Bonus Short Story

Memory

This event occurred a little bit before the berserker Ran returned to her village.

The four martial artists that had accompanied Ran when she left the village spoke to her with solemn expressions on their faces.

“Ran. We’ve talked it over and...We’re thinking of returning to the village.”

“...Why?”

The five of them, Ran and the four other girls, were from Tempera Village, a hidden settlement whose inhabitants were descended from famous mercenaries. Ran, who had been born with an overwhelming amount of power, had sought greater challenges by leaving the village, while the other four had followed her as her hangers-on.

It should be noted that Ran hadn’t forced them to accompany her; rather, the four had decided to follow Ran of their own volition. But that also meant that the four of them had purposefully abandoned their homeland, and even if they returned now, it was doubtful that they’d receive a warm welcome.

“Life out here isn’t bad, is it? I mean...I wasn’t able to do anything against that Immortal, but...”

The first opponent Ran had fought in her search for greater challenges had been Suiboku’s apprentice, Sansui. There was something almost destined about the berserker from Tempera Village being defeated by the apprentice of the man who had decimated the village back when it had been little more than a few sellswords.

Afterwards, the Arcana Kingdom to which Sansui had pledged his loyalty had decided to welcome the five of them in. They weren’t being treated like royalty or even like nobility, but they still understood that they were being treated well. At the very least, they were living much more comfortably than they were when they lived in Tempera Village.

“...Is it because I lost?”

No one would celebrate if the four of them returned to the village. So why had they decided to return in spite of that?

For Ran, the only reason that came to mind was the fact that she had lost so easily to Sansui. Had they lost faith in her after she had so brashly set out to find greater challenges only to get thoroughly humiliated in public? If that was the case, she had no right to stop them. But it would be lonely not having them around.

“No, that’s not it, Ran. But we...we want to be useful to you.”

“Ran, you lost, but you’re still really strong, even by the standards of this kingdom. So everyone expects a lot from you.”

“But that’s not true of us. There’s lots of people who are stronger than we are. That’s...no different from when we were in the village.”

“We need to get stronger.”

Unlike Ran, the other four weren’t particularly powerful. They had simply gotten tired of the closed-off nature of village life, hoped for a more interesting life outside, and hopped on the bandwagon when Ran decided to leave. They weren’t considered strong within the village and they hadn’t grown any stronger outside of it. That was to be expected. They hadn’t done anything to get stronger, after all.

“B-But you’re all treated well here, too, aren’t you?”

“That’s just because they think our bloodlines are valuable.”

“It’s like in the village. The blood inside us...the ability to have children bearing the blood of each style is the only thing people value about us.”

“There’s no value to us as individuals. We’re just third-rate martial artists that can use some basic techniques.”

“Right now, we’re completely useless to you, Ran. To be useful, we have to relearn our martial arts from the basics again. That’s why we’re going back to the village.”

The five assembled here were all part of lineages that bore Rare Arts users. If they had children with people with the same Blood, there was a strong likelihood that the children would also have those abilities. In their cases, those bloodlines had continued for generations.

Up until now, this kingdom had only known about two types of Rare Arts bloodlines. But if all of them were to have children in the kingdom, there would suddenly be five new bloodlines on top of that.

But that would literally just reduce them to the status of breeding stock. Sure, they were more valuable breeding stock than in Tempera Village, but fundamentally, it meant that they were only valued for their ability to bear children, and nothing else.

“Eckesachs kept going on about this point, but we’re still weak. And we can’t even instruct people properly.”

“We can’t help the fact that they’re looking forward to us having children, but we don’t want to just end up as broodmares.”

“At the very least, we’d like to be able to properly teach our martial arts. We don’t need to be the strongest in our styles, or even super first-rate. But we do want to be full-fledged martial artists in our own right.”

“Right now all we’d be doing is weighing you down, Ran. We want to be like Sunae, who tries to stand next to Saiga and fight beside him... Or like Tahlan, who’s trying desperately to catch up to Sansui... We want to become stronger ourselves.”

“Oh, you guys...”

It was better for Ran to stay here. There were people here who could fight her on equal footing and who could even stop her when necessary. If she returned to Tempera Village there would be no one there who could instruct her.

But the four others were different. Even before factoring in that they were from cadet branches or that they were women, they simply didn’t have enough training. The only way for the four of them to get stronger would be to return to Tempera Village and receive instruction there.

“So you’re committed to this?” Ran asked as a final confirmation.

In a sense, the four girls had betrayed Tempera Village. As such, they faced the possibility of being harassed and ostracized if they returned. They had already been treated poorly as female members of the cadet branches, but that treatment would pale in comparison to what awaited them now.

It was possible that they would be subject to beatings in the name of ‘combat training.’ Heck, it was even doubtful whether they’d receive any training at all.

The four nodded in silence at Ran’s question.

“...I see.” Noting their resolve, Ran accepted their answer. For the four to move forward, they needed to return to their roots.

