Chapter 313: The Empire's Blade (1)

The funeral of Knight Desery Batyenne lasted three days. On the first day, she was honored as the captain of the imperial guard who had gone out to exterminate the man-eating vines. On the second, she was honored as the youngest daughter of the distinguished Batyenne family. On the third day, she was honored as the wife of the Baron of Falkers, a nobleman from a relatively unsuccessful house.

The Empire had driven its knight into the maw of death, yet soothed her final path with the blessings of the three goddesses. The Batyennes had once disowned the deceased for marrying beneath her station, a man from a meager house who lived idly as he pleased, but they forgave her in light of her death in service.

A splendid blazon was draped over the empty coffin, and that alone seemed to lend the ceremony a gravity of its own. However, the Baron of Falkers had lost his wife and gained nothing. On the final day, visibly diminished and humble, the chief mourner in truth was a boy of only nine.

"Young master, how shall we receive the guests...?" a servant asked.

"Open the storeroom and sell my mother's effects. There should be plenty of gold pieces," the young boy answered dryly.

The boy's father could not even weep. He sat vacant, hollowed out. He had always been a feeble spirit, as he was the eldest son of a poor baronial house. His only talents were reading and reciting lines from books.

What Desery ever saw in such a man, no one knew. Yet she had borne it gladly, even to the point of severing ties with a lineage that had held honor and power for generations.

"I suppose we must sell at least this much to put a meal on the table..."

The servant let his words die. The ring had been bought with the last crumbs of wealth a landless baron could scrape together. The mother had already sold off most of her own trinkets to marry off her husband's younger sisters without shame, something even the boy himself had not known.

The imperial treasury, which had covered the first day's expenses, promised a pension to follow proper procedure. Yet, what they needed was money

today

.

"I'll sell it," the boy stated firmly.

"No." The father, slumped and senseless in the corner, suddenly flared with life in his eyes. "No, not that, anything but that! Do you know what ring that is—!"

The servant glanced between father and son, at a loss.

The nine-year-old bit his lip. "Father, this is the captain's final rite. As nobles... we must receive our guests properly."

"No... no..."

The father collapsed to the floor, muttering his weak pleas that could not even rise to the level of pathetic. The boy signaled the servant with the barest flick of his eyes, and thus they managed to see the last day through with the ceremony it required.

Those who remembered Desery, and those who remembered the Batyennes' youngest daughter, had already come and gone. Only a handful remained who remembered the deceased as the baron's wife. They were poor, ill-clad folk, but hospitality could not be neglected.

The boy shed not a single tear as he greeted them. "This way, please."

Upon the empty coffin, where only a single sword lay, visitors placed small sachets of incense and bowed their heads. She had been devoured in the deep forests of the eastern range, leaving not even a corpse, but the boy still felt a fresh swell of gratitude toward the imperial special commission that had at least recovered her sword.

When the mourners had gone and only the fallen father and the boy remained, the child stepped outside and looked toward the bare yard behind the house. He could see his mother there, vividly, wooden practice sword in hand, playing at bouts with him.

My son is a true prodigy!

Time with his mother, who was often away on duty, had been the greatest joy of his life. After their pretend duels, they would come back inside drenched in sweat, and his father would look up from his book and smile. The realization that such days would never come again sent a cold ache boring into his bones. He ran his hands over his mother's sword, still far too large for him, and, with both hands on the grip, lifted it slightly.

He wondered if she might come up behind him to ruffle his hair and ask what he was grunting about, trying to lift the sword.

Something rose in his chest, stinging behind his eyes, but what broke the moment was his father's sudden shout, raw and senseless. "Put it down! You... you're not worthy to hold that."

The boy lowered the blade and turned.

His father croaked, "Aren't you... aren't you even sad? You..."

He stared at the weak man, a husband who could not master his own feelings, whining at a nine-year-old son. Ultimately, the boy lost his chance to cry forever.

"Knight Desery Batyenne," he said, meeting his father's trembling gaze, "fell an honorable death."

He recalled the words his mother had spoken before her final mission.

I am the Empire's blade.

He clung to those words as if they could comfort him.

"Knight Desery Batyenne desired a noble death for the state. Why do you grieve?"

"You... you..."

The father could not finish. He turned his back. What remained was a thick silence they could almost touch. A grown man should have comforted a child in such a moment. The boy wanted to say so, to accuse him, but when he saw the emptiness in a man who had lived only for his wife, even that impulse faded. That was the last real conversation they had. They lived in the same house, but not in the same place.

While his father ate poorly, slept less, and buried himself in strange books he fetched from who-knew-where, Leandro trained alone in the yard, recalling memories of his mother. The childhood of joyous practice and sweat wiped away with a towel was over. Memories of those days could be dragged up now only from the dark.

Leandro did not stop. He swung the sword in the yard. When his form turned awkward, he remembered the steadying presence behind him, guiding his body with her hands. When he dropped the wooden blade, he remembered the gentle touch at his wrist. When he landed even a semblance of a proper strike, he remembered the warmth of her hand on his head.

While he swung the sword, he felt as if he were with his mother. He heard her voice praising him when he did well, and when a flaw opened in his guard and she attacked it, it felt as though he truly took the hit and hurt.

Good, just like that. No, here, this way... careful with your footing. The strength you put into the blade has improved, but your balance is off.

