Chapter 27: The Birth of the Fortenatum Style

It was the day the stream, frozen solid all winter, began to flow again.

In the forest clearing, Seongbaek and I clashed swords as we had every other day.

“The advantage of a spinning strike is that it can sow confusion in the opponent!”

Seongbaek kicked off the ground, leapt into the air, and swung his military sword.

While his body spun three full rotations in mid-air, he attacked like a bladed top.

I lowered my stance, laid my training iron sword flat, and tried to let the military sword slide off like a solid shield plated with iron.

CLANG, CLAAANG! KAGAKAK!  

The military sword that should have slid smoothly instead gnawed into my training iron sword, spitting sparks and metal shards.

“True iron?!”

I stepped back in shock.

Seongbaek landed and smiled with satisfaction.

“I discovered that the accelerating motion of pulling the body taut can be applied this way as well. Since spinning strikes also involve twisting the waist with power rising from the legs, I combined the two.”

“Remarkable.”

I exclaimed in admiration and readjusted my grip on the now-notched training iron sword.

“Was the name of that move just now ‘Flight of the Hornet’?”

“Yes. Surely you haven’t already forgotten what I told you this morning?”

“No, I haven’t. I simply wanted to remember it clearly because it is a movement I absolutely wish to include in the sword style I will create. I cannot risk writing ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ by mistake.”

“It won’t work well against mages, you know?”

“Doesn’t it depend on the situation and the space?”

I kicked off the ground once more and accelerated.

Seongbaek looked puzzled for a moment, then raised his sword as if it didn’t matter.

“Today I must claim at least one victory.”

He took a large step with his right leg.

He was undoubtedly about to use another technique he hadn’t taught me yet.

Two steps in front of him, I leapt high.

I crossed my legs, kicked upward, and spun my body in mid-air.

Yet unlike Seongbaek’s ‘Flight of the Hornet’, I tilted the axis of rotation sharply diagonally.

“Huh?”

Bewilderment flashed in Seongbaek’s blue eyes.

In that instant, my body and sword whirled like a bladed top.

KAGAKAKAKAKAK~!

The sound of sparks was deafening.

I spun five full rotations in the air and landed with my right foot planted firmly.

A slight strain shot through my ankle.

It was because the body that had been spinning furiously came to a sudden stop.

“If I spin too much, I might sprain my ankle on landing. The landing is still unstable, so three rotations should be the limit. Still, the power is tremendous when the rotational force is added.”

Seongbaek, pushed back six whole steps, nodded.

“What did you think of just now?”

“I thought that tilting the axis would add even more speed.”

“And you used it immediately? And succeeded on the first try?”

“Didn’t you do the same? You turned this training iron sword into rags by combining it with true iron.”

Seongbaek shook his head.

“I was only able to combine them within a week because I had practiced true iron all winter. But ‘Flight of the Hornet’ was a move I showed you only this morning.”

He looked me up and down, then smiled.

“It no longer surprises me. What will you name this one?”

“This time I really will call it ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’.”

“Please think it over carefully. If possible, name it so that it connects with the sword style you will create.”

“The name of the sword style?”

It was a thought I had never entertained.

Even after the spar with Seongbaek ended, I pondered the name for a long while.

Dande and Liam, returning after rolling the officer-mage candidates, offered various suggestions.

“How about the Benatus style? It means a sword that hunts mages.”

“Sir Dande. Everyone around the Young Master except us is a mage; how can we name it that? I think the Tranchereto style, meaning reversal, would be good.”

Listening quietly to their splendid suggestions, I recalled the original reason I had begun learning the sword.

I liked that something moved according to my will, and I had sworn to stand on the battlefield with swordsmanship and reclaim my honor.

Over the past year and more, walking this path, a new thought had naturally taken root.

I wanted a new power that could stand against the miracles called magic.

“Only a miracle of equal measure can oppose a miracle.”

“Pardon?”

“What did you just say?”

“Fortenatum style. A sword that creates miracles. How is it?”

