Volume 16

by Reki Kawahara

  That was impressively agile, but she did not completely evade the strike: the punch grazed her gray chestplate. As the Knight jumped out of the way, her chestplate shattered just like her gauntlet had.

  But Iskahn was not uninjured either.

  On his inner elbow, at the point that had met the blade for less than a second, there was a very shallow cut. A tiny droplet of blood slowly beaded out from its center. Only a drop — yet a drop nonetheless.

  Licking the blood away, the young Fist Fighter savagely grinned.

  “… Hey, bitch. You’re quite different inside from what you look like on the outside, huh.”

  The gray female Knight and replied with something completely irrelevant.

  “… I should be older than you…”

  “Huh? You got that right. Integrity Knights like you are monsters that don’t get old for decades, right? What, you want me to call you granny?”

  “……”

  Below her eyes, the female Knight’s clean face jerked, but soon she returned to dispassion.

  “… I forgive you. You are very hard. I can barely see where I can slice.”

  “Tsk… What the hell are you talking about?”

  Iskahn clucked his tongue, feeling his spirit weakened from her offbeat attitude. However, as he looked around at the Fist Fighters on the ground, he recovered his anger.

  Twenty of them of them, men or women, were moaning, their arms or legs having been cut from their bodies by the slim sword. The most unforgivable thing was, not only did the female Knight harm his subordinates, she was apparently merciful to them by sparing their lives. None of the injured had lost their heads. With her skills and the sharpness of the sword, the Knight could easily have made that extra stroke if she wished.

  “… So you treat us like wood dummies for your fucking sword practice. Unforgivable… I’m gonna beat you to a pulp!!”

  Zun, zat, zun!!

  The remaining active Fighters followed the quick steps of the Martial Dance. Fierce war cries overlapped with their stamping on the ground.

  Ooh, rah, oorarah. Ooh, rah, oorarah.

  As they stomped and vibrated the air, the Fist Fighters intensified their Incarnation. Drops of sweat flied off from their copper skin, transforming into flying, blazing sparks.

  The Integrity Knight did not move, as if she were waiting for Iskahn to reach his maximum state.

  — That’s right.

  The Fist Fighter champion stopped his steps; flames roared from his reddish golden curly hair, and blinding light effused from both of his hands.

  The female Knight, as his opponent, was persistently calm. In her right hand, the pitch-black super-slim sword was giving off a freezing energy.

  “Heeeere I come, you BIIIIIIIIITCH!!”

  Setting the air ablaze with a pow, Iskahn instantly closed the distance between them in a straight line.

  The female Knight effortlessly swung the sword in her right hand.

  Thew.

  Just before the fine black line touched Iskahn’s shoulder —

  Faster than the sword that swung earlier than him, a blow from the Fist Fighter struck the female Knight’s left leg. Not a punch, but a kick. His right foot shot up, hitting the gray leg guard directly with his toes.

  With astonishing reflexes, the Knight stopped her sword and leaned forward, avoiding a fall, but the left leg guard was instantly shattered. The skirt around her waist was torn; her toned yet slim legs were exposed.

  “Don’t think Fist Fighters can only punch!!”

  Grinning confidently, Iskahn began a high kick with his left leg.

  The female Knight turned her wrist, trying to parry the kick with her sword.

  The instant that the blade and the leg clashed, a deafening crack was accompanied by a shower of blazing sparks. The Fist Fighter Chief pulled his toned left leg back, feeling a sharp pain, and suddenly thrust his right fist forward.

  Bathed in crimson flames, the strike hit the Knight’s chestplate squarely in the middle.

  Kaboom! An almighty explosion propelled the two of them away from each other. Iskahn backflipped in midair and landed on the ground.

  His left leg stabbed with pain again. He glanced at it.

  On his rock-hard shin that could easily bend a steel bar, a fresh cut carved a straight line. Dark red blood flowed out at once, dripping onto the black ground.

