Chapter 30

Some memories were so powerful that they became tattooed on the mind. The smells, the colors, the emotions—everything from that moment remained vivid.

Then they ceased to be merely the past and became something that lived on. Even after the unfathomable span of a hundred years.

Helauman had been fairly gifted in his youth. His sturdy build made him well suited to martial training, too.

But at some point, something he could not identify had begun to frustrate him. Something hovered just beyond his grasp, tormenting him.

At the time, he had thought he was simply bored with practicing the same things every day. But that was not it.

For several years, rumors had circulated about Riki, a mass murderer without equal. They said he had single-handedly killed renowned knights and swordsmen, and even an elite extermination force sent by the Emperor.

Was that possible? Surely those were baseless rumors? Yet the news kept coming, far too persistently to dismiss as mere exaggeration or hearsay. Eventually, even Helauman's family sought to make their name by killing him.

Then, one night, someone came crashing into the guild building, smashing his way in with a kick.

His father, his siblings and relatives, and all the disciples training in the hall stared at the intruder in shock. Helauman watched from among the crowd.

It was Riki himself. Tall, with broad shoulders and blazing eyes.

["You hounded me like gnats. Now that I've come to you, why does no one dare attack?"]

His voice was a cracked metallic rasp. Young Helauman's heart pounded.

Quietly, he slipped into a wardrobe to watch from hiding. Instinct had told him then: everyone was going to die.

["N-now, good sir. Calm yourself. There seems to have been a misunderstanding."]

His father stepped forward to try to dissuade him. The reply was not words, but a lightning-fast stroke. His father's head flew off before he could even react.

As the body fell, Riki, a greatsword already drawn, looked at the others and spoke.

["I'll kill you all..."]

The sight of their father's corpse drove Helauman's siblings out of their minds. They charged first. The rest of the family and all the disciples followed.

Was it courage? Or merely an attempt to forget an unbearable terror? To Helauman, it looked like surrender. They were simply giving up on their lives. It seemed foolish.

At any rate, Helauman witnessed it at the closest of quarters. That exquisite swordsmanship. It was not some mere technique for wielding a sword. It was art. He was so moved that tears welled up, and he had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stifle his sobs.

Along with that overwhelming emotion came the realization of what had frustrated him all this time. It was the possibility of how far a person could go with a single sword.

Swordsmanship of a level unimaginably beyond anything his rigid father and foolish siblings could conceive. Riki's sword was a summit to spend a lifetime climbing toward.

First, a great step to the right and a slash that cut a man down. Then a move in the opposite direction to secure room, another lightning stroke, pressing forward, retreating a little to make room again, a cut to the left, a thrust while parrying, using a corpse to block an opponent's space, right again, and around then, golden flames rising from the blade...

Eyes closed, Helauman relived that moment, making small movements as though practicing a ballroom dance. All the while, he muttered, "Right, left, forward, back."

Ricard stared at him in bewilderment. With no idea when this might end, he tried speaking.

"Excuse me..."

"Shh!"

Helauman raised a finger to silence Ricard and continued enacting something in his imagination. No, imitating it. Those movements he had repeated countless times over the past hundred-odd years, longing to match them. Those movements that had remained a hair's breadth beyond his reach.

Perhaps the tattoo had not been etched into his mind after all. Perhaps he had etched it there himself. Over and over.

Only after a long while did Helauman take a deep breath with his eyes still shut, then open them.

"In... out... He could see all of this from the start... Hmm..."

He sank into thought, his expression grave. Seen from the start. Seen. Seeing. Not thinking, but seeing...

Helauman contemplated the principle—or perhaps the meaning—of seeing, unaware that Ricard was looking at him as though he were a very strange man.

Unfortunately, no clear realization came. He could only sense that he was on the verge of understanding, with the summit just ahead. But he felt neither frustrated nor tormented.

Having something to ponder meant that, for the first time in a long while, something interesting had entered his tedious life.

Only then did he turn back to Ricard.

"I've made a spectacle of myself. Forgive me, young lord."

"Oh, not at all..."

"Let us go somewhere else rather than stand here. I invited you, yet I've kept you on your feet far too long. Follow me."

Helauman led Ricard up a narrow spiral staircase and farther into the building.

Their destination was nothing special, merely an ordinary sitting room. Its single window offered an unobstructed view of the city below the hill. The view was excellent.

"I don't visit Beringen often, so I'm afraid I have little to offer you."

Helauman sat in a hard wooden chair as he spoke. Despite his great age, his seated posture was remarkably straight.

"That's quite all right."

"I was passing through on business when I heard about you and grew curious. I've gained something valuable quite unexpectedly."

"I'm glad I could help, even if I didn't mean to."

"Heh heh... You are modest. Even without mana, a gift for swordsmanship is a rare thing. For fifty years, I obsessed over swordsmanship, then spent another thirty obsessing over mana alone. Then I returned to where I began. Lately, I've come to think that perhaps mana is not so important after all. However vast your reserves, however pure your mana, the vessel that holds it has a fixed size. Mana Drive has clear limits. But the principles of swordsmanship have no end."

That was the opposite of Ice's opinion. Did all his years of contemplation make Helauman right?

