「That sick knight’s body is already badly ruined. As I see it, he has a week left at most. And with every passing moment, death will steadily take hold. His limbs will stiffen, his muscles will grow rigid, and eventually his brain may be affected, reducing him to a child.」

"..."

「Naturally, that knight who has reached the rank of sword runner must have recognized Petel’s condition as well. Yet what did he say?」

I clenched my teeth at Liam’s question.

"He said the duel of honor would take place in a week."

「Yes. That is the breed we call knights. As rigid as they are in their adherence to rules, once a fight begins, they do everything they can to corner and crush their opponent, leaving nothing to chance.」

Liam spoke coldly.

「Knights only fight battles they will win. Powerful as he is, having reached sword runner, that man will never let his guard down. He will eliminate every variable, leaving not the slightest possibility of defeat.」

"... Then isn’t it hopeless even if I step forward as his champion?"

「No. That is the only way.」

As I listened to Liam, I looked down at the village from the ridge. The knightly order had set up camp there, and a short distance away, Petel was swinging his sword with his ruined body.

He did not stop training despite his gasping breaths, bloodshot eyes, and sweat-drenched body. As though the moment he stopped swinging his sword, even once, he would die.

I looked at Liam and asked,

"How, exactly?"

Liam’s answer was brief.

「You eat Petel’s sword.」

"... What?"

「Then you win the duel of honor with Petel’s sword.」

* * *

Fortunately, Liam had not simply thrown out a conclusion without explanation. He explained what eating Petel’s sword would mean, and the chance of victory it could create.

"That does sound as though it might give me a chance."

His explanation was convincing enough that even someone as suspicious as me readily accepted it.

"But aren’t the odds far too low?"

Of course, that did not mean I had no doubts.

Liam answered my question succinctly.

「A difficult road is always a gamble.」

"..."

「The odds are low. But there is much to gain if you win.」

Liam looked at me.

「Young descendant, you will never turn the tables without taking a gamble. Not just now, but throughout the rest of your life, you will be gambling against long odds. You will always be the underdog at the table.」

Yes. I already knew that.

Let Petel die, or choose this method.

I knew all too well that those were my only two options.

So I chose the latter. Having decided to follow Liam’s advice, I went to see Petel.

He was swinging his sword as though his body would break apart.

"Sir Petel, I have something to tell you."

His back was hunched like an old man’s, and the black spots had long since ravenously devoured his upper body.

"Something... to tell me? Please... say it... from there. I cannot... put down my sword... right now."

I watched him swing his sword over and over as though possessed. Slowly, I laid out what Liam had told me.

"Sir Petel, this may be hard to believe, but I was born with a special power that lets me perfectly reproduce another person’s swordsmanship. My unusually resilient heart is part of that power as well."

Petel listened in silence, doing nothing but swinging his sword, as though he were in another world. Beads of sweat flew and glittered. Whether he answered or not, I said what I had to say.

"I will reproduce your swordsmanship and defeat that knight. Your rank may be lower than his, Sir Petel, but the potential within your swordsmanship is by no means inferior. So I will become your champion, with a body that is still healthy and strong rather than sick and broken."

I had softened and summarized Liam’s words.

Liam had said that the swordsmanship Petel had built was no worse than that knight’s, and that combining it with Needle and Fang, which I had acquired so far, might create a chance of victory.

Besides, I had my heart of steel and the line, the path of steel.

Secret weapons that could introduce variables.

But Petel continued swinging his sword in silence.

Only after releasing a hot breath did he answer.

"Young Lord Arhan."

"Yes."

"Even if what you say is true, defeating a sword runner is impossible."

Petel groaned as he raised his sword.

"Even with such an unprecedented power, one never recorded in any history book, you cannot defeat that knight as you are now. To use an analogy, we are like a chrysalis and a butterfly."

"..."

"I have reached the very limits of sword walker, and that knight has entered the beginning of sword runner. In terms of rank, it is a single step, but the distance of that one step is far too great."

The sword reflected the light, glittering as though it were shattering.