  Snickering at this small scratch, he observed the enemy.

  The female Knight managed to withstand this as well, but she pressed her left hand onto her chest and coughed a few times. Her chestplate, already damaged, had shattered completely; her right hand gauntlet and the gray clothing covering her chests were the only things left on her upper body. There was not much left on her lower body either: only a torn skirt and her right shin guard.

  Exclusive to those born in the Human Empire, her snow-white skin seemed to glow even in the darkness. Seeing this, Iskahn sneered:

  “Now you look more like a fighter, but there just aren’t enough muscles. Go eat and train more, bitch.”

  The Fist Fighters around jeered at her, but the Knight calmly tore off a hanging piece of cloth from her left shoulder and raised the sword in her right hand. Thew.

  “… But you’ve become a bit softer just now.”

  “… THE FUCK DID YOU SAY?”

  His nostrils flared and he bared his canine teeth.

  Even though he was bluffing with his expression, Iskahn felt that his breaths had become slightly quicker.

  There’s no way my spirit would decrease just by seeing some uncovered limbs. The women over here show much more of their skin every day, only a fresh trainee kid would hesitate just by seeing that.

  The whole world is made out of opponents that I must beat up with my tough body, even if it’s a foreign woman who’s slim enough that the wind could bend her bones, whose skin is shining white.

  “There’s no turning back… I’m gonna show you all I’ve got!!”

  Howling like a wolf, Iskahn jabbed his index finger at the female Knight:

  “So show me yours as well, bitch!! Don’t give me that fucking sleepy face!!”

  As he said so, the Knight looked confused again, and touched her own cheeks and the middle of her forehead with her left hand. Changing her eyebrows’ angle into a slightly fiercer look, she said:

  “Bring it on… please.”

  “…… Yeah, bring it on.”

  I’ll be thinking nonsense again if I follow her pace.

  Iskahn inhaled deeply, gathered power in his stomach, and violently bent over.

  Putting his left fist to his waist, and pointing his right fist at his opponent, he noisily exhaled the air. As he repeated the rough breathing, his parted legs began to glow red, drawing power from the ground. The energy channeled through his body and gathered at his fist.

  Crimson blazing flames gradually shone yellow, and eventually turned bluish white.

  Now Iskahn’s right fist was at a temperature so high that it could almost burn the air, making high, sharp noises.

  The female Knight faced him sideways, extended her left hand to the front with her thumb and fingers neatly lined up, and swung the fine sword in her right hand behind her. Her arms aligned in a straight line, giving a feel of strength like a catapult prepared to launch with full power.

  The tension in Iskahn was so immense that he felt like he was already split into half, from the head all the way down to the stomach. And yet he grinned excitedly.

  — She’s the first one to burn me up this much.

  Both of them moved at the exact same moment.

  The Knight’s sword drew a pitch-black crescent curve in the air.

  The Fist Fighter’s fist became a bluish white comet. At the instant that they collided, powerful shockwaves exploded outward, cracking the ground on their way. The remaining Fist Fighters surrounding the two were irresistibly blown backwards.

  The sword and the fist were only meeting at the size of a needle’s tip,
yet they were battling intensely. Surpassing its limit, the compressed power shot forth into a beam of light, bursting into the night sky.

  With Sheyta’s combat skills, she could have defeated her opponent without this kind of stupid competition of brute strength.

  Slightly surprising to her, the intensity of the young Fist Fighter’s Incarnation was at the level of a high-ranking Knight. Even so, he concentrated all of his Incarnation at his fist as he charged, and other parts of his body actually looked rather soft to Sheyta. It seemed that she could have evaded the straight punch and cut his head off right away.

  Sheyta, however, did not choose to do that; instead, she countered the opponent’s white-blue glowing fist head-on. There was no rationale to this decision; she was simply following her body and her sword.

  Sheyta was rather confused by herself. Since a hundred years ago, she had already realized that she had none of a Knight’s appraised mental qualities, such as pride or nobility. She would cut because she wanted to, and that was all she desired.

