CHAPTER 5

“Whoa there, don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not that I’ve let my guard down; I simply have no need to protect myself when my opponent isn’t a threat in the slightest.”

Allen caught Shido’s blade between his thumb and index finger as if he were simply picking a grain of rice off his clothes.

“Y-you’re shitting me…,” Shido said with a gasp.

“Huh? Don’t tell me that was your strongest technique…,” jeered Allen.

Shido stared in silent disbelief at the monster in front of him.

I—I can’t win…

This was the first time in his fifteen years of life that he felt fear.

“No way, was it actually? …You’re so pathetic, I don’t know what to say.”

Allen choked down a laugh and shook his head exaggeratedly.

“It’s just my luck to emerge to the surface and have to face a pip-squeak as my first opponent… But whatever, you’ll at least help me break in this new body a little. Try not to die too easily, okay?”

“…?!”

What happened next could not even be called a “fight” by any stretch of the imagination.

Allen mercilessly pummeled Shido in a manner so one-sided, Shido might as well have been a sandbag. From upper and lower body strength to reaction time, every one of Allen’s attributes was on another level. Shido’s natural gifts, which had always allowed him to dominate his competition, were nothing against Allen’s overwhelming physical prowess.

“Haaah… Haaah…”

Shido staggered back up, panting and covered in bruises and lacerations. He had used his superhuman reflexes to prevent blows to his vital points.

“Very nice! Your reflexes deserve praise, if nothing else!” taunted Allen.

“Tch… Don’t fuck with me…,” Shido said with a gasp.

Spitting saliva mixed with blood, he continued to run so that Allen wouldn’t be able to hit him. Though he knew at this point that he was no match for Allen, hope still shone in his eyes.

If this ridiculous strength is from his Spirit Core, it can’t last forever. All I need is for this monster to revert back to the old Allen, and victory will be in my grasp!

Shido latched onto the small possibility that a war of attrition could give him a chance of victory, waiting for the thing that was controlling Allen’s body to exhaust itself. However, the chance to pull this off never came.

“I’m bored of this…” Allen sighed.

Just then, a huge rift appeared in the sky, from which an ebon sword emerged. Both its blade and aura were black, and it projected a nauseating aura of evil.

What the hell is that…? That can’t be real…

Shido’s natural instincts were screaming for him to run. That was how impossibly threatening the power within the black sword was.

…The great Shido, run? From this trash? As if!

His pride was too great to allow him to flee. Turning his back on a swordsman he had once considered inferior would be worse than death.

“Nice knowin’ you,” Allen remarked casually, unleashing an explosively fast thrust.

Realizing this attack would blow his body to bits, Shido deployed his greatest defensive technique.

“Close off eternity, Frozen Waterfall!”

An enormous wall of ice erupted before Shido. The barrier was made of one hundred million layers of thin ice packed together, creating an impenetrable defense. Each individual layer boasted the hardness of steel; there wasn’t a swordsman alive capable of breaking through it.

Yet it did nothing to stop Allen’s thrust. The ebon blade sliced through the layers of the ice wall as if they were made of paper.

“…Close off time once more, Frozen Waterfall!”

In a desperate, last-ditch measure, Shido erected another defensive barricade with one hundred million layers of ice. Though the effort was extremely taxing on his stamina, if he didn’t stop this attack, he would die. That he was sure of.

Allen’s attack penetrated the first one hundred million layers and then tens of millions of layers of the next wall before finally being brought to a halt.

…Shit! How could a simple thrust be that powerful?!

Shido breathed a sigh of relief that his wall had held.

“Three…”

He heard a deadpan voice. A moment later, the remaining thousands of layers of ice began to shatter noisily. Allen was gradually channeling more and more strength into his strike.

“Two…”

The sound of the ice breaking grew louder each second.

“One…”

The referee realized the meaning of the countdown and jumped onto the stage.

“St-stop—stop right there!”

He tried to suspend the match, but Allen was too far gone.

“Zero…!”

His thrust penetrated through the last of the two hundred million layers of ice and flew directly for Shido’s heart.

“?!”

Shido used his godlike reflexes to contort his body, narrowly avoiding a direct blow to his heart. Instead, the black sword penetrated deep into his right shoulder, and the shock waves from the assault blew a hole through the wall of the venue.

