Chapter 11
Even sunlight could not reach the farthest outskirts of Cardenos territory.
I made my way through the slums, where musty dampness and filth clung together.
"Oh, what a familiar smell."
Thanks to having toughened my stomach on the battlefield, it was almost nostalgic.
If the scent of blood, charred things, and gunpowder were added, I might even get homesick. As if.
Step- Step-
Footsteps followed behind me.
Muddy sludge and vagrants sprawled throughout the alleys.
Greed gleamed in the faces of those driven mad by hunger.
The ones who had been stealthily following me stopped at a single glare.
They must have the survival instinct to sense killing intent.
That made sense. They lived in the place closest to death.
I poked around every corner of the slums.
With little sunlight and drab colors, it looked like a maze at first glance.
I repeatedly retraced my steps, then turned back whenever I reached a dead end.
As I did, I keenly searched every nook and cranny of the back alleys.
'Found him.'
A vagrant caught my eye along the way.
A figure huddled beneath a crumbling wall.
He was a man wearing scraps of cloth worn thin as rags.
His empty right sleeve fluttered in the wind.
His hair and beard were tangled and matted, as though no one knew when he had last washed them.
Layers of dust and filth had dried onto him, making him look more like a ball of fur than a person.
A chipped bowl sat alone in front of him. He was the very picture of a beggar.
Several vagrants passing by covered their noses and hurried on.
That fellow is still just as filthy as ever.
More than half his face was covered in grotesque hair, but I recognized him at once.
-Me? I lived hidden in your territory until then. There's a cesspool of a slum on the outskirts, right? That's where I was.
The One-Armed Sword, Hendrickson.
There were only two Swordmasters across the entire continent who had woven seven rings.
One was an old man already crushed beneath the weight of time and retired. A living corpse that merely breathed, with not a scrap of fighting spirit left.
Hendrickson was different. He was a knight always ready to throw himself onto the front lines.
Bang! Bang!
After noticing me, he rapped on the bowl. He was asking for money.
To think that old codger had ended up like this. The world was full of surprises.
"My lord, spare this poor man a coin. I haven't eaten a thing in days."
"Elder."
Flick!
The coin traced a graceful parabola.
Ting, tiiiing-
It dropped straight into the old bowl.
"Oh, my lord. Thank you...."
The beggar's obsequious voice abruptly stopped. What I had thrown was not an ordinary coin but a gold piece.
No noble mad enough to give a gold coin to a beggar in the slums existed.
He, too, realized that I had approached him with a clear purpose.
With a creak, his head tilted upward.
Two eyes appeared through the shaggy hair. Distinct color lit his dull pupils.
"Who are you?"
He reached for his cane—or rather, the slender sword disguised as one.
Eyes measuring the distance between blades. Silence that saw through my intentions.
This man could kill me in the blink of an eye.
He was judging whether I was someone worth killing.
Clink!
Instead of answering, I tossed what I held into the bowl.
It was unlike the clear ring of a coin. The object that rolled around inside the bowl before coming to a stop was an obsidian ring.
An obsidian ring with a fierce black lion finely embossed upon it.
It was the family seal that only direct members of House Cardenos could possess.
"Astin von Cardenos."
Hendrickson's pupils rippled faintly.
"I am the son of your master's disciple."
"Ha!!"
He threw back his head and burst out laughing.
"Cardenos? Did you think I'd welcome you just because you said that?"
Well, of course he'd hate me.
I slowly walked over and sat down right beside Hendrickson.
"Isn't it lonely by yourself?"
I cast a sidelong glance at the old gourd lying beside him.
The sour alcoholic odor unique to cheap hard liquor brushed against the tip of my nose.
***
'I guarantee it. You will be the first to weave the final ring.'
'If it's Hendrickson, he can surpass the old lineage!'
'Sir Rixon, congratulations in advance on the birth of your eighth ring.'
The Sudden Swift Sword, the Formless Sword, the Invisible Hand.
Hendrickson was once a man called the strongest swordsman on the continent, a Swordmaster who illuminated Solar's golden age.
His fame was by no means hollow.
Every knight had chanted Hendrickson's name, and even the imperial family had placed its hopes in him alone.
Yet the sun that had seemed eternal set far too quickly.
'I suppose we must admit it. The age of the rings is over.'
'The young bloods have already risen to our chins. I suppose we're washed-up now, too.'
'It's only natural.... It's time to put out the fire.'
A cataclysmic upheaval in which the tide shifted drastically and the paradigm was overturned.
Instead of decades of grueling asceticism, knights carved through Paths and seized power quickly and easily.
While young knights rose rapidly, the knights of the rings could not even maintain their standing and fell behind.
Sometimes, the times outpace the people living in them.
'No. I cannot accept this.'
Hendrickson stubbornly rejected that bizarre whirlwind of change.
Shortcuts and other convenient tricks could not withstand the weight of time.
A sword had to be steeped in years of endurance and accumulated experience.
-I challenge you to a true sword duel.
A wandering swordsman came to the man who held fast to his convictions.
A Grand Swordmaster who had carved out eight Paths.
The nameless man raised his sword toward Hendrickson.
Hendrickson did not evade. Instead, he wanted to prove himself.
That was a Solar ring tempered over sixty years.
A shortcut that was less than ten years old could never compare to him.
Furthermore, he believed that the insight gained from the duel would allow him to weave the final ring.
The result was defeat, with nothing to show for it.
He barely escaped with his life. Hendrickson had to sacrifice the right arm that had held a sword all his life.
