Astallon, the Iron Empire.
There, directly beneath the Emperor, stood twelve stars.
Heroes called the Reapers of Steel, or the Guardians of Astallon.
Their name was Swordmaster.
“You're probably one of the Experts, right?”
The stage just before Swordmaster.
Astallon had hundreds of such rising hopefuls in its ranks.
When an existing Swordmaster died or was so badly injured they could no longer carry out their duties,
a successor was decided according to the Expert rankings.
And those rankings were scored by merit.
“That's why you infiltrated this Academy, isn't it? To spy on the level of the Academy's students, and above all, because the Empire's treasure is kept here.”
To steal a grimoire, a national treasure, from the empire of magic.
Nothing could be more humiliating for them.
If someone could pull it off, it was as plain as fire that their Expert ranking would shoot up.
“You…… know everything.”
The sound of grinding teeth came from Bane's mouth.
The body type seen during the day changed as if it had all been a lie, and his voice distortion came undone.
It was enough to make one marvel at how he could reshape his body like that.
But a person's own unique voice is hard to change at its root.
After hearing his opponent's voice, Kawin was certain of who he was.
-Bane! Do you know that's your fifteenth bowl? And soup is for eating with a spoon, not drinking!
-Haha. I'm being careful because I'm on a diet right now, see?
Bane's voice, heard from the table across the way.
Not one word of it had held sincerity.
Speaking words covered in lies from beginning to end meant,
‘His very identity is a lie.’
From that moment, Kawin had put down his fork and dug up his memories.
Memories of [Swordmaster of the Heavenly Slaughter Star], which he had read in his past life.
One of the espionage operations carried out by Astallon, the Iron Empire.
‘Enrollment under a false identity.’
That was Kawin's conclusion after putting all the information together.
Of course, luck had played its part in the process.
He had not moved specifically to find Bane; he had come across him while ‘doing what he had been doing anyway.’
After all, Kawin, too, had been searching this place every night.
After midnight, entry to the Academy's main building was forbidden.
They had even gone so far as to put warning magic in place.
But Kawin, who had to find the grimoire, had been going in and out of the main building every night.
Warning magic was something Kawin could sense with his abilities as much as he liked.
[Passive : Electron Perception]
One of the gifts from Dharma's grimoire.
His magic-power sensing, far more developed than anyone else's, had easily found the invisible magic-power boundary lines.
‘Not that the security level was high to begin with.’
That must be why both Bane and he could be here.
Shiing.
Despite the very faint moonlight, the surface of the sword Bane drew glowed a vivid blue.
Just looking at it made one's blood run cold.
This was the ‘Aura’ that knights who had reached a certain realm wielded.
“It's actually easier that you know everything. The reason I have to kill you is clear now.”
Pointing the tip of his sword at Kawin, Bane glared at him like a loosed arrow.
“How stupid of you to show up alone. If it were me, I'd have called a professor or someone else.”
“Well. I'm not exactly in a position to hold my head high, either.”
Kawin shrugged.
Crossing into a forbidden area without permission applied to Kawin as well.
Did he understand what that meant?
Bane's head tilted slightly.
“Are you…… affiliated elsewhere, too?”
“Well. How should I put it.”
If he had been indebted to the Empire all his life, he would have to pledge his loyalty to Illumina.
But Kawin had not even been here half a year.
His roots were still Cha Hun, not Kawin.
“I'm a bit of a different case. I'll decide what to do going forward as I go.”
“You keep talking nonsense like grasping at floating clouds. Then why did you show up in front of me? Why would you invite your own death?”
“Whatever else, this one principle of mine is firm.”
Making the coldly resonating sword energy look pale by comparison, a hot desire bloomed at Kawin's lips.
“The grimoire is mine. No one gets to take it.”
Then he powerfully set the Orbis within him in motion.
He rooted the energy of thunder into every nerve in his body.
From the very start, Kawin pushed ‘Lightning Flash’ to the maximum.
His opponent was a Sword Expert.
Not yet a Master, but considering his age, he had potential that could not even be compared to Tesca Academy's freshmen.
‘Maybe tonight, I'll set foot in the realm of killing.’
It would be a lie to say he was not afraid and trembling.
But this world had its own ways.
It was only a matter of timing; it was a wall in his heart he would have to cross someday.
A situation like this, where failing to kill meant being killed, was the optimal moment to cross that wall.
SWISH!
Bane's form grew rapidly larger.
He closed in so fast that it created an optical illusion.
Astonishingly, even that process made no sound at all.
Truly admirable movement.
Not only freshmen, but even seniors about to graduate would have lost their heads in one stroke.
WHOOSH!
But Bane felt nothing at his fingertips.
Kawin, who had been standing in place, had vanished as if he had sunk into the ground.
Bane's head swept in every direction, his eyes darting this way and that.
He would never have dreamed of it.
That such agile movement could come from a ‘mage.’
ZAP!
A knight's honed senses prickled at Bane's back.
Bane quickly spun around and was soon met with a dazzling light.
At some point, a white arrow had come to float above Kawin's head.
‘No incantation, no magic array?’
Bane's eyes went wide.
Because he knew better than anyone what a spell activated without preparation meant.
When Kawin pointed at his opponent, the ‘Divine Bolt’ began its flight as if it had been waiting.
SWOOSH!
“Not so fast!”
Bane shouted and thrust his sword out diagonally.
