Episode 200
The avatar of Master Baro, the Blade of Death.
A Pierrot stood there.
It was a clown wearing a ridiculous mask, with countless strings dangling from his fingers, each imbued with a blood-red aura.
One of those wires was tightly coiled around Dale’s aura blade, blocking it.
“A Pierrot, huh? In a way, it’s quite fitting.”
Dale chuckled bitterly at the sight. But Master Baro did not laugh.
“Now, you might lose your head without even realizing it.”
The Pierrot with the mask spoke. A clown that did not smile. Beneath his eyes, white and black tears were painted in ink.
Master Baro moved his arms. The blood-red wires tied to each of his fingers began to swirl with a menacing energy.
“Yes, this is more like it.”
“Young master…!”
“Both of you, if it comes to it, I entrust my life to you.”
Dale spoke. Even against one of the Seven Swords of the Continent, an avatar of the Blade of Death, Dale couldn’t guarantee his survival. Especially without the familiar feel of magic or shadow armor, relying solely on his aura.
But this was just right. Only by standing on the edge of life and death could he recall the sensations of those days.
To reclaim his past as a hero and wield the avatar of the ‘Black Prince,’ not the Shadow Lord. Without becoming an Aura Master, he could never survive against the formidable opponents in the ‘Trial of Swords.’
Just like the Pierrot, the Blade of Death, standing before him.
The blood-red strings in the Pierrot’s hands lashed out. There was no doubting the cutting power of those wires. The chill of death seemed to sweep over him from all sides. But he couldn’t block that strike with magic or shadow armor.
Only the sword. He had to trust in his sword, in the aura infused in every cell of his body.
Clang!
The blood threads wrapped around him, and Dale danced with his sword. Between the black aura blade in his hand, a fiery red like magma flickered, and each swing carried explosive power, slicing through the blood threads.
Slash!
But no sooner had he cut the wires than new blood threads dangled from the Pierrot’s hands, writhing like living snakes as they surged forward.
They were fast. There was no time for a counterattack. And then it happened.
As Dale swung his sword to block the blood threads right in front of him, a killing intent rushed at him from behind.
‘Phase manipulation…!’
Simultaneously, Dale squeezed every last drop of mana from his aura heart, and the aura surged like an explosion.
Clang!
He condensed the blue aura into a form of hardened energy, barely fending off Master Baro’s surprise attack.
‘He’s no ordinary opponent.’
Even without the cunningly swirling blood threads, the assassin’s sword with phase manipulation was deadly. If he truly attacked with a do-or-die mindset, it would only take seconds for Dale’s head to roll without using magic.
“As a knight to a knight, do you have any advice for me?”
Dale asked, adjusting his grip on the sword hilt.
“Heh, you still call me a ‘knight’ after seeing me like this?”
Master Baro chuckled, as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Everyone calls me a disgrace to knighthood. A bastard who stabbed his lord in the back. So I thought, if that’s how it is, I’ll show them a real bastard’s sword.”
The Pierrot was the very embodiment of how Master Baro saw himself.
“Is there really any difference between us?”
Dale replied. Though he couldn’t speak of his own identity, he finally understood the inexplicable sense of kinship he felt with Baro.
And then it hit him.
”…Is that so.”
With that thought, Dale let out a hollow laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
What Master Baro had given Dale was the trigger to revive his aura senses, now firmly in his grasp.
He was not a knight.
Using aura didn’t change anything. From the start, Dale and Master Baro were the same.
A hero from another world, the empire’s greatest assassin.
The hunting dog and the Pierrot.
From the beginning, the hero from another world was not a knight. Just like the Pierrot standing before Dale. Similarly, the aura and magic Dale wielded were not for the nobility of a knight or the arcane path of a mage.
They were solely for hunting the empire’s enemies.
With this realization, the mana in his aura heart began to surge explosively.
”…!”
Dale adjusted his grip on the sword hilt. He finally understood the purpose of his sword.
A sword for hunting.
“Ho.”
In the midst of the tense air, Master Baro inhaled with interest.
The atmosphere shifted. It was unclear exactly what had changed, but something had undoubtedly altered.
With a burst of aura, Dale launched himself off the ground.
The hunting dog’s sword swung toward the Pierrot.
At that moment, in the Lancaster Duchy.
The knight known as the Celestial Sword, Duke Lancaster, stood there. Having lost the War of the Roses, lost his second son Michael, and now a puppet of the York family, the last pillar of the declining Lancaster family.
Recalling the image of his dependable son Michael, he drew the sword from his waist.
Shing.
The sword closest to the legendary blade of Sir Vardel, the Celestial Sword. Its edge still gleamed with a fierce blue light.
