2

“Um, if you ask me, the left is looking a little dicey,” Fizel warned the commander, her voice slow. Her partner, Linel, bobbed her head, braid swaying. But the commander did not respond. Linel looked forward again, noting to herself just how silent he always was.

The apprentice knights Linel Synthesis Twenty-Eight and Fizel Synthesis Twenty-Nine were situated at the front of the right wing of the Human Guardian Army’s Second Regiment. Just a hundred mels ahead, the First Regiment was locked in a pitched battle, but no enemies were breaking through the defensive line. Deusolbert the veteran knight was putting up a very good fight so far.

Vice Commander Fanatio was also holding up in the center of the First Regiment. She was the kind of big-sister type who was anathema to Linel and Fizel, but her ability was unquestionable. And since she had taken off her helmet and shown her face to everyone, things hadn’t been nearly as strained.

The problem was the left wing.

Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One was a rookie, just seven months into his time as a knight, and while he had made great improvements lately, this grave duty seemed to be a bit too heavy a burden for him to bear. While it was his desire to lead on the front line, maybe it would have been better to leave it to one of the veterans…

Linel envisioned the layout of the battlefield and the placement of each Integrity Knight.

There were only seven elite knights at the battle. Eldrie was on the left wing of the First Regiment, Vice Commander Fanatio was in the center, and Deusolbert was on the right wing.

Young Renly was on the left wing of the Second Regiment, Commander Bercouli was in the center, and the silent lady knight was on the right wing.

Flying in the air above was Alice Synthesis Thirty.

“…The left wing just looks weaker in general…,” Linel muttered, and this time it was Fizel who nodded her head. As a matter of fact, it had been looking strange for several minutes already. There didn’t seem to be any damage yet, but the sounds of confused shouting were audible over the heads of the center battalion. If she squinted, she could see what looked like thick smoke flickering amid the darkness of the ravine.

Of course, if Eldrie allowed the enemy to break through the First Regiment, there would still be Renly waiting to lead the Second Regiment…

“I wonder if he’s up to the task,” Fizel contemplated. Linel nodded and leaned closer to her partner to whisper, “I didn’t say anything, because I was sure Uncle Bercouli had good reason, but I still think right and left should be switched in the Second Regiment. It’s too worrisome having Eldricchi and Renlicchi lined up together.”

In an even more hushed voice, Fizel said, “I’ve been thinking…I bet he just wants to minimize the chance that our unit has to fight at all…”

“…Ohhh…”

Linel glanced over at the slender figure standing some distance away from them.

She had light armor, with a gray matte finish that was rare for an Integrity Knight. Her dark-gray hair was parted directly in the middle of her white forehead and was pulled into a ponytail at the back of her neck. She looked about twenty years old, her eyelids were long and had a single fold, and she put no rouge on her lips.

It was Sheyta Synthesis Twelve, often referred to as Sheyta the Silent, although the origin of that nickname was unknown. But the girls were painfully aware that she had to be much more dangerous than her unassuming appearance would suggest. This knight was deadly. When she drew the rapier from her left hip, they did not want to be anywhere near it.

Commander Bercouli probably didn’t want Sheyta fighting, either, which was why he’d placed her in command behind veteran Deusolbert, rather than the youngster Eldrie. As long as the archer ahead did his job, she would not be called on to fight.

But it was not solely because of this that Linel said to the silent superior officer, “Um, Miss Sheyta?” When the woman glanced back, she continued, “May we go and take a look at the rear?”

The knight’s narrow eyebrows rose about two milices. It seemed to be the equivalent of asking why, so she rushed to explain, “Um, it’s just, we’re worried…”

The brows twitched again. It must have meant About what? It was very hard to admit the answer, so Linel struggled to say, “Um…it’s the guy with the supply team—you know the one. The rebel…Kirito.”

Next to her, Fizel nodded rapidly. Fizel and Linel had fought with the rebels Kirito and Eugeo on the great stairs of Central Cathedral seven months ago. Technically, they had used their hidden poisoned blades to paralyze the two and had intended to drag them to the vice commander before cutting their throats.