Liam repeated it several times under his breath and smiled.

“It is truly a splendid name, Young Master.”

Dande nodded.

“It beautifully reveals the direction we must pursue.”

Suddenly, birdsong reached my ears.

A bird landed beside the thawing stream, hopped about, then flew away just as it had come.

I rolled the name of my sword style over my tongue a few times.

Fortenatum style.

The killing moves are ‘True Iron’ and ‘Magic Sever’.

The sword I pursue is one that creates miracles.

Unlike existing knight swordsmanship, it actively employs continuous strikes and slashing techniques.

Moreover, it does not merely aim to strike before the mage or to take them down together.

It constantly researches and pursues methods to confront magic head-on.

“Seongbaek. Truly… thank you for everything. No, thank you.”

“Please speak casually. Meeting Young Master Anplus was the greatest fortune of my life.”

The black-haired, sharp-eyed me bowed face-to-face with the white-haired, tightly-bound Seongbaek.

“I promise. When the sword style is complete, I will inscribe your name on the very first page.”

“It will surely be the greatest sword style among all I have gathered, learned, and been involved with.”

Spring was coming.

***

We returned to the main Intezeron house.

“Since we were away training for over two months, we’ll have to focus on duties for a while.”

“We should at least buy a round of drinks for the comrades who covered for us.”

Dande and Liam headed to the knights’ quarters.

When I returned to my room, a servant was already waiting.

“The Lord has summoned the Young Master. Please come to his office.”

“I’ll wash up quickly and go.”

I trimmed the hair that had grown over two months in front of the mirror myself.

I washed, put on the crisp white silk shirt the maid had prepared, tied my short ponytail tightly, and headed to the office.

“I have arrived.”

After knocking twice, a voice said, Come in.

Argantius sat at his desk, sunlight pouring in from the large south-facing window onto his broad back.

His black hair, just like mine, curled majestically down to his waist.

A piece of broken sealing wax lay on the desk; he had apparently just opened and read a letter.

“It has been a while.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

During the three years I lived like a cripple, he never once sought me out.

Yet the moment I began struggling with the sword, he called it “a long time” after only two months.

“How was your meeting with Seongbaek?”

Argantius asked naturally.

I knew this question was meant to test me.

In that clearing, Seongbaek had said it plainly.

With a sword alone, one can never oppose magic.

The Seongbaek Argantius remembered was surely the old, pitiful man.

A man who had struggled to surpass the limits of bloodline, earned an honorary officer rank, yet ultimately could not enter the mainstream society of blue-blood nobles.

That was how the Lord viewed Seongbaek.

That was why he had allowed me to go.

To see clearly how a man who pursued swordsmanship to its extreme ended up living.

“I am merely grateful that you sent me. It is embarrassing to say with my own mouth, but I feel as though I have become a completely different person. I am ashamed of the pride I once held.”

“Are you satisfied with what you gained?”

“I am glad, but I cannot be satisfied. How could I be satisfied when I have proven nothing yet?”

Argantius raised one eyebrow as if surprised.

“I thought he would be bitter medicine for you.”

I gently bit my lip.

This too had been half a test.

If I had given up the path of the knight here, it would have ended like this; he would have taught me letters and law and turned me into an administrator to be used for hundreds of years.

If I did not give up and truly brought something back, that too would be fine.

Either way, the Lord lost nothing.

“It was bitter medicine. Thanks to it, I was able to return with such confidence.”

I looked away from the calculations that had turned beneath the surface.

Instead, I met his gaze calmly with the same bright gray eyes I had inherited from him.

For blue blood who live hundreds of years, only results remain.

I tried sincerely to understand that.

Surprise and admiration flickered across Argantius’s face.

Soon he smiled with satisfaction.

“Yes. You have every right to return with confidence.”

“Thank you.”

“I heard you momentarily shed lightning magic.”

“Yes. That happened.”

I answered plainly.

It was a fact that needed neither exaggeration nor diminution.

