Translator: AkazaTL Pr/Ed: Sol IX
***
Young blood boiled in the Arena of the Iron City Ferma. Since the Age of War, the arena had drawn countless youths who tested their courage against one another. Some died and vanished; others claimed glorious victories and shone brighter than the day before.
He was the only old man in the Arena of the Iron City Ferma. For eighty-four days, he fought duels without missing a single day. And he did not win once. Not a single victory.
“He’s senile.”
People talked about the old man in many ways.
“I heard his young grandson boldly entered the arena and died. So the old man became a fighter in his old age to take revenge on the fighter who killed his grandson.”
“No, that’s just rumor. I heard he used to be a fairly promising knight. Now that he’s old, he wants to reclaim his past glory.”
“Hah! Then how could he be that miserable? The knight thing is nonsense. Even old, your old habits stay in your body. The guy’s just gone senile.”
Which of those rumors was true, no one knew. All three could have been true. Or only one. Or none at all.
To know the truth, you must ask the man himself.
One day, driven by curiosity, I approached the old man who sat near the arena’s registration desk. He was sturdier than any old man had the right to be, with a large frame holding a rapier—a thin blade nobles carried for self-defense.
“Sir, I have a question.”
He turned his head.
The moment I saw his eyes, I realized that at least one of the rumors was false.
He was not a senile old man. His eyes burned far too intensely for that. No youth I had ever seen possessed eyes that burned like that.
“What is your question, little one?”
His voice was solid. Full.
“Why do you keep entering duels?”
“Let’s see.”
“People say you’re a senile old man, or a washed-up former knight, or a grandfather seeking revenge for a lost grandson. Which is true?”
“There’s quite a lot of talk, I see.”
The old man slowly rose to his feet.
“What matters is not what is true or false, little one.”
“……”
“No matter who I used to be, no matter what I proved in the past, none of it matters now. There is only one reason I enter duels. Because when I fight, nothing else comes to mind. When I hold a sword, I become a person who must prove something anew.”
He put on his worn helmet.
“In the arena, I am neither old nor young. I become a single sword and pit everything I’ve built against my opponent. A blade holds a soul. And I simply enjoy the process of testing how fiercely we’ve each lived.”
“……”
“There is a place called the Hall of Honor in the arena. Young fighters have forgotten it, and even the elders who remember the past rarely visit. There hang the blades of glorious heroes—and the blades of nameless fools no one remembers.”
Wearing his battered helmet, he smiled with deep wrinkles at his lips.
“That place resembles me. Old, weakened, forgotten—but not gone. Just hanging, quietly. The lowly and the brilliant hang together, equal. That’s human life, little one. We shine when young, then fade and vanish when old.”
“……”
“I am just an old fighter. I fight simply to feel alive. If someone asks me why I duel, this is the only answer I can give.”
Standing, he looked far larger than he did from afar. Perhaps he was taller than most young fighters.
“I just fight. I simply fight until the day I die.”
“But you’ve never won even once.”
“That’s right. Since coming here, not once.”
Instead of showing frustration or irritation, he smiled as he had earlier.
“But humans were not created to lose.”
“……”
“In yesterday’s duel, I lost. If it were a battlefield, my life would’ve ended there. It would have been the old man’s end. But I do not believe that failing to win means total defeat.”
His eyes shone like the sun.
“A human can be destroyed, but never defeated, little one.”
That day, the old man fought again. As always, he lost. He left the arena with his battered body, receiving no applause. His blade had snapped during the duel, provoking laughter from the spectators.
I followed him as he exited.
He left his broken sword at a forge in the Iron City and took a sip of golden ale. I had watched his duel from start to finish. His sword was slow and weak. His technique was sloppy, with countless openings. But he never once looked away from his opponent’s blade. He stared directly at the oncoming death. His sword snapped, but it never bent. Not until the very end.
“You came again, little one.”
“Yes.”
“An old man like me, and I have at least one spectator. How glorious.”
“My name is Tom, sir.”
Sitting beneath the sunset, the old man looked straight at me.
“May I ask your name, sir?”
Clang—a hammer rang from the forge. Dwarves hawked their wares, merchants of the Iron City shouted for customers. Against the crimson sunset, all those sounds faded for an instant.