“GAAAAAAAAH!”

All the air was shot out of Shido’s lungs, and a strong blow to the back of his head knocked him unconscious. Elated from the thrill of his first battle in ages, Allen approached his fallen opponent. He was holding a second black sword.

“Time to finish this!”

He laughed like an innocent child before the totally still Shido, then lifted his blade without hesitation.

“Allen, stop!”

Lia forced her way between the two of them.

“…Huh?”

“You’re going too far… This isn’t you, Allen!”

“…Who the hell are you?”

Allen’s frigid gaze pierced her heart, but she didn’t falter.

“I am Lia Vesteria, princess of Vesteria! Did you really forget me? I’m your slave, Lia Vesteria!”

“Huh? Never heard of you. Stand in my way, and I’ll strike you down, too.”

Allen pointed his black sword at Lia with cold, emotionless eyes.

“…A-Allen? Do you really mean that…?”

Her hoarse voice reverberated throughout the venue. The only place it failed to reach was Allen’s heart. Despite that, she continued to plead with him, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She wasn’t addressing the Allen in front of her, but the kind Allen she knew.

“Y-you have to remember! We ate ramzac together! We talked for hours and hours! We even fought sometimes! But it was always fun!” she yelled. Tears spilled from her eyes as if the memories had caused a dam to burst.

“Tch, shut up, girl… I don’t care what you have to say. Die!”

Allen raised his ebon blade high and swung it down toward Lia’s chest.

“Please, Allen…go back to the kind boy I know!”

Suddenly, his arm stopped midswing, and his weapon dropped from his hand.

“You damn brat…”

Face twisted in anguish, Allen clutched his chest and fell to a knee.

“I-if you have willpower great enough to wrest control back from me…you should have shown it from the damn start…,” he wheezed before going limp.

The young man’s long white hair returned to its normal black color, and the black pattern below his left eye disappeared.

“A-Allen…?! Are you okay?!”

Lia rushed over to Allen and laid him down in her lap. His breathing was shallow.

“L-Lia…sorry for…scaring you…”

Only half-conscious, he reached his hand for her cheek.

“I-it’s okay… I believed in you.”

She gently clasped his hand and didn’t let go.

“I heard…your voice… Thank you…”

Those were the last words he managed before losing consciousness entirely.

“…Allen? Hey, Allen! Answer me, Allen!”

It was about noon, two days after the disturbance at the Holy Festival. An emergency meeting among the chairs of the Elite Five Academies was being held at the EFA Assembly Hall in the middle of Aurest, the capital of the Liengard Empire.

The city had imposed tight security to accommodate the gathering of the five heads of the academies. An enormous number of holy knights were stationed around the building for defense and to direct traffic. Not even a mouse was going to squeeze through.

Everyone gathered in the VIP room was a person of great influence in the country. Chairwoman Reia Lasnote of Thousand Blade Academy was there, as well as Chairwoman Ferris Dorhein of Ice King Academy. The three other chairmen were present as well, along with other eminent faces.

They had assembled to discuss the second match of the Elite Five Holy Festival, the one between Allen Rodol and Shido Jukurius. There were two clear violations of the rules that they needed to decide on punishment for. An elderly gentleman from the government with no connection whatsoever to the Elite Five Academies had been placed in charge of proceedings.

He announced the result of the first vote with an elegant, well-projected voice.

“Five votes in favor, and zero votes against. Shido Jukurius will face a one-month suspension from Ice King Academy.”

“““““No objection,””””” the five chairs said together.

Reia and the other four were all on the same page in regard to Shido. He’d ignored the referee’s command to stop and had unleashed a deadly attack on his opponent. Since Allen had blocked the attack, it wouldn’t result in any major consequences, but Shido had clearly violated the rules and would need to be held accountable.

After deciding Shido’s fate, they turned to the most important topic of the day.

“Next, we will consider the consequences for Thousand Blade Academy’s Allen Rodol. You will first vote to decide whether or not he should receive the heaviest possible punishment of expulsion. You have thirty minutes to discuss this matter at length. Use it wisely.”

The chairs began voicing their opinions once the government representative finished speaking.

“What need is there to even discuss this? He clearly should be expelled!”

“I agree. I’ve half a mind we hand him over to the holy knights for an attempted homicide.”

