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The noble is not noble without reason (3)
Gwain, Trindall, and Kampra stepped forward at once, swords at the ready.
“Don’t allow small wounds! Even through the slightest wound in your flesh can the mutating plague be transmitted!”
Upon my warning, the three knights charging at the lycanthrope stretched their swords out.
‘Grarr! Grrr!’
In the next instant, the lycanthrope overwhelmed them, sweeping its clawed hand toward the three knights.
‘Qawac!’
The knights either dodged or blocked the swipe, and then they stepped forward and counterattacked.
That was the beginning.
In a vicious melee, three swords clashed with claws.
Bernardo Eli still hadn’t moved; he was hesitating. And I knew right away why he was doing so.
Eli: Even when the world changed due to the use of mana rings, even after mana hearts were treated as a cheap technique for mercenaries – Even then, the Eli family insisted on using mana hearts till the very end.
At one time, they were called the greatest family of knights in the kingdom. And not so long ago, Bernardo ran a decadent club in the capital, robbing the pockets of stupid and lustful nobles.
The poor man was now afraid, afraid of drawing his sword and reciting his family’s dance poem.
Over the years, the swords of the family have all but broken, with the martial arts of the family becoming neglected. Eli feared that his life’s work might be denied: That of reconstruction and restoration of his family to their former glory. Bernardo had reached a point where he would rather stop than move forward and fail.
Just as the lives of his father and grandfather have been marked by defeat, Eli feared that he would remain a loser as well.
So he concealed his true self under a sophisticated veneer. He concealed his skills, acting as if he was but the sheath instead of the blade.
All of this so that he could have an excuse once failure came.
He said he would not do his best, believing that it was the nature of his family.
It was so tragic, so sorrowful. I looked at Adelia and then looked at Eli once more. Both of them trembled in terror. Death and pain, or failure and defeat: Each of them had different fears.
Yet, the fact that they couldn’t overcome these fears prevented them from leaping over that wall.
My dear, dear coward knights – it was a pity.
At that moment, the thought of it was so unbearable that I could only watch. Fear is what they should overcome, and if I stepped forward to end their fears for a brief moment, they would never step nearer the wall.
Bernardo was sick, and Adelia trembled. I merely watched.
‘Graar~’
In the next moment, a low growl was heard, clearly not coming from where the battle raged. Then, from the shadows of the forest, another bipedal wolf appeared, another herald sent by the full moon.
He hunched low as he approached us. Adelia looked at the three fighting knights, tears streaking down her face. However, Kampra, Trindall, and Gwain were hard-pressed to deal with the single enemy before them, so they had no time to worry about this one.
Adelia looked at me again, her eyes beseeching me, begging me to give her the order to fight. I ignored her unspoken request.
She trembled yet stepped forward. She placed herself between me and the lycanthrope, stopping. Her delicate shoulders were shaking with fear.
Nevertheless, she did not withdraw.
As I looked over her shoulder, a golden glow flared up. The light was too weak to be compared with her usual berserker one, but it meant more to me than anything else. It wasn’t by anyone’s command. Adelia had drawn her sword by her own will. I laughed in joy as I appreciated her newfound boldness. But unfortunately, with her body stiffened by tension and fear, it was impossible for her to deal with a ferocious beast charging at her like that.
Yet, I did not worry, for she was not the only one present. A broad-backed man stood beside her, and it was Eli.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” he spat out abuse. “If I die, it’s all thanks to your Highness,” he said without a backward glance. “If I cannot restore my family, it will also be your Highness’s fault!”
Bernardo Eli raised his sword.
“If you are lucky, you can defeat him.”
Eli’s energy suddenly soared.
“It’ll be because I’m good,” he said, his words playful so he could shake off his anxiety. And with those words, Eli’s sword began to cry.
‘Woooow~’
Over the keening sound of his sword, his cheery voice rang out.
