Ishura - Volume 5 - Chapter 12

Chapter 12: The Seventh Match

Aureatia’s Nineteenth Minister, Hyakka the Heat Haze, was sometimes called a young prodigy.

Looking from one side of things, that was a possible interpretation.

Hyakka the Heat Haze wasn’t quite as young as Mizial the Iron-Piercing Plumeshade or Elea the Red Tag, and he didn’t have either the superb brains of Hidow the Clamp or Quewai the Moon Fragment, nor the excellent physical abilities of Qwell the Wax Flower.

Hyakka’s reason for being in his present position was due to a single occasion of good fortune.

In the past, there was a visitor named Luisa the Morning Dew. A self-proclaimed demon king, by spreading a new variety of wheat that was extremely tenacious and resistant to bugs and diseases, she completely changed the ecology of the eastern farmlands. On top of that, she brought tenant farmers with her when she seceded from Aureatia, creating a massive food crisis.

Negotiations with Luisa, appealing for a radical reformation to the system of farmland ownership, had broken down a number of times, and while a military clash seemed nigh unavoidable, the man chosen to serve as the diplomat was Hyakka. Lacking experience and given the job even when, by that point, the Aureatia assembly’s policy had already been decided, there were even dubious voices suggesting he may have just been appointed to allow the former Twenty-Ninth Minister to flee from his responsibility in starting the war.

However, with his seat at the peace negotiations, little more than a formality at that point, the situation completely changed.

Luisa the Morning Dew seemed to take a one-sided fancy to something in Hyakka’s personality and what he said. Things went almost absurdly smoothly from that point until both sides reached peace… Hyakka was thought to have exceptional executive abilities that brought with them great successes—the reason behind such successes being a mystery to Hyakka himself until he was sworn in as the Nineteenth Minister, in charge of the agricultural division.

I was simply lucky.

It was Hyakka’s custom to admonish himself with this mantra.

Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials were a realm where bureaucrats, far more capable than him, exerted influence over minian race politics. It was inconceivable to think something convenient specifically for Hyakka would occur a second time.

In which case—his next accomplishment absolutely needed to be through his own efforts. That was what he believed.

There was an opportunity to do just that, too. The Sixways Exhibition.

He had single-handedly found the nameless skeleton mercenary who’d slayed the Kazuki the Black Tone.

Luckily, the end of the war with the Free City of Okafu was a big part of it as well. It allowed him to sponsor Shalk the Sound Slicer, a former Okafu mercenary, as a hero candidate.

However.

“Shalk the Sound Slicer!”

He called out the name of his hero candidate right as he threw the door open.

The room was in a luxurious inn in Aureatia’s central district. Shalk the Sound Slicer was leaning up against the back wall and gazing outside the window at the night cityscape.

Hyakka brought both legs together, adjusted his posture, and looked up Shalk, who was taller than the minian man.

“I heard! You were apparently present during the violent fracas at the Blue Beetle?! Why can’t you immediately report that sort of stuff to me?! It’s outrageous that I, your sponsor, am not being informed of what’s happening with his own candidate without hearing about it from other officials!”

“…A fracas? That’s the phrasing you all use for a minor scrape like that, eh?”

Shalk the Sound Slicer’s skull face had no expression. This was just as true whenever he joked and spoke sarcastically.

“I’ll be more careful next time, but should I ‘immediately report’ to you stuff like a rock in the road someone could trip over or if the booze I ordered is out of stock, too?”

“D-don’t… Don’t belittle me, thank you very much!”

Hyakka sat down at the table in the middle of the room, poured himself a drink, and held his cup in both hands, taking a big gulp.

This room was rented by Hyakka the Heat Haze as well. After investigating the crime and safety in the surrounding districts, as well as the level of service each inn showed their lodgers, he had picked one that was also equipped with perfect security protections. However, all that effort seemed totally useless to this guest himself, who would go out walking the city streets night in and night out.

“Don’t get too rowdy with the alcohol now,” said Shalk.

“I should be asking you to stop trouncing around to different taverns when you can’t even drink yourself! Especially the haunts of the low-class scoundrels! Are you trying to degrade the hero candidates’ integrity?!”

“I’ve got my own way of thinking about things. That and I don’t have a lot of fond memories associated with inns like this.”

Shalk had never shown any interest in the high-quality bottle of alcohol the inn provided every night.

Obviously, he wouldn’t. Skeletons didn’t need food or drink and may not have needed a safe place to stay at all. Hyakka was only able to able to provide him with lodgings based on minia standards of quality.

“I’m sure you can fend off the likes of a petty thief, but the ones seriously out to assassinate you aren’t gonna hesitate. If you value your life, I wouldn’t be dropping by this room too much.”

Hyakka silently drained the next glass.

For him, he had wished for his hero candidate to be nothing more than a tool.

However, it was then he was faced with nothing but an all-too-reasonable reality… Someone possessing power that far eclipsed his own was never going to obediently serve under him as his tool in the first place.

Shalk the Sound Slicer didn’t want anything.

Neither food, women, nor money could be used as a bargaining chip against the dead.

Hyakka couldn’t even imagine it. How were the other sponsors controlling their own hero candidates?

“…Dammit, damn it all.”

“You okay? You’re not gonna tell me you can’t hold your liquor after chugging it down like that, right?”

“Wh-what…does it matter to you?!”

“What, Hyakka? Come to kvetch at me again, have you?”

A noontime café. The man sitting in a seat on the terrace was the Fifteenth General, Haizesta the Gathering Spot.

“That’s not it!”

Hyakka got the sense he was constantly being tormented by misbehavers like the man in front of him. It had always been like this, before he even got involved with Shalk the Sound Slicer.

“General Haizesta! Just today, I had multiple women come up to talk with me! There’ve been six complaints as well! And for some reason, all of them came to me! Do you realize how much trouble this is causing for me?!”

“Oh, six complaints, eh… Nyeh-heh-heh. I tried seducing eight today, but if that’s the case, that means two showed some interest. Ain’t bad.”

Haizesta’s voice and laugh were always lower-pitched, even lower than a male opera singer.

He was uncouth, with a large frame. A military officer who gave the completely opposite first impression compared with small and fidgety Hyakka.

“It is bad! First of all, all six of the people who came to see me were married! Four among them even had grandchildren! I cannot fathom how such a frivolous and irresponsible man like you ended up in the Twenty-Nine Officials!”

“See, you’re kvetching after all… Nyeh-heh-heheheh.”

As it was for almost all the military officers among the Twenty-Nine Officials, Haizesta the Gathering Spot, too, had been included in their ranks thanks to his past battlefield achievements. However, there was a fundamental problem with him as a government official: his terrible behavior.

Thus, there were not very many, even among the other Twenty-Nine Officials, who willingly involved themselves with Haizesta. Hyakka had never seen anyone besides himself lecture the man about his behavior straight to his face.

Despite being over a decade younger than the man, for some reason, this responsibility had landed on Hyakka’s shoulders.

“First of all, General Haizesta, what are you even doing during the day? I’m always the one who’s forced to figure out where in hell’s name you are and whether you’re goofing off or actually working!”

“C’mon, I’m doing a bunch of stuff on my end, too, okay… The Sixways Exhibition’s bound to get interesting from here, lemme tell you.”

“This isn’t the time to kick back and enjoy yourself!”

At this point, it wasn’t public knowledge that Haizesta the Gathering Spot was, in fact, part of Kaete’s camp and actively working behind the scenes. In Hyakka’s eyes, he simply came off as an even lazier man than he thought he was.

Hyakka placed both hands on the table.

“Even if you’re not a sponsor, you should address the situation seriously! The Sixways Exhibition is an extremely important true duel event, with the future life of Aureatia on the line!”

“Your promotion’s on the line, too, and all.”

“That’s right! Wait, no, that’s not it! I—I simply believe that being royal games, we should be even more disciplined than usual! And yet Shalk will go outside without my permission, and there’s delinquents like you lying around, too…”

“Ohhh. So you want your hero candidate to obey your orders, too, huh?”

“Yes! Wait, no, that’s not the point here! Gaaah, I give up!”

“You’re a goody-goody, but still a real worldly fella, aren’t you?”

Normally, this wasn’t the time to trouble himself with a man like Haizesta. His present problem was Shalk the Sound Slicer.

On top of it, once he got control of Shalk, he’d have to put him up against the legendary champion, Mele the Horizon’s Roar, and he needed to win. It was his sponsor, Hyakka, who needed to think about how exactly to make that happen.

“…Nyeh-heh-heheheh.”

“What are you laughing at now…?”

Hyakka groaned, with his face flat on the table. This was a battle that no one else had ever experienced before. There wasn’t anyone out there who could tell him how he was supposed to fight it.

“What…am I supposed to do?”

“Good question.”

Haizesta let out a big yawn.

“I mean, you handled the arena situation pretty well, right? Should go fine if you just keep that up, yeah?”

“……?”

This might have been the first time he had felt something was off.

At this point in time, there hadn’t been any negotiations at all regarding the arena for the seventh match.

Hyakka learned about the fortunate change in the situation after a big month had gone by.

He was in the middle of a conversation with one of his subordinates in his office.

“By the way, Hyakka, sir. I heard that the Dogae Basin was decided on for the seventh match.”

“What……?”

The Dogae Basin was a modest caldera in Aureatia’s southern area.

The ground had collapsed into a circle, like a stadium; it was evenly leveled and surrounded by a high rock face.

