[Tips] Kaya’s illuminating flares use a light-based formula cribbed from her Flashbang spell. Although they can only be used outdoors, they can shed persistent light. Erich tasked Kaya with their creation in preparation for a nighttime assault. She had struggled more with the parachutes than the actual magical components.
“Valor is the cure for all one’s qualms.” This phrase, originating in the east, was one that the Fellows knew well, and they had vowed they would never leave Goldilocks to fight on his own.
Etan had joined the Fellowship of the Blade when he’d gone to see Goldilocks in the flesh and ended up being awed by his strength. Karsten had left his old party, unable to bear the pain of not being taken seriously, and joined the Fellowship of the Blade in search of strength. Although their reasons for joining could be described as trifling, they remained in the Fellowship because they adored Goldilocks’s personage from the bottom of their hearts.
Their boss was a peculiar sort. His feminine visage left them struggling to adore him purely as a man. Some people turned their noses up at his well-to-do pretentious behavior. Someone who didn’t really respect him might remark in passing that they wondered whether he ever stopped playing for the cheap seats.
However, his skills with the sword were top class, and he was an excellent teacher. Like the ideal father teaching his child, he understood each and every mistake they made. For those who thought highly of themselves, receiving such care most likely got under their skin. The most frustrating part of it all was probably the fact that Goldilocks was right—too keen, too thoughtful, too helpful to snap back at. If you followed his guidance diligently, you could feel your weaker past selves peel away from you week by week. Through this very process, Etan and Karsten had realized the extent of Goldilocks care for his students.
Their boss could achieve incredible feats as if they were nothing. Although this made the Fellows unsure of how to react, they respected him—both as an adventurer and as a swordsman.
Within the Fellowship, there were a number of members who didn’t actually like Goldilocks. Some of the more loyal Fellows berated them as boorish, but Goldilocks himself merely laughed and let it be. According to him, the Fellowship wasn’t a gaggle of adventurers who had come together to treat Goldilocks Erich as some kind of idol. Not only that, he saw the fire to try and confront him as a necessary quality.
It was this character that made the Fellowship function. Even though there were those who disliked Goldilocks, none of them disrespected him.
Now, Etan and Karsten were well aware of their boss’s skills, but they weren’t so obedient that they’d leave him behind while he took up the rear guard against a whole cavalry unit. These two lifelong swordsmen also didn’t realize how much of a backbone the men of Mottenheim had. Having been saved by Goldilocks, they too had their own righteous anger. It was true that Goldilocks had been hired for this job, but he had flung himself into a situation which would render those very same gold coins useless. They couldn’t sit by and do nothing.
After reaching a safe distance, they made sure the women and elderly were safe before they headed back the way they came. Goldilocks was their boss, the man they owed their lives to, and they wouldn’t let him fight on his own. They ran without thinking, but when they got back to the battlefield, the sight seemed to defy reality itself.
They saw horses without riders and bandits strewn across the ground. Most shocking of all, they saw a formation of swords without wielders attacking a row of enemy soldiers. It was an unbelievable scene, fit for a nightmare. It had no sense, no logic, but they couldn’t tear their eyes away.
The blades danced beautifully in the air as they cut down their foes. Fingers and hands careened into the air; weapons were rent apart, pinned to the ground by the unmanned swords. They moved without any sort of visible trick, but for the two Fellows, it seemed as if each had its own phantom wielder. In the empty space, they could see their boss’s face.
A huge knight in heavy armor fought through this hellish tableau to challenge Goldilocks. The men watching the sight gulped collectively as they sensed his daunting presence and wall-like aura. The lot of them shook with fear, knowing he was a foe to be reckoned with.
A knight clad in full-body metal armor was a swordfighter’s weak point. It was difficult to topple such mighty warriors, and they were extra prudent to make sure their weak points were covered. Due to his mighty size, throwing him or even using joint locks to take him down were both daunting prospects. If you made the wrong move, you could find yourself crushed under that terrible weight.
The audhumbla and the goblin wondered how they would take on someone so obviously outfitted at tremendous expense. The only thing they could think up was to try to trip him up before slashing at his joints while the opening lasted. That, or they could make use of their lighter weight and wear him out while trying to find the right time to attack. Goldilocks hadn’t done either—he was attacking the knight head-on.
And at the heart of the whole dreadful scene was that sword and the groan, darker than the Night Goddess in Her cloud-blotted, waning state at this bleak hour. Those screams that scraped at the very air originated from no human language, and yet it sounded in their heads with perfect clarity, its meaning more plain than any confession uttered with a tongue of flesh. That strange sword sang of deep, carnal ecstacy. It sapped at one’s very sanity to hear.
Under the weak moonlight, Goldilocks—seeming like the envoy of the hidden Night Goddess—and this eerie sword seemed to fit each other uncannily well.
The knight seemed to be talking to Goldilocks as he performed two-handed maneuvers—techniques that Etan and Karsten knew immediately were far beyond the realm of their skill. The techniques they had imagined they might use against him were thrown out the window. This foe could easily crush them where it hurt the most before splitting them in two. If it had been them standing in front of him, they would have found their own weapons—held up as a last-ditch defense—and armor utterly crushed.
However, none of these deadly strikes harmed Goldilocks. His swarm of swords continued to fight the other cavalrymen, forming an unbreakable bulwark while he performed a blindingly quick string of attacks that dropped the knight to the ground.
Only the two Fellows came close to glimpsing what had happened. That blade, almost too terrifying to look at, had suddenly shrunk to the size of Goldilocks’s preferred sword. His weapon could change size at will to its master’s wishes! As soon as it dawned on them, they stood frozen by a fear that went beyond the terror of the blade alone. The saliva in their mouths felt as heavy as lead as they realized there was no weapon quite so devious that had ever been left in a swordsman’s hands before.
What would they do if that blade grew or shrunk on the supposed felling blow? This was a terrifying thing to learn for someone who learned how to swing a sword as efficiently as possible in a life-or-death battle. It was like changing your play after the fact during a game of rock, paper, scissors. A sword that could increase by a hair’s width to turn a safe dodge into a mortal blow was every swordfighter’s worst nightmare.
No, it wasn’t a simple trick of changing size. The truly scary thing about this was the wicked imagination and frightful technique it took to pull off such a move right at the perfect opportunity. They wondered now whether he was even human.
There were all manner of things that walked the earth in human guise but were nothing of the sort. Alfar—those creatures who played on the border between this world and another, spirits who were under the control of the gods’ envoys. Those who watched the scene wondered if he was one of theirs. As a wind that reeked of blood blew past, he stood there with an aura that felt altogether alien.
And yet, in spite of these bone-chilling, impossible feats, the feeling that took hold of them was not fear, precisely. Nor was it relief that such a terror in the flesh was on their side. They were in the grip of a thunderous, resplendent awe—both toward the mystery of the dancing swords and that indescribable sword in his hand.