It should have been an easy job. But somehow, Kirito the rebel chanted the antidote art, snatched away their daggers, and paralyzed them instead. When he lowered the paralyzing dagger toward them where they were lying on the floor, they felt no fear. At most, it was a bit of regret: Oh, darn, we were nearly out of apprenticeship and made full-fledged Integrity Knights. Linel awaited the moment that her life would end, hoping only that Kirito would make a clean go of it and ensure she died without too much pain.

But the young man didn’t kill them. He stabbed the dagger into the ground, turned his back on them, and faced Vice Commander Fanatio in combat. Then he proceeded to win a fight, ragged and wounded, that he had no business winning.

Before he left, Kirito’s partner, the criminal Eugeo, said something that Fizel and Linel still remembered vividly.

“Knowing you two, you might be tempted to think that Fanatio and Kirito are as strong as they are because they have Divine Objects and Perfect Weapon Control at their disposal, but you’d be wrong. They’re strong to begin with. Their hearts are strong, not their techniques or weapons, and that’s how they can fight through such terrible pain and perform such incredible feats.”

Even now, seven months later, they didn’t entirely understand it. But it was simply fact that the rebels Kirito and Eugeo had toppled Administrator, the pontifex of the Church. Eugeo had given up his life in the process, and Kirito had lost his mind and an arm.

What was it that the rebels had sought? What made a heart “strong”? It was the search for those answers that had brought Fizel and Linel to take part in the Human Guardian Army, all the way here at the Eastern Gate.

She still didn’t have the answers. But when she’d seen Alice pushing that wheelchair with Kirito in it, Linel had felt an unfamiliar emotion cross her breast. It was the first time she had ever been unable to analyze what she was feeling and thinking.

The apprentice knights Linel Synthesis Twenty-Eight and Fizel Synthesis Twenty-Nine were born in Central Cathedral. They were told that their parents were a holy man and woman of the Axiom Church, but they did not know their names or faces.

Their parents had had children on the order of the pontifex and placed the babies in a facility within the tower. There had been a total of thirty children from similar circumstances in that place, but only the two sisters were still alive today. The other twenty-eight had been unable to withstand the pontifex’s “resurrection arts” experiment and died.

Fizel and Linel had survived because they’d studied extremely hard to discover the “best way to die” that caused the least mental and physical damage. They’d pierced each other’s hearts as instructed, died, and been revived according to the sacred art. By the time the pontifex had given up on the experiment, they’d been able to kill each other virtually without pain.

To them, strength was the ability to kill efficiently. If the opponent was better, you had to run away. Run, then practice, and if you got better than the opponent, you could kill them next time. So facing a stronger opponent and standing there allowing yourself to be damaged and hurt was a pointless act according to their way of thinking.

The rebels Kirito and Eugeo had been no better than lower knights in terms of sheer battle ability. But they’d given up body and life to fight the pontifex and won.

For what purpose?

What did it gain them?

Linel wanted to ask Kirito on their reunion, but Integrity Knight Alice was at his side at every moment, and they couldn’t make contact. She didn’t know whether it was possible to have a conversation with him in his current state, but she didn’t want him to die before she could try. As long as the Second Regiment didn’t get breached, the supply team in the back should be safe, but that unrest on the left wing was concerning.

But they couldn’t explain all of that to their commanding officer, Sheyta, so they kept it simple and waited for her answer on pins and needles. The “Silent” knight’s gray eyes glanced to the left wing and paused for two seconds, and then she pointed behind them with her left hand.

“Uh…y-you mean we can go?”

Sheyta nodded to them, so Linel and Fizel gave her a compact knight’s salute. “Thank you, ma’am! We will return at once if everything is well!”

They turned and began to run along the line of troops.

“Thank you,” indeed. We never even said those words to the pontifex.

Linel shared a look and a smirk with her partner and picked up her pace.

Renly Synthesis Twenty-Seven was about to sink to his knees in the back of the supply tent when he heard multiple shouts and breath being drawn sharply from a surprisingly close distance.

Could it be? Had the enemy broken through the ravine’s defenses so quickly? No, that was impossible. Less than twenty minutes had passed since the fighting had started.

He was just overagitated, he decided. It was making him hear distant sounds very clearly—that was all. But the reactions of the two girls who had already evacuated to this tent told him that the approaching voices of soldiers were not figments of his imagination.

“No way…Are they already this far back?!”