  It should mean the same when “slice” is replaced with “kill”. Only when she had been assigned with the mission of securing the Mountain Range at the Edge, Sheyta could release her true self. She had ended countless lives of Dark Knights or Goblins by mercilessly cutting their necks.

  She had been suppressing her nature as something sinister, so much, in fact, that she was called ≪The Silent≫, but why did she not choose to kill in this particular battle? Sheyta was deeply puzzled.

  But even that was just too much to think about.

  Now, at this moment, there was only herself, the Black Lily Sword and the fist in front of her.

  — It’s so hard. Can I cut it in half?

  — This is fun.

  Iskahn saw the thin and almost colorless lips of the enemy Knight slightly widening, a smile on her face.

  And he had already understood that the smile was not a disgrace to him — nor the fight.

  The reason was that he had the exact same kind of smile on his face.

  — So you’re one of the elegant Human Empire residents born with such a delicate figure, but we’re the same kind of people, huh.

  Click. A small vibration could be felt from within his fist.

  Iskahn realized that the noise was not because of any cracks on the opponent’s black sword, but it came from the fracturing bones of his own fist.

  — No good. Even this doesn’t get through, huh.

  — But, well, that’s how it is.

  If his fist had been completely cut, for sure the black, slim sword would cut his entire body in half as well. Even though he expected for such a result, Iskahn felt no fear. I’m not going to meet such a great opponent like her for a second time. If so, well, this isn’t such a dumb way to die.

  Right at the moment when he thought so, and was about to close his eyes for a long nap.

  The pressure added onto his fist slightly weakened.

  Compressed at one point to its limit, the pressure released all at once, blowing Iskahn and the Knight away from each other as if they were mere leaves. He suddenly noticed why his opponent’s Incarnation had weakened. A large silhouette had tried to slip in between the two.

  Sitting up on the ground, Iskahn yelled at the huge man who fell down as he did.

  “Dampe, you bastard!! … Look at what the fuck you’ve done!!”

  “Time’s up, Champion.”

  The vice chief said, slightly opening his eyes that were usually almost closed. He stood up, raised his muscular right arm, and pointed it to the north.

  As Iskahn turned his eyes to the same direction, he could see that the main army of the Fist Fighters and the Dark Knights behind had come so close to one another that they could recognize each other. Right, as the chief of the army, I shouldn’t be too obsessed with a private battle when an army-scale battle’s beginning anyway. But—

  Clucking his tongue like mad, he spun around. Behind the floating dust, the enemy Knight that had lost almost all of her equipment and clothes slid her slim sword back into its scabbard, as though she did not care at all.

  “Hey, bitch! Don’t think you’ve won like this!!”

  The young Fist Fighter screamed, forgetting that he had just been preparing his mind for death.

  Swaying her gray hair, the Knight flicked her head to look at Iskahn, and tilted her head as if she were searching for the right words to say.

  “Umm, that, ‘bitch’ thing… Could you please stop that?”

  “Look… In this situation, I don’t know how you’re gonna run awa…”

  At that moment, a strong gust of wind suddenly blew from the south. The Fist Fighters surrounding her looked towards it as one.

  Iskahn blinked unconsciously. In his sight, a Knight stretched her arm up high, and a gigantic monster quickly descended. Its gray scales twinkled like stars; this must be a Dragon.

  As the Knight grabbed onto a leg, the Dragon rose into the sky at once.

  “Hey you! … Tell me your fucking name before you run away!!”

  Intertwined with the noise of the vigorously flapping wings, a mild voice came down.

  “… I’m not running away. I’m… Sheyta Synthesis Twelve.”

  He stood up with Dampe pulling his hand; Iskahn watched the Dragon’s silhouette vanishing into the nocturne darkness, and clucked his tongue again.

  If he were allowed, he would love to fight that strong opponent again after a year of intense training, since his realized that he had a lot to improve on.