Three years passed. By then, Leandro could perfectly reproduce every motion his late mother had shown him, without the slightest deviation.

Creaaak!

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

He swung the practice sword hard toward her lingering afterimage. The sound was so chillingly sharp that it startled him, making it hard to believe it came from nothing more than a wooden blade. Only after the swing did the air stir, and the dust on the ground rose belatedly in its wake. The sound alone could have driven an opponent back in dread. That was the limit of the swordsmanship his mother had taught him.

Regardless, Leandro did not stop. He swung again, sideways. This time, it was silent. The sword seemed to shift to the opposite side as if it had been cast through transfer magic. Moreover, the afterimage he held so vividly in his mind, the figure of his mother, was split in two from chest to waist. Then she collapsed. Her lower half fell forward, and the upper half slid away along the clean line of the cut.

Startled at himself, Leandro dropped the sword. All he had done was follow a faint, curving line he felt with his entire body. Rather than something he saw, something that reverberated through him, guiding how to cut and how to move.

The first time he sliced apart the afterimage, it changed. From then on, whenever he summoned his mother in memory, the instant he tried to cross swords with her, she fractured into pieces. Wide gaps yawned between the fragments, and he felt he could slide the tip of his practice sword into them with ease.

After cutting her image to pieces a few times, Leandro no longer summoned her into the yard. He only set the sword aside and stared blankly at the sky for hours.

Ironically, he found new purpose only after even his father died, hollow and wasted from obsession. That funeral, three years after his mother's, was different in every way. It was neither honorable nor sudden. The stench from the corpse left in the study for days was unbearable. Only then did Leandro see what his father had clung to until the end.

It is nearly impossible to eradicate Garbera entirely. Even the smallest root or branch will, within a decade, grow strong and rise again. More cunning still, for it inherits the ritual of ten years past...

The line about inheriting the ritual was underlined in red. Around the open book lay others: manuals on hunting plant-type monsters and on mountain exploration. His father, weak and unable to swing a sword, had been preparing for revenge. He had been buried in books for three years, never raising a blade.

Leandro nearly reeled at the futility of it. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shake the stench that clung to him. Then he walked outside and set the house aflame. It collapsed without even the strength for an explosion.

The flames dwindled in the yard and soon vanished. The imperial compensation had long since been spent, and there was no estate left to order. All he had was the sword his mother left behind. That was all he took from the Falker that died.

***

"Did... did you really kill this yourself?"

Leandro nodded. The vines would not return for another seven years. Until then, he needed something to fill the time. So he went wherever monsters were said to be, cutting them down at random. Perhaps it could be called training or practice.

Food, money, a place to sleep, those followed naturally enough. However, his youth was always an obstacle. Everywhere he went, people balked at the sight of a child. At times, he thought it might have been easier if even his useless father had been there to accompany him.

Four years later, when he turned sixteen, those troubles had lessened somewhat, but the road ahead remained long.

"Astonishing... where did you find the corpse? Be honest, boy. This is serious."

It had been years since anyone had called him boy. Leandro glanced down at the bat monster's body sprawled at his feet. Its wings stretched wider than a man's height, its claws longer than most daggers, its hide thick and black. It was easier prey than a cautious deer. It charged headlong like a walking meal.

The leather merchant who had been trading with him recently tried to defend him. "This lad has remarkable hunting skill."

However, the guard captain's suspicion did not waver. "Silence. You expect me to believe a child's arrow pierced hide as tough as stone? It's more likely he stumbled across a carcass that the guards brought down earlier. Isn't that so?"

"What nonsense..."

"You'll be compensated enough, so keep your mouth shut. And you, boy, the carcass has been seized. Dangerous remains belong to the guard."

This was not the first time. Other hunters had tried to steal his kills, and some even approached with drawn blades to rob him outright. None had ever succeeded, but this kind of farce was rare. Irritation flared in him.

Leandro met the captain's eyes and said evenly, "I am Leandro, son of Knight Desery Batyenne, captain of the imperial guard, who gave her life for the Empire. Do you, a guard who should be the Empire's spear, have not even a grain of pride?"

"What... did you say?"

"The imperial guard protects the city. They ensure that a gathering of humans does not collapse into hell, where the weak are devoured by the strong. That is your sacred duty, to shield the city as a true city. And yet you would steal a bounty from a citizen?"

The captain clicked his tongue, unimpressed. "

Tch...

ridiculous."

His indifference told Leandro his words were wasted. It was not complicated. Even a sixteen-year-old could reason it out. This man used his strength not for the people, but only to crown himself as the strong. And he knew it. He simply chose to keep his conscience at a distance.

Then, as if struck by inspiration, the captain smirked slyly. "Well then. Perhaps I only needed to confirm you really did kill it. If you're the son of such a famous knight, surely you can bring down more than a bat."

"Captain, you can't mean—!"

"Enough from you. Do you want me to shut your shop down?"

Leandro glanced at the leather merchant, signaling him not to interfere.

The captain leaned in, spreading a map on the table. "Here. The Short-Tail Plains, half a day from here. A great bird has appeared, one that eats men as well as livestock and horses. It's a menace."

"A hippogriff?"

The captain's eyes widened. "You even know the name? Then if you bring that back, I'll pay you double the bounty for both!"

"..."