"All I can do is wriggle, while that knight flies in splendor on his wings. A chrysalis can never catch a butterfly. Imitating me, a chrysalis, will change nothing."

"But even so—"

"Young lord."

Petel spoke in a low voice.

For the first time, he stopped swinging his sword.

"As I told you before, I am not fighting to win."

"..."

"I want to confront a question I have always harbored, one I have wondered about my entire life. Even if a dishonorable, worthless death awaits me at the end, I cannot stop."

Petel’s joints creaked and his muscles twisted. Thick blood trickled from his lips. Yet he swung his sword again. He insisted on it.

"For me, this is proof."

Ah.

The greatest problem was neither my doubts nor that knight’s wings.

「There is no breaking that.」

There was no way to break Petel’s conviction.

「Perhaps that, too, is the fate of that sick sword.」

Liam murmured quietly.

* * *

Near the village entrance, horses snorted in the temporary encampment. Apprentice knights tended them, full-fledged knights took turns standing guard with torches, and those seated inside the tents each attended to their own tasks.

This was the camp the knightly order had built.

Inside the bustling camp sat Meken, a knight who had reached sword runner and served as deputy commander of the Yellow Elephants.

Meken was proudly polishing the blade of his cherished sword when a knight suddenly asked him a question.

"Deputy Commander, was it necessary to go that far?"

At the casually posed question, Meken stopped polishing his sword.

"What do you mean, that far?"

"I know it is traditional to show no mercy in a duel of honor, but I am asking whether you needed to corner a sick, washed-up knight who is merely a sword walker like that."

Meken looked at the knight standing behind him.

The knight’s gaze was earnest. At a glance, he seemed to be a novice who had only recently become a knight. He was still at the stage of being intoxicated by chivalric novels, by pride in his own knighthood, and by a sense of justice.

Meken gave him a faint, amused smile.

"You think I went too far."

"I do."

"Why?"

"Because as a sword runner, Deputy Commander, you are certain to win. And if you win the duel of honor this way, might the other knights not refuse to accept the outcome?"

Meken asked again.

"So, why?"

"... Because in a week, that sick knight’s illness will have worsened until he is a walking corpse, barely able to walk, let alone fight a proper duel."

Petel’s condition was visibly grave.

Even the ordinary sword walker knights, not just Meken, had recognized it immediately. Petel had little time left, and in a week, when the duel of honor was to take place, he might no longer be alive.

And yet.

"That may be so."

Meken spoke with an unwavering gaze.

"But do you all—no, do you know about Petel the Loyal?"

Meken set down the sword he had been polishing so carefully.

"I know that knight very well."

"..."

"An ignorant fool who knows nothing but honor. He was such a stupid man that alongside Petel the Loyal, he even earned the insulting name of the Loyal Dog."

Meken’s eyes flashed like a sword blade.

"But that man’s convictions are far too solid."

"..."

"Everyone at the academy said Petel would never get past sword beginner. Even after he became a knight, people said that talentless idiot, who knew nothing but hard work, would soon die."

Meken parted his lips.

"But he survived. For a very long time."

"..."

"He won no fewer than seventeen duels of honor. On a battlefield raining fire arrows and bombardments from mages, he managed to protect his employer to the bitter end. And when five hundred starving refugees came pouring toward the gates, he held them alone."

Meken continued.

"I consider his convictions as dangerous as my own wings. That is why I want to break them completely. Whatever it takes, I will trample Petel’s loyalty and sully his honor."

"..."

"I feel that if I break that man of steel, I might find a clue to the second wing that has eluded me for so long."

As Meken said this, shining wings sprouted from his back. Watching him speak with that chilling look in his eyes, the knight felt goosebumps rise.

"I will kill Petel, fasten his body and head to a carriage, and take them to the city where he lived, trampling and sullying his honor as thoroughly as possible. In keeping with the traditions handed down for duels of honor."

To the knight, it was impossible to tell whether those wings belonged to an angel or a demon.

