“He wounded a Monk? How...?”

“Was the Little Gladiator a 「sword runner」? I thought you couldn’t even scratch a Monk unless you were a swordsman at that level. Their bodies are like rock, aren’t they?”

The stands of the 「Arena」 were abuzz. A Monk—a rare sight in the Iron Kingdom—had appeared, and his opponent was the Little Gladiator, whose performances had been spectacular right up through yesterday. The excitement was all the greater for it.

'... He certainly is a difficult opponent. You may have trouble this time, Little Gladiator.'

Among the chattering spectators sat Seolyun, her expression impassive. She had earned her Gold Medal in the preceding duel and obtained a recommendation as well. In no time at all, she had met every requirement for entering the Endless Duel.

But Arhan?

He had yet to meet either requirement. That was why she was watching this match so closely.

'He may have grown stronger, but Monks are the natural enemies of swordsmen.'

Rather than wield weapons, Monks were ascetics who forged their own bodies into weapons. Their skin was harder than the armor knights wore, and their fists struck with the force of castle-smashing maces. Even if an opponent managed to wound them, Revrua, the sun goddess they worshipped, bestowed the power of healing upon her followers. And among the blessings of all the gods, the sun goddess’s healing power ranked in the top three for effectiveness.

The very appearance of a Monk in a match at this level was practically cheating. To put up a proper fight against one, a swordsman had to be at least a 「sword runner」.

“The Little Gladiator’s going to lose this one.”

“Of course he is. Aren’t those monsters trained in the terrifying Sky Mountains? They’re mysterious folk you’d be lucky to see once in your life...”

“Damn it! I bet everything I won on the Little Gladiator.”

“Heh heh, that was foolish! You should’ve bet more wisely, man.”

The match had barely begun, yet everyone acted as though the outcome had already been decided. In truth, Seolyun’s thoughts were not much different. A Monk appearing at this stage was absurdly unfair. He was an especially poor matchup for Arhan, whose strengths—his steel-like powers—lost their edge against a Monk.

But...

“The contest isn’t over yet. You’re all rather hasty.”

One person offered a different opinion. At the sound of that formal voice, Seolyun slowly turned her head.

“Everyone, no one can know the outcome of a fighter’s struggle until it is over. Did you know? Even the great goddess Lepri has said that she does not know how every duel will end. That is precisely what makes struggle sacred. In my eyes, that young lord... the Little Gladiator has every chance of winning. He is a young lord who knows what a magnificent struggle is.”

An elderly man with snow-white hair stood there. Unlike the other spectators, he was neatly dressed as a gentleman. His spotless suit and the monocle resting against his cheek stood out. As the spectators fell silent, seemingly captivated by his words, Seolyun studied his face. She knew him too.

“... I think this is the first time I’ve seen you in the stands.”

“Is it? Ho ho. This old man loves a good struggle too, so I make a point of watching the fighters I like.”

He gave a kindly smile that put one naturally at ease.

“I don’t spend all my time shut away in the Hall of Fame, either.”

“...”

“Besides, I’m a fan. A fan of the Little Gladiator.”

The old man—Tom, caretaker of the Hall of Fame—spoke with a warm smile.

“For the record, I bet my entire salary for three months on the Little Gladiator’s victory.”

* * *

「Normally, Monks aren’t people you would encounter in a fighting pit like this.」

Liam spoke amid the swirling dust.

「They live cut off from the secular world. In times of war, they would sometimes appear to quell the chaos. Monks are ascetics who train not to kill people, but to refine themselves. They are fundamentally different from us swordsmen.」

The Monk, Helen, had already healed his wounds completely. His healing ability was absurd.

Wasn’t that cheating?

「You must be thinking it’s cheating. Exceptional martial arts, an insanely tough body, and the ability to heal himself in an instant even after you struggle to wound him. He must look as though he was born for combat.」

He was right. No matter how closely I examined him with Suspicion, the Monk before me was more than I could comfortably handle right now. Both reason and the sensations in my body told me so.

「The power Monks use differs from the mana we wield. Instead of creating another heart, they accumulate mana in an organ below the navel called the dantian. They call the mana accumulated there qi.」

“...”

「Simply accumulating qi strengthens their bodies while also enhancing the divine power they wield. A truly fucking obnoxious ability.」

Helen kicked off the ground and sprang forward. In response, I drew a breath. Oxygen filled me, and mana surged. The lines extending throughout my body shone, granting me superhuman strength.

