“F-Finally, the city... I’m so sick of sleeping outdoors...”
It’d been three days since I’d left Salem. Carrying a giant bag, I stopped by a certain city.
So this is Sirius City, huh? “The Great Wolf.” One of the seven cities surrounding the capital.
I looked around with a straight face, but internally I was going, Whoooa, so this is what a big city looks like...
Iris had told me that there were seven great cities surrounding the imperial capital, all of which were as well developed as the capital itself: Sirius, the Great Wolf; Procyon, the Wise Wolf; Castor, the Brave Twin; Pollux, the Loving Twin; Capella, the Loyal Retainer; Aldebaran, the Stout Bull; and Orion, the Celestial Bow.
Naturally, the roads were paved with stone, the buildings were gorgeous, the people were stylish... The place was far removed from the life of a country bumpkin like me.
If I were wearing my own clothes, I’d be a laughingstock. I’m so glad they gave me a military uniform, I thought, catching a glance of my own reflection in a shop’s window display.
Wearing that white military coat, I had an air of authority.
It’d pretty much gotten me a free pass into the city. The guards, on edge from the perilous situation we were all in, had all relaxed and meekly gone, “Oh, a knight! By all means, sir, go on in!” once they’d seen my outfit.
They’d performed a simple baggage inspection, but that had been it. Magus knights sure were a big deal.
Even the people who live here bow their heads slightly when they pass me.
Also, my clothes were incredibly functional. Hypno had said, “These are completely different from regular clothes, you know. They’re made with thread fashioned from Arachne silk. You know, the giant spider aetherborn?”
And boy, was he(?) right! These clothes were resilient, perfectly breathable, self-cleaning, self-repairing... So many features! Wow!
Some aetherborn secretions and body parts can be super useful, huh?
Unlike the horrible, tyrannical sword at my waist, Muramasa. I had words to exchange with that thing.
“Even aetherborn are contributing to society, you know. But what do you do? You just go around causing trouble to score some souls! What kinda life is that? Hey, let’s quit the violence already, hmm? Sure, go ahead and do whatever with my body, but we should just find ourselves some honest work—”
“SILENCE! I AM THE MASTER. YOU ARE MY FLESH SLAVE. DO NOT GIVE ME ORDERS!”
“Excuse me, what? Master? Flesh slave? I’ll fucking kill you!” I snapped internally, losing my temper with that cocky garbage-ass sword.
I was in the middle of lecturing it, dammit! How dare it!
“I’ve had it with you, you worthless piece of shit! I’m gonna find some dog poop on the roadside and stick you into it! It’ll be the world’s worst sculpture, and I’m gonna title it ‘The Freak’s Fate’! Watch me!”
“HOW DARE YOU!”
“Keep your filthy paws off me! I’m making you into my magnum opus before you get the chance to take over!”
Fully planning on turning Muramasa into an objet de merde, I angrily yanked it out of its scabbard.
And then a voice from behind me went, “Eek!”
I turned around to see a girl with light pink hair standing there.
“Hey! I’m not an enemy! Put away that foul thing!” She was wearing the female version of the knights’ uniform, so she must’ve been a magus knight too. Flailing her arms around, she yelled, “I’m sorry I snuck up on you!”
She did? I had no idea...
I’d only drawn Muramasa so I could stab it into some roadside poop. Guess I’d caused a misunderstanding. How rude of me.
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said, sheathing the pitch-black blade.
With that, she calmed down, letting out a sigh of relief as she turned to face me. Pressing a hand down on her chest as if to catch her bearings, she said, “You know, for a sixth-class, you’re really perceptive. Your name’s Crow, right?”
“H-How did you—”
“You’re the talk of the city,” she explained. “Everyone’s going on about how Iris of the White Blade suddenly has a disciple.”
Oof. My personal info’s making the rounds?
Strangers knowing about me felt weird. Kinda embarrassing, really.
As I busied myself with such thoughts, the pink-haired girl pointed a finger at me. “Anyway, since you’re sixth-class, I’m your superior! So you come with me! I, Tiana, will show you to the division!”
With a confident stride, Tiana led the way. It was kind of arbitrary, but I appreciated the guidance either way.
I had no idea why she’d snuck up on me, but I sure was glad to have met someone so nice!
