4
When the bells of the Zakkaria church chimed the melody of midday, a roar arose from the stands.
Amid the applause and bursting of smokegrass, fifty-six contestants left the waiting room in two lines. Eugeo’s line curved to the right toward the eastern stage, while Kirito’s line headed left to the western stage. The groups of twenty-eight contestants filed into lines on their respective stages, then turned to the VIP seating on the south side to salute the Zakkarian lord’s family.
Kelgam Zakkarite, liege lord of the town, gave a speech that went on just a bit too long, received a brief round of applause from the impatient crowd, and then the event began. First came the preliminary round that would whittle each block from twenty-eight down to eight contestants. The contestants would go in order of their ball numbers, taking turns exhibiting the designated swordfighting forms onstage.
A “form” was a set string of movements, including sword path, arm placement, and footwork. Contestants were judged on precision, boldness, and beauty.
Over five months of observing the boys, it was not worried about Eugeo, but Kirito was a different story. Yes, he had his mysterious, unique “Aincrad style,” but all of the designated forms in this event were Zakkarite style. On top of that, the judges were senior members of the garrison and town hall. If anything, they would be more inclined to harshly judge the wielder of a strange, unfamiliar style, not less.
The preliminaries proceeded, the observer feeling a bit nervous, until Eugeo’s number was called. He looked a bit pale, as was his tendency, but he had the fortitude to get up on the stage, salute, and draw his sword in a smooth, confident motion.
Each form took about ten seconds, making the entire demonstration a hundred seconds long. Eugeo made not a single mistake and executed his routine with grace and skill. The furious morning practices were a part of that success, no doubt, but it was also thanks to his very high object control authority. To him, that sparring sword had to feel as light and airy as a fallen twig.
The roar of applause he received was far greater than any for the men-at-arms or sentinels-in-training. The judges would not be eager to give a suspicious wanderer high marks, but given that they were bound by the tournament rule that all contestants should be judged solely on the merits of their performance, they could not penalize him for their own reasons. An imperial noble unbound by lesser laws would be a different story, but the only noble in town was Kelgam Zakkarite, a fifth-rank peer, who was not one of the judges.
Eugeo stepped down from the stage, wiped the sweat from his brow, and flashed a huge smile to his partner waiting next to the western stage. Kirito shot him a thumbs-up, but if anything, he was the one to worry about.
Two minutes later, Kirito’s number was called at last. He strode up the steps without a hint of nerves—which was precisely the worrying part. The observer wanted to command, Just do it normally today; don’t get any crazy ideas.
He stood in the middle of the stage, which was made out of fitted blocks of polished red marble rather than the usual sandstone, bowed to the lord in his special stands, and promptly drew his sword. The judges sitting in the nearby tent scowled at his haste. But he ignored them, lifted his right arm, and proceeded into the first form…
Zmmf! The grounds trembled with his powerful step. Vwum! The rush of air from his swing reached the stands twenty mels away. Amid shouts and screams of surprise, the dressed-up VIPs bolted out of their chairs. It was hard to blame them; Kirito had just executed a ten-second form, at full power, in barely two seconds.
The observer nearly pulled out the boy’s hair and screamed, What are you thinking?! Then it recalled that the instructions regarding the form only designated that it be completed within a certain number of seconds. Therefore, there should be no penalty for early completion. But still…
Kirito spun around from where he had finished his swing and faced the north stands for his second form. The next powerful breeze ruffled the hair of the audience in front. There were more yelps and screams but also an increase in cheers. As he demonstrated the third and fourth forms in quick succession, the cheers turned to roars and applause. It made sense; watching dozens of contestants perform the same movements one after the other was a tepid opening act for an excited audience. Perhaps that was why they had both stages performing at the same time, to lessen the time required.
Kirito finished his ten forms without slowing in the least, sheathed his sword, bowed, and left the central grounds rumbling with applause. There was a portion of the stands screaming in a higher pitch than the rest, owing to the presence of Teline and Telure, the twins from Walde Farm. Their parents had brought them to cheer, just as promised.
He waved to them and confidently descended the steps, only to meet the onrushing Eugeo. The other boy looked fit to grab him by the shirt in anger, but instead he merely hissed, “Wh-what are you thinking?!”
“Oh, I just noticed that there was some variety in the amount of time these demonstrations take, depending on the person…so I figured maybe the quicker, the better.”
“W-well, you might not get marked down, but you could have just done it normally!”
“I also figured that if I moved fast enough, the judges might miss some small mistakes in terms of my finger and toe placement…”
“…”
Eugeo looked 70 percent annoyed, 30 percent impressed. His shoulders dropped and he let out a very, very long breath. “Let’s just pray that the judges take audience reaction into account…”
Deep in Kirito’s hair, the observer had to agree. The preliminary round lasted more than an hour after that and concluded just around the two o’clock bells. The contestants lined up onstage again, and the judges announced the names and numbers of those who qualified for the dueling portion.
