Chapter 320: The Empire's Blade (8)

Why had he thought she resembled his mother? Was it simply the armor, and his own memory imposing itself upon her face? Leandro didn't know. And yet, the dry impression she left in his mind kept resurfacing.

He wanted to see more and confirm what he felt. It was easy enough to learn where the imperial guard trained, and he went straight there.

Their skill was not poor. They even sparred against mages, rehearsing situations where they'd come under spellfire.

Leandro concealed his presence and observed. As they rotated through their drills, he quickly discerned the measure of each knight. Isabelle was easily the most gifted. She held a composure the others lacked, her stability overwhelming in comparison. However, she was holding herself back.

Whenever she began to stand out in sparring, she pulled her power down, as though pressing against some unseen weight. She wasn't holding back entirely, but she never went all out either. Her atmosphere was the opposite of his mother's, who had once laughed and sparred with her comrades as though it were a game.

The more he watched Isabelle, the more she occupied his thoughts. The next day, and the day after, he watched her again in silence.

On the fourth day, when she lingered alone, he approached. "Why are you hiding your true skill? Do you have some treacherous intent?"

Of course, she gave no such impression. It wasn't even what he intended to say. The words spilled out only because he was embarrassed to admit he had been watching her.

"N-no. I have no such intent..."

"The guards I once knew were nothing like this. No knight ever concealed her strength from her fellows. What do you think your comrades are to you?"

It was nothing but a baseless provocation. Yes, his mother's fellow guards had often visited their home, but his memories were sixteen years old. Back then, he had been less than ten.

Flustered, she let the truth slip. "If I were to use all my strength... they could be hurt."

A blunt, yet honest answer, and it made Leandro laugh from deep in his chest. He tried to hold it back, but the smile broke through his lips.

Realizing what she had said, she looked stricken, mortified at her own words. "

Ah...

"

"Then let me test you."

Isabelle's eyes widened. "

Eh

?"

"Show me your real strength. Prove you're strong enough to dismiss your comrades so easily."

"You mean... you would teach me?"

"Yes."

She lowered her head, biting her lip lightly before drawing her sword. "Thank you..."

It was real steel, sharp and clean. She swung with some skill, but Leandro dodged a few strikes and caught her wrist, twisting until she was down.

Wiping her brow from the ground, she admitted. "As the rumors say, I couldn't land a single blow."

He frowned. "What are you doing?"

"What...?"

"You could move twice as fast, couldn't you? I said I'd teach you, not that I'd play games."

"But..."

"What?"

She reached for a wooden practice sword set along the wall. "Then I'll try with this."

Leandro gave her a look of disbelief. "Were you worried about hurting me?"

"..."

"Again."

***

It took nearly half a day before Isabelle fought with her full strength.

Once, during sparring, she had killed a fellow guard by accident. He was a man of noble birth who had pestered her endlessly. When she refused his advances, he demanded a duel with real blades to defend his pride.

The captain had shielded her afterward, but if she made another mistake, she would be finished. She couldn't afford to lose her post. Her mother's incurable illness demanded endless coin. She could not, would not, lose her livelihood.

Never...

However, those feelings scattered as her sword met Leandro's.

Kkaang!

The last shard of moonlight shattered against her blade, and darkness covered the yard. At some point, Leandro had drawn his own sword.

This was the man who had fought the Empire's foremost sword at twenty years old. He was the Commander of the Blue Lion Knights. She had thought the stories exaggerated. Now, crossing blades, she realized the truth: he had been underestimated.

"Is it okay if I ask you something?" she asked.

"Ask."

"Your mother... compared to me, how strong was she?"

In the darkness, he laughed. "Even if you fought with all your might, you could never reach her. If you keep attacking so feebly, don't even speak her name."

"Then you..."

He hesitated, then answered, "At twelve years old, I had already cut through her phantoms."

Isabelle readjusted her grip. "Then I can rest assured."

Her breathing stilled. And in that instant, she became someone else. She stepped in with phantom speed and closed ten meters in two strides, then slashed from a blind spot.

Leandro blocked, countered, but she had already shifted, attacking another blind spot. Both her feet angle and the lowered hilt of her blade were all designed for acceleration. Her strikes curved like arrows, raining in from every side.

Kkagagagagang!

Block after block, without end. Not only speed, but each stroke could have split flesh and bone. Sharp, clean, persistent. Sparks flared in the dark, red fire bursting, blue flame clinging faintly to the edges of their swords. Her blows clearly carried Sword Energy.

Kkaang! Kkaang! Kkaang!

Each attack pressed forward, relentless. If one failed, the next would take its place. A chain of strikes, flowing like water, yet sharp enough to break bone with every cut.

Bzzt!

Yet, what seemed impossible to block, Leandro parried all. He was smiling the whole time, as though he were a child again, seven years old... For a moment, he even laughed, as in those days he had lost. By the time he became aware of his own expression, Isabelle was slowing.

Her wrists trembled. Her final strike bounced aside, and she collapsed, spent. She had delivered countless attacks at point-blank range. Leandro had received them all. She had no strength left even to admit defeat.

Still, one thing was certain—before this opponent, she bare everything, physique and soul.

***

For a year, Leandro trained Isabelle. Among the Blue Lion Knights, few had talent to rival hers. Nevertheless, whenever she reminded him of his mother, guilt struck him. Hence every meeting was in secret. With a partner who allowed her to unleash her full potential, her skill grew by the day.

"Well done."

Perhaps due to nerves, Isabelle rarely showed emotion in his presence. Still, at last, she smiled. The smile bloomed bright on her austere face. Leandro's chest ached, sharp and deep. He wondered if he had eaten something wrong. Even striking at it with his fist on the way home brought no relief. Her smiling face stayed with him, no matter how he pressed his temples.