The red-haired student named Tiese Schtrinen looked up and rushed quickly to the entrance of the tent. She lifted the flap and checked outside. Her whisper came back sharp and quick.

“Smoke…!”

Ronie Arabel stiffened. “Wha…? You can see fire, Tiese?!”

“No, it’s just really dark smoke…No, hang on. I can see…a bunch of people coming from the…”

Tiese’s words seemed to be swallowed up by the heavy canvas flap as she peered through the gap. In the tense silence that followed, Renly hovered above a crouch, listening intently.

He suddenly realized he could no longer hear the shouting. But while it was quieter now, he sensed that someone was coming closer. There were damp footsteps outside, slapping on firm ground.

Suddenly and awkwardly, Tiese pulled back from the doorway to the center of the tent. Her trembling hand reached across her body to her waist. No sooner did Renly realize that she was trying to draw her weapon than the hanging door was violently ripped loose.

It was night outside, the only source of light the campfires lit here and there, dim and red, against which stood a figure. It was short and hunched but with unusually thick arms, clutching a crude weapon that looked as if it had been cut straight out of metal plate.

A stench wafted in with the air from the doorway, stinging Renly’s nose. Primary Trainee Schtrinen pulled her sword loose, rattling the sheath as she did so. Next to the wheelchair, Primary Trainee Arabel gasped, “A goblin?!”

The alien intruder spoke, its voice hissing and raspy. “Ooh…Little Ium girls…You will be my prey…”

Tiese backed away, repelled by the open, ugly greed in its voice. Though he was an elite Integrity Knight, this was the first time Renly had ever laid eyes on a nonhuman from the Dark Territory. He had been frozen in storage before he could earn the dragon that would have taken him over the End Mountains in the first place.

It’s…completely different, he thought, in dull shock.

Through lectures from the older knights and the cathedral’s documents, he’d thought he’d learned a fair bit about the four nonhuman races of the Dark Territory. But the goblins he’d imagined to be some mischievous fairies out of legends were nothing at all like the hideous creature standing not eight mels away.

He felt his fingers going numb. The goblin took one heavy step forward. Light gleamed off his dirty armor plates as if they were fish scales.

Tiese held her sword up toward the goblin with both hands, but her knees shook so badly, the tip wouldn’t stay still. The faint sound of chattering Renly could pick up must have been her teeth.

“T…Tiese…,” Ronie whimpered. She stood before Kirito’s wheelchair, protecting it, with her hand on her sword hilt, but her legs were shivering, too.

He had to stand. He had to get to his feet, draw his Double-Winged Blades, and fight the goblin warrior.

And yet, Renly’s body was as unresponsive to commands as if it were made of stone. It was just one nonhuman enemy. The Integrity Knight was worth a thousand soldiers; he had been given enough power to take on a thousand such goblins and win.

“Gffh…How tasty you look…,” the goblin crowed, licking its lips, only to drool a large, sticky glob of saliva.

“S-stay back! Or else I’ll…,” Tiese warned, summoning all her courage, but that only enticed the goblin further. The grinning demi-human took another step forward, not even brandishing its weapon yet.

Thuk.

There was a soft, dry sound inside the tent.

The goblin soldier’s yellow eyes stared with wonder at its own chest. A piece of sharp, smooth metal jutted out from the crude slab of armor there. Fresh blood gleamed and ran down the surface of the sharp metal object: a sword point. Someone had pierced the goblin’s heart from behind.

“…What…is this…?”

They were the goblin’s final words. The strength drained from its powerful body, and it fell limp to the floor of the tent.

Standing on the other side was a warrior, or perhaps a priestess, about half a head shorter than even the young students. Her brown hair was tied into a braid, and she wore a silver breastplate over a black habit. The sword in her right hand was short for her size but very fine. She looked no older than a child, but even though she had just slaughtered the fearsome nonhuman soldier, her little face showed no sign of intimidation.

It was at this point that Renly finally snapped to attention. This girl was no swordswoman, nor was she a holy woman.

She was a knight, an apprentice Integrity Knight by the name of Linel Synthesis Twenty-Eight. She was one of the Terrible Twins, the girl who had dueled and killed the previous twenty-eighth knight and taken the number for herself.