'Even Hendrickson, the peerless swordsman, was no match for someone who had opened eight Paths.'
'Would he even still be a Swordmaster now? He lost his dominant arm.'
'Hah. They called him the Invisible Hand, and the name truly fit!'
What he lost was not merely his right arm.
He lost his name, reputation, courage, glory, status, and home—all he had enjoyed for decades—in a single day.
His epithet, the 'Invisible Hand,' instantly became a disgrace.
Even with one arm, Hendrickson was still plenty strong. He could barely maintain seven rings.
But he fell far short of the height of his former glory. The pain of falling from the summit was more agonizing than any wound.
The pitying looks that poured over him every day, the voices he could hear even with both ears covered.
Even phantom pain in the right arm he no longer possessed tormented him.
The Swordmaster who had once dominated an era abandoned his sword and hid himself away. He chose to languish in a foul-smelling slum and cut himself off from the world.
Even so, he never abandoned his Solar ring.
It was his lifelong conviction, something more precious than his life. Giving up the ring would mean denying sixty years of his existence.
'Give it up, Rixon.'
His former companions turned traitors. They chose the shortcut and extinguished the ring's ember.
Hendrickson alone kept stoking his ember and continued his lonely training.
Before long, he was saddled with the derisive nickname of the One-Armed Sword.
The One-Armed Sword. Or the Lonely Sword.
'Fools.'
Call it an empty delusion and point your fingers at me. Curse me for burning away my lifespan.
The heat of my ring will cool only when my body heat does.
"Astin von Cardenos. I am the son of your master's disciple."
When the young man who had suddenly appeared introduced himself, Hendrickson found it utterly distasteful.
The Grand Duchy of Cardenos.
The cradle of traitors who chose to walk the Path despite having lived through the glorious age of the ring.
Astin, moreover, was young blood.
The rising youngsters dismissed the knights of the ring as outdated losers.
The eldest son of Cardenos was no exception.
"Isn't it lonely by yourself?"
Astin casually settled into the seat beside him. Hendrickson glared at him and waved his hand dismissively.
"Your father and I do not share a pleasant history. You're giving me a headache, so go."
"Didn't I give you a gold coin earlier? Consider it payment for your time."
His sly face made his cheeky intentions plain.
Every so often, knights came all the way to the slums, recognized his identity, and approached him.
Every one of them was a knight of Luna who had opened Paths.
Their purpose was always the same: a cheap ploy to ask him to teach them the sword instead of the ring.
They were fools who wandered the easy path while searching for an even easier one.
"You curse it as petty stubbornness and still ask me to teach you swordsmanship?"
He would rather end this wretched life.
"Actually, I came to ask for your instruction."
As expected.
The words I had anticipated spilled from Astin's mouth.
"I'm sick of this. How many pieces of trash like you do you think I've seen by now?"
Hendrickson snatched up the gourd beside him.
Gulp- Gulp-
His Adam's apple bobbed, and drops gathered in his shaggy beard.
Hrk—With a heated sigh, he spewed out his bitterness.
"When I see wet-behind-the-ears brats like you, I feel sick."
Young people these days were all the same.
The sting of the alcohol dredged up the resentment congealed deep inside him.
"All of you are so weak that you only want to chase the easy path. You hate trials that cut into your flesh, and you hate hardship that cuts into your bones!"
He was not speaking only about the young man before him.
His words were aimed at the misguided current of the age, Astin included.
"You worthless fools! You open a few Paths and act arrogant, as if your way is the right one."
Without understanding pride, they treated the old knights as relics.
Contempt that divided people by generation regardless of status lurked throughout this empire.
A minimum of respect. If they had possessed even that pitiful courtesy.
If they had, he would not have had to condemn them so harshly.
"Fools content with growth without growing pains. You don't even deserve to hold a sword. You can become truly strong only when hardship accompanies you. Only then can you fully claim that strength!"
How foolish were those who knew nothing and simply forged ahead?
A castle built too easily was nothing but a castle of sand. It was destined to be swept away by the next tidal wave.
"You'll realize it soon enough. That the end of the shortcut you're walking is a cliff!"
Hendrickson drew ragged breaths. After steadying himself, he spat out his curses as though chewing them.
"Then come pound the ground and regret it. It'll be your hands that hurt, heh heh...."
Whoosh-!
The gourd flew through the air toward Astin's head. Astin did not bother to dodge its trajectory.
Thunk!
With a dull sound, the gourd tumbled across the ground.
Hendrickson bared his yellow teeth and sneered.
"Now that you've seen this old man's eccentric temper, get lost. I can't stand the sight of you."
"...."
Astin rose from his seat, bracing himself on one knee.
Hendrickson glared at him with sharp eyes until the very end. Then he clicked his tongue loudly and curled up on the ground.
"That really ruined my mood."
Those damned traitors of Cardenos. If he had followed his temper, he would have corrected their manners long ago, not merely threatened to do so.
He had only sent Astin away unscathed because he remembered their old ties.
It was at that moment, when Hendrickson turned over toward the wall.
Whoom-!
Without warning, heat rushed in from behind him.
A beam of light fell into a corner of the cool cesspool where not even a ray could reach.
Hendrickson flinched and immediately turned around.
An unbelievable sight was etched into his eyes.
"You...!?"
A red-gold circle flickered at the center of Astin's chest.
There was only one, but a Solar ring burned with ferocious intensity.
"Do you feel like teaching me now?"
Looking down at Hendrickson, whose mouth hung open, Astin raised the corners of his lips.