Indeed, the Dogae Basin was far and away the venue that would give Shalk the best advantage when going up against Mele the Horizon’s Roar. Hyakka himself had even planned on requesting it for the venue.

Talk about the arena’s already going around?

Naturally, Hyakka had no recollection of making such an arrangement with Mele’s sponsor, Cayon the Skythunder. There certainly hadn’t been any official negotiations, but there hadn’t been any talk of any personal verbal promises, either.

“Who exactly did you hear that from?”

“Umm, who? I mean everyone’s talking about it. Is that not the case?”

“…I haven’t entered into any talks about the venue yet.”

“Really? Then someone must have jumped the gun, perhaps. I myself thought that Dogae Basin would be the absolute best possible terrain for Shalk, though.”

Like the Mari Wastes, it was an arena removed from Aureatia city proper. Although the fighting field was spacious, due to the prominent topography that encircled the area, it didn’t allow enough space for Mele’s archery.

The most advantageous development for me is to get Cayon the Skythunder to agree to this venue…or it was. With Shalk’s speed, far faster than Mele could nock an arrow with his sluggish, giant body, he’d be able to close inside the gigant’s bow range from the starting position in an instant. He could gain a decisive advantage right from the start of the match.

The only arenas that could handle fights against irregularly large bodies like Lucnoca the Winter and Mele the Horizon’s Roar were the Mari Wastes and Dogae Basin. With that in mind, Hyakka could understand this rumor itself. There was obviously someone making assumptions ahead of time about the venue for the seventh match.

…In which case, can I use this rumor to my advantage?

This fact might be a second visit of good fortune for Hyakka.

He proposed something to his subordinate who had brought the rumor to his attention.

“Could we spread that rumor around to more people?”

“I suppose…? But you haven’t decided on the arena yet, right?”

“That’s exactly why. We just have to pretend any advantageous terms for the match are an established fact. If there’s a rumor going around that the venue’s already been decided, next can come a rumor about the number of spectator seats. Once that’s dispersed enough, next can be a rumor about the day and time for the match. If the shops and citizens take it as true and everything trends toward Dogae Basin as the venue—by that point, even Cayon wouldn’t be able to go back on it. I’ll be able to force through the exact conditions I want!”

There was more than enough time left until the date of their negotiations in the Coordinating Room.

Until then, he would remove every obstacle in his way and suppress Mele the Horizon’s Roar abilities before the match even begun.

I might be able to do it.

An unexpected exaltation welled up from within Hyakka.

The strategy he just blurted out on the spot, to make use of these rumors for himself, didn’t seem like too much of a long shot. If it succeeded, he’d gain a decisive advantage, and if it failed, it wouldn’t cost him anything.

Above all, this scheme was one Hyakka had thought up on his own.

No, I can do it. I…I’ll win the Sixways Exhibition with my own abilities!

The rumors about the seventh match’s arena had begun spreading even among the citizenry.

It was the match of Mele the Horizon’s Roar, the living legend who had protected the Sine Riverstead from any threat against it. The people were highly interested in him, only dwarfed by their interest in Rosclay the Absolute, Alus the Star Runner, and Toroa the Awful, and when Hyakka went into the city, every day, he’d hear the topic come up around him more and more.

That day, Hyakka entered a general store to do some inconsequential shopping.

“Good day, Hyakka, sir! I’ve heard the rumors about the royal games!”

“Thanks! This, please…and three of those lampwicks.”

“Yes, right away. Our supplier’s changed from last month, but I’ve already confirmed their quality for myself. Rest easy… Incidentally, will the match arena really be Dogae Basin?”

“No, it hasn’t exactly been decided on yet!”

Hyakka gave this sort of answer whenever he was directly asked about the subject. He was a man concerned with worldly pursuits, but he was still an upright civil official. He couldn’t give false answers no matter what.

“However, it does seem like things will turn out like that soon.”

Therefore, he tempered people’s impressions with responses that weren’t technically lies.

It could be said that this future was on the horizon, though, now that the rumor was spreading voluntarily among the people.

“Ha-ha. Is that right? So it’s not set in stone?”

“I assume, then, people really are talking like it is, after all?”

“Both the blacksmith Yewty and the boss at the Sparkling Stag were saying as much! After all, I mean, it’s Mele the Horizon’s Roar’s match we’re talking about here. Anyone who says they’re not interested is a liar.”

“Are tickets already being sold? I need to take care on my end to know if there are any shops accepting reservations before everything’s decided, after all!”

“For the seventh match… I haven’t heard any myself. The second match apparently filled up with reservations a long time ago. Is it true that Lucnoca the Winter’s gonna take part? Eh-hee-hee-hee!”

…Mrrrm. I guess things aren’t going to turn out that perfectly for me.

If hasty shops were already getting to work, he would’ve been able to present the rumors of the arena as indisputable facts.

However, for that reason, tickets sales were being strictly regulated.

The results of any negotiations were submitted to Aureatia’s Third Minister, who was in charge of trade and commerce—Jel the Swift Ink. As long as he didn’t acknowledge the situation, it would mean it’d be impossible to have the shops clear the way for him ahead of time.

“Though, well, that’s good,” said the shopkeeper.

“What’s good?”

“Oh, no, nothing, nothing, just talking to myself. We’ll be eagerly awaiting your next visit to our shop, Hyakka, sir!”

The rumor was spreading among the people. Things were going smoothly—that’s how it seemed to Hyakka.

The decisive turning point arrived four days ahead of the negotiations over the match conditions.

Just past midday, a report suddenly came to Hyakka as he attended to his duties.

“Milord Hyakka. We’ve received a complaint from the people. They have a matter they wish to petition you about directly.”

“Not again! More problems with General Haizesta?!”

Dealing with complaints involving Haizesta was almost becoming a routine part of Hyakka’s daily workload.

Hyakka didn’t know the reason why, but it seemed people considered him the one to bring any complaints against Haizesta, and it was an entirely meaningless bypass of proper procedure. Hyakka had firmly resolved to bring up this inefficiency at the next assembly meeting, no matter what.

“No, sir. It concerns you.”

“What?”

“Their complaint is lodged toward you, sir.”

Hyakka was at a loss on how to answer.

He listened to the opinions of those he governed in the agriculture division whenever necessary and had set things up that, outside a truly serious emergency, there wouldn’t be any situation that would bring the concerned parties directly to him to lodge their complaint.

Then had such an emergency broken out now, of all times, with the Sixways Exhibition close on the horizon?

When he headed to the reception room, unable to hide his confusion, there were already several woman sitting inside.

“Thank you for waiting. I am the Nineteenth Minister, Hyakka the Heat Haze! How may I help you all today?”

“Thank you for making time for us. I’m Yubalk the Goblet Hall, mayor of the sixth northeastern ward.”

The slender, middle-aged woman finished her slightly hasty self-introduction as soon as Hyakka sat down.

She was the type of person that Hyakka didn’t really enjoy dealing with, with the fact that she was there to lodge a complaint not helping the matter. Her position as ward mayor represented the opinions of all the citizens in her ward, and if she was making a direct petition on top of that, it was difficult even for one of the Twenty-Nine Officials to ignore.

“I’ll begin by saying I don’t want to waste your precious time, so I’ll get straight to the point—Master Hyakka, what sort of perception do you have of a true duel fight?”

“P-perception… By that, you mean…?”

“I am asking you if you believe combatants will be able to display their true skills in a battle on unequal terms.”

“Ahhh, you don’t happen to mean the seventh match’s—”

“Why, whatever else could I mean, when it is you yourself who designated Dogae Basin as its venue, isn’t that right? Everyone’s heard the rumors saying such. You realize your opponent is Mele the Horizon’s Roar, don’t you? The champion who protects Sine Riverstead, who took down the Particle Storm, and who’s known to everyone across the land. I can hardly believe I’m asking this, but you’re not trying to defeat him before he can fire a single arrow, are you?!”

The middle-aged woman slammed the table. She was trying to browbeat Hyakka with the gesture.

…Dammit. Just because I’m young doesn’t mean…

It was maddening. Supposing it was Haade or Jel sitting where he was, he knew she wouldn’t have been acting the same way.

The same thing happened with Haizesta, too. In the end, Hyakka was simply an easier person to throw complaints at. That was why he always ended up suffering losses like this.

In any case, he had already thought up the wording he’d use in response to such complaints.

“Please calm yourself, Yubalk! If I may? We have yet to confirm the match terms. Thus, if you’ve come to complain about simply rumors, I—”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Huh?”

“It doesn’t matter! Everyone has reached a consensus on the matter.”

The middle-aged woman ostentatiously threw down a bag stuffed full of bundles of paper strips.

There were several different patterns of seals lined across the page—voting seals. Each registered family in Aureatia possessed a unique seal, and pressing this in with a stamp signified agreement with the opinion in question.

“Th-this many… Um, is there really enough to fill the bag like that?”

“I still have two more! You’re one of the Twenty-Nine Officials, right? Haven’t you heard the talk on the street? Holding the match in Dogae Basin, why, it’s obviously ludicrous!”

“Like I said…that hasn’t been set in stone yet—”

“Listen here, Hyakka! We’ve come here to advise you—refrain from causing any suspicions of foul play during this very important event!”

Hyakka lightly rubbed his head. He wasn’t getting through to them… No—

Even if her initial preconception was wrong, she was sticking to it.

Basically, she was forcibly demanding him to retract the match terms that she was personally unsatisfied with.