Linel’s expression did not change upon seeing Renly and his pathetic posture. She checked on the two students, saw that Kirito was safe where he sat, and turned on her heel. Then another apprentice knight appeared at the doorway of the tent.

Fizel Synthesis Twenty-Nine, her short hair the same color as Linel’s, murmured to her partner, “Nel, I cleaned up all the goblins around here, but more will come. Maybe we should move.”

“Mm. Got it, Zel,” Linel agreed. She stuck the toe of her boot under the body of the goblin that blocked the floor near the entrance and flipped it out of the way. Not much blood spilled in the process, a sign that the blow from behind had been so quick and precise that there hadn’t even been time for the goblin to bleed.

She turned back to the speechless trainees and said, “I am Linel, and this is Fizel. We’re apprentice knights.”

“Y-yes, I know. I saw you during exercises. We’re Primary Trainees Tiese Schtrinen and Ronie Arabel. Th…thank you for saving us,” Tiese said, her voice still trembling a bit. Ronie bowed her head.

Linel just shrugged, in a very mature way. “You might be getting ahead of yourself. Over a hundred goblins broke through the defensive line along the left wing of the First and Second Regiments thanks to the smoke screen they set up.”

She paused then and finally looked right at Renly. Her purplish-gray eyes narrowed.

“What is the elite knight who is supposed to be in command of the Second Regiment’s left wing doing in here? Your subordinates are running around in a panic within the smoke.”

Renly looked away, avoiding the piercing gaze of the apprentice knight, and grunted, “It has nothing to do with you. Take these two and their sick patient to a safe place.”

He was keenly aware of an abrupt change in Linel’s manner. A chill brushed his cheek, something no child would be capable of emitting. The little blade gleamed and flickered in the orange campfire light, reflecting off the goblin blood.

Was she going to kill him, as she had the previous Twenty-Eight?

Then let it be quick. He was meant to be stored away as a failure of a knight. It had been a mistake to put him into a real battle in the first place. He couldn’t go back to the Second Regiment, and there was no place for him back at the cathedral if he fled there. Being executed by an apprentice knight like Linel was a fitting end for a coward like him.

Renly turned his head away, awaiting the finality of the blade.

But what he heard was not approaching footsteps but a soft voice. “You might be a terrible coward…but you are an elite knight, which means you possess some kind of strength. You ought to be grateful to the swordsman you called a ‘sick patient.’”

What does that mean? Renly wondered. By the time he raised his head, he saw only the back of Linel’s habit.

“Trainees, bring Kirito and follow me,” Linel ordered at the same time that Fizel reported, “Nel, they’re here! Eight…no, ten of them!”

There were indeed multiple sets of footsteps approaching from the east. Tiese and Ronie were rooted to the spot, so Linel turned to them and said, “Ignore that command. Stay here for a while. We will go clean up the goblins.”

“Y-yes, Miss Knight,” Tiese said. Linel slid out of the tent and disappeared with Fizel. Immediately, they heard a goblin yell “There! Ium younglings!” and fading footsteps. They were going to put some distance between them and the tent before they killed their targets.

Facing ten goblins without fear was a bold act, one that seemed out of place for apprentices. But they clearly had the strength to achieve this.

Strength.

Linel had identified Renly as a coward but also said that he had “some kind of strength.” And also that he should be grateful to the very rebel, Kirito, who had once been their opponent.

He didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t feel the tiniest bit of this strength he supposedly had. He had been within eyesight of the enemy and couldn’t even find the bravery to get to his feet. Renly hung his head, unable to even look up at Tiese and Ronie.

But that lasted for only a few seconds. Just to the left of Renly, the thick hemp wall of the tent tore in a straight line. This time, he was startled into lifting off the ground and leaping away from the disturbance.

Standing on the other side of the rip was a goblin in finer armor than the one before, though it was a bit shorter. This leather armor was well crafted and dyed black. Assuming it had slipped past the twins, this one seemed to be an advance scout adept at clandestine actions.

Without realizing it, Renly was reaching for his throwing weapons. But he couldn’t draw them; as with the first goblin, the terror that bubbled up from his gut seemed to freeze his fingers.

Renly wasn’t clearly aware of this, but the source of his fear was not the sight of his first close-up nonhuman enemy. It was fear of fighting itself. To be precise, fear arising from the knowledge that if he fought with this goblin, it would continue until one of them died.

