That night, after spending a hectic day making reports and sorting everything out as soon as I woke,
I headed to the training ground alone while everyone else slept.
“Hey, Fafnir. Come out.”
[Waking a lady in the dead of night. How bold of you, child.]
Fafnir’s suggestive voice echoed inside my head.
“Stop talking nonsense. After eating so many Demonic Beast souls, it’s time you earned your keep.”
What lady?
She was a hag more than a thousand years old.
Fafnir pretended to sulk and answered peevishly.
[Earn my keep? The souls I consumed were all exhausted when I summoned the black flames during the battle with the Golem. What payment could you possibly demand?]
Where did this old hag think she was trying to con me?
“You sucked down two spirits from that Golem, didn’t you? You were lucky too. It happened to be a mutant two-headed Golem with two spirits trapped in one body, so you got to eat twice as much.”
[What a tiresome creature.]
SWISH.
She clicked her tongue once and revealed herself.
Her flowing violet dress glittered beneath the moonlight.
[Very well. Why did you summon me?]
“What else? We only had one agreement.”
The Sword Saint’s swordsmanship.
She was supposed to teach me Siegfried’s swordsmanship.
[You have only just returned from battle, yet you seek to train again. What a tedious child. Why are all swordsmen like this?]
“Try fighting an evil force bent on ruling the world sometime. Could you sleep peacefully when you know they’re going to rise again?”
[That is difficult to say. I am the very embodiment of ‘an evil force bent on ruling the world,’ so I cannot particularly sympathize.]
“Of course you are.”
She extended her hand toward me.
The moment I took it, her memories flooded into me.
***
Siegfried Sigurd.
He stood before my eyes.
Unlike the previous memory, when I had looked down upon him from the height of her enormous body, this time I stood eye-to-eye with him.
“You’ve gotten much smaller since last time.”
[This is a memory from when I transformed into a human after deciding I could not defeat him in my true form.]
When she raised her sword, I, now assimilated into Fafnir’s memory, raised mine as well.
“How utterly cruel of you to treat a lady this way.”
As her mouth moved, mine moved with it.
Fafnir’s voice emerged from my lips.
My eyes met Siegfried’s.
He looked at me with an indifferent gaze.
“What a dull child. This is a battle against a rival the world shall never see again. How can you remain so unmoved?”
When Fafnir finished speaking, Siegfried opened his mouth.
His tone remained indifferent.
“Rival? Who?”
“Why, you and I, of course. In this vast world, only the two of us can understand what it feels like to stand at the summit.”
Fafnir spread her arms as though grasping the entire world.
Siegfried drew his sword without changing his expression.
“The summit is a place where only one may stand.”
The tip of his sword pointed toward me—to Fafnir.
“A place shared with something like you is not my summit.”
TWITCH.
I felt Fafnir’s rage within the memory.
“You arrogant wretch. I shall break that pride of yours.”
WHOOSH.
Black flames rose from Fafnir’s hand.
CRACKLE.
“People always call you arrogant when you say something entirely true.”
An energy resembling blue lightning erupted from Siegfried’s body.
SHING.
At the same time, three swords slid from their sheaths and flew into the air.
[Watch carefully.]
The present Fafnir spoke to me.
[The Sword Saint’s swordsmanship you desire begins now.]
CRASH—!
When the two figures collided, heaven and earth shook.
Soaring flames clashed against descending lightning.
The dragon transformed into a human kicked off the ground and leaped upward, while the human standing atop a sword descended from the heavens.
“It’s incredible, even seeing it again.”
I focused every nerve in my body upon my eyes.
Siegfried’s mana extended beyond his body.
“Merely launching sword energy is not enough to stand at the summit.”
Yes.
This was it.
If he was called the strongest person in human history, he should possess at least this much spirit.
“From this moment, this place is my domain.”
The mana extended outward in circles.
One circle, then two……and more continued appearing without end.
[This is why I was defeated by that man.]
Enormous rings of mana overlapped, enclosing the entire area.
“Mana Domain.”
The world was dyed in Siegfried’s blue.
“Activate.”
CRASH—!
Three swords streaked through the air toward Fafnir like falling stars.
“GRAAAAGH!”
The memory ended alongside the scream of Fafnir’s past self.
***
I opened my eyes.
It was still the middle of the pitch-black night.
“……Teach me quickly.”
I understood now.
If I became the Sword Saint, I might be able to stop the Demon King.
[Very well.]
Siegfried’s swordsmanship.
The undisputed greatest swordsmanship, composed of only four chains.
It had killed the Demonic Dragon that once ruled the world and opened an age for humanity, earning names such as the Dragon-Slaying Sword and the Sword Saint Style.
However, it was also a swordsmanship so impossibly difficult to pass down that no successor had ever appeared.
“I already know all that.”
[Such insolence.]
SNAP!
“Argh! Why did you hit me?!”
I clutched my forehead.
[Then remain silent and listen to the rest.]
Fafnir pointed at me with the finger she had used to flick my forehead and continued.
[The reason that man began using the unusual swordsmanship of wielding several swords was absurdly simple.]
She shaped her flames into the form of a man.
He was a balding, middle-aged man with a shaggy beard and a remarkably stubborn-looking face.