Y-you’ve got to be kidding me…! Did she really think that’d be enough?! A measly reason like that?!

Hyakka could admit that seeing the Mele the Horizon’s Roar put his technique on display in a public event for the first time had been a large part of the Sixways Exhibition’s publicity. His opponent, Shalk the Sound Slicer, was a no-name. The citizens one-sidedly focusing on Mele might have been the natural outcome.

However, the significance of a true duel absolutely did not lay in that time of showy performance.

Expending all of one’s efforts under mutually agreed-upon conditions. As long as there was a consensus, each of the hero candidates took responsibility in following them. That was how it was to be.

“…I understand your feelings on the matter very well. I will be sure to think over your complaints,” Hyakka replied with an artificial smile.

After continuing to voice her complaints for a time, the middle-aged woman left satisfied.

It wasn’t his first time dealing with someone like her. Even when in a position like the Twenty-Nine Officials, as long as he governed over people, there would be times he’d have to endure such unreasonableness.

…However, something about her words stuck with him.

Is that how everyone’s discussing the rumors?

He stopped on the way back to his office and thought.

I had instructed…my subordinate to spread the decision of the arena for the seventh match. But how was it being conveyed to the citizenry? How were they talking about it?

What had been a tiny thorn of anxiety suddenly began to swell.

This was everyone’s consensus. Then did that mean everyone was talking about how they didn’t want it to happen?

“Refrain from causing any suspicions of foul play”—that would then mean he was under such suspicions, wouldn’t it?

Back then…what did the general store owner say?

“Though, well, that’s good.”

Perhaps, then, was his implication that he was glad it wouldn’t be held in Dogae Basin?

Without realizing it, he was doubling back down the hallway.

He needed to get a clear grasp on the content of the rumors spreading on the streets.

That night. In a rare move, Shalk had returned to his own inn.

“You’re here, Hyakka. Perfect timing. Sorry, but for the first time, I got a bit of a request for you.”

“…Shalk.”

There were several empty liquor bottles rolling around on the floor.

Shalk gazed at them without seeming particularly interested, before shifting his gaze back to Hyakka.

“Been a problem or something?”

“What’s it to you?”

As it had turned out, all his apprehensions had been right on the mark.

The number of voting seals he’d seen had certainly not been wrong. It was abundantly clear that in regard to Shalk’s advantageous match terms, the citizens were, if anything, displeased. It was merely that no one openly mentioned it in front of him, and behind the topic of the seventh match, there had been all kinds of unfavorable criticism toward Hyakka the Heat Haze, groundlessly suspecting him of bargaining and secret maneuvering.

…Something this simple—if I just looked into it a little, I could’ve figured it all out immediately. I came up with countermeasures and everything… I… I was supposed to be thinking things through as I fought, but in the end, I didn’t see through anything. I wasn’t thorough. My failure. My…

He had pounced wholeheartedly on the unexpected good fortune presenting itself in the Dogae Basin rumors. Without at all thinking what sort of end result would follow.

As his sponsor, he already knew about the formidable strength of Shalk the Sound Slicer, but most of the people of Aureatia were looking forward to Mele the Horizon’s Roar instead.

Perhaps, back in the moment, he shouldn’t have spread such rumors and instead used any method to stamp them out entirely.

“Mind if I keep going with what I was saying?” asked Shalk.

“……”

“Make the Mari Wastes the arena for the seventh match. Quit overthinking things.”

“……! Not you too! Shalk!”

Make Mari Wastes the arena. He had heard the words over and over all day. Hyakka smacked the table and shouted:

“You have to take this seriously! You’re basically throwing away your chance to win!”

“Now, that’s weird. I remember someone going on and on about the integrity of the hero candidate or something.”

“…This is nonsense! Did those tavern scoundrels say something to you?! Is that why your stubborn, worthless pride’s got you purposely trying to fight a losing battle, huh?! The sponsor’s the one who gets to decide the match terms! Me! Y-you’re my hero candidate…and you don’t get to order your sponsor around!”

“Doesn’t matter.”

The head of his white spear was pressed up to Hyakka’s neck.

An undead who found no value in anything else. A man who couldn’t be bargained with.

“Whether it’s some tavern scoundrel. The boss of some shop or another. No matter who it is, I can’t stand to have anyone looking down on me. I’m dead—what else do you think I’ve got left?”

“Hic… Hngh…”

“Hell, even I don’t know what I’ve got left for me besides this worthless pride.”

The negotiations determining the match terms were a consensus between hero candidates.

In actuality, it was their sponsors in the Twenty-Nine Officials who did the negotiating as their representatives. That was where their talents were put to the test.

However…supposing circumstances had induced the hero candidate himself to wish for conditions that disadvantaged him, at that point, Hyakka’s hands were tied.

“I…I just—! Listen to me, Shalk!! I want to win! I want to win, Shalk!”

“Yeah. I’ll get you your win.”

The hollow warrior seemed to be smiling with his expressionless skull.

“I’ll fight my opponent at his full strength and win.”

The day of the negotiations. Cayon the Skythunder appeared in the Coordinating Room, where the one-on-one conversation would be held.

A one-armed man with decorous facial features. He looked at the emaciated and haggard Hyakka and announced:

“Well, how about we wrap this up quick?”

“……”

Sitting in the chair opposite Hyakka, he gave his conditions.

“Seems like the whole city’s settled on Dogae Basin, hasn’t it? I’d feel bad throwing them for a loop, so if you two are fine with that, then—”

“Nhg…hngg.”

Hyakka was terrified by his enemy’s lack of quarter.

Many, Rosclay first and foremost, had avoided a battle against Mele the Horizon’s Roar, who assumedly had a distinct weakness in close-quarter combat. More than Mele, they were avoiding a battle against Cayon the Skythunder. Without either the power of a faction or a vast amount of wealth, he achieved his goals with the barest stratagems necessary, having full knowledge of his opponent’s capability to deal with him.

Hyakka had been locked into a battle with the absolute worst opponent.

“Um…well, those terms are unacceptable!”

All he could do was force the words from his own mouth.

It wasn’t enough to stamp out the rumors. He was supposed to have investigated where they had started.

Who was the person who’d first circulated the rumors involving the seventh match?

Chewing on the all-too-distant gap in their abilities, he had to say it.

“The Mari Wastes… For the seventh match, I r-request t-to have the…candidates…at bow range…!”

“Oh, really? Thanks.”

Match seven. Shalk the Sound Slicer versus Mele the Horizon’s Roar.

An arctic wave, normally an inconceivable phenomenon in the region, brushed against the spectators, who were gathered together at a safe distance.

All of them were at a loss for words, gazing at the impossible landscape—even those who had already heard about the circumstances of the second match.

The Mari Wastes.

Yet the once-level topography was twisted like a billowing wave, and the lithologic nature of the earth, previously dried out and littered with fissures, was condensed. A chill that changed the very weather still lingered.

However, today, they weren’t witnessing a fight from Lucnoca the Winter.

On top of the hills where, in the second match, two of history’s ultimate dragonkin faced off, there were now two different people standing there and waiting for the match to begin.

One of them could be easily picked out even without a monocular looking glass: the gigant Mele the Horizon’s Roar. His body was remarkably enormous, even among his own kin, with his height extending well over twenty meters tall. A colossal body piercing the sky.

The other one should’ve have been standing on a hill as well, but he couldn’t be seen. Shalk the Sound Slicer’s height was no different from any normal minia. The mercenary who’d slain Kazuki the Black Tone, a legendary champion known to all in Aureatia, was said to be this Shalk the Sound Slicer himself.

Their opening distance from each other was identical to the opening distance between Alus the Star Runner and Lucnoca the Winter. The space was set up with the flight speed of dragonkin in mind, but when compared with the maximum range of Mele’s arrows, it was also an extremely short distance.

Moments before the start of the match, Cayon the Skythunder, standing beside Mele the Horizon’s Roar, was peering through a monocular looking glass.

“The one over there, that’s Shalk the Sound Slicer. Can you see him? I certainly can’t.”

“Ohhh, that guy who looks like a walking rag? He’s so small, I can’t see ’im too well.”

“You better take this seriously now. Your opponent’s faster than Kazuki the Black Tone’s bullets. I haven’t checked anything out, got it? Get a good look at him yourself and fight it out.”

Aureatia’s Twenty-Fifth General, Cayon the Skythunder. The man who’d engineered this match at the Mari Wastes.

However, for this match, he hadn’t done anything beyond inducing the current terms of the duel with his information warfare. He could have secretly maneuvered to enact even more, but he hadn’t.

Things really would get dicey otherwise.

Cayon wasn’t a part of any of the major factions fighting the political war in Aureatia. Belonging neither to Rosclay’s camp nor Haade’s, he was battling in the Sixways Exhibition under his own personal motives.

The operation to intercept the Particle Storm, making use of Mele the Horizon’s Roar, had been another facet of his initial preparations. Utilizing his massive achievements from the successful operation, Cayon formed a secret pact of nonaggression with all the other camps. However, in exchange, Mele needed to be burdened with properly established matches in order to satisfy the bare minimum of what the Sixways Exhibition promised.

That was something that Cayon’s side wanted as well.

Why, winning without showing Mele’s fight to anyone—it’s completely out of the question.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar stood up and fixed his eyes on his enemy.

He had a gallant air and vigor that made him look like a completely different person from the Mele whom Cayon knew.

“Go out and win, Mele.”

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? I’ll blow your mind.”