He was afraid of being killed. And even more afraid of doing the killing.

More feet marched closer as he stood there. This must be a separate unit from the ones Linel and Fizel were drawing away from the tent. More than just ten or twenty goblins had slipped through the defensive line.

The scout saw Renly’s fear in the way he stood still, so it grinned and turned to Tiese and Ronie. The girls stepped in front of Kirito and bravely raised their swords. But their faces soon turned to despair—more figures were approaching behind the scout, silhouetted against the smoke.

The scout raised the scythe-like weapon it held and crept closer to the girls.

“S-stop right there! Come any closer, and I’ll attack!” the redhead bravely warned. But her voice was thin and wavering.

“…”

The goblin closed the distance. It was clear from the way it kept in motion, rather than wasting time with threats and gloating, that it was a well-trained elite soldier. But Tiese held her ground and pulled back the sword, her face resolute.

You can’t. Run away.

But Renly’s lips wouldn’t move. Even now, his body—his soul—refused to fight.

Then he heard some faint sound, like creaking. His eyes flitted to the right.

In the darkness at the back of the tent, the black-haired young man sat lifeless in his chair, expression blank. The sound was coming from his left hand. A vein rose on the skin where he clutched the two swords, the tendons bulging. There was great strength being expended there.

As though furious that he had no right hand with which to wield a sword.

“Are you…?” Renly whispered, all air and no voice. Are you trying to save them? When you cannot stand or use your sword or even speak?

All at once, he understood.

The strength that Linel and Fizel spoke of—it was not about technique or sacred arts or divine weapons or Perfect Control arts.

It was that simple power that everyone, Integrity Knight or common folk alike, possessed but could lose so easily.

Bravery.

Renly’s right hand began to move, ever so slowly. His numb fingers brushed the Double-Winged Blades at his waist.

All of a sudden, the feeling returned to them. The Divine Objects were saying something to him.

The goblin pulled back its wicked scythe, preparing to swing it at Tiese.

All at once, there was a swift swishing of air being split, and a pale shine flashed briefly, reflecting throughout the tent.

The light curved from Renly’s hand on upward, brushing the roof of the tent before plunging. It swept through the goblin’s body, changed angles, and snapped back right between the index and middle fingers of Renly’s outstretched right hand.

“…Gr…hg…?”

The goblin’s growl sounded more confused than anything. A pale-red line appeared, running through the middle of its face.

Then the top half of the goblin’s head slid wetly off the bottom and plopped onto the ground.

The Double-Winged Blades were very thin steel throwing blades that curved at the center. There was no hilt or handle to hold the forty-cen blades. Both ends had sharp tips, which he gripped between his fingers to throw the blades. They then flew, rotating rapidly, changing angles on the fly, before returning to their master for him to catch them between his fingers again.

In other words, even in ordinary use, they required far more concentration than a simple sword did. If he lost any bit of focus, he would fail to catch the returning blade and could easily lose a finger or two.

The fact that he could capably use such a weapon was proof enough of Renly’s considerable skill—but he was completely unaware of this. The lack of Perfect Weapon Control was a huge weight on his shoulders, an inadequacy that softened his resolve.

So a single attack that instantly killed its goblin target did not suddenly bring Renly back to his senses, ready to fight.

Cold metal rang faintly in his outstretched fingers. He breathed in and out, shallow and quick. I killed. I killed it, he repeated in his head, over and over.

“…Sir Knight.”

It was Tiese who broke the silence. There were little tears in her maple-red eyes. “Thank…thank you,” she practically whispered. “You…you saved us.”

The words were a warm balm on the icy fear that enveloped Renly’s heart. But he didn’t have the wherewithal to respond. Multiple figures were approaching from the smoke screen. It looked like more than ten, in fact.

I can’t. I can’t fight anymore. A single goblin was already too terrifying.

The meager bravery he had summoned from his every fiber was already fleeing him. His breath was quick. His legs felt weak. His eyes swam around, looking for an escape. Once again, they were drawn to the two longswords clutched under the black-haired youth’s arm.

One of them, a sword with a beautiful, finely carved rose on its hilt, seemed to be faintly glowing in the gloom. The light was blue but seemed almost warm somehow. It pulsed, beating like a heart. He felt the chilly fear that enveloped him gradually melt.

