༺ 𓆩 Chapter 27 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
“Looks like you were busy from dawn.”
“Well, if it’s a duel in name, shouldn’t I warm my body up a little first?”
Bessemer dismounted and rolled his shoulders in broad circles, loosening himself.
The men who had ridden with him were dressed differently from the other soldiers.
Not gambesons, but leather cuirasses and fur mantles thrown over their bodies.
At a glance, they were clearly his fellow tribesmen.
The bridles of their horses each had ropes tied to them, and those ropes were fastened to the hind legs of a gigantic boar.
To call it an ordinary boar would have been absurd. It was far larger than two horses put together.
Its tusks were grotesquely long and sharp, jutting out in multiple vicious branches.
It was no mere mountain beast, but a demonic beast.
A monster.
There was only one mortal wound to be found on the boar.
The axe blade buried deep in its forehead.
As though he wished to boast of his hunting skill, he had left the axe there instead of pulling it free.
“Were you cold last night?”
Bessemer asked with a broad grin.
His face made it plain he knew exactly what had happened.
“Thanks to your concern, I slept well.” Isaac answered calmly.
But behind him, Schiller and Hans were glaring at Bessemer as though they wished to bore holes through him.
“Then that’s a relief.”
“I hope you slept well too. I’d rather not hear pointless excuses after you lose the duel.”
“Kwahaha!”
Bessemer laughed loudly, and the tribesmen who had come with him laughed after him.
Each of them had painted his face white and drawn metaphysical patterns in blood across it.
It looked like some rite performed before an important battle.
In other words, it was a warning that they had no intention of going easy on Isaac just because he was a young boy.
“The young master’s a thoughtful one. I slept soundly enough with the village women warming my body. They’re fond of saying I run hot.”
“Then I suppose you also received an oracle from that quack prophet.”
“…….”
At Isaac’s words, the mirth vanished from Bessemer’s face.
“Did the King of Wolves say he was returning?”
“That doesn’t seem like something the young master needs to worry about. After all, you’ll never set foot in Vinfeldt again.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Hmph. A cripple or not, Goethe is still Goethe, I suppose. Your eyes are exactly like big brother’s. Good. I’d wanted, at least once, to see fear settle in those eyes.”
Crack—!!!
Bessemer tore the axe free from the giant boar’s brow.
Black blood and brains ran down its forehead and soaked into the ground.
“Hear me! I, Bessemer, warrior of the valiant Baitur tribe, do stake a warrior’s honor upon this duel! I demand that all present here bear witness to it!”
Bessemer shouted thunderously, raising the blood-dripping axe high over his head.
There was such ferocity in his bearing that merely listening was enough to cow the heart.
And yet Isaac, who had proposed the duel in the first place, merely yawned with eyes half-lidded.
“S-Sir Carlson.”
“?”
Among the soldiers standing back and watching the situation, Hans called to Carlson.
“You’ll save him, right?”
“Save what?” Carlson answered flatly.
“What do you mean, what? The young master!”
Deep fear showed plain on Hans’s face.
The hideous scene about to unfold stood before his eyes all too clearly.
In height alone, the difference was nearly twofold.
In bulk they were beyond comparison.
That enormous boar had been butchered by a single swing of Bessemer’s axe.
With strength like that, Isaac would never block even one blow. He would split in two together with his broken sword.
“You don’t seem to trust your master.”
“This isn’t a matter of trust or no trust. It’s a fight between a giant and a child!”
“You fail as a servant.”
“What?”
“Stop making a scene and watch.”
As he said that, Carlson flicked a glance toward Schiller.
The old chamberlain had already gathered mana into both hands.
He was plainly prepared to cast a spell at any moment.
Carlson smirked.
Everyone around them was sick with worry, and yet Isaac’s face looked more bored than anything else.
“Has the young master nothing to say?”
The duel had not even begun, but Bessemer already wore the face of a victor.
“Not particularly.”
“I wonder how long that composure will last. Let’s decide the weapons. What’ll it be? Sword? Axe? Flail? Mace? Club? Hook? Just say the word. I’ve got them all. Heh.”
The men in leather cuirasses around Bessemer dug through their mantles and tossed iron weapons onto the ground one by one.
Perhaps they had neglected them on purpose. Every last one of them was clotted with old blood and spotted with rust.
They did not look especially fit for their purpose as weapons, but as a way to seize the initiative through sheer menace, they were perfect.
“Use whatever weapon you like. I’m ready. More importantly, I want to settle the condition for victory.”
Without so much as glancing at the weapons lying on the dirt, Isaac tapped the scabbard hanging at his waist.
“Condition?”