Still, if the question was not who was stronger but which view was correct, there was no telling. Even the assertion that Mana Drive had clear limits could be mistaken, couldn't it?

In any case, it was not a subject that interested Ricard.

"Is there anything you want? I would like to grant whatever I can," Helauman said.

"Well, I'd like you to send us a professor of ancient script. I've been waiting a long time, but no one ever seems to get appointed. And once I've learned to read it, I'd like to see this thing called a codex."

Helauman looked baffled by Ricard's reply. He had expected a request for a world-famous sword, or at least a large sum of money. Or perhaps a fief.

"May I ask why?"

"There was a war at the eastern expeditionary front a hundred-odd years ago, wasn't there? I heard the codex was the reason for it. I'd like to read it and find out whether it was worth fighting a war over."

Helauman reacted much as others had to those words. Why would he want to know a thing like that?

Still, if the boy was curious, who was he to object?

"I don't know the precise details myself, but the codex was not the only reason for the war."

"Pardon?"

"As long as humans live upon this earth, there will always be war. Wouldn't you agree? Even now, somewhere, people must be killing and dying for one reason or another, great or small. And rulers who dream of greatness inevitably wage great wars. That is how they achieve undying glory, and through that glory gain eternal life."

"..."

For a moment, the sheer, unexpected absurdity seemed to stop Ricard's brain. Live forever? No, they didn't, did they? Was that why so many people had to be destroyed in body and mind?

"I can send you a professor soon enough. But showing you the codex will be difficult. It is in the imperial library. As for the codices circulating in the market, establishing their authenticity would be difficult. Most are fakes. I have seen it once myself, but since I cannot read ancient script, I found myself wondering whether it was really so important."

"I see... Thank you, anyway. I'll finally be able to take lessons in ancient script."

"Heh heh. To be honest, I'm rather taken aback. When I was young, boys were deliberately kept from learning to read. People believed literacy made them weak. Looking back now, I think there was some truth to that. And here you are asking to learn ancient script. Heh heh..."

"Well, there's no harm in studying it as a hobby."

"Geniuses always have their peculiarities. But while curiosity about you was one reason I asked to see you privately, I also had another matter to discuss."

"Please, go ahead."

"More and more nobles will be entering the academy from now on. Times have changed. So have people's ways of thinking. I hope you will lead them well."

"Me?"

"In my judgment, anyone capable of killing a Clan Master at eleven has no equal among academy students. I shall be your patron. If you need anything or find yourself in difficulty, contact me through Dunkel at any time."

Having a Count Palatine and the Emperor's champion as his patron meant gaining an extraordinarily powerful backer. Ricard, however, was not particularly moved.

He believed that if he needed something, he could obtain it himself, and if trouble arose, he could solve that himself as well.

No, there was something he needed. A thought suddenly struck him.

"There is something I need right now."

"Hmm? What is it?"

"Please have a railing installed along the stairs to the academy. Missing your footing there can be dangerous. And the students' quarters are rather cramped. The professors live in the inner keep, but they don't actually spend much time there, so there's a great deal of space going to waste. I'd like the students to be allowed to use it."

"I'll see to it immediately. Anything else?"

That much was nothing to a Count Palatine. At any rate, this meant the students of Beringen Academy could finally escape the chicken coop.

"That's all for now."

"Ah, noblesse oblige, is it? A noble ought to show charity. Excellent. I believe I judged you well. I had a feeling when I heard the news about you. At my age, one's intuition becomes exceptionally keen. Almost always right."

"Then you could make a fortune gambling at dice."

Ricard had recalled something Arno once said and borrowed the remark.

At the unexpected response, Helauman threw back his head and roared with laughter.

"What? Hahahaha! How have I never thought of that, young lord? Hahahaha!"

Ricard smiled faintly too. The old man seemed so obsessed with the sword that he wasn't quite sane, but Ricard liked his easygoing nature all the same.

And so, after meeting Helauman, Ricard was finally able to return to the academy.

About a week after Ricard and the higher-ranked students left the academy to assist the adventurers with their commission, ominous news reached the school.

Ricard and the other students had been killed in an attack by a rival guild. No one was more shocked by the news than Boribori.

His heart hammered, and even as he told himself it couldn't be true, tears kept trickling down his face.

"N-no. That can't be true. Riki's so strong."

In those times, inaccurate news was hardly uncommon, and at first the other students only half believed it as well.

But news from outside did not reach the academy promptly. While Ricard's party stayed in Torweil, their reported deaths gradually became accepted as fact within the academy.

And the way the students looked at Boribori began to change subtly.

Then one day, a student approached him as he rested in bed.

"Hey."

"Huh?"

"Let's switch bunks."

Boribori had been beside Ricard, in an upper bunk roughly halfway down the aisle. Without Ricard, an unranked student like him could never have slept there.

"Uh... All right."

Knowing that himself, he yielded without protest. As he gathered his belongings and climbed down, he felt eyes on him from all sides. They were not friendly looks.

But no sooner had he moved and unpacked than another student arrived.

"Hey."

"Huh?"

"Switch bunks with me."