Renly sucked in a deep breath and said, “You stay here and protect Kirito.”

“W-we will!” Tiese and Ronie replied. He nodded to them and left the tent through the rip the goblin scout had made.

Two goblins at the head of the approaching group instantly noticed him and bared their fangs.

His right hand flicked, and the light shot through the air again.

The blade returned to his fingertips at the same moment that two heads fell to the ground. But Renly didn’t even register it, his eyes already searching for the next target, at which point he threw the blade from his left side. Two more goblins perished instantly, their bodies crumpling.

In just four seconds, Renly had eliminated four goblins, but more of them approached.

“A knight…”

“It’s a leader!”

“Kill him! Kill him!!” they screeched. Renly began running toward the front line to draw them away from the tent. The goblins pursued, their armor rattling as they scrambled after him.

Eventually, the rows of supply tents petered out. Just to the left was a vertical rock face, and the visibility ahead was reduced by the thick smoke screen, out of which charged goblin after goblin. Then there were the ten or so following him from behind.

Having charged to his potential death, Renly now stopped and held out his arms, a curved blade in each hand, and shouted, “My name is Renly!! The Integrity Knight Renly Synthesis Twenty-Seven!! If you want my head, you will have to give your life to take it!”

The goblins greeted his speech—containing every last ounce of boldness he had—with ferocious roars. They brandished their crude knives and raced for him, front and back.

Renly hurled his two blades. The one from his right hand went right, and the left blade went left. Each line of approaching goblins was met with a flying, curving projectile.

Numerous heads left their shoulders and toppled to the ground. A second later, filthy black blood spurted from their necks as the bodies flopped over. Rather than pinching the blades as they returned, Renly caught them spinning around his index fingers, keeping the rotation alive, and hurled them again without pause.

The exact same effect resulted. In a head-to-head comparison of regular attack power, this was more powerful than even Deusolbert’s Conflagration Bow and Fanatio’s Heaven-Piercing Blade. The Double-Winged Blades were thinner than paper and spun with such incredible speed that anything less than the finest armor might as well not even exist.

Two tosses of the pair of blades offed more than ten goblins, and even the fearless goblins’ mad charge slowed a bit, as they were stunned by the sudden deaths of their fellows.

He could do this. If he just held out a bit longer, reinforcements would soon come through the line ahead, where the smoke would be thinning out. Stifling the fear he felt toward his own mass slaughter, Renly threw the blades for a third time.

But this time, he did not hear that familiar sound, like a machete slicing through a small branch. Instead, it was a high-pitched clash: Kshiiing!

Renly reached out as far as he could to catch the blades, which just barely managed to return, despite being knocked fiercely off their trajectory. He couldn’t nimbly catch them on one finger this time and had to gingerly receive the lethal blades on the fly.

Through gaping eyes, he saw a single goblin appear through the hazy smoke.

It was large. In height, it was not far off from Renly, whose physical frame was that of a fifteen-year-old. But the rippling muscles that covered its body and the malevolent look pouring like fire from its yellow eyes were not at all like the other goblins. It wore light armor of studded leather, perhaps for better mobility, and a thick cleaver hung from its right hand.

“…Are you the captain?” Renly asked, his voice low.

“I am. Kosogi, chief of the mountain goblins,” the creature replied and made a show of looking around. “Well, well, you’ve done quite a number here. I didn’t think there would be an Integrity Knight stationed back here. So much for my guess.”

In addition to its stature, this goblin did not speak like the others, either. While it was just as malicious and hostile, the brutishness was held in check by what was clearly much higher intelligence.

That doesn’t matter. Just because it was lucky enough to deflect the Double-Winged Blades once doesn’t mean it can keep it up, Renly told himself. He crossed his arms before him and shouted, “Your war ends here!!”

He threw his blades as hard and fast as he could.

The right blade swept down at an angle from above, while the left skimmed the ground and leaped upward, both aiming right for Kosogi’s neck.

But again, Renly’s attack resulted in a loud, clear ringing noise.

With speed that reduced his weapon to a gray blur, Kosogi had swung it and blocked the attacks coming from both sides in one capable motion. The deflected blades barely made it back to Renly’s grasp.

