“My name is Chris Fia Arclight.”
“And I’m Lienhart,” said the enemy Sword Saint, holding his sabers low. “But putting aside formal introductions… Isn’t Arclight the surname of Holfort’s Sword Saint?”
“Yes,” Chris admitted. “But my father is the Sword Saint, not me.”
“Oh.” Lienhart sounded disappointed. “You’re his son. I guess that makes sense. It sounded like the Scumbag Knight called you a Swordmaster.”
“I’m here as my father’s representative,” said Chris. “There were…extenuating circumstances preventing him from joining the battle.”
The truth was that, during their fight, Chris had beaten his father to a pulp. The Sword Saint’s injuries were so serious that he couldn’t participate in this battle. Chris wasn’t going to share that information with the enemy, though, so he made an excuse.
“Can I ask you just one thing?”
“What is it?” Chris kept bracing himself, weapons ready.
“Why the hell are you using guns?!” Lienhart spat angrily.
Chris held a submachine gun in his right hand and a gatling gun in his left. The container on his back was stuffed full of ammunition, and a missile pod sat on his right shoulder. It did perhaps seem a little unnatural for a Swordmaster like Chris to be loaded as thoroughly as a mobile ammunition warehouse, equipped to blast enemies from afar rather than cut them down at melee range.
“Guns are obviously superior on the battlefield,” Chris replied bluntly, as if that reason were the clearest in the world.
Lienhart was visibly dismayed, shoulders slumping. His voice was strained with irritation as he retorted, “Since I heard that a swordsman bested the Black Knight, I hoped for a worthy battle with you. I can’t believe you’re packing so many guns. Frankly, you shouldn’t even call yourself a swordsman.” He lifted his sabers, ready to begin battle.
“I’m not the one who took down the Black Knight. That was Leon,” Chris said. Seeing no need for further discussion, he pulled his gatling gun’s trigger, pelting Lienhart and the area around him with bullets.
Lienhart somehow manipulated the air around his Suit, diverting the bullets away from him. One of the lower-ranking knights behind him was not so lucky. They had let their guard down and took fire as a result. They probably didn’t expect it to cause much damage, but unfortunately for them, Chris’s bullets were specially made to combat Demonic Suits. Their explosive force sent the knight reeling through the air.
“Tch. Morons,” said Lienhart. “You were told before the battle started to be wary of the enemy, remember?”
Lienhart remained unscathed. The wind around him protected him from the regular bullets, and his sabers cut through the missiles. However many projectiles Chris unleashed on him, none dealt a killing blow. One missile did connect with the remaining knight; the ensuing explosion consumed him, engulfing both the Demonic Suit and its pilot.
“Tsk, tsk. They bit the dust so easily,” Lienhart remarked callously. “Oh, well. They obviously weren’t very good knights if they died so rapidly. Someone would’ve done them in sooner or later.”
Anger lanced through Chris. “That’s an awfully cold reaction to your comrades’ sacrifice.”
“Comrades?” Lienhart scoffed. “I never gave a crap about them. I didn’t even know their names. Not that I would’ve cared about them in that case. I’m not interested in weaklings. No, the strong are the ones I care about. They provide me with adequate entertainment, and they add to my accomplishments when I defeat them.”
“I don’t like your attitude.” Chris punctuated his words by firing his gatling gun at Lienhart. Such heavy weaponry was optimal for a closed corridor like this, but that advantage only lasted as long as he kept Lienhart at a distance. If they engaged in melee combat, Lienhart would gain the upper hand. Continuous fire was the best way to ensure he couldn’t get close.
“A Swordmaster shouldn’t be using guns,” Lienhart repeated with great exasperation.
“Sorry,” said Chris, “but I’ve long since abandoned my pride as a Swordmaster. Someone taught me how naive it is to rely purely on a sword in battle, you see.”
Trust me, life would’ve been much easier if I could’ve beaten Leon with my sword alone. Since meeting Leon, Chris had learned a great deal. One of those lessons had, in fact, related to his greatest weakness.
In the past, Chris had battled using his sword exclusively, making him incredibly susceptible to ranged enemies. That wasn’t a problem if he could close in and fight them at melee range, so he’d convinced himself that he just needed to focus on his swordplay. It wasn’t until his duel with Leon that he realized how wrong he’d been.
A sword was a fine weapon in a regular duel—against someone other than Leon, that is—but relying upon it completely on the battlefield would cost him his own life. There was no battlefield where one could fight solely with a sword.
“Then shouldn’t you abandon the ‘Swordmaster’ title as well?” said Lienhart.
