Chapter 7 TRG Vol. 1 Chapter 2 Part 3

Chapter 2 (The Supplementary Story)

“So, you’re the swordsman who’s rumored to be the strongest in this area?”

“…You mean me?”

The first time I met Thorn was when the Guild Master introduced us. Thorn just happened to be in the guild at the time. With his eye-catching red hair and a physique that even I, an amateur, could tell was well-honed, I could see why the Guild Master had recommended him.

“I’m a traveling mage. My name is Rimi. I’m looking to partner with you.”

“…Thorn.”

After that brief exchange, we shook hands.

When most adventurers hear the words ‘valuable mage,’ their whole demeanor changes. They usually fall all over themselves trying to be friendly, especially if the mage is the one making the offer. But not Thorn. When he heard I was a mage, he just looked at me as if I was some strange curiosity, but his attitude didn’t change a bit.

“One correction on that,” he said as we shook hands. “I’m not the strongest swordsman around. My master is way stronger than I am.”

I remembered the Guild Master mentioning something similar. He’d told me about some swordsman with ‘a few screws loose’ who had wandered into town, a man who could supposedly kill monsters all by himself with a single sword, and that Thorn was his disciple. I’d assumed the Guild Master was just spinning a yarn, but apparently, this ‘master’ is real.

“So,” he asked, “why me? As you can see, I’m pretty much an outcast here.”

He was right. No one else was at his table; everyone just watched him from a distance. I suppose not many people would casually strike up a conversation with someone who can kill monsters single-handedly. I paid it no mind, sat down right in front of him, and met his gaze.

“It’s for my own purposes,” I said. “I want to reach greater heights as a mage. To do that, I need a dependable partner. I’ve been traveling solo, but I’ve realized I really need a frontline fighter.”

Using magic requires time to focus. You use your internal mana to manifest an image from your mind. The larger the scale, the more time and power it requires. If I had the incantations of the ancient Long-Eared-Tribe, I could drastically shorten that time, but unfortunately, most of those spells have been lost to history.

“My goal is to rediscover lost magic. And to do that, I need someone strong enough to take me to places I can’t go alone.”

“…I don’t plan on leaving this town yet,” he said, fiddling with the bronze tag hanging from his chest. It was his adventurer’s pass for this town. But for just a simple ID, the look he gave it seemed to be loaded with a complex mix of emotions.

“If your goal is mastering magic, you’ve come to the wrong person. I still have things to do here.”

“Things to do?”

“My master hunted monsters here, alone. He left the rest to me. So, I’m staying in this town until the monsters are gone.”

He said this without meeting my eyes. Maybe half of that was true, but it was mixed with a lie. If that’s the whole truth, why do you look so lonely? In any case, his concern wasn’t a problem for me.

“Oh, if that’s the case, then there’s no problem at all.”

“No problem…?”

He finally looked at me, clearly surprised. I put my right hand on my chest and gave him a slightly theatrical little bow.

“Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Rimi, a mage. I’m also an adventurer registered with the Capital Guild, officially assigned by this town’s Guild Master to investigate and counteract the recent increase in monster activity.”

And that’s how Thorn and I started working together. It was the beginning of a life far more stimulating—and insane—than I had ever expected.

“Hey, wait! Your pace is too fast!”

I immediately went with him on a request he’d accepted. We were heading into the forest right outside town, a place he apparently treats as his own backyard. We quickly left the main road and started down a beast trail, with Thorn walking at a confident, relentless pace. I could barely keep up.

“Ah, sorry,” he said, stopping. “I forgot I wasn’t walking alone.”

I finally caught up, putting my hands on my knees to catch my breath.

“This area… a little further ahead is a place where monsters often ‘spawn.’ Can you sense anything?”

While I recovered, he kept a lookout. At his question, I placed my hand on the ground and focused, imagining my mana seeping into the earth. After a moment, my mana sent back a faint, unpleasant sensation. This was…

“There’s a miasma patch here.”

“A miasma patch?”

It was a well-known theory among the scholars in the Capital. Monsters are created when miasma corrupts local animals. This miasma flows through the earth like water, and sometimes, the flow stagnates, creating a ‘patch’ where the miasma is much thicker. Monsters are drawn to these places and spawn more frequently.

“How do we get rid of it?”

“We just have to keep culling the monsters that absorb the miasma. Fortunately, from what I can tell, this patch is already extremely weak. If we just hunt a few more, it should dissipate completely.”

The reaction was so weak, I wondered if there had been a large-scale subjugation mission here recently. I asked Thorn, but the answer he gave me was beyond anything I could have imagined.

“No,” he said. “The monsters here were almost completely wiped out by a single swordsman. I just took over the job, but I haven’t even hunted half as many as he did.”