“Alright... Then I’ll go with you, as well. I have no intention of brawling...I just want to apologize.”

“So, Yabiya, Suji, Kazuno, and Konoko will be returning to the Tempera Village for a while. I intend to accompany them, so I thought I’d let you know.”

Ran, with the four girls in tow, had come to discuss the matter with Saiga. Having heard the explanation, the first words out of Saiga’s mouth were extraordinarily rude.

“...Um, this might be the first time I’ve heard your names.”

It was so flagrantly disrespectful that the four of them tensed up at once.

“Oh, wait, now that you mention it...”

Although Ran had tried to deny it, she realized he was correct.

“W-Wait! We demonstrated our martial arts in public, didn’t we?!”

“Y-Yeah, that’s right! Eckesachs picked our technique to shreds, but we did show them!”

“Wait, you’re not going to say that you watched our martial arts but didn’t listen to our names, are you?!”

“You do know if you didn’t know our names, you’d usually ask for them, right?! The fact that you didn’t even ask means you didn’t have any interest in us, doesn’t it?! Doesn’t it?!”

The four of them couldn’t help but voice their objections. However, no one could deny the truth of Saiga’s observation.

The reality of the situation was just plain ruthless. They had thought that they were only viewed as bearers of Rare Art bloodlines, but even with that acknowledgement, they hadn’t seriously considered that no one had even thought to learn their names. They had understood that they were considered breeding stock and were resolved to do something about it, but facing this level of disinterest was something they just couldn’t let stand.

“We taught you some of our martial arts, didn’t we?! You even learned how to use some of them!”

“Did you seriously consider us to just be useful tools that are here to teach you some martial arts?!”

“Hey! Come on and say something! You’re being rude!”

“Yes, go on and say our names!”

Saiga, unfortunately could do nothing but admit to his fault.

“I’m sorry.”

A sincere apology could sometimes be the most cruel of responses. Saiga had just fully admitted that he had completely neglected to learn anything about the four of them.

“Don’t apologize!” the four of them yelled at him in unison.

“Now, wait... It’s all my fault. Don’t blame Saiga for it,” Ran also apologized to the four.

“I also only treated you as my hangers-on... I only thought of you as my entourage and enjoyed having your company...! Which is why Saiga didn’t think much of you guys. I’m really sorry!” Ran said from the bottom of her heart. This was perhaps the first time in her life that she had been so sincerely apologetic.

“Stop! Don’t apologize! It’s just even more humiliating!”

The four finally broke down in tears. They had been overcome by the knowledge that the nice treatment they thought they’d been getting in the Arcana Kingdom wasn’t even that nice, after all. In fact, given that no one had even remembered their names, their treatment in Arcana was even worse than in Tempera Village.

The four of them suddenly felt a strong urge to return to Tempera Village outside of the reasons they’d given to Ran earlier.

“...Ahem. Anyway, I’m sorry for disrespecting you. Could you please introduce yourselves again?”

Saiga ended up asking for introductions to people who had already taught him the basics of their martial arts, right before he was about to say goodbye to them. He was well aware that he was being extraordinarily rude, which was why he bowed his head deeply when he said it.

“...You want us to introduce ourselves?”

“Yes.”

The four of them exchanged glances, then sighed. It seemed that this was about all that they were worth at the moment. They needed to accept that this was how the world viewed them and aim for improvement from here.

“I guess we need to get stronger.”

“Yeah... We can’t leave things like this.”

“You know, compared to the humiliation of them not remembering our names, I’m pretty sure whatever hazing they’ll do to us in the village will be pretty bearable...”

“We’re going to crawl our way out of this situation... I swear!”

The four of them then introduced themselves again, in a fashion that ensured that Saiga and company wouldn’t forget their names a second time.

“Yabiya, Orb Blood, Four Vessels Style!”

Yabiya, who was dressed in a dougi that showed off quite a bit of her arms and legs, struck a stance similar to a karate stance.

“Suji, Seeping Blood, Bursting Venom Style!”

Suji, who was dressed in an outfit that showed just the tips of her hands and feet, and had ribbons tying off her sleeves and cuffs, struck a pose with her palm held out.

“Kazuno, Inebriated Blood, Drunken Fist Style!”

Kazuno was dressed in a thick dougi similar to a judo gi, had her hair tied up in orbs. She dropped into a grappling stance.

“Konoko, Illusion Blood, Mist Shadow Style!”

And finally there was Konoko, who wore a kung-fu outfit with sleeves long enough to hide weapons, a hat upon her head, and something that looked like a paper charm hanging from her forehead. She appeared to waver as she struck her pose.

As Saiga tried to memorize their names, the four loudly declared, “There, have you learned our names?!”

“Yes! I’ve got them now!”

“Don’t you dare forget them!”

“No, I won’t! No matter what!” Saiga answered firmly, but he had no confidence in that answer whatsoever.

Gotta remember to write all that down later...