What was war?

To Seolyun, war had been a bolt of lightning. Mounted soldiers had burned and trampled her village without offering any explanation. Her everyday life had collapsed in an instant. The woman who used to make cheerful jokes, her little sibling who was afraid of bugs, the children who gathered to play until evening—all of them had died.

Seolyun did not know how the walls of her country had fallen. She knew nothing of how bravely Han’s army had fought back, or how fierce their battles had been. At least in her memory, war was a one-sided massacre. By the time the enemy reached her village, Han was already on its way to ruin. The invaders gleefully trampled the people of a nation whose army had been annihilated. They mercilessly murdered people who offered no resistance.

And so Seolyun knew nothing of war.

What she remembered was the deaths of the innocent, the blood shed by children, the trembling breaths that finally stopped, the acrid smell of earth and the overpowering scent of tobacco, the stench of corpses that filled the village. That was all. The village the conquerors had trampled through had lost its color.

Seolyun’s world had collapsed that day.

Afterward, her life had become empty. There had been anger, too, but it was only a feeble flame. Most of what she felt was loss. It felt as though the world had taken every precious thing she possessed, leaving nothing behind. Having lost everything she had held in her arms, the girl lost all color from her life. It felt as though she were swinging a sword without meaning in a world washed in gray.

To regain that color, to fill even a little of the emptiness inside her, she had no choice but to reclaim what she missed. She had to become an immortal and ascend to paradise, just as in the legends her father had told her. Seolyun believed that once she recovered everything she had lost, she could become the girl she had once been. An innocent girl who could be happy without a care.

She could do anything to achieve that.

She could do anything to reclaim those days.

“Gah—”

Obtaining the Dragon Sword was part of that process. Legend said that whoever possessed a dragon artifact could summon the true king. As a human from the east, Seolyun knew the meaning behind those vague words. The true king was Han’s founding ancestor. In the hands of a swordsman with eastern blood, the founding ancestor’s will would awaken within the Dragon Sword. Of course, awakening that will was not particularly consequential. A figure from the distant past, he could do no more than occasionally lend his wisdom; he could not exert a tremendous influence on this world. He could neither wield physical force nor shake heaven and earth as he had in the founding myth.

But there was something Seolyun absolutely had to ask him. If she became an immortal, could she truly go to paradise? Would her loved ones welcome her there? Nothing mattered more to her. Surely the founding ancestor who had laid this nation’s foundations would know.

That was why Seolyun had desperately wanted the Dragon Sword before, and why she still wanted it now. She was confident she could do anything to learn whether the path she followed was the right one. Side with the 「Great Land」 and cut down Han’s soldiers? That was not difficult. Was this not a fictional world to begin with? What was so hard about killing people who did not even exist?

Besides, these were people she resented. If they had been just a little stronger, if they had held out just a little better, our village would not have been destroyed. The tragedy in my life would never have come. Everything I had would not have been taken from me. My life would not have been drained of all color like this...

So they were her enemies, too.

These soldiers who had failed to fulfill their duty properly were her enemies, too.

“...”

But.

“I’m... sorry.”

“... Why?”

“For failing... to protect you.”

But why on earth were the dying apologizing to her?

“I’m... sorry. I’m sorry.”

Seolyun simply could not understand.

Even as she cut down Han’s soldiers and drenched herself in their blood, she could not understand. Standing in a daze, she only realized the reason much later.

She was hearing things.

["I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, child."]

The soldiers in this spirit world were not actually speaking. The voice she had heard faintly was clear now. Seolyun remembered not a soldier recreated in a virtual world, but a defeated soldier stained with blood and dust in a desolate wasteland. The soldier with the broken spear had not fought the enemy. Instead, on land already destroyed, he had pulled a girl from the blood in which she lay drowning.

["At least you must live."]

A defeated soldier of a nation whose destruction was assured. Having lost his officers and commander, and even the sovereign he was meant to serve, the soldier had taken the hand of a girl who had lost her world. Seolyun was seeing that defeated soldier superimposed on these men.

