Volume 16

by Reki Kawahara

  “…what the fuck!?”

  Iskahn, who had backed off and crossed his arms, shouted instinctively.

  “Thin” was an insufficient description. The scabbard already looked like a roasting spit, but the blade inside it was just a cen wide, like a child’s finger. The sword was matte black and thin as paper; just being able to see it was difficult under the starry night sky. How fragile.

  Yotte’s face flushed red with anger.

  “… Y’ gotta be kiddin’ me…”

  Performing a short martial dance, or rather, battering the earth with her feet, the female Fighter charged straight and quickly closed the distance between her and the Knight.

  Even to Iskahn, that was quite an impressive sprint. Team Rabbit of the Fist Fighters’ Guild were, unlike their name, elites that were not only agile, but skilled precision fighters.

  Bibat!

  Splitting the air, Yotte lashed out.

  Unable to avoid the close-range attack, the female Knight defended with her paper-thin sword.

  The resounding noise was piercingly high, as if created by a collision of two metal objects. Blinding golden sparks shot out.

  Immediately after.

  The needlelike sword was easily bent.

  Iskahn smiled. A normal sword would never cut the skin of a Fist Fighter.

  The children born as Fist Fighters were thrown into the training facility as soon as they became five years of age. Their very first training was snapping a cast iron knife with one punch.

  As they matured, cast iron would be replaced with wrought iron, and knives would be replaced with long swords. Not only did they have to split them, they had to withstand slashes from the weapons without any protection. Through their training, the adolescents were confident that blades were nothing to be afraid of. I am invulnerable to blades. That belief — in other words, Incarnation, turned their bodies into steel.

  As the guild chief, Iskahn could stop a needle 2 cen in diameter with his eyeball.

  Although Yotte, a normal Fighter, had not trained her Incarnation to this extent, she was one of the ten group leaders in Team Rabbit. Her fist did not lose to any sword.

  Especially not that pitifully thin one.

  All of the Fist Fighters had one image in their heads: the horribly bent black needle would snap with an embarrassing crack, and a fist would sink into the female Knight’s face.

  Thew.

  A strange sound, like a whip slicing the air.

  Yotte froze, her fist hovering in the air. The punch barely grazed the female Knight’s right cheek, and the Knight’s hand lifted up.

  Iskahn could not see the black blade clearly from his position.

  — What the hell? That’s a pretty large target to miss.

  The chief cursed. Even if Yotte wins this battle, she’ll have to start her training all over again in the arena’s third-class waiting room. No matter how tough one’s fist is, it’s useless if it doesn’t hit the oppone…

  Yotte’s clenched fist silently split apart between her middle and ring finger.

  “Wh………”

  In front of the stunned Iskahn, the fissure continued from Yotte’s wrist to her elbow, through her upper limb, and passing through her shoulder.

  Perfectly displaying a cross section precise to the bone, muscles and even the thinnest blood vessels, the outer part of Yotte’s right arm dropped onto the ground. Only after did blood erupt in multiple jets, forming a crimson mist.

  “— GHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

  Uttering an earsplitting shriek, Yotte collapsed to the ground, cradling her right arm.

  The female Knight retracted her arm, and breathed a small sigh.

  Back during her life in the Central Cathedral, ≪The Silent≫ Sheyta seldom spoke. This was not due to introversion, nor because she hated everyone else.

  Just to avoid attention from other Integrity Knights — she suppressed her own existence, hoping that no one would challenge her to any sparring matches.

  If she were to cross swords with anyone, even if it had been Knight Commander Bercouli, she possibly could have killed her opponent.

  Fearing that this might happen, she had kept silent in the hundred years living in the Cathedral.

  Even if she spoke, her familiar caretaker and the elevating-disk operator girl were the only ones she would talk to.

  Sheyta was entirely a swordsman, synthesized after winning the Four Empires Unity Tournament.