✦ ✦ ✦
“How dare he become a knight without even needing to take the admission tests! I’ll teach him a lesson!” The loud, scummy remark echoed throughout the city.
Fifth-class knight Tiana had been furious that day, after hearing certain rumors earlier that morning.
Apparently, the powerful knight Iris of the White Blade had found herself a secret apprentice out in the boonies, and he’d been knighted.
Apparently, as her apprentice, he hadn’t even needed to take the notoriously difficult qualification tests to join the knighthood.
Apparently, despite having joined with great fanfare, he wasn’t even that good, since he’d started as a sixth-class knight, the lowest possible.
He was a young man with black hair and an even blacker sword, they said.
Upon hearing these rumors, Tiana formed an immediate impression of him: In short, this black-haired jerk is trash and made his way up through connections. I’ll just have to teach him a lesson, won’t I?
“I’m so mad!” she fumed. “I failed the admission tests three times!”
The tests one had to pass to become a magus knight were extremely strict. Candidates were made to run dozens of kilometers carrying their equipment, and even to fight packs of aetherborn. They had to risk life and limb.
Skipping them because one’s mentor was famous? Ridiculous.
“That’s it! I’m gonna secretly spit on that Crow guy’s back every day! Just you wait!”
Repeatedly muttering about how mad she was, Tiana made her way to the city’s gates.
The Lemurian Empire was in dire straits at the moment. Three of the Four Cardinal Cities had fallen, and aetherborn had invaded the inner zone. To exterminate them, low-ranking knights like Tiana had to patrol the city’s surroundings every day.
As she neared the gate, she switched her focus.
“All right, forget that bastard. Gotta get to work. Although...there aren’t that many aetherborn around here, are there?”
It made her job easier, so she didn’t think too deeply about it.
The reality of it was that a certain man had been hunting down all the aetherborn in the area.
“Nothing beats some peace and quiet, I guess. Wait, what?”
On her way out the gate, Tiana passed a knight entering the city. The sight of his black hair made her gasp—could he be the one everyone was talking about?
“Black hair’s pretty unusual,” she muttered to herself. “Though it was commonplace a thousand years ago.”
After the flood of high-concentration aether a millennium ago, the humans who hadn’t mutated into aetherborn had undergone one particular change—their hair and eye colors had taken on otherwise unheard-of hues. Tiana’s light pink hair, for instance, would have been something straight out of a fantasy tale back then.
Most likely, this change had also been due to the aether’s influence as it turned fantasy into reality.
“His sword’s black all the way to the hilt. There’s no mistaking it—that has to be Crow!”
She immediately sprung into action.
Tiana took pride in her soft, stealthy steps. She snuck up on Crow from behind.
Tee hee hee. Low-ranked knights like us are mainly responsible for locating and hunting down weak aetherborn. If we run into a strong one, we’re supposed to sneak away and leave it to the middle- or higher-ranked knights. To that end, Tiana had perfected her stealth techniques. She drew closer still, without making a single sound.
Now, what to do? Spit on his back? Bite his ear, make him yelp in pain? Mess up his hair and embarrass him?!
She could think of many, many ways to abuse him. Tiana reveled in her lack of morality, even as she wondered if she’d always been this wicked.
And then, just as she was about to fully close the distance between her and Crow—
He drew his blade.
“Eek!” she yelped.
At the same moment, a strong sense of rage emanating from his back hit her like a ton of bricks. It was as though he was intent on sending his worst enemy to the pits of hell.
Yikes! Who the hell is this guy?!
Tiana’s heart thumped wildly in her chest and her knees grew weak.
What the heck?! They said he was a wimpy sixth-class knight!
The instant reaction to her silent, sneaky approach. The speed with which he’d drawn his sword. The aura of rage that had frozen her in her tracks. All this could only mean one thing:
He’s gonna kill me! He’s gonna mistake me for an enemy and kill me!
In a split-second decision, trembling at the jet-black blade, Tiana yelled out, “Hey! I’m not an enemy!”
Her plan to bully him into submission was a massive failure.
And thus, Tiana acted like a higher-ranked knight ordinarily would, unaware that the true reason the man before her had furiously drawn his sword was a 3 IQ “I’m gonna shove this treacherous-ass sword into a pile of poop!”