Chapter 103 : Chapter 103

Translator: AkazaTL

Pr/Ed: Sol IX

***

Chapter 103 — Uninvited Guests (2)

At the heart of the Iron City of Ferma stood the circular coliseum Arena. Usually bursting with feverish heat, the Arena was, unusually, quiet.

The venue that ran without rest had closed its doors without any notice.

Staring at the firmly locked gates, the residents of the Iron City wondered.

Why would a coliseum that operated even during war suddenly shut down? Gazing at the abruptly closed Arena, the citizens let their imaginations take flight.

Perhaps they had invited the Witches the other day and incurred divine wrath for offending them. Or maybe the 「Red Bank」 of the Black Archipelago had bought the Arena with vast capital and was revamping it……

Baseless talk drifted among bards and drinkers.

Wild rumors no one truly believed still spread, for what the people needed wasn’t truth but a fun topic to cool their heads with after work. So the bards deliberately stretched their imaginations to spin the most entertaining rumors possible. The more sensational and absurd, the more popular.

While countless rumors spread through the Iron City, only the internal staff of Arena knew the truth. Yet none of them spoke it aloud.

The residents found even that suspicious. Since olden times, Arena staff were called clowns — people mad for attention, lunatics who would even sell their own families to be noticed. And yet this time, not one of those attention-seekers opened their mouth. Why?

Everyone wondered. Had the Arena issued a strict internal gag order? But would those who’d sell their families obey their superiors so scrupulously? Impossible. That very oddity only amplified the Iron City’s curiosity.

“What on earth happened?”

The truth, amidst all the rumors, was even more sensational than the rumors. The Arena had given no order to keep quiet. Not even a recommendation. They said nothing at all. And yet, everyone stayed silent — because what happened that night was too shocking. So shocking even clowns mad for the spotlight clamped their mouths shut.

“Ah, ugh, u—ugh……”

The dormitory of Arena. In the quarters where planners and hosts — the ones who designed events and set the stage — stayed, everyone groaned alike. Since that day they had not stepped outside. They cowered in cramped rooms, afraid to lift their heads. The case was worst for 「Arena」’s top director — the greatest “attention-seeker” in that coliseum.

“P-please spare me, please spare me. I—I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. Nothing at all.”

Since that day, the top director suffered seizures at the sight of anything remotely bladed.

Because a single glint of an edge brought it all back.

“I—I don’t know. I don’t.”

It had been a night so dark he couldn’t see an inch ahead.

A man slipped through the darkness without a sound. He repeated the same words endlessly, asking for “the highest-ranking person.” The fighters who resided in the Arena, and the mercenaries hired to eject outsiders, bristled the moment they saw him.

The man asked the same question; when the answer wasn’t what he wanted, he drew a small sword. A flash then flickered once in the dark.

“I—I…”

When the flash burst, the bodies of every living thing around collapsed.

The top director remembered that moment clearly. It wasn’t human; it was closer to a natural disaster. A calamity that destroyed all that lived and moved.

As every fighter in the coliseum turned to blood-water, the man walked up, step by step, and asked the top director the same question. The terror he felt then defied description — like an earthquake, flood, or typhoon had marched up and spoken to him.

“I, nothing, nothing at all……”

The man had asked: He was looking for the fighter called the Sword Demon Liam. If the director revealed that fighter’s whereabouts, he would spare his life. He offered no other payment. The top director realized there would be no second question if he failed to answer properly. But the Arena did not keep fighters’ personal information. Registration was anonymous, and unless a fighter revealed themself, there was no way to know their whereabouts.

And yet, strangely, that day there had been a document in the top director’s stack — a sheet with the information of the fighter Sword Demon Liam. It had even been placed neatly on the very top. As if someone had intentionally set it there, so he wouldn’t miss it even in his dazed state. So he could hand over the information at that moment.

As if possessed, the top director offered up the paper.

The man kept his promise.

The instant he received the information on the Sword Demon Liam, he vanished like smoke. Even after the man disappeared, the top director sat on the floor for a long time. He only came to his senses twenty hours later. So great was the shock that, at the time, he failed to notice things he would normally have noticed. Only after regaining his faculties did he retrace and realize — two things.

One: the terrifying man who had come that day was one of the continent’s five Swordmasters, master of the Six Free Cities, head of the House Rhapsody — ‘Hugo Rhapsody.’ He hadn’t recognized him then because of the terror, but thinking back, the face beneath the tattered cloth had been unmistakably Hugo Rhapsody.