「But listen. Every power has its own strengths. None is inherently superior to another. The sword has strengths that belong to it alone, young descendant.」

I glared at the charging Helen. He entered my 「path」. The moment he crossed into it, I saw faint afterimages of how he would move. Yet even knowing in advance, I struggled to react because he was far too fast.

Instead of swinging my blade in a wide arc, I moved it as little as possible to parry Helen’s fist. I treated it not as a human fist, but as a weapon. As though deflecting a mace, I moved the blade smoothly to divert the force, then returned that force with a single rotation.

Deflection and counterattack through rotation. Orthodox knightly swordsmanship.

Petel’s 「Twilight」.

「The sword is a weapon created to overcome weakness. It was made to overcome enemies stronger than oneself, to cut through approaching fear and danger and advance.」

“...”

「A Monk breaks when faced with a stronger Monk. But the sword was made to face any enemy. It has been so since the first blades existed.」

I spun and swung my blade. Helen bent backward to evade it, his expression tranquil. But my sword did not stop there. Once imbued with rotational force, the strike became a savage sword that would not stop until it sliced through its enemy. Refined knightly swordsmanship became the ferocious swordsmanship of an orc.

From 「Twilight」 to 「Wildness」.

“How extraordinary! It feels as though I’m fighting several warriors. Only orc warriors of the Sky Mountains who have completed their coming-of-age rite can fight like this...!”

Helen shifted this way and that, dodging my blade. The damn Monk’s fighting technique was excellent too. Rather than taking the blows with his hard body, he evaded them with skilled movements and approached me. Closing in one step at a time, he spread his palm wide and thrust it toward me.

It was the technique he had hit me with earlier—the one that sent a shock through my whole body as though I had been struck by lightning.

I had no intention of taking it again.

“Uh—”

I reversed my grip on the sword and pressed my shoulder against Helen’s chest. Then I hooked his ankle and shoved hard with my shoulder. Regardless of his strength, Helen lost his balance and tipped backward. Used correctly, this technique could topple even a giant.

Sword wrestling.

I had returned from 「Wildness」 to 「Twilight」.

But...

“You mean to challenge me in hand-to-hand combat? That won’t end well for you.”

I had chosen the wrong opponent. A Monk’s martial arts did not consist solely of striking techniques. They encompassed every technique that used the body. Petel’s sword wrestling was certainly excellent, but it could not compare to that of a Monk who had spent his whole life using his body.

“Excellent for a swordsman, but even the seven-year-old novices born on our mountain can grapple at this level.”

Helen swayed, but did not fall. At the same time, his limbs slipped around me like snakes and tightened against my body. My joints cracked, threatening to buckle.

I released my sword. As the dwarf-made blade fell, I drew Fang from my thigh and thrust. Helen’s gaze remained steady. He seemed determined not to fall for the same trick twice.

Sorry, but I had no intention of using the same move either.

“...?”

I thrust Fang forward. The dagger fell just short of reaching Helen. The instant I realized I lacked the reach, I released Fang, twisted my wrist to a different angle, and caught the falling dwarf-made steel sword. Then I thrust it at an acrobatically contorted angle.

「Needle」.

The thrust shot along an impossible trajectory, pushing Helen back. It failed to wound him, but it was enough to shove him away.

“What is...?”

This time, Helen’s gaze wavered.

“Not two, but three? No, four? Just how many souls are inside that body of yours...?”

I had been told that, at heart, he was a priest who believed in a god. Had he seen something unusual in me? Bewilderment showed in Helen’s eyes. Of course, I had no time to answer his muttering. Once I seized the momentum, I had to press on.

I alternated between the dwarf-made steel sword and Fang, catching and releasing them as I thrust and slashed. Each time, 「Fang」, 「Twilight」, 「Needle」, and 「Wildness」 appeared and vanished as the situation demanded.

At a glance, it looked as though a different swordsman appeared in each situation. As though several people, rather than one, were fighting with a single body.

Helen stared in disbelief.

“Are you some kind of demon?”

“...”

“I have never seen anything like this. Not even in the Empire has there been a person like...”

Yes, there wouldn’t be. The blood of steel flowing through my body was special.

I took a step and thrust my sword. Droplets of blood flew from Helen’s body. His tough skin was weakening under the relentless cuts. Immediately after one broad slash, I turned and kicked at the ground. Dust rose, obscuring both our sight.

I drew Fang from my thigh.

『Darkness was my friend.』

In that instant, I became an assassin of the Free City. I rushed in, silent as a ghost, and thrust my dagger. But it failed to reach Helen. He knocked it aside with the back of his hand.