In that brief silence, the old man spoke his name.
“Santiago.”
***
Dragon Kaluah drifted across the vast sea, hunting for Karavan’s trail. But no matter how sharply he searched with the eyes of a great dragon, he found nothing. The Karavan had vanished like smoke. An impossibility.
Whether magical or ritualistic, every method left traces—and the eyes of a dragon, which pierced the mortal plane, the Spirit Realm, and the Astral World alike, should have seen them. As a Sentinel who had honed his tracking skills all his life, Kaluah would never miss Karavan’s trail.
“…Where did you go.”
He suspected the Star Goddess—one of the Nine Goddesses—had intervened. But even she could not hide traces of this perfectly. She was not a God of overwhelming power; her authority in the mortal plane was limited. Her religion was small, her worshippers few—hence her reach was not great.
If Kaluah could not find the trail, only two possibilities remained: Karavan was either dead, or he had been moved somewhere that left no trace.
【Dragon Kaluah. Rejoin us.】
Ignoring his kin’s voice, Kaluah continued thinking. A place that left no trace. Such places existed across the continent. The Great Forest, the Sky Mountain Range—mysteries. And just as land held mysteries, so too did the sea.
Kaluah knew of the one that lay between the Western and Southern Continents. Ernest. A rift between the mortal plane and the Spirit Realm, where ordinary humans could not enter.
【We require your assistance, Kaluah.】
“…I have something to finish first.”
【Do not act alone. Have you forgotten your Sentinel days? When we move as one, you obey my voice. What we do now is more important. It has been centuries since dragons revealed themselves—】
“There is something more important.”
【Wait—】
“Do not call again until later.”
He cut the connection.
Kaluah soared higher and gazed down at the sea. The eyes that pierced all worlds began searching for the rift. If the descendant of Karavan had fled into Ernest, it made sense.
A small world of its own—of course traces would vanish; of course even his tracking would fail.
“I will not lose you. Never.”
He concentrated. Kaluah, disgusted with the elder dragons, had left the Nest and joined another who had left earlier. They talked grandly of the dragons’ future and a world ruled from the sky.
Kaluah nodded along, but he had never been inspired by them.
His reason for coming out into the world was different: To sever Karavan’s breath and erase them from existence. To prove to the Elder Dragons, “We were right.” To hunt down the intruder he had failed to stop as a Sentinel.
As a Sentinel, as a dragon, this purpose outweighed all else. And he had full confidence.
The Karavan he had faced was not some great terror. Merely a human. A weak soul.
There was no reason for dragons to cower before such blood. Kaluah would sweep away the remnants of the past himself, then recover the Age of Glory.
Once the Karavan vanished, the shapeless fear would vanish with it—then the elder dragons, who hid in the mountains, would emerge once more. The true rulers of the sky, beings rivaling the Seven Lords and Nine Goddesses, born from the Mythic Age.
Not the fledglings who had joined Ian Cherville with big dreams—but the real ones.
“Where are you. Where…?”
Kaluah searched the sea again and again. And until then, he did not yet know—Why the Elder Dragons feared the Karavan. How quickly the Steel Bloodline could grow. How utterly different they could become in a short time.
***
Santiago and I grew close quickly.
He was not avoiding friends—he simply hadn’t found any. Contrary to his mysterious impression, he talked quite a lot. When I asked why he did not make friends despite liking people so much, he said:
“When you grow old, you must not be alone. But it is unavoidable.”
“……”
“In the end, every human must one day face solitude.”
Sometimes he seemed more like a bard than a fighter. I could picture him more easily in a tavern, wearing a flamboyant hat, plucking a harp—rather than wielding a sword beneath a battered helmet.
“You’re not from here, are you, little one?”
“How did you know?”
“You don’t smell like the murky Iron Kingdom. And your speech—people here aren’t that polite. Be careful. It’s the kind of speech nobles who fancy boys might love.”
“You’re teasing me again.”
Santiago sometimes made silly jokes. But his life didn’t change. He always fought. As if he would die if he went a single day without a duel.
“…I’m from the Central Continent.”
“The Central Continent. A romantic land.”
“It is romantic. But where there is light, there is shadow—and where romance flows, so does despair.”
I told Santiago many stories.