“…Hmph. I’m cheering for you, okay?”

On the hill opposite Mele, Shalk the Sound Slicer and Hyakka the Heat Haze prepared for the start of the battle.

His tiny frame shivering in the Mari Wastes’ cold air, Hyakka moaned.

“H-he’s…looking at us.”

Mele the Horizon’s Roar was clearly visible as he stood on the other side. Hyakka was looking squarely at the gigant, who was readying himself for a fight. That mean that he was within the range of death, with all chance of evasion impossible.

“You’ll be able to avoid it, right?! We may be this far away, but I can tell he’s focusing his sights on us! He’ll fire an arrow right as the match begins! Mele’s vision is special!”

“I get it. Move.”

The enemy obviously had Shalk’s figure, smaller than a speck, in his sights. Shalk had swallowed the disadvantageous terms to the match, but that definitely wasn’t because he scorned Mele’s strength. It was the opposite.

Since his opponent was the most gifted long-range fighter in the land, then if he, holding nothing but a single spear in his heads, was then able to get inside Mele’s melee range…

…Who am I? This time, I might find out for sure.

Shalk the Sound Slicer was strong. He remained oblivious to the reason why.

The strength was there to fight against something. That much he was sure of. Given that he was a construct…someone out there in the world created Shalk the Sound Slicer in order to defeat an enemy that only someone with his strength could oppose.

It was possible that this enemy was the True Demon King. It could have been something different, but similarly strong. Perhaps it was even Mele the Horizon’s Roar himself.

This was why he continued to fight as a mercenary.

Putting his entire being on the line, he kept fighting those who were close to this fundamental principle of his being. More than knowing the name of the True Hero, he felt that this was what would get him closer to the true identity he so desperately desired.

Beyond that, it was win or die.

“…You have to win,” Hyakka quietly murmured at Shalk’s back. “If you don’t win, pride, stubbornness—it won’t mean anything. Isn’t that right, Shalk?!”

“…Get outta the way. You’ll get hit by the arrow.”

Hyakka was speaking the truth. Shalk thought so.

If he didn’t fight with everything he had, he wouldn’t be able to realize his wishes. Then should he end up losing, nothing would be left. His answer only lay beyond the true line between life and death.

He defied the norms. Even Shalk himself understood that.

“You’re going to make me say it a third time?” asked Shalk.

“……”

He made the nuisance Hyakka evacuate. No matter where he was in the vast Mari Wastes, as long Mele could turn his eyes toward him, he risked death. Especially right here next to Shalk once the match started.

“…All right, then, come at me.”

The only thing that would remain behind would be the frozen loneliness.

He readied his spear, stark white, parallel to the ground. Mele’s bow, opposite him, was black darkness.

The stone pillar that had been used as a sundial to signal the match’s start had been destroyed in the tremendous battle prior.

A brief silence passed between them.

Fireworks, instead of a starting gun, began the match.

—It’s coming.

Far off, hazy in the pale-blue air, Shalk could see Mele pick up his bow. During Shalk’s subjective view of the time frame, he had gotten in his stance to rush at full speed far before Mele had begun.

He had stripped off one of his two layers of rags and tossed it behind him. A decoy, little more than self-comfort. However, assuming the gigant’s eyes were drawn to it even just once, at this long range, it would then be impossible for him to keep track of Shalk’s real movements.

Together with his acceleration, Shalk the Sound Slicer transformed into a belt-like trail.

Godlike speed impossible of any living creature that the average person couldn’t even visually recognize.

It’s already coming. Fast.

With thoughts keeping up with his speed, Shalk had recognized it.

The arrow. The mass of Mele’s first shot, like a tower closing in.

He didn’t take the bait. It’s following me. Twenty paces in range. Seven. Now—

The air screamed like a lightning strike.

The terrifyingly massive and boiling-hot earthen arrow passed through Shalk’s position.

The speed as it pierced the atmosphere was so great, the soil burned from the high temperature of the adiabatic compression. The arrow passing through the surface was enough to melt the ground, which had been frozen over, bedrock and all, by a dragon’s breath.

A carved-out ditch extended in a clean straight line to the horizon, and even after the arrow stuck into the ground, it signaled that the unobstructed destruction had been etched into the topography.

“…Hold up now.”

Shalk, escaping to a point slightly removed from the arrow’s flight path, became freshly cognizant of his enemy’s might.

He had seen the trajectory. He had seen the moment of impact, too. Even evading it wasn’t impossible.

However, it was monstrous. A voice, half-appalled and half marveling, slipped out of his mouth.

“Trying to cremate me here, are you?”

He knew from this attack that instantaneous destructive force wasn’t what he truly needed to fear.

It was that, from a distance far enough away for the atmosphere to haze, Mele had accurately caught Shalk the Sound Slicer’s movements, without being tricked by the decoy…and to go even further, he’d successfully calculated Shalk’s supernatural agility and led his shot at where Shalk would end up.

I had been on guard to see if he would match up with my speed or not, but if I moved carelessly, it would’ve been all over with that first arrow.

His first act to try to close the distance between Mele and himself hadn’t been made at Shalk’s max speed. In the moment the arrow hit its target, he had been able to increase his speed one step further and avoid the ace shot.

Shalk’s speed was neck and neck with the size of the arrows’ moving inertia, and he was fully aware from the start that against the overwhelming area of attack of such a colossal arrow, dodging with a clever last-minute change in direction would be meaningless.

It meant he needed to constantly surmount a calamity more terrifying than lightning with just simple speed.

Three geographic reliefs I can see from here. Hide behind one of them, then I can cut off his line of sight, at the very least. Right now, he’s nocking an arrow… He’s creating them with Craft Arts. There’s an interval between shots. If I use the reliefs and move at top speed—two shots. If I can stave off two shots, then I’ll be at his throat.

Shalk’s thoughts boasted the same abnormal speed as his movements. He could observe the process Mele took to nock an arrow, but to the average person, it all went by in the span of a single second.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar. The minian-race champion who saved Sine Riverstead.

However, looking at him from Shalk’s distance, he seemed like a mechanism of disaster given minian shape, wielding power easily capable of bringing ruin to everything within his bow range. A mountain moves, and life ends.

Even with his colossal frame, due to the long distance between the two, Shalk couldn’t grasp the gigant’s finer motions.

Conversely, Mele was watching Shalk’s preliminary motions down to the littlest twitch.

Including his initial movement when he began to run. Just then, the next arrow flew—

In that moment, Shalk’s trajectory reversed.

After visually confirming the arrow’s release, he didn’t continue forward and retreated farther away from Mele instead.

“What in the world?!”

Sitting far off in a carriage and watching over the course of events, Hyakka couldn’t suppress his shout.

Even a child could understand it was a bad move to go away from someone skilled in long-range combat like Mele. It was a move that went horribly against standard strategy.

The line of destruction once again licked the ground.

It threw up clouds of frozen soil as it carved its destruction, but it didn’t, of course, hit Shalk, having hidden which direction he would advance with his monstrously explosive speed.

“…Can you see me real well?”

For now, he had made his move. Shalk called out to his enemy, who could not hear him.

“The better sights you got on someone, the more you’re supposed to get tripped up by feints.”

While he dampened his movement by stabbing his white spear into the ground, Shalk hadn’t taken his sights off Mele.

He watched his enemy’s initial motions, moved after he saw them, and reacted according to said movements.

This was the fighting style that Shalk the Sound Slicer had always utilized. If he made his enemy act first and could observe it properly with his ultra-high-speed thinking, he could then come up with the perfect countermeasures against any opponent.

It was at that moment.

At three points simultaneously, streaks of lightning rained down from beyond the sky.

At least, that was the only thing Shalk’s perception registered it as.

The earth burst and split open together with terrifyingly resonant earthquakes, and heated soil and gravel erupted like a volcano up to the clouds. The blast wave didn’t stop.

“……”

Three points. He had never even thought about it.

The arrows hit the three areas Shalk had, mere moments prior, considered as possible places where he could hide himself.

Did that mean Mele had shot them to the heavens, to make them land with a slight delay?

If Shalk hadn’t reversed course, instead electing to dodge the first arrow and close in on Mele…then the very moment he hid behind cover after evading the first shot…

No. Him seeing through my ideas isn’t that big of a problem. What the hell was that? It’s impossible.

The essence behind it wasn’t Mele’s eyes, which could fully grasp the flow of the terrain; nor his combat judgment, which could accurately track Shalk’s thoughts; nor was it even the precision of his archery, freely manipulating his arrow’s descent through the sky.

Three spots at once? All this power…

There was a lot of distance between them. Even though he watched out for the moment Mele fired, Shalk’s vision couldn’t get any handle on what sort of movements the gigant’s hands were making.

It meant that, just as Shalk had done himself, Mele, too, had techniques to beguile what his movements were when firing. Even then, that wasn’t the essence of it, either.

And he shot four times?

Many people knew about Mele the Horizon’s Roar. He was the most tremendous archer in the land.

His fierce arrow fire of unparalleled accuracy had always shot down whatever target he aimed at with a single arrow.

Thus, no one had ever even imagined it.

That Mele the Horizon’s Roar could shoot his bow rapid-fire.

Shalk the Sound Slicer was faster than any other being in the world.

Even if the distance was far-off in the horizon, he could quickly cross it as if he was cutting across a garden. Even in this current battle, that fact hadn’t changed.

It had simply lost all meaning.

He’s far.