Each of Lienhart’s attacks was precise and lethal. Even Chris was envious of his immense talent with the sword. Once he got close enough, he wielded his sabers with such agility and grace that it looked like a dance, unleashing shock waves that reached Chris even from afar.
“Whoa, those are powerful!” Chris exclaimed in surprise. “But not good enough!” Despite his bravado, he could tell Lienhart was more skilled than he was.
Chris tossed his gatling gun at Lienhart, taking the opportunity to put more distance between them. He started unloading his submachine gun and firing additional missiles from his shoulder.
Even in the cramped confines of the fortress halls, Lienhart dodged skillfully, but it took an obvious toll on him. The Demonic Knight’s frustration was growing, partly because it was so hard to maneuver inside the fortress but also because he was tired of the gunfire barrage.
Once he’d used all his ammunition, Chris purged the container on his back. He tossed it at Lienhart, who promptly cleaved it in two and charged toward him.
“You can’t win with a sword alone, huh? That’s just because you’re weak,” Lienhart spat at him. “I can tell by the way you fight. It has no flair. It’s pretty pathetic that you have so little talent, especially as the son of Holfort’s Sword Saint.”
Chris was unbothered by Lienhart’s jibes. In fact, he forced a smile. “Strong words,” he quipped. “But can you really claim to fight solely with your sword skills? It seems to me like you’re only as good as you are because of that Demonic Suit you’re piloting.”
As he goaded his opponent, Chris tossed weapon after weapon aside, having spent his ammunition. His suit was much lighter without them, and Lienhart’s shock wave attacks had already cut through his additional layers of armored plating.
“I guess the extra weapons were superfluous after all,” he muttered to himself. He’d only recently begun firearms practice, so he was much worse at it than the other four. That was why he’d opted for heavy weapons that didn’t rely on precise aim; he couldn’t have hit a moving target anyway. Even with all his weapons and the extra rounds stored in his rear container, though, he wasn’t able to take Lienhart down.
“I’ll need to practice more from now on,” he noted.
At Chris’s insinuation that he would survive their battle, Lienhart simmered with barely restrained rage. “There’s no need to worry about that. I’ll kill you before you ever get the chance,” he said coldly.
Lienhart sped toward Chris, closing the distance between them instantly and shaving some plating off Chris’s Armor as he passed by. He spun to reorient himself. “Looks like I just barely missed. Still, this next attack will bring it all to an end.”
Chris’s fingers squeezed the control sticks. He narrowed his eyes, glaring at Lienhart through the monitor in front of him. “Come on, then!”
Lienhart lurched forward and raced toward him. “This is the end!”
Chris sucked in a sharp breath.
To a bystander, it would’ve looked as if the two barely brushed past each other.
Chris stabbed his sword into the floor, leaning against it like a cane. A large crack in the monitor fractured his vision, and debris littered the cockpit. Lienhart’s blow had landed. But…
“No,” came an anguished cry from behind him. “This can’t be happening.”
Through gasping, painful breaths, Chris forced himself off his sword and turned around.
Lienhart’s suit was crawling along the floor. Chris’s blow had also found its mark. Lienhart had already tossed his sabers aside; his hands were at a gash on his abdomen that was leaking fluid.
“Blood…blood,” he rasped. “Coming from my stomach?! I-I have to get help quickly, or…” A sticky, wet cough interrupted his words. Chris had split his stomach open during their blades’ exchange of blows.
Still panting, Chris raised a trembling finger to adjust the position of his glasses on his nose. “I never said I gave up the sword. You lost because you were reckless enough to enter melee range with me.”
Lienhart had wrongly assumed from their conversation that Chris wouldn’t use a sword at all. He’d let his guard down during his charge. Yet despite its lackluster nature, his attack was still powerful enough to have killed anyone else.
“I don’t want to die,” Lienhart sobbed. “This can’t be happening. I’m the Sword Saint. I’m one of the empire’s highest-ranking knights.” He was in denial about the outcome of their match.
Lienhart was too obsessed with the sword and too naive for war. Chris stared down at him for a second, then closed his eyes. “There are no absolutes on the battlefield. You arrogantly assumed you were invincible. With that mindset, you never belonged here.” He went quiet for a moment as a realization hit him. “You’re exactly the way I used to be.”
He pulled his sword out of the floor and stepped closer to look at Lienhart’s wound but could quickly tell it was beyond healing.
“I’ll end your suffering now.”
After ending Lienhart’s life, Chris sank to the floor. His hands shuddered as he reached for the wound in his side. After Lienhart’s attack, part of his suit had collapsed inward, and one shard punctured his pilot suit.
“How unfortunate. I swore I’d catch up with everyone…but I don’t think…I’ll be able to keep my promise…”