“U-um… I think that expulsion is unavoidable…I suppose.”

“Considering what he did to my Shido…expulsion is the only option.”

After the other four endorsed Allen’s ejection from the academy, Reia alone voiced her objection.

“Hold on! Allen wasn’t in his right mind at the time! I don’t think he can be held responsible for his actions!”

It was one against four. Though Reia was at a clear disadvantage, she still pleaded her case.

“Even if he wasn’t in control of his actions, doesn’t that just show his own lack of skill?”

“I agree. Students of the Elite Five Academies must remain disciplined at all times. Losing control of oneself in the middle of a match is unacceptable.”

“U-um… Losing control of yourself sounds bad…I guess.”

“Hmm… Going off the video footage, he was clearly able to communicate. It didn’t look like he was suffering to me, dear Reia.”

“…”

Reia was at a loss for words after such a harsh rebuke.

Grrr…

She bit her lower lip and tried to formulate a brilliant idea that would turn the tables of the debate.

…I can’t do it.

No matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t come up with any idea at all, let alone a good one.

Brainwork had never been her strong suit, and she also lacked a silver tongue. Convincing the chairs, all of whom were experts in the art of debate, was objectively difficult. Abundantly aware of her shortcomings, she quickly abandoned the notion of convincing them with words and settled for the most basic and primitive method she knew.

“If Allen gets expelled, each and every one of you will have to deal with me… Are you okay with that?” Reia threatened. The others gulped.

Although her method was crude and childish, not to mention hardly much of a plan, it was truly her most effective option. There wasn’t a person in the room ignorant of the deeds of “Black Fist” Reia Lasnote.

“Whuh…?!”

“Nrgh…”

“E-eek…”

“That’s frightening…”

Logically, this was nothing more than a threat. There was no way someone would make an enemy of the Elite Five Academies to protect one student. The risk was far greater than the reward.

However, not a single one of the chairs would have put it past Reia. The moment she threatened them, an infamous incident from her past flashed before their eyes.

At that time, Reia was still a student. It started when a midsize criminal organization called Crimson Rain seriously injured a close friend of hers. Reia flew into a rage upon hearing the news and invaded their headquarters alone after forcing her way through everyone who tried to talk her out of it. By the end of the night, the Crimson Rain, which had dogged the holy knights for so many years, had been completely wiped out. That was the most famous example of Reia’s fighting prowess.

The other chairs fell silent just as the timer rang. Now that the allotted time had passed, the old man managing the meeting cleared his throat.

“I will now conduct the vote for whether or not Thousand Blade Academy’s Allen Rodol will be expelled. Starting with Ms. Lasnote and going left, please say aye if you are in favor, or nay if you are opposed.”

The vote that would decide Allen’s fate had begun.

“A hard nay, of course!” Reia declared emphatically. The vote moved to the chairwoman on her left.

“U-um… Well, I…”

The chair was a weak-willed lady who almost always took a neutral position, so she was evidently wavering between both sides. Sensing that, Reia loudly cracked the knuckles on her right hand.

“Eeeeek! N-n-n-nay!”

Despite declaring herself in favor of the expulsion earlier, she folded at Reia’s threat. The other chairs in favor of expulsion stared daggers her way, cursing her for betraying their cause.

“Aye! He obviously deserves expulsion!”

“I concur. I vote aye as well.”

The next two chairmen were itching to expel Allen, so they voted in favor as quickly as they could.

The vote was now two in favor and two against. With opinion divided evenly, the deciding vote belonged to Chairwoman Ferris Dorhein of Ice King Academy. Not only was her institution the victim in this case, but Ferris and Reia had also fought like cats and dogs since their academy days.

Shoot, guess this is it…, seethed Reia.

Ha-ha, we’ve got this!

This is a guaranteed victory!

The two elderly male chairmen, who had voted in favor, celebrated internally.

“Hmm, I vote nay. Isn’t expulsion a little harsh?” Ferris smirked, voting opposite of what everyone expected her to.

““““Huh?!”””” the other four chairs exclaimed at once.

The old man quickly announced the results of the vote.

“Two in favor and three against—as the opposition received more votes, Allen Rodol will remain enrolled.”

The chairmen, who had been gunning for an ousting, pounded the desk in fury.

“Wh-what the hell?!”