Shalk was calculating his distance from Mele. How much he would have to dodge certain death until he reached the gigant’s feet, hazy on the very edge of the horizon.

Neither distance nor speed were concerned when it came to the concept of “farness” on this battle.

There was a single standard to measure: how many times Shalk would need to avoid Mele’s attacks before he reached his destination.

The boundless space separating Shalk and Mele, completely and without exception, was a death zone.

He could make at least four rapid shots in a single breath. At this point, Shalk should have quintupled his estimations about the number of arrows Mele would fire until Shalk reached him.

Nah. He can probably get off more than four shots, and I don’t even have any cover to break his line of sight. My means of escape are dwindling one after another.

When he arrived at that thought, he had already begun to run. There was a chance he was too late.

He couldn’t use the areas of cover that had been drilled by the sky-falling arrows. There was likely nothing left behind but a black pit, without any footing to speak of.

The soil and sand were soaring like volcanic smoke from the three points, and not all of it had fallen back down to the ground yet.

Shalk had an urge to hide himself in the shadow of the dust cloud.

I know. It’s a trap, isn’t it?

The scenery on the left and right melted like a light sugar syrup in Shalk’s vision as he ran at godlike speeds.

He could make out Mele readying his next arrow from afar. He accelerated both his legs and his thoughts.

Though the cloud of dust would block Mele’s view, it wasn’t actual cover. Mele had an attack radius that was capable of instantly killing a target just by aiming broadly in its vicinity. If Mele shot at him through the smoke screen, Shalk would be erased in a single attack.

He ran. He continued running right on through. Was there any possible plan for Shalk?

He didn’t hide in the dirt smoke screen and close in; the instant he hid inside, he cut back and dodged.

Shalk gambled on leaving a decoy behind, hiding his own body and leading Mele to lose sight of him.

Predictable.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar was strong even without aiming. That one point was unmistakable.

Combining transcendental precision with his unreal attack radius and speed was, as a combat technique, excessive to begin with.

In a place like Sine Riverstead, lacking any enemy that required using such technique, Shalk couldn’t possibly imagine exactly what sort of enemy had warranted such devoted training of his craft.

He had no choice but to close the distance in a straight line. He had to move faster than his maximum speed.

He continued to run.

Even as he went through all these thoughts one after another, to everything outside Shalk, it all happened in an instant.

He’s not firing in my direction.

Mele had stopped Shalk in his tracks by demolishing anywhere safe, kicking up clouds of dirt, and showing off for the first time to anyone his trump card: his rapid-fire archery. There was a single second until Shalk rushed off and began thinking again.

It wasn’t that Mele hadn’t fired.

In that time that he stopped Shalk’s ultra-high-speed running, Mele had already fired.

Mid acceleration, Shalk gazed up at the deep-blue sky.

He saw a straight, sideways line of twinkling and terrifying midday stars.

The same as before. Rapid-fire shots to drill vertically into the ground. This guy’s…

The row of arrows rained down on the ground up ahead of him. Seven uninterrupted shots.

Shalk perceived their trajectory with a slowed-down sense of time, like the moments before death. For someone long dead like him, perhaps that was the only world he’d ever be able to see.

Turning to face the raining meteor swarm, Shalk plunged into it himself.

He was destined to be unable to obtain what he sought unless on the brink of death.

He tilted deeply forward. Smoothly and sharply, to the absolute limit.

…trying to split apart the damn terrain.

Mele changed the first rapid-fire volley, destroying three places he foresaw as potential points of shelter into groundwork for his next move.

His real aim was, through destructively drilling into the earth and connecting the three previous holes together, to create a completely unassailable cliff in the Mari Wastes.

Creating geography itself that would seal off his enemy’s approach and allow him alone to continue his one-sided offensive. Once that happened, Shalk wouldn’t have any hope left to win. They were frighteningly levelheaded tactics that left no chance to be undone.

Not only that, but these tactics also hadn’t been planned from the start, either. It would have meant that he had derived a means of certain victory, enacted only after seeing Shalk’s move to instead put more distance between them, with a decision-making speed on par with Shalk’s mobility.

A damn monster. Mele the Horizon’s Roar. What a bastard.

If he didn’t make it before the division, he would die.

If he was directly hit by the destructive rain, he would die.

Even if he climbed over the precipice of death, if he then couldn’t escape the destruction’s radius, he would die.

He raced. He tilted forward. Ever deeper. Ever faster.

Shalk was a skeleton who could transform himself in ways that were impossible for any normal bone structure. He was capable of various tricks, like combining his right and left arms instantly to extend the throwing range of his spear. In his skeletal structure, he had movement joints in his ribs, his hip bone, and even his skull. His movement was fluid. Exact.

Though the shape was impossible for anyone to understand due to his speed transcending all perception, it was similar to the aircraft of the Beyond. At the very least, it wasn’t the shape of any minian at all.

Tilting forward to the limit. Rushing on all fours like a beast, Shalk housed his skull and his white spear inside his own rib cage. The gaps in his bones were closed and blocking airflow, and with his whole body changing into a sharp, streamlined shape, he cut through the sound barrier.

Shalk the Sound Slicer was a spear himself.

Light rained from the sky, piercing the crust and exploding. There was a blast directly ahead of him and off to the right.

The falling stars continued one after another, trying to fragment the ground as they landed.

The second impact. The third. The fourth.

They were close. Closing in. He himself continued to get closer.

The fifth. The sixth.

Shalk perpendicularly intersected the destruction that had now drawn up directly beside him.

Now. He had crossed over the fragmenting line dividing life and death.

Not yet.

The seventh shot landed at his back. The destruction was catching up with him.

Though not hit directly, he had entered the arrow’s attack radius.

Through the rocks and pebbles flying about wildly, he got a glimpse of Mele the Horizon’s Roar. His stance following a shot. Already, a fresh arrow.

Shalk had slipped through the final brief opening in the raining row of destruction.

Surely Mele had assumed there was such a possibility. From in front came the eighth shot.

“I get it.”

Mele had, from the very beginning of the fight, continued to fire shots that gouged out the earth.

That was because, as long as one stood in their path, the line of destruction they drew would be lethal.

Against Shalk the Sound Slicer and his transcendental mobility in a land battle, Mele understood that shots aimed precisely at a single point were impossible.

As it annihilated the path forward before him, the eighth arrow was closing in right before Shalk’s eyes.

It was a direct line of destruction that completely blocked off Shalk’s route of evacuation, which had been led into the position from the fragmenting arrows before it.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar was an archer.

Even if his enemy wasn’t going to be finished off in one shot, he knew the tricks to chase his prey into a corner with his attacks.

Shalk grabbed a large rock fragment flying toward him from behind.

Kicking off the ground and jumping high, he evaded the eighth arrow just in time.

He needed to.

“From the beginning, this was…your…!”

Mele had repeatedly caused lines of destruction and hadn’t aimed at a single point.

—In order to instill the impression in Shalk that the air was his last route of escape.

Shalk had jumped off the ground. The ultrafast spearman couldn’t evade in midair without footing.

And there came the ninth arrow, aimed at a single point in midair.

Going back moments in time. Right after Shalk had reversed course and the three arrows reached the ground.

Mele had released seven arrows straight up into the air, without waiting for Shalk’s next movements.

One shot matching up with the beginning of Shalk’s high-speed maneuvering. One shot he had dodged by reversing course. Three shots to destroy the terrain.

And now seven arrows, one right after another.

Unfaltering movements, free of any hesitation, as if decided on from the very start.

“Merre io mali. Akovst. Renterte. Nakkotay. Torfarmict.” (From Mele to Mali soil. Conduit. Sunlight and claw. Undulation. Extend.)

Mele incanted his Craft Arts and made another pillar-like earthen arrow. As long as there was soil he could use for Word Arts, his quiver was endless.

“Say, Mele. You’re not using your iron arrows at all?”

Surprisingly, Cayon hadn’t fled and remained at Mele’s side.

Sitting down on a boulder, he wore a faint smile as he gazed at Mele’s ongoing fight.

“These were a real pain to bring here, you know,” said Cayon.

The iron arrows that Cayon mentioned were colossal iron pillars stuck vertically into the ground. The ultra-heavyweight mass of iron, able to stop a flood in a single shot, had been carried from the Needle Forest at Sine Riverstead as Mele’s trump card in the Sixways Exhibition.

“I’m concentrating here.”

Mele’s reply was short.

From Cayon’s vantage point, he couldn’t see Shalk the Sound Slicer’s figure. He was practically nonexistent, smaller than a piece of dust—and on top of that, he was running at a speed beyond all minian comprehension.

Mele hadn’t lost sight of his target once and even managed to read all his opponent’s movements.

Mele. I was right. You really are unbelievably strong.

Cayon gazed up at the sky to see seven streaks of fire raining down to the ground.

Then like a meteoric curtain, the lines pierced into the ground and split it into two.

Amid the earth rumbling, as if the end of days had arrived, Cayon thought the burning light was beautiful.

He had shot down dragons.

He had crossed blades with gigant.

The sort of fights that had become myth were everyday struggles in the age Mele had lived in.

He was always optimistically smiling. He enjoyed the moments of struggle, expending all his energy to make sure that whenever he died, he didn’t leave any regrets behind. If he lost, he could smile at being defeated by someone strong enough to surpass him and die without any lingering feelings.