“The proud history of Lancaster will end with my generation.”
Duke Lancaster spoke bitterly.
“This is the reward for my loyalty to the empire.”
Unbidden, the face of an old friend came to mind. The Lancaster family had drawn their swords as the empire’s standard-bearer in the war, only to watch helplessly as the homeland of a friend who had walked the path of the sword with him was trampled and destroyed.
The most noble knight in the world, Sir Vardel Orhart.
Loyalty to one’s country was more important than friendship. But this was the price of that loyalty.
In the War of the Roses, the imperial family had allowed the downfall of the Lancaster family, and they lost everything to the York family. The forces the imperial family sent to the ducal house were merely for show from the start.
Even when it was later revealed that the ‘Black Prince’ had been active in the York family during the war, nothing changed.
“All of this is my karma.”
He could only watch as his friend’s country was laid to waste and the sword he had pursued all his life vanished. What Duke Lancaster was experiencing now was entirely his own doing.
“I don’t know how much atonement this sword will bring you.”
Duke Lancaster spoke bitterly, and the edge of his sword shone with a pale light.
Officially, all records of Sir Vardel’s swordsmanship had been erased. Officially, that was the case.
But memories could not be erased.
“You’ve come a long way, daughter of the Divine Sword.”
The Celestial Sword spoke, and the daughter of the Divine Sword, Charlotte Orhart, remained silent with a complex expression.
Having left Dale’s side to embark on a solitary, uncertain journey, Charlotte had arrived at the land of Duke Lancaster, the Celestial Sword. Dale was not the only one growing. Even if Charlotte was away from her lord, it made no difference.
And ironically, Charlotte’s journey ended in the Lancaster territory, where the ‘Black Prince’ had once left an indelible scar.
Duke Lancaster was aware of this, but it changed nothing.
“Are you prepared to inherit your father’s sword?”
”…Yes.”
The Celestial Sword asked, and Charlotte nodded.
A violet hue began to flow along the Celestial Sword.
The strongest swordsmanship of Sir Vardel Orhart, the Sword of Blossom.
He swung his sword, again and again.
Even when blisters burst on his fingers and blood flowed freely, he did not stop.
From the break of dawn until the darkness of night, and until the dim light of dawn peeked over the eastern sky.
Since losing his father, not a day had passed without the ‘Wastrel of the Brandenburg County,’ Philip Brandenburg, practicing his swordsmanship.
Most of the knights of St. Magdalena, having lost their center, left to serve new lords, leaving the county in a state that could only be described as ‘fallen nobility.’
Yet there were those who remained by his side.
Those who had sworn loyalty to the Holy Sword, and they willingly stayed with Philip.
Though he had no talent and nothing to his name, Philip never stopped swinging his sword.
Some time later, when news came that a new Holy Sword had been forged, and that it had chosen the resurrected Maiden of Ashes as its master.
The wastrel of the Brandenburg County, Philip, did not despair.
For the final opportunity to wield the Holy Sword, the ‘Trial of Swords’ in the Teutonia Knights’ Kingdom, still awaited him.
He would prove it right there and then. The one truly worthy of the Holy Sword was not some false saint, but himself, the son of the Swordmaster.
“The Trial of the Sword will commence in the Kingdom of Teutonia,” announced the Celestial Lord, the ruler of the White Tower and the Church, master of the heavens and light.
A false champion, loyal to the Emperor of the Empire.
At his words, the false saint, who held the Holy Sword Durandal, nodded quietly, clad in her unparalleled, pristine white armor.
“May the mercy and grace of the Sister Goddesses be with you,” the Celestial Lord intoned, and the saint, Aurelia, offered a gentle smile, her resolve unwavering despite the blue webs that bound her.
Not long after, as Dale’s sixteenth birthday passed, swords from across the continent began to gather in the Kingdom of Teutonia to prepare for the “Trial of the Sword.”
It was a ceremony to determine the seven greatest swords on the continent.
Dale, who had reclaimed his mastery of the sword, was no exception, nor were the three swords under his command and the enigmatic “Lady Shadow.”
Alongside them were the Grand Duke of the Celestial Sword, Lancaster, and his successor, Charlotte Orhart, the rogue Philip, and the saint Aurelia…
Finally, the vice-captain of the Iron Cross Knights, the legendary sword Sephilia, as well as the Empire’s seventh prince, Mordred, and the first prince, Lancelot, declared their intent to participate.
Each sword, driven by its own purpose, converged, and the trial began in the Blade Mountains, steeped in the ancient traditions of the Kingdom of Teutonia.