Okay…? “You mean you’re staying neutral? May I ask why?”
“I mean to stay true to my master’s teachings.”
“What teachings?”
“The master always said to be strong for your own sake. Honestly, I didn’t understand what he meant for a long time. I doubt anyone here did. Even the Sword Emperors like my father didn’t get it. When I realized I wanted Nina, it became clear to me. A sword is something you wield for yourself—purely for the sake of fulfilling your own purpose. Nothing else.”
Gino spoke rapidly and fluently, and there was conviction in his voice that told me he believed in the unshakable truth of its wisdom.
“Because of this,” he went on, “I will not work with you. I wield my sword for myself alone. Everything I do, I do for myself.”
“Even if your family were in danger, you wouldn’t pick up your sword?” I asked.
“I would. If I loved them, I would,” Gino said. Then, for the first time, he looked straight at me. His gaze was strong and commanding, nothing at all like the picture Eris’s description had painted of him. “Or are you saying you’ll kill my family if I refuse to work with you?”
A chill fell over the training hall. Gino’s voice was as cold as ice and borderline murderous. I felt a cold sweat break out all over my body. If I’d been alone, I probably would have wet myself. This was the Sword God, the one who’d taken that title after defeating Sword God Gall Falion in an instant. A weird guy, yeah, but one of the world’s best swordsmen—a power to be reckoned with. I felt it.
“No,” I told him. “I love my family too.”
“Oh? I’m relieved to hear it.” The murderous note faded from his voice. “It seems you’re everything I heard you were, Rudeus.”
“What’ve people told you?”
“That you became the Dragon God’s follower for the sake of your family, and that you laid a whole country to waste.”
“Uh, that’s true, broadly speaking. I didn’t lay any countries to waste, though.”
“You have more nerve than I expected.” Gino’s gaze flicked to either side of me, to Eris, Alec, and the Sword Saints. All of them had their hands on their swords. Some had even already drawn. I turned to look behind me but saw that Orsted hadn’t so much as twitched. As I might have expected. I hadn’t moved either, but that was only because I was still shaken by Gino.
“In other words, you are a man I can trust,” Gino went on.
What’s “in other words” supposed to mean?
“It is because you are such a man that I feel safe in saying that I will not work with you. My sword fights for me and those I love, and no one else.”
“Oh… All right.”
I understood Gino Britz better now. He just wanted to protect the people he loved with his own hands—not unlike myself. I’d failed to do so and thrown myself on Orsted’s mercy instead, but I was sure Gino thought he could pull it off. What’s more, he wasn’t wrong. He just didn’t seem motivated to do anything else. Of course, he was still the Sword God; even if he declared his neutrality, that wouldn’t stop enemies from coming to him, but it seemed he didn’t have it in him to go make more.
I wasn’t sure why he didn’t include the previous Sword God among the people he loved, but I supposed that was different. That man had lived and died on his own terms. Gino didn’t seem to object to that.
“Hmm…”
I couldn’t see how else I was going to sell this to him. Gino was complete with himself. Unless we gave up on fighting the Man-God, or he—like me—felt like he couldn’t protect his family through his strength alone, he wouldn’t change his mind. No matter how I tried to persuade him, I’d only be grasping at air. He’d made his decision and could not be moved. It was just as you’d expect from the top dog of the Sword God school.
“Okay,” I said. “In that case, at least be careful if the Man-God appears in your dreams. He’ll lie, saying it’s all for your family, but if you listen, you’ll lose everything.”
“I understand,” said Gino.
I didn’t want to, but…it was time to back down. Gino wasn’t going to work against us, so that was something. He wouldn’t be our ally, but I also hadn’t made an enemy. After learning the kind of man he was, I took him at his word that he was trusting me enough to be honest. That was good enough for me.
“If I die and someone else takes my place,” Gino added, “be sure and come back. This is no more than my personal decision, you see.”
“Thanks, I’ll do that.” I turned back to look at Orsted. Who knew what was going on under that helmet? “Does that work for you, Sir Orsted?”
He nodded slowly. “It does.”