Why?! The blades should be able to slice through any goblin weapon! he thought, scarcely believing it. His eyes were drawn to Kosogi’s cleaver.

It was the same crude style of knife that the other goblins carried, but the color of the blade was different. That was not primitive cast iron; it was refined steel that had been forged over a long period of time to increase its quality.

Sensing Renly’s shock, Kosogi hefted the blade up close to his face and chuckled. “This? It’s a test model. Pretty good, isn’t it? Much blood was shed to steal the materials and methods from the dark knighthood. But…this isn’t the only reason I was able to block you, boy knight.”

“…How about this, then?”

Renly hurled his hands upward. The blades vanished out of sight into the darkness of the night sky, then swooped down to attack Kosogi from behind. Surely that would be impossible to stop—

“…!!”

But Renly’s certainty was proven wrong immediately. To his disbelief, Kosogi swung the cleaver behind his back and struck the high-speed blades that he couldn’t possibly see for himself.

The weapons wobbled their way unsteadily back, and Renly just barely failed to catch one of them, cutting the middle finger on his left hand. He didn’t have time to register the pain, however.

“They’re too light, boy. And they make sound,” Kosogi explained simply. He had perfectly identified the weakness of the Double-Winged Blades.

The weight of each blade was almost impossibly light for the weapons known as Divine Objects. It was an inevitable consequence of prioritizing only sharpness and rotation power, and it meant that any enemy with armor of a sufficient priority level who could react in time could not be simply overpowered.

Also, a blade that flew and spun at a high rate of rotation produced a characteristic slicing sound. Someone with good ears listening for that sort of anomaly could predict where it was going if they were skilled enough.

The intelligence that Kosogi showed in identifying and reacting to his attacks after only a handful of chances sent a chill down Renly’s spine. How a crude, lesser being like a goblin could be capable of such cleverness was—

“I see that look on your face, boy. It says, ‘But you’re a goblin…,’” Kosogi quipped, grinning, but with a whiff of mournfulness about it. “And I can turn that phrase around on you. ‘But you’re a high and mighty knight…’ I’ve heard that the Integrity Knights have the strength of a thousand, but you don’t seem to live up to that standard, do you? Is that why you were hiding here in the back?”

“…Yeah, that’s right.” It was a mistake for him to have looked down on this foe as a mere goblin. Renly decided to abandon his pride and admit the truth. “I am a failure of a knight. But don’t take the wrong meaning from that. I’m the failure…not these.” He held up the silver blades near his face.

The only way to eliminate the inherent weakness of the Double-Winged Blades was the special technique of the Integrity Knight itself: Perfect Weapon Control.

These weapons had once been a pair of holy birds that had each lost a wing, one right and one left. Unable to fly with just one wing each, they’d connected their bodies and risen to a height that other birds could only dream of. They’d flown distances that were nearly infinite.

This legend had inflicted a sharp but tiny wound in his heart, so deep that he did not even realize it was there.

It regarded his loved one, the person removed from his memory by the Synthesis Ritual. It was his best friend growing up, someone whose life he’d taken in an accident during the extreme combat between them in the final of the Four-Empire Unification Tournament.

He and Renly had truly been like a pair of birds. They’d competed with each other from the moment they were self-aware, and after leaving home to travel to Centoria, they became support for one another in their quest to overcome all challenges and reach the very heights of their craft.

But that was where their wings gave way.

Even losing his memory and being made an Integrity Knight did not fill the gaping hole left in Renly’s heart. Without the bravery to take his sword and fight, and the joy of having his heart connected to another’s, there was no way for Renly to summon the mental image of the holy birds flapping together with one wing each.

However, he had just met this young black-haired man who seemed more damaged than anyone had ever been yet still clutched those two precious swords in his only arm. The faint light that one of those swords emitted seemed to speak to Renly, silently telling him that there was one thing in this world that was never lost, even after death.

It was memory.

Life was passed on from one soul to the next, through personal bonds and connections, in perpetuity, for as long as the world itself existed.

Renly looked away from the approaching goblin chief, who was smiling with the certainty of victory, and closed his eyes. From the body of the boy knight who seemed to have given up all hope, a burst of sword energy like a searing wind suddenly issued forth. His eyes shot open. He crossed his arms in front with the steel blades, hiding the bottom half of his face from view.