  However, Iskahn was mature enough to know that his personal desire would be nothing in front of the war strategy.

  Once his team rendezvoused with the Fist Fighter main army, they would have to crush the enemies together with the Dark Knights. There might not be a chance for them to fight again.

  If only I could obtain the ≪Radiant Medium≫ —

  After a moment, Iskahn clucked his tongue for a third time, this time to himself for having such a thought.

  — What a retard I am. Begging the Emperor to save the life of that female Knight as a reward? My entire tribe will be furious at me.

  Pulling himself out of the thoughts, Iskahn went to the subordinate that held a jar of medicine, in order to cure his left leg.

  2

  That’s right.

  Just come ‘ere like that.

  Vassago thought as he savored the pleasure of the ambush, like a piece of candy in his mouth.

  My hiding is perfect. Though the metallic armor had some drawbacks, he was still able to melt into the shadow of the shrubbery.

  The black-haired girl was cautiously surveilling her surroundings, but her eyes merely passed through the bush that Vassago was hiding behind. 7 meters left… 5 meters…

  — Good. Feels really good. I’ve missed this so much.

  Approaching within 3 meters, the girl suddenly turned to her right and walked towards where Vassago had concealed the bodies.

  He could have waited for her to come closer, but, well, that wouldn’t change much.

  Vassago slid from the darkness in dead silence and lunged at the girl from behind, thrusting forth his left hand. Muffling her mouth and slicing cleanly across her nervously taut throat with his dagger —

  His anticipation was so realistic that Vassago could not immediately react to the blade flashing right before his eyes.

  “… Whoa!”

  As he hurriedly backed off, the tip of the blade whistled under his cheek, where his bare skin was exposed.

  The girl, who had seemed not to notice him at all, suddenly unsheathed her sword from her left waist and slashed towards him without even turning around.

  That was one awesome counter. Had he stepped forward just a little more, his throat would have been cleaved in two.

  Spinning around, the girl held her sword properly. He could see no surprise in her sapphire eyes, though they revealed fear and hostility. Vassago couldn’t help but admit that his hiding was seen through very quickly.
>
  Twirling the dagger in his right hand, he opened his mouth.

  “Hey, baby.”

  He suddenly remembered that English wouldn’t work, and switched to Japanese that sounded almost native.

  “How’d you know, little girl?”

  The girl replied coldly while gripping her sword, fully alert.

  “… My senpai told me: don’t just rely on your eyes; feel with your entire body.”

  “S-senpaaai…?”

  As he blinked in confusion, Vassago felt the sting of some ancient memory. I must’ve heard that somewhere…

  But before he could form any substantial thought, the girl took a deep breath and let out a deafening scream.

  “Enemy!! There’s an enemy — !!”

  He clucked his tongue, and retracted his short knife back to the right of his waist.

  Well, guess that’s the end of the game.

  Vassago threw up his left arm with an exaggerated motion and shouted as well.

  “Guys… Get to work!!”

  This time, the girl’s eyes widened in genuine shock.

  From within the shrubbery tens of meters behind Vassago, there came the scuffling of rustling branches; it was created by the thirty lightly-armored scouts selected from the main Dark Knight army rising to their feet, one after another.

  A second girl jumping off the wagon, along with the ten or so Guards dashing from the north in response to the girl’s warning, were equally dumbstruck.

  ***

  “Wh… The enemy’s at the back!? And there’s about thirty people!?”

  Integrity Knight Renri repeated loudly, hardly believing the distress call from the supply team.

  This is bad — This is bad!

  If the wagons were assaulted and the supplies were burnt or destroyed, the entire army would grind to a halt. Not only that, there were three people over there: two trainee girls who had sworn on their lives to defend it, and also a young man.

  I have to send them a rescue team of a hundred, no, two hundred men. But if I split the main army even further, they might lose to the enemies approaching from the north. By then, they would immediately lose to the enemy’s overwhelming number.