Chapter 54: Loyalty Without Witness

To be honest, I felt relieved that those two hadn’t tried to run.

I was grateful they hadn’t prostrated themselves just to get through the moment.

They needed to die here, so that this rebellion — which would leave nothing behind — wouldn’t spread any further.

The fat one swung his nail-studded club, whatever he’d been eating clearly showing in his bulk.

I brushed it aside with the gauntlet on my left arm and thrust the new sword in my right straight into his neck.

“Guurk!”

Even thick layers of fat couldn’t hide the blood vessels in the throat.

“Eek!”

The tall one swung his axe down in desperate frenzy.

Slice.

I cut upward beneath the axe head with the knight’s sword in my left hand, and his mouth fell open.

The severed axe head dropped to the ground.

Thud.

As I pulled my right-hand blade free, I pivoted on my left foot.

Slice.

The tall man’s torso split cleanly in two.

One.

I kicked off the ground and swung my sword in a long, dragging arc.

Two, three, four, five.

Each time muscle or tendon caught, I subtly twisted my wrist to maintain cutting force.

Five bodies fell in succession.

SHRAAAAAASH!

Upper bodies separated from lower halves, blood spraying in droplets, cleanly cut bones flashing into view.

“That’s impossible.”

“How are we supposed to beat that?”

“Is he really a knight?”

I could feel the panic spreading among them.

I kept turning and turning around the foot I’d planted, carving through the rebels.

Shhk, slice, thud, shraash, shraaaak!

“Hah.”

Watching limbs fall, I thought it through.

Dual swords weren’t meant for fighting blue bloods in terms of speed or raw power.

They were useful for unleashing consecutive strikes in a single rush, but that was their limit.

Against multiple enemies, though, they were effective.

The difficulty of loading weight and centrifugal force could be compensated by rotating the entire body around the legs.

The tendency for the blades to clash could be solved by using one strictly for defense and the other for offense.

Needing more strength was another drawback.

Slice.

“Urgh!”

But if you cut along the grain, severing muscle and slipping between bones, it didn’t require that much force.

My blade passed through the gap between his humerus and clavicle.

I didn’t even feel resistance.

It was like slicing pudding.

“Eek!”

One rebel crawled along the ground and stabbed a dagger at the top of my foot.

CLANG!

“Heh.”

Plate-armored boots didn’t get pierced by cheap scrap-metal daggers.

I kicked him in the face, grabbed his collar, and hauled him up.

He groaned, still trying to draw a second dagger.

This one also seemed like an enforcer.

I ran the knight’s sword in my left hand straight through his chest.

“You damn blue-blood dog.”

I ignored his dying words and lifted his corpse.

I needed to intimidate them as much as possible so they wouldn’t rush me.

The corpse twitched, stiffening muscles clamping down on the blade.

With no time to pull it free, I kicked off the ground as is.

Using his body as a literal meat shield, I weathered the wave of rebel attacks.

Spears and blades pierced the corpse.

I’d thought they might hesitate at attacking a comrade’s body, but they didn’t.

Their eyes had already gone mad long ago.

Let’s go.

I lowered my stance and tightened my abdomen and waist.

With sword and improvised shield forward, I charged like a raging bull, cleaving through the sea of rebels.

“Aaaagh!”

“Don’t step on me!”

“We’re getting pushed back! Someone, help — agh!”

A breakthrough had to be instantaneous, slipping between bodies.

At the same time, the line had to be as straight as possible, without preparing for the moment when a collision might shove me back.

I had to push through mercilessly, eyes fixed forward.

“You worthless trash! How many of you are being pushed back by one man!”

At last, the agitator shouted.

From the start, they were men taller than me by a full head.

With less than ten steps left, the platform looked pitifully crude.

“Block him!”

“We have to protect the teacher!”

“Damned knight!”

Those burning with rage.

“Is that really a knight?”

Those recoiling in shock.

“Don’t retreat! The moment we’re freed from the damned Intezeruto is close! Just endure this!”

“Trust the teacher and fight!”

Those lost in something like religious faith.

I dropped the corpse that had served as my shield and swung both swords at them all.

Seongbaek had taught me something.

Find three or more weak points, swing the blade wide, and connect the dots into a curve.

