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The room was big enough to accomodate dozens of people, but there were only two people in it: a handsome man and woman facing each other right in the center. The woman had glistening hair that spilled from her head like a waterfall. Her beautiful, enthralling hand slowly rose to stroke the man’s mysterious, deep blue hair, and then dropped a little to his sharp, pale jawline.
“Um…”
The woman’s hand, however, did not stop. She continued down to his slender neck, unable to believe it belonged to a man. There was a long moment of silence as she stared at his bright, luscious, cherry-red lips. Every time her hand moved, his lips seemed to get more moist.
What are you thinking?
“A little more…” The women’s fingers went lower, to the chiseled muscles of his upper body. She could tell his breathing was getting rougher, and so was hers.
“Haah—!” Iceline snapped out of it. “What was I thinking…?” Did she get drunk on the atmosphere and possessed by her dream self? Iceline blushed and shook her head vigorously. She stared into the sky, unable to look at Joshua.
“Ah!” The night sky was decorated by a stunning panoply of glittering stars—just like that day. “Am I out of my mind? I can’t believe I’m thinking these things…” Iceline’s face smoothed into its usual cold mask and she started walking away.
What she didn’t realize, however, was that her porcelain cheeks were redder than ever.
The Masters selected as judges had dedicated accommodations. In one of them, there were three Masters wearing grim expressions—those from non-imperial countries.
“In the first match of Group B, we expected our knight to lose, of course… Group A’s morning match was really unexpected—even the knights from the Empire would agree it was strange.”
Another man, his skin white as snow, nodded grimly to Windmill. His name was Aiture, Master of the notoriously cold Ice Kingdom.
“The apparent gap from the imperial Masters is becoming uncomfortably wide.” Aichu’s face wrinkled with worry. “Not only in numbers, but also in quantity… The empires have well over ten, including the unofficial ones, while the other kingdoms have no more than three.”
The third person, Hasegi, Master of Fordran Kingdom, spoke up.
“Do the numbers even matter? Think: ten years from now—no, five years from now—that kid Joshua Sanders is going to be a monster.”
“Hmm… Maybe, he… maybe we’ll have the youngest ever member of the Nine Star…” Windmill whispered.
“You two may not have known, but I was here at the Reinhardt Martial Arts Tournament a few years ago,” Hasegi said.
“The year when Joshua Sanders made his first appearance?”
Hasegi nodded.
“It finally makes sense to me. I knew he wasn’t using his full skills back then, even though he took 1st place by a storm.”
“What do you mean? Everyone was talking about how godly he was.”
Hasegi groaned. “Didn’t you two see? The weapon he used.”
“His weapon… The red spear?”
“Yeah. ‘Overwhelming’ would be an understatement. The problem is… he didn’t use a spear at the Tournament years ago.”
Windmill and Aiture’s eyes widened.
“Hey, what do you mean? He managed to train his spear skills that much in a few years?”
“No—he was hiding his skills from the very beginning.”
The room was enveloped in a crushing silence. How were they supposed to accept that? He crushed his opponents without using his real skills even when he was ten, and at the age of fifteen he crushed a prospective Master without breaking a sweat. On top of that, he came from one of the three great powers. The world was not kind to the weaker kingdoms.
“Well then,” Windmill suddenly asked, “if not the spear, what did he use at the Martial Arts Tournament?”
Hasegi’s face scrunched as he thought back.
“A sword.”
“A sword?”
“Yes. A large sword, like that giant.”
“That giant… Come to think of it, he’s—”
“Duke Agnus,” Aiture groaned. “Before he can grow more… he has to be eliminated.”
Windmill shivered. “I can’t believe you—You’re saying you want to assassinate someone in the middle of Reinhardt? Eyes are everywhere here.”
“If it’s for my country, I’d do anything.”
“That’s…” Windmill trailed off nervously.
“It’s not impossible, under the right circumstances.” Hasegi’s eyes gleamed.
“Isn’t that… too dangerous? If you slip up, it could end up starting a war.”
Aiture shook his head coolly. “High risk, high return. You won’t get anything if you don’t take risks. Where do you think the sword of Avalon will point once it reaches its limit?”
Even Windmill couldn’t retort to that. Aiture hit the problem on the head: the Avalon Empire lied in the center of the continent; that meant that it had more shared borders than any other country on the continent. When the inevitable war came, who knows who their first target would be?
“Of course, I’m not saying we rush into this blindly. As Lord Windmill said, it would be absolutely insane to try it in the middle of Reinhardt.”
“What we can do, however, is aimi for when he leaves Reinhard to go home,” Aiture muttered. “According to intelligence, he traveled alone, unlike the other participants.”
“That means he has confidence in his skills. Cheeky.” Hasegi clicked his tongue and stood up. “You’ve been here for too long. Let’s break it up for today. If the imperials saw this, they’d be suspicious.”
“I agree.” Windmill also rose. “I’ll talk to people and see what else I can find out.”
Windmill and Hasegi leaving Aiture behind in his room.“
“Master of Avalon, Joshua Sanders…” Hasegi’s eyes gleamed.
Joshua was splayed out, alone, on an enormous bed.
“Akshuler and the Mercenary King…” The Mercenary King, Barbarian, was the first of the mercenaries to achieve widespread recognition when he ascended to the Twelve Superhumans. Mighty Akshuler followed closely on his heels, but it seemed that there was some sort of friction between them despite the insurmountable differences in their status.
There has to be something, or else Iceline wouldn’t have talked like that… Joshua frowned. This was the Mercenary King, though. It was almost like fate.
Existing Masters often say that they don’t take the “Nine Stars” seriously, as it’s just something the Twelve Superhumans created. The Masters would never admit anything until they saw it in person, but Joshua had seen the harsh truth already: no one Master could ever defeat any of the Superhumans.
“I don’t know if someone as talented as Ulabis can grow further, but if it’s Akshuler…”
Decades later, Akshuler would remain the undisputed successor of Barbarian. Joshua had nothing to do with them in his previous life, but the rumors about them were everywhere. Anything that happened between them was bound to end as rumors.
“I’ll find out soon.”
Just then, there was a knock on his door.
“Come in.”
The door slowly began to open.