“What is this farce?!”

Their faces red with rage, they glared at the turncoats who had foiled their plans at the last moment.

“What are you two thinking?!”

“This isn’t how things were supposed to go!”

Prior to the meeting, they had approached the other two chairwomen to secure their votes for Allen’s expulsion. They had even sweetened the deal with a massive bribe.

“U-um… I-I’m so sorry!” apologized the old woman who had cracked under Reia’s threat, prostrating herself on the desk with tears in her eyes.

On the other hand, Ferris didn’t show any signs of guilt as she spoke coolly in return.

“I heard what you had to say…but I don’t recall ever agreeing to anything.” She snickered, her foxlike eyes narrowed.

“Y-you treacherous wench… You got my ‘sweets,’ didn’t you?!”

Sweets was a code word for the bribe Ferris had received. She’d indeed taken the “sweets,” but her reply had only been a simple expression of thanks.

“Grrr… What the hell are you playing at, you vixen?!”

“I actually was initially going to vote for expulsion, but…my Shido…”

She launched into an explanation of the reason why she had voted against Allen’s expulsion.

“This morning, when I told him in his hospital room that I was leaving to go expel Allen, he said, ‘Madam, please don’t expel him. I’m gonna slaughter him in the next tournament.’ My prideful boy even bowed his head and pleaded with me,” she recalled with a weak grin. “The sight was so adorable that it just melted my heart! I decided I had to grant his request.”

Shido was an orphan who had been born in the slums. Chance led to Ferris adopting him when he was five years old. He ended up growing into a troublemaker due to her hands-off approach to parenting, but Ferris loved him as if he were her biological son, and Shido felt a strong sense of gratitude toward her in turn. He lovingly referred to her as Madam.

Between a plea from her beloved child and some elderly chairmen, it wasn’t much of a contest.

“Y-you fools!”

“Can you not see the consequences of this?! This will hurt all of us!”

The two old men had fought so hard for Allen’s expulsion because they feared the power he’d displayed in the video footage. He’d utterly dominated the match; Shido’s Soul Attire, Vanargand, couldn’t even touch him.

That ebon blade undoubtedly housed tremendous strength. It had rent through the impenetrable defense of Frozen Waterfall as if it were nothing. Most terrifyingly of all, Allen had even produced a second one.

Dammit! This could give Thousand Blade Academy new life…, thought one chairman.

I worked so hard to finally rise to this position, and now I’m going to get hounded out of office…, thought the other.

They’d wanted nothing more than to expel Allen to protect their own job security. The chair of one of the Elite Five Academies was a very attractive position. Given the massive societal power and influence of the academies, none were willing to oppose whoever held the position. Many aimed for the job as a result.

If even the smallest chink opened in a chair’s armor—if they performed poorly in tournaments like the Elite Five Holy Festival, for example—there was a chance they could be dismissed. The chairman of Thousand Blade Academy had been pushed out of office just the previous year.

It wasn’t that these two chairmen didn’t have confidence in the students they were training, or that they didn’t think their students could defeat that version of Allen. It was just best to nip problems in the bud before they became issues down the line. The rise of Thousand Blade Academy could lead to the fall of their own institutions. Allen represented an unknown threat, which was why they wanted to get rid of him.

As the two elderly male chairmen shook with rage, Reia heaved a sigh of relief.

Phew, I avoided the worst.

Now that a decision had been reached regarding Allen’s potential expulsion, the elderly gentleman from the government moved things along.

“Next, I will open the field to suggestions for the particulars of Allen Rodol’s punishment. You have thirty minutes for discussion—use it wisely.”

Expulsion was off the table, but Allen had still broken the rules of the Holy Festival. Like Shido, he needed to be disciplined.

Reia fought during the discussion to lighten Allen’s consequences. In contrast, the two elderly chairmen pushed for a harsher ruling. The timid chairwoman vacillated between stances and tried to remain neutral. Ferris amused herself by doing her best to cause chaos. The debate between the five chairs was as grand as could be.

Beep, beep, beep.

I woke to the systematic beeping of a machine.

Hmm…

The pungent smell of disinfectant hit my nostrils. I saw dazzling, artificial light, and a wide white ceiling above me.

Someone had laid me down in a bed.

“Urgh… Where am I?”