How had he reacted so quickly to an ambush from within the dust? The sudden question was soon answered.

Helen had his eyes closed. He had detected my approach through a sense other than sight. The dagger he had struck spun through the air. I saw him slowly open his eyes.

But my attack was not over. I pressed the sole of my foot hard against the spinning dagger’s hilt. With a downward kick, I drove the airborne dagger into Helen’s chest.

His hard skin was pierced. Blood spattered.

Yet Helen was staring straight at me. He seemed prepared to sacrifice flesh to take bone. His rough hand reached for my extended ankle. Since he could heal a chest wound in an instant anyway, he apparently intended to take the blade and claim my ankle in exchange.

That was a mistake.

I drew a dagger from my thigh and threw it at his eyeball—a part of the body that could not be hardened, no matter how tough a Monk became.

“Hup—”

Helen hurriedly knocked aside the dagger shooting toward his eye. His stance faltered slightly. That was my opportunity.

I gripped the dwarf-made steel sword. Then I drew the deepest breath I could and poured in my strength without hesitation. My 「path」 became a line. The path of steel that no one could obstruct.

「A Monk is like a rock. A rock that can endure countless hardships. But tell me...」

The line infused my swinging blade. In the same instant, both of Helen’s arms were sliced off. As red blood spattered, golden light rose from his body and began to heal him. But I had no intention of giving him time. I stamped down on his foot with my leading foot, pinning him in place so he could not retreat.

「Can rock be harder than steel?」

Helen kicked upward with his rear foot. His rising foot met my sword. The kick, infused with all the Monk’s qi, was undeniably powerful. There was no telling which would prevail in a collision.

Then all I had to do was avoid the collision.

Faced with Helen’s kick, I released my sword. Then I pulled Fang from his chest and plunged it into the back of his raised knee, severing every nerve so the leg could no longer support him.

It took 1.7 seconds.

TING!

The dwarf-made steel sword was knocked high into the air.

With one leg and both arms ruined, Helen glared at me and slammed his shoulder into my chest. Golden light spread, and a powerful shock erupted from my chest. A shuddering impact surged through my whole body like a wave.

But...

“Whew...”

I could endure it. My 「mana heart」 was not like other people’s. A heart of steel was not soft enough to yield to a shock of this magnitude.

“Truly, truly magnificent toughness!”

Helen voiced his unfeigned admiration. As he smiled with delight, brilliant golden light burst around his arms, and before I knew it, both had grown back. It was downright grotesque.

“Show me more. More. More—”

A frenzied exchange of blows ensued. I cut off his arms, wrecked his legs, punched a gaping hole in his side, and inflicted a fatal wound on his chest. But unless his body collapsed completely, the damn Monk kept healing his wounds. For me, even one blow from his fist was devastating.

A dizzying impact shook my whole body, making it feel as though it might crumble like a sandcastle.

But I did not retreat. I had to pour everything into this. Everything, without holding anything back. Nothing at all.

Before I knew it, the clamor from the stands began to fade. It did not stop there. Even the faintest stray noises vanished, until my world fell completely silent.

After that silence came a wondrous sight. Instead of spectators and a circular arena, a vast plain filled with grotesque monsters spread before my eyes.

Yes.

『The Monster Wave was a disaster.』

It was the final memory of 「Wildness」, which I had yet to digest completely.

* * *

The Monster Wave was a disaster. Many of our people died. Our village vanished overnight, and my friends and comrades were swept away by the wave, departing for a distant place.

The army’s assault, led by a giant at its vanguard, was endless. Pitch-black monsters filled the great plains.

The sky remained dark throughout the army’s advance. The clash of blades and spears never ceased. Orc warriors roared, and monsters howled. Thunder struck, and wind and rain poured down.

The cloud-choked sky was black. Beneath a sky so dark that it seemed the world would end, we fought without end.

For how many days had we fought?

When I finally came to my senses, the wave of monsters was gone. Instead, countless monster corpses covered the great plains. And not only monsters. The bodies of my people and the blades they had wielded, all drenched in blood, had become part of the plains as well. The stench of blood was thick.

I alone remained standing there.

Only then had everything ended.

The rain that had seemed destined to fall forever stopped, and only at the very end did I look behind me rather than ahead. Berik, Berik. I heard voices calling my name.

There stood my precious people. Those I had needed to give everything to protect.

Yet strangely, though everything was over, my people were crying. Why? Only after seeing them sob did I examine my own condition.

A blood-soaked body, rotting and riddled with gaping holes. A body no longer bearing its proud green, but the black of death.