[His name was Regin. He was the blacksmith who forged Siegfried’s swords, which are now called the Three Holy Swords.]
With a gesture from Fafnir, the flames formed the shapes of several swords.
[His skill as a blacksmith reached the heavens. He wished for his masterpieces to be wielded by the strongest swordsman, and thus he met Siegfried.]
“I understand that, but why did Siegfried take all three swords?”
[The reason is simple. All three wished to accompany him.]
“What?!”
[Regin’s skill astonished even the gods. During his lifetime, he forged three soul-bearing weapons—Ego Swords—when an ordinary artisan would struggle to create even one. All three swords chose Siegfried.]
“What is this, a harem of Holy Swords?”
[Since matters had already reached that point, Regin gave all three to Siegfried. And since he suddenly possessed three swords, Siegfried conceived the insane idea of using all of them simultaneously.]
“Wait. Then…….”
[Indeed. The swordsmanship born from that strange thought developed into the Siegfried swordsmanship you witnessed within my memories.]
“You’re telling me the swordsmanship that saved the world was created for such a ridiculous reason?”
[Indeed. He was a genius. The eccentricities of geniuses have a way of becoming history.]
“Ha.”
Fafnir and I sighed simultaneously.
She sighed because she had been defeated by a swordsmanship created for such an absurd reason.
I sighed because I was once again forced to realize the distance between myself and the man who had saved the world with a swordsmanship he created so casually.
“All right!”
After sitting there blankly for a moment, I let out an energetic shout.
I kicked off the ground, rose to my feet, and gripped a training sword.
“Let’s start with something I can actually do.”
I raised the training sword and drove it deep into the ground.
[Oh? What are you attempting?]
“I need to move that sword first.”
I sat upright on the ground and closed my eyes.
[Draw your mana out like a thread. Imagine tying the end of that thread around the sword.]
Following her instructions, I released my mana in the longest, thinnest strand I could manage.
[Slowly. The mana must not break. Do not release more than necessary either.]
Her voice was stern, much like Father’s.
[Thinner. It must remain sturdy and flexible at the same time.]
The thread of mana, thick at first, gradually became longer and thinner.
[Good. Now fasten your mana to the sword’s hilt.]
The thread of mana slowly extended outward.
When it reached the sword’s hilt, I wrapped the mana thread tightly around it.
[Are you certain it is properly tied? It does not appear to be.]
“It’s tied properly.”
[Good. Then let us confirm it.]
She placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered quietly.
[Pull.]
The thread of mana instantly went taut.
[If you pull too quickly, it will snap. Draw it in slowly, as though fishing, without allowing the line to break.]
I carefully pulled the thread.
I had driven the sword too deeply into the ground. If I pulled too weakly, it would not move, but if I pulled too hard, the thread felt ready to snap.
[Feel how much strength you must apply.]
I pulled only hard enough to keep the thread properly taut.
As I concentrated, sweat poured from me like rain.
SHING.
At last, the sword slid free.
“It worked!”
SNAP.
When I pulled the thread, the training sword flew into my hand.
It was the first time I had moved an object using mana.
[I did not expect you to succeed on your first attempt.]
Even though she had taught me herself, Fafnir seemed unable to believe it.
It was exhilarating.
For now, I could only pull the sword toward me.
But if I continued developing the technique, I could reach the Sword Saint’s realm that I had witnessed within Fafnir’s memories.
“Were you planning to mock me when I failed?”
[Of course! Why do you think no successor appeared after Siegfried’s death?! An ordinary man may require his entire life merely to understand a genius’s footsteps.]
“Ah, about that.”
I raised my index finger and rubbed beneath my nose.
“I’m something of a genius myself.”
[Argh!]
Fafnir stared at me in disbelief before throwing back her head.
[You just demonstrated it, so I cannot even deny it. Perhaps I should strike you once.]
“Hey! No hitting my head! Hitting me on the head will make me stupid!”
I teased her as I drove the sword into the ground again.
[You intend to try again?]
“Of course.”
Faster this time.
More certainly.
I bound the sword with mana.
I recalled the image of the Sword Saint carved deep into my mind.
It was not easy at first.
The thread occasionally snapped, and sometimes I pulled too hard, causing the sword to shoot toward me.
Yet I continued drawing out mana and continued trying to move the sword.
Gradually, the sensation of manipulating mana became familiar.
[Dawn is breaking.]
The sun slowly began to rise.
The dawn opening the morning drove the darkness from the night sky.
“One last time.”
I bound the sword with mana.
When I closed my eyes and concentrated, the only things I could sense were the single thread of mana extending outward and the sword tied to its end.
SHING.
The sword slid from the ground.
Siegfried Swordsmanship, First Form.
A sword technique created to hunt dragons flying high in the heavens, beyond humanity’s reach.
Dragon-Slaying Sword.
SWISH—!
The sword soared high into the sky.
[There is a dragon standing directly before you, yet you call it the Dragon-Slaying Sword. I find that displeasing.]
“If you’re uncomfortable, adjust your posture. I feel incredible right now.”
The sword swam through the sky according to my will.
It already looked like a dragon in its own right.