When I twisted my neck to look around, I saw Lia and Rose. They were both sleeping in chairs while leaning against my bed.

The sight of my friends caused me to relax a little. I lifted my upper body slowly so as to not wake them and leaned on the headboard.

“I’m in the hospital…”

Electrodes were attached to my chest, and an ECG machine was set next to my bed. The beeping I heard was the sound of the machine displaying my pulse with a rising and falling horizontal line.

“Oh yeah, I wonder what happened back there…”

I didn’t remember much of the events after Shido put his sword to my throat. All I could recall was that some presence that lay dormant inside me had been rampaging joyfully.

During that time, I had been submerged in deep, dark waters. I’d felt extremely drowsy but had somehow sensed it was essential that I remained awake. I’d fought with all I had to stave off sleep, nodding off all the while, until I’d heard Lia’s voice. I’d turned toward the sound—and suddenly, I’d been pointing my sword at her. After that, I’d struggled desperately to regain control.

I’d thrashed around in the heavy water, and before I knew it, I’d returned to the real world.

What the heck was that thing…? I wondered, trying to remember what had happened.

“Ngh…”

Lia slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes. She was awake.

“Good morning, Lia,” I said.

“Oh, Allen! You’re awake!” she exclaimed excitedly, pulling me in for a tight hug.

“I…can’t breathe…”

“Thank goodness… Oh, thank goodness…,” she muttered repeatedly, her voice quivering.

I really worried her…

I simultaneously felt guilty for causing her worry and happy that she cared about me this much. But there was one thing I desperately needed to make clear.

“L-Lia, they’re, uh… They’re in my face…”

“What is? …Huh?!”

Quickly realizing what I was referring to, she jumped back from me, red-faced. She crossed her arms and glared at me.

“You’re such a pervert, Allen!” she yelled.

“S-surely I don’t deserve that…,” I mumbled with an embarrassed smile.

“Ngh… Allen?”

Rose woke up, rubbed her eyes, and stretched in her chair.

Being the poor morning person that she was, she didn’t have a shred of her usual dignity. I couldn’t avoid taking my eyes off the cowlicks on top of her head. Her bedhead was a work of art.

“Good morning, Rose.”

“…Morning… Are you okay?” she asked drowsily.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Despite the deep wound I’d suffered, my body was so light that it almost felt as if I were floating. I looked at my arms and legs and noticed that I didn’t have a single scratch. I had made a complete recovery.

Is this due to his power?

Some kind of presence had hijacked my body and used his power to wreak havoc.

Who in the world was he?

As I was considering that with a hand on my chest, the door to the hospital room suddenly opened.

“Oh, you’re awake, Allen.”

It was Chairwoman Reia in her usual black suit.

“You’re looking healthy already. Awesome. I brought you a get-well gift! You can eat them when you build up an appetite,” she announced, passing me a plastic bag.

I glanced inside and saw three bunches of bananas.

I—I have heard these are good for your health…

I didn’t know what to do with this many bananas…but it’s the thought that counts with presents. I decided to graciously accept her gift.

“Thank you for taking the time to do that. I’ll enjoy them later,” I said.

She gave me a thumbs-up and grinned.

“Forget that, Reia! What’s going to happen to Allen?” asked Lia.

“Oh yeah, please tell us!” demanded Rose.

Lia and Rose both leaped out of their seats to surround the chairwoman.

“…?”

I had no idea what they were so worked up about. Apparently, I’d missed something important.

“Hey, calm down. We need to explain everything to Allen first,” the chairwoman insisted. She then filled me in on what had happened at the Holy Festival.

After the final match had ended, Shido and I had been transported to the hospital, unconscious. We had both suffered grievous wounds, but our bodies had recovered remarkably quickly, and we’d escaped mortal danger.

Both Thousand Blade Academy and Ice King Academy were disqualified for one of their team members using lethal attacks on an opponent. A meeting between the chairs was held today to determine our repercussions.

“So what’s Allen’s punishment?!”

“Just tell us already!”

Lia and Rose pressed Chairwoman Reia for an answer. She cleared her throat.

“Allen will be suspended for one month.”

“…Suspended? Not expelled?!”

“Are you sure about that?!”

They were both taken aback by the surprisingly light sentence.