  However, the records of that year’s tournament were completely erased. The reason was that, in a tournament that appraised the principle of mercy as one’s best quality, blood had been shed: Sheyta had brutally murdered every single one of her opponents.

  The high-ranking Integrity Knight Sheyta Synthesis Twelve, in a certain sense, shared a similar mindset with the chief of the Fist Fighters’ guild, Iskahn.

  Iskahn thought only about beating up something or someone, while Sheyta was interested in nothing but slicing things in half. Despite that, from the bottom of her heart, she had never, ever enjoyed it.

  She would just cut. Whether it be human or object, when she was confronted with something, Sheyta could already see its cross section sliced clean. Whenever that happened, she was never able to stop herself from realizing it. If her opponent were a wooden practice dummy, she could even cleanly sever it with her hand.

  Sheyta had always suppressed her cut-hungry nature as something sinister.

  The first to perceive this deeply hidden impulse in her heart was the Highest Minister Administrator.

  For two hundred years, Administrator had been attempting to deduce the Spacial Sacred Energy Theory, which was now common knowledge to every learner of arts.

  While the Highest Minister was still researching, she became deeply obsessed with the last and largest war in the Dark Territory that put the ≪Age of Blood and Iron≫ to an end.

  Administrator was concerned that it would be such a waste for no one to collect the virtually infinite Sacred Energy that had been released from the fierce battle between the five Dark Territory races, which took place in the wilderness between the Human Empire and the Imperial Capital Obsidia.

  Despite that, she had been careful to never visit the Dark Territory herself. Instead, she had summoned Knight Sheyta. The Highest Minister had whispered to Sheyta, who had already earned the moniker, ≪The Silent≫:

  — Journey there alone and look for something in the battlefield. A demonic beast, or something of the sort unharmed by the war would be best if you can find one. If not, any large animal will do. A bird or an insect at least. Just find me anything that’s engorged with Spacial Sacred Energy.

  — Bring it to me, and from it, I will fashion a Divine Instrument for you.

  — A sword with the highest Priority, a sword that can slice anything in half… How about that?

  Sheyta could not resist the temptation. An Integrity Knight could not disobey an order from the Highest Minister anyway, but she, without taking a dragon to get over the Mountain Range at the Edge, trekking thousands of kilol deep into the land of ash, arrived at the battlefield that stank of blood.

  There were no moving creatures where the five races had strained their limits to kill each other. Not even a mouse or a crow had survived, let alone a beast.

  But Sheyta did not give in. A sword that can slice anything in half. The phrase had captured her heart, leaving her unable to think of anything else.

  At the end of her three day search —

  She finally found one lone black lily, wobbling flimsily in the wind.

  That small flower was the only object that had survived the vast battlefield, charged with Spacial Sacred Energy.

  The Highest Minister Administrator generated an extremely slim sword out of the flower that Sheyta brought back, and bestowed it upon her with the name ≪Black Lily Sword≫.

  A year later, after killing an Integrity Knight in a duel, she was put into hibernation at her own request.

  Sheyta did not know whe
ther she sighed out of sympathy or intoxication when she cut the female Fist Fighter’s fist.

  Come to think of it, she also did not understand why she had volunteered ten minutes ago to defend this place, speaking to the Knight Commander and breaking her silence. Rather, she was unaware of any motivation to join the Defense Army half a year ago, volunteering herself while all of the Knights were invited.

  Is it because I hope to protect the Human Empire, like the other Knights?

  Or is it simply because I want to cut?

  Or — it wants me to cut?

  Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. The situation is what it is, and there’s no way to stop the sword anymore. Let’s just hope that there won’t be too many lives taken.

  Sheyta calmly raised her head, and glanced at the terrified Fist Fighters who had frozen to the spot.

  Without a trace of hesitation or fear, the gray Knight gripped her slender, pitch-black sword, and slashed head-on towards the hundred Fist Fighters.

  ***

  “… What an incredible performance.”