The observer was certain that Eugeo would be called. When Kirito’s name followed seconds later, it experienced a measure of relief it could not recall feeling in decades and nearly tumbled out of his hair.
How long has it been since I had a mission that affected me so? Perhaps never.
Forty contestants returned to the waiting room in defeat and disappointment, while eight fighters on either stage descended to special waiting areas within the open grounds. They took a light meal and chilled siral water from a well while the audience relaxed. The tournament began thirty minutes later. It consisted of single-elimination blocks of three rounds each, so that there would be an east and west champion.
According to what Vanot Walde had told them while they were workers on his farm, there had been a final match between the east and west winners up until a few decades ago. That custom was removed when one year’s final had been so hotly contested that an accident occurred and blood was shed—a forbidden act.
It was the rule of not just Zakkaria but the regional tournaments across Norlangarth—across the entire realm of humanity—that blows should be stopped before they landed.
The Taboo Index ruled that “another’s life must not be intentionally shortened for any reason, aside from those listed in a separate verse.” Therefore, duels required contradictory strategies, where a duelist had to both subdue the opponent while also protecting their own body.
The reason that sword styles focused on forms so heavily was that they allowed the duelists to time their movements to avoid accidents. Form intercepted form, a kind of strategic, formalized style of fighting, such that the contestant whose stamina and concentration lapsed first would largely disqualify himself. The only places where bloodletting “first-strike” duels were allowed were at the higher tournaments in Centoria or during practices at the high institutions such as the Imperial Knighthood or Swordcraft Academy.
But unlike other types of moving objects, human units had “emotions.” Those gave them great strength but could also make them lose focus and produce unpredictable results at times.
When Vanot Walde said there had been an “accident,” he likely meant that one of the two finalists had been so take
n by his desire to win that his sword did not stop short; it had hit and drawn blood. Surely it would not have been fatally deep—such an incident would prompt the Axiom Church to intervene, and it would remain in the Cathedral’s records—but even a single drop of blood was enough to terrify the townsfolk. It made perfect sense that they would scrap the idea of a singular winner and have two champions instead.
Naturally, the two youngsters were not aware of this. All they cared about was winning this tournament, standing out in the garrison, and earning the right to take the test for the Swordcraft Academy in Centoria. If they squeezed through these gates, one by one, they would eventually be reunited with Alice at Central Cathedral.
Surprisingly, they were going about it the right way. It was incredibly narrow and unfathomably long, but the path they were on now indeed led to the cathedral. But even if they succeeded at stepping into that chalk-white tower, by that time, they would already…
The two-thirty bells interrupted the observer’s train of thought. The musicians in a corner of the grounds began to play a thrilling march, signaling the start of the competition.
The boys bolted upright from their folding chairs. Black and green eyes met. They bumped fists, turned their separate directions, and climbed the east and west stages; there was no need for words at this point. The stands hadn’t been at full capacity during the preliminary round, but they were packed now, and the roaring of the crowd was like a storm overhead.
A sentinel set up a large board with parchment pulled across it, right next to the judges’ tent. On it, in the black letters of the common script, were the tournament bracket and matchups. Eugeo’s first-round match was the third in the East Block. Likewise, Kirito’s was the third match on the West Block, but more noteworthy was the name Egome opposite his—the apprentice sentinel he had singled out earlier.
The observer’s tiny body was filled with an odd sensation that had not arisen when it was actually doing the manipulation of the drawing. It was a baseless anticipation that something was going to happen. Such a feature should not have been possible in a nonhuman being.
Meanwhile, Kirito himself gave no reaction of any kind when he saw the name Egome next to his. When the head judge’s speech finished, he descended the stage and plopped into a chair in the west-side waiting area. Eugeo had come over during the lunch break, but he had to stay on the east side now, so there was no one to talk with.
The first and second fights finished peacefully and uneventfully. The first attacker tried three or four basic forms, which the defender received easily, blocking the sword with his own. Then they switched; three more clangs. It almost looked like practice, except that they were using real metal swords and both sides would lose a bit of life due to fatigue. After a certain level of fatigue, movements would get sloppy, defense would suffer, one side would falter, and the tip of the sword would stop just short—signaling the end of the duel.
At Centoria tourneys, the feints and timing ploys were much more advanced, but up in the north, this was the best you got. The young man named Egome wasn’t particularly noteworthy, so thanks to his exceptional authority level, Kirito should win easily, the observer told itself. When Kirito’s name was called, he ascended to the red marble stage.
Seconds later, Eugeo’s name was called on the other side, but even at a distance, the sweat running down his opponent’s desperate face was clear—Eugeo would have no problem. Meanwhile, Kirito’s adversary, Egome, stared at him from behind that sandy hair, never blinking. Once again, the Stacia Window indicated below-average numbers for this tournament. What was it that Kirito was worried about?
They advanced to the starting lines and drew their swords. The adult judge raised his arm, then brought it down and bellowed, “Start!”
