“Do you have eyes in the back of your head?!” The assassin should’ve silently fulfilled their duty, but they were so surprised that they had to shout.
Zen didn’t overlook this opportunity. Once again tonight, he demonstrated his magnificent skill in turning his body halfway and sending his attacker’s right hand flying. Zen easily beat Emile’s trump card without even knowing it.
People often say I must have eyes in the back of my head, but that’s totally impossible.
He was just dutifully following his sister’s teachings.
It had happened one day in his teen years.
As Sharla was bullying—er, training him, she suddenly said, “You’re often told vague things like ‘Sense their presence’ and ‘Hide your presence,’ right? So what do you think ‘presence’ is exactly?”
Sharla’s saying some cryptic things again... Zen thought at the time. However, he didn’t completely dismiss it and gave it some honest thought. Sharla would hit him otherwise—er, Sharla’s words were often very meaningful, after all.
After a bit, he gave up. “I really don’t know. Can you tell me?”
She brought her fist down on his head. “It’s a person’s breathing,” she told him.
Zen agreed as his head throbbed from her strong blow.
“Try it on someone next time. If you hold your breath and approach them from behind, they won’t notice your presence. But no one can hold their breath forever. If you pay attention to that, then you can sense their presence. That’s even if you can’t see them yourself.”
Later, when he tried to sneak up on Sharla while holding his breath, she noticed and punched him.
“Not good enough. I could hear you inhaling,” she scolded him.
But his attempts usually went well when he tried them on other people. It was useful during his time at the Guards Bureau and the Inspection Bureau. He just followed those teachings and incorporated them into his training.
Sharla was a prodigy in military arts, but she didn’t just explain everything away as perception and intuition. She was skilled at actually verbalizing and translating what she knew into techniques through her research and diligent studies. That was why, to Zen, Sharla was his real teacher in military arts.
Although he admired the swordsman’s strength and imitated his techniques, Sharla was the only one whose teachings he kept in mind.
“Master!”
“Please use this!”
Using the opportunity as Zen cut the assassin, one of the other unruly officers tossed Nabak a replacement sword in its scabbard.
“Defeat is not in my dictionary!” the tattooed man declared, leading to his students cheering him on. He once again came forward to attack.
He sure loves talking with words, not blades. However, Zen already knew that Nabak was just putting up a front. They didn’t need to cross swords even ten times before Zen gained the upper hand.
“You monster!” Nabak shrieked, his words uninspired.
“I’m a painfully mediocre commoner, though? Although I have worked hard this whole time.” Nabak had actually met the real swordsman, yet if he wasn’t able to tell the difference between that monster and Zen, that must mean Nabak was seriously deficient.
“But this doesn’t make sense! For over forty years, I’ve spent all my time relentlessly studying the ways of the blade. How long have you been ‘working hard’? Ten years? Twenty? It doesn’t make sense!”
“I think it makes even less sense to binge-drink your way through your diligent studies.” Zen couldn’t help a wry smile at the stench of alcohol coming from Nabak’s breath as he spat at Zen.
However, Zen wasn’t a young man who was high up enough to make fun of this man’s life. In the end, he faced Nabak with earnestness.
Zen held his sword over his head. “I know two real military arts prodigies.” One of them was Sharla of course. The other was a fellow colleague who’d passed the Advanced Civil Service Exam. The swordsman was an outlier. “If you’d fought against either one of those two, your head would’ve been sent flying the moment your eyes met.”
He put his feelings into his blade and swung it down, straight as an arrow. It was the king’s sword technique that Sharla had passed down directly to him.
Then he sent Nabak’s right arm flying. That was what he’d been aiming for since the start.
✦ ✦ ✦
Stoga had already fled the square gazebo. He’d probably panicked upon seeing Zen handle Nabak too. Stoga ran away, prioritizing his own safety.
“Where are you going, Your Excellency?” Mina stood in his way. She pointed the tip of her sword at him as if to say, You think I’d let you escape? She still couldn’t move her sword arm well thanks to Nabak’s strike, but her left would be enough against this spindly man.
Meanwhile, the blade’s sharpness made Stoga squeak.
“Hurry up and save me!” he screeched, vilely barking out orders at his officers. “I gave you all that money, so pay it back to me and move! Kill this woman!” His showy, gaudy, noble-like clothing made his wretchedness even more glaring.
But Stoga’s subordinates were so absorbed in cheering for their master that nobody tried to spare a hand for their employer. Even Emile and Baron’s knights were no longer going to move a finger.
“It’s over...” Stoga fell to his knees.
“Stop acting like this is some kind of tragedy. You’ve sold out the country and are simply reaping what you’ve sown.” Mina didn’t forgive nor sympathize with him.
Soon after, Zen cut Nabak’s right arm, and the man who’d lived his life off of blades and booze let out a hair-raising shriek, and the sounds of the subordinates sobbing as they witnessed their master’s defeat reverberated throughout the hanging garden.
Stoga’s eyes were still colored in despair. The only ones left were Emile and the five knights from Baron.
“Will you come quietly?” Zen asked Emile.
“I’m the Earl of Tus. A petty official of the empire has no right to judge me.” Emile brazenly refused his request.
“You suggested earlier that we mistook you for someone else. What happened to that?”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. If you have a problem with me, put it through the embassy,” Emile answered shamelessly. “Or do you intend to punish me right here? At the discretion of a mere petty official? Sure, if you would like the empire and Baron to war with each other so badly, then just try.”
Emile daringly provoked Zen even while faced with his bloodstained sword. He was so bold even though Zen had just displayed how strong he was—how if he felt like it, he really could cut Emile down here and now. Emile still had the nerve to smile.
What a piece of work... Mina thought. He was different from Stoga, who was unable to keep his emotions in check and whose mask had immediately peeled off.
“I understand. Please feel free to return to your home.” Swallowing back his anger, Zen released Emile, who was a master at controlling his emotions. “However, I will report you to the proper authorities. You’ll likely receive a severe reprimand from the embassy later, so prepare yourself.”
“If that’s what you think, then so be it—that’s your truth. You’ll learn that a mere petty official cannot make sophisticated political judgments.” Emile continued to talk back until the very end and left with his guards. He was revoltingly unashamed.
Once the Baron noble was gone, Zen looked disgusted and grumbled, “What a piece of work...”
Mina nearly burst out laughing, forgetting their situation for a moment. She hadn’t expected them to be thinking the same thing about Emile.
However, she immediately pulled herself together and said, “It’s a shame, Sir Zen.”
“No, it’s true that I had no power to push him into a corner once he doubled down like that. I did wonder if there was a chance this atmosphere would intimidate him and he’d surrender, though. Well, I guess he isn’t the type to do that,” Zen said nonchalantly. It was true that while he’d proposed apprehending Stoga, he hadn’t said a word about capturing the Earl of Tus too. “We carried out our purpose, and even though it wasn’t a smashing success, it’s still something to celebrate.”
“You’re right.”
Zen firmly gripped Stoga, who was still crumpled on the ground, by the back of the collar, and Mina gave a big nod.
The party was probably still ongoing, and there were likely many guests left. They hoped that only the main man of the party would leave the scene, while the partygoers continued to enjoy themselves. This had been a terrible birthday for Stoga. He’d reaped what he’d sown, though.
“Now let’s go home, Lady Mina.”
“Yes. To where Miss Elysia and Sir Keel are waiting.”