  At Alice’s hoarse comment, Bercouli muttered in a low voice.

  “Right… Let me tell you something that you shouldn’t tell anyone else. Half a year ago, while I was waking her up from her deep freeze, I was actually kind of scared.”

  “I never knew. I never knew that Sheyta-dono has been so adept…”

  Beneath the hill, the battle between one hundred Fist Fighters and Integrity Knight Sheyta unfolded. To be precise, it was a one-sided massacre.

  Whenever a thew came from the extremely thin and malleable sword, the limbs of the surrounding enemies would immediately separate from their bodies and hit the ground.

  While impressed, Alice was slightly concerned about something that she should have felt from Sheyta’s slim frame.

  She could not feel Sheyta’s murderous intent at all. Not only that, she could not even feel a shred of hostility.

  If so, then how is she able fight so ferociously?

  “Don’t think about it. Even though I’ve been watching her for more than a hundred years, I still understand nothing about her. Nothing.” The Knight Commander whispered and turned around.

  “We can leave this to her. The main enemy army should be arriving very soon; we have to prepare for the counterattack over there.”

  “… Okay.”

  Nodding and looking away from the battle below her, Alice followed him.

  ***

  About a thousand kilol south from Bercouli and Alice, who were walking down the hill, the gray, rough wilderness finally came to an end, where some irregularly shaped shrubbery grew in the area. The main formation of the decoy division was concealed among them.

  They consisted of one thousand Guards, two hundred Ascetics, and a supply team of fifty people. They had to face the five thousand Fist Fighters with such a small force.

  Integrity Knight Renri had ordered the Guards and the Ascetics to hide in the plants’ shadows, dividing them into twenty teams. The supply team wagon had carved fresh grooves into the only narrow path that stretched through the entire wooded area. The plan was to perform a pincer attack as the enemy followed the ruts into deep enough woods.

  Renri had already heard from the Knight Commander that their swords would be ineffective on Fist Fighters, and he had heard about their weakness as well.

  Fist Fighters were not good at defending themselves against Sacred Arts.

  In the northern wilderness where not even moss could grow, there was simply not enough Sacred Energy to deploy any high-powered arts, but the air should be thicker in the shrubbery. The Ascetics hiding behind the leaves would ambush the enemy together, then retreat to the south while protected by the Guards. From the above, five Dragons would torch the enemy with their flame breath in the midst of the chaos.

  Prepared for a quick retreat, Renri stationed the eight supply team wagons at the southernmost part of the shrubbery area. He determined that, the further away from the front line, the safer they would be.

  However, just as Renri was devoting his mind to preparing the ambush, the five Guards, who were stations around the wagons just in case something happened, silently died, one after another, without uttering so much as a whimper.

  Its entire body clad in glossless black metallic armor that was fitted with a demonic horned helmet, a shadow moved soundlessly.

  Before him, a Guard of the Human Empire Defense Army looked left and right, alert. He did not, however, look behind him at all, because the other Guards should have been watching that space.

  The shadow entered his blind spot, approaching as if it were gliding. A long sword was equipped on its waist, but it did not draw. Instead, it casually raised the tiny dagger in its right hand.

  It stretched its left arm like a black snake, blocking the Guard’s mouth and nose.

  At the same time, its right hand flashed, slitting his exposed throat in a straight line.

  In complete silence, his Life was drained. Right after the Guard’s body suddenly lost its strength, the black shadow pushed it under the nearest bush.

  Behind the black veil that covered its face, a barely audible voice slipped out.

  “Five, dooown.”

  The shadow giggled.

  This was not the Ancient Sacred Tongue.

  This shadow was actually one of the three real-world people in the Underworld. He, Vassago Casals, was the adjutant under Gabriel Miller, who posed as Emperor Vector.

  About an hour ago, Vassago was swigging his red wine straight from the bottle for the umpteenth time. Meanwhile, he caught sight of the large-scale art, which ended with a pathetic failure for his side, and finally said something that sounded like advice.