"Uh... A-all right."

Boribori packed everything he had just unpacked and moved again. Yet the instant he unpacked this time, another student demanded his bunk.

Forced to go through all that needless trouble, he was pushed farther and farther toward the edge of the room.

But that was only the beginning. The students around him cunningly increased the severity of their bullying, little by little.

At first, it was only the occasional shove. Then they began pinching him as he passed and stealing his belongings. Eventually, they threw the shoes Ricard had bought him over the cliff.

Boribori climbed down and searched the area for them. It took him all day, from morning until evening. Then the students threw the shoes he had recovered over the cliff again.

The bullying grew worse without end. They employed every cruel method they could imagine, tormenting him mentally and physically in every possible way.

They dragged him away, told him to close his eyes and open his mouth, and fed him insects. If he failed to swallow them and spat them out, several would gang up on him and beat him. They kept assigning him night watch so he could barely sleep, and even extorted the money and valuables he needed for tuition.

The sad part was that the chief perpetrators were not ranked students. They were the so-called bottom-dwellers, unranked students whose circumstances were much like his own.

They had not even been on bad terms with Boribori before. With Ricard gone, they had changed completely.

Boribori did not resist. Whether he couldn't or simply wouldn't was impossible to tell.

But what hurt Boribori most was having to accept that Ricard was dead.

He grew more worn down by the day, yet the bullying only worsened.

Cutting grass, emptying the latrines, cleaning, and all the other menial chores had always been his work, but now he had to take on everyone else's share too. His little body could not possibly endure it.

One day, he lay limp on his bed, feeling that he really might die like this. His eyes were swollen, and dark bruises covered his face and body.

Still, the other children came to heap more abuse on him for no reason. There was nowhere to run. He was here in the first place because he had been abandoned.

"Hey, your mother's a maid, isn't she? Did she seduce her master? Wow, that's pretty bad."

The truly vicious thing was that the boy insulting his parents was in circumstances scarcely different from his own.

"You're a little slut like your mother, aren't you? Huh?"

"Is that how you got Riki hooked? Why don't you do me too?"

"Heh heh. Hey, are you insane?"

"N-no. Don't say bad things about Riki."

Boribori had spoken. He had silently endured every form of bullying, even insults to his parents, but the mention of Ricard drew a response.

"Has this little fucker lost his mind? Hey, that Riki you love so much is dead, you know? I was going to kill that weak little shit myself."

"Should've knocked all his teeth out before he left. Hee hee."

They said people would curse even kings and emperors behind their backs, but this was utterly despicable.

"I-I said stop."

"This bastard needs a beating to knock some sense into him."

The boys tried to drag Boribori out of bed. With scarcely any strength left, he clung to a bedpost to keep them from pulling him away.

"You little shit! Get out while we're asking nicely!"

"Say Riki's a pathetic fucking weakling!"

"Riki's gone, you idiot! He's dead!"

They hit Boribori, pulled at him, and scratched him. They knew he couldn't fight back, just as he never had before. And he never would.

But they were wrong.

"I said stop!"

CRACK!

It was unmistakably a boy's voice. Yet its volume was truly thunderous. It reverberated throughout the dormitory.

And without realizing it, Boribori tore off the bedpost. With one support gone, the bed tilted.

The children toppled backward in sheer terror. Before they could make sense of what had happened, Boribori, beyond all reason, seized one of his tormentors by the collar and lifted him into the air.

The boy in his grip saw it: energy like black ink roiling in Boribori's eyes.

It was mana. Yet mana never became visible outside the body in this fashion.

This was not a manifestation along a sword's path through intricate Mana Drive, as with Ice. It was pure mana overflowing from the body.

The size of the vessel Helauman had spoken of. Boribori's body was small, and he was weak and could not fight, but the size of his vessel for mana was beyond reckoning.

Still gripping the boy's collar, Boribori slammed him hard against the wall.

THUD!

"Guh!"

Then he hit him wildly, any way he could. He had never struck anyone before, so there was no method to it. But an uncanny strength welled up from somewhere, and everything his hands struck—collarbone, ribs, internal organs—broke or ruptured.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

With his bare hands, Boribori reduced a person to a mangled wreck. Then, still holding him by the collar, he spoke. Tears streamed from his eyes, where black energy seethed.

"Please. Insult Riki just one more time. Then I think I can kill you."

It was difficult to understand what he meant, but the words were undeniably terrifying. The student in his grip, however, was already knocking on death's door.

Then it happened.

"Bori, what are you doing?"

Boribori froze like stone. His friend's death had been impossible to accept, yet his spirit had been broken down, again and again. But that was his friend's voice.

In an instant, the black energy scattered from his eyes. When he turned, Ricard was standing in the dormitory entrance, silhouetted against the light.

Indescribable relief washed over him. The grief-stricken rage that had blazed as though it would burn out his brain cooled with impossible swiftness.

Thankfully, Boribori had not crossed the line between human and monster. He had not broken. Unlike Riki in his previous life. Unlike that deserter.

True friends could be pillars supporting each other's souls through the mere fact that they were alive. Keeping one another from collapsing.

It had been quite a long journey. For everyone.