“Double Wings, take flight!!”

He flung his arms sideways. Two strips of light leaped upward, arcing, and plunged toward Kosogi from the sides.

“Keep trying it…and you’ll only get the same result!!” The goblin chief readied his cleaver and forcefully knocked the blades aside.

Red sparks flew along with metallic screeches. The two flying blades were easily deflected, but they rose into the air again, rather than falling to the ground. Like a pair of birds soaring together, they swept into a spiral formation, growing closer and closer.

The moment that the blades touched, Renly shouted, “Release…Recollection!!”

It was not simply Perfect Weapon Control, but the ultimate secret technique beyond it, the command to unleash the weapon’s memories.

Pure, blinding brilliance lit the ravine.

The steel blades drew into the center of that light, where they connected and fused.

It was the unleashed true form of the Double-Winged Blades: a cross-shaped construction that gleamed blue, like the stars of the distant night sky, as it slowly rotated.

Renly lifted a hand toward his counterpart glowing in the far heights.

It’s beautiful. Just like me and…

Then he clenched his raised hand.

The cross-shaped blade began to spin with tremendous force. The wind-whistling sound that it normally made rose in pitch until it passed out of the range of hearing and became silent.

With a soft, easy motion, Renly swung his hand downward. The Double-Winged Blades, now just a disc of light, sliced silently toward the goblin.

“This is a waste of time!!” roared Kosogi, swinging his cleaver at the weapon as it descended upon him. But right when the thick steel was about to hit the ultrathin blade, the divine weapon abruptly changed course, bouncing vertically to cause the cleaver to miss, then accelerating straight down once again.

There was a faint, dry sound: kahk.

Then a pale shine rippled through the median line of Kosogi’s well-muscled body.

“Gaaaaah!!” the goblin bellowed, trying to leap onto Renly. But his left half seemed unable to keep up with his right. After a step or two, the two halves separated entirely and fell heavily to the ground.

At the moment of his death, Kosogi tried to use his excellent mind to figure out how he’d lost.

According to his own values, the weak-looking boy knight could win only by having a greater will to murder and a greater desire to win than Kosogi. But no matter how he squinted, through eyes quickly separating and losing focus, he could not sense any kind of malice in that knight’s childish face.

Then what did I lose to?

He desperately wanted to know but did not find out before everything went black.

When Renly caught the returning Double-Winged Blades, they silently separated into two parts and assumed their former shapes. He stared at the twin blades, which were utterly spotless.

His hidden memories had not returned. In fact, Renly was not aware that some of his own memories had been taken out of his reach at all.

But he was certain now that somewhere within him were faint traces of someone whom he’d once been very close to, whose heart had been connected to his own. For the moment, that was enough for him.

He closed his eyes briefly, then lifted his head. Many goblin warriors waited behind Kosogi, the enemy leader. But it was strangely quiet all around. Through the layer of smoke, which was gradually clearing up, Renly saw that there were hundreds of bodies piled in heaps. They were enemy soldiers who had been alive just minutes before this. He was shocked; who had done this—and when?

“…Well, I suppose you’ve gotten the tiniest bit more knightly.”

He turned, startled, toward the source of the voice. Approaching from the right was the apprentice knight Linel Synthesis Twenty-Eight. Nearby was Fizel Synthesis Twenty-Nine. Clearly, these two were responsible for cleaning up all the enemy troops.

He stood there, dumbfounded. Eventually Linel, the one with the braids, snorted and gave him what seemed like a very forced knight’s salute.

“Elder Knight, we beseech thee for orders,” she said, probably mostly out of sarcasm, but it beat open derision.

Renly cleared his throat and asked, “Are he and the other girls all right?”

“Yeah. We sent them back to the supply team,” Fizel reported.

He sighed in relief. “And the infiltrating enemy soldiers?”

“Entirely wiped out,” said Linel this time.

“Then I’m returning to my unit. You should do the same.”

“Fine.” “Yes, sir.”

The girls turned and ran off, not seeming fatigued in any way by the battle. Renly watched them go, then glanced back at the supply tents behind him.

…Thank you, he said to the two trainee girls and the young swordsman.

Renly Synthesis Twenty-Seven, elite knight, began running east to rejoin the left wing of the Second Regiment, where he belonged.