Once that was over and I healed up the Sword Saints’ wounds, things moved on to a training session with Alec. That meant I was seated at the front of the training hall in the place of honor, watching as Alec sparred freestyle with the Sword Saints. The Sword Saints only had practice swords, but they were clearly fighting to kill. I bet they thought they could get away with it if they killed Alec in the heat of training.
Alec brushed them off without any trouble. Having said that, maybe because these were Sword Saints, or maybe because he was distracted, some of them did occasionally get a hit on him—with the Sword of Light. In the end, though, their swords were still only wood. The moment they hit, the wood splintered, and Alec took zero damage. That battle aura was too OP.
Though, they used unusual practice swords at the Sword Sanctum. It seemed they had a core of something like iron to give them something closer to the correct weight. Without battle aura, a hit in the wrong place would probably be enough to kill. Hey! That explained why there were only Sword Saints here. Only the advanced tier and above could call up a battle aura.
“By the way, Sir Orsted, why did you come with me?” I whispered to Orsted, who was beside me.
“I wished to get a look at Gino Britz.”
“You mean what’s different about him than usual?”
“Indeed.”
Gino silently watched them spar, with Nina at his side like always. Beside her sat Eris, and the two of them were talking about something. Every now and then I heard the name “Gall Falion.” I assumed they were talking about the death of the previous Sword God.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“He is unchanged. He is single-mindedly obstinate in his determination to live only for himself.”
“Huh.”
“As a child, Gino was unstable, liable to be swayed by the Man-God’s words. Now, from what I’ve seen here, we need not be concerned.”
“All right.” Depending on how you thought about it, a neutral party who wasn’t an enemy was sort of like an ally. It made it unlikely that he’d become a disciple, for one thing. He wouldn’t help us prepare for the future, but it wasn’t like all the other nations were putting all their energy into that either. The important thing was that he wouldn’t become a pawn of the Man-God. Of course, he might still turn against us whether he wanted to or not…but once you started thinking like that, there was no end to it.
“I-I yield…!” There was a thud as one of the Sword Saints went down.
“My turn next!” said another, getting up straight away and heading for the center of the training hall…
Next thing I knew, all the Sword Saints were either sitting or sprawled on the ground. Every Sword Saint was down. For the second time today. North God Kalman III sure was something, eh?
There was a lull in noise that filled the hall.
“Then, right at the end, he said, ‘the strong live free.’” Eris’s voice rang out clearly through the silence. She looked up, taken aback by the sound of her own voice. Her mouth immediately formed a tight line, and she glared threateningly at the Sword Saints who’d drawn closer to her.
They looked down, muttering and shooting glances at Gino. I heard comments like “Making his apprentices fight his battles…” and “Does he even care about the honor of Sword God Style?”
Gino’s expression was as unconcerned as ever. For all I knew, he heard stuff like this every day.
“Won’t you join in our training, Sword God?” one of the Sword Saints asked, taking advantage of Gino’s silence. The man, who had a massive bruise spreading across his face, was the one who’d first challenged Alec. He was also the one who’d asked Gino to hold on earlier.
“No. I’m fine here,” Gino replied.
“Why?!”
“Why would I? I asked him to train with you because you requested it of me. If you’ve all had enough, then that’s that.”
The Sword Saint’s face twisted, and he shook with rage. Unable to bear it any longer, he shouted, “Things were better with the old Sword God! He upheld the honor of Sword God Style! He wouldn’t have let them swagger in here no matter who they are! No wonder the Sword Emperors left! You’re Sword God, yet you won’t even teach us your skills! You sneak off alone to do all your training, then sit in the training hall flirting with your woman day after day after day! It’s the same thing here, with these people. You ought to seek revenge yourself, but instead you entertain them while they ask you to be their servant! If you’d swallowed your pride and submitted to a stronger enemy, that would have still been better than this! Instead, you make some half-baked declaration of neutrality?! Do you want to make enemies of us, your followers? What is wrong with you?! What good is a Sword God like you?!”
A hush fell over the training hall. Gino’s expression hadn’t changed. He looked just as unconcerned as before—vacant, even. Like he was wondering what this guy was going on about.
The man, on the other hand, had gone pale, like he knew he’d said too much.