The weak tearfully feared death, but for the strong, even death was something to be proud of.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar had been in the middle of the conflict spiral. The strong who slew many enemies with their superb power were defeated by those even stronger. Or the clever, able to take hold of advantageous positions and golden opportunities for themselves, were defeated by the even cleverer.

The first races of the world—the dragons and gigant—were said not to die from old age. To them, dying in battle was the true and rightful way to die.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar was a warrior who had fought through and survived this spiraling age.

He hadn’t hesitated to put his life on the line, but the fact that he had still managed through it made him proud. It wasn’t the life of a coward, seized while fleeing in constant terror. The life at the terminus of conflict became proof in and of itself that he was stronger than all.

…Which was why some settlement of minian wholly ignorant of battle should’ve been completely insignificant.

Mari Wastes. Shalk the Sound Slicer had accelerated even faster to dodge the first arrow launched right after the start of the match.

He was fast. Even Mele’s eyes, able to distinguish everything down to the smallest tree nut on the edge of the horizon and determine the complex floodwater currents, could only continue to chase his movements. The only option was to anticipate his movements and guess.

“He’s strong, all right. Real wild bastard.”

Mele smirked, turning up one side of his mouth. It was a ferocious smile that he had never worn in Sine Riverstead.

He had reclaimed his life from that bygone time. The vivid brilliance of a life of honor, filled with euphoria. That fire that he thought he had lost from living peacefully in Sine Riverstead had now, at long last, been kindled again inside his soul.

Aaah. Those hills over there…

Mele was already shooting four arrows.

…are all in the way.

Three of them were aimed at the terrain his enemy was likely to utilize in his approach.

The three arrows, launched up into the heavens, came slightly after the one he had fired at Shalk himself, erasing the three hills from the topography. Pierced vertically, they swelled up and exploded.

By Mele the Horizon’s Roar’s standards, even colossal geographic features were the same as any other obstruction.

He chased Shalk the Sound Slicer’s movements with his eyes. The skeleton had backed off. He’d deceived him with his movements and evaded.

From this distance…he had done that by using the fact that Mele could see all the moves he’d made.

“Real damn strong.”

Mele smiled.

He was always optimistically smiling. Not because he was confident in his victory.

It was a smile of bliss about being once again in the spiral of conflict.

“Perfect. All right, Shalk. I’ll tear you apart and take the whole world down with ya.”

Smiling the whole while, he released seven arrows up into the air.

Like a child tearing up clay work with their fingers, Mele could divide up the world itself with his arrows.

Craft Arts. He created several fresh arrows all at once.

“Merre io mali. Akovst. Renterte. Nakkotay. Torfarmict.” (From Mele to Mali soil. Conduit. Sunlight and claw. Undulation. Extend.)

“Say, Mele. You’re not using your iron arrows at all? These were a real pain to bring here, you know.”

“I’m concentrating here.”

Cayon was still standing there? The thought flashed in the corner of his mind.

He could leave him for later. His experience from ancient times, surviving through life-and-death struggles, was largely moving Mele’s body automatically.

Mele had already let twelve arrows fly.

No matter how far back in his history he went, he had never gone through so many arrows on a single target before.

Shalk wasn’t a dragon. Not even another gigant. He was a nameless construct and a dead man, his identity unknown to everyone.

Nevertheless, Shalk the Sound Slicer was the same type of enemy as back then.

An opponent that Mele the Horizon’s Roar had always longed for, one he could battle with his full strength without needing to protect anything.

“You’re a real strong one, Shalk the Sound Slicer!”

Mele loosed his eighth arrow. At this point, without even looking, he was able to aim at the spot he assumed Shalk would end up, likely having the arrow pass through terrain itself. He nocked the next arrow.

There wasn’t a single hesitation in Mele’s movements. This still wasn’t enough to finish off his enemy.

Because Shalk was strong. Without fail, his enemy found the optimal solution.

The eighth arrow left him a path to escape into the air. Mele fired the ninth arrow to hit that exact point. The ninth arrow continued after the eighth, chasing its shadow. They succeeded like flowing water. Two releases, made in what seemed nearly one single motion.

More.

He nocked the next arrow.

You’re strong, ain’t ya? I know you can do it!

It was physically impossible to evade the ninth arrow, aimed at a specific point in midair.

However. If on the off chance there was some sort of method left to survive Mele’s arrow—if Shalk the Sound Slicer was indeed that sort of enemy—nothing would have made him happier.

The tenth arrow was aimed at where Shalk would land. He steadied his sights.

Shalk pierced through a dust cloud from the fragmenting terrain and appeared.

The eighth arrow was already close to arriving at the spot where the skeleton reappeared.

The white spearman jumped and dodged it.

Exactly as Mele predicted, the most optimal and fastest option for evasion.

“—”

As if intersecting with his trajectory, the ninth arrow arrived in midair. An arrow with force that made defense impossible.

Even if Shalk managed to successfully hold out, the tenth arrow was heading for the skeleton’s landing point. Mele assembled his next arrow.

“Merre io mali. Sai fartari. Nemkau— (From Mele to Mali soil. Unstuck bramble. Frozen sea—)”

At that moment, there was a strange phenomenon.

“—jin a tol (bug and moon)— What?”

Shalk appeared to dodge the ninth arrow in midair.

The trajectory of his jump made an inconceivable zigzag, and he landed diagonally forward.

As a result, the tenth arrow, aimed at his original touchdown point, didn’t hit its mark.

I ain’t ever seen that.

The movements went against reason. The sudden acceleration, far too unnatural to be explained by some sort of flight ability, much less by kicking off a piece of debris, had been done in midair, without any footing.

“Kanderkor.” (Extend.)

Mele finished his Word Arts incantation.

With his stunningly abnormal landing just now, Shalk was closing the distance to Mele more and more. His midair acceleration even made sure to propel him in a forward direction.

“—Ha! I haven’t…ever seen a guy like this before!”

Shalk’s ultra-high-speed rush began again. How many more arrows could he fire in the remaining distance?

“Mele. What is that…?”

Watching over the fight, Cayon gasped at the shape of the arrow Mele created.

It wasn’t a straight line. Like a gnarled tree branch, it was twisted and warped along the shaft, an impossibly deformed arrow.

A technique called Mystic Arrow. Naturally, it wasn’t meant for firing far off into the distance.

It was meant to kill an approaching enemy.

“Get crushed.”

In order to block Shalk’s advance, he fired it into the earth.

With a dreadful rotation, the arrow ricocheted off the ground and bent.

Its trajectory resembling a snake’s death throes, it thrashed, gouging the earth, whirling up, and pounding it.

An arrow of annihilation, bringing destruction not in a line but across an entire surface, returning every inch of the terrain to vacant, raw soil.

However.

“……!”

Mele pulled out one of the iron pillars nearby. He immediately nocked it and fired. Not a single thought had time to slip in.

The iron arrow landed right in front of him and largely destroyed the very hill he was standing on.

He had to.

In order to stop his enemy’s advance.

“…An iron arrow, eh?”

He could hear a voice from the shadow of the iron pillar after its impact.

A voice—this skeleton had now already gotten in close enough for Mele to hear his voice.

“This arrow’s a whole lot better behaved than that last one.”

He’d broken through the ruinous rapid fire that had sealed off all methods of survival.

He’d evaded the Mystic Arrow, which had irregularly raged amok, on first sight.

He had, at that very moment, turned the distance, an archer’s lifeline, into naught.

This man was inside his arrow’s firing range. Nevertheless.

The position where Shalk now stood was the line between life and death.

—Shalk the Sound Slicer was strong.

Stronger than anyone else Mele had encountered. More than any calamity he had seen.

More than any of mighty foes who lived in that age of spiraling conflict.

“Been waiting for ya.”

The gigant sneered.

The ninth arrow, aimed at Shalk in midair, had passed right over his head.

There was a change in Shalk’s trajectory after his jump. This emergency evasion was an ace up his sleeve he had carried with him secretly until he had reached this distance.

If Mele had suspected that Shalk had the means to do so, then he definitely would have countered it in kind.

This guy’s a damn monster. Way too strong.

Behind him. The tenth arrow touched down in his original landing spot.

If Shalk had made the slightest incorrect movement, he would’ve died, every part of him smashed into dust.

Too bad.

Just a bit farther to reach him—taking stock of this as he reaccelerated, a gloomy shadow loomed over Shalk’s heart.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar was a far more tremendous enemy than the legends, or Shalk’s own expectations, had made him out to be.

The truth to these gloomy emotions was the delight in standing before Mele the Horizon’s Roar and being able to battle with him.

As well as resignation.

I have to kill him.

This enemy couldn’t be beat without killing him.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar was too strong. Even if Shalk fully closed the distance between them, this enemy could surely bring out any number of sublime techniques to blast Shalk away.

If there was some method to outdo Mele in this match, it was to definitively end his life with a single strike exceeding the gigant’s reaction speed.

Amid these thoughts, the landscape around him changed into light passing him by.

Mele had launched the next arrow.

It wasn’t a rapid-fire volley. The interval between shots had been strangely long.

Facing the arrow, which was closing in with destructive relative velocity, Shalk tried to consider what the pause could mean.

He attempted to evade.

“!”

The arrow, piercing into the earth, was the one to thrash about and evade Shalk instead.

Twisting. Scattering. Snaking. Destruction.

Uh-oh.

He was surrounded.

This bizarre arrow had broken down the surrounding earth and lifted it up with its violent roiling. Shalk’s way forward was blocked by a large mass of rock, and he had no footing for himself on the continuously splitting and breaking ground. It wasn’t only in front of him, either. Right. Behind him to the left. He needed to decide in a split second on his alternative route.

