Chapter 14
The first thing Elina did after hearing that Allen had headed north was
to search for that man.
The man who had come to an ordinary count's estate and inflicted merciless abuse on Allen under the pretense of teaching him the sword.
Fortunately, finding him wasn't particularly difficult.
That was because he was quite a famous figure.
Those who didn't know his true identity often described him as a suspiciously wealthy old loafer.
He had enough money to live without doing anything, and while everyone else was always working, he did nothing but idle around, drinking and eating.
But at least Elina
knew what he was really like.
"……What brings you here all of a sudden?"
Hiccup.
Elina frowned as she watched him stare at her with a flushed face, hiccupping as though drunk despite the early hour.
The reason Elina disliked him was simple.
She had witnessed every life-and-death crisis Allen had gone through because of that man before he became strong.
"Why don't you try living a normal life?"
"Since I have no trouble making a living, my life is fairly normal."
In truth, although his face was flushed and he occasionally hiccupped, his eyes were never clouded.
He had a body that did not get drunk or addicted, no matter how much alcohol he drank or drugs he took.
He could drink all day and never get drunk.
"So, it seems we aren't exactly on good terms. What do you want?"
Setting down his drink, the man let out a small burp and looked at Elina with his reddened face.
Elina looked at him, exhaled slowly, and opened her mouth.
"……Allen has gone to the North."
"That brat?"
The instant the man heard Allen's name, his eyes sharpened and he straightened in his seat.
Whether it was because he was Allen's master after all, or because Allen was an interesting person, as he'd mentioned before, she didn't know.
In any case, his interest was a stroke of luck for Elina.
"Why all of a sudden?"
"Well, I don't know."
"True. No one can easily understand what that brat is thinking."
Heh heh heh.
As if he already knew that was simply Allen's nature,
the man burst into prolonged laughter and nodded.
At the sight, Elina could not help but frown deeply again.
"Allen might be in danger, so—"
"You want me to help? Why should I?"
"……I suppose your disciple, whom you took in during your later years, isn't precious to you?"
Elina replied coldly to the man's retort.
At Elina's words, colored by faint anger, the man tilted his head and met her eyes while continuing to chuckle.
"Do you really think that brat is going to die?"
"……Who knows?"
Elina's anxiety only grew as time passed.
Even she couldn't identify the source, but Elina tended to trust her instincts.
"That brat?"
But the man let out a hollow laugh, as though her concern were merely laughable.
"He was a five-year-old who swung a sword all day, driven only by his determination to learn."
"And nearly died because of it."
"Yes—even as he collapsed from exhaustion every day. Do you really think someone who never let go of his sword, even knowing he might die, would be killed by mere magical beasts in the North?"
"……"
Allen Debert.
What was the secret that had allowed him to become a Sword Master at eighteen?
The man still couldn't understand his disciple Allen.
He wasn't obsessed with the sword. Nor did he love it madly. It wasn't that he had no way to survive except through the sword.
Allen was clever, had a keen business sense, and was skilled at dealing with people.
The man had seen countless people over his lifetime, including plenty of those worthy of being called 'heroes.'
After all, he had lived and survived in such places.
But someone like Allen was a first.
He seemed to face reality with cold clarity, yet instead of looking at what lay before him, he looked toward a future impossibly distant.
That was why he did not see people as people.
He saw them only as tools for achieving his own goal.
Paradoxically, that made the easiest and simplest tool he could use himself.
Thus, for the sake of a purpose no one else knew, he never stopped even when his life was being gnawed away and death drew near.
Rather, he drove himself harder; Allen Debert was a monster among monsters when it came to sheer tenacity.
"If he were going to die, he'd have died long ago."
Allen Debert's rise to becoming the youngest Sword Master was not due to the paltry thing called talent.
It was nothing but endless effort and insane determination.
With those two things alone, he reached the realm of Sword Master, a realm others could never reach.
If others swung their swords a thousand times,
I would swing mine ten thousand times.
If others clashed a hundred times,
I would clash a thousand times.
If others defeated dozens of men,
I would defeat every one of those who had defeated dozens of men.
That was the realm of Sword Master he had reached.
As though she had heard something truly ridiculous in the man's words, Elina shook her head and opened her mouth.
"That's the problem."
"……What?"
"Why would Allen, who could never be killed by mere magical beasts, go to the North?"
At Elina's question, the man fell silent for a moment, lost in thought.
She wasn't wrong.
Allen would never be killed by mere magical beasts. That much he could guarantee.
Even the North, though its current situation was at its worst, was not a place that mere magical beasts could bring to ruin.
No matter how much the Grand Duke had disappeared and the Grand Duchess who succeeded him was a greenhorn, the infrastructure they had built up so far would not collapse easily.
Then.
why had Allen Debert gone there?
Allen knew that a place where he might die—where he was highly likely to die—was paradoxically the best place for him to grow.
Yet Allen would not die to magical beasts.
Which meant.
"There must be some kind of crisis approaching the North."
A danger that perhaps even a Sword Master could not stop.
"Everything Allen has done up to now had been for something. And I thought that something was a crisis facing the world, or something like that."
The reason Allen didn't see Elina as a romantic interest.
The reason he regarded not only Elina but all the countless connections he'd made as nothing more than tools or comrades.
The answer lay there.
He knew, somehow, that a tremendous crisis would befall the world.
And it would begin in the North.
At Elina's words, the man groaned thoughtfully and stroked his chin.
"So you're not certain."
"……Even if I told you, who would believe me?"
Perhaps her mad master, who did nothing but guzzle alcohol, would.
The man.
Jack Feyros, master of the Empire's Sword Masters and the one and only Grand Master, let out a derisive chuckle and gave a deep nod.
"He must have thought so too."
The war was over.
There were no enemies left to oppose the mighty Empire.
Which also meant there was no longer any reason to raise knights, who were called killing weapons—or the flowers of the battlefield.
Having cast everything aside and left the Empire, Jack rose from his seat with a smile at the path taken by the disciple he'd taken in during his later years.
"Interesting. Very interesting."
The Empire, whose military might was likewise formidable, still had nearly ten Sword Masters who had yet to grow rusty.
But as soon as he realized that a disaster had arrived that even all of them could not hold back, Jack could not suppress the strange excitement welling up inside him.
"I need to see it with my own eyes."
What sort of reckless stunt his disciple was pulling.
And who the people were who had driven that disciple into such a rush.
Thinking that he had to see it with his own eyes, Jack smiled and hurled the liquor bottle in his hand to the floor.
He no longer needed alcohol.
Because life was no longer boring.
Seeing Jack like that, Elina let out an inward sigh of relief, and her eyes gleamed.
She had managed to pique the interest of the most important person; now she only needed to finish preparing to head to the North.
'……And.'
Before departing for the North, there was one more thing she had to confirm.
[Because you are the chosen one who will become a hero.]
Whether or not a crisis was truly about to befall the world,
if that was why Allen was moving,
Elina, too, had something to prepare.
@
"……Ugh."
I thought I had already fully adapted to the cold of the North.
Perhaps because I had overexerted myself,
but I couldn't help shivering at an inexplicable chill.
With a tsk, I swallowed dryly, shuddered to shake off the chill, and looked at the sky outside.
Dark clouds were gradually gathering, and it would soon begin to snow.
The snow would obscure my vision, and the fierce wind would make every living creature huddle against the cold.
And that
would serve as the perfect veil for me, since I had to move while avoiding the magical beasts' eyes as much as possible.
"Should I get moving?"