“Whether one wins only when the other dies, or only when the other admits defeat. Something like that.”
“Are you only now beginning to value your life?”
“I do value it. If you die, one useful piece on the board disappears.”
At Isaac’s single sentence, a crack appeared in Bessemer’s triumphant expression.
“You’re calling me a game piece now…….”
“We’ll do it by the method the Baitur tribe uses to choose its chief.”
“……?”
“In a situation where we’re deciding the master of this camp, I can’t think of a better way than that. You would find it inconvenient if I died, and I would find it inconvenient if you died.”
“…….”
Bessemer seemed so dumbfounded he lost his words for a moment, then let out a laugh.
“So the young master thought that far ahead. Not bad. You really did come here prepared.”
“I told you. I came to protect my land. If I’m going to do that, I have to come prepared properly.”
“Fine. In my heart I’d like to chew up the liver sticking out of your gut, but I’ll admit it. That does seem the best way.”
“Then it seems the duel has been properly established.”
Isaac gave a nod.
“Don’t rest easy just because you saved your life. I might fail to control my strength and split you in half together with that scrap of metal.”
“You be careful too. My swordsmanship is unpolished, so I don’t know how to hold back.”
“Kwahahaha, would you look at this mad little bastard.”
Bessemer laughed loudly, but the eyes he turned on Isaac were cold beyond measure.
It was unmistakable killing intent.
“If you know the traditions of the Baitur, this will be simpler. Do you know the method?”
“Of course I do.”
Isaac drew the blade from its scabbard and lightly cut his palm.
Bessemer likewise sliced his own palm with the edge of his axe.
With wounded hands, the giant and the child clasped palms.
To exchange that handshake with Isaac, Bessemer had to bend almost down into a crouch.
Isaac’s wrist was hardly thicker than Bessemer’s thumb.
The duel, by this rite, had already begun.
The moment he took Isaac’s hand, Bessemer bared his teeth in a grin.
He intended to carve fear into this insolent brat who knew nothing of the world.
His grip could crush stone.
Crushing the boy’s hand would be nothing.
“……?”
And yet no matter how much force Bessemer poured into it, Isaac remained expressionless.
He was not enduring pain while pretending to be fine.
It was as though Bessemer had seized hold of steel.
The veins swelled thick on his bald scalp, but he could do nothing to Isaac’s hand.
“Are you going to hold on all day? I’d like to finish quickly and eat lunch.”
Soldiers had gathered to watch Isaac’s duel with Bessemer.
From those standing fairly near, a few muffled snickers leaked out.
Bessemer shot them a glare and the laughter stopped at once, but his face had already flushed red and blue with rage.
“You won’t leave here in one piece, brat.”
Bessemer turned sharply and strode several paces away.
Isaac also turned and walked back a few steps.
When a proper distance had opened between them, the two leveled their weapons at each other.
There was no threatening battle cry, no roar.
Whoom—!!!
Only the ominous wind left behind in the wake of Bessemer’s charge, after he had kicked off the ground and rushed forward.
He closed the distance to Isaac in an instant and drew the arm holding the axe all the way back.
In that moment, the soldiers knew.
Something was wrong.
Bessemer truly meant to swing that axe with the intent to split Isaac in two.
Not a single soldier in all the camp had ever blocked one of Bessemer’s full-force axe blows.
Even if a man held a sturdy steel shield, he might escape the axe edge once, but under that monstrous strength the shield would crumple and the shield-bearer would come away with a broken or cracked shoulder at best.
Even a trained soldier with a steel shield might endure one strike. The second would surely be fatal.
So what was there to say of a little young master holding nothing but a single sword?
In the minds of the soldiers, each in his own way, the worst conclusion flashed.
The rash young master being cut to pieces exactly as he stood, and the enraged Count arriving with knights to slaughter every soldier in the camp in reprisal….
They had to stop it.
But it was already too late even to cry out that they should stop it, much less to move.
The giant, a mountain of muscle bent like a drawn bow, had already brought the axe down with all his weight behind it.
The soldiers screamed silently.
Clang—!!!
The crash was so violent it numbed the ears.
Hans squeezed his eyes shut.
A shrill ringing filled his ears, and his legs, drained of strength, trembled helplessly.
He did not have the courage to witness the horror before him.
“Open your eyes properly, Hans.”
Through the humming in his ears, Carlson’s voice reached him, faint and blurred.
As the ringing slowly faded, he heard the murmuring of the soldiers.
It was not the sound of tragedy, but of whispers edged with excitement.
“H-he blocked it. He blocked it!”
“Dear God above, what kind of magic did he use?”