The other: That conspicuous document atop his stack that day — the writing on that oddly fine paper, detailing the Sword Demon Liam’s information — that handwriting belonged to the royal family of the Iron Kingdom of Cherville……

Linking those two facts — learned only much later — led directly to one conclusion. The Iron Prince, Ian Cherville, had schemed, and Hugo Rhapsody had been drawn into that scheme.

Knowing that, one could grasp what had happened and predict what would soon happen. The Arena’s staff, including the top director himself, had been used as tools — sacrificial pieces in the plot — and soon the fighter, Sword Demon Liam, would be entangled as well.

Yet even knowing this, the top director could do nothing. No one on the continent could demand accountability from a Swordmaster. And no one living in the Iron Kingdom could demand accountability from the Iron Prince. Thus there was only one thing the top director could do: cower in a tiny room, shivering in fear of the approaching maelstrom, praying desperately not to be swept up again……

“Please spare me, please……”

Truly, desperately.

***

The master of the Six Free Cities. I didn’t understand at first. Only after an explanation did I get it.

「It refers to Rhapsody.」

“Ah……”

Rhapsody. A great house, descendants of the Lazy Idler.

‘I crossed Rhapsody?’

There had been only one time I’d crossed paths with Rhapsody. In the recent 「Infinite Duel」, my final opponent. The one who displayed overwhelming skill had wielded the sword of 「Rhapsody」. If there was any link between me and Rhapsody, it had to be that. And yet—

“Crossed, you say. Does the House Rhapsody describe a proper duel, fought under the Fighter’s Oath, as being ‘crossed’? And do they come to someone’s domain to exact revenge after losing a duel?”

It sounded wrong to call my duel with the faceless young master of Rhapsody “crossing.” At my words the knight bared killing intent sharp enough to make my body tremble. It was terrifying.

“A proper duel? You’re mad.”

“Mad? You are the mad one. I won a proper duel. I swore the Fighter’s Oath to the Goddess Refri. Yet because you lost, your house’s knights raid a domain? You even kill an innocent guard and inflict indelible humiliation on another. Does the House Rhapsody have no honor? Is this what the Great Five Houses are allowed to do?”

I spoke in earnest. At my clear words the knight began to growl — like a beast.

“We don’t believe in such drivel. We believe only our young master, only our liege. Our liege commanded us: deliver Rhapsody’s wrath to the fighter, Sword Demon Liam. The young master told us to avenge his loyal butler Joseph — and himself.”

“……”

“Petty fighter, from now on you’ll learn exactly whom you dared cross.”

They had no intention of hearing me out. In the end, we had to draw our swords.

The moment the talk ended, the roughly thirty knights raised their arms as one. Instinct told me: every single one of them was a Sword Runner. The very benchmark of power on the continent. The pressure of dozens of such beings suffocated just by facing it. But I had no thought of retreat.

“You’ll regret this, too.”

Absurdity.

A world gone wrong.

I had taken up my sword to thrust against a world that spat out monstrous answers. And before me now stood the purest sample of that skewed world: haughty knights trampling the weak on the strength of their own authority.

“You should have come straight for me. Not for guards who were innocent, who didn’t even know how to resist, who only tried to perform their duty — for me.”

I said it with all my heart.

The instant I finished, their blades surged in. The lead knight thrust. The sword path was familiar — the sword the Rhapsody young master had shown in the 「Infinite Duel」. But unlike that young master’s blade, which moved like a living thing, this knight was stiff.

Clang. Steel met steel.

It wasn’t hard to knock his blade aside. Recently I had grasped the subtlety of ‘connection,’ and even my sparring with Seol Yoon had been going smoothly. If I couldn’t handle a clumsy sword like this, I ought to quit swordsmanship on the spot.

But—

“You cur!”

There was not just one sword.

They had no chivalry.

Then again, they hadn’t declared a duel to begin with, so perhaps that was only natural. All thirty-odd knights were charging me. The moment I opened my eyes, my world was crisscrossed with far too many Paths — and every one of those Paths belonged to a Sword Runner. Could I deflect them all? Impossible. But I had a weapon for a situation like this.

『My life was like a gust of wind.』

「Gale」. As a single gust roared, the Paths rushing at me began to tangle and snarl into each other. Into an utter mess.