“The wind stays not on the blade”
“It strikes out in a flurry”
“And storms on like a typhoon”
In the next instant, Eli stretched out his sword, stabbing it out in a piercing thrust. A thundering sound was heard.
‘Kek!’
The lycanthrope, which had been charging with its body hunched, pierced itself on Eli’s blade. The beast roared briefly and then prepared to slash out with its claws. But before it could even slash out, it was pierced a second time.
‘Kscuck!’
‘Qlak,’ the lycanthrope reached out its hand to grab at the sword, but to no avail. Eli had already withdrawn his blade and stabbed into the beast again.
That was the beginning.
Eli’s stabs pierced the beast as an awl pierces leather, again and again.
‘Graar!’ the lycanthrope roared in pain as it fiercely slashed out with its claws. Eli maintained a diagonal stance as he deftly shifted his feet, avoiding all of his foe’s attacks. Whenever he saw a gap, he stabbed his sword through the lycanthrope’s hide.
Sometimes the beast managed to avoid Eli’s thrust, but not many times.
Eli’s swordsmanship was accurate enough. The lycanthrope’s body quickly became bloodied after suffering multiple stab wounds, with its flesh covered in gashes and holes. Upon first glance, many of the wounds looked fatal, having penetrated its vital organs. If the lycanthrope was a knight, it would already have bled to death.
Unfortunately, the beast was far from human. The wounds sealed themselves in no time, and the beast looked as if not a single blade had touched it. New hair even sprouted over the white flesh into which Eli had plunged his sword.
The lycanthrope fiercely growled as it bared its fangs at Eli. Eli thrust out again, and this time his stab was aimed at the thing’s heart.
The lycanthrope extended its forearm, and Eli’s sword stabbed into it.
“Ah,” I sighed.
Eli’s swordsmanship was definitely good. His movements were light and agile, and his strikes were economical. He flew like a butterfly and stung like a bee, and the basis of the style was built upon the basics of fencing.
But that was all there was to it – the martial style of the Eli family had already deteriorated.
Indeed, the very kernel of it had succumbed to laxity. The thunderstorm was disrupted, and the power of the poem was so disastrous that the lyrical, flurrying typhoon was without color.
I frowned as I observed this. It was the first time that I saw a more obscene form of Muhunshi, a poem that had lost its edge as the ages passed. I felt sick, and if I felt like this, Eli must be feeling worse.
“Fuck it!” Eli swore as he kicked against the lycanthrope’s body, trying to pull his blade free. But the lycanthrope didn’t even budge, rather reaching out with its free hand to try and grab Eli, who managed to release his blade at the last moment and bounce away from the beast.
“It’s damned strong. Fucking monster.”
Eli spewed insults as he retreated, his voice filled with self-destructive tones of regret and despair.
“Is this the sight your Highness wanted to see?” he asked with resentment. Instead of answering, I drew Twilight from my back, then threw it to Eli.
‘Chin,’ he caught my sword, then shuddered.
“Are you really telling me to fight and die?” His voice sounded like never before, and it was unlike him to speak in such a manner.
It was natural.
He had hoped that he could make his family’s martial arts and swordsmanship shine, but the only thing that has been confirmed before both our eyes was that it was a tradition that has been damaged, so much so that its more effective aspects could not be reproduced.
It wasn’t strange at all that he had lost his temper.
“If I die in this fight, I die. What do I have to live for, anyway?”
His words were filled with powerlessness and anger, the words of a man who utterly resented himself.
I just listened. And then I talked, wanting to let him know that he had to stop blaming me.
“It is certain that the martial arts of the Eli family are done for. The traditions have been so greatly damaged that it has become impossible to reproduce them.”
Eli had been staring at the lycanthrope up till then, never once taking his eyes off it. He now looked at me for the first time in the battle.
“I know! I know! Do say it like that-“
“But that’s not all.”