Already accelerating close to his absolute limit, Shalk pulled out the white spear from his deformed bones and pierced the rock in front of him. Using the point of his thrust as a fulcrum, he made a sharp turn. A storm of rock, like buckshot, swept through the position he had just been standing in, scraping away everything with it.

The arrow. The arrow thrashing around. Where is its actual body?

Even in the midst of his high-speed turn, he could perceive the entire scene before him like a still-life painting transmitted piece by piece.

He confirmed the arrow diving into the ground about sixty meters up ahead of him. However, his high-speed senses alone couldn’t estimate how its irregular trajectory would jump about.

Right? Left? Would it leap back?

He never took his sights off the arrow’s movements. He sensed the initial motion as it began to reverse backward at super-high speed.

Don’t get taken in. I just need to cope with what I can see.

In any case, sight was the only sense that would be any help. The explosive sound of the ground being struck, rupturing, and scattering about encircled Shalk’s area. He needed to break through this hell, or he’d die.

The arrow reversed course. If anything, to chase after it…I need to go forward.

Both the arrow’s trajectory and the onrushing rocks were merely being perceived as elongated phenomena via his high-speed thought process. From the perspective of any other living creature, everything had occurred in just a second. If he could just ascertain the optimal path forward, Shalk would immediately be able to get out of range of this destructive surface attack.

He wouldn’t use any emergency methods like before. The boulders, their relative velocity slower when compared with Shalk himself, seemed to be frozen in the air. He kicked off them in midair and accelerated.

He landed on the flat ground in front of him. Even this piece of bedrock was waning away, and he was able to recognize anew that the previous arrow was an attack meant to destroy the very geography itself.

However, even if his footing crumbled away in an instant, in a world of blinding speeds, it was enough. He evaded a colossal boulder flying and closing in on him with a lower stance.

He raced through the middle of the crumbling maze on the flat rock bed, as fast as electric signals through nerve synapses.

The arrow that Shalk chased after also bounded in every direction. There were no surprises from the arrow itself.

Geographic division. Rapid-fire sniper attacks. The Mystic Arrow.

He had completely dealt with all the ranged attacks. Now he wouldn’t give Mele any time to nock the next arrow.

Shalk could very quickly get on top of the hill where Mele the Horizon’s Roar stood. Closing the distance at max speed, with one decisive attack—

A crackling shock ran through him.

“……!”

The bizarre arrow was flying right past Shalk.

Impossible.

He had only passed five paces behind it. He hadn’t been directly hit at all.

Nevertheless, against the raw power behind the arrows Mele shot, at this distance, evasion wasn’t an option. The wind pressure from the arrow’s passage alone tore off his right arm from the shoulder of his now half-length body and sent it flying.

Where the hell did that come from?

Up until that exact moment, he was supposed to have been tracking the actual body of the bounding arrow. It couldn’t possibly have gotten around behind him in an instant.

What was going on? He tried to comprehend things with his high-speed thinking.

“Ohhh.”

He understood immediately. The arrow that suddenly jumped out, digging up and smashing the surface behind him, had just been a fragmented piece of the tip.

The warped shape. Thrashing around and breaking apart. So it was a scatter shot from the very beginning.

No time was left for him to rejoin his arm.

He only had one arm left. Shalk ran.

“My body’s gotten…lighter now!”

Shalk went up the hill like a reverse lightning bolt. He readied his white spear and held it straight.

Just beforehand, he extended out all the bones in his body wide.

He pierced his spear into the flat ground. He forcibly slowed himself with the air turbulence.

Impact.

Right in front of his eyes, an iron pillar stuck out of the ground.

Abominable precision, right up to the very end.

Perhaps due to the instantaneous rapid release, there wasn’t much power to it. Even then, Shalk could tell the shock wave from the impact alone had made all the joints in his body creak.

“…An iron arrow, eh?”

With just a single arrow, a fissure ran through the hill, and the side of the level ground Shalk stood on dropped a little.

A quick shot to stop his advance and prevent him from getting close.

Cayon the Skythunder, his sponsor, had been at Mele’s side up until a few moments ago—he must have stopped Shalk from going farther like this to buy time for the man to escape.

“This arrow’s a whole lot better behaved than that last one.”

Which was why, for just long enough to make a sarcastic quip, Shalk decided to accommodate his adversary’s intentions.

“Been waiting for ya.”

Mele didn’t exploit the opening, either.

This was the first and the only conversation exchanged between the equally peerless skeleton and gigant.

“Merre io article. Wikognen.” (From Mele to Sartile needle. Move earth.)

At the same time as Mele’s incantation, Shalk stepped forward.

Fiercely flying out from the iron pillar’s shadow, he had arrived inside Mele’s bow range.

Mele the Horizon’s Roar was an archer skilled at long-range sniper fire.

A battlefield where he couldn’t keep space between himself and his opponent curbed this specialty.

However.

That didn’t mean that he wasn’t skilled at close-range combat, either.

“Amzst, fotima.” (Heaven’s clasp, raindrop.)

While still continuing his incantation, Mele held his black bow and dropped his waist low.

The colossal weight of a twenty-meter-tall gigant. He had the gargantuan strength to change the terrain itself. His movements, in proportion to his massive frame, were fast.

While his indestructible bow was like a supermassive hammer.

“—Slow.”

A huge mass of flesh flew off—it was Mele’s right thumb.

Cleaving his leg in a spiral, the white gust ascended.

Before the vast amount of blood could even wet the ground, the swift death god had reached Mele’s backbone.

It was faster than Mele could register the pain.

Shalk’s target was his spine.

“Far too slow.”

Naturally ruinous power. Overwhelming speed. A transcendental weapon. None of them held any meaning whatsoever.

It was impossible to perceive.

As long Shalk the Sound Slicer’s spear was within range, there was no longer any time to counter it.

Therefore, the only thing left…

“Lettemiks.” (Bloom.)

…was the speed of the mind.

The iron pillar that had just impaled the earth. It was a vessel that Mele the Horizon’s Roar trusted more than any other and felt the most familiar with, resonating with him. His Word Arts could immediately communicate with it.

The mass of the tremendous pillar instantly transformed.

Wire—

The iron pillar split apart into countless pieces and came undone.

An enormous and fine wave of wire closed in.

Right before Shalk could deliver the coup de grâce—Shalk, holding fast on to Mele’s back, was forced to give up on his attack and dodge. This wasn’t like any bullet or arrow. He wouldn’t be able to evade the wire through the gaps in his bones.

If the wires passed through the openings and tangled in his bones, Shalk the Sound Slicer would be incapacitated.

This guy…

He dodged. Jumping off Mele’s massive body, he escaped the space as it began to be blanketed over.

Mele had begun incanting Word Arts from the very start. His real goal hadn’t been a close-range brawl with his black bow, but these iron wires.

…used his own body to slow me down!

Below his eyes was an eternally extending sea of iron wire. Shalk dangled down from his spear, stabbed into Mele’s thigh, and was just barely holding out in midair.

If he fell, he’d stop. Coming to a stop before Mele the Horizon’s Roar meant death.

He had to dig hard into Mele’s body once more and stab deeply into his spinal cord. Either that or sever his main artery.

Even from this position, grabbing on solely with his arms, if Shalk transformed his body, then one more time…

Just a little…

Even that chance collapsed with what happened next.

An intense impact and acceleration assaulted Shalk’s body, and he was thrown into the air.

The tip of his spear, which he’d thought had sunken deep into Mele’s body, cast a futile arc in midair.

Shalk kicked his high-speed thoughts into gear. He had to think through what exactly just happened.

Mele jumped.

The action, nigh unbelievable when considering the gigant’s appearance, had sent Shalk’s body flying off its vise grip.

Mele’s initial move to lower his body hadn’t been to attack, but to prepare for this leap.

He went high. From high up in the air, Mele looked down over Shalk.

From the moment Shalk had stepped in to melee range, Shalk was instead backed into danger—

No.

The sea of iron wire was descending. The iron wire, pulsating as it expanded, tangled in Shalk’s left arm. He had now been blocked from throwing the spear in his hand, too.

If he had his right arm. If he had just the slightest bit of time to stab with his spear.

…That’s not it.

He didn’t have the time to brandish his spear to throw.

He didn’t have the time to sever the iron wire and escape.

He didn’t have the time to detach his bones and then reconstruct them.

“…No… There’s no way I’m slow…!”

The massive shadow blocking the sky got ready. To Mele, who was looking down from the heavens, the airspace Shalk descended through and the entire scenery laid out below—was in range of his cataclysmal bow.

The line of death—his line of sight. In the backlight of the sun behind him, only the light of his two eyes glared.

Which was why Shalk could fix his aim on them.

Shalk launched his white spear.

“You’re far—”

The white flash streaked and pierced the gigant’s left eye.

It was a perfectly motionless release, faster than Mele’s bow.

Immediately after. The arrow, launched together with a low groan, grazed Shalk and blasted his left leg off.

Before then annihilating the ground below.

“That’s all!”

The colossus fell. Shalk, too, having lost all his weapons, was sinking down into the sea of iron wire.

…If those eyes of yours aren’t hollow holes like mine here.

How was Shalk the Sound Slicer, supposedly with all the methods at his disposal cut off, able to drill into Mele the Horizon’s Roar’s left eye? The inexplicable phenomenon had occurred at an earlier stage of the fight than that.