“A single swordsman!? Was one of the Capital’s Knight-Errants stationed here or something!?”

One person… a swordsman, no less… hunted enough monsters to weaken a miasma patch? That’s… that’s impossible. In my experience, even the Royal Knight orders have to either spend years on a culling campaign or mobilize a massive number of mages for an all-out sweep to clear a patch.

“He’s no Knight-Errant. And he can’t use a single scrap of magic. You heard the rumors at the guild, didn’t you? About my master.”

I mean, I’d heard the rumors, but I never imagined they were that ridiculous. I’d assumed he’d… I don’t know… maybe managed to kill a few Rat-Beasts. That’s rare, but not unheard of. Even some Knight-Captains have legends about them.

“And as you know, Rimi,” Thorn continued, “the only mage in town is that retired old geezer. There was no one here who could have handled a real monster outbreak.”

His master’s arrival was pure coincidence, Thorn explained. This was just the first town he’d come to after leaving his village.

“After I became his disciple, I understood,” he said. “In this whole town, my master was the only one who could hunt them.”

He used that word—’hunt.’ As if monsters were just mountain beasts. A swordsman who, rumor had it, could sever a monster’s neck with a mass-produced sword without even leaving a chip in the blade.

“And he taught me that sword… so that this town wouldn’t be swallowed by monsters after he was gone. Me, just a street orphan… now I’m this town’s ‘top adventurer.’ It’s a bad joke.”

As I followed Thorn deeper into the woods, listening to these unbelievable stories, a Hoof-Beast appeared. A horse corrupted by miasma. Its kicks, enhanced by miasma, are devastating. Trying to fight it in close-quarters with a sword is just… stupid.

“Perfect timing,” Thorn said with a grin. “I got to see what you can do. Now it’s my turn.”

He grinned, gripped his sword, and… charged straight at the Hoof-Beast.

“…The hell are you doing!?”

His actions were so far beyond unexpected—they were incomprehensible—that my reaction was late. I fumbled for my staff, focusing my mana, but I knew I wouldn’t be in time to cast!

“As if you’re any match for me!” he roared. Knowing full well my magic wouldn’t be ready, he ducked low, slipped inside the monster’s reach, and swung his sword at its neck.

It bounced off with a high-pitched CLANG. Normally, the monster’s counter-attack would have ended the fight right there.

“Not even close!” Thorn roared. He didn’t flinch. He just kept circling, hammering his blade against the monster’s neck again and again. He wasn’t just swinging wildly…

No way… is he aiming for the exact same spot?

That was impossible. This was a monster whose every attack was a one-hit kill. To dodge those attacks by a hair’s breadth, and still manage to strike the exact same location over and over? That’s… that’s a level of precision that shouldn’t even be possible in a life-or-death battle.

But the reality unfolding in front of me shattered my common sense. His repeated strikes had carved a visible wound in the monster’s hide. Not only that, but with every swing, his blade seemed to cut deeper, as if it were getting… acclimated to the monster’s tough skin.

“This… is the END!”

In the end, I couldn’t interfere. I just… stood there, holding my staff, completely stunned, until he finally cut the monster’s head clean off.

Thorn quickly began to field-dress the carcass, then walked back over to me.

“That took too long. Sorry.”

“E-Excuse me…?”

His first words to me were an apology, and all I could manage was a squeak of confusion.

“My master wouldn’t have even taken half that time,” he said. “They call me the ‘top adventurer’ here, but I’m still so inexperienced.”

What in the world is this man talking about?

Killing a monster with only a sword… that’s the kind of thing you only hear about in fairy tales, or in reports from the northern front line, which is supposedly full of freaks who have ‘stopped being human.’

“This is my current skill level,” he said, looking at me seriously. “I don’t know if I’m enough to be a partner for a mage, but… will I be good enough?”

He was being completely, dead serious. And in that moment, I understood.

This man’s entire sense of scale is broken. He saw one of those ‘non-humans’ up close—his ‘master’—and it completely warped his standards. Thorn himself has skills that could easily rival the Knight-Captain back in the Capital, but if I told him that, he’d never believe me. His self-assessment is that skewed.

Just what kind of monster was this ‘master’ who could make a man like this feel ‘inexperienced’? At this point, it would be more believable if you told me the entire guild was just having a mass hallucination!

…But, all that aside, Thorn’s ability was the real deal. And it was far, far more than I had hoped for. His power was exactly what I needed to achieve my goal.

“Good enough?” I said, taking his hand. “Thorn, you’re more than enough. I can support you with my magic. I think we’re going to be an amazing team.”

We shook hands again.

“Just one last question… this ‘master’ of yours… he’s not, by any chance, just a collective hallucination you all had, is he?”

“? What? Of course not.”

…Yeah, I don’t think I have what it takes to fix this man’s broken perspective.