"..."

Clack.

Leandro drank from his cup again and again.

"Is something troubling you, Commander?" his vice-captain asked, curiosity plain on his face.

Leandro stared blankly at him, then touched his left chest. "It aches."

"Aches...?"

"I think I have a fever. My strength wanes. I can't concentrate."

The young nobleman seemed worried. "Since when?"

It was useless to tell him, but he said it anyway, "Since I saw someone smile."

The vice-captain's braided brown hair caught the light as his eyes sparkled. "Oh? Who?"

"Just... someone."

"Wow... I'm dying to know who could rattle the commander's heart like that."

"Nonsense. Why are you here?"

The vice-captain gave a foolish laugh and launched into matters of the order's operations. "

Heh...

"

His meddlesome eyes worried Leandro, but he hadn't even said a name. What could he possibly do? That was the mistake.

***

Knock, knock.

A week later, Isabelle came to Leandro's office. She wore an expression he had never seen—angry, pained, and somehow anxious. Her eyes trembled. More than when he had seen her smile, that look hurt and pierced his chest.

He asked, more tense than ever, "Did something happen?"

"Are you going to pretend you don't know?"

"Pretend?"

She set a bouquet on his desk. "You sent me this. Did you see me as a woman, not a knight?"

Leandro stared at the flowers, baffled. His name was written there, bold and clear. He had no words. He had his suspicions about who did it, but with the question sprung, he couldn't deny it with his usual certainty.

Why did Leandro focus on her more than anyone else? Because her talent was overwhelming? That alone didn't explain it. Leandro couldn't lie to himself, nor could he flatly deny her.

"Why... aren't you saying anything?"

Clatter!

Leandro's vice-captain rushed in, flustered.

"I'm sorry, this is a misunderstanding. I-I thought you two liked each other, so I sent it! I checked with the guards, too. There were rumors and..." He looked from Leandro's stunned face to the flushed guard and barreled on, "I just wanted to help! If I'm wrong, then it's my fault!"

"Vice-captain..."

"Sir?"

"For the next year, I'll be personally writing your physical training schedule."

"I'm... already sturdy..."

"Or you can be my fixed partner for one-on-one sparring for a year."

"The first option please..."

Isabelle bowed once, face burning red, and left the office. "I showed you a disgrace... Forgive me."

Leandro wanted to grab his vice-captain by the collar, but the absurdity left him staring blankly at the door she'd just walked through.

"Commander, if you ask me, she didn't exactly push you away..."

"Vice-captain."

"Sir?"

𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"Is life so tedious you want it shortened?"

***

Three years passed. Leandro was still writing the vice-captain's training schedule, and he was still his sparring partner.

Thwack!

Leandro's practice sword struck his shoulder.

"

Gaaah...

!"

The glossy bald patch beside his crown flashed in the sun.

"Again."

The vice-captain had even lost his prized hair after losing a duel stacked with penalties against him. With do-or-die resolve, he charged.

Thwack!

Leandro cracked him across the shin, and the vice-captain hopped in a crooked stance, yelping for a long while. One of them used a real blade, while the other used a wooden sword. Leandro kept his eyes blindfolded and his ears muffled with cloth, and still had leisure to spare.

"Somehow you're sharper every single day..."

"Call the top fourteen knights again tomorrow."

"All of them? You've already beaten them all."

Leandro tapped the cloth over his eyes. "I'll do it again like this."

"

Ugh

." The vice-captain sighed, shaking his head with a truly exhausted look. "Oh, about that token I suggested, the secret sign only you two share..."

"That's another month added."

The vice-captain threw his shining head back. "

Haha

! So it's nine years and three months now? I give up."

"..."

"In any case, it was a good idea. The atmosphere has been strange lately."

"Strange?"

"Yes. As you know, the anti-war faction is dying off quietly, one by one..."

"We are the Empire's blade. Don't think about politics."

"Well, yes, but..."

That was Duke Lawrence's concern, not Leandro's. It was obvious who stood at the center of the assassinations of the anti-war faction. Leandro never said a single word to dissuade him.

Not long ago, Isabelle, who had even less political sense than he, became the new captain of the imperial guards, and the duke's influence had weighed heavily on that scale.

He practically made it happen.

Duke Lawrence Tartier. The "maiden," as he called himself, knew everything before Leandro asked, and smoothed his way without him speaking. Perhaps the duke had casually smoothed Leandro's path as well. The Empire's blade had been placed in his hand by the duke, hence Leandro would never point it at him. There were always plenty of villains, endless crimes demanding punishment. Then again, he was probably no different from those villains.

Leandro had closed his eyes to the little maiden-duke and his circle because it helped him, because it was convenient. That sin was bitter beyond measure.

So Duke Biblio, the honorary duke... is the Demon King's agent?

Schlup.

After investigating the under-sewers alone, Leandro wiped violet fluid from his blade. They were creatures not of this world. There was evidence, more than enough to begin an inquest as the Empire's senior inspector. The suspicious old man who clung to the maiden-duke.

As soon as he opened the case, pressure crashed in from every side like never before. The imperial household, the Tower of Azure, even the holy temples—from the very core of noble society.

The duke himself did not intervene to stop Leandro. But unlike before, it was clear he was no longer shielding him. And Leandro finally understood how comfortable "justice" had been.

What he had carried out was merely the justice stirred by those who held true power in the dark. The justice that aligned with their interests, carefully chosen so they never had to feel inconvenienced.

The Empire's blade pressed the investigation forward. It could be the first and last true investigation Leandro conducted in office. Slowly, the Empire's sword began to turn toward his own heart.