What Is Passed Down (9)

While I was busy forging katana, time flew by, and two years passed.

Although smithing wasn't my only role, I continued taking Aiha out for field training on my days off.

Ah, yes, about Aiha: half a year ago, she turned thirteen, and her grandfather, Shizuki, and her father, Touki, who was also the head of the family, allowed her to have a sword of her own.

I don't know whether it was curiosity or something else, but she wanted a katana rather than the straight sword used by the Yosogi School, so I forged her beloved katana myself.

Its balance was slightly different from the swords she had wielded until then, so it would probably take her some time to master it, but Aiha was delighted and swung it around at all hours, so she would surely get used to it quickly.

...The way she was so excited about wielding that new weapon somehow reminded me of Kaeha.

However, once she grew accustomed to the katana, training—or perhaps a trial—that she had been unable to undertake until then awaited her.

Yes—the trial of using a live blade to fight beasts, monsters, or even humans, and cut them down.

Swords and katana were no different: both were tools for fighting and killing, and the swordsmanship used to wield them was the same as well.

If she couldn't kill monsters and humans, taking their lives without hesitation, she could never become an adventurer.

No—even if she never became an adventurer, if she kept practicing with a sword at the dojo, the time would eventually come when she would be required to take a life.

Both Shizuki and Touki must surely have cut someone down at some point.

In other words, though it's a harsh way to put it, the sword Aiha once wanted to wield to help the weak was a sword for killing something in order to save someone.

To determine her future, she absolutely needed to understand that properly.

It was not a path she could choose based on faint admiration alone.

...Avoiding killing wasn't impossible, but it required overwhelming ability.

The sort of overwhelming power that let me forcefully resolve anything simply by relying on spirits.

In other words, because I lived arrogantly on the strength of that power, I had no right to tell Aiha how she should live.

But even without that right, I had to tell her, or she might one day lose her life because of some unforeseen turn of events.

I required Aiha to complete the trials of killing a beast, killing a monster, and finally killing a human.

As for the final trial of cutting down a person, apparently Touki had arranged for it to be conducted jointly with the disciples of the Yosogi School.

Simply put, Aiha wasn't the only one who needed that experience.

Apparently, deserters from the conflict between Zieden and the Republic of Villestrica, as well as mercenaries who had lost their jobs when the fighting died down and turned to banditry, were flowing into the Kingdom of Rudria, so there would be no shortage of people to cut down.

It was deeply ironic that an influx of bandits should be so convenient.

So my role was to stay with Aiha until she had cut down, with her own hands, a suitable monster—one dangerous enough that hunting it was by no means safe.

And today, I had ventured a little deeper into the forest than usual in search of a suitable monster.

I hid my presence and followed the monster's traces, asking the trees and spirits where to look.

There was an elven settlement deep in this forest, and since the elves managed it, overly dangerous monsters had already been culled.

A lone monster would be insufficient, so a pack would be better.

If there were too many, I could simply thin their numbers myself.

I would surely find a manageable pack of monsters before the day was over.

But after that—once Aiha had hunted the monster and my role was over—I was a little unsure what to do next.

It would still be a while before I was completely done making katana, so there was no need to hurry, but I wouldn't remain at the Yosogi School dojo forever, either.

If I chose to remain here, I would end up witnessing Shizuki's death.

...I had parted from many humans, so that in itself was nothing to worry about, and it couldn't be helped.

I was ready to accept that even before returning to the Yosogi School dojo.

After all, I knew Shizuki was already elderly, and it would not have been particularly strange if he had died of old age before I returned.

Yet he had called me someone like a father.

Those words had made me happy, but when a child reaches the end of its natural life and dies, is a parental figure really necessary at the time?

At Shizuki's final moment, when he would likely pass peacefully surrounded by his many children and grandchildren, I couldn't help thinking I probably wouldn't be needed.

My next destination was the deepest reaches of the Purha Great Forest, where I would search the deep woods for an immortal bird.

I still wasn't eager to go, but I had already steeled myself.

After that, depending on how my encounter with the immortal bird went, I might head west in pursuit of Win's trail.

Or I could go to the dwarven country and show off my katana-forging skills to Azvaldo.

There were still many things I wanted to do and things I ought to do, but none of them were urgent.

Thinking as far ahead as the distant future, I found myself troubled by all sorts of things.

Worrying about the distant future instead of what lay before me was an exceedingly indulgent problem to have, though.

Ah, but before I had time to ponder such things at leisure, I found traces of monsters.

And, just as I'd hoped, they were the traces of a small pack.

It was troubling, but there was nothing to be done about it.

For now, I would focus solely on tracking the monsters.

There would still be plenty of time to think afterward.