"That will make my sword grow."

Looking at the deputy commander before him, the knight imagined the terrible fate awaiting the knight named Petel. Silently, he prayed that fate would not be too cruel.

Without the slightest idea of what would happen in a week.

* * *

Seolyun told me that in the East, there was an expression called the last returning light.

"It means life flaring up just before death. Like the sun shining brightly just before it sets, lighting up the sky."

Seolyun said that was what was happening to Petel now.

"No matter how you look at him, he shouldn’t be able to move. But the more he swings his sword, the sharper and stronger he gets."

Yes, Petel’s condition was anything but normal.

"Seolyun, I would like to spar with agreed limits."

"... Are you serious?"

On the third day, Petel, whose eyes had gone beyond red to black, asked Seolyun to spar with him. She accepted with a reluctant expression, but the result was astonishing.

"What is this?"

In just five exchanges, Petel broke Seolyun’s sword and overwhelmed her. Seolyun, a once-in-a-century genius at the same sword walker rank, lost to him in an instant.

"I feel as though my eyes have been opened anew."

On the fourth day, Petel said this with a look of relief.

"I should have done this long ago. I should have set everything aside—honor, pride, all of it—and simply swung my sword. If I had, perhaps I would have become a sword walker much sooner."

His complexion looked very good.

Looking at his face, for one brief moment I entertained a thought. Perhaps, like a familiar plot in a chivalric novel, Petel would awaken just before death, defeat the knight who played the villain, and even overcome his illness like the hero, rising with a bright smile.

"At this moment, I feel more alive than ever."

But.

"... Petel?"

Reality is not a chivalric novel.

"Petel, Petel!"

It was the evening of the fifth day.

"Ah, young Lord Arhan."

That day, too, Petel was watching the sunset over our village, which he loved.

But something about his back struck me as different from usual. The smell of death. The instant I caught that scent, I shouted his name and ran to him. With all my strength.

"You’ve come."

Petel’s hand gripped his sword like tree roots. With his shirt off, his sweat-drenched upper body was fully exposed. It was now entirely black.

And not just his torso.

His neck, cheeks, cheekbones, and every feature of his face were black.

Like a statue carved from obsidian.

"For some reason, I thought you would come."

"Petel, Petel. Are you all right? Your body—"

Petel spoke calmly. His voice was clearer and more distinct than it had been in some time. Yet I could not smile as I listened to that languid voice.

I could tell just by looking.

Petel’s time had run out.

He stood, withered and dried, staring at the sunset with empty eyes. I wondered how he could still speak, and how that voice could be so composed.

"I’m glad, young Lord Arhan."

"What, what could you possibly be glad about? What?"

With the muscles of his face completely frozen, Petel spoke by moving only his lips. Yet his pronunciation remained precise, never faltering once.

"When I came here, I said I wanted to die alone and lonely, without burdening anyone."

"Yes..."

"But I suppose that was merely the bravado so peculiar to knights. I wanted to seem brave and untroubled even in the face of death. That... must have been why. I said something else as well. That I did not fear death. That it was the moment... when I could go to the side of the god I serve."

The longer he spoke, the more his voice broke into fragments.

"But... now that the moment is here, I am terribly... afraid... and lonely. So... I am glad. With you... here beside me... at the end, at least... I am not... lonely."

"Petel, Petel. Stop talking now. Please stop—"

Why?

As I listened to Petel’s fading voice, I wept. The tears running down my cheeks were hot, and little by little, my breath began to catch. Emotion welled up inside me.

Why?

We had not shared so many heartfelt moments.

I had known he would die from the day we became neighbors. I had known his illness was incurable. I had even harbored the despicable thought that when Petel died, I could eat the sword of a fully accomplished sword walker. So why?

"Do not... cry. Young Lord... Arhan."

"How can you... die like this? Didn’t you say... you would prove it? That you would prove everything?"

I bit down on my lip, suppressing the emotion threatening to burst out. Then I said what I had to say.