A sword imbued with Aura could cut through any magic.
That was what he had been taught at Astallon's military academy, and he had actually cut through the magic of captured mages that way.
The unfortunate fact was that, from Kawin's point of view, their magic was all ‘fake.’
CLAAANG!
A clear yet sharp roar.
At the same time, Bane's eyes were dyed in darkness.
He had definitely struck back at his opponent's magic with a clean, economical motion.
But his sword, imbued with the energy of Aura,
‘Broke?’
The blade, its light gone and now a dull black, cut vainly through the air.
Kawin's Divine Bolt, by contrast, flew on toward its original destination as if nothing had happened.
Its target was Bane's heart.
SQUELCH!
ZZZAP!
The pain of his body being pierced.
On top of that, an electric shock.
An ordinary person should have died without even managing a scream.
But Bane twisted his body in an instant and avoided a fatal wound.
Drip…… drip…….
Though he had to give up an arm in exchange.
“Cough! Cough!”
Coughing again and again, Bane asked through blood-red teeth,
“Impossible……. Lightning magic is supposed to be……!”
“You were taught that too, I guess. That it's a fine rival to static electricity.”
What is the most frightening lie in this world?
A lie that even the one passing it on believes to be true.
In that sense, all of the Astallon Empire was being deceived by a frightening lie.
The Illumina magic that could most safely be ignored.
That must have been what they had heard Lightning was.
“Looks like that information ended up tripping you instead.”
Sorry, but he had no intention of letting him go alive.
The stronger Astallon's forces grew, the more danger House Anper would be in.
Did he understand that situation?
Fsssss…….
In place of his broken sword, this time a blue heat haze rose from Bane's entire body.
Bane rolled his eyes back and kept muttering something.
Seeing this, Kawin clicked his tongue inwardly.
‘Honestly, that's the problem with those Astallon bastards.’
What is the first technique Astallon's swordsmen learn?
That would be Requiem.
A skill that burns one's own life force to take the enemy down together.
A place that teaches self-destruction techniques first, to young boys just starting to learn the sword.
Yet Astallon was a place that saw such things as noble sacrifice.
Of course, from the standpoint of whoever was facing it,
‘It's just a nuisance who can't even go quietly.’
An iron knight burning up every last bit of his life force.
There was nothing in the world more troublesome to deal with.
After all, they would burst their potential in an instant and even activate techniques that had been impossible for them.
For instance,
FLASH!
An ultra-fast charge that moved short distances as if teleporting.
There was something like ‘Flicker.’
In that moment, Kawin's expression hardened.
‘You've got to be kidding me.’
Even in a Requiem state, using Flicker, a Swordmaster's first-class movement technique?
Mages also had a skill called ‘Blink,’ but its activation speed was slower than a Swordmaster's Flicker.
Above all, Kawin had never learned anything of the sort yet.
WHOOSH!
Kawin barely dodged Bane's broken sword.
He felt as if his heart had dropped a hand's span.
What if it had been an intact sword instead of a broken one?
What if he had not known the original's skills, like Requiem or Flicker?
Bane's self-destruction would have succeeded.
‘I can't keep dodging this.’
Even with ‘Lightning Flash’ pushed to its maximum, he could not shake off Bane's pursuit.
SLASH!
At last, Bane's broken sword slashed across Kawin's side.
Thanks to the reinforcement magic in the uniform, his skin was not torn, but the uniform was left in tatters.
‘He's completely lost it. This isn't going to end soon.’
Since it was a skill that burned life force, he would collapse on his own if left alone.
But waiting without a plan looked likely to cost this side considerable damage as well.
So he revised his plan.
‘I never thought the Challenge would help me like this.’
The match with Frasel on the first day.
Watching her steadfastly pour out nothing but mana, with no attribute at all, Kawin had come up with a second technique.
Embarrassing even to call it a skill, but a technique lethal in the extreme to an approaching opponent.
Kawin released the energy of thunder held in his Orbis in a massive heap.
He did not create a particular shape, nor did he set a destination.
An extremely concise, simple mechanism.
So-called,
‘Storm Burst.’
KRA-KOOM!
The lightning storm released from Kawin's body enveloped the surroundings in an instant.
Bane's unfocused eyes were dyed white in one stroke.
Even a moth diving into a forest fire would not look this precarious.
Bane, who had leapt toward the Storm Burst, was completely swallowed by electric magic beyond all standards.
ZZZZAP!
Bane crashed to the floor in the exact posture of his leap.
His whole body had turned black and red like burning charcoal.
Like Kawin's uniform, the bastard's combat attire must have held some special power, too.
But within Storm Burst's range, it was nothing more than a shoddy shield.
Clatter.
A small object that was now hard to even recognize.
The sword Bane had been gripping fell from his hand.
Kawin, who had been lost in thought for a moment, came back to himself at the sound.
“Oops.”
Then he scratched his head.
He had shrunk the Divine Bolt to keep from destroying the main building.
But Bane had resisted more strongly than expected, and since he had even used ‘Storm Burst,’
“The statue that was here…….”
had been reduced completely to ash, leaving only powder.
What now?
Leaving Bane here would not matter much, but Kawin could not stay.
After all, the interior of the main building at night was a forbidden area.
“Right.”
Kawin activated ‘Lightning Flash’ again.
Then he shot through a broken window in one go.
Run for it first.
That was Kawin's choice.