“Do you know about dragons, Santiago?”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“The place I lived was destroyed by a dragon.”
I told him a past I never shared with anyone.
“My village was beneath the Sky Mountain Range. Near the Dwarf’s Kingdom. We supplied metals and gems for them. It was small but beautiful. Warm, kind people.”
“Good memories.”
“Yes. My father was a miner. Strong, always swinging his pickaxe at the front. He had suffered fever as a child and couldn’t speak well—never more than two syllables. My mother said that was why my name became Tom. Easy to call, easy to write.”
Why? Maybe because Santiago was someone I could talk to.
“One day, a dragon appeared suddenly. Like rain crashing down on a clear day. It cast a shadow over us and burned our village without a word. It took all the children. I only learned the truth after escaping.”
“What happened?”
“It targeted the Dwarf Kingdom’s ‘Golden Vault.’ So it attacked every nearby village and took everyone.”
I had told this story before. People laughed. Or dismissed it.
Dragons wouldn’t do that. Dragons were benevolent.
It sounded like a child’s exaggerated fantasy.
“No one believed me when I fled to the capital of the Sky Empire. They said dragons hadn’t left their nests in centuries. That they respected life. That I shouldn’t spread such stories. No one believed me.”
But Santiago—I was sure—would not dismiss me. With him, I felt like a proper human being. Not a boy—a man.
“So I had to prove it myself. Santiago, I came all the way to this Iron City to kill dragons. The nations of the Central Continent don’t let minors fight. That’s why I left. I went to the Machine Empire and the Iron Kingdom—and when I learned no magic could harm dragons, I came here. To this city with an arena where even a newborn wearing a helmet can fight.”
“……”
“Santiago, I’ve studied dragons. I’ve dug through records of the Dragon Slayers. I train my sword whenever I can. One day, I’ll take revenge.”
And I felt kinship with him.
“I never thought I’d hear such a deep story, little one.”
“……”
“Why tell me this?”
“Because you’re like me.”
“Like you?”
“You fight endlessly despite never winning. You don’t bend. You don’t retreat. You crash forward even though you’re old, slow, weak—against stronger fighters. That’s me. Fighting dragons.”
Running toward the impossible.
The old man felt like my reflection.
Santiago was silent for a while. After a still moment, he spoke slowly.
“A dragon… A foe more fearsome than any I’ve faced. Stronger than anything I’ve seen or heard of. And still, you want to kill one.”
“Yes.”
“It will be hard. Extremely hard.”
“……”
“…And yet, isn’t it fortunate?”
Fortunate? I blinked.
Santiago said:
“What if you had to kill the moon? The moon would flee. What if you had to kill the sun? Or kill the stars? What if you had to kill the sky itself? Consider how fortunate you are not to bear such a grudge.”
“……”
“It’s just a dragon. Alive, tangible—made of flesh and bone.”
He grinned.
“Little one, I’ve fought something far stronger all my life.”
“Stronger than a dragon?”
“Yes. A far greater enemy. You cannot grasp it with your hands; you cannot see it. It kills every living thing, slowly. Every human fights it from the moment they are born. You fight it too.”
“What is it?”
“Time.”
Santiago ruffled my hair.
“It’s late. Rest, little one.”
“……”
“Then go back and challenge the world. Live as you should. As I wield my sword without end—so must you live your way. A man, a lark, a mighty dragon, and this old fighter—just the same.”
The sky that day was clear.
“For those who challenge, the world looks different. There is light even in darkness. Clouds in the vast sky. Life and songs of life between leaves and wind. For those who collapse, the world is lonely. But for challengers—it is not. In the world of the unyielding, no one is ever truly alone.”
Santiago returned to his worn-down inn. He vanished from sight but his words did not vanish from me.
I couldn’t sleep that night. After spending the night awake, I went to the city square and bought a rapier identical to Santiago’s. It was a cheap blade. I thrust it awkwardly, imagining an enemy before me.
But soon I realized such training was useless. My enemy was not at my height.
I snapped my neck upward, staring toward the sky. And I raised my sword vertically.
Yes. That was the height of my enemy. Higher than anyone. More arrogant than anything.
My sword had to point toward the sky.
Chapter 210: Chapter 210
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