"Didn’t you say you would prove it even if you had to throw away your life? Then you have to live. If you die like this, isn’t that far too meaningless a death? Far too..."

Petel stood still at my words.

Then he raised the stiff corners of his mouth into a smile.

"Young lord."

His blackened face shone in subtle hues beneath the vermilion sunset.

"I like twilight."

"..."

"I always thought it beautiful, the way it paints the entire continent vermilion after the day ends and before the dark night comes. It reminds me of us humans, trying to leave our mark after our brilliant youth ends and before the darkness of death approaches."

This time, Petel did not stumble over his words.

"It seems my twilight is coming to an end."

"..."

"But unlike me, you are not a setting sun, young lord. You are a rising one. Dawn resembles twilight, but it still has so much time left, with only bright days ahead..."

Petel’s body moved with a creak. An unpleasant grinding sound rang out, like stones scraping against one another. He moved his stiff arm toward me and held out the blade in his hand.

"Young Lord Arhan."

"Yes."

"What you... said then. I believe... you meant it, that it was not merely... to comfort me."

Petel’s eyes were now gazing somewhere far away.

I understood what he meant.

As I looked at him in silence, he spoke.

"Please... take... my sword."

"..."

"It is... a crude... dull... faded sword... but even so... I want you... to take it."

"..."

"Could you... do that... for me?"

Standing before death, Petel held out his sword as he spoke. What he meant was clear. I looked between him and his sword.

"Gladly."

I took the sword from Petel’s dried-out hand. It was heavier and longer than the weapons I had used until now. A typical knight’s sword. Like the rigid, old-fashioned Petel himself.

"Thank... you."

Petel’s voice grew cold.

As it cooled, he spoke in a quiet murmur.

"It is... selfish... but I wanted... to leave my mark... on this world a little longer."

The corners of his mouth rose slowly, ever so slightly.

"As I said before... for some reason, I think you... will leave... your name... in this continent’s history..."

Then, without finishing his sentence, Petel froze completely. His mouth slightly open and his eyes wide, he stiffened as though time itself had stopped.

For a while, I looked at Petel, who had died standing.

The sunset had almost faded away. Darkness spread from the edge of the sky, and night was coming. Cold night air settled over us.

"Thank you for everything."

Petel had not lasted even a week.

On the fifth day after receiving the challenge to a duel of honor, he died on his feet.

"I will remember you for a long time."

That was how my first kind neighbor passed away.

Swallowed by disease in a futile death, without ever proving what he had so desperately cried out to prove.

The world was cruel.

It was nothing like the chivalric novels that set boys’ hearts aflame.

This was the empty ending that the harsh world had offered.

「Young descendant.」

But.

「There is no longer any need to hold the duel of honor. Give that knight this man’s corpse, and he will leave satisfied.」

I cannot accept the ending this cruel world has offered.

「Are you content with this?」

At that moment, my suspicion burned with astonishing ferocity. Unable to accept the result this world had produced, it questioned, seized upon loose ends, and cried out that another outcome must be right.

My neighbor’s story must not end this way.

"No."

This outcome is wrong.

I gripped Petel’s sword so tightly I might have broken it. Its blade glinted coldly in the moonlight. Liam spoke.

「Then what will you do?」

"I must prove that my neighbor’s life was right."

「How?」

Sword in hand, I descended the ridge and headed for the manor. As soon as I reached its courtyard, I lit a fire. A roaring fire that looked as though it could melt anything.

Watching the flames rise, I thrust the blade into them without hesitation.

Without mercy.

"There is only one thing I know."

Petel would not have wanted me to do this.

He would merely have wanted his sword not to crumble away entirely from the world. He had believed I would make a name for myself someday, and all he would have wanted was for what he left behind to meld into a part of me.

Because he was a kind neighbor, an honorable knight, and a good man.

But I am not.

So I will act stubbornly.

"I will fight."

I watched the sword’s blade change color as it heated.

"The Caravan way."

Two days remained.

Within those two days, I had to become a champion capable of slaughtering a knight who had reached sword runner.