Chapter 106
After visiting the grave, I also met Mizuha, Kaeha's daughter, and she had two children of her own.
...Is having two children some rule for the lineage of heads of the Yosogi school?
Well, that didn't quite add up, since Kaeha had been an only child.
Perhaps that was because her mother, Kuroha, had been frail.
Mizuha had retired from adventuring when she gave birth, and apparently now worked as a sword instructor at the Adventurers' Guild while raising her children.
I felt a strange sense of fate at work.
Come to think of it, I recall hearing that Kreias and Martena's child had become a knight in Zaints, the neighboring country.
In the end, I never met that child even once.
I hadn't been able to meet them this time, either, so perhaps we simply had no connection.
After paying my respects at Rodnar's grave as well—he hadn't come out to greet me this time—I returned to the royal capital with Kaeha.
Vistcourt still filled me with nostalgia, but having already given away my house, I no longer had a place in that town.
I couldn't help feeling wistful, but I was able to accept it.
Acquaintances and places alike are eventually lost, remaining only in memory.
That too was simply the inevitable flow of time.
Now then, after we slowly returned to the royal capital on foot, we were met by a report that relations between the Yosogi school and the Roadran Greatsword, one of the four major schools, were deteriorating.
More precisely, the Roadran Greatsword and Grend-style Swordsmanship had apparently formed an alliance to counter the Yosogi school, which was growing stronger by deepening its ties with Ludoria Kingdom-style Swordsmanship.
Now as in the past, the largest school in this country was Ludoria Kingdom-style Swordsmanship, which even bore the country's name.
Even if the Roadran Greatsword and Grend-style Swordsmanship joined hands, it was difficult to imagine them directly confronting Ludoria Kingdom-style Swordsmanship.
So naturally, their target was the Yosogi school.
After all, the Yosogi school and the Roadran Greatsword had long-standing bad blood, though it went back quite a while.
...Kreias had once kept the conflict between the Yosogi school and the Roadran Greatsword in check, but he was no longer of this world.
Kreias's name, as the Sword Saint, carried tremendous weight with the Roadran Greatsword; even after he grew old, they had continued to refrain from fighting out of respect for him, but perhaps they now thought there was no longer any need to do so.
What an infuriating development, really.
Even I have days when I'm in a foul mood.
If at least a year or two had passed since Kreias's death, this wouldn't have gotten under my skin so much.
Their move was so quick that it was almost as if they had been lying in wait.
The Roadran Greatsword had acted as if it were telling me to vent the frustration weighing on my chest after Vistcourt against them.
In that case, I had no reason to hold back, either.
I had no intention of causing any deaths, but just as Kreias had once feared, I would blow the Roadran Greatsword's dojo sky-high.
The Grend-style Swordsmanship dojo too, while I was at it.
But just as I was thinking that,
Kaeha's hand gripped my back.
"This is a problem the head of the Yosogi school must solve. That child has yet to ask either me or you for help. ... Let's wait and see."
Her hand wasn't trembling, and neither was her voice.
This must have been an extremely difficult choice for Kaeha.
After all, as a child, she had been powerless as she lost her father, watched her senior disciples get defeated, and saw the dojo destroyed.
...Even so, Kaeha said she would do nothing but watch over the situation.
Then I could hardly act on my own.
Though I too belonged to the Yosogi school, I was recognized as Kaeha's direct disciple.
At least until Shizuki turned to Kaeha for help, I would quietly watch the situation.
Even if taking action seemed easier, I swallowed the urge, endured it, and waited.
Shizuki wasn't alone, after all; Win and the other disciples were by their side.
However, even though relations were deteriorating, things did not immediately turn into an armed raid on the other school's dojo.
Obviously, doing that would simply be a crime, and we would be punished under the laws of Ludoria.
The reason the Yosogi school of old had resorted to a kachikomi—a direct raid—was that the decisive event of the head's death had occurred, sending the senior disciples vying for succession into a reckless frenzy.
Unless circumstances were that unusual, people apparently did not normally consider doing something as violent as suddenly crushing their opponents.
...Well, I could do it without leaving much evidence behind, and with my irritation on top of everything else, I merely let the thought cross my mind.
For now, then, the Yosogi school was drawing closer to Ludoria Kingdom-style Swordsmanship, while the Roadran Greatsword was drawing closer to Grend-style Swordsmanship, and they were each trying to create an advantageous position without becoming isolated.
I didn't have a detailed grasp of the situation, and this sort of thing was difficult for me to understand in the first place, but was this what they called a struggle for political power?
Still, the tension between the schools inevitably reached their disciples, and when disciples of the Yosogi school and the Roadran Greatsword met in town, it often resulted in nothing more than mutual intimidation.
Unfortunately—or perhaps inevitably—the people who gathered at sword dojos were definitely more hot-blooded than ordinary people.
After all, anyone seeking martial power as a means of knocking people down or killing them was hardly a peaceful sort.
Once someone had trained, gained strength, and wanted to test it, it was hardly unusual for them to eagerly fight when an enemy appeared.
Of course, that didn't mean every disciple at the dojos was rough or barbaric.
Particularly at the Yosogi dojo, Kaeha's policy as the former head required everyone to behave properly, and anyone who couldn't was strictly disciplined.
If they couldn't accept even that, they couldn't remain at the dojo.
So, from my perspective, every disciple of the Yosogi school was good-natured.
But I couldn't expect that level of decorum from the Roadran Greatsword's side, and if their pride was wounded, even the Yosogi disciples would erupt.
The head kept the disciples in check to prevent that, but ...
We were still far from the brink of open conflict, but time passed beneath a palpable tension.