Eli growled ferociously at my words. He then said that he couldn’t even recite the last verse of the poem, only bring capable of singing a portion of it. He made many excuses like that.
“Do you really think that’s all?”
“Ha, I make people miserable to the end.”
I shook my head as I heard his suicidal tone of voice.
“The problem is with the Eli family’s Muhunshi, not your Muhunshi.”
“My family’s Muhunshi is mine. My Muhunshi is my family’s! What kind of sophistry-“
“How long will you cling to the traditions and achievements of your ancestors?” I asked Eli, and his face looked as if I had punched him in his back. Looking at him, I continued.
“Muhunshi is not about walking the path that someone else has already walked.”
In a world where karma cannot be accumulated, only traditions have any worth. It wasn’t strange that Eli acted as if his faded family traditions were everything in the world.
But he had to know: The world has changed.
The ancient beings who have disappeared now return, opening a new path to the gaining of transcendence. If he wants to, he can build up his karma in this age.
“A half-man of the full moon is your foe. Don’t you think a pretty good Muhunshi will be born?”
The herald of the full moon before us was enough of a challenge to become the lyrics of a new poem.
Of course, from the very start, he had been unable to summon a gale and wield the power of a typhoon like in the old traditions. But this was the case with all the Muhunshi in the world.
They always begin as [ordinary] or [extraordinary]. Even the [Mythic] dance poems had humbled beginnings before becoming as great as they are now.
The steps Eli take today would be the beginning of his road to reach high places.
“So you’re asking me to make a new dance poem?”
“Why not? You think you can’t? You’ve got nothing to lose by trying, anyway.”
Eli growled at my words.
“What do you see Bernardo Eli as!” he demanded.
There was no resentment anywhere in that ferocious voice. It was just a voice full of bluff, as usual.
A mere while ago, he had been whining that his family’s dance poems were now obsolete.
Now Eli straightened himself and focused on the herald of the full moon.
Looking at him, I whispered, “Now that’s it, Anne.”
b You’re still unchanged on the outside and the inside}
Agnes laughed a little, then once more hid the presence of my true body that she had secretly released. The ferocious lycanthrope started moving again.
Eli rushed at the beast. I could no longer sense the feeling of fear and regret that had clung to him like filth a mere while ago.
Honestly, I admired him.
I hadn’t expected him to shake off the shame that had ruled his entire life so quickly, just by saying a few words.
b The vessel itself is not bad, although what was contained in it was a vain and hazy regret for a lost past}
I fully sympathized with Anne’s words.
Eli’s skill has not been obtained simply by holding a sword and swinging it, training and training. He was able to obtain it due to steadily developing his inner discipline since he was a child.
“Surely, this noble is not noble without reason.”
Eli had been living in the capital by stuffing his pockets with the gold of idiotic aristocratic rubes. I was never sure whether I should sympathize with the idiots tricked by his business schemes or whether I should sympathize with Eli himself, who had thrown himself into the mud.
Agnes spoke again.
b It seems that your energy has stimulated that annoying guy}
Suddenly, there came a roar that bred terror with its very utterance. It was a roar that contained a greater energy than the cry of any beast I had ever heard.
“Oops, it looks like we have touched a nerve in these half-men.”
b This is not the time to be so easygoing. This one’s energy is so powerful that it can scarcely be contained in a single being}
It was as Agnes said, for in the next moments, a half-man monstrosity as large as an ogre appeared. It was a great silver wolf, its hide as pale as the full moon.
It was a full moon warrior that had sensed the energy of my true body and then came running straight to us.
But the silver-haired lycanthrope was looking in the wrong direction, for as I came to think of it, there was another descendant here of a famous family besides Eli. And her family didn’t merely have famous songs; no, she was a human who has inherited the blood of one of the Five Predecessors.
“Let’s see how deep that blood flows in her veins.”
The golden energy had gradually increased in radiance, and then, suddenly – Adelia’s shoulders stopped shaking.