“That’s right. I managed to keep it down to a suspension…though honestly, it was a lot closer than I would’ve liked.”

““Thank goodness…”” Lia and Rose sighed together. They looked as relieved as if they had been the ones in danger of being expelled.

“I do have some bad news, though… You two have also been suspended for one month as well to take collective responsibility for Allen’s actions.”

“H-how does that make any sense?!” I protested.

Neither of them had anything to do with that match. They hadn’t taken the stage to fight even once during the Holy Festival. The punishment was totally unjust.

“Eh, it’s fine. I don’t mind,” said Lia.

“We entered the Holy Festival as a team. I have no objection,” agreed Rose.

I was still against it.

“Why are Lia and Rose being suspended, too?! Tell me the reason!” I demanded.

The chairwoman scratched her cheek.

“As I said, they’re being punished for collective responsibility. They were unable to stop your outburst despite being members of the Thousand Blade Academy team. That’s the official line of reasoning anyway.”

She continued on with a troubled expression.

“But I’m sure the real reason was to hurt our chances of winning future tournaments. Next month, all the Elite Five Academies, Thousand Blade included, will be conducting the most important class of your high school tenure, Soul Attire Acquisition. The other chairs want to ruin your training in that area entirely. Lia and Rose will be our most important swordswomen for the foreseeable future, so they probably seek to thwart their development. Those sly devils,” Reia explained with a shrug.

“Lia, Rose…I’m sorry,” I said, apologizing for causing them trouble.

“Y-you don’t need to worry about it! You’ve recovered, and you weren’t expelled! This is cause for celebration!”

“Lia’s right. Don’t worry about us.”

I noticed that the chairwoman looked as if something was bothering her.

“…Honestly, all the blame should be directed toward me, not Allen. If I was just a little more skilled at debating, I would’ve been able to prevent Lia and Rose’s suspensions.”

She clenched her fists tightly.

“But if I can allow myself one excuse, those two pigheaded geezers were relentless! They attacked me at every single slip of the tongue. In the end, things nearly came to blows, and they took full control of the debate. Embarrassingly enough, I lost myself and can’t remember a word of what I said. All I recall is swearing to myself that one day, I would dent the faces of those two old men until they resembled potatoes…,” she confessed.

“Sounds like we weren’t suspended because of collective responsibility or because of Allen…,” muttered Lia.

“Yeah, this all happened because you got completely trounced in the debate. Then you tried to pin your failure on Allen by calling it ‘collective responsibility,’” accused Rose.

They both glared coldly at the chairwoman.

“Ha, ha-ha… What can I say…? S-sorry.”

Her eyes darted around before she clasped her hands together in apology.

The conversation reached a momentary pause. Something was bugging Lia.

“Do we have to spend the entire one-month suspension in our dorms?” she asked.

“We would end up really out of shape…,” added Rose.

Shutting ourselves away in our dorms for an entire month couldn’t be good for our bodies.

“Don’t worry your little heads about that. I had Eighteen think up a brilliant idea for that very issue,” announced the chairwoman.

“Y-you didn’t think of it yourself…,” I chided.

“Ha, of course not. I’m terrible at using my brain!” she exclaimed shamelessly. “Anyway, here’s the plan: You three will be working as spellblades for the next month.”

“Spellblades…?” I asked.

Spellblades were people who made a living by taking jobs from citizens and merchants in exchange for rewards.

In times past, people looked down on the occupation for “defiling the sanctity of swordcraft by using it for profit.” However, changing circumstances in recent years had caused that connotation to all but disappear. Reportedly, about 30 percent of graduates from high school swordcraft academies went on to enter that line of work.

“Yes, spellblades. There will be no money made from this, though—you’ll be taking every job without compensation. I suppose that’ll make you volunteers. Feel free to choose tasks such as beast exterminations, guard duty for important figures, or anything else that could require you to fight. You three shouldn’t end up in any real danger given your strength, and this practical combat experience will prove very valuable.”

“I see…”

Spending our days working as spellblades would prevent us from growing rusty.

“But wouldn’t traveling around and openly working as spellblades cause any problems? We’re supposed to be suspended,” I asked.