["No matter how shitty it is, no matter how empty it feels, you have to live."]

That was why Seolyun could not smile.

That was why she could not help looking sad.

["If you survive, you can see tomorrow."]

* * *

This was a memory from long ago.

Seolyun’s village had become a wasteland. Smoke no longer rose from its chimneys. There was only the black smoke of burning corpses. Smoke from cooking food was different from smoke from burning bodies. The smell of human flesh charring was overpowering and horrific.

Seolyun crawled among corpses and pools of blood. The conquerors who had destroyed this land wanted no one left alive wherever they passed. So they searched the ruined village from end to end, making certain of each kill. They hacked at lifeless corpses whose eyes had rolled back. Watching what the conquerors did, Seolyun thought they were wounding even the souls of the dead.

She thought she should have died with the others then. She should have fallen apart when her father and mother were broken. But she had barely survived. And now, she was far too fragile to seek death herself. She feared the blades, the punches and kicks, the violence those savage grassland warriors would inflict on her. Everything frightened her. This world, once warm and peaceful, was now terrifying. Had the world always been so harsh and lonely? Had humans always been so cruel...?

She did not know how many days she had wandered. She did not know how many days she had gone hungry. Eventually, the wandering girl lay down in the desolate village. With the sun beating down, the parched girl cried out in thirst. There was nothing to drink but foul water and blood. She chose the blood. She brought her face to a rank-smelling pool of it. Too weak to hold herself up, she buried her face in the pool. Tears came of their own accord. Breathing in the thick smell of blood, she sobbed endlessly. Even as she became drenched in it, even as the blood submerged her and began to drown her, she sobbed.

Just as she began to think that dying like this might not be so bad, a thick hand seized her by the hair and lifted her up. Opening her bleary eyes, she saw a soldier stained with blood and dust. A soldier using a broken spear as a walking stick. The battered soldier pulled the battered girl up and held her against his gaunt chest. Then, without asking what had happened or explaining who he was, he spoke.

["I’m sorry, child."]

Strangely, Seolyun found comfort in his words.

["I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you."]

["..."]

["You did nothing wrong."]

She remembered the sunlight that day as warmer than usual.

["So you have to live."]

* * *

Seolyun’s eyes were melancholy.

But for all her sorrowful appearance, her sword was far too dangerous. It was different from what I had known. Her beauty had become even more lethal. Then the mighty sound of a horn rang out. Han’s defenders shouted along with it.

“Form ranks! The champions of the grasslands are coming! The true spears that subdued the great grasslands are coming to bring down these walls—!”

The defenders moved in perfect coordination. The fighters among them moved awkwardly, too. The fighting at the very front continued unabated. Blades clashed, stray arrows took lives, and corpses tumbled onto the ground, obstructing movement. The earth soaked up blood and turned to mud, and how the war had begun ceased to matter.

Just as that thought occurred to me, the Dragon Sword at my waist began to vibrate.

『———.』

As though it wanted to say something.

『———!』

But the sound ringing from the sword was nothing more than noise to me. At times it sounded like metal clashing against metal; at others, like a beast howling. I could not understand what it meant at all. Meanwhile, the ground began to rumble.

With that rumbling, a long spear came flying like a ray of light.

Six or seven of Han’s defenders were impaled and killed by it. At the same time, hearty laughter rang out in the distance. I saw a warhorse clad in blue armor, ridden by a man built like a giant.

“How dare a petty little country defy the will of the Great Land! Today, you will learn just how small you are!”

He was different from the soldiers we had fought so far.

Both in presence and in power.

“Sword Demon Liam.”

Maia the Valkyrie’s voice came from beside me.

“Yes?”

“That looks like an enemy we fighters ought to handle!”

“I agree.”

“But there are plenty of enemies here to face.”

Maia the Valkyrie raised her hand and pointed somewhere.

“Sword Demon Liam!”

“Go ahead.”