“Wasn’t Goethe a family of magicians?”
At those voices, unbelievable as they were, Hans slowly opened his eyes.
“You were lucky.”
Bessemer said it in a growl like some savage beast.
“I wonder if it was luck.”
Isaac pushed himself upright with his sword.
Unable to endure the impact, he had rolled, and his clothes were smeared with dirt and mud.
He merely brushed them off as though it were nothing.
“W-we have to stop this. If that boy dies, the Count will kill us too.”
“Go on then, try. Whoever interferes in this sacred duel will be gutted on this axe blade!”
Bessemer turned toward the crowd and shouted murderously, pointing his axe at them.
“Hah…….”
Schiller let out a stunned breath.
It was not because Bessemer had swung his axe in deadly earnest at the newly arrived lord.
It was rather because Isaac had received that axe blow as though showing it off.
“What in the world is happening here?”
“You only just noticed?”
“But how is the young master using magic……?”
He might deceive others, but he could not deceive Schiller’s eyes.
What allowed Isaac to stop Bessemer’s attacks was not mysterious swordsmanship, nor any feat of the body.
It was magic.
“Who could have imagined it? The first time I experienced it myself, I was dumbfounded.”
“Does he have any chance of victory?”
“I don’t know. But one thing is certain: from the moment he chose to duel according to the traditions of the Baitur, everything has been unfolding as the young master intended.”
To the Baitur, a battle tribe, the chief was the pinnacle of martial strength.
But because they could not take the lives of their own tribe, they chose a chief by taking away a warrior’s honor instead.
A warrior’s honor was the weapon he valued as dearly as life itself.
To let go of one’s weapon was no different from letting go of one’s honor as a warrior.
One who lost his warrior’s honor could no longer act as a warrior of the tribe. He was cast out or set to labor instead.
In other words, the victory in this fight would belong to the one who disarmed his opponent.
“Open your eyes and watch carefully what sort of man your master is.”
Carlson spoke to Hans, whose body was trembling ever so slightly.
Clang—!!!
Clang—!!!
What rang out again and again was not the simple crash of metal on metal, but the deafening sound of some invisible force colliding and shattering.
Something impossible was happening.
Under the giant’s brutal attacks, Isaac was flung back and rolled and rolled again.
And yet somehow he kept blocking them.
He was receiving blows that even shield-bearers struggled to endure, receiving them by the narrowest margin.
Rather than meeting that savage force head on, he dispersed the shock with breakfalls or subtle twists of the blade.
The soldiers’ mouths slowly fell open.
Anyone could see that Bessemer was bringing down his axe with all his might.
And yet this fragile-looking boy, who seemed as though he would snap in two if lightly struck, defended against it as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Clang—!!!
Clang—!!!
Before long Isaac’s clothes were filthy, and his once-neat hair had come badly undone.
Despite the bitter cold, cold sweat from tension and excitement ran down his brow.
But his eyes had not changed from the beginning.
In a situation where life and death were at stake, he was not looking at Bessemer, but past him, toward something far away.
In those empty-seeming eyes, Bessemer scarcely existed at all.
“Y-you insolent little brat!”
Not falling though he seemed about to fall.
Not collapsing though he seemed about to collapse.
Not breaking though he seemed about to break.
That brat before him.
For Bessemer, who in Vinfeldt’s camp had always been feared and respected alike, the indifference shown by the child before him was something utterly intolerable.
And because of that he grew enraged, and because of that rage he failed to notice it.
The feeling in his hands was growing duller and duller, and a creeping chill was traveling up his arms.
Clang—!!!
Clang—!!!
Each time he struck, Isaac was sent flying far away, only to set himself in defense once more.
There was courage in his endurance, but to any eye the chances of Isaac’s victory still seemed remote.
And then Bessemer threw the eighth blow.
At that moment, he felt a vague unease.
It was the discord sent by the instincts he had tempered as a warrior.
It was not a feeling he could ignore.
Every time he had ignored that feeling, mortal danger had followed.
Unfortunately, it was right this time as well.
Isaac’s stance looked like a defensive one at first glance, but he was preparing a counterattack.
Kkaaang—!!!
The axe descending and the sword rising crashed together.
By common sense, a rising blade cannot overpower a descending one unless it is backed by equal strength.
In other words.
It was impossible.
‘It should be impossible…….’
With a sharp roar that shook his eardrums, Bessemer froze where he stood.
His head jerked up toward the air.
The axe was flying through empty space.
His hand clenched reflexively at emptiness, but caught nothing.
That falling axe was his.
Thunk—!!!
Bessemer’s axe sank into the mud.
END σϝ CHAPTER