened his mouth wide and drew a breath so deep his lungs swelled to bursting. At the same time, his second heart began beating madly. As his mana heart pumped, the 「paths」 extending through his body began to run wild as well.

Murphy’s reason began to slip away.

He surrendered control to gain power.

It was the power that had earned Murphy the name Berserker, the power that had allowed him to trample to death the knights who pursued him.

“...”

Watching Murphy transform into a beast, the boy put the needle-like blade in his hand away at his waist. Then he drew a new blade. A dagger.

With two blades, one in each hand, the boy faced the beast.

“It’s going according to plan.”

He uttered strange words Murphy did not understand.

“That’s a relief.”

With that, the boy vanished into the darkness.

“You die here.”

Like the assassin of the Free City.