“If you don’t mind, could you let me have the first chance to fight that fighter?”

Seolyun stood in the direction Maia was pointing.

The Black Bride, her eyes still sorrowful.

“I’ve never felt my blood boil like this. She’s someone I want to fight even if I lose. Among those my age in the Lakota Mountains, no woman warrior was stronger than me! But! That swordswoman looks even better than I am. So I can hardly hold myself back!”

Maia looked genuinely exhilarated.

Hearing her words, I readily answered.

“Yes, do as you please.”

Maia was a powerful fighter.

She held the title of Valkyrie, bestowed only on the greatest women warriors among the northern barbarian warriors, and she had proved her prowess fighting on the front lines herself.

And yet, why was it?

“It won’t be easy.”

I could not picture Maia defeating Seolyun.

“It really won’t.”

* * *

As the heat of the fierce battle seared the air around her, Seolyun was confused. Her body swung her sword on instinct, but her mind felt as though it were elsewhere. Why? She had been certain it would not bother her, but did she actually feel guilty about killing Han’s soldiers? Or had her past trauma been stirred up? She did not know.

She felt as though she had lost her way and was wandering.

As though she were circling the same spot, never moving forward. She had certainly been angry when she first heard the theme of these damned War Duels. But as always, Seolyun’s anger quickly cooled. Her anger was faint, and she spent most of her days filled with emptiness and loss. Anger was like fire: it needed fuel. But Seolyun had nothing left even to use as fuel. Because she had lost it all. Because this world had taken everything from her...

She felt strange.

She could not tell whether she was sad, confused, disgusted with herself for killing the soldiers of her former homeland merely to obtain the Dragon Sword, or simply exhausted by repeating the same tedious sword strokes. So little feeling remained in her heart that she could not clearly say what color her emotions were.

That was why Arhan never ceased to amaze her. He usually acted like a boy, yet he harbored tremendous anger in his heart. That immense anger showed no sign of dying out. Like Seolyun, Arhan had lost everything, but what drove him to wield his sword was not loss—it was anger like an inextinguishable flame. Unlike Seolyun, who still yearned for the old days like a little girl, Arhan had reached the end of his childhood and become a man.

How could he do that?

How could someone lose everything and remain unbroken? Seolyun leaned on a vague legend and the tiny hope it held. But without doing that, Arhan walked a treacherous path, wearing himself down along the way. He had not said he would reclaim the precious people he had lost. He had only said he would take revenge on those who had taken what was his.

Arhan was not bound to the past as Seolyun was.

Rather than endlessly yearning and looking back, he always looked forward and strove upward. Seolyun thought that he was the one who possessed true strength. True strength beyond comparison with her paltry swordsmanship. A will like steel, one that would never break.

To be honest, she sometimes thought she wanted to be like that.

Instead of drooping in melancholy and thinking only of the past, she wanted to think of the future, shake off her sorrow, and stand tall as an adult. But that was not easy. It was terribly difficult.

“Well met!”

That was why Seolyun was still confused.

Amid her confusion, a woman warrior appeared before her.

“I, Maia, sixth Valkyrie of the Lakota Mountains, challenge you to a duel!”

Seolyun looked at the Valkyrie with vacant eyes.

“... It’s customary not to reveal your name in the Arena, barbarian.”

“Is that so? No matter! What is your name, swordswoman?”

“I told you, it’s customary not to reveal your name.”

“Then at least tell me the name you use in this Arena!”

Watching the Valkyrie Maia speak so energetically, Seolyun raised her sword indifferently. The cold light of its blade glinted. The time had come to put her confusion to rest, if only for a moment. If her opponent was not a soldier of Han, she would not hear those voices. When she swung her sword, trivial thoughts did not come to her. So this was a good chance to sort out her thoughts. Seolyun thought to herself.

“... Bride.”

'Please let this barbarian withstand my sword until my mind is at ease. Let her not die too quickly...'

“The Black Bride.”

* * *

「Time Remaining Until the War Duels End 20:55:41」