Egome moved instantaneously. Both duelists were supposed to take a stance, sense who would attack first, then begin, so this move startled the crowd. However, it wasn’t against the rules. Catching the opponent off guard was a valid strategy, if an unpopular one.
“Iyooo!” Egome howled, slashing from the upper right. Kirito stepped in to intercept it. Grshing! The clash of swords sounded unlike any of the others so far, and yellow sparks briefly lit the combatants’ faces.
The attacker’s sword would normally fly backward, but this one stayed still at the point of impact, trembling. Kirito’s ferocious defensive move was late to start, but now he actually applied pressure from above. The sound of the swords grinding rang out across the hushed grounds.
As they pushed, Kirito leaned in closer to Egome’s tense face and muttered, “You smell like tanglevine.”
“…What if I do?” Egome hissed back, his voice like scraping metal.
“There’s only one use for tanglevine. You dry it out, burn it, and use the smoke to paralyze poisonous bugs. Such as…a greater swampfly.”
“…!”
Egome’s narrowed eyes went wide at the same moment that two tiny ones blinked atop Kirito’s head.
That meant Kirito’s prowling walk around the waiting room was an attempt to catch the scent of tanglevine. In other words…
“That swampfly that bit the horse outside the west gate this morning…You let it loose, didn’t you?” Kirito accused.
Egome only leered back at him. “I don’t have to answer to a vagabond like you…but let’s say I did do that. All I did was release a harmless bug, rather than kill it. You won’t find any rules against that in Basic Imperial Law or the Taboo Index.”
The apprentice sentinel’s statement was true. If a swampfly was a type of insect that directly afflicted people and lowered their life, it would be forbidden to bring them into areas of human residence. But as the flies attacked only horses, there was no rule against releasing them.
But the situation wasn’t that simple. Even the smallest children knew that if they released a living swampfly near one of the horses they fed upon, it would bite the animal and damage its life. Furthermore, that horse could panic and cause major injury to pedestrians nearby.
The majority of human units, understanding this likely consequence, would not be able to release the fly. It would activate the taboo against reducing the life of others. But despite knowing that Kirito or Eugeo could easily be hurt—in fact, because he knew that—Egome had done just that. To him, his action was the liberation of a harmless insect, and any further consequences were not his responsibility. That idea outranked the obedience to taboo in his mind.
…Noble blood.
This young man had a strong streak of the negative side of noble genes. He was a unit diametrically opposed to the Waldes; he believed that as long as it wasn’t against the law, anything was fair game.
“…Why?” Kirito demanded.
“Because I don’t like you. What gives a jobless, homeless wanderer like you the right to compete with the noble Egome Zakkarite? Get into the garrison? They’ll never let you. From the moment you applied to the tournament last month, I swore I’d crush you,” Egome spat.
“I see…You’re in the lord’s family. But that noble background isn’t going to help you here. Sorry, pal—I’m going to win now.”
Kirito was not taken aback in the least by the revelation that his opponent was of noble blood. He pushed back on his sword, hoping to unbalance the other man.
Egome leered again. There was a fine cracking sound, and Kirito tensed. Of the two swords firmly pressed together, Kirito’s was faintly, but undoubtedly, cracked and pitted.
They were both dueling swords, so how was only one damaged?! The observer looked closely, pulling up the windows for both swords, and was stunned by the results.
Kirito’s sword was a class-10 object. Egome’s, however, was class-15. Indeed, upon closer examination, it seemed to have a different shine to it.
“Ugh.” Kirito grunted and tried to pull away, but Egome only thrust his weight further. The inferior sword squealed and crackled, its life dwindling rapidly.
“Just so you know, this isn’t against the rules, e
ither,” Egome gloated. “The rules state that all participants borrow from the swords arranged by the judges. So if a finer blade just so happens to get accidentally included, and I wind up getting to use it, that’s not my fault, is it?”
“You got the sentinel in charge of distribution on your side.”
“No idea what you’re talking about. Anyway, vagabond, aren’t you worried about pushing back so hard? Don’t you think your cruddy sword will break?” he taunted, pushing with all his might.
But then Kirito did something unexpected.
Rather than push back, he collapsed to the stage and slipped down through Egome’s legs. The man’s sword slid free and clanged loudly on the marble. As Egome froze from the vibration of the impact, Kirito took the opportunity to leap back and take his distance.
The crowd, which had been holding its breath, now began to stir. This clashing competition of strength and the roll through the legs were new to them. They applauded vigorously, unaware of the argument happening between the combatants.
Egome recovered and faced Kirito, his face twisted with fury.
The observer sensed danger. Of course, even nobles could not break the Taboo Index, so he would not attempt to harm Kirito directly with his sword—but he could certainly be contemplating some accident that might coincidentally end up in injury.
Egome’s next action solidified that theory.
He had been holding his class-15 sword with both hands before, but now he lifted it with just his right, settling it on his shoulder. He twitched in place for several seconds, as though searching for something. Eventually, the blade began to glow a faint blue color.