Keep the elbows loose, then tighten at the moment of impact to wound wherever the blade lands.

I decided to apply that here.

There was no need to look for weak points.

For untrained men, anywhere from armpit to thigh was a weakness.

There were so many lines to connect that choosing was harder.

The standard knight’s sword in my left could reach three, the new long sword in my right could reach four.

I connected every exposed weakness into a single line.

There was no need to cut to the bone.

Targeting just enough muscle and tendon to disable them was sufficient.

Cut cleanly, and the truly lucky ones who weren’t struck in vital spots might even recover without lasting damage.

Shraash, shraash!

With my left, the first man’s neck, the second under the armpit, the third’s thigh.

With my right, a flank, a thigh, a lung, a neck.

Creating a lightning-straight line of motion, I cut down seven in a single breath.

The ten-step distance vanished in an instant.

Once again, I felt it keenly.

An untrained crowd becomes one man, then another, then another, before a knight.

Pushing through collapsing bodies, I hurled myself toward the agitator.

Crack.

The paving stones split as I kicked off.

At that moment, the agitator drew a sword from beneath his cloak.

Just over three handspans long including the hilt, with a thick blade.

A knight’s sword?

***

After being drenched in the rain of falling fire and watching Anplus cut down over a hundred rebels with two blades, the remaining rebels finally broke.

“Eek!”

“I—I can’t fight anymore!”

“Should we bow down now?”

A small clearing formed around the agitator’s platform.

Anplus sliced through the air like an arrow, and the agitator tumbled like a tossed sack of flour.

Blood streamed from the agitator’s thigh where Anplus’s blade had passed.

“Kh—ugh.”

Even so, he planted both feet firmly on the ground and raised his sword.

Looking at the man’s thigh, Anplus made a strange expression.

Purple blood. A knight. They sent a knight as a spy.

In the Eternal Empire, a knight was a troop type, a race, and a class.

Knights were units designed to fight grand mages, a race whose blood had grown too thin to use magic but still retained partial recovery and vitality, and a class dividing noble society from red bloods.

Whoever had sent this man had focused less on his class and more on his role and race.

“A knight?”

Anplus wanted confirmation.

The agitator nodded.

“Aren’t you ashamed? Didn’t you resent the lord who gave you such an order?”

Judging by his movements, the man was clearly skilled.

He wasn’t someone meant to face slum dwellers in a place reeking of rotting corpses, without dark armor, ornate decorations, or a bright cloak.

That was why Anplus looked at him with regret.

But the agitator, who had roused the masses so fervently, shook his head gently but firmly.

Not with the heated voice he’d used on the slum dwellers, but with the low, courteous tone of a knight.

“If there are a hundred knights, there are a hundred loyalties. I did not spare my body, nor my name. That is how I give my loyalty.”

“Even if no one ever knows?”

Anplus asked, his voice trembling.

In a small intersection of the slums stinking of decay, surrounded by corpses, trash, and illegally expanded buildings.

Between towering walls of blue flame and armless bodies strewn about, the middle-aged knight — dressed in worn clothes and a frayed robe instead of armor and silk — nodded calmly.

“I know. And now you know too, do you not?”

“!”

Anplus bit his lip slowly.

“Yes. You may be right.”

Anplus sheathed the new sword, leveled the knight’s sword, and kicked off the ground like a bolt of lightning.

His body shot forward fast enough to leave afterimages.

The man who had gone from agitator, to spy, to knight also kicked off to meet him.

Even after witnessing Anplus’s feats, the tip of his blade did not waver.

CLANG!

His sword struck Anplus’s breastplate.

SCRRRRAPE!

With a long recoil, it slid along the curved surface of the plate and slipped aside.

Instead of plunging his blade into the man’s abdomen or thigh, Anplus smashed the pommel into his temple.

Partly because he’d been ordered to capture him alive, and partly because doing otherwise against an unarmored opponent felt dishonorable.

The knight gritted his teeth, letting out a long groan as he fought to stay conscious.

Anplus grabbed him, spun him, and struck the back of his neck with the edge of his hand.

Only then did the middle-aged knight go limp.

“Huff, huff.”

Anplus exhaled roughly.