Shalk had dodged the ninth arrow, shot with full foresight into his evasion route, with abnormal midair mobility. With neither recoil from kicking debris nor some flight ability, he had been able to instantaneously and acutely change his trajectory angle.

The principle Shalk used for midair control was the recoil stemming from a powerful action.

Shalk the Sound Slicer launched the heavy stone debris secured right before his jump directly behind him and, like the rocket engines of the Beyond, gained reaction-based propulsion midjump without any footing.

Launching debris at high speed for emergency evasion. Launching his white spear to decide the fight.

The truth behind it all was the ultimate trump card Shalk had secretly brought to the match.

Right after the start of the match, why had Shalk mysteriously reversed course away from Mele?

Was the move not just to catch his enemy off guard, or was there some aim behind the movement itself?

What if he had known from the very start that there was something there at the spot he had shifted toward?

I even got a look at Alus the Star Runner’s treasures, too!

“Heshed Elis the Fire Pipe…”

Shalk the Sound Slicer’s entire body was tangled in the iron wire. At this point, he could no longer move. He had let go of his white spear, too.

“…is what it’s called, apparently. Alus the Star Runner’s treasure. Just wanted to make sure I told you that it wasn’t that my skills bested yours.”

One of the magic items that Alus had used right before Hidow the Clamp led everyone to evacuate.

Merely an iron pipe, not even loaded with gunpowder, it could shoot any object that touched the tip of its barrel with bullet-like speeds. It was a magical gun that had launched Alus out of range of Lucnoca’s breath with power to spare.

Shalk had thought of two possibilities after gaining info on the second match from the tavern scoundrels—the first was that Lucnoca the Winter had made a direct hit, and Heshed Elis the Fire Pipe had been disintegrated as well.

Then there was the other. The possibility that after firing off Alus’s body, Heshed Elis the Fire Pipe itself had also been launched outside the breath attack from the recoil.

Mari Wastes had been decided on for the seventh match.

If Alus the Star Runner’s magical items were still stuck in the ground, then would Shalk be able to use them? Keeping his eyes on the area he estimated it’d landed and observing the bottom of the hill from before the match started was what made it possible for Shalk to come across the item.

It may have been the briefest moment possible. But in it had been a nigh-endless back-and-forth.

Just how closely had Shalk the Sound Slicer escaped his demise?

If he hadn’t reversed back for the Fire Pipe, Mele would have seen through his potential areas of shelter, then Shalk would’ve taken his rapid-fire volley and died.

If the distance separating them had been just a bit farther apart, the terrain would have been divided apart, and he would have died.

If the arrow that had thrashed across the ground had moved differently, he would’ve died from a coincidental collision.

In the end, if the throw he’d aimed at Mele’s eyeball had missed the mark, the arrow fired in return would’ve killed him.

“Can’t stand up, Mele?”

He looked at Sine Riverstead’s champion, collapsed on the ground and unmoving.

The conversation they’d exchanged had been a brief, single back-and-forth.

“…Well then. You were one hell of an opponent.”

Nevertheless, Shalk felt like he understood Mele.

What the man was proud of, why he had fought.

Shalk turned around. He had to retrieve the other arm he had lost along the way.

“I’ll let you have that spear. Mele the Horizon’s Roar.”

The seventh match was over. Shalk the Sound Slicer walked alone, blending in with the nighttime hustle and bustle.

He would go on living as if he was a low-class scoundrel.

Even as he won against champions, standing colossal above all others, he didn’t need a single one of the glamorous luxuries of a champion.

…There’s some who purposely wish to become a monster. Like a totally different creature… Merciless, without pain or fear, solely dedicated to battle…

Mele the Horizon’s Roar had surely been that way.

He had fought like an incarnation of calamity and turned into carnage itself, his face looking completely different from the one he wore as the guardian of Sine Riverstead.

That couldn’t have been out of hatred or loathing toward Shalk himself. Mele had been happy to have that sort of battle.

I’m the same type of monster. Unchanging, from the moment I was born.

—Who exactly was Shalk the Sound Slicer?

“But I get it now,” he quietly murmured. The answer was certainly out there. Somewhere out there in the world, in the middle of battle.

“I… I really do need this fight.”

Fighting. It may have been the only thing Shalk the Sound Slicer was capable of, but he certainly wasn’t a lonely creature. There were indeed others like him in this land, and by continuing to fight, he had to eventually be able to learn the truth behind his identity, the identity he’d lost in death.

He would continue battling in this Sixways Exhibition. The skeleton, unknown to anyone and who didn’t find anything necessary at all, had at last obtained a desire of his own.

Shalk had the next match to fight. Was he supposed to get a new spear for himself?

Perhaps he could have Hyakka buy him a present.

Mixed in the city crowds, Shalk felt his hand settling on something.

The sensation made it clear what it was.

A white spear.

The one that he had lost in the middle of his fight.

Something surprised him even more than this fact.

Although he was mixed in with the crowd—was there someone who pushed through a gap in Shalk’s consciousness to hand something over to him?

Someone, only as tall as Shalk’s thigh, seemed to pass right by his side.

They spoke.

“…Alena?”

The ooze-like silhouette slipped into the flow of the crowd and disappeared.

Shalk probably could have followed after him.

With Shalk the Sound Slicer’s speed, surely both catching up and searching around to locate him would have been easier than spotting the moon in the night sky.

He didn’t pursue.

With the white spear still in his hand, he couldn’t even turn back around.

It was an name he didn’t know.

Nor was there any name like it in his memory as a skeleton.

“……………………”

The seventh match was decided.

“…Why’re you sleeping? Get up.”

Cayon sat down beside Mele, who remained collapsed on the ground, motionless.

All the onlookers who had watched the match were already nowhere to be seen.

The caravan that Shalk and Hyakka had boarded was likely back in Aureatia by now.

The magnificent battle to the death was settled, and there was nothing but silence over the frozen land.

“You are really such an idiot.”

Aureatia’s Twenty-Fifth General. Cayon the Skythunder.

Though a famed general, superbly resourceful and valiant, living through battles fierce enough to lose an arm, there were not many who knew his true origins.

The evening sun illuminating the chilled wastes also shone light on Cayon’s cheeks.

“Why— Why didn’t you fight…? You’re this strong, so why? You wanted to fight, didn’t you?”

There were a number of scars, bored by Mele’s bow, carved into the Mari Wastes. Was there any other champion in this planet’s history, besides Mele the Horizon’s Roar, who was capable of performing such a feat with a bow and arrow?

He was a warrior. He’d left Sine Riverstead, and indeed, he had fought.

The champion’s power, which had beaten back the True Demon King themselves, had been put on display for all the people to witness.

“You’re such an idiot.”

Even if he wasn’t the hero who’d defeated the True Demon King.

Cayon wanted to boast that Sine Riverstead’s true champion really did exist.

Cayon wanted to show him fighting at full strength. The mightiest archer in the land.

No matter what sort of other schemes he could have pulled over, that alone would have been enough.

He buried his head in his arm.

He had his back turned to Mele, just like he had on that day.

“…Give it a rest already.”

Cayon heard a voice.

“You got it all wrong. I don’t want a runt like you giving me crap,” Mele said…sounding displeased and still lying down on his back.

Cayon was at a loss for words, and he looked at Mele, who still had his eyes closed.

His tearful face twisted into a smile.

“Ha… Ah-ha-ha…! What the hell are you sleeping for…?”

“’Cause getting up’s a pain, why else?”

“You could’ve kept fighting after all.”

“Damn right. May as well’ve been stabbed with a toothpick. That bastard Shalk the Sound Slicer’s got a lotta nerve acting like a tough guy… Who the hell’d want a puny spear like this?”

His right leg had been pierced deep enough that he couldn’t stand, and his left eye was pulverized. Even with such terrible wounds, Mele the warrior could’ve continued to fight.

He was supposed to have been wishing for just such a fight for so long. Cayon could tell.

Closer to him than anyone else, he had seen Mele’s face and the exhilaration in his heart.

No matter how close danger loomed, Cayon had an obligation to watch such a fight unfurl.

“What the hell, then? It was just stuff some kids said; you should’ve just forgotten all about it… E-everyone…called you a champion…”

“Gwa-ha-ha-ha-ha… Then don’t cry about it, runt. You ain’t gonna grow taller like that.”

Still lying on his back, the gigant reached out his hand and rubbed Cayon with his pointer finger.

—Even then, Mele had stopped fighting.

Even as he hungered for the spiral of conflict, he hadn’t truly thrown his everything into the genuine duel to the death.

“Mele… You were… You were a true champion, but… I’m sorry, Mele…”

Had the peaceful days with the villagers weakened Mele?

If he had spent all his time fighting, would he have been able to live the past two hundred and fifty years without knowing the hunger in his soul?

Even if he had never made his promise with Ilieh long ago, could he have continued to fire his arrows up at the shining stars every night without fail?

No. Surely that wasn’t true.

Everything had made Mele the champion stronger. None of it was pointless.

“Hell if I care. Whatever you chirped at me… I forgot all about it a long time ago. So smile.”

The gigant almost never called the children, even tinier than the already small minia, by their names.

It was perhaps because he feared growing too attached to the lives of such weak creatures.

…However, he remembered them. Forever. Without a single exception.

“Go on, Misna. Smile.”

He was always optimistically smiling.

Match seven. Winner, Shalk the Sound Slicer.