“That won’t be an issue. I’ll set this up as compulsory volunteer duty. Officially, this will be the Thousand Blade Academy chairwoman penalizing her students. If anyone objects, they will receive strict discipline from the holy knights under the government’s jurisdiction for interfering with a chair’s authority. What a plan! Eighteen is a true genius. I’m so glad that I scooped him up!”

Chairwoman Reia nodded with satisfaction.

She really works Eighteen to the bone… He’s probably toiling away as we speak.

His crime definitely deserved punishment, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him.

“I’ve actually always had a little interest in spellblades,” remarked Lia.

“We’ll be able to get some real combat experience. Sounds good to me,” said Rose.

We all seemed to be feeling pretty good about this. The chairwoman cleared her throat.

“Your work as spellblades will take you outside the academy. Make sure you watch out for the Black Organization,” she warned.

The Black Organization was a large-scale criminal group that had been causing a stir in this country in recent years. It took part in a great variety of illegal rackets, including manufacturing and smuggling drugs, human trafficking, and assassinating major figures. The holy knights had staked their pride on trying to wipe them out, but their progress had been miserable. They hadn’t found even a sliver of information about the organization’s leader, its base, or its aims.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Definitely don’t want anything to do with them…”

“Understood.”

After we all took her warning to heart, the chairwoman clapped her hands together.

“All right, I want you three to start your spellblade lives as soon as Allen fully recovers. Are there any objections?”

“No, ma’am,” I responded.

“Nope!” answered Lia.

“Spellblade… This is kind of nostalgic,” uttered Rose.

And thus, my new life as a spellblade was about to begin.

To the east of the Liengard Empire’s capital of Aurest, there was a large district called Drestia. Referred to as the “Merchant’s Town” on account of the many wealthy dealers who resided there, the streets were lined with stalls featuring fancy billboards. A lively flow of people filled the streets day and night, and the energetic appeals to potential customers never ceased.

It was just past two in the morning. In a backstreet with remarkably few people for Drestia, a young man was howling like a maniac and relentlessly kicking something on the ground.

“Ah-ha, ah-ha-ha-ha, ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

“Urgh…”

The ragged thing on the ground was a man who was once a skilled swordsman celebrated as the greatest practitioner of the Flower Garden School of Swordcraft, but he now responded to the kicking with little more than quiet moaning.

The young man’s superior called out to him, having finished his work in the area.

“Hey, rookie! That’s enough! We need to get out of here!”

The young man stopped his kicking and smiled.

“Ah-ha, sorry… I was having fun and got carried away…”

His apology was surprisingly genuine despite following such a terrible act of violence. Though he twisted his mouth into a euphoric grin, the black hood obscuring his eyes made it hard to tell exactly what kind of face he was making.

“Come on now!” his superior yelled.

Then together with ten companions all dressed completely in black, the young man jumped into a carriage that had been prepared beforehand. They were carrying wrapping cloths packed with an astounding amount of dazzling gold and silver treasure. These were grunts from the black-clad group known as the Black Organization, which had been wreaking havoc across society as of late.

After receiving orders from above, these grunts would set to work in the streets to take care of whatever their superiors needed, from silencing a target to plundering a location. They were as disposable as bullets to the organization as a whole.

Among this band, however, there was one special bullet that always returned to the gun.

“Ah-ha, what a nice night…”

It was the young man who had been taking pleasure in relentlessly kicking the unmoving body on the ground.

None of the other grunts knew where he came from. There was one thing they did know, though—he was fearfully strong. In the underground world, that was all that mattered. His might alone earned him a certain level of trust.

The young man produced a flower he’d picked before jumping into the carriage and began to tear off the petals one by one.

“He loves me, he loves me lots, he loves me, he loves me lots, he loves me… He loves me lots!”

He hugged himself with both arms and squirmed from happiness at the fortune the flower gave him.

A gust of wind knocked back his black hood. His trademark blue hair was tied in a ponytail, and the moonlight shimmering on his face illuminated a large scar left by a blade. If not for the old wound, he would have been quite handsome. His looks and lineage had once made him popular with the girls at the swordcraft academy he’d attended.

Placing the flower shorn of petals into his mouth, he lovingly traced the large scar on his face with a look of ecstasy.

“Ah-ha, I knew it! We have long been bound by the red thread of fate! Don’t you agree…Allen?”

The young man’s name was Dodriel Barton, the broken prodigy who had once lost a duel to Allen Rodol.