His breathing had remained steady even when cutting down five men with a single swing.

This unexpected encounter had stirred unexpected emotions.

You don’t spare your body or your name. 

That’s your loyalty and your honor? 

I can’t live that way. 

What I pursue is the joy of mastery with the sword, and the honor of being recognized by all as a noble aristocrat.

Those who are loved alone are betrayed, those who are feared alone are abandoned, but those who are both loved and feared rule.

The expressions on the faces of those who had bowed from the start and those left stunned by Anplus’s display were starkly different.

They might have accepted it if he’d attacked with magic, but they’d never imagined a knight could do this.

Anplus hoisted the knight over his left shoulder.

The remaining rebels stared at him blankly or dropped to their knees and bowed their heads.

Some fled into stone buildings, only to come running back out, driven away by the smell of burning wood.

Their stunned expressions as they collapsed onto the overheated ground were almost comical.

Anplus felt no pity for them.

Choosing to hear only what they wanted and being incited by it was a sin in itself.

The blue flames rippled and spread closer to the platform.

In the distance, Anplus spotted Scantilla walking out from the entrance of a stone building.

She too had a man slung over her shoulder.

When Anplus raised his hand to signal mission completion, Scantilla waved cheerfully in response.

Blue light flashed, and the wall of fire split open before Anplus, forming a path.

He walked over to Scantilla.

“I could feel the heat even when I jumped over it on the way in. I thought I’d get burned. That’s some firepower.”

“You avoided it well. I thought you wouldn’t make it and would get scorched.”

“Were you trying to roast me?”

“Do I really have to say it out loud? I wanted to see swordsmanship that cuts through flames. The technique that beat Melody.”

“Melody?”

“My cousin. Lady Ribelia called her the Wax Maid.”

“I’ll show you next time.”

Anplus laughed and took the man Scantilla had captured.

“He must’ve resisted fiercely.”

The man’s upper garments were shredded.

Wherever the whip had struck, flesh had been torn away, leaving him soaked in blood.

“You know red bloods can die from even minor injuries.”

“Hehe. I got a little carried away. That one’s on me. I’ll have to turn him over and apply ointment.”

Scantilla laughed sadistically.

Anplus was about to say something, but knowing there was no point discussing torture with a nameless family member, he stayed silent.

“We’re not late, but it was close. Let’s move on to the next target. By now, he’s probably beside himself.”

“Fine. Where to?”

“A place you’ll like, and a place I like! The red-light district!”

“Why do you assume I’d like it!”

Leaving the burning slums behind, the two returned to the carriage.

They handed the two spies over to the waiting soldiers.

“Is it really fine to leave that fire burning?”

“It won’t spread. Once the mana I gathered at the start runs out, it’ll extinguish itself. I didn’t close the path you came out on, so anyone who wants to leave will.”

“I can’t help thinking about those who died when the flames first hit. I should’ve stopped you sooner.”

Anplus muttered regretfully.

“Rebellion is a grave crime. Some of them may have truly been misled by the agitator’s tongue. And among those you spared, there may be ones who only bowed to get through the moment, then plan to regroup later.”

Scantilla spoke with concern.

“Those are the ones who start riots again from the slums. If they want to die, they’ll die on their own.”

Anplus nodded.

“We need to send them to the new frontier as soon as possible. Once they become farmers or shepherds, they’ll pay taxes, won’t they?”

“That’s only if you can erase the agitator’s words from their minds.”

Scantilla sneered.

“He wasn’t an agitator. He was a knight. Loyal enough to be a shame he wasn’t born into our house.”

Anplus changed the subject instead of denying it outright.

If ruling blue bloods governed the world by uprooting all ten sprouts to guard against one poisonous weed, and if that would never change, then he was prepared to adapt again, even if disappointed.

Since reincarnating, he had watched the world he knew collapse more than once.

He was accustomed to compromise and knew exactly where he wished to stand.

Still.

“They can forget. Because I reached out to them first. Because I showed them we didn’t abandon them.”

He knew fear alone could never draw out true loyalty.

Three parts fear and seven parts love created respect and reverence, and one who was respected and revered was truly noble.

“Then I hope so.”

Scantilla did not sneer again.

The carriage set off toward the red-light district.