  “Hey, bro. How ‘bout we stop depending on those guys and try moving a bit by ourselves?”

  Gabriel rolled his eyes at Vassago, raised his blond eyebrows and replied.

  “Okay, then you can make the move.”

  The instructions that followed were not to invade the valley that the Human Empire Army was protecting, but to travel somewhere far away from the battlefield, far south, in the middle of nowhere.

  When the enemy eradicated the Demihuman troops with a laser beam like those in sci-fi movies, Gabriel had already predicted that part of the enemy would be selected to enter the Dark Territory.

  But when Vassago heard this, he questioned why he had to specifically move south instead of north. Hearing the reply “Look, there’s more space that way”, he couldn’t help but be even more doubtful. But since the enemy did actually come, he could only admit his mistake and get to work.

  No matter how strong the Human Empire units were, they would definitely stop if they lost all of their food supply. In order to continue his ‘Killing Time’, which was his first since Diving into this world, he gazed into the dark woods.

  Very quickly, he found wagons camouflaged with branches and leaves.

  Licking his lips under the mask, the assassin began moving again.

  Then, something moved behind a wagon. He stopped abruptly and pressed himself against a tree.

  A fair-skinned young girl with tea-colored hair, which was not a face of the Dark Territory, stuck her head out of the roof. Perhaps she had sensed something, as she was looking around with a nervous expression.

  As Vassago stayed still, it did not take long for the girl to step carefully out of the cart. She whispered something to someone in the wagon, and finally began to walk slowly.

  Wearing minimal defensive equipment on top of gray clothes that looked like a high school uniform, the girl was heading straight to Vassago’s hiding place.

  Resisting the temptation to whistle, the assassin gripped his blood-soaked dagger tightly in his right fist.

  ***

  “— DOOOON’T…”

  Forced to watch his Fighters, whom he had painstakingly trained, effortlessly defeated nearby, Iskahn screamed in anger as he recovered from shock.

  “GET TOO COCKY, YOU BIIIIITCH!!”
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  Kicking onto ground hard enough to produce a giant crack, he fiercely charged.

  Flames erupted on his taut right fist as though they were the scorching fury itself.

  He punched straight at the neck of the gray Integrity Knight. Sparks flew from his fist, creating a blazing tail in the air along its path.

  At that moment, the Knight had just finished a slash with the sword in her right hand; she tried to block Iskahn’s punch with her gauntleted left hand.

  — To my punch… all armor is no more than paper!!

  The strike engorged with Incarnation collided into the female Knight’s palm; blinding sparks burst in all directions.

  Immediately, the gray gauntlet shattered with a deafening crack, and the armor pieces from her arm to her shoulder were shredded and blown away.

  Countless cuts crossed the smooth, white skin of the exposed left arm; droplets of blood flew into the air like grains of sand. However, surprisingly, he did not feel any bones breaking.

  Even though it should be excruciatingly painful, the female Knight only frowned slightly, her right hand flashing her super-slim sword while her left hand grasped Iskahn’s right fist.

  Kiiin! A high metallic noise resonated, and sparks burst again from the Fist Fighter’s elbow.

  The source of Fist Fighters’ strength was the confidence of being invulnerable to all blades. In order to obtain that confidence, they wrapped their bodies only with belts, exposing their skin. The moment they fell back on any kind of defensive equipment, a Fist Fighter’s Incarnation would be weakened.

  Therefore, Iskahn was trying to deflect the black blade that was about to cut through his right arm, just with his determination.

  But.

  The dense frigidity that almost sank into his skin was completely different from what he had felt from any other sword, even having taken slashes from them with bare skin.

  This paper-thin sword was not just cold, hard steel; it represented will. Instead of a desire for victory, it was simply a thirst for division.

  Sensing this, Iskahn reflexively punched with his left fist.

  Po! Shattering the air, the punch pierced the space where the female Knight had been an instant ago.