“Lightning is a powerful force. Even among blue blood, meeting it as an enemy would be troublesome. If you truly overcame that power, you deserve the dignity befitting it. I will raise your upkeep allowance to the same level as the other blue bloods.”

I could tell without a mirror that color had risen to my face.

I answered in a daze.

“Thank you.”

The thought that I could once again bathe in perfumed oils made my mouth stretch ear to ear.

“But before that, there is one task I must give you.”

Those words snapped me back to reality.

“Command me.”

“Do you remember the Serenus Marsh reclamation site?”

“The place where Lady Ribelia held talks with the half-blood prince Sormanzer?”

“Thanks to your exploits, the border issue has been settled for now, and the reclamation project continues. Yet strange reports keep coming up from the site.”

“Strange reports, you say?”

“You had best see for yourself.”

Argantius handed me a thick folder.

“All the reports that have come in so far. Read them, analyze them, find a solution, and carry it out.”

Only then did I truly understand the meaning behind raising my upkeep to the same level as the other blue bloods.

This is a world where mage, blue blood, and noble all mean the same thing.

Receive the same money, wield the corresponding authority, and fulfill the corresponding duties.

That was what it meant.

“May I take it as you granting me an official post?”

The answer came as though he had been waiting.

With a voice full of dignity.

“Anplus. I appoint you special auditor of the Serenus Marsh reclamation project. I will also grant you on-site requisition authority, so if necessary, execute on the spot and submit the documentation later.”

“Thank you. But… why entrust such an important duty to me?”

Joy and astonishment coexisted.

It was a chance to achieve great merit.

That was precisely why pure curiosity followed.

There were plenty of officer-mages loyal and proven besides me.

The question was answered immediately.

Argantius gazed at the display cabinet and spoke as if to someone else.

“We cannot casually send an officer-mage to a border region. It would only give the imperial family pretext to build a fortress there.”

I bowed deeply.

“I humbly accept the Lord’s command.”

I glanced up and looked at the specimen receiving Argantius’s gaze.

It was not the skull of a malformed child.

He was looking at the skeleton of a person who had died from a rare disease that turned wounds into bone.

It is awkward to say, but it looked exactly like a tree that had just begun to grow.

A tree that might rot and die young, might be cut midway to become firewood, or might one day become a great towering tree.

***

That evening, while reading the reports I had received, a familiar voice called.

“Young Master. You have returned.”

My maid stood carrying a large basket filled with dried laundry.

Her young face and the calloused hands that did not suit it made my heart ache.

“Yes. I’m back. Did you bring the laundry?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. It’s still cold out.”

“Not at all. It is simply my duty.”

She smiled brightly and bowed.

I shook my head.

There was something I wanted to say.

I had meant to say it when I returned, but since I didn’t know when I might leave again, I had to say it now.

There was one more reason I absolutely had to succeed in this mission.

“You’ve had a hard time flying a kite with a broken string all this while.”

“Pardon?”

“You went from being the maid of the next family head to the maid of a child who became nothing. And for three years that child did absolutely nothing and simply wasted entire days in lethargy.”

She waved her hands in panic.

I continued without giving her a chance to interrupt.

“You suffered selling my clothes at the market. Thank you for even cleaning my room that the other maids neglected. I knew you sometimes bought fruit with your own money and told me it came from the castle kitchen.”

A personal maid is essentially a secretary who manages all aspects of daily life.

It was normal to order the lower maids to clean; she had no need to do it herself.

“From this year, I will receive the same upkeep as the other blue bloods. The moment it comes in, your bonus comes first.”

My voice trembled as I finished.

“Thank you for staying by my side when I was at my most wretched.”

A knight, a noble, must never forget a debt of gratitude.

“Young Master. Please do not say such things. I only, I merely…”

She bowed over and over.

Her gaze wavered.

I gave the slightest shake of my head.

As if realizing what I wanted, her expression brightened.

“Thank you. I will use it well in an important place. I will continue to serve you with all my heart.”

It was an exceedingly bright and dependable voice.