There were quite a few people who were classified as masters of the military arts. Those who lived through the great war honed their martial skills anew so that they could survive should a similar battle happen again. But naturally, of course even masters were reluctant to commit to either devoting themselves to protecting others without self-regard or to relentless slaughter, in the pursuit of perfecting their art.
Therefore, it was fair to say these were two contrasting people; in their way of life, the kind of swordsmanship they aimed for, and their teachers. If one only looked at the surface, at least.
“There you are, Michael!”
Shortly before Ferd and Elrica started their journey, an uproar was taking place in a neighboring country. Within a forest, the moment more than ten knights spotted a slender man in his forties, they drew their swords, shouting his name and charging at him with ghastly looks on their faces.
“Tch.” The man, Michael, clicked his tongue at the incoming trouble and drew his sword. Now that his sword was unsheathed, it was perfectly clear that a fight to the death was about to take place. With this being ten against one, however, the outcome was already apparent...or it should have been.
“Die!” The knights’ eyes were filled with murderous intent. Not only had Michael been caught red-handed committing multiple murders, he’d even killed some of the knights’ colleagues, so no one would question whether his capital punishment was deserved, and the knights had no choice but to capture him. However, the fact that they hadn’t managed to analyze Michael’s profane sword would prove fatal.
“You nobodies,” Michael scoffed.
As Michael’s jet-black sword came into view, the knights heard a grating noise, like the buzzing of a winged insect. Even though they were in the middle of combat, they suddenly started vomiting gastric juices and felt unimaginable physical discomfort.
“Now die.” Michael swung his black sword down on one of them, a dark, ominous mist emanating from it.
The knight somehow managed to raise his shield to block the incoming attack, but the light vanished from his eyes as he witnessed the unbelievable sight before him. While the knight had just narrowly managed to ready his shield, Michael cut though it, his armor, and eventually his body like a piece of paper.
“Urgh!”
“Oooooh!”
The other knights desperately tried to turn things around, but to no avail. They were too busy being assailed by tremendous fatigue, nausea, and shivers to summon their full strength. It was as though they had suddenly fallen severely ill. One after another, they fell to Michael’s sword.
“Hmph,” Michael snorted, after killing every last knight in what seemed like seconds. He was certainly a powerful man, but this tragedy had also been made possible thanks to the power of his profane sword, which lacked even an inscription.
Murderous intent and bloodlust were stressful feelings for living creatures. This sword increased its sharpness in reaction to the enemy’s murderous intent, but it also possessed the hidden ability to amplify that intent and send it back to its source. That amplified murderous energy was powerful enough to cause actual harm, and the knights had practically self-destructed because of it. It might have seemed like a very simple trick, but since it was impossible for someone not to direct any bloodlust toward the person they were trying to kill, the knights never stood a chance.
“Well done,” a man who had been hiding in the trees and watching the slaughter unfold congratulated Michael. He was in his twenties—about half Michael’s age—with swaying, luminous, golden hair.
“Your praise honors me.” Michael bowed deeply to the young man.
“We both got a bit too rowdy. I didn’t mean to make so much noise that we would be pursued, but...well, what’s done is done,” the young man muttered.
“Indeed...” Michael replied with an indescribable expression.
There was a clear power difference in their conversation, but that was only natural; the seemingly young man was Micheal’s teacher and was actually over eighty years old, but he had used the forbidden Soul Eating technique to rejuvenate himself. That meant that his real strength was also...
“There! I found them!”
“They just keep on coming...”
About ten more knights had noticed something was unusual and were coming this way, but they posed no threat to the young man.
“Come, let death enthrall you.” The young man unsheathed and raised a sword even blacker than Michael’s.
That was all it took to end it. The knights turned their own bloodlust toward themselves and stabbed their throats with their own swords. This was a technique only possible because the young man had mastered both the profane sword and dark magic, and it was practically unbeatable.
“Now, shall we head to the Rin Kingdom?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Michael replied.
The two wielders of dark magic moved forward to achieve their ultimate goal, though it was a foolish and infantile one. They were on their way to the home of those who could be referred to as their “polar opposites.”
Meanwhile, in the capital of the Rin Kingdom, the country in which Ferd and the others were located...
Although this was a powerful nation, it had almost been destroyed during the great war. Therefore, the kingdom respected both the martial and the literary arts, and valued ability regardless of social status or origin, making use of all sorts of talented people, which had resulted in a miraculous recovery for the country. That was why its knights honed their skills day and night. The knights of the capital in particular were the cream of the crop, well-versed in the swordsmanship, spearmanship, horsemanship, and hand-to-hand combat of course, but also in magic and pharmacology.
One such knight was gripping his sword above his head while his colleagues watched attentively. Ever since the great war, demons who possessed higher combat prowess than humans—also known as monsters—had been the knights’ greatest potential enemy. For that reason, many people took an overhead sword stance to emphasize the power of a single strike.
The knight was up against a man in his sixties. Although his hair was noticeably white and his face was wrinkled, he was muscular and looked like a veteran. This man was Clovis, a warrior world-famous as the founder of the Clovis School, and thus he was a fitting person to have been invited by the powerful Rin Kingdom as a swordsmanship instructor.
He has no openings! Sweat dripped down the knight’s brow. To the average passerby, Clovis had simply pointed the tip of his blade to the ground without taking any sort of specific stance. However, the trained observer would’ve noticed the distance created by the veteran’s seemingly innocuous act. If his opponent took a single step forward, it would be the end for them.
What is this?! thought one knight.
What’s going on?! thought another.
His pressure vanished?! thought a third.
Not only was Clovis within distance of certain death, but the psychological pressure he was exerting suddenly disappeared, leaving the knights perplexed.
I can’t feel any threat at all! Why is such a powerful man doing this?! What sort of strategy is it?! The knight fighting Clovis was especially confused, his mind in complete chaos.
But then, Clovis emitted an explosive aura, making the knight instinctively put himself on guard. It was only a reflex caused by sensing threat, which created a momentary discrepancy between the knight’s body and mind, but that one moment was more than enough for Clovis. He moved in a relaxed manner, the complete opposite of the fiery aura he gave off, once again unnerving the knight, and drew closer as if to enter the gap in the knight’s consciousness.