Only then did I realize that I had little time left. Though I had stood until the end, I was no different from those who had departed before me.

My kindhearted wife, who had believed in a wretch like me, wept. My family and friends grieved.

My son, who had yet to take his first steps, and my daughter, who had yet to be weaned—my two children, far too young, their childhoods still unfinished—cried.

Strangely, when I saw them grieving, death did not frighten me. Unlike a proper orc, I had always feared death, yet in this final moment it no longer mattered.

Nor did I regret my choice. I was proud instead, for I had stood my ground to the end and protected them.

My only sorrow was that I would leave first.

I was sorry I could not grow old beside the wife who had believed in me. Sorry I would not see my son’s coming-of-age rite or my daughter’s wedding. Sorry I could not share the futures of my children, who would one day become warriors, one day grow brave, one day grow beautiful.

Yes, that was my only sorrow.

I saw my son and daughter. Looking at those lovely children brought back an old memory.

Something I had once asked my father. I remembered the moment I had asked whether he feared death. His image lingered before my fading eyes. I recalled what he had told me then, smiling with his tusks exposed as he stroked my head.

Ah.

Father, it was all thanks to those words you spoke that someone as weak as I could protect the people dear to him. That was why I could meet such a satisfying end.

I looked at my sobbing children. At my wrinkled wife. At my friends.

Looking at them, I chose my final words without hesitation.

“... Do not... run away.”

“...”

“There is no paradise... where you flee.”

Those words had guided me throughout my life. And I hoped they would guide my children throughout theirs.

Just as they had guided me.

.

.

.

Amid the continuing frenzy of blows, I finished digesting 「Wildness」. Only after the digestion was complete did my awareness return.

When I came to my senses, the contest was over. The sword in my hand had pierced Helen’s chest. The grotesque golden light of healing no longer shone. It seemed the healing power he had used nonstop had finally run out.

“... A demon.”

That voice came from the stands.

“A Sword Demon...”

Yes, that was what the spectators called me.

“Guh.”

“...”

“A swordsman... this insanely tough... The continent... truly is vast.”

Helen murmured weakly. Blood flowed from his mouth.

“It f-felt like fighting... a real demon. You have no healing power... yet how can you fight this hard... with a body like that...?”

“...”

“Amazing... Truly amazing...”

Helen’s body went limp, and he collapsed onto the dirt.

I was the one standing at the end.

Yes. Me.

“The winner is Liam, the Little Gladiator!”

With that, the victor was announced.

“From this moment onward, Liam, the Little Gladiator, will wear a Gold Medal in the Arena!”

Cheers erupted all around. But I had no time to enjoy them.

My awareness dimmed, and my legs gave way. When I finally examined my body, I found myself covered in blood. The skin on my hands was torn to shreds, blue bruises covered my body, and broken bones protruded in places.

Seeing the state I was in, I thought I understood why they kept calling me a demon.

It seemed I had kept fighting without pause while the memories of 「Wildness」 were being fully digested. Like Berik, the orc Great Warrior who had fought the Monster Wave to the very end, lost to reason.

“Ah.”

I sank heavily to the ground where I stood. Both hands shook wildly. My head spun with dizziness.

My body was a wreck. Driven to the very limits of its limits, it was sending me warning signals. As Arena officials came running from the distance, my eyes closed of their own accord.

“Li-am!”

“Sword... Demon, Liam!”

Sword Demon.

My new nickname echoed from every direction.

As drowsiness overwhelmed me, Liam’s voice rang out.

「Well done, young descendant.」

That voice was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep.

* * *

I do not know how long I slept after losing consciousness.

In the meantime, my duel with the Monk had become quite famous. From what I heard, even after losing awareness, I had swung my sword endlessly like a wild beast. I had fought with a broken arm flopping about, bitten into the Monk’s punching fist with my teeth, and roared like an animal.

That was probably why I had acquired the new nickname Sword Demon.

For that moment, I had existed not as the Little Gladiator, but as an orc. A hero who had roamed the great plains, a father bearing many burdens, and the proud son of a great warrior.

With a new nickname, my promotion match had thus ended in success. I had met the first requirement for entering the Endless Duel.

I was in the recovery room, hearing from Seolyun about the news I had missed, when...

“You’re finally awake.”

An unexpected visitor came to see me.

“I hear you intend to enter the Endless Duel.”

Tom, the caretaker of the Hall of Fame.

“I will write you a recommendation.”

The kindly old man had arrived with very welcome news.

“... Provided, of course, that you do me one favor.”